''Vinyl'' is a 2000

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

by Toronto filmmaker/

record collector ''Record Collector'' is a British monthly music magazine. It was founded in 1980 and distributes worldwide. History The early years The first standalone issue of ''Record Collector'' was published in March 1980, though its history stretches ba ...

Alan Zweig Alan Zweig is a Canadian documentary filmmaker known for often using film to explore his own life. Early life Alan Zweig was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario and has worked in the film industry as a writer, producer, director, driver, and a ...

. In the film, Zweig seeks not to talk to people who collect

vinyl record A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts nea ...

s to discuss music, but rather to discuss what drives someone to collect records in the first place. Zweig spends a large portion of the film in stylized self-filmed "confessions", where he expounds on his life in regard to record collecting, feeling it has prevented him from fulfilling his dreams of a family. In addition to celebrities like Canadian director/actor

Don McKellar Don McKellar (born August 17, 1963) is a Canadian actor, writer, playwright, and filmmaker. He was part of a loosely-affiliated group of filmmakers to emerge from Toronto known as the Toronto New Wave. He is known for directing and writing the ...

and ''

American Splendor ''American Splendor'' is a series of autobiographical comic books written by Harvey Pekar and drawn by a variety of artists. The first issue was published in 1976 and the last one in September 2008, with publication occurring at irregular interva ...

'' creator

Harvey Pekar Harvey Lawrence Pekar (; October 8, 1939 – July 12, 2010) was an American underground comic book writer, music critic, and media personality, best known for his autobiographical ''American Splendor'' comic series. In 2003, the series inspired a ...

, Zweig speaks to a variety of record collectors. Collectors include a car wash employee who claims to own over one million records and claims to have memorized the track listing of every

K-Tel K-tel International Ltd is a Canadian company which formerly specialized in selling consumer products through infomercials and live demonstration. Its products include compilation music albums, including ''The Super Hits'' series, ''The Dynami ...

collection he owns, a government employee who refuses to organize his collection because he doesn't want people to come over and a man who threw out his large record collection rather than sell or give it away because he didn't want anyone else to own it.

References

External links

* 2000 films Canadian documentary films Films directed by Alan Zweig Autobiographical documentary films Collecting 2000 documentary films Documentary films about fandom 2000s English-language films 2000s Canadian films {{bio-documentary-film-stub