City Arts; 314; Outside The Frame

Right. I wouldn't say just that there's a value in existing margins but that there's a necessity there you are loving cinema. But at the same time not liking it. I used to be many of the movie side mirrors because I just I look up there at that white thing I've never seen it before I see the world all around me. City Arts is made possible by Dorothy and Lewis Coleman the Lunesta team or its charitable trust and Sylvia and Ralph. Funding is also provided by the

Michael and Helen Shaefer foundation. The Marilyn M. Simpson trust the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs through the cultural challenge program and the members of 13. Lord Lord with you and I don't think I could do what I do outside the EU. Barbara we have robots in New York one has access to everything. People the Saudis the culture the chaos in New York is my studio. Here is a story I really think of myself as a storyteller. These are just the stories that I tell of the over the years. I think being a filmmaker it's like a vocation it's a calling it's a task and you never home safe and it's never over.

I think it's the physically biggest thing you can do is any kind of artist at each stage you question yourself why am I doing this from the very first when you're writing a script and crunching of pages and saying no no. Sometimes I thought I'm actually going to get fired from my own movies. It seems 60 during my life. I find it remarkable the process of drafting you know which is a tremendous leap of faith. Are you willing to blow the image of yourself for young ideas and just you know huge screen that gets rejected on a thousand friends worldwide. And I want to sell you an old fart here but filmmaking has become kind of like the chic

fashion of the 90s. Everybody wants to be a director. There was definitely a time I can remember when there were people like Eric Mitchell and Amos backing like the very early 80s where they were just killed no one gave a shit who went to go see them they shot them actually are super. I mean those were films that they did not give a flying fuck about about who what actors were in and how it played whether we got on the cover of Premiere magazine for God's sake. It's everybody is a director. Big about job done right. Come work for stretch counts. Will I look like a fucking handyman. Why are you so angry. Just Actually it was great. Really nailed my very last word and I read every year I'd say from

about 1980. There's been this almost geometrical progression in the number of features that I've been able to get made by first and second film makers outside of the usual banks and studios. It's not enough for you remember the pink recent numbers just this year alone to talk nice about you. Six submissions to solve this overnight 75 submissions to Sundance and there are close to 600 full length feature independently produced films this year as opposed to I think 400 last listen say when the first independent film started to break through. There was I think a way to say to that among other audiences because there was a kind of identification with the filmmakers that was much more akin to the kind of identification that you have with rock n roll stars figuring out here I was getting the slices and you order the same size bars

stickies designed to make its money because I would like to be able to make films for a living and I think Spike Lee was just you know really a big inspiration because this guy just made he made his own market. He just like not only made wonderful films but he made a place for himself. Everybody likes the movies. Everybody feels they can tell a story. But what are they after are they after trying to make you know interesting films or are they after the goal that's the question. Tell me why I don't want to talk about why you don't want to talk about it. I want to know the next question and that's it that's it. Or do you want to look at something the interview is going to be over when doing this. I'm telling you wow I have a you know nothing in the case of nobody's business I was challenged by the notion that my father who

was so self-deprecating in his own very reasoned and very sane conclusion that his life was of no value and have no meaning and of no significance to anybody. He was even implying that it should be of no meaning significance or purpose to me as his son. Unacceptable unacceptable. And out of that premise out of that tension I said I have to make a film here. Looks like you had a pretty active life. Oh yeah and only when I want it all. Were you ever serious with her. No I had a good time with them but now I remember series and yes I know you ever spend the night with her. The answer is No. Do you want is that we are going to talk baseball. I just don't want to go through. Forget about the truth. Why I studied film in the context that film was a fine art like sculpture like painting like music and when you

learn film in that context some of the primary criteria for what you do ultimately derive from intern assess city that the work comes out of inner drive it comes out of things that one feels challenged to do compelled to do. Your life not only can be life is nothing. My life is no different. I know how many millions of people right. The more he told me that it was implausible unfeasible and ridiculous the more I wanted to make the film. If you really can't make this important forget the motion pictures you're going to get a flock was going to asking about people nobody knows. Nobody knew and nobody cares about you know sometimes I think my films are more about just sheer willpower to pull it off than anything else I have to do what I need to do if you're going to do it I have to do it.

One of my reasons for directing his I really don't feel that a screenplay is a complete thing. And it's everybody's job just to to follow it to the letter. So for me the screenplay writing is like a first draft and directing it is like a second draft and editing is the third draft and it should be getting better and all of those things you're not salvaging anything you're not saving anything. You're making it better in each of those steps. I mean the missus just drove in from your yeah you got Bill and John Sayles is the guy that inspired my sort of get up off my ass and make my first independent film. He said if you want to be a filmmaker if you've got something to say you've got your story you want to tell just go do it find a way to raise the money get the camera get the actors and go out and make it. You know I did not think we were going to sell the film when we're making it. You know I just knew that this was a story that I needed to

tell I wanted to tell. I didn't think it was such a great idea. I wasn't making that film for anybody I was trying to please anybody. It was filling the void in my life. You know I had never seen a film about these people and these people were the people that I grew up with. Let me ask you something Barry. What I want to know what retarded you wipe it off and then you put it in the dishwasher. Genius. Yes you know you might get like that with todays concert line waiting for your decision. Took me a long time to realize that what I loved wasn't necessarily you know all of America love but not much of a market for this kind of clear the Taken movies that I wanted to make. Couldn't get made within the system. I write nothing else in my

book. I first started working with the machine after we had finished The Brothers McMullen and had cut it into our rough cut. They kind of came on as executive producers and they set down with me and sort of forced me to look at the film again and think you know how can you make this film better where I put it down to get it going this is an office where he and I am going to do it and if I'm his kind script for his next movie time I think it's really about a young woman who's 20 years old and sort of trapped in a small town and recognizing that not only is her life but sort of the American dream has you know by the focus right now isn't so much on the structural character it's what we're actually going to see my scenes in time evaluating the scene itself. That

really is the guy that pushes me constantly. It starts with the first draft of the screenplay and it's just challenging me to rewrite and rewrite and make the script better and tighter and more complex. I didn't want to make another film about young men. I didn't want to make another comedy and I had this idea about people who were trapped and sort of depressed working class communities. Some of my friends that I grew up with are sort of trapped in life and there are a group of Americans the people that Hollywood doesn't make films about. Many of the movies I've made it's because I just I look up there at that big white thing I've never seen it before I see it in the world all around me. I mean that it knows I'm colored.

That's what we should call a time in this city who did not have any colored people doing anything in cinema other than acting fools in front of the camera. There you are kid love in cinema but at the same time not liking how you depicted. Instead of the latest kid with an independent filmmaker can pursue his vision. But I've seen independent films where they've raised the money and the people the goofy people around them see what was in the studio heads. So independence per se is not a guarantee of being independent. I wouldn't say just that there is a value in existing in the margins but that there is a necessity. Because what I've seen is a number of really interesting independent filmmakers go to Hollywood and just get lost something. You told

me that I had to do it. Do you want this last film is very much about sexual identity and it's about this 12 year old girl trying to figure out what she is or getting some sense of who she is. He puts them in the act like complete without will be in lasts for 12 hours for 12 hours. Certainly for me in particular when I was younger and trying to sort out you know all of my feelings and impressions that was something that was going to be in the work. And I mean that's because I'm a lesbian. And you know I have a younger sister and I said you know when I climb on the bannister it feels really good she told my mother. It's like my mother said if you do that you won't be able to have babies. I

guess I figured you know like oh well look at that. But the audiences I do show my work to are so attentive. I feel like I would rather have my work seen by well let's say over the course of time you know 50000 really engaged people than the millions who go to see something like Independence Day and never think for a minute about it afterwards. It's pretty tough to be cynical of what you're doing when you're going through all the effort you have to go through in order to make it a film. It's tough and so I have to believe in what you're doing just to watch some kids it was all through it you know who Jack Harbaugh got she would change and what was she again Weegee. If I have to sing go out my most interesting subject I would say changes. That's what life is about. Yeah. You know

I usually had a family drama to illustrate that because to me family supply that the most security in your life at any rate they were married to last week I don't know when that changes it makes you feel nothing's reliable. Thank you. All right. Angus said the Chatham Sense Sensibility in the ice storm are his next project base comes down to characters on the lines that he said that I always like to see Ted. You know I've got to live with these people for two years. You know they better be enough material they better be in deep and complex enough to write 400 pages. If that person sends and nothing more than a plot device how am I going to say interest of two years. I think they will do the best you can with the material. It has to be I you but I I like this soft and organic

approach to the end product. I think it's a journey. I thing what ends up on the on the film and what people be stimulated by the film is what accounts to the song. You're right I don't know I want to reconsider stop now or go back. So start going to understand your sense of that and I think it's correct. Why would you want more back up. I think making a film is like jazz music. And if we have a score which is the script and we're going to have all the solo players who are going to get their chance to do their their risk on trouble in the corner. So all I'm doing is what did you do the first. Did you is OK as a director it's a refusal often were kind of you know veered

into what I want to hear. What did you do. Take a listen. But I do love the idea that people are coming from all different directions with all different ideas and you're kind of this clearinghouse for them trying to make the whole compositions work and I think the movie is very close to what I had intended this world to look like and sound like and be like that's very good that I got you know I hope audiences go see it and laugh and walk out and think and discuss it for a little while you know fade into the oblivion of film history. You really are a film museum. You have over 10000 typos. You don't even know what you have. Many of these films you drag from their field labs dead friend bankrupting close to an

abandoned fields in the streets and a dumpster to be collected up from the dumpster is practically and you dragged him here you have no more place to put any more out of focus. Is that independent and one gone all of them that I do self independent. We collect them and we show them not enterprize you are probably audited the dismayed important it's not important if you don't know what will be only important in 20 30 or 40 years it would be fame that is unfilled for not a crime is important. So I can pretend a few times I'll never forget the phone call I got from Harvey Weinstein at 12 o'clock on a Thursday night the Friday before Johnny Suede open and he read me Vincent Canby's

review of Johnny Suede and said I'm sorry. And I knew I knew from that moment on that the film was due. As a filmmaker you put all this time this energy in this you know in this devotion into trying to get this film out there. Ultimately you do want people to see it. You know you want to feel that yeah. You know I made this film not to make money but hopefully the people will see it. For you I'll give you five bucks if you don't drink to drink I'll do it. OK we're done there's a film I really like it and unfortunately it played for like four or five weeks and then we got pushed out by the holiday films that came in for Thanksgiving. But I really tried to make a movie that I knew I would want to say and not try to think about what is what is going to sell.

I mean I wanted to be something that I could be proud of you know but I just hope that in 20 years from now you know you may have a look at my body of work and say OK here's somebody that grew so me that it's had something to say here's someone who cared about you know the subject matter and the people that he was making films about. Oh my that's really that's really all I'm trying to do. Well listen I just came back from Sundance where a film I've been working on for five years finally got distribution and the response of people to it just blew my mind because it was such an emotional response. It was like wow you know that movie really touched me. And that's what it's about. That's why we do this that's why you put up with all the hardship because it's a very rare thing to be able to say that what's up on that screen is what you want there. I'm always excited to hear about a new film makers

made a good movie. You know I like to go to the movies. They get the best places are going to those hole in the wall places where you feel you're almost seen something US versus when you open the papers you're bombarded with double page ads for Independence Day or something like that and you look down into a little corner and you see at the end Gelug are playing you know six movies two of them are better than anything the studio is putting out from to a pretentious you know into or just plain interesting. I've shown my films and seen films and university classrooms and basements and churches and synagogues. It's going on in my bedroom. Yes I was. Through

and thanks 303 you're you're through and through and through. Next time on City Arts This is one of those bands where guys tend to stick up for you or any amazing thing of all. This is your having.

Jasper Johns while I bought these things in 1962 the first show that I did a bill where they were $150 apiece. Now they're all saying Polaroids are going for $20000. OK this guy's sales are going to be the demise of the very very best of the world. Certain venues like Oprah and certainly not just the ones who so perhaps you can spoof today. I believe that. City

Arts continues online be sure to visit w net station on the Web where you can see all the artists and events we've showcased in the series get information on places and players link to other artists websites and read in-depth interviews with fascinating personalities. City Arts on w net station its 13 online City Arts is made possible by Dorothy and Liz Coleman the Lunesta team or its charitable trust and Sylvia and Ralph

Avalon. Funding is also provided by the Michael and Helen Shaefer foundation. The Marilyn M. Simpson trust the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs through the cultural challenge program and the members of 13 A.