Blood on the Road: Tom Berninger on Mistaken for Strangers

On the 30th anniversary of its release, This is Spinal Tap remains the definitive music documentary, a work of fiction against which real life characters and events will forever be judged. If the enduring popularity and relevance of Rob Reiner's monumental comedy prove anything, it's that the cinema-going public like their rock stars to be larger-than-life personalities whose inflated sense of artistic worth somehow withstands the constant failure and humiliation to which they subject themselves.

Tom Berninger's Mistaken for Strangers has garnered rave reviews and proven a hit with festival audiences, most likely because it subverts the conventions of the 'rockumentary' while still serving up the genre's requisite helpings of on-the-road buffoonery. Although conceived as a piece in honour of The National, Brooklyn's arena-friendly purveyors of urban isolation and despair, the film places its focus squarely on the director himself. A decade younger than his brother Matt, who happens to be the band's frontman, Berninger is very much an aimless slacker at the onset of a movie that turns out to be both the trigger and document of his own hard-won redemption. Most of the comic moments found in this otherwise deeply affecting work are the result of the protagonist's efforts to immerse himself in a world of rock'n'roll excess long abandoned by the consummate professionals to whose coat-tails he clings.

“I'm not saying The National are boring, they're just a well-oiled machine,” explains the younger Berninger brother via Skype. “I began on tour with these guys around the release of their High Violet album, when they were kind of finished with their partying days. When I got on board, they were playing these big shows and they were being responsible. I felt kind of left out by that. Not that I was purposefully being the irresponsible one, but there was nothing juicy to film so I just filmed myself kind of... partying.”

Recognising that sharing his hedonistic attitude would have spelled disaster for the performers, Mistaken for Strangers stands as a uniquely pragmatic glimpse into the inner workings of an immensely popular live act. “The reality is that they still have the best jobs in the world,” he says. “There's a definite camaraderie among the five core members of the band. But really, these big shows are tiring and a lot of people spend a lot of money to go to these giant venues and you have to play for those people in the very back seats.” Of course, Berninger can say this with hindsight, but it took several international flights before the reality of his responsibilities as a roadie was made clear to him.

“I was always kind of nervous, not around The National, but around the opening bands and these indie rock stars that would occasionally pop up at a show. I just wanted to have fun and so I started drinking too much. I was drinking when I was filming and when I was trying to be a roadie. I thought that loosening up with a few beers or a few shots would make me a better person and it didn't. It made me harder to deal with, made me sloppy. I either wanted to be re-hired as a roadie or make something cool for the band. I was under a lot of pressure and when I finally got fired, things really started to suck because I got worried about the footage I was getting. It took a long time to manipulate it into a coherent story.”

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“I'm never going to be as cool as my brother in a certain way, but I'll be cool in a different way” – Tom Berninger

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Indeed, it's at Berninger's lowest point that the movie takes a truly interesting turn, the drunken auteur turning the camera on himself for a prolonged bout of brutal self-examination.

“I owe a lot of that decision to Carin Besser, Matt's wife. She and I cut the entire movie, up until the last six months. One day, I was just scrambling through footage and she saw me drunk on the bus. I was like 'Oh Jesus, I guess that's kind of funny,' but I didn't put it in the movie because at the time I shot it, I was really drunk and thought that people were going to want to see Matt's brother Tom partying like a rock star on the band's bus. But when I looked at the footage, it was sad and embarrassing. I was slobbering drunk and it was kind of depressing. It was Carin who said, 'This is what the movie's really about. You've got to put this kind of stuff in.' So then I told her I had a big scene of me crying to the camera and she demanded to see it. It was really hard for me to watch and I still don't like watching it. But she convinced and pushed me to make the movie about myself and I wouldn't have been able to do that without her.

“I was in a nervous-breakdown mode and was overwhelmed with everything, like I was going to cry. But this is where the weirdness of the whole movie comes in. I thought, 'Let's just talk to the camera and if I cry, I cry. This is what I'm feeling.' So I did, I pressed record and it was like, 'What kind of movie am I making here? I am in control of the movie, but it's definitely controlling me in some way.' So I can't really tell you what came first, but I knew that if I cried, that might be compelling. So I did it. It was a weird moment.”

Difficult as it is to watch some of the movie's more intimate scenes, least of all for the director himself, it's their catharsis and honesty that elevate Mistaken for Strangers to something approaching great art. As Berninger admits, “Finding myself was what I personally got out of the whole experience, because I became OK with who I am. I'm never going to be as cool as my brother in a certain way, but I'll be cool in a different way. I had to stop comparing myself to people, to my brother or to other filmmakers out there who are my age and doing amazing things. To have fun with my own life and stop being so embarrassed by my situation.

“I'm more confused about my career trajectory right now than I was going into the tour. I'm 34 years old and I think in the last two years I've grown up a lot and there are different pressures now to those that I had before. They're all good pressures, I have to say, but the film has changed me and I don't know if I like this feeling!”