Bran Stark has taken the Iron Throne. GoJo acquired Waystar Royco. But who will direct the Texas Renaissance Festival? That’s the battle at the center of “Ren Faire,” HBO’s new documentary series that will air Sunday nights in the network’s coveted slot for the two weeks leading up to Season 2 of “House of the Dragon.”
“It seems like it’s their calculation, to get as close as possible to this series,” says series director Lance Oppenheim with a laugh.
“Ren Faire” may have the knights and servants of “Thrones,” but the power dynamic running through it is more like “Succession.” Produced by Josh and Benny Safdie’s Elara Pictures, the three-episode documentary centers on George Coulam, the iconoclastic octogenarian founder of “the nation’s largest Renaissance theme park,” which hosts approximately half a million guests every year to have fun among costumed artists while munching on turkey legs. and encourage the players.
The festival generates enough revenue during its two-month season to justify a permanent staff. Not only that, but it essentially has its own borders and its own police force operating within Todd Mission, where Coulam has been mayor for decades. But the Oz-like overlord says he’s ready to cash in on his one-of-a-kind creation, selecting a few of his flamboyant employees to take over.
George Coulam in “Ren Faire”
“Functionally, it East a king. He created a real stronghold,” says Oppenheim, who was surprised by how quickly he gained access to Coulam when he started filming the festival. “The first thing he said to me was, ‘I was playing the king, but now I’m a horny old man.’ I want to find someone who can take care of the festival. Those were the things that came out of him. Maybe he was looking for an outlet – someone he has no control over. He doesn’t have any friends he doesn’t employ.
Following the daily grind of Coulam’s Xanadu theme park, “Ren Faire” unfolds with a highly theatrical presentation, reflecting the transporting fantasy that the festival itself promises visitors. The sumptuous widescreen photography practically resembles narrative cinema. Oppenheim also adds other stylized touches, such as an animated soundscape punctuated by screams and musical instruments, as well as scripted interruptions by a wacky dragon.
“I want to use whatever we can do on our part to bring the festival to life. How do you make a fair look like a Ridley Scott movie or “Barry Lyndon”? » Oppenheim talks about giving the doc a sense of decadence and scope. “I want to be with these employees in their headspace.”
A joust in “Ren Faire”
HBO
The move away from the fly-on-the-wall, talking-head aesthetic extends to the way “Ren Faire” captures the professional and personal lives of the three scheming parties vying to inherit the kingdom of Coulam. Oppenheim was careful not to remain speechless in his journalistic investigation. (A subject’s fear: “Please don’t do that ‘Tiger King.'”) Instead, he maintained a dialogue with the subjects, often composing images that they believed conveyed the best their emotional space.
It’s a collaborative philosophy that the 28-year-old filmmaker established with his first feature-length documentary, “Some Kind of Heaven,” about the soul-searching routines of The Villages, the world’s largest retirement community. He furthered that approach with this year’s “Spermworld,” centering on three men who thrive in the unregulated ecosystem of online sperm donation. Although the subjects of “Ren Faire” are not trained film actors, they are professional performers, each possessing a natural showmanship that Oppenheim wanted to draw inspiration from.
“These people view their lives in an extremely elevated way. I work with them to show them how they feel,” Oppenheim says of Coulam’s warring suitors. “There are certainly psychological costs to living in this world. And they are aware of it. And yet, they voluntarily return to the game.”
A scene in “Ren Faire”
HBO
Even as rival factions opened up to him, Oppenheim avoided mediating their bitter power games: “They all knew they didn’t like each other, and they let that flag fly. Very high in the sky.
The feud comes to a head in the series when a loyal entertainment executive panics after Coulam aligns himself with another business partner – a blast of unsettling close-ups and spinning colors provides an ornate portrait of ego death of the employee. Oppenheim freely acknowledges that the scene was staged, choreographed in partnership with its subject. This is just one of many lyrical sequences in “Ren Faire” that provide festival denizens with a large canvas to express their royal ambitions.
“For discerning viewers, I try to make this as readable as possible,” Oppenheim said. “The fact that these people are excited to put these moments on screen with me adds another type of documentary truth. That doesn’t make it any less real.
Jeffrey Baldwin in “Ren Faire”
HBO
This desire to explore a choreographed reality is something Oppenheim hopes to extend to narrative elements. He planned to direct “The Age of Love,” a workplace drama that Elizabeth Olsen was attached to star in; Ultimately, Oppenheim ended up leaving the project.
“I kept trying to find a way to be in a real place with real people and some actors. The realities of production can be hard for people to digest,” Oppenheim said, citing the influence of Jonathan Glazer’s 2013 sci-fi feature “Under the Skin,” in which Scarlett Johansson played an alien among non-professional actors filmed with hidden cameras. . “More traditional fiction films interest me of course. But I think if I make things up from scratch, there’s nothing uncomfortable or tricky about it.
“Ren Faire” premieres on HBO and Max on Sunday, June 2.