Moment of glory — perennial runner-up Steve Weibe attempts to claim the world Donkey Kong crown in The King of Kong
In the 1981 arcade game Donkey Kong, players took control of the portly Italian carpenter Mario (he only became a plumber in later incarnations), and ascended the ladders and girders of each stage, avoiding or destroying all manner of debris the titular ape saw fit to toss down after him. When Mario reached the top of the stage, Donkey Kong would then snatch up Pauline (Mario's girlfriend, who he presumably ditches for Princess Peach in later games) and proceed to the next stage. Designed by the now legendary Shigeru Miyamoto, Donkey Kong became renowned for its fiendish difficulty and the fact that it actually is impossible to beat — the last stage has been colloquially dubbed the “Kill Screen,” as Mario up and snuffs it all on his own after about five seconds, no matter what the player does. Still, none of this has stopped the game from developing a terrifyingly rabid cult of followers — the two most notable being Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe.
Seth Gordon's documentary, aptly titled The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, is the story of Mitchell and Wiebe's rivalry over the game's all-time top score. A professional gamer, hot-sauce mogul and owner of the “Rickey's” chain of restaurants, Mitchell was the first person to ever achieve a perfect Pac-Man score, and has held the Donkey Kong high score since the mid-’80s. Wiebe is a middle-school science teacher who — as demonstrated through a series of family videos and interviews — has always come in second place his whole life. After being laid off from Bowing, Wiebe decided he wanted to be the best in the world at something, and he arbitrarily chose Donkey Kong.
What begins as good-natured competition quickly turns to controversy, when Twin Galaxies (the official scorekeepers of all old-school gaming) refuses to accept Wiebe's taped high score because he received a replacement part for his Donkey Kong machine from Roy Shildt, one of Mitchell's longtime rivals. At this point, Gordon's film gives up all pretense of objectivity and becomes an all-out battle of good versus evil. Weibe, the underdog, makes sacrifice after sacrifice to try and beat Mitchell's score, thwarted at every turn by an institution that seems determined to uphold Mitchell's title of the greatest gamer of all time, even if that means making some morally questionable decisions.
And it works. With the exception of Wiebe, the subjects of Gordon's film are so petty, scheming, arrogant and juvenile that it's hard to believe they aren't reading from a script. A large part of this has to do with Gordon's skilful framing — everything is presented exactly as expected in a narrative film. That is, there's an inciting incident, three act climaxes, a resolution and so on. This manipulative framing, however, is at once the film's greatest strength and single most glaring weakness.
The sympathy Gordon is able to generate for Weibe is impeccable, though he generates it at the cost of the film's credibility as a documentary. After the first five minutes or so, King of Kong decides that it would rather be a verite narrative film, and it becomes difficult to trust everything Gordon shows us as the truth. That said, if this kind of emotional manipulation by documentarians doesn't bother you — if you're able to approach the film as narrative rather than documentary from the off — King of Kong is one of the most immensely enjoyable “sports” films you're likely to ever see.
What's most unfortunate about King of Kong is that it's billed as a documentary. After watching the whole thing through, it's very clear that Gordon knew exactly what kind of film he was trying to make, and it wasn't strictly a documentary. To his credit, he's very up-front about this. There isn't really a genre that King of Kong fits into entirely, but labelling it “documentary” is slightly less problematic than most others. Considering this, it suffices to say King of Kong is like no other documentary you've ever seen.
The Plaza will be presenting a preview screening of the documentary The King of Kong on Thursday, January 10, with proceeds helping to support the Calgary Underground Film Festival.
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