Gorman Bechard

Gorman Bechard (born March 15, 1959) is an American film director, screenwriter and novelist best known for his independent feature films Psychos in Love, Friends (with benefits), and You Are Alone; his four rock documentaries Color Me Obsessed: A Film About the Replacements, What Did You Expect? The Archers of Loaf Live at Cat's Cradle, Every Everything: The Music, Life & Times of Grant Hart, and Who is Lydia Loveless?; his animal welfare documentary A Dog Named Gucci; and his debut novel The Second Greatest Story Ever Told.

Bechard was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, to Gorman "Gary" E. Bechard Jr., a bar and restaurant entrepreneur, and Lucille Claire Bechard.

Lucille died when Bechard was 10 years old, so he and his sister Deborah were raised by his grandparents, William and Claire Roberts.

He also has two half-brothers, Thomas and Sean.

Bechard graduated from Holy Cross High School in Waterbury.

While in high school, Bechard became interested in writing after reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions and Richard Brautigan’s In Watermelon Sugar. He attended Western Connecticut State University, where he studied journalism.

Bechard worked as the music critic for the Waterbury Republican & American newspaper and started a local music fanzine called Imagine.

In 1981, Bechard took a course on director Alfred Hitchcock at the New School for Social Research in New York City, and shortly thereafter found himself studying 16mm film production and taking uncredited courses part time there.

1983, Bechard shot his first feature film, Disconnected, while still studying film in New York City.

Made on a budget of $40,000 and filmed in his native Waterbury, it was a creepy take on the horror movement of the time.

Bechard's next film, 1986's Psychos in Love, was a horror comedy that has been called "the first Scream." Conceived as a slasher film in the style of Woody Allen, Monty Python and the Marx Brothers, Bechard's film went on to play a midnight run at the famed Bleecker Street Cinema in Greenwich Village before being released on video by Empire Pictures.

In HorrorNews.Net, Todd Martin wrote, "It's violent and gory while being sweet and funny at the same time and after everything was said and done I ended up digging it a lot more than I ever thought that I would."

Bechard's first novel, The Second Greatest Story Ever Told, was published by Citadel Underground in 1991 and was called "a very, very funny book" by the Los Angeles Times. It tells the tale of God sending his quirky teenaged daughter to save the world.

The book has been optioned by Hollywood numerous times, and has had many leading actress attached to play the role including Winona Ryder, who in the Hot issue of Rolling Stone magazine proclaimed her next role was playing the female Jesus, to most recently Rooney Mara, who can be seen on the cover of the paperback release of the novel.

In 1993, long before the widespread availability of broadband internet, he produced a multi-media web novel called The Hazmat Diary, which featured images, video clips, and music programmed in Flash.

His next novel Balls was published by Penguin Books in 1995.

It tells the fictional story of the first woman to play major league baseball.

The book was optioned by 20th Century Fox but never made into a film.

Next came Good Neighbors, published by Carroll & Graf in 1998, of which Publishers Weekly said, "In his first mystery, novelist Bechard deftly captures the story's working-class neighborhood setting," adding "Bechard's ear for dark comedy and eye for social nuance are this book's strong suits."

In 2002, Bechard returned to filmmaking with The Kiss, starring Terence Stamp and Eliza Dushku.

But once again the process made him question whether directing was a career path he wanted to travel.

Of Ninth Square (Forge, 2003) Publishers Weekly said, "the suspense level remains high to the end, as Shute, suspended from the force, attracted to a female cop but entangled with one of the likable and believable hookers he encounters in the escort industry, strives to find all the answers."

In 2005, Bechard decided to take one last stab at filmmaking.

He would do a micro-budget film where all the control was in his hands.

The film, You Are Alone, a dark drama exploring how far some people will go to feel less alone, went on to play numerous film festivals and win many "best-of" awards before being released on DVD.

In Letterboxd, Keith Dwyer wrote, "You Are Alone has one of the best scripts that I've ever come across. It's dialogue is so visceral and really grabbed at my insides. It's a conversation that spans an hour and a half, and is an analytical look at how we deal with the parts of ourselves that we are disgusted by or fear to confront. There are flashback sequences that are interspersed within the main conversation sequences to provide context for the characters and they play out just like that of memory with how simply yet effectively they're edited. It's hard to say whether it will pack the same punch for everyone as it did for me, but it's floored me."

The site was eventually taken down in 2007, and the story was published in paperback form in 2010.

Unwound, written under the pseudonym Jonathan Baine, and published by Onyx in 2007.

Bechard's next independent feature was 2009's Friends (With Benefits).

The film likewise played many film festivals and is being distributed by Cinetic Media.

In Letterboxd, Monsieur Flynn wrote, "It's got the heart, the non PG-13 realism in nudity, the soundtrack to give additional value, the real human feel of flawed relationships, friendships and fear of the next step, and it brings funny to the table without the awkward Hollywood-takes. It's just an enjoyable trip into a terrain that never really surprise you, but yet is so heartfelt and true it's easy to get lost in."

His last narrative film, 2013's Broken Side of Time, premiered at VisionFest in New York City in June 2013, and won the Audience Choice Award for Best Narrative Feature at CineKink 2014.

It was released on DVD and streaming media in May 2014.

In Blurt, Danny Phillips wrote, "Watching Dolce's slip into the abyss is somewhat like watching a car stranded on the tracks as a train barrels towards it. You really want to help, to scream 'Get out of the way!' but deep inside we want to see what happens next. Broken Side of Time is a look at a journey and a destination, a glimpse at what happens when you give all yourself to something and are used, tossed aside in return. Dolce is a train wreck personified and I could not stop watching."

A restored version of this film was released on Blu-ray by Vinegar Syndrome on November 24, 2017.

His long-lost first documentary, Twenty Questions, was included as an extra on the Blu-ray release.

A restored version of Psychos in Love was released on Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome on September 26, 2017.

In Letterboxd, Mondo Cinema wrote, "This is the best time I've ever had watching a slasher flick."

Bechard entered into a four-picture deal with Empire Pictures that was fraught with conflict.

Empire went out of business, and Bechard, having had enough, shifted his career to writing novels and scripts.