Alan Zweig’s Vinyl is a look into the often neurotic personalities of record collectors, his own included.

In a revealing, diary-esque style of filmmaking, Zweig set up his camera facing mirrors that he had adorned with music paraphernalia and questioned his reflection on his obsession with collecting.

At times he lets you get real close, revealing his longing for domestication or showing you the dead mice in between his easy listening records.

“The first time I did it, which was with Vinyl, I didn’t really think about what I was doing,” explained Zweig. “I was influenced mostly by writers like Harvey Pekar and (Charles) Bukowski whose stuff appeared to be personal and semi-autobiographical.”

In a film on the outrageous number of albums people accumulate, Zweig starts to question his emotional attachment to his own vinyl.

The things he asks his reflection weave their way into the conversation when interviewing other collectors.

“ I was influenced mostly by writers like Harvey Pekar and (Charles) Bukowski whose stuff appeared to be personal and semi-autobiographical.

Alan Zweig, director

With their meticulously categorized or unruly heaps in the background, music enthusiasts fielded Zweig’s inquiries on their connections to their collections.

The Alternate Vinyl is those conversations, and a companion to Zweig’s original film, that will focus more on their passions for accumulating great music.

The Alternate Vinyl makes its debut at Cinematheque as part of Zweig’s Shooting Myself In The Mirror on Friday, Feb. 11.

Clearly, Zweig is very passionate about music.

“I can’t begin to list the number of songs that hit me,” he said, adding that he has “always loved melancholy ballads dealing with the loss of love.”

This need and search for love becomes apparent in his next two films, I, Curmudgeon and Lovable, which complete his trilogy of personal, mirror-based documentaries that will be screened at Cinematheque over the weekend.

In I, Curmudgeon, Zweig interviewed others who had been labeled curmudgeons, and decided to make Loveable to close up some unanswered questions from the first two movies.

“I made that film because I was making a trilogy and I thought it made sense for the last film to deal explicitly with an issue that had been in the background of the previous two films,” he said.

“However, about a month after it premiered at Hot Docs and a few days after it premiered on TV, I met a woman who had never seen any of my films and eventually we got married and a couple of months ago had a daughter.”

Shooting Myself In The Mirror screens at Cinematheque Feb. 11-13. For complete times, visit www.winnipegfilmgroup.com/cinematheque.

Published in Volume 65, Number 19 of The Uniter (February 10, 2011)