Joe Gould's Secret: Ian Holm plays a New York hobo in the 1950s. Stanley Tucci (who directed) is Joe Mitchell, a North Carolina writer for the New Yorker who does a piece on Gould. Gould is known in bohemian circles for his eccentric ramblings and his alleged writing of an "oral history" of New York over 1 million words long. The film is about Mitchell's attempts to read the history, and his relationship with Gould.
This would be the first film Ken Burns might make were he to jump from documentary to drama. Tucci takes great care in shooting New York (including, apprently, many of Gould's old haunts) and it shows. Many times, I was reminded of Burns' "Brooklyn Bridge" both for its loving photography of New York, and its unabashed embrace of art.
Gould, however, becomes tiresome, not only to Mitchell in the story, but to the viewer in the viewing. There is a limit to wild man antics, far exceeded, for example, by Al Pacino in "Scent of a Woman." Still, this is a nice period piece with reputable literary credentials, the secondary characterizations are fine, and Tucci as the inquiring, mildly idiosyncratic writer, steals the picture from Holm and his bombast. Grade: B.
