Jonathan Glazer - Director's Label DVD
by Daniel Robert Epstein for SuicideGirls (http://suicidegirls.com/)

Out of the four directors selected for the latest round of Palm Pictures The Directors Label DVD sets, Jonathan Glazer is probably the most fascinating. That’s because he made his bones doing just a small number of music videos for such artists as Radiohead, Massive Attack's and UNKLE. He’s been most acclaimed for his films Sexy Beast and the Nicole Kidman film, Birth. He co-wrote the enigmatic Birth but isn’t planning on going back to the music video world anytime soon.

Check out the official site for The Work of Director Jonathan Glazer

Daniel Robert Epstein: When did you do your first music video?

Jonathan Glazer: I did my first music video probably in about 1990 for Massive Attack and it’s on the DVD set.

DRE: How was it looking at some of these older videos?

JG: Painful. I haven’t made that many videos. Only nine, actually. It’s interesting to go back through the journey a little. It makes you quite dizzy.

DRE: If you only made nine videos that means they are all on the DVD set.

JG: Nine videos. Two films. That’s the sum total of all my efforts.

DRE: Probably your biggest video was Virtual Insanity for Jamiroquai. That was really cool. Was that all one shot?

JG: Four shots and the cuts are hidden. That one was very difficult because it relied entirely on the accuracy of Jay Kay’s performance and the accuracy of the room and the accuracy of the way the chairs moved and so on. If he bumped into a chair or whatever, we would have to start again so it was very tense.

DRE: It seemed like that video was inspired by listening to the song because it was very smooth.

JG: All the videos, in some way or another, came from the music.

DRE: Mark [Romanek] was telling me something a little different. He has a computer file filled with ideas.

Was Virtual Insanity all your idea?

JG: Yeah. Jay Kay had the idea of being in an airport on the baggage thing that goes around. But then we saw that he was an extraordinary dancer and we created a stage for him to be extraordinary. It was a combination of that and what I wanted to do with him anyway.

DRE: How did doing music videos help you once you started making films?

JG: It certainly helped. I’ve done a few videos and a few commercials, so I’m aware of the camera enough to be able to not look foolish. But Sexy Beast was the first time I worked with actors on that scale.

DRE: Sir Ben Kingsley is a high scale.

JG: Yeah [laughs]. It’s hard to jump into that and answer their questions. You’ve got to know what you’re doing so it was a fast learning curve.

DRE: Commercials and even music videos to some extent are to sell something. But that’s certainly not what you did with Sexy Beast or Birth.

JG: No.

DRE: Is it a different mindset or is it just working from the script?

JG: I think it’s a different discipline all together. A two minute video is different from a film, but you still want everything to work and make sense on some level. So that’s similar in that respect but they’re not completely unrelated. With commercials, you’re selling something but I don’t look at it like they’re using my shit to sell their shit; I look at it like I’m using their shit to sell my shit.

DRE: Why does that image of the guy being hit by the car work in the Rabbit In Your Headlights video?

JG: I think what’s interesting is that when he gets hit by cars there’s something kind of odd going on in it. When he first gets knocked down and you look at him lying there he looks like he could be dead, which would normally be the case. But then he takes a breath and gets up. Each time he gets hit, it almost gets easier for him to get up. So it’s working opposite to what would happen because normally, every time you’d get hit, it would take more minutes to get up. When the ending comes, it’s inevitable, but you didn’t guess it. Then the last time he gets up he becomes superhuman.

DRE: Of course you used computers for the effect at the end. Was he surrounded by a greenscreen?

JG: The guy who took all the hits was actually hit so that was hardcore. Then in the end, he’s shot separately and we do a little lighting change. The car was rammed into a post and there was a charge in the car that made the smoke come out.

DRE: Was that Thom [Yorke] and you that came up with that concept?

JG: Thom didn’t come up with any of the concepts, I did. But I go through them with him so that we would both feel that the work is being represented in the best light. I want the artist to be responsible to the song but all the concepts are my concepts.

DRE: I’m assuming that when someone reads a script like Sexy Beast, you see what a great part Don Logan is and that’s what Sir Ben Kingsley saw because I don’t imagine he’s a big Radiohead fan.

JG: No [laughs]. He saw the script; he saw my stuff, so he knew there was something going on that he could work with.

DRE: Were you nervous working with him?

JG: Yeah, I wanted to get it right. I wanted to give him the right directions. I had the ingredients, the casting had gone well and I had a great script. I was the thing that would make it all gel or not so you have to learn fast and communicate quickly. It was nerve-wracking but I find everything to be nerve-wracking. I’m never comfortable.

DRE: You see a lot of music video directors who jump right into whatever piece of crap film is available. Did you just keep saying no until right thing came along?

JG: Yeah, I was being sent everything, big and small. Sexy Beast came to me because I knew the writers. We were going to work together before but didn’t for various reasons. We still wanted to work together and they developed Sexy Beast into a film.

DRE: I read you haven’t done a video for three years.

JG: I was on Birth for two years. That was a long time so I haven’t had a chance. But I’m going to come back. I’ve just done a commercial which is actually on the DVD. I will do videos for the White Stripes, PJ Harvey but this past summer I’ve been too busy writing.

DRE: Who are the directors that you admire now?

JG: I think Michael Haneke is very smart. I don’t really like doing lists because I’m going to remember people in an hour I wish I could have said.

DRE: Well, Michael Haneke on his own is a good enough list.

JG: I like people who aren’t afraid to fail.

DRE: Are you afraid to fail?

JG: No I’m not because if you come from the right place your failures are successes. You’re not failing if you’re pushing the envelope, if you’re challenging genuinely challenging something. If you fall short, you fall short. That’s the nature of experimenting. If you don’t try to push the envelope, then you fail.

DRE: How did you get to do videos?

JG: I was doing commercials then music videos at the same time in 1991.

DRE: Where did you grow up?

JG: On the outskirts of London right next to Dartmouth. Being there you get to see all this music.

DRE: What were you like as a young man?

JG: I was a bit of a dreamer and stuck in my own world. Lonely, geeky and dreaming.

DRE: Did any of those dreams become music videos?

JG: Those dreams are all over my work.

DRE: What else is on the DVD besides the commercials, videos and films?

JG: I’ve got these menus of me doing a sketch with my friend. Basically, I play me and he plays a tramp who I buy drugs from.

DRE: Lets first talk about your last picture, Birth. It wasn’t as successful critically or commercially as Sexy Beast. Did that throw you into a funk?

JG: Not really. I don’t think commercially because the numbers of a film don’t represent the value of a film. Unfortunately we live in an age where things are measured by the profit they make. Everything you make, you judge in terms of how far you fall short creatively, not how far you fall short in terms of audience.

DRE: Did Birth come out exactly how you wanted it too?

JG: No, I don’t think anything has ever come out exactly how I wanted it. I have my own feelings about my shortcomings regarding the work. I wasn’t happy with the situation, I wasn’t happy with the way it was marketed or received. I was trying to create this perspective which was unique. But like I said, I don’t go along with the idea of thinking that the work is less valuable because it makes less money. I think we’re living in this very competitive marketplace now where movies don’t have the same chance in the theaters that they do on DVD. Sexy Beast was the same because it was never a hit. It worked through word of mouth as a slow hit in England. It was when people started getting the DVD that it started getting an audience.

DRE: I’m sure Birth did well on DVD.

JG: I think it’s probably doing okay on DVD but again time will tell. Of course I would have preferred the film to have made more money than it did. But it doesn’t occupy my thoughts. It won’t stop me from challenging myself again the next time around.

DRE: Did that increase the length of time until you make your next film?

JG: Well I don’t want to go the studio route and go through what happened last time. The problems I had were largely because I went through a conventional studio route and their expectations of the film weren’t mine. So we were in opposition to one another very early on. We’re planning on setting up a film now independently but I still need 30 million dollars.

DRE: What’s the film you’re doing?

JG: I’m doing a film called Under The Skin.

DRE: 30 million dollars isn’t a small amount by far.

JG: No, it isn’t.

DRE: What’s it about?

JG: It’s a political horror film, if that makes any sense.

DRE: Have you written it?

JG: I’m writing it with another writer and I’ve got a very good team of people around me. I think it’s going to be a very different experience this time. I’m going to shoot it in July 2006.

DRE: Do you have anyone attached yet?

JG: No, I don’t want to attach anyone to it until I know what it is exactly.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck

web address: http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/Jonathan+Glazer+-+Director%27s+Label+DVD/