Episode 625 - Harmony Korine
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucksters?
Marc:What the fuck sticks?
Marc:How is it out there in the world?
Marc:I can see a small slice of it.
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Welcome to the show.
Marc:Today on the show, I talked to Harmony Kareen.
Marc:the film director in New York City, and the 20th anniversary of Kids was happening, and that's why he was in town.
Marc:Usually he lives in Nashville, and I was able to sort of, you know, cajole him.
Marc:It didn't take much.
Marc:But as some of you remember, I did a live WTF in Austin at South by Southwest and Harmony Kareem was on it and James Franco was on it.
Marc:The two of them were there doing a promo tour and a screening of Spring Breakers, which is a movie that I like.
Marc:And it was not an easy interview with the two of them out there.
Marc:And I remember thinking that backstage, this Harmony guy, he's pretty funny.
Marc:I like him.
Marc:He's got good energy, fun to talk to.
Marc:And then the two of them get out there and it was a fucking nightmare.
Marc:It was entertaining.
Marc:And I don't regret it at all, but it was difficult.
Marc:And as some of you remember, right out of the gate, I started talking to Harmony in a very anxious and desperate way to connect with him and my respect for his art.
Marc:And I believe I spit on his face.
Marc:Not like spit, but some spit came out of my mouth when I was desperately trying to connect around his art.
Marc:I am in Fort Worth, Texas at the Podcast Movement 2015.
Marc:It's a weekend or a several-day event at a hotel.
Marc:This one happens to be in Fort Worth, Texas.
Marc:And there's speakers and seminars and I guess almost classes about podcasting, about the business, about execution, about how to do it.
Marc:I got here yesterday, went out to dinner with some folks, and then I went to this party and I met a lot of the podcasters or possible podcasters who are here to figure out how to do it and where to put it and how to get it bigger and all that stuff.
Marc:Hold on, I'm taking a sip of coffee that I made here in the room.
Marc:They had one of those double-header, single-serving coffee makers.
Marc:Not the fancy kind where you lock it down and it pops a hole in the thing and puts water through it, but the kind with the little disc, sort of circular coffee packets, and there's usually two possibilities on the top.
Marc:There's a plastic shelf that you put one or two for one or two cups.
Marc:But what I did, listen to what I did because I like my coffee strong, is I put two in there and then I just filled it up with enough water for one cup.
Marc:And then I took the two halves of cups of coffee and made them one cup of strong coffee.
Marc:I know how to fucking do this road thing, man.
Marc:God damn it, I've got it figured out up here on the 15th floor of the Omni Hotel in Fort Worth, Texas, looking over.
Marc:I don't know what.
Marc:A cloverleaf on the highway.
Marc:A couple of seemingly old buildings with at least 50 garage outlets on the bottom that's stored.
Marc:I don't know what the history is here.
Marc:The remnants of buildings that once were.
Marc:The possibilities of the buildings that will soon be.
Marc:Lots with cranes and tractors in them.
Marc:And then just beneath me, 15 floors down, an old church.
Marc:An old church.
Marc:It's like you look out, man.
Marc:You look out and it's Sunday morning, so it's relatively quiet.
Marc:Yet there are five, six cop cars on the highway over there with their lights on up to something.
Marc:I don't know what.
Marc:There's a car just driving.
Marc:It's the only car on this one road.
Marc:It's just driving.
Marc:There's a guy in there.
Marc:He's probably listening to music.
Marc:He might be having a cigarette.
Marc:Maybe he's old school.
Marc:Might be a Chesterfield if you can still find them.
Marc:He's got a life.
Marc:He's got things on his mind.
Marc:He might be up to no good.
Marc:I don't know, but there's a whole life in that car.
Marc:And all I see is the car.
Marc:When you really think of the multitudes of possibilities of what people are up to on any given second, there's a guy walking across the street.
Marc:Where's he going?
Marc:Why is it insidious?
Marc:Why does it seem more loaded?
Marc:He's the only fucking guy out there and it does not look like a walking environment.
Marc:Well, thank God.
Marc:Thank God for podcast, Periscope, Twitter, Facebook.
Marc:Every one of these people in this great glorious world have an outlet to maybe share their journey.
Marc:Yeah, I'm in my car.
Marc:I'm smoking in Chesterfield.
Marc:They're harder to find now, but I'm committed to them.
Marc:I like Chesterfields.
Marc:My grandfather smoked Chesterfields.
Marc:And when I was a little kid, I saw his cigarettes.
Marc:And I knew they were wrong.
Marc:But he always looked so great when he smoked them.
Marc:So that's what I smoke.
Marc:And I'm listening to my Merle Haggard CD right now.
Marc:Because I had a little trouble at home.
Marc:A little trouble at home.
Marc:And I couldn't go home last night.
Marc:So I've been driving around this empty downtown area for three hours.
Marc:Had some pie.
Marc:Talked to Fran over at the place.
Marc:She listens to me.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Maybe I should be with Fran.
Marc:I gotta quit smoking.
Marc:I gotta quit smoking.
Marc:See, maybe that's going on.
Marc:Maybe that guy's podcasting in his car.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Could?
Marc:He could do it.
Marc:He could do it.
Marc:Me and Brendan McDonald, who you all got to know a little better on the episode after the president, my producer and business partner.
Marc:We were in New York.
Marc:I was in New York.
Marc:I did an episode of Charlie Rose, which I believe went well.
Marc:It was interesting waiting to go on Charlie Rose because I'm in the Bloomberg building, which has an amazing snack area.
Marc:An amazing, like it looks like you have to pay for it.
Marc:Like there's just little areas, you know, like for cereal and granola bars and then there's a juice area and a coffee area and there's some salads, a little sort of buffet type of area just right in the middle of the Bloomberg building.
Marc:Huge.
Marc:And it was a hard thing for me because I wasn't really that hungry and I was running a little late and I didn't make the time to sort of hoard snacks.
Marc:Who doesn't like hoarding free snacks?
Marc:But it was pretty impressive in terms of an office kitchen.
Marc:I think they win there.
Marc:There's another guy walking.
Marc:There's no one out.
Marc:It's okay.
Marc:I'm not going to worry about him.
Marc:I'm not going to worry about him.
Marc:So, yeah, so I waited.
Marc:I was waiting to go on Charlie Rose, and John Sununu was on, and literally there was no break in between us.
Marc:It's just that black studio, just two chairs.
Marc:They see Sununu rap, and the producer brings me there, and I wait until Sununu and Charlie have some parting words, and I sit right down right after Sununu, and I just watch Charlie look and study his cue cards about me.
Marc:And then he looks up and we start and he mispronounces my name right out of the gate.
Marc:Mark Moran is a podcast.
Marc:I'm like, Marin, Marin, I just had it.
Marc:Felt bad.
Marc:Got to correct though.
Marc:Got to correct.
Marc:So we're going to have to go back and do the whole thing or I'm going to have to live with that.
Marc:So that initially as an interviewer to interview, as Charlie's an interviewer, I am an interviewer.
Marc:I was like, all right, so how much does he really know about me?
Marc:And what did he just load his head up with?
Marc:Good question.
Marc:Didn't ask him that.
Marc:It went pretty well.
Marc:And I think it was good and it was nice to meet Charlie.
Marc:You know, I'd like to interview Charlie perhaps in the future.
Marc:So then later that night, Brendan and myself go see a play.
Marc:We go to the theater.
Marc:We see The Flick by Annie Baker.
Marc:And it is a Pulitzer Prize winning play.
Marc:The entire play takes place in a theater in
Marc:In Massachusetts, outside of Worcester, three primary characters who work at this theater that runs 35 millimeter prints of movies.
Marc:There's just two guys and a woman who are employees at this theater that it turns out is being sold.
Marc:But they just talk like people who work that kind of job.
Marc:For most people, it's a job in passing.
Marc:It's a job that you sort of do for a while while you're in between things.
Marc:or thinking about doing something else but one of the guys has been there longer too long really and the woman uh has has been there a while and doesn't not sure what where her life is going to go and then the other kid took a semester off college or something but but the point being is that it's one of those shows where you watch it and it's a few hours long but the dialogue is sort of not sparse but limited to the type of things that
Marc:people talk about when they're working a mundane job with some other people.
Marc:And the pacing of it is very, it's very interesting.
Marc:The space in between things being said and cleaning the theater are long.
Marc:And you have to sit there in silence with these characters doing these tasks, trying to make conversation.
Marc:And you walk out thinking like, what was that about?
Marc:That one at Pulitzer Prize, it demands understanding.
Marc:And me and Brendan talked for like an hour about it, trying to find that understanding and what we felt about it and what that reflection was and what it said about us and culture and what the play was about.
Marc:And it was that kind of walking through the streets of New York doing that.
Marc:And realizing that, you know, that's one of the amazing things about New York.
Marc:That's one of the amazing things about a city.
Marc:And there's not that many that have a vibrant cultural scene where you go see theater, you get a slice of pizza, and then you fucking talk about the play for a couple hours.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:It sparked my brain.
Marc:Running in all directions, as you can hear.
Marc:I think hopefully we're going to have Annie Baker on the show.
Marc:Harmony Corrine.
Marc:This took place at the Bowery Hotel a little bit ago.
Marc:So there's a theme here.
Marc:I'm in a Fort Worth hotel, but my conversation with Harmony was at the Bowery Hotel in New York City.
Guest:If you go to Cuba, you really see.
Marc:Have you gone there?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I never went there.
Marc:It seemed like it was too much trouble.
Marc:I think it's going to be easier soon.
Guest:It is like one of the most amazing places.
Guest:It really is like one of my like it is one of the most incredible places I've ever seen.
Marc:It's very frozen in time.
Guest:yeah but it's like psychedelic it's not really like a uh it's not like one specific time right right so it's you know it's like you'll see like people playing uh chess on like p on pizza boxes right with like snails as their um pieces yeah pieces it's like really like two or three in the morning you'll see like like little kids running around in the streets with hammers and like there's no you know there's like no bedtime and uh
Marc:Those are the toys?
Marc:Hammers?
Guest:Yeah, hammers and like a big toy there.
Guest:It's actually one of those places where everything looks so good that it's difficult to... I don't know, sometimes when you're making movies or something, it's easy to figure out where you want to put the camera or where you want to...
Guest:uh how you want to photograph something because it's like most of in america it's mostly like 99 percent is like looks bad and then maybe there's like a small percent of something that looks good so you know what i mean like there's not it's not or just but there it's like everything looks good so you never know where it's a very difficult thing to try to figure out like you know you're like well i could go in this direction or i could go in that direction did you shoot down there um yeah you know i was doing some stuff yeah it has not been seen yet
Guest:yeah there's this film it's called the blood of havana you could probably that i've it's a it was just like kind of like a little like kind of almost like more like an artwork yeah that uh you could probably find somewhere now when you do something like that did you go down there with the intention of doing that or did you just bring a camera and say yeah fuck i gotta do this
Guest:It's all, like, the same.
Guest:I have, like, my intentions are, like, a lot of times just stored in the back of my mind or I'm just, like, I kind of go.
Guest:If there's something like that, it's more, like, in case it happens, I'll be, like, ready for it or I'll, like, kind of.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because sometimes, like, I don't really even know what I'm, like, looking for.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like, I have to just, like, I have this idea.
Guest:Maybe it'll be like this and then it is and then I just act on it.
Guest:and what was the uh since i haven't seen it it's a short how long is it oh yeah that's uh i don't know it's like probably a couple minutes long it's pretty it's really fast it's really it's like a lot of prosthetics evolved and yeah yeah it's trippy like what like prosthetic limbs or prosthetic oh no faces and like you know the kind of thing like bank robbers would wear oh yeah you know if you're gonna rob a bank you probably want to look like an old guy old man yeah sure scary old man yeah that's what it looked like yeah
Marc:And when you do something like that as an art piece, because you kind of frame it that way...
Marc:Do you shoot it and you just sort of like, all right, it's done, done, we got the footage, and you cut it up, and you just, you release it into the world as a... Sometimes.
Guest:I swear there's certain things that I've done that I've never shown before, like that haven't ever been, that I've just done that I've made, not even saying I've made for myself, but there are things that I've done that I just, the time didn't feel right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I did this one, I have this one project that's still not finished.
Guest:It's with my friend Chris Cunningham, the...
Guest:video director and like we're living in london it's about 10 years ago and we made this film was called um mitch poppins yeah and it's about a guy who has like a like a super severe tourette's case of tourette's who gets off of it gets out of an airplane
Guest:uh and it's trying to search for madame tussards in london uh-huh and it's his tourette's is like a break dance move kind of like it's like this crazy like popping yeah move and we filmed it with like uh we spent like it's and he gets glossed up in the gay scene and starts like doing poppers and stuff in like alleyways yeah but it almost becomes like this musical but the time didn't seem right and i feel like the time seems more right now so yeah it's gonna happen yeah
Guest:Yeah, it's not like a feature film.
Guest:It's more probably like 20 minutes long.
Guest:But the Tourette's is more like a dance movement.
Guest:And it's assigned to kind of musical... Like each tick, like the eye twitch has a different musical sound.
Guest:Or like a saw.
Marc:Were you afraid of offending people?
Guest:No, I was actually ready to do it.
Guest:I think Chris was more like, we should wait a little while.
Marc:It's too hot right now with Tourette's.
Guest:Tourette's is sensitive.
Marc:It is kind of weird to be in a position where that line you ride from making fun of somebody with a real problem and comedy or whatever.
Marc:It's tricky.
Marc:But you've done stuff like that before.
Marc:But I think if the character is deep enough and it's not actually mocking the disease, I mean, you should be able to do whatever the fuck you want.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, this was, I don't even know.
Guest:It was like something else.
Guest:It wasn't even Tourette's.
Guest:It was like a musical version of it.
Guest:The weird thing is, it was like doing that thing, the Tourette's thing on the train once, some guy came up.
Guest:It was all hidden cameras and different people following with cameras in their books and stuff.
Guest:And there was some guy on the tube in London who came up and he was like, I'm the leading Tourette's doctor.
Guest:He's like, I know exactly what you have.
Guest:And he started telling me the medications to use.
Guest:You were doing a prank?
Guest:Yeah, but I was doing these extreme movements.
Guest:And he was like, I wrote the books on it.
Guest:And he sat me down and for like 15 minutes was like... Did you get that on film?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's like...
Guest:In there, I would assume it'll be in there.
Guest:It's not edited yet.
Guest:Did you get a release from that guy?
Guest:I don't know about any of that.
Guest:You just forge all those.
Marc:Right, just do it and see if anything comes back.
Marc:He shouldn't be mad if he's giving good advice.
Marc:He's representing himself well.
Marc:He was concerned.
Marc:You just deal with it.
Marc:Have you ever had any flack like that where people get pissed off?
Marc:Background players that didn't know they were background players?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Well, you usually... You mean just like if I ever had... Shot a guy and he didn't want to be shot?
Guest:no well usually it's like they're it depends like if it's like a film it's like so they have people that really just scour for faces and i remember when we did gummo that was a big issue because i was shooting we were shooting the way it was being shot was like it was pretty inclusive and like having people from all neighborhoods and people i would just pull people out of houses and we would go in to walk into houses and shoot and
Guest:and that that part was difficult what was all that shot in nashville right and that part was like difficult trying to uh because i was like i didn't really even understand the whole idea of releases right and and all that stuff and so you had to have people that would you know go back after the film was made and had to go back and find those guys and uh that's that's like a crazy thing to do
Marc:I don't I'm weird about releases too it feels like an intrusion but I guess it's necessary it's best if you have somebody just go deal with it yeah you have to I mean when I was doing I was really messed up and I was doing these videos where I was getting beaten up all the time on the streets yeah and uh what was that about why were you doing that
Marc:It was like... How long ago was that?
Guest:That was probably... That was a while.
Guest:It was probably like, see, almost 20 years ago.
Guest:You're 40 now?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was like about 20... It was like 90... It was like 97.
Guest:So yeah, it was about like... It was almost 20 years ago.
Marc:Because I kind of remember that.
Marc:What was driving you to do that?
Guest:Well, I really just wanted... It was this film I wanted to do.
Guest:It was called Fight Harm.
Guest:And I really just wanted to make this movie where I thought I was a big Buster Keaton fan.
Guest:And Abbott and Costello.
Guest:I loved Slapstick.
Guest:And I really wanted what I thought was at that time, maybe in a misguided way, but I just wanted to make a perfect comedy.
Guest:And I thought it was just like...
Guest:the distillation of like it's like pure violence a repetition of violence would would become like some would take on some type of like uh epic humor you know like guy slips on a banana peel and slaps it and hits himself in the head right but it's like really funny but it's like pure violence right and so like i wanted to in my mind take it to like an extreme and and just make a film and i i really wanted to like be like a big movie and
Guest:so like i was they're almost like a provocation it was like i i set out i made these rules and i was just like i would just have a camera cruise follow me i would i wanted to get in a fight with like every demographic do you know what i mean like i wanted to get from a child to no not a kids but like you had to be over 18 but like i wanted it to be more like where you would fight like you know you'd fight like a lesbian right today or and you would get like or and then you're like an arab dude the next day like i wanted it to be like so you're provoking people
Guest:provoking people it wasn't about like being tough or anything it wasn't even about me fighting them it was more about like the idea that like i wanted to make a film where it was like i basically the only rule was like i had to do whatever it took to make someone punch me right like whatever and then uh and then it was on kind of like that and and i would never like make a like i would never go for it first never fight back no but you know you'd like pee on somebody they'd like go after you you know right
Guest:They would just go after you.
Guest:But anyway, getting back to the releases, every time I got in one of the... So there was about nine of them.
Guest:And I think David Blaine was one of the... He was one of the people... Provocateurs?
Guest:No, he would follow, he would film, and we would use his producers.
Guest:So I had a small crew of people that were like...
Guest:would follow me around i was like living in the grammar sea uh and they're following me around and then you know i'd usually have to get out in a certain state of mind and then to get out there also because it's really painful because i was like getting beaten up and but i was gonna say is that like they were all pretty much like all the people that beat that after the fights were done and i and even i would get arrested a lot of the times and uh
Guest:the producers would always go to them afterwards and and they would all sign releases they were fine with it it was like a weird thing it was like people just wanted like they were like you say hey this isn't real actually he's trying to do this thing and that uh and that was all just like a part of this project right doing can we get your release and this is after like extreme violence where they lose it
Guest:yeah and they and i think there was like no case where they weren't like all right did you ever release that footage no so i have i have the i have the fights i wanted it to be like a movie that would play in the mall you know like i wanted it just fun like a comedy i thought it would but i didn't realize like how short they would last you know what i mean you got like 20 minutes how quickly they yeah because like one could end in like a minute you know like i just get knocked out or something right
Marc:Well, sort of what Jackass did, in a way, amongst themselves.
Guest:Yeah, a little bit, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, but it seems like it's a little more focused and a little more specific.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Not just sort of like a bunch of guys who just don't give a fuck about anything.
Guest:Yeah, there's probably a connection, definitely, to it, but it was a little bit different.
Guest:It was before.
Guest:And then, you know, at some point, I was like, I don't even know if I really want to... After it was all done, and I...
Guest:i couldn't really go on anymore i'd gotten arrested a few times and also like my body wasn't really able to take it who beat you up the most um i got really nailed this bouncer at uh string fellas uh at the strip club uh just like a guy went up to there's like a stripper with these holding these balloons and i popped her balloons yeah and this dude just went crazy like just like absolutely like uh
Guest:beat the shit at you yeah yeah it was pretty it's pretty nuts did you did you what i tried to like fight back a little bit but it was more like i would it was more like i you know i went to like throw a um a trash can at him or something like that but the trash can was like uh chained to the light uh to the to the uh pole you know and then he just knocked me out just like clocked me he did
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:But the crazy thing is some of those days I would try to get them done.
Guest:I would try to do two or three in a row because I was just trying to get it done with, you know, and I was already so messed up.
Guest:I have all like the images.
Guest:I have all the pictures.
Guest:Is it disturbing to you to look at that shit?
Guest:Well, I don't look at it.
Guest:That's part of, like, why I didn't ever put it out, because it's more like, I almost think it's just, like, the idea of it is almost better than actually, like, seeing it.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like, I'm not exactly sure if, like, it'd be a letdown to even put it out.
Guest:I don't even really know if I want to ever look at it again.
Guest:Maybe it's, like, something that happens much later.
Guest:I even have, like, lots of photographs stills from, like, the injuries and stuff.
Guest:Wow.
Yeah.
Marc:because it's weird because the idea was comedy and i'm just thinking about that moment where where shit really happens yeah where the connection is made yeah and it changes in tone yeah and that as a witness of that or somebody watching that you get that immediate like oh shit yeah you know like that discomfort yeah and then like and then that thing where you're like well it's also the idea of comedy is like victim there's this idea like someone's always like on on the other end of it
Guest:Well, it's right.
Marc:And I thought that you're the guy you're the guy we're rooting for.
Marc:But there's no way you're going to win.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I couldn't direct someone else to do it because it would become something completely different.
Marc:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But like it seems to me that in those vignettes that, you know, once you you get no traction and no you have no leverage and you're just getting the shit beaten out of you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The comedy would probably dissipate a little bit.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I thought, yeah, that's amazing, misguided, because I thought it would go the other way.
Guest:I thought it would just build.
Guest:Like, I thought it would just be like the repetition of the violence would just make it, would almost like negate it.
Guest:And it would just become something that was just like pure humor.
Marc:Maybe it would if you put them all together.
Marc:It's like Wile E. Coyote.
Guest:Yeah, that's exactly, yeah, exactly kind of what I was going for.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's, uh, I, well, what was your, when you were doing it?
Marc:I mean, cause I think Wile E. Coyote is sympathetic only because like, you know, his face could, he could blow himself up and then be all smoking cinders.
Marc:And then you see him the next, you know, he's, he's back together very quickly.
Marc:This is a fucking cartoon.
Guest:that's why it didn't work out yeah something you know he's you know he's never gonna and it was like also a strange time in my life you know it's like a while ago and it it was a strange time because people were like genuinely concerned for me you know like charlie like what like everyone thought i was like losing it a little bit or i didn't realize what the truth is like i knew how i was wanting to do right i was just really ambitious with that
Marc:Oh, they thought because this was the project?
Guest:Well, a lot of this is like, I remember, there was this thing that people would say, like, you don't know where your life begins in the... Oh, right, right, right, right.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:Where like life begins in the work.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:It was more like, it wasn't that I didn't know, it was more like I just didn't, I wanted it all to be the same.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:No, I know exactly what I mean.
Marc:I feel the same way in what I do.
Marc:Because I realized the other night where I got off stage at BAM after performing for 2,000 people.
Marc:And I just, you know, I went and I got my little bag and I put my things in it.
Marc:And I was just walking out.
Marc:I didn't register that there was no change in tone, really.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's like a weird...
Guest:So sometimes also when you're younger, it's also kind of can become dangerous and murky because you never want things to end.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because and also you're working through bigger things, you know, sort of developing your identity, taking chances for the first time.
Guest:Taking chances to develop.
Guest:Also, it's like an energy.
Guest:When you're younger.
Guest:Yeah, at least for me.
Guest:It was like an energy that you just, you get like amped up on a certain, on a thing and you just never want to, you know what I mean?
Guest:Like days and nights and truth and fiction.
Guest:Like you wanted, I don't know, like I wanted it all to be the same and like to never end.
Marc:well it's sort of interesting to see you now and like when i saw you in austin that was a weird night that was funny that was hilarious i don't know if it was hilarious for me but it was pretty good yeah it was like awkward i didn't well because i didn't know you and i didn't know james and you know and and you guys have been thrust into this situation yeah which i don't think either of you knew what it was no i
Guest:and it just like I was trying my hardest to do something and then you know no I I think um no I think like at that point like yeah we're familiar James definitely I remember not like knowing what was going like you know and uh
Guest:I remember it was the weirdness of, like, the other guys also that were in there.
Guest:And then there was, like, an audience.
Guest:And then some guy in the audience started, like... Remember there was some guy in the audience who stood up and started screaming?
Guest:Oh, that's... Well, that was Eddie.
Guest:That was a shill.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Yeah, kind of fake.
Guest:But it was this weird mixture of, like, strange mixture of, like, personalities and situation.
Guest:Sometimes that makes for, like, something that's really awkwardly...
Guest:It was awkward.
Guest:Yeah, good.
Marc:That was like awkward.
Marc:But I don't know any of us were doing it on purpose.
Marc:I think James was just trying to, you know, like rise above it a bit.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Because he didn't want to be made a fool of.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:And you sort of kind of detached and fragmented out on me.
Guest:I was more just like watching what was happening.
Marc:Right, and then like you come out and I ask you a question and I spit on you.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:You just spit on me.
Marc:And I'm like, oh, this isn't going well at all.
Marc:This is a fucking disaster.
Guest:It was good.
Guest:It was like theater.
Guest:It was some kind of weird theater.
Marc:It was a little bit.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But I was so upset by it afterwards.
Marc:But like that, like that, the...
Marc:When I saw, you know, I remember when you were young that, you know, you're sort of like, you know, a little wild.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And now look at us.
Marc:Like, you know, you're 40.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're just a guy.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:You got a kid now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just a guy with a kid.
Yeah.
Guest:yeah it happens right well yeah i mean it happens but i you're like the same person but i don't know it really depends it it's um uh it's like all in there sure i know it doesn't go away it's like all like uh it's not like a rejection of anything but it's from the past
Guest:No, but it's more like you want your life at some point if you're going to keep being able to live and grow and expand.
Guest:If you're just going to survive and you just want to have a life, you have to be receptive to stages.
Marc:Yeah, and things get tempered.
Marc:There's things that you used to be afraid of that you aren't, and now just by virtue of being older.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like, it's not like anything changes other than, like, I don't need to do that anymore, I don't think.
Guest:Well, right.
Guest:It also is, like, when you're talking about young, I mean, like, I was, like, making things as a kid, so you really are, like, a kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, you really are, like, a teenager, or, you know, in your early 20s, it really is, like, you're still just figuring things.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Just figuring it out, you know?
Marc:Were you into that 20-year...
Guest:uh yeah anniversary of the kids how old were you when you made kids or when you wrote so i was um i just graduated high school i was probably i was my first semester at nyu so like 19 something so it's been like 21 years yeah yeah yeah yeah who was there so that's why i was in new york now it's because generally i wouldn't be here but do you not like coming back not really i um it's probably like my least favorite place to be come back to
Guest:why i don't know i just like does it make you sad it's it's maybe there's like some there's definitely there may be sadness and i get that sometimes in some of it but it's more like uh for one like i don't like recognize it it's like weird thing because i recognize it but i also don't recognize it right yeah i feel that yeah and then um i was here when you were here i was here 20 years ago
Guest:yeah and i reckon and it's feels like a shopping mall to me now right in a lot of ways and i mean the city itself is beautiful um but i don't like uh a lot of it yeah it holds a lot of memories a lot of ghosts here and it's also just like it's it's like super kind of aggressive i just i'm like i don't really in it feels like an office like i eat come kind of like a gum do do my thing i
Guest:It would be a weird place.
Guest:I don't think I could ever live here again.
Marc:I don't think so.
Marc:I couldn't either, really.
Marc:Because there's a pace to it that's kind of exhausting.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And you get into that zone, and everything's moving quickly.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:All of a sudden, you're like, I had $40 this morning.
Marc:Where is it?
Marc:And it's exhausting.
Marc:But you know how to be here because you live here.
Guest:Also, I don't really know what it stands for anymore.
Guest:That's a good point.
Guest:Or I don't know what the...
Marc:Not just for yourself, but in general.
Guest:Yeah, just in general past a kind of consumption.
Guest:I don't really know what it is anymore.
Marc:It's interesting because when you did kids and that sort of your generation of people...
Marc:doing the art, whatever it was, that was almost the end of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, it's just all of that vitality.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It was like the last, maybe that was like the last, it was like the last kind of gasp of like the wildness in the city.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because it was like kind of,
Guest:you know the thing was like cool like when i when i was a teenager when i moved here from nashville was it like these still there was that idea that like kids with no money creative kids from around america people that had just like a dream yeah and visions could just come and you could like pull your money together and get some place in the city and live and like do your thing and it's i guess you can't really do that in the same because no one could afford like five thousand you know rent and like little kid like you know 18 year old kids
Guest:So you move out to like, I guess they move out to like one of the other boroughs.
Guest:Brooklyn or Queens.
Guest:But those places are different.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:I don't know what's going on out in Brooklyn.
Marc:I missed that whole thing.
Guest:But it's different and it's also like, I mean the world itself is different in that, you know.
Guest:It's a little affected now.
Guest:But at the time it was very much about like culturally about that.
Guest:At that point it was something about like people trying to like get lost.
Guest:Right.
Guest:In it.
Guest:And there was, like, also, you know, you always talk about, like, the danger of the city and stuff like that.
Guest:But it was, there was, like, a palpable violence and a danger and a feeling that, like, if you went to this place or you did this thing, you might not, like, come out the other end.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and so that's exciting.
Marc:That's what you were talking about, too, just with the, you know, getting punched up and...
Guest:yeah but it's just exciting because it was extremes and it was also like it was big and you could just get like lost in it in new york yeah and you can like and culturally it was weird and like you could like go into like movie theaters and there'd be junkies passed out and it was just like a strange like rhythm to the city and like it wasn't like everyone was so into in boxes yeah
Marc:I don't know who's here anymore.
Marc:I don't know who these people are.
Marc:There's no familiarity to it.
Marc:In Brooklyn, I guess that's where a lot of young people live, but there's a whole fashion to things there, too.
Marc:It doesn't feel like there's not a lot of risks being taken creatively in general.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:That's even a bigger thing.
Marc:Even when I saw kids, there was something weird and raw and visceral about it.
Marc:The city was a big part of that.
Guest:Yeah, like you can, I said it, because that's why I was here.
Guest:So, like, it was the 20-year anniversary a couple nights ago, and they screened it, and I hadn't seen it.
Guest:I don't think a lot of us had seen it since it was almost made.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the actors were there.
Guest:Was Larry there?
Guest:Larry was there.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, everybody showed up, and it was, yeah, it was, like, really trippy.
Guest:It was really, and I was, like, saying that I don't think that the movie probably could even exist.
Guest:You could never make the movie again, not just because it's so much less permissive now, or it's, like, would be so much more difficult now because there's so many more rules, but it's even just, like, narratively, story-wise, it's, like, you could never have, like, her trying to find this guy, her trying to find Telly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because...
Guest:Now she would just take a cell phone and text them and say, you gave me AIDS.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It would be like there would be no movie.
Guest:Really with films, it's like in writing, you can't really get lost in America anymore.
Guest:You can't make a film that's like a road movie anymore because...
Guest:Everyone has GPS.
Guest:It's impossible to really lose yourself anymore.
Marc:That's interesting, huh?
Marc:Not only because narratively speaking, but there's no mystery to anything.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, technology really, in a lot of ways, like all the technology, it really made drama happen.
Guest:difficult in some ways because like in order to be if you're even trying to be a little bit accurate you have to like address it and it's kind of a lot of it is not that exciting to see isn't that weird though that like like a conceit for a movie would be like we're going to take these four characters and just try to have them spend three days without their phones
Guest:Right, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:That's an experimental film.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, that is.
Guest:I mean, it's weird.
Guest:You can't really... Movies that won't... Like, yeah, that movie wouldn't have made sense, no.
Marc:How was...
Marc:Chloe was there too?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And Larry Clark was there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How was your relationship with him?
Guest:You know, I hadn't, like, we didn't really, like, keep so much in contact with each other, like, for a while, but, like, it...
Guest:But no, it was nice because seeing him after all these years, it was good because he was a big part of my life as a kid.
Guest:And watching him as an artist, I didn't know artists.
Guest:I didn't know the way artists function.
Guest:How did you meet him?
Guest:Was it through the photographs?
Guest:No.
Guest:no i met him in a park like he just like uh i was in washington square park he just like was i was between classes and i was hanging out with some of my friends in the park and he was taking photos uh like skaters and stuff yeah they were and he was just next to me and i don't know he just started talking and then like i um uh
Guest:i was i guess he was had a leica or something i was like asking about his camera and then he asked me what i wanted to do and i was like i wanted to make movies and what i used to do is in high school i'd make these films in high school um and because when i was young i wanted to make movies young like i really wanted to i was like on fire you know i wanted i couldn't be contained i was like really wanted to to make films like then and there
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so what I would do is I was living in my grandma's house.
Guest:I didn't have any money.
Guest:And I would just have a stacks of VHS tapes of my all the films I'd made in high school.
Guest:And I would have her phone number written on my grandma's phone number written on it.
Guest:And I had a pager, a beeper.
Guest:And I put the.
Guest:And then if I saw somebody that I thought might like one of the movies, I would just hand them a film.
Guest:Like, I would just hand them, like, a video.
Guest:And so I think that's probably what happened.
Guest:Like, I talked to Larry, and I was like, you should watch the, like, you know, and I just stuck, like, a video.
Marc:Like, what were the videos of you?
Guest:They were just, like, these, like, little, like, movies I was making.
Guest:And I was shooting on, like, 16mm.
Guest:And, like, I had been in a, you know, I was, like, never, like, particularly good in school.
Guest:I wasn't bad, but I was just, like, a normal-ish, like.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I never went to public schools and stuff in Nashville.
Guest:It was pretty crappy.
Guest:But socially, they were good.
Guest:It was a strange time in the South.
Guest:And the schools that I went to were actually really socially progressive and interesting.
Guest:But I had never been told.
Guest:We used to get hit in school.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And stuff, you know, like, and I'd never been told by a teacher that I had never done anything, that anything I was doing was good.
Guest:I'd never, you know what I mean?
Guest:Like, I just used to goof around and, like... Kind of a clown kid?
Guest:No, yeah, or not a clown, but, like, I was just, like, into my own thing and, like...
Guest:I'd been a skateboarder.
Guest:I was skateboarding and stuff.
Marc:Where did your parents come from?
Guest:They both come from New York, but I grew up in a commune in Tennessee.
Guest:And then I grew up in a commune and then moved to Nashville in probably 10 years old.
Marc:The commune was in Tennessee?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You were born there?
Guest:I was born in Bolinas, California.
Marc:That's where the seals are.
Guest:yeah yeah yeah yeah i love the fucking bolinas man yeah i was i was born in bolinas lane a kind of communal thing there too your parents were kind of into that they're both still around they're both around yeah they like live out in the jungle do they really yeah in nashville no no they live in the actual jungle in panama really yeah yeah so at least they committed to their yeah they're on their they just do their own thing yeah you get along with them
Guest:Yeah, it's all good.
Guest:You were able to find them, though.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
Guest:They have phones and stuff?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So you didn't really have role models, and the teachers were not very supportive.
Guest:so then i had this i took this creative writing class and like um uh and i wrote this story i was probably 15 or 16 or something like that and i had this teacher and i like wrote a like a short story yeah and it was like the first time like and i was like falling asleep in class and she like held up my this paper and she was like she was like said hey harmony can you stand up and read this to your yeah i was like what i was i was in trouble because i didn't get hit or something yeah
Guest:she said oh this is so good and blah blah blah and after after class she said like what do you want to do when you get older and i was like i just wanted to make movies that's like all i ever wanted to do at that point and she said well if i can get you money could you turn this story that you wrote into a film uh like a short movie and i was like of course and she somehow like went to the school board and got me a couple thousand dollars
Guest:and uh my dad showed me how to work the cameras and like i got like a filmmaker yeah he had been a documentary filmmaker in the 70s and and 80s and like and showed me how to like um how to edit a film and like i like the technical side of things and then i somehow just like translated this into like a you know
Guest:into a script or into a movie and then uh that was like what i ended up getting like a scholarship to nyu and like i didn't really have money to pay for the tuition right so i was like that's kind of how it all happened and then i met larry in the park wow so that did you is did you stay in touch with that teacher
Guest:Yeah, her name is Miss Bradshaw.
Guest:I've, like, seen her a couple times in Nashville when I go back.
Guest:Really?
Guest:She's great.
Guest:It's, like, one of those weird things.
Guest:You never hear, like, people actually, anytime you say, oh, teacher really did something.
Guest:Like, she really did.
Guest:Like, that really was one of those things that, like, really does, like, had a huge effect on your life.
Guest:Because, you know, I can barely remember the names of my teachers.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Except just, you know.
Guest:her but she really like had this like she did this one gesture for me that like really ended up change your life setting it all off because it was only like two it was only what like two or three years from that point that i was making a real movie so you meet larry and he's uh taking pictures and and you gave him a videotape and then how's that sort of
Guest:and then um this was like he's an intense guy yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah definitely and like you know i wasn't really familiar with at that point i was just come up from nashville i was probably yeah like you didn't know his photographs no but i didn't really know any was that tulsa and kids are in the other time square teenage lost teenage lost right
Guest:And I went over and... But just in talking to him, he liked the same types of... Even before I was even... We liked a lot of the same types of movies at the time.
Guest:Which were what?
Guest:Well, I remember being... We were talking about specifically youth films.
Guest:And there were movies like Over the Edge, Rumblefish, The Outsiders.
Guest:There's a movie, a Brazilian film called Pichote by Hector Babanco.
Marc:That's a heavy movie.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That was really big.
Marc:I remember seeing that when I was a kid.
Guest:That was the... About, like, the pickpockets.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, Bishot.
Guest:Oh, it's so brutal.
Guest:You're right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That fucking... It was a big kind of influence on... And now I can see that.
Guest:I can see that.
Guest:And even, like, kind of Cassavetes movies at the time were a big, super big deal for me and him.
Guest:And...
Guest:Yeah, that's how it started.
Guest:And then I just went over, I went over to his house.
Guest:I remember Gus Van Sant was there and I knew who Gus was, you know, and from my own private Idaho at that time and drugstore cowboy and stuff.
Guest:And so, and they were like, you know, Gus wanted to produce this film with Larry.
Guest:Like Gus was a fan of Larry's and that's kind of how it all happened.
Guest:I was like, oh, this looks legit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and it was like my first semester at school so I didn't really know what you know I was just barely figuring out even out what like how to write a screenplay right what a screenplay was I didn't know other writers I had no idea like 19 18 yeah I had no idea like what so how it worked so who helped you put it together I mean who helped you write the script
Guest:Nobody, because I had written, because I was just right, I just figured it out.
Guest:I mean, I was just starting, I was at the dramatic writing program, and I would just ask the teachers, like, what's the format and how to do it?
Guest:I understood basic things, three-act structure at that point.
Guest:I wasn't, like, deconstructing narrative yet.
Guest:I was really just, like, it's a very basic movie in a lot of ways, structurally.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and like uh and i just understood like just innately kind of more like rhythms of the movies and like this idea of like one page is one minute type of thing and so of screen time so it was like this kind of thing and um i you know it's kind of a crazy story but it's like i probably wrote it in like a week at my grandma's my grandma's basement and
Guest:in nashville no in queens yeah where she lived when i was going to school that's where you got the page yeah she would like come and cut me fruit and like come in and hand it to me and uh and i would just write i didn't know i thought that was like how long it should take you to write a script there were no like rewrites were you just fevered just kind of yeah
Guest:Yeah, there was no notes or anything.
Guest:I mean, like, we had discussed, like, what the film was going to be about.
Guest:You and Larry and Gus?
Guest:Or just you and Larry?
Guest:Yeah, just me and Larry.
Guest:And, like, discussed, like, the things that he wanted the film to be about.
Guest:And I knew all those kids.
Guest:And so it was a very specific, their dialogue, their voices.
Guest:And I was kind of, like, in a lot of ways part of that anyway.
Guest:So it was really familiar for me.
Guest:and I was like in it you know it's like you don't realize at the time but you're like writing from the inside you're like really in it and that's where and that was Chloe's first movie yeah it was everybody's I mean that was good to go back to I was like I didn't even yeah as I was doing it I didn't even know what was going to happen until the page right I've never written like that since and it's like a really it's a it's an awesome way it's like a freaky way of doing things but you just kind of you're just flying you're just going for it because none of it seems real anyway like the idea that a movie would get made when you're a kid doesn't seem
Marc:So it was all unfolding without a plan, you're saying, on the page.
Guest:Yeah, like I didn't know what the ending was going to be until I got to the end.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's like a novel.
Guest:Yeah, I didn't know.
Guest:But even now, and I still write pretty loose, but I have no cards or some type of broad structure.
Guest:Then I was really just flying with it.
Guest:and how did you feel that uh you know watching it with the cast and everybody it was cool yeah it was like how'd it hold up no i mean it was uh it's it it was i thought it was like you know it was awesome it was to see it was like beautiful movie uh print and it's pretty still seems pretty shocking i think you see it it's harder for me with a little bit because the um like two of the stars from the movie are dead so they die
Guest:just um you know justin right who is casper character killed himself and uh and harold uh overdosed so it was like a kind of uh you know it was hard like seeing them as kids on the screen yeah yeah yeah but beyond that it was it was uh it was cool i mean it's definitely like a document of that time i hadn't even watched it since that time so it was like it's
Guest:It was trippy.
Marc:But that movie set the whole thing going with you.
Marc:You became sort of like a little rock star in New York.
Guest:Right, yeah.
Marc:Because I remember seeing you on Letterman.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:You used to go on Letterman, and you got a real kick out of you.
Guest:Yeah, it was fun.
Guest:It was cool because it let me make my own movies.
Guest:And I also got to watch how you made films and stuff.
Guest:And it was like the thing, none of us, Chloe Rosario, nobody had ever, even Larry, no one had ever even made a movie.
Guest:That was Larry's first film?
Guest:It was everybody's first thing.
Guest:Nobody had ever done anything before.
Guest:Yeah, it was wild that it actually became this whole thing.
Marc:Do you like Larry's movies in general?
Guest:Yeah, I think that the thing with Larry is I always viewed him as really his movies and his work, his photographs and everything is all tied to the same thing.
Guest:I think he's like...
Guest:I think he's very important and it's a kind of unified vision for him.
Marc:It's kind of pushing youth out into the darkness as far as it can go.
Marc:I thought bully was kind of brain bending.
Marc:You could feel it on your fucking skin.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:What was your relationship with David Blaine?
Marc:Is that around the time that started, too?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You guys just buddies?
Guest:You just liked... Well, what happened was, like, yeah.
Guest:It was actually, like, I met him, like, at the... He came to the premiere of the movie.
Guest:It was at Miramax, and I remember... Of kids?
Guest:Yeah, and I was, like, with my grandma, and I was, like, hanging out, and my grandma, my little brother, and he, like...
Guest:And I'd heard, I'd been hearing about him for a while.
Guest:Like I'd been hearing about this magician.
Guest:Everyone was talking about this magician.
Guest:He was a kid magician who, I was like, I didn't know anything about magic.
Guest:I was just like, magicians just like with rabbits and stuff, pulling rabbits out of hats.
Guest:And like, I didn't have like an idea of like what magic was, you know, like past just cheese ball.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:yeah he came up and just like walked right up to me and he like held his deck of cards and it was like still all in a wrap they were wrapped up yeah they were just like in a it wasn't like you just held a deck and he just said i want you to like visualize a card but don't say it and i was like all right and he was like don't say it and he said put it just put it in your head and then i was like all right and then like i opened up this pack of uh and um he uh
Guest:I cut it and he's like turned a card over and it was the card that I was like in my brain that I'd never you know it was like it was like the actual I was like what the fuck and then he went to my brother and my brother was wearing these and he took I have no idea how he did it but he took off his socks while he was wearing his shoes like he took his my he just went up to his socks and pulled his socks off but his shoes stayed on your brother yes my brother my little brother and then he just held my brother's socks in his hand
Guest:and that was it that was like i gotta know this guy yeah it was because it was like whoa i was super trippy and i was like whoa come over to my yeah i was like i wanted to like really figure because everybody was an artist or everybody was like so many there's a lot of painters around photographers and musicians but i'd never met someone that could like that was pulling socks off your feet like that that was like something and and and also it was intriguing because you knew that it took discipline yeah to like what he was doing there's a craft to it
Guest:craft and also like who else does that right where do you even come up with that right and so you know from there we became very close did you ever did you ever figure out how he did it not that trick i mean even the weird thing about david and a lot of those a lot of that is that like even when you kind of know how it's done or you hear how it's done it's still equal it doesn't almost matter
Guest:yeah because you know what I mean well even it's so hard even like the way it's done you're just like wow it's like you know even the trick it takes well if like someone like if someone let's say scales the Empire State Building you know how it's done they just scale it but it's amazing
Guest:Yeah, does it make it any less... Like, you know, they just climb it.
Guest:How do you do it?
Guest:You climb it.
Marc:You did it.
Marc:The act of doing it is still... It doesn't matter how you do it.
Guest:Yeah, so it never really, like, ruined anything for me.
Marc:And you shot him do some stuff?
Marc:You shot the...
Guest:In the early days, because we were like the really early, I would shoot some of his things for his specials and stuff.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And a lot of that stuff came from talking with him was like, I used to love that show cops.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And and like and I think at one point suggested, why don't you just do what they do with cops except do with magic?
Guest:You know, take it.
Guest:like i look like cops is really the first show where you were like seeing the inside of people's houses and the way people lived it was like really like a revolution like pretty like revolutionary and like it was like you were like going into like like these places where you were weren't invited like you were seeing like the you know look at how but your couch is all fucked up but in like a mainstream context which was you know up until that point you know most americans had never weren't exposed to you know being exposed to
Guest:Yeah, being exposed in that way.
Guest:And so he, I think, he ended up getting that producer that did that show.
Guest:And that was definitely part of all that street magic thing.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:It's just like bringing people in, seeing their reaction.
Guest:Yeah, doing it non-scripted.
Guest:It was before.
Guest:I mean, now everything is like that, but it was before that.
Marc:That's kind of wild to think about that, that weird intrusion.
Marc:Sounds like you did a little of that with Gummo as well, just going into people's environments.
Guest:yeah gummo was like that gummo was um i guess i grew up there so it was like it was you didn't know all the people no but i knew the area yeah i knew the end but i knew i did know some of the people and i knew like um but i had yeah yeah growing up probably like a mile away from there it was at that time it was this area called the nations it was pretty gnarly area in in nashville and and um now it's like coffee shops and it's more it's gentrified it's like weird to go how you feeling about
Guest:that the gentrification of Nashville yeah no it's upsetting to me but it's also you know it's like one of those things I think about all the time it's not just Nashville but it's like a lot of it's a lot of everywhere and so it's a difficult thing Nashville is interesting because it's become a more
Guest:you know i live there now uh it's become more um definitely more gentrified it's like country flavored right now where it was like as a kid growing up it was all rednecks and like all it was country yeah and that's just like what it was it was like that it was like it was pretty you know it was authentic it was like there wasn't really much to do and it was like that now you have like restaurants and all this stuff and i was like yeah but it's like country flavored
Guest:Right.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:And also, like, country flavored on two levels.
Marc:There's, like, this sort of, like, old, kind of old guard touristy country.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And now you get a bunch of young people who have been, like, mumforded.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's the worst.
Marc:To me, like, that shit.
Marc:The hipster element.
Guest:Well, just, like, that Americana stuff.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, I actually, like, I hate it.
Marc:Like, all that, like, I. What are the exact feelings?
Marc:Help me identify mine.
Marc:Because I understand it.
Marc:There seems to be a craving for authenticity that isn't earned.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Well, I just hate it.
Guest:I just find it obnoxious.
Guest:All that denim crap.
Guest:Imogene and Willys in the gas station.
Guest:I'm just going to be like, all this denim and banjos and stuff.
Guest:I just cannot into... And also, I feel like there's this weird thing about when people talk about... Without getting too specific, there's this weird thing about heritage.
Guest:And it's like a kind of coded...
Guest:like vernacular to me this like thing of like heritage or like uh in in terms of Americana yeah where I'm just like I'm not exactly sure I like like I just you know what I mean like I don't really even listen to music anymore that has like lyrics I don't even want to hear people saying anything anymore what are you listening to I just like listening to like
Guest:mostly like electronic music or i'll listen like you know rap music is pretty much uh but i try to listen to like the most like the the most like debased right like the least kind of profound just because it's less demanding aren't you as that and i just don't really want to hear any it's like weird in my mind i don't want to hear anyone like like talking anymore
Guest:like you know what i mean like it's like strange like when i get it when i was younger i used to like really like a lot of that stuff and like and now it's almost like i don't i kind of shy away from it i try like i would it's like i don't really want to like hear anyone like talking anymore yeah
Guest:With music.
Guest:It's more what I like now is things that it's like more... I guess I might gravitate to things that are more like sensory or more like... Atmospheric.
Guest:Atmospheric or things that make me like... Even with the movies and just like in general, the way that I feel that I... What I'm trying to do with things.
Guest:It's more like a kind of post-articulation or something that's like beyond just like a...
Guest:I, for whatever reasons, feel more pulled towards something that's more of an emotion or more of an energy, let's say, or something that's more inexplicable.
Guest:And so with music, I just, for whatever reason, like listening to things that are more detached.
Guest:Right.
Marc:In film, too, in having that craving to create feeling in almost like a...
Marc:uh sort of a poetic way visually and otherwise you seem to like to do things that are jarring yeah yeah there's definitely a your way in is to punch yeah yeah yeah yeah there's not many like there's not a lot of you know easygoing
Guest:No, no, no, no, no.
Guest:I don't really like that.
Guest:Yeah, I don't really... I don't... You know, it's like I really want to just... I've always just kind of wanted to like go for it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And like I always just felt like wanting to just attack.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:Like attack in an interesting way, but I always wanted...
Guest:the films or the artwork whatever it is to have a kind of more sensory component where it's just like it like goes through you you know what i mean like in this way it's like it's something that like washes through you or that attacks you and then it disappears right you know what i mean yeah yeah because like i don't really have anything that like to say yeah you don't be like what do you have to say i don't really have anything like specific to like i don't have like a point yeah i
Guest:the film there's not like one general point I'm not never been interested really myself in making a kind of specific statement it's more about a feel I've always felt like the work is more about generally about a feeling well when you do like when you do something like you know Julian donkey boy
Marc:Which is about, that's the schizophrenic one, right?
Marc:Right, yep.
Marc:So that's a portal into almost just any fucking thing you want.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:And maybe there's like, if something says something, it's more of the residue of it.
Marc:But like you find a way in that's jarring and then you have this freedom.
Guest:Right, yeah, or it's more like you just want it to, like, I want you to feel like you're there.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:Right, right, by virtue of, that's the magic of it.
Marc:It's not telling somebody they're there, but because of what's going on, the connection becomes very immediate because it's causing you this.
Guest:It's also like a kind of controlled chaos, and this idea that it's okay to be lost at some points, and that things don't always have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Guest:Hardly ever.
Guest:And sometimes it's nice for things just to exist, and just to kind of, like I said, hit you, attack you, and go.
Guest:You don't always have to completely be able to understand it.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Sometimes it's nice to have things somewhat inexplicable, or something that kind of...
Guest:It's why I was never really interested in this idea of truth, this obsession with truth in art, or truth in film, or truth in art.
Guest:I was always like, truth is kind of, for me at least, boring a little bit.
Guest:And you want things that elevate and transcend, something that's more like a poetry or a sensory...
Guest:type do you know what I mean something that's more like goes beyond this idea of truth and becomes like kind of transcendent its own thing yeah exactly so like that's why even to go back to like the very first thing you talked about sometimes I'll just make things that it won't put out yet because I haven't
Guest:because I either feel like they're not done yet, I'm not ready for them to come out yet, or they don't really have, there's no rhyme or reason for their existence.
Marc:Right.
Marc:What was your relationship, how did the relationship with Werner Herzog start?
Guest:um so herzog was like um because it sounds like you were influenced by him a lot yeah herzog's just like one of my he yeah he's like almost like a like it's a huge influence as a person and as a as a kid growing up his movies meant a lot to me i mean his movies still mean a lot which ones in particular for the most
Guest:Oh, I mean, I love most of his, almost all his films, but the ones that I really were just most blown away, I was always the Bruno S movies.
Guest:The Kinski films I love, but the Bruno S movies were just... Strozak was a huge deal.
Guest:Every Man for Himself and God Against All.
Guest:And even Dwarfs started small.
Guest:Land of Silence and Darkness.
Guest:Those films were really...
Guest:to see that type of, like, that kind of, like, weird mishmash of, like, of truth and fiction and then realize that, like, that there was a potion to it, that neither one of them on their own really was a big deal, but together there was something, like, really...
Guest:you know trying to figure out what was true and what wasn't true right right and then you're almost like you're almost like wow you're left with something like so grand you know what i mean like uh so and what way it happened was like he um i actually it was good with gummo he had this guy tom luddy who ran the san francisco film or telluride film festival showed him before it came out herzog a um
Guest:i had screened the film for him and i was sitting in my house and i picked up the phone and it was herzog and he was like he was like i've just seen your movie it is the most audacious debut he was like you were the last foot soldier in the army and and he was like you must come out to san francisco and i i jumped on an airplane i went out san francisco you know i was probably like 23 or something 24 at that time and he was living in san francisco and uh
Guest:yeah it was a huge deal for me um just because it was like one of those people was like it's very like heroic you know yeah yeah and um yeah and then we became friends and he was you know we started he was in i started casting him in my films and and just like as always yeah he's just he's a he's kind of just a good friend yeah yeah you talk to him pretty regularly
Guest:Yeah, I mean, the thing about Werner is he's, like, really... He really does.
Guest:His, like, work ethic is insane.
Guest:He's always working.
Marc:So it's, like... He's putting on movies.
Guest:He has movies, and he's, like, putting on plays.
Guest:I mean, he's directing operas.
Guest:He's, like, really, like... He does things that, like, people don't even know about.
Guest:He's teaching schools.
Guest:He's, like... Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it's crazy.
Guest:When I was... I remember when I was, like, doing location scouts for some breakers, and I would, like... We were in, like... In Florida, I think we were looking in, like... Was it...
Guest:Sarasota or something.
Guest:I was like scouting colleges, just random schools there.
Guest:And then I would go to like, there would be like this place called like Ringling College, which was started by like Ringling Brothers.
Guest:Oh yeah, the Crown College?
Guest:Crown College.
Guest:And you're there and they were like, they were like, Herzog just taught a course here.
Guest:And you were like, what?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:they were like yeah he's on the board and they're like what and they were like yeah he edited his film at uh he edited his last movie here and you're like really and then he'd go to this other school there's another place there called new college and they were like yeah herzog's on the board here he just taught like and you're like and i'm like in you know you know you're like somewhere in florida just like random but he's like that he's like uh he's like everywhere and yeah he's kind of like he's like there's like 10 of him
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do you take anything from that work ethic?
Guest:Do you have any desire to work like that?
Guest:It's different for me.
Guest:I need time between the films because the movies especially take so much out of me.
Guest:So, like, it takes me... Like, I do a movie, it's like always a film feels like... I've never had... I've really never had... I have director friends who've had easy experiences with films.
Guest:I never really had an easy experience.
Guest:Why?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:They're always... Maybe it's the types of movies that I make, or maybe it's just myself not ever... I'm, like, a greedy director.
Guest:I always feel like I need more.
Guest:I always don't feel satisfied.
Guest:Like, I don't feel like I'm... You know, like, I never have enough time to do all the things that I...
Guest:want to do so i'm just like always railing up against it you know what i mean like it would it makes me nervous to be on set and be comfortable which doesn't really happen so much like when people a lot of times people come to you like oh that movie looked like it was a lot of fun i don't even know what fun on movies is i don't really you know what i mean like i paint and i enjoy that you know in a completely different way and um
Guest:that's fun for me because that's my own time and it's like something that's like direct and I'm away from people I can do it for the movies is like a I have to gear up it's like going to through a kind of uh through war right in in some ways and spring breakers how'd that end up doing it was great I mean it it did like it I think it was just as far as its reach it went beyond anything I'd done before and and structurally it was a little different
Guest:yeah it's it was totally and it's exciting i was like trying to get i'm like getting closer to where what i've always wanted to do which hopefully i'll be able to do with the next film which is what well it's just like a complete like sensory bombardment uh-huh just like a total a wash of just but with any story
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's a definite story.
Guest:No, there's a story.
Guest:But I always say it's like the narrative, the way I feel about storytelling now, it's more like liquid.
Guest:It has to do more with like an energy.
Guest:So it's like a liquid narrative.
Guest:It's like things that I'm pulled more by.
Guest:It's more about like a kind of energy or a feeling.
Guest:So time, everything, it's just like...
Guest:um it's a definite story it's like it's a super propulsive pretty highly violent it's a kind of revenge movie takes place in miami this this new you're writing it no it's already you did it i'm gonna shoot it in january it's written it's all like we're putting it together yeah did you get uh anyone attached to it yeah benicio is gonna be in it really idris alba
Guest:He's going to do it.
Guest:I think Pacino's got a part in it.
Guest:He's in?
Guest:Yeah, I think there's a bunch of people.
Guest:Rob Pattinson, I think.
Marc:That's fucking exciting.
Marc:Is Benicio the lead?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He's one.
Guest:There's like two, him and Idris.
Marc:That makes fucking sense, man.
Guest:Yeah, they're great.
Guest:Benicio is one of my favorites.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Yeah, he's one of the best.
Marc:He seems very selective, too, which is kind of nice.
Guest:Yeah, he's... You don't see him too often, and when you do, you're like, ah, he's here.
Guest:I've been wanting to work with him for a really long time.
Guest:This was, like, the part... This was, like, I kind of, like, wrote this part for him, so it was, like... I mean, he's pretty much one of my favorites.
Guest:Him, Gary Oldman, are, like, really just, like...
Guest:the best right yeah that's good those two are great totally and uh he um and did you guys meet around it and he's and he's all yeah i mean i had known him because i would almost did something together a while ago and like i had known him since like the probably like the late 90s or something so but i hadn't like i had never had a thing that could fit like i never had like the right part for him and this is like really like this is the thing well now when you talk about liquid narrative and about an assault on the senses
Marc:Like when you like with with Spring Breakers.
Marc:So what are you thinking about when when you're putting that movie together?
Marc:You know, I know you've got an acting force in Franco and you've got, you know, he's going to the wall with that character.
Marc:But like what's what's the energy that you saw as the creator pushing through that whole movie?
Marc:Is it?
Guest:yeah um i just really honestly like with that film it was i had this idea of i was like looking at all this like co-ed like porn and stuff at the time and like i my girl's gone wild shit yeah and just like i was like i was kind of trying to using it more for like the idea for some art i was gonna artworks and things that i was was i was contemplating and like i had i
Guest:I had like lots of, yeah, it was just like pictures of like, it was like just debauchery, spring break debauchery.
Guest:It was just like, you know, kids on the beach puking and kegs and like this, all this stuff.
Guest:And I started to see there was like this kind of inner, when I looked at all the imagery,
Guest:I probably collected stuff for a couple years.
Guest:When I looked at it all together, I started to see colors and things.
Guest:There was more inner coded vernacular, more things that I thought were interesting that were speaking to me.
Guest:The colors of the skies, the bikinis, the white sand, the...
Guest:Just that that world was like, you know, I was like, and I also remembered it from growing up in the South.
Guest:The spring break was had been this big thing and like culturally.
Guest:And and so I just had an image, honestly, of like girls.
Guest:The whole movie starts just like a dream type of image of just girls in bikinis with ski masks.
Guest:like the like the like thugs use like those like ski masks and like i i had a name of the girls in bikini robbing tourists and that was like really like girls bikinis and guns on the beach right and like from there i i just started kind of i was like if that was it really is that simple like if that's gonna if that were to happen in real life how would that happen type of things thing
Guest:like it and sometimes that's the way you had an image and you retrofitted the story a lot of the movies that's the way it happens for me it's more like you become obsessed with like or I become obsessed with like a specific image there's like one or two things that I for I don't even really know why I want to see them past the point of just wanting to them to exist and then I start to create a story or some type of a narrative around that so you would be like well if I'm going to get to this point how it would how would it begin like
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:And when did you come up with the Franco character?
Guest:I think probably that was just a natural thing.
Guest:Growing up with white dudes with corn rolls, going to school on the bus in the South was like very, you know, it was like a real kind of classic American archetype.
Guest:Did some guy claim that he was the guy?
Guest:I think there, yeah, there were like a couple of people that were saying that, and the truth is it was really just, it wasn't based on anything specific.
Guest:It was based on an amalgamation of a lot of, there were a lot of different, it was like, you know, a lot of different guys, but that is a kind of a person.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And, um, and then at the same time, um, you know, Franco's process with that was like very specific.
Guest:It's more like, cause he's so busy.
Guest:I would just, I, I would just send him for a year, I think probably just clips of, of things, audio clips.
Guest:I like the way this guy speaks.
Guest:Uh,
Guest:he would and he would just write pete great peace like like i i send him like a video clip like girls and um in a uh like in a 7-eleven getting in a fight that would like to go on for like five minutes i just like i don't know i just think this this somehow relates to your character and he'd be like great and i would just send him like things that felt tangentially tangentially connected yeah or you know emotionally connected just wanted him to load up
Guest:yeah exactly to get it in and i never to be honest really knew if he was even getting it all yeah i just like you know past the point of just like cool like i never knew if it was like um and then when it was time to do the film i pretty much just like walked off that got out of there like i got out of the airplane got into this we had the costumes and the whole thing ready had been talking to him for a while what he come he'd come down you know a big thing for me with movies is like i would try to um
Guest:i spend a lot of time even before i make the film even before prep just like alone in the place um driving around just like looking at locations like trying to like because the tone of the movies is like such a the ambience in the film is in some ways as big as important for me as the anything else i want you to like i really like the way things look and feel and so a lot of it is like me getting lost in places um
Guest:and like the geography of places and and because you feel like in movies a lot of times the energy is kind of like a tangible thing like you could tell when a movie just stops when a movie when i can always tell when a director just picks locations based on what would uh look like a locations person photograph the first photos oh this looks good let's shoot it there like i i hate that
Marc:Well, it seems like you're working in an opposite way.
Marc:It seems like a lot of directors want to totally control the environment.
Marc:And you want to let the environment have a bigger part than that.
Guest:I've always felt like the environment is also the movie.
Guest:So it's as much a character as the actual characters.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So with Franco, he would come, and honestly, we would just get in a car, and I would just turn the music on, and we would just drive through neighborhoods.
Guest:We wouldn't even really speak that much.
Guest:And I would just say, this is where you grew up.
Guest:This was your house.
Guest:It was really like that.
Guest:I was just making things up.
Guest:I would just be like, this is where you grew up.
Guest:This is where you sold your first dime bag.
Guest:This is the pier that you robbed.
Guest:This was where your dad got shot.
Guest:And I just kind of like that, and just like...
Guest:And then just let the air come into the car, just breathe it in, soak it up, look at the way the lights in the gas stations and dudes playing dominoes in the backyards.
Guest:Were people like, who are those guys?
Guest:Yeah, I'm sure they thought they were super narcs.
Guest:Who are those honkies?
Marc:Did he have the cornrows at that point or was this before?
Guest:No, that was before, I think.
Marc:And did you feel that in his performance that he had absorbed everything you wanted him to?
Guest:Yeah, because it's like an – because even like with that, my expectations with actors is a different thing.
Guest:It's not a specific thing.
Guest:I want to get – it's like anything.
Guest:It's like I want to be surprised, right?
Guest:So you want to – I want to load them up on as much stuff as I can, details, looks, sounds, things like that, and then put it inside and then walk away and like let them take it to another place.
Guest:That's always what you dream or at least what you – Right.
Marc:You want to be surprised.
Guest:because i don't have an end game with them other than just to be great i never have like a specific it's never like ultimately like like this is it i don't even know it's more of an abstract idea you just want them to be like to light it on fire you know what i mean like you just want it to like yeah to be to be great and you hope that you can that you can inspire them with the character with the idea of who this person is enough that then they go and like
Guest:they invent it.
Guest:And that's always the way I felt with even acting.
Guest:It's almost like with acting and directing actors and stuff, it's more like when you...
Guest:When you become believable, when you become the person that you're supposed to be, when you believe that that person is really who he is, then there's really no right or wrong.
Guest:When you are that character, you become the human.
Guest:Every single gesture, every single thing becomes real.
Guest:But it's either good or bad.
Guest:authentic or not or it's exciting or not exciting so you can so you can be authentic but not you're not saying there's you're saying there's no you can't make any mistakes if you become the character exactly but but there is a moral universe you can't make the mistakes once you become the character but you can be good and bad you can be exciting right i don't even mean good and bad like morally i mean just like to watch you can be exciting or boring like you could still be authentic and awful
Guest:I think.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:And I think you can be inauthentic and exciting.
Guest:Like Gary Oldman's character in True Romance or something like that.
Guest:That's not really an authentic character.
Guest:It's like a really heightened version, but it's so thoroughly enjoyable.
Guest:Right.
Guest:To watch it.
Guest:There's so much magnetism.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it's such this kind of creation and this swirl.
Guest:You're like just taken by it.
Guest:You don't even question it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like it's like logic.
Guest:Sometimes I'll get in arguments with them or debates with actors about like logic in movies.
Guest:right like how why would i do that yeah like why don't you do it and i understand why they want to know because it informs their character and they need a sense but like i'm always thinking like i want to you want to go a little bit beyond just like logic yeah like you don't i'm like well if you're robbing this house at five in the morning as a five you know as opposed to five in the afternoon it doesn't matter like i don't if you're thinking of the as an audience if you're thinking about that logic the
Guest:The movie's not working.
Guest:And I just do it because it looks good.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Why is it there?
Guest:Well, it's there because it looks good and it feels good and it's like something amazing.
Guest:But past that, I don't care about necessarily the logic of it.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Well, I mean, I think that by using narrative the way you use it, I think people like viewers should be more forgiving in the sense.
Marc:You're right.
Marc:If they're saying, like, that could never happen, then you failed.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because that's not the kind of movie you're making.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And it's like, Star Wars can never happen.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:I mean, I don't know.
Guest:It's just a strange, like, different films.
Guest:But when you present something, it's extra tricky when you're presenting things in the real world as if they were real.
Guest:But they're also heightened.
Guest:It becomes like a whole other.
Marc:Well, shit, this new movie sounds amazing.
Marc:Miami as a backdrop.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:yeah yeah and i've been living in miami for a while so it's like good it's crazy down there dude yeah isn't it i love it i mean i my mother lives in uh hollywood florida yeah it's close by but i used to have this weird judgment of florida but now i'm sort of like this is the weirdest place in the fucking world
Guest:Yeah, it's weird.
Guest:It is.
Guest:It's almost its own... I kind of probably... I live between... I have a daughter now and in the summers and stuff and my wife and we all live there.
Guest:What part?
Guest:Miami Beach.
Guest:We live in the mid-beach, close to South Beach.
Guest:We have a house there and
Guest:I probably would just move there full-time, but there's something also makes me nervous about the idea of only being there.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:I could just end up in some weird vortex.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:You need a retreat from Florida.
Guest:Yeah, or just like... You know what it is?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I enjoy it because it's its own country, and it definitely works in its own logic.
Guest:It's more like Latin.
Guest:It's a kind of more...
Guest:And I kind of I'm like into like the rhythms of that place.
Guest:But also, I guess being I like the way I do.
Guest:I'm affected by the way things look architecturally, like the lights and and palm trees.
Guest:Like I love those things.
Guest:They make me really happy.
Guest:So.
Guest:I kind of just ended up there.
Marc:So you're really living there part-time?
Guest:Yeah, half and half between Nashville and Miami.
Marc:You've got a house in Nashville?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:That's nice.
Marc:Why can't you just leave it at that?
Guest:I am.
Guest:I am.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:And I'm shooting the movie there.
Guest:No, it's great.
Guest:I hate winters now.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Winter in Nashville, is it bad?
Guest:Yeah, it's pretty... Really?
Marc:It's not like New York, but it's pretty... Yeah, it's pretty... It's weird as you get older and you can make choices where you're sort of like, yeah, I don't have to do that anymore.
Guest:Yeah, and also it's just like... Yeah, exactly.
Guest:That's like a nice thing about it.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:But also it's just like...
Marc:like i didn't use the mine i thought like the suffering from the cold was okay a good part it was a good thing right you know what i mean like you just are like hey it's part of like the whole like i got i came back here i was here like maybe for two days of the fucking winter yeah i was like this was good for two days it's a reminder i do miss seasons sometimes like i think that's one yeah la you have to see you don't have these in miami not really either no
Guest:Yeah, I mean, a little bit.
Guest:I mean, like, winter, it's pretty nice.
Guest:And then summer, it's really hot.
Guest:But it's seasonal, yes.
Guest:You don't have seasons.
Marc:Time just becomes this weird thing when you have seasons.
Guest:Time is what's the scary part.
Guest:And California is like that.
Guest:It just gets lost.
Guest:You don't even, like, every day.
Guest:It's the same.
Guest:It doesn't even rain for, like, a year.
Guest:Yeah, it's just a little weird.
Guest:And you can't really, if you grew up around seasons, it's, like, a strange thing.
Guest:You can't judge life based on your time based on seasons.
Marc:A little bit.
Marc:I think that's normal.
Marc:and so that's the scary part about it because even out there you're just like wow it's just all like maybe it was all just one day yeah exactly how many years went by yeah so uh all right one other one other question about uh like we're talking about technology and and uh and and killing story anyways because there's no one can get lost anymore did you ever shoot anything on on film everything you do only film um
Guest:I have this thing like I shoot mostly on – shoot features mostly on film.
Guest:But I also don't really – I also – I would – don't necessarily have a pure allegiance only towards that.
Guest:But I feel – I've always kind of felt like –
Guest:that video film, that VHS, it's all whatever.
Guest:They're almost like instruments.
Guest:They all have a tone.
Guest:There's like a place for them.
Guest:They all have like a sound.
Marc:But there's an argument now.
Marc:I talked to, who did I talk to?
Marc:Vince Gilligan.
Marc:Because he shot all of Breaking Bad on film because he wanted that feeling.
Yeah.
Marc:But they did the Coke-Pepsi test.
Marc:Someone did the test with him where he had some editors say, we can do exactly the same thing.
Guest:Yeah, that's what they try to do on every film.
Guest:So I shoot all my movies on.
Guest:Everyone's shot on.
Guest:I've only used film for the movies.
Guest:Except when I made a movie that was a dog movie that we shot originally on video.
Guest:Which one was that?
Marc:Julian.
Marc:Yeah, right, right, right.
Guest:the um the and Lars von Schurz was okay with it yeah yeah no that was that was that was part of it um the but film it is like a big debate it is like that is like a big argument I pretty much would like only for these last couple movies I pretty much won't make the movie unless I can shoot it on film
Marc:But don't you think that film, because you're a guy that wants to get more and more and more, that it imposes limitations?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, in some ways, it really depends how you look at it.
Guest:There's this idea that because you can shoot in a way that's unlimited using video, that that's better.
Guest:And I feel like I don't necessarily agree with that.
Guest:I don't think it's just because you can...
Guest:I actually feel like there's no kind of decision making with a lot of that type of like directing.
Guest:I feel like you just leave the camera on, you just let it go, whatever happens, happens.
Guest:And then you like try to make sense of it in the edit.
Guest:Like I, I like the idea of like being forced to decide having a limited time.
Guest:It makes me again, maybe it makes me more uncomfortable because I know that like the mag is going to run out soon or whatever it is, or you're burning film, it's money.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:there's a magic to even when they they always make the argument where you say like nobody notices anymore right like they always say like like they say well audience can't tell the difference between film and not and other medium yeah but i i like i don't think that's true i think i think maybe they don't i think maybe they can't articulate it but i think
Guest:Film, it's a kind of, it's something, there's something, there's a psychology to like the grain structure and there's an emotional component to it that's maybe you aren't aware of.
Guest:So as you're, as you're watching it.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Guest:So it's something that, again, it's working on you in a way that you're not even sure it's working.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I don't like the idea of treating video or making things... You're like, well, we can make this look like that.
Marc:But then why not just use what really looks like... And also, there's no way you can...
Marc:I think, if I understand it correctly, you can create a facsimile of what the film looks like, but the actual grain on film has a chaos to it that can't be immediately replicated.
Guest:Yeah, and there's just a truth in it.
Guest:And it's a truth in it that you don't... It's also just something that...
Guest:There's a kind of, there's like a magic in that dissidence, in the fog of analog.
Guest:There is like this thing to it that, you know, it's more like alchemy as opposed to like me, like sitting down with an app, putting on like, you know, this is 16 millimeter app that's going to make it look like that.
Guest:Well, maybe it'll like, in a superficial way, it will do that.
Guest:But...
Guest:It's different.
Guest:Actual 35mm, even 60mm and 70mm, there's a weird magic to it.
Guest:I always say that film is like romance, or I've always felt that there's a romance to film, and that video, it's like reality.
Guest:And I also like the idea of like the actors.
Guest:I also like it when the actors think that they have a limited amount of time to do it and that they have to.
Guest:I like that there's like a decisiveness to it.
Guest:You have to be in the moment.
Guest:And it forces a point of view in a way that like I hate this whole like modern photography, this thing where it's just like you leave the camera on.
Guest:It becomes all about post-production where you just leave the cameras on forever.
Guest:You shoot for two hours and then you send an editor to go back and you pick the best.
Guest:There's no point of view.
Guest:There's nothing exciting about that.
Marc:There's no sense of risk.
Guest:It becomes like the corporatization of the artwork.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Homogenization too.
Guest:And you're like making the studios happy because you're giving them all these decisions, all these choices.
Guest:I don't want a lot of choices.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't necessarily, I want to like, you know,
Guest:I just like the feeling of being connected to that.
Guest:Like having started out making movies in that way and using that now, it still feels right to me.
Guest:Good.
Guest:Also with film, on every movie, I feel like it could be the last movie that I get to do.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Because there's not many labs anymore.
Guest:It's really difficult now.
Guest:It costs a lot more money.
Guest:Sometimes it's like you have to really wait before you can see the...
Marc:Do you edit on the film, too?
Marc:No, no, no.
Guest:That would be crazy.
Guest:I mean, people are like, that's like, no, I could never do that again.
Guest:No, no, no, no.
Marc:Are you sitting there cutting?
Guest:No, no, I'm not even up.
Guest:It's not anything even necessarily about being a purist or anything, because I still will use other things all in corporate.
Guest:It's more just like... No, I understand.
Marc:There's the magic to film.
Guest:It's undeniable.
Guest:That's really like the thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, do you have a title for the new movie?
Marc:Can you do that?
Marc:Yeah, it's called The Trap.
Marc:Okay, cool.
Marc:Well, it was great talking to you, man.
Guest:You too, man.
Guest:It was awesome.
Marc:Okay, that was interesting.
Marc:It was a talk about film unlike I've had before, and it was great talking to Harmony and great meeting him.
Marc:And you can go to WTFPod.com, specifically the calendar section, to see my dates.
Marc:I got dates coming up in Ireland and in London.
Marc:And you can go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:Get a little linky to JustCoffee.coop.
Marc:Get on the mailing list.
Marc:I write a thing.
Marc:I'm going to write it today.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I'm going to go talk about podcasting to podcasters.
Marc:Boomer lives.