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April 22, 2009
The Evening Class on St. Nick
I've done a good number of interviews for St. Nick these past few months, but have let my participation expire as soon I've hung up the phone - not because I don't appreciate them, but because I just don't feel comfortable trumpeting my own press.
I'll make an exception, though; I've long admired the interviews Michael Guillen posts at his renowned site, The Evening Class, and so I was commensurately thrilled when he called me up the other day to chat about St. Nick. That interview is now online, and as much as I cringe at my lack of articulation, such oral shortcomings are mitigated by the very thing that makes Michael 's interviews so wonderful to read. He brings his own insights into the conversation, his own points of reference, and uses them to really get to the heart of the matter - in short, over the course of the conversation, he deconstructs the work at hand as deftly as any critic. One reads his interviews for his own half of the discussion as much as any of his subjects.' Interviewing is a reciprocal art form, and Michael has mastered it. I'm happy to say that my own understanding of my work has been enriched by our discourse.
One thing I've mentioned in quite several interviews and nearly all of Q&As is that I feel music was a more direct source of inspiration for me than other films, with a particular emphasis on Bill Callahan. Somehow, it slipped under my radar that the artist formerly known as Smog released a new album last week. It's called Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle - and is there any artist who picks better album titles than he? I feel like he chooses them the same way I pick the titles for my films, and that they're as intrinsic to the album as the the songs themselves. So of course, with a title like that, you know what you're getting. This record is stunning.
Posted by David Lowery at April 22, 2009 4:00 PM