anderswolleck

I first heard of Terry Zwigoff in the autobiographical stories of Harvey Pekar that were drawn by R. Crumb. I knew he was very into artwork, music and comic books. But I, like many others, didn't really get into him until he directed the documentary, Crumb, in the early 90's. Even though the brilliance of Zwigoff rolled off of that work we didn't get to see another film of his until the narrative Ghost World was released. That film was an adaptation of Daniel Clowes' graphic novel. Both Clowes and Zwigoff were nominated for Best Screenplay by the Academy Awards and now they've teamed up again for Art School Confidential.

Check out the official site for Art School Confidential

Daniel Robert Epstein: Are you surprised to find someone like Daniel Clowes that you connect with so well since he's 15 years younger than you?

Terry Zwigoff: It's hard for me to find anybody of any age that I connect with well. I had that experience with Robert Crumb. We bonded very quickly and became friends. I had the same experience with Dan. Both happened to be from the underground cartoonist background. I could tell from reading Dan's and Robert Crumb's comics that we'd hit it off. We have such strong ties to humor with a similar sensibility and worldview. You think that about a lot of people. When I met Woody Allen, I thought, "Oh yeah I'm going to hit it off with him." But that didn't happen. John Malkovich had a great Woody Allen story. Malkovich keeps to himself on set and is very quiet. He told me that he was doing Shadows and Fog with Woody. At some point during shooting an actor pestered the director for advice, he wanted Woody to give him advice or direction. I guess Woody Allen doesn't talk much to actors. Near the end of the film Woody Allen came up to Malkovich and went, "Are there any other actors like you?" and John said, "What do you mean? Good actors?" He said, "No, actors that don't bother the director and instead of just behave." He really wanted names. I sometimes ask actors the same question because I want to work with those people too. Steve Buscemi is one of those few actors who you always want to work with because he's so easy to work with and so helpful. A lot of actors are temperamental, very difficult and very skittish. That's why they're good actors, too sometimes. Weird breed, I guess.

DRE: Do you do well with actors?

TZ: Sometimes yes and sometimes no. To quote Charles Crumb "Some people like me and some don't." Some actors feel very insecure and they want the director to be their daddy and their psychiatrist and their best friend and to bully them. You just have to take different approaches with them all. I'm not so good at some of the approaches. I like to be pretty honest and direct with the actors. If I don't know what the fuck is going on in the scene, I tell them, "Look, I'm lost" or something. They don't like to hear that.

DRE: They like everything to be perfect.

TZ: They at least like you to have this front, which if you talk to any director alive, there are places in the film where they didn't have any idea what was going on. They just hope it works out. Sometimes I find myself in the situation where I like to draw upon the actor for help. I like to try to collaborate and come up with a solution. It's not always that apparent to me at the start of the scene. Even if it is, I try to keep that opinion to myself and see what they come up with themselves. It might be better than my idea.

DRE: Do you consider this the definitive cut of Art School Confidential?

TZ: Yeah, it's pretty much what I wanted. We went through a number of cuts of the film, screened them and got feedback. It's tough because your first impulse as a director is that anything the audience laughs at, leave in. Anything that they don't laugh at, cut out. Dan Clowes' work has stuff in it that you only find funny or interesting after you think about it. In fact, a lot of films he works on seem to hold up a lot better over time. You can see it a second or third time and get something out of it that you didn't the first time. In the script for Bad Santa, there was so much stuff where it was obvious to me what the intention was, where the jokes were, how a line was supposed to be spoken. Dan's stuff is much more subtle, nuanced, enigmatic, much more esoteric.

DRE: Besides Daniel's involvement in your work, do you see yourself as an auteur?

TZ: I don't subscribe to it as much as a lot of people. I think film is such a collaborative work. The writer has so much to do with the script then there's the director, the actors, the editor, the composer, the producers. As the director, you have the final say so that the individual vision that comes out of it is your responsibility. It's hard to say that I am the sole author of this work. Part of the thing I enjoy about is the collaboration and that's part of the thing I hate about it.

DRE: I was just talking to Daniel in there and he was saying how important the words that he wrote are to him. Is it difficult to cut Dan's work or is that just the way it has to be?

TZ: On the set, I try to get them to say the lines correctly. I call on the script supervisor and it's part of their job to tell you, "Hey they missed a wordd. They substituted a word with this." To make sure you're aware of it. Sometimes they catch it, sometimes they don't. A lot of the time, they don't and you discover it in the editing room. Usually it's not a big deal but when it's a big deal, you notice it. In the editing room, it's hard. It was hard to have Dan come into editing, occasionally he'd stick his nose in. He says at times it's just a different thing that he had in mind that he would have done it differently than I would have done it. But he waits and he sees what I do and generally he's okay with it. I always try to have a big variety of performances. If we have time for improvisation I want to get a couple of takes of that as well.

DRE: Was there much improvisation in Art School Confidential?

TZ: Absolutely. It depends on the actors. Some actors are really good at it. Malkovich was really terrific with it. You can never quite predict whom it's going to be good with and who it isn't. Certain directors like Christopher Guest manage to assemble the greatest actors in the world. I try to get whatever material I can for the editing room so I have choices. That's why it takes me a long time in the editing room. Oftentimes, my editor will sit there and cut me 26 versions of the same scenes with just subtle differences. I cannot sit there. By take 25 I've lost focus. Cut your three best versions and let me see those.

DRE: I told my wife when we were preparing for the wedding that I didn't want to see everything, I want to see the final three things.

TZ: That's right. The editor is trying to be very deferential to the director but at a certain point, he has to just do it.

DRE: What's your opinion of modern art school?

TZ: I don't know anything about it. My concern was to make sure that I gave a somewhat truthful representation of it on screen. I've never been to art school, which is tough as a documentary filmmaker, but then again I've never strangled anybody either. It's not like you have to do it to be able to shoot it in a scene. It helps to have people around you who you can fall back on, you can say, "Well, what do you think, is there something wrong here, with the overall picture?" Dan would say, "Well, that guy wouldn't be drawing with charcoal in this scene, everybody would have to draw in pencil" or whatever.

DRE: What the undercover cop was creating in Art School Confidential was basically outsider art, do you like artwork like that?

TZ: I came across a few things that I bought from this place in Pasadena that uses artist therapy for mentally disturbed adults. All their stuff is for sale. There's a place similar to it in San Francisco, but all the hipsters have discovered it. So you can never find anything good there. People go in there everyday and grab the good things.

DRE: It's like that here in New York too.

TZ: But this place was sort of an untapped gold mine. The art director went there and brought me photographs of a bunch of the paintings. I said, "Oh, man. That one looks like Henry Darger painted it. How much is that one?" "40 bucks." "Okay, got to have that." They have some interesting art there.

DRE: Your first films were documentaries. When you started doing narratives, was it that much of a shift for you?

TZ: Yeah, it's a tough shift. There's some stuff that overlaps. Certain things you learn in the editing room, what you're going to need for cutaways, action shots, the mechanics of things that once they sink in and become second nature, your job gets a lot easier. Then you get to focus on things that are really important in directing and not that mechanical stuff like continuity and eyeline. That's stuff that the script supervisor can cover you for anyway. A lot of it is a whole other art form.

DRE: Have you become a much more relaxed filmmaker?

TZ: Yeah, it gets easier as you get on. It also depends on the film, the situation, the actors, how much time you have to shoot, but in general I say that it gets easier as you go. Some directors' first film is amazing, but other directors like me, eh. But by the time I make my tenth film, I'd like to think I'll know what I'm doing.

DRE: I read an interview with you from internet where you said you feel like a failure and a fraud.

TZ: I read some of that stuff on the internet and so much of it is so inaccurate, patently false and filled with half-truths. I was reading the trivia for Bad Santa on the IMDB and it said that Larry David was my first choice for the part played by Billy Bob [Thornton]. That's completely false. I love Larry David, I love Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm. But he was never at all a candidate for that. Then you can't get rid of them and they stick with you.

DRE: I just got the Crumb DVD, how was doing the commentary on that?

TZ: It was really painful. To keep it fresh, I thought I wouldn't look at the film and that as the scenes came up I would just talk about them. I wound up doing this commentary where Roger Ebert led the discussion and any time something interesting did come into my head he would start to talk and ask me something else. Eventually I may do another commentary by myself. I wasn't quite prepared and I felt tongue-tied and inarticulate doing it. It certainly was not at the caliber of the stuff Peter Bogdanovich does where he's so eloquent on his DVDs. He's quite a speaker.

DRE: How do you look back on Crumb now?

TZ: I always thought that was a good film. I never had any doubt, I was very confident even when it was being rejected. Every film festival we entered in rejected it.

DRE: What is the new documentary you are working on?

TZ: It's called The Moe Family. It's mostly about Tau Moe. He was a Hawaiian singer who recorded in the late 20's. He made some records with his three uncles while on tour with a French woman promoter, Madame Riviere. They went to the Far East, stopped in Japan and recorded four songs for Columbia. They are all very rare records and very intense. They're as good as any great blues record you hear from the 20's. The guy was an intense singer and songwriter.

DRE: Did you make it before he passed away?

TZ: I shot all the footage before he died. I just haven't had the money or the time to edit it. It's been sitting around for about eight years.

DRE: Are you still into collecting things?

TZ: Less now than I used to be. I still collect records, but I'm not quite as driven to do it. I'm very happy with the records I have. I have plenty. It seems like the price of records is so insane these days that if I do have any money, I'd rather buy a piece of furniture or a piece of artwork. You can always get CDs. It's not quite the same experience but it's close. That's something that is reflected by the ending to Art School Confidential where he's separated by that pane of glass from that kiss. You're there but not quite.

DRE: How was it having such a big mainstream hit with Bad Santa?

TZ: I liked the film but I liked my version better. I thought my film was much more moving and just as funny if not funnier. When I got that script, I could see it was going to be a big hit if it was marketed in a certain way. First thing you need to have a chance of making a successful commercial film is a concept you can get across in a ten second TV ad. With Bad Santa you can do that. With Art School Confidential or Ghost World, it's sort of tough. I do remember one of the Weinsteins telling me that if Miramax had released Ghost World, they could have cut a trailer for that thing and made 50 million dollars. I don't doubt it.

DRE: How long ago did you do your directors cut of Bad Santa?

TZ: I did it when it became clear that they were going to go with a different cut for the theatrical version. I asked Bob Weinstein if he would preserve my cut, and at least put it on DVD and he agreed to do it. In fact they put up a lot of money to do it right. But then they sold their company to Disney, so Disney owns it now. I went to them and asked if they would put it out and they kindly agreed to do so.

DRE: Did you see Badder Santa?

TZ: I did. It's uneven. All the scenes in there didn't quite work out for me. It works on a certain level where there are scenes in there I like and other scenes I don't like. The whole thing doesn't quite have this consistency to it. My cut is a character study of Billy's character. It generally makes his character arc and his relationship with that boy much more truthful and ultimately much more human. The audiences in the test screening wanted Santa to be nicer to the little boy. But that wouldn't make any sense. I always thought of Billy's character as a W.C. Fields character. He has to put up with this pest. Eventually when Billy has affection for him, it is earned. Therefore it just seems more truthful and more emotional to me.

DRE: I know you've known Harvey Pekar a long time, what'd you think of American Splendor?

TZ: It was a good film. But I thought the guy that played Robert Crumb acted really bad. That was the only weakness I really saw in that film. There were moments I liked more than others, but I say that about most films.

DRE: Are you writing the next thing you're doing?

TZ: Yeah, Jerry Stahl and I are writing an adaptation of Laurent Graff's book Happy Days for Johnny Depp.

DRE: Had you known of Jerry before?

TZ: Yeah, he came up and introduced himself to me at the Ghost World premiere years ago. I really liked him. He really sincerely loved Crumb and Ghost World. I spent a long time talking to him and we kept in touch over the years. He sent me the things he was working on like the novels Perv: a Love Story and Plainclothes Naked. Then just recently I was reading Permanent Midnight on a plane and it was such a great book. I called him up and left this long message on his answering machine last night to that effect. I realized I left him a backhanded insult of a compliment. "It was so much better than your other books." [laughs]

DRE: How did you and Jerry come together to do the adaptation?

TZ: Johnny and I share the same agent. She called one day and said, "Johnny wants to meet with you about this book. He wants you to turn it into a film for him." I don't consider myself a writer but I liked the book though I knew it would be a tough one to adapt. I said that I would meet with him but that I wasn't sure if I wanted to write it. I really liked him at the meeting, which surprised me; I don't like most celebrities or movie stars. I told him my concerns and he said, "Well, have you ever heard of this writer, Jerry Stahl." Since then we've been doing it through phone and email since he lives in LA and I live in San Francisco.

DRE: Have you ever heard of SuicideGirls?

TZ: I have heard of SuicideGirls. Is it a website?

DRE: It's like Playboy for punks.

TZ: Playboy for punks, really? Is it done by only women?

DRE: Mostly women.

TZ: It's got nudity on it?

DRE: Yeah, beautiful girls.

TZ: I'll check it out. I've heard of it but I'd just get lost in it. I would end up wasting all day puttering around on the internet.

DRE: They're softcore pictures.

TZ: Now you've lost me.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck