The End of the Tour begins in medias res as David Foster Wallace publishes his radically contemporary 1996 novel, Infinite Jest, one ... More

The End of the Tour

Film by James Ponsoldt

The End of the Tour

Film by James Ponsoldt

Interview by Clare Shearer

“I just read the script and it was so moving!

So pitch-perfect.

Such a tonal tightrope walk.

James PonsoldtAnd I was like, oh fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.” — James Ponsoldt



The End of the Tour begins in medias res as David Foster Wallace publishes his radically contemporary 1996 novel, Infinite Jest, one of the greatest in literary memory. David Lipsky, then a journalist at Rolling Stone, lobbied to cover the end of Wallace’s book tour. The resulting article never ran, but Wallace only continued to gain a cult-like following and, eventually, a tragic mythos after his 2008 suicide. Like many, Lipsky felt the loss of a great mind deeply. Adapted from Lipsky’s 2010 memoir, which revisited the tapes of that interview and his former self, the film takes a deeply humanistic approach to their rapport over five days of driving and flying and talking over junk food and cigarettes.

With Jason Segel as Wallace and Jesse Eisenberg as Lipsky, the film is based in rambling conversations, revealing Wallace as a sustained dichotomy of genius and normal guy-hood. Only 34, he feared what his newfound fame might mean for his writing. Lipsky was 30 and—though also an acclaimed young writer at the time—confronted by self-doubt and the growing realization that Wallace, who had everything he wanted, still wasn’t fulfilled.

Known for his staunch criticism of modern American culture and the corporatized distraction of mass media, Wallace is a man who (we can assume, and his surviving relatives assert) would not like to see a movie made of himself. An early devotee of Wallace, director James Ponsoldt (known for The Spectacular Now) is well aware of the weight of expectation this film must—and has—taken on.

Infinite Jest came out in 96 and I started college in Fall of 97,” Ponsoldt tells me. “I was an English major and everyone was reading that book, or had a copy of the book and said they were reading it. It was not ‘the best book of this spring,’ it was this crazy huge thing that you had to contend with, and was probably the most substantive relationship I had that year.”

He read everything Wallace had ever written, and Wallace’s voice became a touchstone for how to filter the world. When there was a conversation or a fight or a question, Ponsoldt would ask himself, What would Wallace have to say about this? “He was this person who wasn’t literally in the room, but you felt was around… I felt like he understood something about what it was to be alive at that time that most other writers didn’t, and spoke to the psychological and emotional experience of that, and being a complicated, damaged human.” Hundreds of thousands of fellow readers felt the same.


“I felt like [Wallace] understood
something about what it was to be alive
at that time that most other writers
didn’t, and spoke to the psychological
and emotional experience of that,
and being a complicated, damaged human.”
— James Ponsoldt

So when he was sent the script by his former Yale professor (and Pulitzer Prize winning playwright) Donald Margulies, Ponsoldt had to ask himself, “Is this a losing proposition?” It’s not an unfair question, as it’s a tenuous and almost insurmountable task to portray a very private, very admired writer when he had previously existed in the world of the mind, on paper, without intermediary. “I just read the script, though,” Ponsoldt says, “and it was so moving! So pitch-perfect. Such a tonal tightrope walk. And I was like, oh fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.”

This tightrope walk is Wallace’s almost monolithic legend, but as Ponsoldt reiterates, “The movie’s not a biopic, it was a very subjective story about Lipsky’s time with Wallace… Lipsky was super tough on himself, so in the movie we tried to be equally tough and honest. Lipsky is our point of entry into this story. He’s like a surrogate for the audience, sometimes in his jealousy, maybe in his pettiness, and all these things that are very very human. That’s what I relate to. I’ve been that guy far more than I’ve been a genius who can write a thousand page novel.”

“This is a movie about two guys who wrote books and were discussing ideas. And hopefully there’s a universal story about getting to spend time with someone you thought about a lot from a distance, someone you’ve idealized or romanticized or have deeply jealous feelings towards. Who you measure yourself against. It’s much more about yourself always. It’s having so much burden of expectation and realizing, man, people are fucked up and complicated and it’s really, really hard.”

What Ponsoldt and co. have achieved is exactly that sentiment. The film is fiercely dedicated to getting the story right—both philosophical and entertaining, as painful as it is darkly funny—and speaks to something larger than itself. And, by the way, Jason Segel makes an unprecedented turn to the dramatic without losing the warm-hearted effortlessness that has defined his career. For those who have never heard of Wallace or Lipsky or any of this, Ponsoldt says it best, “If this movie was only for the fans of Wallace, we should just rent out a theater at the Arclight. We’ll knock it off in a single weekend. The fans are there, I’m one of them.”

Inspired by a donut shop near his Hollywood home, director Sean S. Baker together with co-writer Chris Bergoch produced Tangerine, an independent ... More

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Film by Sean S. Baker

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Film by Sean S. Baker

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Book by Jon Rafman

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Jon Rafman Photobook

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Long Beach native, fellow Cutthroat Boyz rapper and Odd Future collaborator Vince Staples released his lengthy debut album, Summertime ‘06. Staples’ prolific ... More

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Album “Summertime '06”

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via Def Jam

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Book by Gillian Laub

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Book by Gillian Laub

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Starting with the first 19th century running shoe, Out of the Box: The Rise of Sneaker Culture delineates the cultural evolution of ... More

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The Rise of Sneaker Culture, book

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The Rise of Sneaker Culture

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Published by Rizzoli

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Written in the West, Revisited

Book by Wim Wenders

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Wim Wenders Photobook

Three decades ago, Wim Wenders combed the stark American West alone for locations to film his seminal Paris, Texas, which swept the 1984 Cannes Film Festival. The German filmmaker drove across Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California capturing their vivid wildness on his Makina Plaubel 6 x 7 camera. Wender’s original travel series, Written in the West, exhibited in 1986 at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and was published in 2000. Decades later, the mastermind behind Paris, Texas as well as Wings of Desire, The Buena Vista Social Club, Pina and Salt of the Earth returned to Paris, TX with a Fuji 6 x 4.5 and a sustained fascination for the Southwest. Written in the West, Revisted is the expanded edition of Wender’s cherished photo diary, revealing 15 of his newest, iconic photographs, saturated with the immensity and obscurity of the American frontier.

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Album “Apocalypse Girl”

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Album “Home Economics”

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via DFA

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