Looks like Tom Shadyac’s decision to renounce his earthly possessions, following a horrible mountain biking accident, has had the ironic effect of making him, personally, more famous. It’s been hard to open a magazine in the last couple of weeks without running into a write-up that’s less about his new film, I Am, which Shadyac presented at the Virginia Film Festival, than it is about his decision to drop out of the Hollywood mainstream.
"Tom Shadyac’s latest film I Am is about a man who bangs his head and suddenly begins ridding himself of possessions and money," reads a story on the celebrity gossip blog Perez Hilton. "And it’s based on his own life!" The New Yorker caught up with Shadyac for a fancy lunch earlier this month to talk about a screening of I Am that took place at Lincoln Center. And last week the Los Angeles Times emphasized Shadyac’s decision to sell his 17,000′ Malibu mansion and move into a trailer—well, two trailers. (One is his production office.) In the comments section of that article, a former student of Shadyac’s at Pepperdine University writes that "at the end he bought all 30+ students a brand new bicycle of our choice." Locally, of course, Shadyac purchased the property that now houses The Haven at First and Market.
If that’s not generous, I don’t know what is. But a friend recently suggested to me that, given how Shadyac has stepped out from behind Jim Carrey, Shadyac’s intentions might be—how do you say?—impure. I disagree. But I will admit that it bears the mark of something too easily parodied, and in fact, a full 70 years earlier, was by Preston Sturges in Sullivan’s Travels. In that film a successful comedy director pitches a picture that he wants to be a "true canvas of the suffering of humanity," and hits the road in an attempt to make it as a hobo.
What do you make of Tom Shadyac’s trajectory?