Country:
USA
Starring:
Tom Every
Jim Bishop
Directed By:
Paul von Stoetzel
You can watch SCRAP for free: here, here and buy the DVD here. Please do, it's a very enjoyable movie.
You won't find many manual laborers to discuss art with. There are some, but they will never be a majority in their environment. Building stuff is a no non-sense business and ideas of abstraction and aesthetics come way after survival, necessity and earthly comfort. Director Paul von Stoetzel has found two of these rare birds. Builders. Rough, gritty men that know the value of manual work, but who are also slaves to the muse. America is a huge place with an infinite potential for the greatest and the worst. Is it a land where many great people are forgotten and work their craft in complete anonymity. If you scan the territory and look for amazing stuff, you will find what you're looking for. Paul von Stoetzel has found Tom Every and Jim Bishop and SCRAP is their story. It's a testament for the builders' passion for scrap metal art, but its also a look into an America we don't see anymore.
Tom Every builds crazy scrap metal sculptures. He is the soul owner of the Guinness record for biggest scrap metal sculpture in the world, a piece called "The Forevertron". Jim Bishop built a castle...A CASTLE. A FREAKIN' REAL, LIFE-SIZED CASTLE. On his own. He's had a lot of support from his family, but Bishop has basically built a castle by himself. Both men operate on passion alone. Watching SCRAP, my mind was blown, trying to wrap around the fact nobody knew these guys. Every's exposition field looks like bizarre steampunk wasteland when you walk across it and Bishop seems to be little known outside of Colorado.
What was truly amazing about SCRAP was how those two old school, no none-sense men devoted their life to the very idea of beauty. I'm not talking about the beauty in things here. Not the "look at this sunset" or "check out the architecture of this house" beauty. No. They built monuments to it. With materials they found. They literally shaped the world to their idea of what's beautiful. The results speak for themselves. Every build several pieces of tortured art with rusty pieces of metal. Created beauty, innocence from the rusted, used-to-be functional devices. Bishop Castle looks like a building that built itself from the ground. Its rock structure and its unsure, sometimes chaotic angles give it an otherworldly aura.
While dual-wielding subjects in a documentary is a difficult task, you can't blame Paul von Stoetzel for not being bold enough to try. It's difficult for the Tom Every parts to live up to the larger-than-life creature that is Jim Bishop. The most powerful moment of the documentary to me was Bishop, freaking out on top of his castle, in awe of the view HE created and angry that nobody wanted to share it with him. There is something magnificent seeing this old man move in his castle and do crazy stunts (like hopping over the rail), because he feels to at home over them. The Tom Every parts are pale in comparison. He's an older man (at least, I think) and a sick man, moving himself around in a wheelchair. von Stoetzel does a good job at pacing these parts by inteviewing Every's ex wife and one of his friends, but I thought they slowed the film down a little bit. I could never wait to get back to the Jim Bishop parts.
I thought SCRAP was very good. Paul von Stoetzel left the floor to those two forgotten Americans and the bigger character ended up taking the floor, but let's not forget that Jim Bishop's creation is also the most accessible of the two. It's easier to be awed by a castle than by a sculpture. I love how there's no narration (or almost none) and no historical perspective, leaving the viewer with the impression that Every and Bishops are indeed two forgotten eccentric artist. Two men like you've never met and will likely never meet again. Paul von Stoetzel looks at America with his eyes opened and without judgement.
SCORE: 80%
