Grade: C
Recommendation: For devoted JT fans only.
Verdict: It’s muddled and telling only one side of the story. This documentary is more of a plea for mercy than an explanation of a strange phenomenon.
“Author: The JT Leroy Story,” the newest documentary from Jeff Feuerzeig, seems to consider itself a “smart” documentary, by pushing the boundaries of traditional thinking by exploring authorship and anonymity and ART STUFF. But this one-sided documentary can really only attest to one thing: when we don’t develop every side of a story, things get more murky, not more clear.
JT Leroy was an illustrious literary figure in the 90’s, who started publishing in his teens. His fiction was groddy, shocking and based on his own life as the genderfluid son of a truck stop prostitute, who went on to prostitute himself as well. He got famous quickly and began to haunt the celebrity world in his signature blonde wig and sunglasses, hanging with Bono and screwing Asia Argento (the daughter of Italian filmmaker Dario Argento).
Problem: he was also totally made up, a figment of the tortured imagination of a mother in her thirties named Laura Albert. The “JT Leroy” people knew was Savannah Knoop, her sister-in-law, with hair cut short and face covered. She paraded through “It”-groups with Laura at her side posing as a British chick named Speedie, dragging along her husband Geoff (aka Astor, JT’s old boyfriend) and their son Thor (as himself, but probably deeply confused).
When the jig was finally up a decade later, people were furious and Albert was defrocked, but she maintains that she did nothing wrong. Is “hoax” really the right term for JT, this Frankenstein she created? She prefers “myth.”
“Author” makes no attempt to hide its feelings about the situation: Laura Albert is the only person interviewed the whole movie (except for a very, very brief moment with Savannah near the end). Her story is the only story the movie is concerned with.
This is where it gets into trouble. I’m not quick to throw out Albert’s testimony altogether– I see where she’s coming from with the whole “myth” thing, and there’s a way you can read JT’s existence through Savannah as a commentary on authorship itself. But only hearing Albert’s side of things locks us into an inherently narrow vision of the JT experience, where in fact there were many, many people at play. Specifically, hearing from Savannah would have clarified a lot of things about the whole deal, since she was the bearer of JT for all this time.
By allowing Albert to tell her tale on her own terms, without any questioning or pushing back, Feurzeig accidentally makes her less sympathetic, not more. Everything she says is doubly suspect, not just for her past history of dishonesty, but because no one backs her up.
JT as an entity is confusing and Albert goes back and forth on whether he’s some sort of split personality or a person she’s channeling. She claims it was a blow to the face when she was eventually betrayed, when everyone found out and (with the exception of a coked up Courtney Love) was pissed, but her confusion is confusing in itself. She paints herself a victim, the least useful possible role she could have chosen for herself, because it just makes her seem like she’s pandering more than explaining.
Maybe no one would back her up. That’s a sad thing to consider, but you’d think if anyone was still on her side, they’d have spoken up.
In the end “Author: The JT Leroy Story” is a sad, muddled affair. See it if you’re a big JT fan for a particular perspective, but google the rest. I have a feeling the most important voices in this story were left out.
