American Movie - Paperback

A famous film director, a cinematographer, an artist, and a novelist team up to make a movie in which the world, called Medialennium, is controlled not by governments but by media conglomerates. Mergers have created economic totalitarianism. Nation states are obsolete, and politics is symbolic ritual. The movie producers are also the actors. Their roles are made up of their real-life relationships, and the movie includes both script and documentary sequences. In the movie, an incumbent governor is running against a Chicano whose platform includes the secession of California to join Mexico, and shooting the movie in LA creates an alchemy that turns into a psychological and political thriller.