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Christopher Guest,
Saturn,
and the Art of the Mockumentary

by Bill Streett

Copyright 2003. All Rights Reserved

Released in April, A Mighty Wind is another in a series of mockumentaries from the comic stylings of Christopher Guest (See Christopher Guest's Noon Solar Chart). Although Guest may not have invented the mockumentary, his name is quickly becoming synonymous with the genre’s growing popularity. By combining parody with deadpan delivery, mockumentaries not only satirize their subjects but lampoon their creators as well, and Guest has mastered the craft.

Although astrology doesn’t typically associate Saturn—with its high seriousness and deliberate steadfastness—with comedy, Guest, born with a significant Saturn opposition to his natal Sun, captures the hilarity to be born out of astrology’s most solemn symbol. Artists inevitably give expression to the potentials inherent in their natal charts, and Guest is no exception. While not conveying every facet of Saturn in his mockumentaries, Guest is able to take the real-life defeats, humbling circumstances, and restraint associated with Saturn, and spin them into consistently satisfying cinematic farces.

Comedy Veritè

Typically, we go to see movies for the latest in special effects and technical wizardry; fantasy, romance, and pure escapism; or for drama, passion, and intrigue. A movie giving expression to Saturn, with its predilection for reality and exposing mundane daily life, is hardly big budget fair. However, due in equal parts to audiences’ growing comedic sophistication and the rising popularity of the documentary format, the mockumentary has found a popular niche with the movie-going public.

Through the use of mockumentary, Guest is articulating Saturn’s fondness for realism and unadorned worldliness. There’s nothing fictional about Guest’s cast of characters at all. Although they are considerably eccentric and strange, nearly all of Guest’s personages are drawn from cross-sections and subcultures of Americana. Much of the laughter that Guest’s caricatures draw out from audiences are from their dead-on accuracy; to the person next to us in the theater, we’ll whisper with hushed enthusiasm, “I know someone exactly like that.” Moreover, the situations that the cast of characters find themselves ensconced within are horribly authentic: paltry squabblings over a flower arrangement in A Mighty Wind, awkward dinner conversation between a lover’s triangle in Best in Show, and political maneuverings between the musical producers in Waiting for Guffman. Situations like these are so undramatic, so trivial, that we either wince away from the painful realism or gloat over the fact that we aren’t dealing with these conditions in our life.

During important transits from Saturn to our natal chart, we are usually challenged to ‘get real’ and to give up any pretense or facades about who we really are. Like the characters in Guest’s mockumentaries that find themselves in embarrassingly tight spots, under a significant Saturn transit, we are asked to trade in fantasy for truth about our character, relationships, and ambitions.

Hopes Dashed

One of the classic moments of Guest’s original mockumentary, This is Spinal Tap, occurs when the heavy metal outfit featured in the film, full of ambition to mount a rocking career comeback, is seen playing an amusement park double bill with a puppet show. Similar shtick occurs in Best in Show when small town dog handlers, played by Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara, travel to the big city for a once-in-a-lifetime dog competition only to find their accommodations to be a hotel cleaning room. Countless other variations on this theme can be seen throughout Guest’s mockumentaries. The gags elicit big laughs not only because Guest twists our normal expectations of the flawlessly executed hero’s journey a la Hollywood, but we laugh out of our commiseration with the detoured dreams of the hapless characters.

It is the Modus Operandi of Saturn to deliver a defeating blow to our aspirations and grand visions of what we think life should be. Expecting an advance or raise at work without effort or discipline, Saturn’s reality principle can deal workplace stagnation, or worse, the red slip. When pregnant with the anticipation of a huge, lifelike stone edifice that pays homage to the druids, the heavy metal troupe from This Is Spinal Tap receives a 2-foot styrofoam mock-up of Stonehenge for their concert tour’s piece de resistance—Saturn’s deflationary handiwork on display. Saturn has a notorious reputation of sniffing (and snuffing) out all hubris and grandiosity so that one is forced to realistically assess one’s true capacities and the harsh, cold actuality of one’s here and now circumstance.

The Art of Downplay

Although growing in popularity, Guest’s mockumentaries will always be an acquired taste and forever be admired by a small, cult following. The style of Guest’s comedy, with its sophisticated dryness and earthiness, takes a particular temperament for appreciation, and, moreover, it runs contrary to the typical, more the overt ‘here’s-your-punchline’ style of Hollywood’s big grossing comedies. Guest’s introspective parodying is reliant on nuance and downplay. While most comedies insist on turning the slapstick and banter “up to eleven,” Guest insists on turning the volume way down. However, for those that appreciate the hushed and subdued intonations of Guest’s mockumentaries, the laughs are more deeply felt and more enduring.

If the content of a Saturn comedy is reliant on plucking the humor out of real-life characters and the defeating nature of the human condition, then the style, as Guest shows, is decidedly underplayed, dry, and subdued. The refinement and restrained technique of Guest’s Sun-Saturn opposition comedy is, like Saturn itself, more challenging than other styles of comedy; one often has to work to get the gags because we, as audiences, are so used to being spoon fed our comedy routines and punchlines. The payoff for working for the comedy in Guest’s mockumentaries is the ability to mature into a more sophisticated comic universe than those readily available in a strip mall multiplex.

In Spite of it All

No one goes to see Guest’s mockumentaries for their life affirming or redeeming qualities. Quite the contrary, a superficial analysis might lead one to suspect that Guest has an obsession for the lot of life’s quirky losers and the tragic, downward spiral that his ill-fated, delusional characters tread. However, a closer inspection reveals that Guest’s characters—call them what you will—have learned that working through adversity and dealing with the defeating reality principle of life ultimately pays off and gives rewards. His characters’ capacities for dealing with the often cruel, limiting circumstances of life help them develop an almost indefatigable tenacity and perseverance that assist them in turning their dreams and fantasy into reality.

Although we concentrate on the comedy of Guest’s mockumentaries, we are also watching how the archetype of Saturn builds, defines, and gives the gift of resolve and fortitude through apparent losses and temporary setbacks. This process isn’t pleasant or anything ideal—we much prefer the glamourized, seamless life journeys that most feature films are prone to offer—however, Guest illuminates Saturn’s contributions to our life path and has given us all the opportunity to laugh at the pain, tragedy, and awkwardness of it.

Data:

Christopher Guest DOB:
Feb. 5th, 1948
New York, NY
Exact time unknown

Sources:

(1)www.imdb.com
(Internet Movie Database)
(2) www.infoplease.com
(3) http://www.videoeta.com/person/353

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