Zeroville

Zeroville is a 2007 novel by Steve Erickson on film's upheaval in the 1970s. It was named one of the best novels of the year by Newsweek, the Washington Post BookWorld and the Los Angeles Times Book Review among others, and was named one of five favorite novels in winter 2008 by 800 novelists and critics in a poll of the National Book Critics Circle.

Plot

Ike Jerome, a twenty-four year old architecture student inspired by the few films he has seen, rides the bus into Hollywood. Jerome is almost autistic (later, his friend dubs him a "cineautistic") in his interactions with the world, and is deeply affected by his childhood with his religiously oppressive father. With a tattoo of Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor on his shaved head, he makes an impression on the people around him. Soon breaking into film as a designer and eventually a film editor, Vikar (as he is nicknamed) begins a dreamlike journey into the world of films that eventually ends in tragedy and almost horrific discovery.

Themes

Zeroville discusses the supernatural power of films over people and how films become like gods in our worship of them. Vikar's bizarre discovery of the frame found in every film ever made confirms this.

Zeroville is partially a critique of the ways movies and Hollywood changed in the 1970s, as the old studios are taken by young renegade filmmakers (symbolized by the veteran editor Dotty Lander). Vikar laments on the disappearance of film from Hollywood: "'I'm in the Movie capital of the world,' Vikar says, 'and nobody knows anything about movies'". [ Erickson, Steve; "Zeroville". Europa Editions. 978-1-933372-39-6. ]

Notes

Appropriately, many actors, writers, and directors make appearances, including Robert DeNiro, John Milius, Margot Kidder, Ryan O'Neal, Ali McGraw, Paul Schrader, Luciano Damiani and even the ghost of Montgomery Clift himself. [ Erickson, Steve; "Zeroville". Europa Editions. 978-1-933372-39-6. ]

References