This past Friday at IAM we screened the film “In The Realms Of The Unreal (2004),” a documentary about Henry Darger (1892-1973).

Before the curator of IAM’s Movie Nights introduced me to this film, I had never heard of Henry Darger, but now I can’t seem to stop thinking about him. What a remarkable man he was, and yet, like many geniuses before him and since, it was not until shortly before his death at the age of eighty-two that anyone became aware of his beautiful mind.

Darger had a tragic childhood, losing his mother and father at young ages and ending up in a home for “feeble-minded children” in Chicago. After escaping from the asylum, Darger began to make his way in the world in a solitary existence, working in hospitals as a janitor, dishwasher or other menial tasks. He lived alone and, as it came to be known after his death, spent most of his adult life writing the longest tome known to man – a 15,000 page (single-spaced, typewritten) tale of fantastic battles in which the heroes of the story were an army of little girls whom he named “The Vivian Girls.”

But not only did Darger write the story – he also illustrated it, in full color, employing countless media over the years to help him find his voice as an artist. Near the end of his life, Darger was moved into a hospital, at which time his neighbors, who always knew him to be odd but cared for him just the same, discovered in his home over three hundred paintings illustrating his book, “Realms of the Unreal…”

Academy-Award winning filmmaker Jessica Yu did a superb job of piecing together Darger’s life through interviews with his neighbors and fellow parishioners at the Catholic church he attended several times each day, as well as piecing together his story. Yu deals with her subject sensitively, caringly and insightfully, offering a glimpse into the habits, if not the mind, of this remarkable man.

A friend who watched the film with me came to the same conclusion I did: Darger quite possibly had Asberger Syndrome. Unable to engage in normal conversations with adults, known for his odd habits and noises and for talking to himself for hours on end in his apartment, oblivious of the audience on the other side of his walls, he was never the less capable of writing detailed, coherent (if not totally outlandish) tales.

It bears mentioning, however, that he knew it was outlandish; it was he who described his story as being about “the Unreal.” Henry Darger, I think, was not crazy. He was gifted and very unique, but not crazy.

Knowing what we know about his childhood, and listening to narrations from his autobiography and stories, I formed the supposition that writing and painting were how Darger dealt with everything that happened in his life, and the characters in his stories were the objects of his affection, in the absence of flesh and blood companions. He could not relate to real people, in part, I believe, because they were too unpredictable. However, in his stories, he could control everything. Unlike his tragic and despairing childhood, Darger’s stories depicted victories and hope (at least, until the second ending). The human mind is incredibly resilient; it finds a way to cope, even if coping requires a total recession from reality.

I was very touched by this film, and look forward to learning more about this remarkable man. I don’t know whether his book is available in print in its entirety; I haven’t been able to find it online if it is.

But I will be thinking about him for a while, and taking a second look at people who I might be tempted to dismiss as simple or odd (or simply odd). No; Henry Darger reminds me that every person is made to reflect the image of the Creator – and some, like Darger, are more developed “sub-creators” than most of us will ever touch. After all, I am a creative person, but most of what I do is imitation and parroting. But not with Darger; his was a world altogether unique, squeezed not from the external influences, but rather erupting from something deep inside him that seemed to require him to create.

It seems that he had no concept of an audience. It seems that he had no intention that his story would ever be known, ever be appreciated. For me, that is nigh impossible to imagine; I am always, always painfully aware of my audience.

What would I write if that were not the case?

What would I create?

When I contemplate some of the inner monologues that go on in my head, the unedited diatribes, I’m afraid to imagine.

Yet, it occurs to me now that every one of us has one Audience Member who sees and hears every word; nothing is edited for Him.

Guess we’re all a little more like Darger than we might be inclined to think.