The first thing that comes to your mind when HBOin Ren Faire It begins is as it seems. Every month, streaming services are flooded with new documentary series, most haphazardly constructed from interviews with broadcasters and archival footage. Ren Faire It’s something completely different. The three-part series, directed by Lance Oppenheim, features cinematic visuals complete with extreme close-ups, a roving camera, and multiple angles in dialogue scenes.
That’s a smart choice. The film’s obvious take on the inner workings of a Texas Renaissance fair would be to point out the seams in its illusion of the past; to mock the people who believe this so deeply. Oppenheim does the opposite, believing in the fair’s invented reality and framing its themes with low angels and superficial focus. This aesthetic gives his attempts to take control of the fair an epic feel – which in turn makes everything that much funnier.
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A documentary is only good as a subject and the founder of the Texas Renaissance Festival, George Coulam, Ren Faire I found an amazing one. Coulam rules his town – and the nearby town of Todd Mission, Texas, where Coulam is mayor – like a medieval dictator. (His “subjects” at the fair refer to him as “King George” and bow when he enters his office.) Coulam’s control over the Todd Mission and the fair is apparently absolute; the festival and the city are at the mercy of Coulam’s moods and whims, which in Oppenheim’s film seem quite erratic.
The only constant: Coulam’s desire to find a suitable buyer for his festival. Now in his 80s, Coulam has reigned over the “TRF” for more than half a century and is ready to retire. Unfortunately, he is unable to choose a suitable successor. Candidates include his park’s general manager, Jeffrey Baldwin, and his “Corn Lord” Louie Migliaccio, who has built a small empire inside the fair selling popcorn and other concessions.
Coulam is divided. Baldwin clearly loves TRF, having spent decades working there, first as an artist and then as entertainment director, before being recently promoted to GM. But he’s also more of an artist than a money man, and Coulam is quick to blame him for anything that goes wrong at the park. Migliaccio is much more mercenary – he talks at length about the virtues of capitalism – but he seems just they care about the bottom line and may not have the right instincts for the nuances of the park.
Coulam’s other main desire is of a more loving nature. When he’s not taking offers for his fair, he hires a young assistant to help him scour “sugar daddy” dating sites for a suitable partner for his real desires. Coulam apparently has no filter and exposes his sexual tendencies and preferences in detail. Explaining how he maintains a healthy sex drive as an octogenarian, he proudly announces “if you get an injection every week, you can have an erection until you die. And that is my goal. If I really want to die in the most perfect way, it would be to have a woman fuck me to death.”
Uh, duly noted, Your Highness.
Oppenheim and his team appear to have been embedded with the Texas Renaissance Festival years ago, which could explain how they gained Coulam’s trust enough that he even allowed them to tag along on one of his sugar daddy dates, where he gets the woman’s name completely wrong and immediately asks “Are those your natural breasts?”
Coulam employees tacitly condone or even aid this behavior, which is fascinating and terrifying to observe in equal measure. Your way Ren Faire is as good a representation of the allure and corrupting influence of power and money as has been done in recent years. (Interestingly and perhaps coincidentally, this was also the main theme of the recently concluded HBO show The Jinx Part IIwhich was less about Robert Durst’s crimes than about the actions of his many associates who enabled his behavior over the years.)
If you’re interested in drawing parallels between Coulam and other men in positions of power, or just think it’s really funny when an 86-year-old man who demands people call him king shouts “Bring me the copy of e-blast!” Ren Faire has something for you. There are so many documentaries and reality shows on television these days. We need more of that look and feel.
Ren Faire debuts in HBO and Max on Sunday, June 2nd.
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