Tweek City Press Kit: The Screenplay

When I began writing Tweek City in the early 1990s, it was out of frustration with the aforementioned speed scene (last post) and conceived as a broad satire. However, as I was writing, my focus turned toward the characters’ motivations and I began to invest Bill with more of my own, more universal, feelings of loneliness and isolation. With each draft, the film became a darker exploration of Bill’s soul and the ease with which a young man’s sanity can slip away. Until, finally, in editing, the last vestiges of satire ended up on the cutting room floor.

Bill’s nightmares are really repressed memories that have become warped through years of tireless self-deception. Bill may think that speed moves him toward a deeper understanding of the world but he’s really just investing in an increasingly intricate web of lies. These lies compel Bill to make some bad choices but they are motivated by the same desires we all share, a desire to connect with the world.

I’m prone to paranoia myself and more than a few of the situations in Tweek City came out of my own experiences. I have found that paranoia originates from a feeling of dislocation. If you stop trusting the people around you, and you’re not centered yourself, there truly is nowhere else left to go. In times like that you either hide out or end up like Bill, in Tweek City.