JONATHAN CAOUETTE: So have you seen the film?
DAVID LOWERY: I loved it.
JC: When did you see it?
DL: Probably about three weeks ago or so. And it just...man. I was excited when I first heard about the film, because I heard John Cameron Mitchell was an executive producer, and that's how I learned about the movie, I was trying to find information about Shortbus (Mitchell's upcoming film) and I found out about it...
JC: I heard they're just getting picked up by -- like, they've got like forty percent of their financing to start production.
DL: I'm so excited!
JC: I'm so excited, too. He wants to cast me in it, but I don't know as what. It's like a cameo. (notices tape recorder) Oh, I have that same tape recorder.
DL: Oh, that's not even mine. I stole it from a friend to do interviews. So anyway, this film reminded me a lot of Hedwig in that left me with a totally transcendent, affirming feeling at the end of it...I'm sure you've gotten that from just about everyone you've talked to...
JC: Thank you. A lot of people -- it's been affecting a lot of people, and I had no idea that it would do that. It was really amazing that, uh, this film really does seem to have a life. It does seem to touch people. And you know, I mean, it was certainly getting under my skin as I was making it and I think it's, uh, I think it's doing the same thing for other people, from what it looks like. But I think the real test of it is gonna be to see how it really does to Joe Schmoe in Indiana...
DL: Right...
JC: ...to see how they react to it.
DL: Well, my mom is very conservative, and she really wants to see it, and I'm taking her to see it next weekend.
JC: Oh really? Oh man! Do you guys live here?
DL: Yeah, we're in Dallas. It's just...I think the film totally crosses the boundaries so that even people who wouldn't normally be able to relate to it...
JC: Yeah, it's one of those things that you sort of have to let go when you...sort of surrender to it aesthetically, initially, and if you don't do that then you may not...you may get bored. Or not bored, but just frustrated.
It's definitely...it's definitely touching people, and I am, I'm so glad they're seeing this film, because you know, the idea, the notion of mental illness is something that is so often candycoated and whitewashed...(here, some drinks are brought over)...oh, thank you so much!
You know, even in Hollywood films, um, certain directors, they tend to, they tend to play the idea -- whether they know enough about the illness or not, they tend to play the idea of what they think mass audiences are going to get by having to spell it out for them in a certain way. And it's just a very multi-faceted/dimensional illness that people need to know about more, and know that these people are really suffering. And the whole film, all in all, was about just me urgently getting my mother's story out there, because she wouldn't have had a voice otherwise. She really feels really fucked over by the medical system.
DL: Well, the compassion you show towards her in the film, and to your grandparents as well, is so overwhelming that I can't imagine people not being affected by, even if they're not used to the experimental aspects of it...
JC: Sure...
DL: It's just so profound...
JC: Thank you.
DL: Now, I've gonna try to come up with some questions here that are haven't been asked in every single interview with you I've read...
JC: Oh, I know, I hate it when I -- I hate having to go -- I find myself on autopilot sometimes. I've done like 400 interviews, it's like...(laughs in disbelief)
DL: The first thing that blew my mind in the movie is at the end of the first reel when you -- I guess you were like eleven, and you do that monologue as the battered housewife...
JC: Oh yeah...
DL: Did you make that up, or...
JC: Yeah yeah, it was totally and completely improvised.
DL: It was amazing!
JC: Thank you. It's like me sort of emulating my mother, you know -- you know what spawned that, right, what sort of inspired that? Watching an episode of The Bionic Woman where Lindsay Wagner -- (at this point, a random passerby points our way and calls out "Still!" -- it's Hunter Nolan, who long ago operated video assist on that particular short film) -- she gets locked up in this asylum because her doppleganger is taking over, and for some weird reason Lindsay Wagner always reminded me of my mother. For some strange reason.
And also that evening I saw For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf -- it's like an American Playhouse or something on PBS. And Alfre Woodard breaks away from the play and she turns right to the camera and goes off on this crazy monologue. And I just got really inspired by both of those for some reason and set the camera up that I had borrowed from Jeff Miller, from the Houston Chronicle, and...that was just one of the many ways I had of disassociating myself, and dealing with making sense of my life by performing and improvising. A lot of the stuff I was talking about, although it was a fictitious character -- sort of a hard bitten Texas diva type -- it wasn't my mother, but I was still able to be inspired by those things I'd seen that day and kind of fused it into a character that talks about dialogue based on experiences that my mother was going through at the time, with the very failed second marriage.
DL:That character totally reminded me of Charlize Theron in Monster, but I thought you did a better job.
JC: Oh, really? Gosh! Thank you. I thought she was really good.
DL: She was fantastic but -- and then also, in those old archival things -- how did you convince a high school to let you do Blue Velvet: The Musical?
JC: You know, they were very complacent, and it wasn't very -- it wasn't even a full fledged production. It was a one day theater thing that we had, where the lunchroom was actually connected to the auditorium and people would just walk in and out of the theater. It was very informal and very like a one-day kind of thing. And I had just seen Thelma And Louise and that's how I found out about Marianne Faithful; (all the songs in the musical are Marianne Faithfull songs), with the Geena Davis/Susan Sarandon night driving scene. I had seen Blue Velvet in like '86 when it first came out at the River Oaks theater in Houston with my big brother. I was always freaked out by David Lynch.
DL: On the subject of David Lynch, I read that you really want to do Ronnie Rocket --
JC: Yeah, yes! You know that?
DL: I've read it, and someone has to make that someday, and so if he doesn't do it...
JC: I know, I talked to William Morris about it the other day, I just really...I know it's his baby, and it's been shelved a number of times...
DL: For like twenty years...
JC: You've read the script?
DL: I don't know how current the draft I read is, but I found it online...
JC: It's one of the most mesmerizing screenplays I've ever read in my life. It's just so brilliant.
DL: Whoever makes it, it's going to be like nothing ever seen before.
JC: Oh yeah, I would love to do it. With the souls and the fire...oh my God, it's gonna be great!
DL: The animals running out of the club with the bleeding mouths...
JC: Yeah, and the knitters, and the inability to concentrate because the electricity is going in reverse -- Jesus Christ, it would be the perfect metaphorical schizophrenic film to make! It's such a, an expression of what schizophrenia -- I think -- is like. Growing up with it -- I'm not schizophrenic, but I get the gist of it because I've seen it firsthand.
DL: Well, regardless of who makes it, it needs to get made. So...is the two and a half hour version of Tarnation going to be on the DVD, or will there be more material that you cut from the film?
JC: No, I'm going to probably put rushes from a few of the scenes, and the trailer, but I'm not going to put any additional footage on. I'm making a hybrid adaptation from leftover Tarnation footage called Buddy and you know on the last scene my grandfather is on the phone trying to call Buddy? I'm just going to go into that a little bit more, but it's going to be loosely based on the idea that my family could be a government experiment.
DL: Ah, so it's going to be fictional.
JC: It's going to be fictional, yeah, but still using some of the footage.
DL: So I hear your next film is going to be made out of old movie footage with a certain actress...
JC: Yes. I can't say who it is, but there are three major motion pictures in the 70s, all starring this big 70s star, who actually assumes the same aesthetics throughout all of the films, right down to her hair length. So she could conceivably be the same character in all three of these films, um, she sort of is that person in all three of these films. And my fantasy is to get all three of these films free of underscore and free of things that -- I would rather just have dialogue, derived from the masters. I basically want to re-augment all three films and remix them into a new two hour film with a new story. And I was sort of inadvertently pitching it to David Lynch's producer, actually, out at the Cannes film festival. And he got so excited about it that he actually signed on as producer, so I'm really excited about that.
DL: So obviously, that's going to be another purely editorially based movie. Are you planning on ever making the jump into a more traditional film production?
JC: I don't want to turn my nose up at it, but I have so many personal things I have to deal with in regards to my family. So the easiest way to still keep myself out there and keep my creative juices flowing is to do these very home computer based projects. This way I can actually just stay at home and work on it. But I love the idea of experimenting with being on a Hollywood set or a big set somewhere...maybe in a couple of years, but as of now, I'm not...
DL: Well, if you do Ronnie Rocket...
JC: If I do Ronnie Rocket, man, that would be so high to do Ronnie Rocket/. God! And it's so weird to say that, because I haven't met Mr. Lynch yet -- hopefully I will one day. I just adore him, worship him. I remember seeing on PBS The Grandmother and The Alphabet when I was eight years old and it just gave me nightmares for years after that. Imagery-wise, it was just something that got under my skin forever...it still sort of haunts me.
DL: So when you were editing -- you had forty five minutes completed and then you finished the rest of the film in a just three weeks -- did you do a lot of exhaustive tinkering, with the narrative progression and especially with the effects, or did it all just sort of come together naturally?
JC: Yeah, as I was making it I would add the effects. Everything you see is as I made it -- like 'blah blah blah' and then I just put this effect here -- you know, everything you see is essentially as it was. The co-editor, Brian Kates, came on just to make the suggestion of cutting out about four different subplots, but everything else there is mine.
DL: That was actually one of my questions: I was wondering what Brian Kates (whose previously has done editing work for Todd Haynes, Jim McKay and Tony Gilroy, among others) did, as far as editing, since you two share that credit in the final film?
JC: Yeah, it was just to, you know -- also, and he was a big help when my iMac crashed and we had to dump everything on an Avid at the last minute! (laughter) So he helped me do transitions and stuff on the Avid and he really saved my ass. Really saved my ass.
DL: And so you sent part of the film to John Cameron Mitchell when you sent him an audition tape for his film, right?
JC: Yeah, I inserted a part of the film that was a work-in-progress at the time. And John didn't see the film until it was finished, so it's not like he said "do this and do this" until it was done.
DL: And that was before or after the Mix Film Festival (the Gay & Lesbian Film Festival in NYC where the first cut of the film premiered)?
JC: That was right before Mix, about a week before Mix, he saw the two and a half hour version.
DL: I'm sure you love Hedwig -- it must have been wonderful meeting him.
JC: He's so great -- have you ever met him?
DL: No (regretfully)...
JC: He is by far one of the most grounded, helpful, real, true film people I have ever met. He is so...whatever he does directorially is going to be brilliant. And I still...he's retired from acting, officially, but I would love to be able to work with him as director to actor or actor to actor. He's such a wonderful friend, in all aspects...
DL: Well, that about wraps up everything I wanted to talk with you about. Is there anything you have left to say that you haven't already said a million times, that you'd just like to throw out there?
JC: I've said everything. Seriously, the past few days...I don't know...I'm fried. (leans into the microphone) I'M FRIED!!!
DL: Looking forward to getting some sleep...
JC: Yeah, yeah.
DL: Well it was very nice meeting you.
JC: It was so nice meeting you too.