anderswolleck

Craig Brewer made one of the most startling film debuts in recent history with Hustle & Flow, which ended up getting two Oscar nominations and winning one for Best Original Song. Instead of waiting for the accolades to roll in Brewer jumped right into his next picture, the southern fried noir-esque Black Snake Moan. Brewer has sidestepped the sophomore slump with this amazingly original picture. Samuel L. Jackson plays Lazarus, a retired blues singer, whos wife recently left him for his brother. Simultaneously Christina Riccis character of Rae, the local Tennessee nymphomaniac, has just had her boyfriend enlist for the army and is whiling her time away with drugs and lots and lots of meaningless sex. When her boyfriends best friend attempts to rape her, she fights back but he beats her nearly to death and leaves her on the side of the road. Lazarus finds her and nurses her back to health. But since she is ravenous for sex, he decides to chain her to a radiator until she can control herself.

Check out the official site for Black Snake Moan

Daniel Robert Epstein: First of all, did you freak when Three 6 Mafia won the Oscar last year?

Craig Brewer: I was really excited.

DRE: Were you home?

CB: No, I was actually in Los Angeles at the Oscars when they won.

DRE: Oh you went?

CB: Yeah. I think because Terrence [Howard] and Three 6 were nominated for an Oscar. I actually got [CEO of Paramount Pictures] Brad Greys seats. He said If it wasnt for Hustle & Flow we wouldnt even be at the Oscars.

DRE: Thats nice that you got to go.

CB: Yeah, but I got to be honest with you, when I found out we got nominated I knew we won.

DRE: What makes you say that?

CB: I was so confident. I didnt have some secret inside line. I knew that if that song got nominated that meant that the Academy members couldnt get that song out of their heads.

DRE: Who could?

CB: Yeah and also, I saw all the other films and I heard the music and I really believe that It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp was a functional song. What I mean by that, it wasnt ornamental, it was truly fundamental. I had so many people come up to me saying they didnt like rap but they loved It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp. I keep telling them, Well, you were there when we made it, you were there watching them create that song in the movie. A lot of people who usually dont give rap a chance, like it better having been there watching them make the song. Its not over some montage. Its not over the closing credits. Youre seeing some guy go, Huh, its hard out here for a pimp. Then youre seeing some girl sing it over and over again and then its got a beat to it and then they play it. The audience shares in the joy of the song because theyre there watching it be put together. I know when I was first pitching the movie to people in Hollywood I kept saying, This scene needs to be like the Requiem scene in Amadeus. When he and Salieri are putting that Requiem together and youre hearing one baseline and you hear the sopranos and the arpeggios with the violins coming in. I knew that no one had ever seen that in rap.

DRE: From looking at the posters I thought Black Snake Moan was some sort of sex movie, it does have sex but thats not the focus. Do you feel it is being marketed the right way even though it may draw people in?

CB: Its definitely the way I wanted them to market it. I didnt want some Regarding Henry poster. I didnt want some meditative half lit face of Sam Jackson looking serious and forlorn. This is a movie I want people to have fun with as well as get the message that Im trying to give. I really found myself inspired by the marketing of the movies that inspired this movie which would be Baby Doll by [Elia] Kazan and A Streetcar Named Desire. There is an obvious hot, sexual tone to those posters that have a respectful nod for camp. I dont want people thinking that Im actually doing a dark movie because its not really. Its actually the most moral story that Ive ever really told.

DRE: The poster has a real pulp novel cover look to it. Christina has a real Sheena Queen of the Jungle look to her.

CB: Totally. I told them Please be inspired by Conan the Barbarian and Star Wars. He is a protector. There are a lot of things in the poster that I actually like that nobody really catches onto. One is that shes looking at you and seducing you but hes not looking at you. Also theres a pattern across his chest with the chain that forms a cross. I wouldnt be surprised if a lot of the criticism I get is people thinking that the movies too religious.

DRE: But its not, hes reflecting off his own life.

CB: Right. But make no mistake, I am making a comment. I live in the red states. I welcome everybody to enjoy the movie and to come to it but in my heart, Im making movies for the south. The radical concept Im bringing up is that theres a lot of people out there that call themselves Christians or children of God and I dont think that they really act that way. I think that theres a lot of judgment out there right now and theres a lot of divisiveness and everyones pissing around their own religious territory. Weve lost the Good Samaritan. Weve lost seeing someone in need and unconditionally loving them and trying not to judge them.

DRE: Does the kind of nymphomania that Christinas character has exist and where can I meet those women?

CB: I can tell you where to meet them in Memphis.

Its funny because nymphomania doesnt exist. A few people have asked me, Have you done plenty of research on the state of nymphomania? [laughs] I always go, Well, let me first tell you that its a male fantasy that this girl cant get enough sex. I wanted to take that southern archetype of the out of control horny farmers daughter that if you just go over on that property shes going to get you. There are examples of that in respected literature like Mayella in Harper Lees To Kill a Mockingbird. The black man is essentially on trial for going into her house and helping her move a cabinet and then she pounced on him. I love the book and the movie. My dad told me that when he was growing up in the south that there was just intense fear of black male sexuality amongst white southerners. When Tom Robinson, the guy on trial in To Kill a Mockingbird, gets a guilty verdict its so obvious that he didnt do anything wrong. I remember my dad saying Theyre not sending him to jail because they believe he attacked her. Theyre sending him to jail because that white woman wanted him. As a kid I remember thinking how wildly unjust that was. But with this movie coming out Im seeing that that theres this fear of that image.

DRE: Some people brought the misogynist brush for Hustle & Flow. The same thing is going to happen with Black Snake Moan if not more so. How do you respond to that?

CB: Im hoping that the people who cry misogyny with this movie are going to feel foolish about it a couple of years from now. The definition of misogyny is a hatred towards women. I would challenge anybody to come to the end of this movie and really believe that I have a hatred towards women or even hatred toward this particular woman. If you do anything that has a representation of race or gender and it starts stepping outside a common idea of what they want to represent that race or gender then youre going to find that your character represents the whole race and gender. That gets a little tricky for narratives that have extreme characters. Especially in the south where it seems like all their characters are extreme. I always bring up A Streetcar Named Desire. I always think Wow, they teach that in high schools and nobody cries misogyny. Not only does Stanley Kowalski get drunk. But he goes into the room where his pregnant wife is dancing to music and with a closed fist punches her in the face and the head repeatedly. But when she gets whisked upstairs and hes screaming her name Stella, Stella, Stella she goes downstairs and she fucks that man. We want her to fuck him and even we want to fuck him because hes got this rippling back and his friends tried to sober him up by putting him in the shower so now hes wet. Theres all this sexual charged passion that is in these stories that make people uncomfortable but I also think people covet it. I think everybody wants to have some passion in their life that defies all reason and all morals. Where its like, Oh Ive got to have that woman, or Ive got to have that man no matter how volatile at times your relationship may be, at least Ive experienced that in my 13 years of marriage.

DRE: [laughs] Black Snake Moan and Hustle & Flow have the same production designer, the same cinematographer and Im sure a lot of the same crew.

CB: Oh yeah and even a lot of the same actors. Bojo the club owner in Black Snake Moan [played by Claude Phillips] is the junkie in Hustle & Flow that gives them the keyboard. The pawn shop owner thats selling the microphone is also the guy at the bar thats giving Justin Timberlake a hard time. So there is a Memphis and Mississippi collection of characters. Im trying to make like John Ford movies to some extent where I have my own company of people.

DRE: Do you feel Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan bookend one another?

CB: Very much so but even more importantly theyre part of this series that Im trying to do. Im really exploring the music that Ive been excited about from my region. That means rap, blues, the next one is country and then theres the soul movie. Theyre all part of a world and I could definitely see Rae taking a trip into Memphis and rolling around in the same bars and shake joints that Djay [the main character in Hustle & Flow] is bringing his women to. Thats more by way of the tone of the music. I dont really try to put music on these stories as if theyre just an afterthought or a soundtrack. Its really me saying I want to make a blues movie and what does that mean. That means I need to embrace more of a fabled tone. If you really listen to the blues, its this extreme world Im going to buy me a bulldog and chain it in my front yard and thatll keep my woman from sneaking off at night. R.L. Burnside singing, I got an ass pocket of whiskey. I got a front pocket of gin. If you dont open your door Im going to kick that motherfucker in. Its sweaty and its sexy and its wrong. That means taboo and that means the blues.

DRE: How did you come up with the look for Christina with the tiny shirt and panties?

CB: The shirt is essentially a Civil War emblem. The Confederate flag going one way and the American flag another way and the crossed revolvers in the front. Im creating the redneck fantasy down to the Daisy Dukes and the boots. The shirt was very inspired by Flashdance. Its more cropped than Jennifer Beals had in the 80s but I definitely wanted that off the shoulder thing where you think that at any moment if you just blow on Christina the whole thing would just fall down at any moment. But weve been fighting that war across our chest for a while and its not really racist, its really between class. Its between people who have and people who dont. Of my relatives in the south that claim that Confederate heritage, whether people agree with it or not, it is the one thing that they have to say, Hey were a rebel but its also another way of saying, Hey we dont have money and we need some respect.

DRE: So did Black Snake Moan start with the blues and the characters came later?

CB: Yeah, thats how it always starts. This one started even more strangely that way because I wrote this right after I wrote Hustle & Flow but before I shot Hustle & Flow. So it was actually a reaction to me trying to get Hustle & Flow made. I was experiencing these really terrible anxiety attacks I never had before. My Dad had died of a heart attack at 49 so when it first hit me I really thought I was having a heart attack. Everything was unsure with Hustle & Flow and it was a good three years of trying to get that movie made but a lot of people didnt want to make it with me and they didnt want to make it with Terrence. I didnt have any money. I couldnt keep a job because I was constantly being flown out to LA and sleeping on my producers couch and my friends couches. But these attacks were really humbling to me. I really began to question my mortality. I got damn scared and then I just started listening to the blues, which Ive listened to since I was 12. But they say that music finds you sometimes in your life and I was hearing the fear in the music but I never listened to the fear. Now I was listening to what was being said by these guys. Then one night I saw this radiator with the chain wrapped around it in my head and this chain yanking against it and making this big sound and then I started trying to figure out what the story was. Its like a detective thing with me. Ill be listening to music in my car and these images will come into in my head and then I have to find out what the story is.

DRE: I read you might do sequels to Hustle & Flow. Are you sure you want to do that?

CB: No, but I know what their stories are. I really want to do this music series first. If I want to go back I can do those. But everybody is always talking about how they wanted to make a black Godfather, as silly as that sounds. But they were always doing it with like drugs and thugs and violence. I was like, if youre looking to do a black Godfather then do it with the music industry. No one has done the arc in a really compelling way of a person who started from nothing and then has to sell the music and sell himself and ultimately get to that place of fame where he may be more ho than pimp.

DRE: Did your wifes clothing designs make it into the movie?

CB: No, shes got it better. Shes the muse. It seems like every movie that I do Im basically exploring my relationship with me and my girl. But dont worry, Im not Sam Jackson, Im the crazy girl on the end of the chain but I just cant fit into those Daisy Dukes.

DRE: How did you first find SuicideGirls?

CB: I found it like everybody else found it. A friend called me up and said, Have you been on SuicideGirls? Whats really great is that now its turned into a much more accessible website. I like to turn other girls onto it. I tell them that the women are real, but theyre aggressive, very self-empowered and sexy as all get out.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck