Based on the eponymous poem by Spencer Reece, The Clerk’s Tale is a psychological portrait of a gay man trapped in the monotonous routine of life at a high-end menswear store. For Spencer, every day is a sequence of mundane tasks and empty exchanges. He fits a customer, straightens a display, takes his usual break at his usual time. But all the while the presence of an aging gay colleague eats away at him. Watching this older man, with his affects and almost grotesque habits, Spencer becomes keenly aware of the future that awaits him. The Clerk’s Tale is a haunting and delicately observed study in loneliness. –Semaine de la Critique
James Edward Franco (born April 19, 1978) is an American actor, film director, screenwriter, film producer, and painter. He began acting during the late 1990s, appearing on the short-lived television series Freaks and Geeks and starring in several teen films. In 2001 he played the title role in Mark Rydell’s television biographical film James Dean, which earned him a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Television Film.
In 2008, Franco received his undergraduate degree in English from UCLA. For his degree, Franco prepared his departmental honors thesis under the supervision of novelist Mona Simpson. Subsequently, Franco moved to New York to attend graduate school at Columbia University’s MFA Writing Program and New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts where he studied filmmaking. In March 2010, Franco’s manager announced that he had been accepted to Yale’s Ph.D. program in English, and that he would most likely be beginning the program in the fall of that year… read more
