Image: A still from Shia LaBeouf’s live stream as he watches his own films
Actor and generally interesting person to watch Shia LaBeouf is currently engaging in a marathon of watching his own movies, and live streaming the process as he does so. He is watching the films in reverse chronological order, and anyone is allowed to join him while he does so. Admission is free.
LaBeouf will screen his films 24 hours a day for the next 3 days. The list of entertainment includes both volumes of Nymphomanic, all of the Transformer series, Dumb and Dumberer, and Charlie’s Angels.
This particular project is a collaboration between the actor, Nastja Säde Rönkkö, and Luke Turner. The marathon is allegedly LaBeouf’s first foray into performance art, though his participation in an event called #IAMSORRY, in which he wore a tuxedo and kept a paper bag over his head for gallery visitors, could also be considered performance art.
It is interesting to consider the actor’s motive for hosting his own kind of film festival, but perhaps more interesting to think about what he is thinking about as he watches his own work, a participant in the event as much as anyone else in attendance. “It’s unlike anything that I’ve experienced prior to this, getting to see how the actor reactions to his own films,” says Djordje Gasic, one of the festival’s attendants.
The theater has been packed full of people since the festival opened, with a line of 70 people waiting to get in. And people want to get in, even if they acknowledge that the event is a little bit weird “I think it’s a little psychotic that [LaBeouf] is watching his own movies nonstop for a few says,” says Emmeline Bone, another attendance. “It seems kind of silly, [but] I’m going to take it at face value.”
She adds that even though the festival is unusual, it’s not without some intellectual merit: “It is actually somewhat of an interesting idea to force yourself to watch yourself be other people for three days straight…[but] who knows why he’s doing it.”