Death and collective autobiography in Silverlake Life: The View from Here

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article presents a study of the creative process of Silverlake Life: The View from Here (Tom Joslin and Peter Friedman, 1993), from the perspective of its authorial multiplicity. Silverlake Life is regarded as one of the main representatives of autobiographical documentary in the 1990s. The specificity of the film is found in the circumstances of the death of the filmmaker-autobiographer, Tom Joslin. By recognizing a tripartite process of creative autonomy among Tom Joslin, Mark Massi and Peter Friedman, this article outlines both how each individual contributed to the achievement of the film and how Silverlake Life preserves its status as autobiographical documentary despite the tragic deaths of both Joslin and Massi before the film’s completion. This work of comprehending the film’s collaborative autobiographical process was made possible through the analysis of three extratextual sources: the original proposal for the film, written by Tom Joslin and which appears at the beginning of the narrative; the written diary of Mark Massi, Joslin’s widower; and extensive interviews with Peter Friedman on the subject.