Back to the Feature: Crispin Glover in Interview

The Skinny: When discussing What is It? in 2005, you said that its most important function was to “question the lack of counterculturalism in culture.” Is this still your agenda when you screen it nine years later?

Crispin Glover: I stopped using the word counterculture in 2005. The word has a slang quality in that anything produced by humans is defined as culture. I agree with the sentiment of when I used the word but use different vocabulary to describe the same or similar concepts. I admire and aspire to make films that go beyond the realm of that which is considered good and evil. I would say that this description applies to both What is It? and It is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE.

Being that What is It? is basically self-funded, I have a great interest in how the funding of film ends up influencing the content. What is it? conceptually goes beyond the realm of that which is considered good and evil. In current corporately financed film, content that does not sit within the bounds of that which is considered good and evil will somewhere along the line of production become excised, or the project itself will simply not be funded or distributed.

The control of this happens through a cultural understating that is supported by the corporate media at large. It is known that if someone in this culture is responsible for the loss of monies for a corporation, then they will most likely lose their job. This kind of ubiquitous corporate control has had a negative influence on educating the general US for approximately a quarter century now. This is a generation of film-goers.

I am very careful to make it quite clear that What is It? is not a film about Down’s Syndrome, but my psychological reaction to the corporate restraints that have happened in the last 20 to 30 years of film-making. When an audience member sits back in their chair and looks up at the screen, I want them to think “Is this right, what I am watching? Is this wrong? Should I be here? Should the filmmaker have made this? What is it?” For a culture, not being able to ask questions is stupefying. I would like people to think for themselves.

The film was originally intended to be a short, promoting the concept of using actors with Down's Syndrome. How did this idea come about?

What is It? started production as a short film in 1996. It took nine and half years from the first day of shooting on the short film to having a 35mm print of the feature film.

In 1996, I was approached by two young writers and aspiring filmmakers from Phoenix, to act in a film they wanted to produce and direct. They made a monetary offer to my agents, which they really should not have done as they did not actually have financing. Nonetheless, it did get me to read the screenplay, which I found to be interesting. This screenplay was What is It?

I came up with solutions for elements that needed re-working in the screenplay and told them I would be interested in acting in the film if I directed it. They came to LA and met with me and wanted to know my thoughts. There were quite a few things, but the main one was that most of the characters were to be played by actors with Down’s Syndrome.

Did many of the cast members have previous acting experience and, true to your training in improvisation, were they encouraged to go off script?

Sometimes people ask me if the length of time it took to make the film had to do with working with actors with Down’s Syndrome. This was not the case. Even though the film took many years to make, most delays were due to technical issues.

Whether an actor has Down’s Syndrome or not, the most important thing for a director is if the performer has enthusiasm. Some of the actors with Down’s Syndrome had experience as professional actors, and many were acting for the first time. Everyone that performed in What is It? had incredible enthusiasm. So they were all great to work with. The screenplay was written specifically for the actors in the film and they all did a great job. Sometimes improvisational elements were used with the actors and often the organic elements that they brought were incorporated into the texture of the film. Some of the best parts of the film are these organic parts.

You've expressed admiration for Todd Browning's Freaks and Werner Herzog's Even Dwarfs Started Small. How heavily do these portrayals of marginalised figures influence your own work?

While I was working on What is It? there were four filmmakers that I was quite consciously thinking about: Luis Buñuel, Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Stanley Kubrick.

Buñuel, I was thinking about his use of psychological free association and the deeper elements that can emanate from the psyche with this technique. With Herzog, Fata Morgana and Even Dwarves Started Small had great influence for different reasons, and I am proud to have asked him questions on the DVD commentary tracks for these two films. For Fassbinder, I was starting to watch his films towards the completion of editing and I was quite impressed by the in-depth illustrations of the cause and effect interactivity between the socio-economic-political and psychological aspects of the human condition.

I am certain there are others that had influence as well. Eraserhead by David Lynch was a film I saw over and over at midnight shows at the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles when I was 16. I admire Lynch very much as a filmmaker in general. It is really worth it for people to go see that film in a move theater projected on a big screen with excellent sound in a fine 35 mm print. It has a tremendous impact when seen in the proper theatrical setting.

I had seen Freaks by Todd Browning as a child, projected at the Nuart Theatre. It is a film that goes beyond the mere art of film-making and sits in the pantheon of all-time great art of any form.

When using disability or 'otherness' to unsettling effect, are you conscious of being viewed as exploitative?

I am not specifically working with people that have disabilities merely for an unsettling effect. It is true, I feel that for people to question things is important and sometimes unsettling aspects can cause people to do this. The word 'exploit' indicates that money will be made at the negative expense of someone or something. I would be against that. My films are hardly films that sensationalise anything for profit. If I were to specifically attempt to make a profit on film-making I would join the corporate propaganda that is the film-making media.

Corporate interest propaganda is the truly exploitative film-making. It helps those with corporate interests exploit the working and lower class population.

Your interests clearly lie in the avant garde, yet you've appeared in a number of mainstream movies. Do you self-identify as an outsider?

No. From my point of view What is It? is not about being an outsider in society. I do not feel like an outsider to society.

You're present at all your films' screenings and each is accompanied by a Q&A. To what extent do you strive for them to be understood on your own terms?

I like to put the films in context to what they are reacting to. I do not try to explain the films other than that.

Having toured with What is It? for years now, do audiences' reactions to the feature ever surprise you?

All audiences have their own mood and it depends on what questions happen to be called upon. Spontaneous discussions and even arguments sometimes erupt among audience members during the Q&A sessions. I consider this to be positive, as it means people are having strong thoughtful reactions to the film.

There can be very aggressive questioning in the Q&A, and there can be intellectual and thoughtful conversation. It depends on the mood of the audience. What people often do not expect is the large amount that there is of the live portion of the show.

I have not noticed a great shift in the audience reaction between 2005 and now. I have noticed that the way that I talk about the film shifts in certain ways. I have noticed that the response shifts from audience to audience, really depending more on the mood of the audience than on the city that I'm in. If I get more aggressive questioning as the first one or two questions then the Q and A session will tend toward having more of that tone. I have noticed that outside of the US I get easier questions and inside the US I get more aggressive questioning. So far I have shown the films in the US, Canada, and Europe. It makes sense to me that the most aggressive questions are in the US because the film it very much reacting specifically to US media.

What are the creative implications of you being tied to each film after their completion? Is it difficult moving forward when you have to constantly refer back to the past?

The tours are a continuing business for recouping on the films. I am consistently working in order to fund my next projects.

I have begun shooting a third feature film that is not part three of the trilogy. This is a feature that I have been developing for many years for myself and my father, Bruce Glover, to act in together. It will be the first time he and I have ever acted in a scene together in a film. I will be showing ten contiguous edited minutes of footage from this film at each show on the UK tour. So of course this is very current material.

The screenings will be preceded by a slide show. What does this entail?

The live aspects of the shows are not to be underestimated. This is a large part of how I bring audiences in to the theatre. For the Crispin Hellion Glover's Big Slide Show, I perform a one hour dramatic narration of eight different books made by me over the years. These are taken from books from the 1800s that have been transformed into different books from what they originally were. They are heavily illustrated with original drawings, as well as reworked images and photographs.

I started making my books in 1983 for my own enjoyment without the concept of publishing them. I had always written and drawn and the books came as an accidental outgrowth of that. I was in an acting class in 1982 and down the block was an art gallery that had a book store upstairs. In the store there was a book for sale that was an old binding taken from the 1800s and someone had put their artwork inside the binding. I thought this was a good idea and set out to do the same thing. I had always liked words in art and left some of the words on one of the pages. I did this again a few pages later and then when I turned the pages, I noticed that a story started to naturally form and so I continued with this. When I was finished with the book I was pleased with the results and kept making more of them. I made most of the books in the 80s and very early 90s. Altogether, I made about twenty of them.

When I was editing What is It? there was a quality reminiscent to the way I worked with the books. As I was expanding the film into a feature from what was originally going to be a short, I was adding in film material that I had shot for a different purpose. I was writing and shooting and, ultimately, editing at the same time. Somehow I was comfortable with this because of similar experiences with making my books.

When I first started publishing the books in 1988 people said I should give book readings. But the books are so heavily illustrated that the only way for them to make sense was to have visually representations of the images. This is why I knew a slide show was necessary. The content of that show has not changed since I first started performing it in 1992, but the performance of the show has become more dramatic as opposed to more of a reading.

The books and films are all narrative. Sometimes people see thematic correlations between the content of my books and the content of the films.

I consider what I am doing to be following in the steps of vaudeville performers. Vaudeville was the main form of entertainment for most of the history of the US. It has only relatively recently stopped being the main source of entertainment, but that does not mean this live element mixed with other media is no longer viable. In fact it is apparent that it is sorely missed.