Game (Still) On
Thedirector of the surprisingly successful The King of Kong talks about thefilm’s crossover appeal. By Bob Mehr
DirectorSeth Gordon’s critically acclaimed documentary The King of Kong: A Fistfulof Quarters offers not only a peek inside the strange world of video gamingbut also a deeper meditation on the quest for fame and immortality in America.¶ The film focuses on the rivalry between two men in their late 30s. Thechampion, Billy Mitchell, generally regarded as the best Donkey Kong player ofall time, is a wonderfully outsize character — a walking, talking ball of hairspray and hubris — whose bravado disguises a more complex need to maintain hisposition atop the gaming world. The challenger, Steve Wiebe, is his opposite —a meek and mild-mannered but secretly gifted fellow who’s suffered a life fullof setbacks and failed dreams. After being laid off from his engineering job atBoeing, Wiebe sets out to take down Mitchell’s 23-year-old record at DonkeyKong, the most difficult of all classic arcade games, and gain a spot in the GuinnessWorld Records. The film, shot and edited over the course of more than twoyears, follows this strange pair as they travel across the country for Kongmatches. Gordon whittled down some 300 hours of footage into a visceral 80-minutedocumentary that transcends its humble context, becoming a mesmerizing filmthat’s pitched somewhere between the high drama of Shakespeare and the lowcomedy of Revenge of the Nerds. Audiences, apparently, liked thatcombination. The film was a success, in documentary terms, at the box office.(It’s just been released in a bonus-laden DVD set.) Hollywood liked what Gordon did with themovie too. Just barely in his 30s and with only The King of Kong underhis big-screen directorial belt, Gordon has now been tapped to helm a feature-filmversion of Kong as well as a holiday film called Four Christmases,which stars Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon. Still, this Yale graduate andformer architect says he’s not letting any of the sudden success go to his head,insisting, “I’m still a geek at heart.” The director talked to us about allthings Kong.
Howdo you turn a real-life documentary into a fictionalized feature film? The story weuncovered often feels too good to be true. And when you’re remaking somethinglike this, the line between character and caricature is a really tricky one towalk. I want it to maintain the emotional integrity and authenticity thedocumentary has, or I don’t think it’s worth making. I don’t want to make aspoof. We want to have serious actors in it. Because I think Billy has such acomplicated psychology, you can’t have a guy who does sketch comedy do therole. It has to be someone with serious acting chops. Some of the dreamscenarios that have been mentioned include Johnny Depp playing Billy. And apparently,there’s even been some interest from Tom Cruise’s camp. It all remains to beseen. But it’s going to be interesting.
Yousay you’re a geek. But you didn’t really understand all that went on within thegaming world when you started making the documentary, did you? Originally, we setout to make a documentary about the various rivalries on classic arcade games.We basically wanted to make a sports film where the sport was video games.There were a number of fascinating stories out there, but once we discoveredSteve and Billy and their rivalry on Donkey Kong, that immediately seemed waymore interesting than any of the others, and we focused on that. We had nonotion at the start of this of how intense the politics were on all sides ofthe Donkey Kong rivalry. One of the taglines we played with for the film was: “Thehighest form of corruption at the lowest levels.” And that really is what we foundourselves in the middle of. We had no idea what we’d walked into.
Wasthere a turning point for you in terms of being able to see what the story was?Thecritical moment was in understanding that Steve Wiebe, who talks about himselflike he’s a loser — whose friends, whose parents, whose wife all talk about himlike he is a loser — isn’t really a loser. He’s just the guy who always came insecond place. Once we understood that, it allowed us to see Billy as not justthe guy who is the big winner but as someone who is constantly living up to anidea of himself that he created when he was 17 years old, where he is totally perfect.Once we had that more complicated understanding of the two of them, that’s whenwe felt the story was taking shape.
Thoughthe movie centers on video games, it’s not really about the games, is it? I think the basicnature of what was at stake here was uniquely American and [also], in someways, very universal. Kong is about someone trying to make history, tomake a mark and be remembered. In this country, we’re taught that fame, to acertain extent, is a completely legitimate pursuit, and that’s what these guysare after. And I think it’s kind of wonderful to see people pursuing that insomething where they’re creating their own meaning entirely. There is noinherent value in having a video-game record, but they have developed theseelaborate constructs in terms of verifying and validating these scores, and sothat pursuit becomes as important as sports or politics are to the rest of us.
Shall We Play aGame?
Match thedescriptions with the appropriate video-game-themed film. Earn extra credit for namingthe lead actor and the year the movie came out.
MOVIES
A. Grandma's Boy
B. Stay Alive
C. Tron
D. WarGames
E. The Wizard
DESCRIPTIONS
- This Disney classic from the golden era of arcade games boasts the actor who later bowled his way through The Big Lebowski playing a programmer whose video-game ideas are stolen.
- In this movie, a high-stakes game of global thermonuclear war nearly brought about a conflict between the United States and the USSR.
- A comedy, it features TV’s Kevin Arnold taking his brother on a cross-country trip that culminates in a triumphant video-game-playing competition. Hint: This film also stars Jenny Lewis, now front woman of Rilo Kiley (it’s one of her early roles).
- The main character in this raunchy comedy works as a video-game tester; the movie was produced by Saturday Night Live alum Adam Sandler.
- A horror-fueled film in which a group of teens tries to solve the mysterious death of a friend in the chilling world of an online video game. A certain Malcolm in the Middle star is the actor we’re looking for as the extra-credit answer.