Crispin Glover has long been a hero to many odd people. His books, Rat Catching, Oak-Mot and What it is, and how it is done have long been sought out by collectors because they have given the most honest look into his wild mind. But his directorial debut, What is It? may supplant that notion. I saw What is It? at the Anthology Film Archives and it was a real eye opener. I had heard it was weird, different, frustrating, bizarre and even brilliant; but its so far from the mainstream that it almost overlaps and becomes mainstream again. The story is very complex, a young man with Down Syndrome reveals himself to the audience on multiple planes of reality. Crispin himself makes an appearance credited as Dueling Demi-God Auteur and The young man's inner psyche.
I got a chance to talk with Glover in person and found him to be amazingly articulate and very friendly.
Check out the official site for What is It?
Crispin Glover: First off Ive been using the phrase counterculturalism and I want to clarify the meaning of that. I have meant that countercultural sits in the realm of conceptual thought which is beyond good and evil. In the title of the book by Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond God and Evil, it becomes apparent that good and evil are constructs that have been utilized by society in order to keep restraints. What is considered good for the culture can be called "good", and what is considered "bad" for the culture can be called "evil." Yet, what one culture considers "good" another culture may consider "evil" and vice versa. Conceptual thought sits outside the realm of the Judeo-Christian element of moral constraint of "good" and "evil." Anything that sits in the realm that is beyond good and evil used within media can make an audience uncomfortable and it will necessarily be removed by committee style film making that is inevitable in work created by corporations.
Daniel Robert Epstein: As a director how do you get a snail or any actor to come out of their shell?
CG: I dont feel great about killing the snails in the movie. This film started out as a short film that was going to promote a screenplay I had co-written where the roles in it had been written for actors with Down Syndrome. There was a corporation that funds movies that I went to and they were interested in it. I talked to them for a long time and they were concerned about using actors with Down Syndrome for a majority of the roles. I started out to make this film to promote that this was a viable idea. As I was editing the film together it came in at 84 something minutes which is longer than this film is now. It was too long for what it original was. I could tell that with a bit more work I could turn it into a feature. I ended up putting myself in the film and I put Steve Stewart into the film as the man with cerebral palsy who chokes me at the end. Steve Stewart wrote the screenplay to what is now the sequel to this, which I have already shot. Steve on some level had been imprisoned in a nursing home for a number of years because since he had a severe case of cerebral palsy he was very difficult to understand. They would call him a retard which he wasnt, he was of normal intelligence. The reason there is the graphic sexuality is because it is a fantastical psychosexual retelling of his point of view of his life at that point. There is something fascinating about the nave way he tells the story. People call it folk art or outsider art but he is definitely expressing himself in an interesting fashion.
Once I turned the film into a feature film I realized what the corporation was reacting to. It wasnt so much just having people with Down Syndrome in it, but the concept. When I look at the face of a person who has Down Syndrome there is a history in that persons face of someone who has really lived outside the culture their entire lives. When there is an entire film cast with people who have lived outside the culture it automatically gives the feeling of an outside of culture movie. I feel that the corporation was reacting to something counterculturally on some level. They didnt want to promote counterculturalism. I started to think about it and there is no countercultural movement that corporations are able to point to and say This is who we will be able to sell this movie to. There have been points in time when corporations have been able to do that. I would say that 99.9 percent of everything that is made is basically coming from a procultural film state. Its because films are very expensive to make. There are other artforms that arent as expensive so you can have interesting points of view. I would argue that counterculturalism is good because when you only have proculturalism its very bad. You need to have dissent and discussion. Because it is so expensive to make films everything needs to be made by committees which ultimately will say They wouldnt want to say that. It seems like a relatively benign thing. But at a certain time when everything is made by a committee everything becomes an insincere statement which is very much whats happening.
When I was casting, every single person that I met with that had Down Syndrome was extremely enthusiastic and wanted to be in the movie. The guardians are the ones I really had to deal with. Basically almost all people with Down Syndrome have guardians. Ive had press write that I had kids with Down Syndrome in the movie. There are no children in the movie, they are all adults. It is a pro-cultural consensus that people with Down Syndrome are thought of as children on some level. They are not children; well they are when they are children. Many of the guardians were concerned with the violence and sexuality but those that were enthusiastic about it stayed enthusiastic and their charges ended up in this film. They were all excellent to work with and I was very careful working with them. I wanted to put people with Down Syndrome kissing in the film because I hadnt really seen it before. When I edited it together I showed it to the guardians because I knew there could be issues over that. The sister of the woman was her guardian and the parents of the man were his guardians. The sister was more concerned so there were some things I did do to adjust and it worked out well. The sister felt it ended up being beautiful. Its not the standard idea of what is beautiful but there is definitely a beauty to it. I shot the whole film in 12 days over two and half years. None of the problems I encountered had anything to do with the fact that my actors had Down Syndrome and everything to do with technical difficulties which I had a lot of.
DRE: It was my understanding that Shirley Temple is god in the film. If Im right, why is she god?
CG: One of the things I dont like about many films that are part of the pro-cultural film state is that there is a dictatorial of what people are supposed to be thinking. It bothers me. I will go and watch a film and see that sometimes they thought something through a little bit but its very evident that they dont want you to think about it much. Maybe the audience will think about it a little bit. I think thats because most films dont let people think for themselves at all. I dont like to dictate what the meanings behind something are. I do like to say that this film is reacting to the culture Ive grown up in. My father is an actor and I started out acting professionally when I was 14. From the time I turned 18 and even before that I always wanted to be part of the countercultural film movement but I realized, especially while I was making this film, the entire time that I have been acting there has not been a countercultural film movement to be a part of. I had to make my career of trying to find interesting things within a procultural film state. Its been very frustrating and I felt a certain amount of aggression and dissatisfaction from the people Ive worked with when I try to find things that are interesting. This film is very much a reaction to that. I do have very specific ideas of what each thing means but I would rather have people interpret it for themselves. When I meet with people one on one I ask them what it meant to them and sometimes people will think exactly what I am thinking and sometimes it is a little different or very different.
DRE: Was there any improvisation in the film?
CG: Everything was scripted except for certain parts that were improvised. Sometimes the actors would come up with things that were much better than what was scripted. There is the one fellow that says, Dont interfere with my mind. I think the original line was, dont interfere with my mission. A lot of the things in the film may seem constructed from the beginning but it really isnt so. The reason the Michael Jackson thing is in the film is because Rikky Wittman, an actor with Down Syndrome, did a Beat it vogueing thing. He was kind of a jokester and just doing those moves on set so I had him do it on camera. The things that had to do with the minstrel character with Michael Jackson came in much later.
The scene with the two women with Down Syndrome sitting on either side of me was something that happened during the filming of the short. The girl on the left of me was named Kelly Swiderski and the woman on the right was named Robin Adams. They were having something of a feud. I came out on the set and Robin was crying so I had to ask her what was going on. She told me that Kelly had told her that she wouldnt have me as her boyfriend because Kelly was going out with me. I wanted to utilize that within the film.
Another thing with the element of the people with Down Syndrome is that when I first went and spoke with the guardians I always made it clear that the film isnt about Down Syndrome.
DRE: What made you decide to use the song Some Niggers Never Die by Johnny Rebel which many would consider bigoted and racist?
CG: First I think its important to differentiate the use of two words, one is bigotry and the other is racism. There is something in this culture that is peculiar. Bigotry means to hate somebody for how they were born with no concept of what their mindset is. Racism means to classify by race which is a very different than hating someone for their race. On some level just to classify by race, such as homo sapien is racist. So racism shouldnt be considered a bad thing. Bigotry can be considered a bad thing. But in terms of Johnny Rebel and the use of that song in particular, this was a movie where I didnt want to say Well we wouldnt want to say that. With how bigotry is dealt with in procultural film is that it ends up feeling insincere because it dictates what you are and are not able to say. I think there have been some very good films about bigotry like Rainer Werner Fassbinders Ali: Fear Eats the Soul where the older woman falls in love with the Arabic man is just a great film about bigotry. You like those people, feel bad for them and you really feel the hate of the people that surround them. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Luis Buuel, Werner Herzog and Stanley Kubrick I would consistently say are my four favorite filmmakers because they tend to be very thoughtful with their storylines and points. Again I wanted to work in areas with counterculturalism which go beyond good and evil. There is a self censorship that goes on which is bad for the culture. Its better to put things out and let there be a discussion like this. Then people are able to comment on it with their own point of view. Film is very expensive but I am in a relatively privileged position where I am able to travel around the country and advertise to get people into the film. Most first time filmmakers cant do that so I do question how easy its going to be to have genuine counterculturalism.
DRE: Would you consider this to be an experimental film?
CG: I think of my film as a narrative drama but I understand why there are people who would watch the film, who are used to watching films from the procultural film state, and would consider it experimental. But What is It? has a stronger narrative than many films that are considered mainstream films.
DRE: Very few filmmakers that work on the films youve made, even some of the more out there ones, dont want to label themselves countercultural because people may call them hypocrites because they made them under the auspices of a Hollywood movie studio.
CG: Yes its something I have a very clear definition on. For this film there is no one that corporations are able to point and say, that is who we are trying to sell the film too. Ive never been against corporations or corporate filmmaking if they are making something interesting. There have been times and places when there have been countercultural movements that corporations are able to point to and sell the film. 2001 [A Space Odyssey] is a very interesting and intelligent film that was made by MGM. I wouldnt have made my film if there wasnt an audience for it.
DRE: I thought your film was not dissimilar to certain films from the 1960s except in your case it was made by someone who starred in a movie produced by Steven Spielberg.
CG: I dont feel like I am doing anything particularly new in terms of the style of expression. But I do think that what I am expressing right now is that not many people that have corporate distribution are reacting to the same things in the culture that I am reacting to. I think there have been some people that have done that but its very small and far away in film. There are other artforms that are less expensive where people can have more individualized thought process. Particularly in painting there is interesting things being done. I dont feel that way about music. I feel that any music that has stanzas or refrains is procultural because it comes from a proletariat working class history that started at least from the serfs in the Middle Ages when they would sing in that fashion. It represents a middle class point of view and it makes people feel emotionally feel good about being a working class person. I feel that rock music is all procultural and people tend to get really mad about it.
DRE: There is always someone trying to sell you something with rock music on the radio.
CG: Thats something I dont agree with. Commercialism is not necessarily procultural. I think commercialism is a very healthy thing. There are examples of people like Stanley Kubrick who are extremely commercially successful but yet have absolutely intelligent matter in their films. This concept of something being commercial automatically makes it procultural is something I dont agree with. What does make something countercultural is when it literally counters what is considered good, right or supportive of the culture.
The ruling class music was a nonlingual educated point of view which is now called classical or post-Beethoven romantic era music. That music has gone away because the middle class overthrew the ruling class. When this culture is listening to rock music it is listening to the anthem that is proculturalism. Even though there are these subcategories of stanza and refrain music like rap, alternative or whatever words they use to categorize, they really are all ultimately harkening back to the working class anthems.
DRE: So your idea of what counterculturalism is not against the idea of people selling things?
CG: No, because selling is fine. There is nothing wrong with selling ideas. If one wants to counter the idea of sales and capitalism then one has to look at the various models of monetary political systems. Communism versus capitalism versus fascism versus monarchy versus anarchy versus the surrealist movement. Apparently the surrealist movement was originally a political movement. I dont have a problem with capitalism necessarily. Its very easy for this culture to point out the corruption of communism and fascism but its difficult for it to point out the corruption of itself. But that corruption does exist and it is in the element of corporate entities taking the element of individualized thinking away. Thats really where bad corruption comes into play in all of these areas. Its the most evident in film because its an expensive artform and they need to be able to feel confident in salesmanship. They need a group they can point to and sell it so since there isnt a countercultural movement that they can point to, they wont bother. If anything makes anyone feel uncomfortable at all, which good art can do, they wont support it. Now thats being taken out of stories in the media because it's considered something that could drive audiences or sponsorship away. Now all films and media are being approved by committees, which is an absolute corruption.
DRE: Your movie doesnt have a lot of references to anything in it. If you look at this room were in, there is music playing, there is lamp that was specifically designed to fit into this room and many others. Your movie doesnt reference other films.
CG: I dont know if I agree. The music playing in this room does reference that working class element. I like design and I like when something is well manufactured and well designed. I believe my film does reference things.
DRE: Yes but it references the things youve been talking about which puts it into this whole other realm and its populated by people we dont see everywhere. It makes it feel like another dimension and also like a clean feeling. Like Im seeing something very fresh. Is that how you saw the film?
CG: I do like the idea of the universe of the film being its own removed world. People ask me why I wanted to work with people with Down Syndrome and there are several reasons. One of them has to do with looking at the face of someone with Down Syndrome. When I do that there is a history there of someone who has lived outside of culture their entire life. When a film is almost entirely populated by people who have been removed from the culture, it makes the film automatically have another cultures point of view or countercultural. The other reason I worked with people with Down Syndrome is that they dont have this social masking that most people have. When you go to acting class you are taught things that will help you remove those sorts of things.
DRE: Is it about being real?
CG: It can be. People with Down Syndrome think about different things than what most actors think about.
DRE: You can really see that in them. It doesnt feel like you are watching regular actors.
CG: Yes and thats something I appreciate very much.
DRE: I asked you last night at the book signing if you were totally satisfied with the film and you said it was a very organic process. Just as an example Ill pick a movie like Martin Scorseses The Aviator, its such an expensive film and its made by someone with a clear vision. Since it is Scorsese, I would imagine his vision doesnt change much from the beginning to the end of the film.
CG: Hitchcock said something to the effect, Ive already made the movie in my head and now were just putting it through the machine. I respect Alfred Hitchcock and I think hes made some really beautiful films. But I feel like that was a self promotional thing to make him sound like this super intelligent filmmaker but I dont believe that is possible. Just in the nature of editing things, they have to fall together in certain ways.
DRE: Since you said your film was organic, you started with the way you thought it would be and it became something different at the end. Thats not a bad thing, was the film still as personal once it got to its final form?
CG: Yes and Im satisfied with the outcome. I wouldnt have completed it if I was dissatisfied. That isnt the only reason it took so long to be finished. It was mostly technical problems. The worst of them was mainly the optical house in New York City that had my negative for five years.
DRE: Was it shot entirely on film?
CG: Yes it was shot entirely on 16mm then blown up to 35mm through a digital intermediate.
DRE: There are certain things that reminded me of Andy Warhol such as the statue of the girl with the eggs. At one point someone is holding the statue and pouring liquid out of her head and you arent trying to hide the hand. Your film has a very handmade feel to it, certain edits arent completely smooth.
CG: The film cuts properly. There are not technically inappropriate cuts. I watched Stanley Kubricks first film, Fear and Desire, have you ever seen it?
DRE: I saw a really crap bootleg years ago.
CG: Thats the only way to see it because he tried to get it pulled from distribution. You can see that there are technical problems with the editing such as when someone is walking and then in the next shot they are standing still. There were ways, that if he wanted to, go back and re-edit it to make it more technically proficient. But he obviously just wanted to get rid of it and learn from it. Its really a great film to see for any filmmaker because Kubrick is one of the most technically proficient filmmakers ever, so to see him learning how to make film is fascinating.
As for seeing the hand pouring thats the kind of thing thats different than an editing mistake I would see in my film or Fear and Desire. I probably shouldnt go into detail for something like that because I dont like to dictate what things mean, but I will. I put meanings behind everything. You can also see the ropes that pull me down Deus ex Machina style and there are other things that are being manipulated by outside sources which harkens back to Greek tragedies. You dont know who is manipulating these things or how or why but there is a feeling in the movie that there are hierarchies and levels which are indicated by various levels.
DRE: Why did it take you so long to make this?
CG: My worst problem was that I had a negative at an optical house in New York for five years. I was originally going to do it photochemically and they gave me a low estimate but never did the job. I had paid them a certain amount of money and I was concerned about getting my negative away from them. Finally last year I finished the sound edit which I did slowly because I didnt have the negative. When I got the negative I brought it back to Los Angeles and put it through the digital intermediate and had it blown up to 35mm. I wont say the name of this optical house but I think they should be out of business.
DRE: Did you raise any money to get the budget of What is It?
CG: No I funded it myself. It was made as a short film and some people donated some film and very small amounts of cash. Once it became a feature film I funded the entire movie. I personally financed the whole thing, about $125,000 to $150,000 dollars. At the end when I did some rerecording I did pay a little bit to some of the actors. While shooting I wasnt able to pay anyone at all. Everyone was a volunteer. The only people I couldnt do that to were the ones that were doing the final sound. Even when I am making a film as inexpensively as I can and getting everyone to volunteer its still an extremely expensive process. If the film goes into profit I will definitely give money to all the people who volunteered.
DRE: Did you do studio movies in order to finish the film?
CG: Yes! But for most of the time I was making What is It? I wasnt making very much money. The last film that I did that was during the shooting of What is It? and that I made money on was The People vs. Larry Flynt. None of the recent films I have made had to do with the shooting of What is It? Its hard to say which money goes where but the entire amount of money I made from the first Charlies Angels film went into shooting the sequel to What is It? Then some money from other things went into the finishing of the film. Then monies I made from doing Willard and the second Charlies Angels film went into me buying property in the Czech Republic to shoot the third film. Its an old chteau that was built in the 1600s with horse stables next to it that I want to turn into a soundstage.
DRE: Would you take studio movies in order to specifically do the trilogy?
CG: One of Steve Stewarts lungs had collapsed and it became apparent that if we didnt do the film soon we may never do it. I already put him in the first film and he wrote the second film so I knew I had to do it. I knew if I shot the Charlies Angels film I could take the money directly from that and put it into Steve Stewarts film. It took about six months with three small productions to take the sets down and start anew.
DRE: Do you remember when you first saw someone with Down Syndrome?
CG: I went to a small private school called The Mirman School for Gifted Children, which I went to from first to ninth grade. It was an unusual upbringing and the further I get away from it the more I realize that it was an odd way to be brought up. We would go on field trips to play wheelchair basketball with people who had various disabilities. I dont know if I ever played but the whole school would go and intermingle. I could tell that the people had interesting personalities and even then I think I felt that these people could be interesting performers.
DRE: Youre a second generation actor, what does your family think of What is It?
CG: They havent seen the final version of it yet. The last version they saw was about seven years ago. When my mother first saw it she was not happy [laughs]. She thought it was bad that I was spending a lot of time on this film and not concentrating on acting. Since then I think shes seen that there is a lot of work being done and now its very different from what I first showed them. My father reacted well to it. He didnt have the same kind of immediate negative response that my mother had but you can see that its not a mother type of movie. I dont think its something that most people would want to go home and show to their mother.
DRE: A mother might think that she caused one to make the film [laughs].
CG: [laughs] Possibly so. But I think when my parents see the completed version they will be quite impressed.
DRE: Are you going to be showing the film in any museums?
CG: Im certainly not opposed to showing it in museums. Right now I have to be careful about showing it at festivals because you dont make money at festivals. I have money invested in the film and I need to recoup the money so I can continue to make the second film and hopefully shoot the third one.
DRE: I read that you dont want to release it on DVD and you have things set up to protect yourself against bootlegging.
CG: Absolutely. I like to publicize the extreme legal repercussions that would ensue if anyone even attempted any kind of piracy at all with this. A lot of companies are big enough to look the other way but I wouldnt be that way. Ive worked much too hard and I have too much money and time invested in it. Even if it was my biggest fan in the world and only got it because they love me so much, I would go to the fullest penalty of the law with them. I hope somebody isnt dumb enough to make that mistake because it would genuinely harm me and its a very easy thing to trace.
DRE: Have you met many people from the cult of people that worship you?
CG: Sometimes I meet some of the hardcore people. There was one girl at the signing who has done a website about me that I had seen. Im very appreciative of that and that kind of thing is very good for business. Im glad to meet those people and Im very encouraging of them to continue. I have no qualms about people saying good things about me. I dont think of myself as a sex symbol and I dont think I get called that. But I certainly know that there are women that are interested and thats good.
DRE: What kind of scripts gets sent to you?
CG: It really depends. My career has always been unpredictable as far as when things come. It seems like most peoples careers start out in something kind of small then they will do something bigger then if its successful they will stay in the mainstream. There has never been a particular way or reason things have come along. When Back to the Future came out there were only a certain type of films coming out like these Brat Pack movies and science fiction type stuff. There werent many dramas of content that were interesting. So I did turn down a lot of what was coming to me. I noticed that after being in successful A-list films by and large I usually dont get a lot more offers to do them. I will get a whole bunch of film offers in a row for no reason and then I will do those then there will be a period of independent films. Then I will have times where there is nothing for a year or more.
DRE: Are your books and the CD still relevant to who you are right now?
CG: I very much relate to myself at different ages. There are certain things which have advanced and become more intellectually defined. But my reactions to things have been pretty innate since I was quite young. My books in particular still are. Im proud of the CD but I only wrote the words to it and I didnt write the music. Even more the books are very much a part of my thought process. I would say the aesthetic behind my books and my film are very consistent.
DRE: All of your fans would love to believe that everything you do is one part of a great big whole.
CG: The elements of letting audiences think for themselves has been consistent. This film has that, the record has that and I think all of my books do as well. I even think my first appearance on David Letterman has that. I would put my appearance on David Letterman in the category with books and my film.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
I got a chance to talk with Glover in person and found him to be amazingly articulate and very friendly.
Check out the official site for What is It?
Crispin Glover: First off Ive been using the phrase counterculturalism and I want to clarify the meaning of that. I have meant that countercultural sits in the realm of conceptual thought which is beyond good and evil. In the title of the book by Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond God and Evil, it becomes apparent that good and evil are constructs that have been utilized by society in order to keep restraints. What is considered good for the culture can be called "good", and what is considered "bad" for the culture can be called "evil." Yet, what one culture considers "good" another culture may consider "evil" and vice versa. Conceptual thought sits outside the realm of the Judeo-Christian element of moral constraint of "good" and "evil." Anything that sits in the realm that is beyond good and evil used within media can make an audience uncomfortable and it will necessarily be removed by committee style film making that is inevitable in work created by corporations.
Daniel Robert Epstein: As a director how do you get a snail or any actor to come out of their shell?
CG: I dont feel great about killing the snails in the movie. This film started out as a short film that was going to promote a screenplay I had co-written where the roles in it had been written for actors with Down Syndrome. There was a corporation that funds movies that I went to and they were interested in it. I talked to them for a long time and they were concerned about using actors with Down Syndrome for a majority of the roles. I started out to make this film to promote that this was a viable idea. As I was editing the film together it came in at 84 something minutes which is longer than this film is now. It was too long for what it original was. I could tell that with a bit more work I could turn it into a feature. I ended up putting myself in the film and I put Steve Stewart into the film as the man with cerebral palsy who chokes me at the end. Steve Stewart wrote the screenplay to what is now the sequel to this, which I have already shot. Steve on some level had been imprisoned in a nursing home for a number of years because since he had a severe case of cerebral palsy he was very difficult to understand. They would call him a retard which he wasnt, he was of normal intelligence. The reason there is the graphic sexuality is because it is a fantastical psychosexual retelling of his point of view of his life at that point. There is something fascinating about the nave way he tells the story. People call it folk art or outsider art but he is definitely expressing himself in an interesting fashion.
Once I turned the film into a feature film I realized what the corporation was reacting to. It wasnt so much just having people with Down Syndrome in it, but the concept. When I look at the face of a person who has Down Syndrome there is a history in that persons face of someone who has really lived outside the culture their entire lives. When there is an entire film cast with people who have lived outside the culture it automatically gives the feeling of an outside of culture movie. I feel that the corporation was reacting to something counterculturally on some level. They didnt want to promote counterculturalism. I started to think about it and there is no countercultural movement that corporations are able to point to and say This is who we will be able to sell this movie to. There have been points in time when corporations have been able to do that. I would say that 99.9 percent of everything that is made is basically coming from a procultural film state. Its because films are very expensive to make. There are other artforms that arent as expensive so you can have interesting points of view. I would argue that counterculturalism is good because when you only have proculturalism its very bad. You need to have dissent and discussion. Because it is so expensive to make films everything needs to be made by committees which ultimately will say They wouldnt want to say that. It seems like a relatively benign thing. But at a certain time when everything is made by a committee everything becomes an insincere statement which is very much whats happening.
When I was casting, every single person that I met with that had Down Syndrome was extremely enthusiastic and wanted to be in the movie. The guardians are the ones I really had to deal with. Basically almost all people with Down Syndrome have guardians. Ive had press write that I had kids with Down Syndrome in the movie. There are no children in the movie, they are all adults. It is a pro-cultural consensus that people with Down Syndrome are thought of as children on some level. They are not children; well they are when they are children. Many of the guardians were concerned with the violence and sexuality but those that were enthusiastic about it stayed enthusiastic and their charges ended up in this film. They were all excellent to work with and I was very careful working with them. I wanted to put people with Down Syndrome kissing in the film because I hadnt really seen it before. When I edited it together I showed it to the guardians because I knew there could be issues over that. The sister of the woman was her guardian and the parents of the man were his guardians. The sister was more concerned so there were some things I did do to adjust and it worked out well. The sister felt it ended up being beautiful. Its not the standard idea of what is beautiful but there is definitely a beauty to it. I shot the whole film in 12 days over two and half years. None of the problems I encountered had anything to do with the fact that my actors had Down Syndrome and everything to do with technical difficulties which I had a lot of.
DRE: It was my understanding that Shirley Temple is god in the film. If Im right, why is she god?
CG: One of the things I dont like about many films that are part of the pro-cultural film state is that there is a dictatorial of what people are supposed to be thinking. It bothers me. I will go and watch a film and see that sometimes they thought something through a little bit but its very evident that they dont want you to think about it much. Maybe the audience will think about it a little bit. I think thats because most films dont let people think for themselves at all. I dont like to dictate what the meanings behind something are. I do like to say that this film is reacting to the culture Ive grown up in. My father is an actor and I started out acting professionally when I was 14. From the time I turned 18 and even before that I always wanted to be part of the countercultural film movement but I realized, especially while I was making this film, the entire time that I have been acting there has not been a countercultural film movement to be a part of. I had to make my career of trying to find interesting things within a procultural film state. Its been very frustrating and I felt a certain amount of aggression and dissatisfaction from the people Ive worked with when I try to find things that are interesting. This film is very much a reaction to that. I do have very specific ideas of what each thing means but I would rather have people interpret it for themselves. When I meet with people one on one I ask them what it meant to them and sometimes people will think exactly what I am thinking and sometimes it is a little different or very different.
DRE: Was there any improvisation in the film?
CG: Everything was scripted except for certain parts that were improvised. Sometimes the actors would come up with things that were much better than what was scripted. There is the one fellow that says, Dont interfere with my mind. I think the original line was, dont interfere with my mission. A lot of the things in the film may seem constructed from the beginning but it really isnt so. The reason the Michael Jackson thing is in the film is because Rikky Wittman, an actor with Down Syndrome, did a Beat it vogueing thing. He was kind of a jokester and just doing those moves on set so I had him do it on camera. The things that had to do with the minstrel character with Michael Jackson came in much later.
The scene with the two women with Down Syndrome sitting on either side of me was something that happened during the filming of the short. The girl on the left of me was named Kelly Swiderski and the woman on the right was named Robin Adams. They were having something of a feud. I came out on the set and Robin was crying so I had to ask her what was going on. She told me that Kelly had told her that she wouldnt have me as her boyfriend because Kelly was going out with me. I wanted to utilize that within the film.
Another thing with the element of the people with Down Syndrome is that when I first went and spoke with the guardians I always made it clear that the film isnt about Down Syndrome.
DRE: What made you decide to use the song Some Niggers Never Die by Johnny Rebel which many would consider bigoted and racist?
CG: First I think its important to differentiate the use of two words, one is bigotry and the other is racism. There is something in this culture that is peculiar. Bigotry means to hate somebody for how they were born with no concept of what their mindset is. Racism means to classify by race which is a very different than hating someone for their race. On some level just to classify by race, such as homo sapien is racist. So racism shouldnt be considered a bad thing. Bigotry can be considered a bad thing. But in terms of Johnny Rebel and the use of that song in particular, this was a movie where I didnt want to say Well we wouldnt want to say that. With how bigotry is dealt with in procultural film is that it ends up feeling insincere because it dictates what you are and are not able to say. I think there have been some very good films about bigotry like Rainer Werner Fassbinders Ali: Fear Eats the Soul where the older woman falls in love with the Arabic man is just a great film about bigotry. You like those people, feel bad for them and you really feel the hate of the people that surround them. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Luis Buuel, Werner Herzog and Stanley Kubrick I would consistently say are my four favorite filmmakers because they tend to be very thoughtful with their storylines and points. Again I wanted to work in areas with counterculturalism which go beyond good and evil. There is a self censorship that goes on which is bad for the culture. Its better to put things out and let there be a discussion like this. Then people are able to comment on it with their own point of view. Film is very expensive but I am in a relatively privileged position where I am able to travel around the country and advertise to get people into the film. Most first time filmmakers cant do that so I do question how easy its going to be to have genuine counterculturalism.
DRE: Would you consider this to be an experimental film?
CG: I think of my film as a narrative drama but I understand why there are people who would watch the film, who are used to watching films from the procultural film state, and would consider it experimental. But What is It? has a stronger narrative than many films that are considered mainstream films.
DRE: Very few filmmakers that work on the films youve made, even some of the more out there ones, dont want to label themselves countercultural because people may call them hypocrites because they made them under the auspices of a Hollywood movie studio.
CG: Yes its something I have a very clear definition on. For this film there is no one that corporations are able to point and say, that is who we are trying to sell the film too. Ive never been against corporations or corporate filmmaking if they are making something interesting. There have been times and places when there have been countercultural movements that corporations are able to point to and sell the film. 2001 [A Space Odyssey] is a very interesting and intelligent film that was made by MGM. I wouldnt have made my film if there wasnt an audience for it.
DRE: I thought your film was not dissimilar to certain films from the 1960s except in your case it was made by someone who starred in a movie produced by Steven Spielberg.
CG: I dont feel like I am doing anything particularly new in terms of the style of expression. But I do think that what I am expressing right now is that not many people that have corporate distribution are reacting to the same things in the culture that I am reacting to. I think there have been some people that have done that but its very small and far away in film. There are other artforms that are less expensive where people can have more individualized thought process. Particularly in painting there is interesting things being done. I dont feel that way about music. I feel that any music that has stanzas or refrains is procultural because it comes from a proletariat working class history that started at least from the serfs in the Middle Ages when they would sing in that fashion. It represents a middle class point of view and it makes people feel emotionally feel good about being a working class person. I feel that rock music is all procultural and people tend to get really mad about it.
DRE: There is always someone trying to sell you something with rock music on the radio.
CG: Thats something I dont agree with. Commercialism is not necessarily procultural. I think commercialism is a very healthy thing. There are examples of people like Stanley Kubrick who are extremely commercially successful but yet have absolutely intelligent matter in their films. This concept of something being commercial automatically makes it procultural is something I dont agree with. What does make something countercultural is when it literally counters what is considered good, right or supportive of the culture.
The ruling class music was a nonlingual educated point of view which is now called classical or post-Beethoven romantic era music. That music has gone away because the middle class overthrew the ruling class. When this culture is listening to rock music it is listening to the anthem that is proculturalism. Even though there are these subcategories of stanza and refrain music like rap, alternative or whatever words they use to categorize, they really are all ultimately harkening back to the working class anthems.
DRE: So your idea of what counterculturalism is not against the idea of people selling things?
CG: No, because selling is fine. There is nothing wrong with selling ideas. If one wants to counter the idea of sales and capitalism then one has to look at the various models of monetary political systems. Communism versus capitalism versus fascism versus monarchy versus anarchy versus the surrealist movement. Apparently the surrealist movement was originally a political movement. I dont have a problem with capitalism necessarily. Its very easy for this culture to point out the corruption of communism and fascism but its difficult for it to point out the corruption of itself. But that corruption does exist and it is in the element of corporate entities taking the element of individualized thinking away. Thats really where bad corruption comes into play in all of these areas. Its the most evident in film because its an expensive artform and they need to be able to feel confident in salesmanship. They need a group they can point to and sell it so since there isnt a countercultural movement that they can point to, they wont bother. If anything makes anyone feel uncomfortable at all, which good art can do, they wont support it. Now thats being taken out of stories in the media because it's considered something that could drive audiences or sponsorship away. Now all films and media are being approved by committees, which is an absolute corruption.
DRE: Your movie doesnt have a lot of references to anything in it. If you look at this room were in, there is music playing, there is lamp that was specifically designed to fit into this room and many others. Your movie doesnt reference other films.
CG: I dont know if I agree. The music playing in this room does reference that working class element. I like design and I like when something is well manufactured and well designed. I believe my film does reference things.
DRE: Yes but it references the things youve been talking about which puts it into this whole other realm and its populated by people we dont see everywhere. It makes it feel like another dimension and also like a clean feeling. Like Im seeing something very fresh. Is that how you saw the film?
CG: I do like the idea of the universe of the film being its own removed world. People ask me why I wanted to work with people with Down Syndrome and there are several reasons. One of them has to do with looking at the face of someone with Down Syndrome. When I do that there is a history there of someone who has lived outside of culture their entire life. When a film is almost entirely populated by people who have been removed from the culture, it makes the film automatically have another cultures point of view or countercultural. The other reason I worked with people with Down Syndrome is that they dont have this social masking that most people have. When you go to acting class you are taught things that will help you remove those sorts of things.
DRE: Is it about being real?
CG: It can be. People with Down Syndrome think about different things than what most actors think about.
DRE: You can really see that in them. It doesnt feel like you are watching regular actors.
CG: Yes and thats something I appreciate very much.
DRE: I asked you last night at the book signing if you were totally satisfied with the film and you said it was a very organic process. Just as an example Ill pick a movie like Martin Scorseses The Aviator, its such an expensive film and its made by someone with a clear vision. Since it is Scorsese, I would imagine his vision doesnt change much from the beginning to the end of the film.
CG: Hitchcock said something to the effect, Ive already made the movie in my head and now were just putting it through the machine. I respect Alfred Hitchcock and I think hes made some really beautiful films. But I feel like that was a self promotional thing to make him sound like this super intelligent filmmaker but I dont believe that is possible. Just in the nature of editing things, they have to fall together in certain ways.
DRE: Since you said your film was organic, you started with the way you thought it would be and it became something different at the end. Thats not a bad thing, was the film still as personal once it got to its final form?
CG: Yes and Im satisfied with the outcome. I wouldnt have completed it if I was dissatisfied. That isnt the only reason it took so long to be finished. It was mostly technical problems. The worst of them was mainly the optical house in New York City that had my negative for five years.
DRE: Was it shot entirely on film?
CG: Yes it was shot entirely on 16mm then blown up to 35mm through a digital intermediate.
DRE: There are certain things that reminded me of Andy Warhol such as the statue of the girl with the eggs. At one point someone is holding the statue and pouring liquid out of her head and you arent trying to hide the hand. Your film has a very handmade feel to it, certain edits arent completely smooth.
CG: The film cuts properly. There are not technically inappropriate cuts. I watched Stanley Kubricks first film, Fear and Desire, have you ever seen it?
DRE: I saw a really crap bootleg years ago.
CG: Thats the only way to see it because he tried to get it pulled from distribution. You can see that there are technical problems with the editing such as when someone is walking and then in the next shot they are standing still. There were ways, that if he wanted to, go back and re-edit it to make it more technically proficient. But he obviously just wanted to get rid of it and learn from it. Its really a great film to see for any filmmaker because Kubrick is one of the most technically proficient filmmakers ever, so to see him learning how to make film is fascinating.
As for seeing the hand pouring thats the kind of thing thats different than an editing mistake I would see in my film or Fear and Desire. I probably shouldnt go into detail for something like that because I dont like to dictate what things mean, but I will. I put meanings behind everything. You can also see the ropes that pull me down Deus ex Machina style and there are other things that are being manipulated by outside sources which harkens back to Greek tragedies. You dont know who is manipulating these things or how or why but there is a feeling in the movie that there are hierarchies and levels which are indicated by various levels.
DRE: Why did it take you so long to make this?
CG: My worst problem was that I had a negative at an optical house in New York for five years. I was originally going to do it photochemically and they gave me a low estimate but never did the job. I had paid them a certain amount of money and I was concerned about getting my negative away from them. Finally last year I finished the sound edit which I did slowly because I didnt have the negative. When I got the negative I brought it back to Los Angeles and put it through the digital intermediate and had it blown up to 35mm. I wont say the name of this optical house but I think they should be out of business.
DRE: Did you raise any money to get the budget of What is It?
CG: No I funded it myself. It was made as a short film and some people donated some film and very small amounts of cash. Once it became a feature film I funded the entire movie. I personally financed the whole thing, about $125,000 to $150,000 dollars. At the end when I did some rerecording I did pay a little bit to some of the actors. While shooting I wasnt able to pay anyone at all. Everyone was a volunteer. The only people I couldnt do that to were the ones that were doing the final sound. Even when I am making a film as inexpensively as I can and getting everyone to volunteer its still an extremely expensive process. If the film goes into profit I will definitely give money to all the people who volunteered.
DRE: Did you do studio movies in order to finish the film?
CG: Yes! But for most of the time I was making What is It? I wasnt making very much money. The last film that I did that was during the shooting of What is It? and that I made money on was The People vs. Larry Flynt. None of the recent films I have made had to do with the shooting of What is It? Its hard to say which money goes where but the entire amount of money I made from the first Charlies Angels film went into shooting the sequel to What is It? Then some money from other things went into the finishing of the film. Then monies I made from doing Willard and the second Charlies Angels film went into me buying property in the Czech Republic to shoot the third film. Its an old chteau that was built in the 1600s with horse stables next to it that I want to turn into a soundstage.
DRE: Would you take studio movies in order to specifically do the trilogy?
CG: One of Steve Stewarts lungs had collapsed and it became apparent that if we didnt do the film soon we may never do it. I already put him in the first film and he wrote the second film so I knew I had to do it. I knew if I shot the Charlies Angels film I could take the money directly from that and put it into Steve Stewarts film. It took about six months with three small productions to take the sets down and start anew.
DRE: Do you remember when you first saw someone with Down Syndrome?
CG: I went to a small private school called The Mirman School for Gifted Children, which I went to from first to ninth grade. It was an unusual upbringing and the further I get away from it the more I realize that it was an odd way to be brought up. We would go on field trips to play wheelchair basketball with people who had various disabilities. I dont know if I ever played but the whole school would go and intermingle. I could tell that the people had interesting personalities and even then I think I felt that these people could be interesting performers.
DRE: Youre a second generation actor, what does your family think of What is It?
CG: They havent seen the final version of it yet. The last version they saw was about seven years ago. When my mother first saw it she was not happy [laughs]. She thought it was bad that I was spending a lot of time on this film and not concentrating on acting. Since then I think shes seen that there is a lot of work being done and now its very different from what I first showed them. My father reacted well to it. He didnt have the same kind of immediate negative response that my mother had but you can see that its not a mother type of movie. I dont think its something that most people would want to go home and show to their mother.
DRE: A mother might think that she caused one to make the film [laughs].
CG: [laughs] Possibly so. But I think when my parents see the completed version they will be quite impressed.
DRE: Are you going to be showing the film in any museums?
CG: Im certainly not opposed to showing it in museums. Right now I have to be careful about showing it at festivals because you dont make money at festivals. I have money invested in the film and I need to recoup the money so I can continue to make the second film and hopefully shoot the third one.
DRE: I read that you dont want to release it on DVD and you have things set up to protect yourself against bootlegging.
CG: Absolutely. I like to publicize the extreme legal repercussions that would ensue if anyone even attempted any kind of piracy at all with this. A lot of companies are big enough to look the other way but I wouldnt be that way. Ive worked much too hard and I have too much money and time invested in it. Even if it was my biggest fan in the world and only got it because they love me so much, I would go to the fullest penalty of the law with them. I hope somebody isnt dumb enough to make that mistake because it would genuinely harm me and its a very easy thing to trace.
DRE: Have you met many people from the cult of people that worship you?
CG: Sometimes I meet some of the hardcore people. There was one girl at the signing who has done a website about me that I had seen. Im very appreciative of that and that kind of thing is very good for business. Im glad to meet those people and Im very encouraging of them to continue. I have no qualms about people saying good things about me. I dont think of myself as a sex symbol and I dont think I get called that. But I certainly know that there are women that are interested and thats good.
DRE: What kind of scripts gets sent to you?
CG: It really depends. My career has always been unpredictable as far as when things come. It seems like most peoples careers start out in something kind of small then they will do something bigger then if its successful they will stay in the mainstream. There has never been a particular way or reason things have come along. When Back to the Future came out there were only a certain type of films coming out like these Brat Pack movies and science fiction type stuff. There werent many dramas of content that were interesting. So I did turn down a lot of what was coming to me. I noticed that after being in successful A-list films by and large I usually dont get a lot more offers to do them. I will get a whole bunch of film offers in a row for no reason and then I will do those then there will be a period of independent films. Then I will have times where there is nothing for a year or more.
DRE: Are your books and the CD still relevant to who you are right now?
CG: I very much relate to myself at different ages. There are certain things which have advanced and become more intellectually defined. But my reactions to things have been pretty innate since I was quite young. My books in particular still are. Im proud of the CD but I only wrote the words to it and I didnt write the music. Even more the books are very much a part of my thought process. I would say the aesthetic behind my books and my film are very consistent.
DRE: All of your fans would love to believe that everything you do is one part of a great big whole.
CG: The elements of letting audiences think for themselves has been consistent. This film has that, the record has that and I think all of my books do as well. I even think my first appearance on David Letterman has that. I would put my appearance on David Letterman in the category with books and my film.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
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