This Toronto based documentary filmmaker picked a fascinating subject for this first part of his narcissism trilogy. Zweig goes around to a few dozen vinyl collectors around Ontario and interviews them about their collections, their motivations for collecting, what their collecting is allowing them to do in their life/keeping them away from, and everything in between. I was more interested in the material when Zweig was strictly interviewing other people and asking them blunt questions like ‘do you ever feel like you’re a sad guy who hates himself and that’s why you have to have all of these records?’ than when Zweig has putting his own personal life into the film (not that I didn’t like that he was doing it at all, but he did it too often, especially toward the end). A dense man who claims that his goal in record collecting is to obtain every song ever made is hilariously inane, smug, and, of course, narcissistic. When asked if he is only collecting all of the songs written in English or if he wants every song in any language, he replies ‘all of them, I’ve got the French and the Italians right over there.’ He insists on projecting his knowledge and it is repeatedly shown to be incorrect (surprise! there are more than four bands in the world whose band names start with the letter ‘Q’), and he is one of the clearer examples of the narcissism that goes into collecting something. There is a sense of ownership that comes from buying something when you are aware that you are collecting it, like you have conquered that part of that world and you can now move on to the bigger fish. But a huge point in this film is that the obsession removes the original point of it. Most of these men don’t listen to what they are buying, they haven’t even heard of much of it, and are instead just collecting the vinyl as a material instead of the music. I’ve collected a few things in my life; I was a player in the beanie babie boom, and I currently collect DVDs and shoes. In the former, I can look back at it and acknowledge that I bought many of the babies that I bought because I knew that other people wanted them instead of me wanting it. I had this fantasy that another huge collector would come into my house one day, see my collection, and fall on his knees and bow to my superior stash of bears. But luckily I moved on (helped by the decline in quality and the selling out of that company). I caught myself a couple of years ago falling into a similar trap with my DVD and shoe collections, and so I’ve developed stricter rules for myself for when I decide to purchase a film or a pair of shoes. The characters in this film have no such standards, and based on a few of their behaviors, the obsession of having everything is pushing them closer into reclusion from society. One frail looking man won’t even invite anyone to his home anymore, partly because there is little of the floor that is not covered in records, but also because he is ashamed of himself.
Zweig turns the camera on himself throughout the film to relate his own vinyl collecting to his interviewees. He believes that his love life is the primary victim to his obsession, and he shows an existential yearning for reproducing that is sad and pathetic, though he oftens reaffrims to himself that he is not. This doc is funny, moving, and incredibly interesting, but it does overstay its welcome by about twenty minutes, mostly because Zweig puts a little too much time into himself toward the end (perhaps this is where he sees the narcissism theme come in). I’m trying to get my hands on the other two parts in the trilogy, I’m having some trouble, though.