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by William Narducci
Emerson College
October
25, 1996, acclaimed filmmaker Kevin Smith came to Emerson College. The
night's events included a showing of his 1995 film Mallrats, and
a Q and A session after the film. The event, which lasted neatly four
hours, was sponsored by Emerson College's Films from the Margin. However,
before the event even began, Kevin let an informal panel of journalists
interview him. Latent Image, Emerson Independent Video, The Berkeley
Beacon, and New York Public Access Television were the journalists
in attendance.
Emerson College: I heard that you finished a script for the big screen
version of The Six Million Dollar Man. Could you tell us if that
is going to be made anytime soon?
Kevin Smith: The unwritten rule of Hollywood executives in the studio
system is that no executive will make another executive's film. When I
signed on to do The Six Million Dollar Man I signed on with an
executive by the name of Nina Jacobson, who was our executive producer
on Mallrats, hence the connection. She left, she went to Dreamworks,
then she was replaced by another executive, who then also left, and was
replaced by a third executive. So by the time I turned in my script I
was happy with it because I had never written an action movie [before].
It was like 140 pages or something, and they were just like hmm, interesting,
and they were going to hire an action director now.
EC: They didn’t want you to direct it?
KS: Oh no I was just the writer on it. And now they are rewriting
it. It's weird because basically the story I was doing was about, you
know, an origin tale, you have to do an origin tale. But after the first
hour of which was the origin tale, basically his job [the six million
dollar man] was to hunt down the original six million dollar man, which
was a prototype before him, because actually one of the episodes was kind
of like that. And when I turned it in, they were just like, "you know
we figured that to have a six million dollar man before him, the character
kind of loses his specialness." That's what they actually said.
EC: So where is it now?
KS: Universal, they own it. And it was a shady deal all around. Probably
the worst experience I had yet. Because I got involved with it when Jim
jacks, who was a producer on Mallrats, was a friend of Richard
Anderson, who played Oscar Goldman on the television show [The Six
Million Dollar Man]. And Oscar Goldman is the executive producer on
the movie. So every time I had to deal with somebody, I was dealing with
Oscar Goldman. But Jim was then to be the producer because he basically
had the ideas. Then Jim got thrown off it by the studio, and the studio
was like, "since we own it," we're going to sign a Lot Producer rather
than just let Jim's company Alphaville produce it. They [Alphaville] did
Dazed and Confused as well as Mallrats too. And so the studio
said they were going to sign a producer, who we pretty much assumed was
going to be Larry Gordon, and it eventually became tarry Gordon. But I
found it really shoddy because the guy who came up with the movie was
tossed. Because Jim was a friend of mine, I kind of lost my zeal for the
project. When Nina left to go to Dreamworks, 1 was left with my dick in
the wind, with nobody attached to the project with whom I started. And
then I was like, What am I doing this for? But it was good, because by
the time 1 was done with it, it was a nice palate cleaning exercise because
I got the job writing Superman.
EC: I heard that the script got rejected?
KS: Which one?
EC: The one with the death of Superman...
KS: Well, I haven't even started writing it yet, it couldn't be the
one I wrote. There was a script that was written ahead of me that was
rejected, and they were all really bad. I just turned in my outline to
Warner Brothers about two weeks ago, and they just went wild.
BC: I thought New Line owned the rights.
KS: Well, Warner Brothers lost the rights because of Cannon. And then
Warner Brothers got it back after so many years, and
that is when (two or three years ago) they announced that they were going
to make a new Superman film. And they have gone through two drafts
with two different writers, and they both turned up to be pretty damn
bad. And that is when I got involved. I turned in my outline, and since
I'm such a comic book fan, it's very...how can you say...
EC: It’s true to the...
KS: ..well you can't say that it's true to the comic because the storyline
is the death of storyline. And since they had a year to do that, and we
have two hours and change, you can't do it that much justice. But you
can do it spiritually. And that is what I did. And the studio wanted Brainiac
for some weird reason. So he wasn't even in the "death" of storyline...so
you have to work him in. Doom's in it, Brainiac is in it, Lex Luthor is
in there, the Cyborg, Superman, the Eradicator, Lois.
EC: When you began shooting Clerks, what was it like when you
got to the store, and you realized nothing was going to happen until you
actually started directing?
KS: It kind of wasn't really like that in the sense of that I had
a great support group. Like I don't know dick one about cinematography
I couldn't tell you my lenses from the nagra. But I'm really not that
technically adept. Thankfully Dave, who was a friend of mine from film
school in Vancouver, who is my DP, is. He's a quality DP. So Dave would
just set up. And he'll be like, "what kind of shot do you want," and Dave
would be frustrated all throughout the movie because the film is basically
the same shot over and over again. It's just two guys at a counter. And
Dave would be like, "I think we're going for the two guys at a counter
shot, here?" So he'd set it up, and I would go and work and talk to the
actors, and we rehearsed for four months, so we were pretty much ready
EC: Was it true that when Jay had to do his dance, he wouldn’t do it
if anybody else was around?
KS: Yeah, he was very shy. Which is very weird because Jason, well
I like to describe him as a sonic boom with dirt on it. And he's a very
public guy. And he does shit like pull out his dick in public, and stuff
like that. And he's just a crude little man. And it's weird, and he'll
go up to girls and call them, and pull out his dick, and you could never
be like, "that's harassment." So he's a little child in that fashion.
And he's never shy about doing anything. Like once I met the kid while
working at a recreation center in Highlands, where I met my other friend
Walter and Bryan as well, but he was a lot younger than us. And he would
come in and just talk at a blue streak, and one afternoon, we watched
him for an hour straight run around the room and fillet anything that
resembled a penis. Flagpoles, end of tables, video game controllers, pool
sticks, and he did this constantly. He had us in tears. That was the kind
of kid Jason is, and you know I was thinking if I could ever exploit that
and put it on film it would be great. And so we were about to shoot this
dance thing, and I was just like, "I've seen you do this so many fucking
times, and we're just going to do it. And he was like "I can't do it,"
and I was like "What are you talking about?" And he was like, "There are
all these people here." And I was like, "Yeah, I don't get it?" And we
had to push everybody into the video store, and it was just me and him
against the wall. Dave, our DP, was outside shooting. and my friend Ed
was working the radio. But he's weird like that. And then we went to shoot
Mallrats, and I had to sit him down because the studio didn't want
to use him in the first place, and I was just like. "You can't pull this
shit because there are way too many more people on this set." And by that
time he was much cooler.
EC: Are you happy with the end result of Mallrats? What is your
take on it?
KS: Well, I'm happy but in a long roundabout way. Of course I wasn't
excited about the grosses, but I was happy with what the film was in the
end because it was what we were going for. I can't push it off on anybody
and say they fucked up or anything. It's basically the movie I wanted
to make. I wish somebody sat me down and kicked the thought in my head
that you're making a movie for people who can't get in and see it. And
I don't think it would have mattered if someone did sit me down and say
it because we thought we were making a movie for college kids. And in
a way we were right, we were making a movie for college kids for them
to watch on video. The core audience for this film theatrically was 15
to 16 year old boys. And they couldn't even get in to see it. So hence
the lackadaisical grosses. And when I went to the theater so many flicking
times and then I would see all these kids in there, and I would he like,
"How the hell did they get in there?" And then I would look at the grosses
at Now and Then at
that weekend and they we were really high. Who the hell goes and sees
a film about a bunch of bitches? So, some Mallrats money was in
their commerce. I was disappointed by the grosses, but I was happy with
the movie that we wanted to make. It's nice that it's cultish on video.
It's always better to be the outlaw than the law I think. I'm glad it
did flop because if it hadn't I think I would still make that same movie
for the rest of my life. That it did not do well lead me to do Chasing
Amy Which I think is our finest hour today. It's a much more mature
film, while still being very much like Clerks, and it kind of goes
leaps and bounds above that. And by that nature, is worlds beyond Mallrats.
EC: Do you think you will ever become a director that is mare stylistic
than dialogue driven?
KS: The movie we start next spring, called Dogma. is about
a 10 million dollar film. It's very stylistic while still being dialogue
heavy. That is about as far as I would go.
EC: Have you cast it yet?
KS: We have some ideas.
EC: When you were writing Clerks, did you ever read in the middle
of it. and thought, "This sucks!"
KS: Yeah, all the time. And I was like, "Am I the only one who is
going to find this funny?" And I was talking to my friend who has a very
similar sense of humor named Brian, and we had a falling our for about
a year, and I always wished that he was around because he would have appreciate
it. I would be like, "God if only Brian was here, I could show him this,
and he'd let me know if this was funny or not." So it wasn't until I sent
it to Scott my producer, and when he'd read it, and reacted to it, and
I realized that it was more than myself that finds this script funny.
The first time I ever sat down and seriously watched the movie though
when it was screened it at IFFM (the Independent Feature Film Market),
um, I was mortified. I was just like, "I can't believe we made this movie.
It's such a piece of trash. Why is everybody talking so dirty throughout
this movie?" It's weird, because all the language struck me for the first
time. And I'm like, "Oh man, everybody says fuck, what's she talking about
dicks?" I was like, "I ruined myself, I screwed myself." And by the end
of the movie, I was just like, "It's the price of going to film school,
about $28,000." I think it's more expensive to go to film school, depending
on where you go. I was like, "This will be the price of my education,"
and I'll try a bit later on.
EC: What was it like when your first movie got all this acclaim?
KS: It was nice, but it never affected me in the way one might figure.
I had no desire to move to the West Coast. I just wanted to stay in my
town and be there. Yeah, I don't mind working for the studios. But the
thing is, I know it might sound corny, but I didn't feel as alone in the
world anymore. There were that many people who understood what the movie
was about, they laughed at the same things. I was just used to having
four people in the world laughing at the jokes I liked. And now more people
were doing that, and I was just like, "Thank God." And I could make a
living out of this. And suddenly I had a career, and didn't have a job
anymore, and I wasn't making $4.50 an hour.
EC: What kind of trouble did you have with the MPAA?
KS: Well they originally gave us an NC-17. It had been weird because
a few months prior they did that to Martin Lawrence's concert movie, You
So Crazy. And I remember when I first read that, I was like, "An
NC-17 for language?" I wonder if they will do that to us just because
we have a lot of language, arid just because we're white. You know, because
they already did it to someone black, now they will have to do it to someone
white. And I was like, "Nah, that shit only happens in the movies." And
sure enough, they slapped us with it. You'll never receive an NC-17, you're
slapped with it. So, we were slapped with it, this NC-17, and it was just
horrifying because there is no way to cut that movie. And I think when
the MPAA gives you this rating, they don't tell you what the problem is.
It's not like, "If you trim this, you will get an rating." They don't
tell you that kind of thing. It's nebulous. I think they gave it to us
for pervasive coarse language or something. So Miramax is very happy because
it's our third publicity windfall. We had our first at Sundance, we had
our second at Cannes when we won some award, and the NC-17 was our third
windfall. Of course they can get lots of press with the movie, and it
was kind of scary because when it's all said and done, will they still
stand behind us? Or would they turn to us and say, "cut the movie." But
Harvey Weinstein, the chairman of Miramax, put up a good fight. He actually
called up Katzenberg who at the time was with Disney, and he was like,
"Jeffrey, we're going to have to release the movie as it is. We can't
cut it." And we went to the appeal and won. The appeal was run by this
organization called NATO, which is, the National Association of Theater
Owners, and basically it's made up of just that. And, they watch the movie
and they decide since they know their audience, they decide what should
be an honorable R. They watch the movie. Before we actually watched the
movie we sat there opposite Richard Mosque, who was an hired for the MPAA,
and kinda debated virtues and merits of the film against what he saw.
And they state their case against every issue of the film. The people
watched the movie, and five minutes later said it was an R, and they shook
my hand. One guy said. "I can't wait to see this movie in Santa Monica
at Midnight Boys."
EC: After you got your film finished, how did you go around to get
Miramax to pick it up?
KS: Miramax picked it up at Sundance.
EC: Did it go straight to Sundance?
KS: Well, we first
went to IFFM, and nobody was really there. Except for one guy by the name
of Bob Hawk, who is a tremendous guy. And he talked to us after the screening,
he was like, "I really like this movie, it's really haunting." But he
wasn't with an organization, so we just thought he was a crack pot. The
next day I got a call from Mary Carter, who runs "The New Directors, New
Films" series at The Museum of Modern Art. I got a call from Amy Talbot
who writes for The Village Voice, and suddenly all these people
were interested. Including Peter Broderick who writes for Filmmaker
Magazine. People kept asking for copies of the film, and he hooked
me up with John Pierson. And everyone was like, "You have to sit down
with John Pierson, he has an great reputation and is a tremendous guy."
But by that time, the film already got submitted to Sundance. Miramax
bought the film there. But they had already screened the movie before
Sundance because of Mark Tusca, who was in acquisitions at the time, and
was a real big fan of the film. He's from Bergen County New Jersey. He
was just like "I understand this film is New Jersey." He set up a screening
at Miramax, and Harvey, who just got in from England or something, watched
4 or 5 minutes of the film and left. And we felt then that they would
never pick up the film. But Mark promised that he would bring Harvey to
the screening at The Egyptian Theater at Sundance. He did, and Harvey
did the same thing during the part he left at before, but Mark grabbed
him and made him watch it. And once he stayed passed that 10 minute part,
he was in love with it.
EC: What it your theory about film school?
KS: I have mixed theories. For me, it didn't work. For most I think
it doesn't work. I think if you're going to be a historian or a film critic
they're great. But if a filmmaker, it depends. Being a DP makes sense.
If you want to be a writer and director, I just don't think they're essential
because all they do is show you a lot of movies and tell you what the
movies mean. But for most of the time, when they tell you what the movie
means, it's not the filmmaker, it's someone else. I remember at film school
once there was a teacher who was trying to tell us what Jonathan Demme
was trying to say with The Silence of the Lambs. I was just like,
"Motherfucker, you're not Jonathan Demme." So it's hard to swallow. I
thought film school was a great place to meet modern individuals like
my producer Scott and my DP Dave. I believe that you can either write
or you can't write. They can basically teach you format in film schools,
but you can learn that by just buying a book. I don't think they can teach
how to direct, and I think you are either good with people or not. And
that is what directing is about. 75% about how well you work with people.
Either you can inherently do that, or you can’t.
EC: What about the alternate ending of Clerks where Dante gets
shot? Why did you choose to change it?
KS: It was kind of a mass call. John Pierson first suggested it. Bob
Hawk said, "You have a great movie here, but you have a lousy ending."
And I was just like, "The movie is the end." That was back when I had
integrity. And everyone just said that the first 90 minutes are set up
so you basically love this guy, and you just shoot him in the end? My
whole philosophy was that every independent film I had seen had a down
ending. And I was trying to make an independent film, and I thought by
shooting him it would make it independent. By the end, Pierson was just
like, "You're going to Sundance, and you have to reshoot it." So we did
it.
EC: Do you have anything you did before Clerks?
KS: We made, while we were at film school, a eight to ten minute video
documentary about a transsexual, but he dropped out about three days into
it. So then we made a documentary about how our documentary got fucked
up.
EC: You bring in characters from other movies like Cousin Walter, Jay
and Silent Bob, and Julie who died while back-stroking. What do you feel
that brings to your movies?
KS: I used to think that was for me, just to keep everything tied
together. Then I would make appearances at the movies, and
after Mallrats everyone would be like making references between
shit. I always thought that was pretty cool. Then when I got onto the
Internet, I found out how pretty fucking frightening people are. About
how much attention to detail they do pay I really got into that, especially
with the third film. And now I'm going back to the fourth script, and
I'm trying to lace it throughout. When you put an inside joke for people
who've seen the two previous films, it lust enhances the work. Basically,
when I first got into the business after Clerks took off, I wanted
to stay in, and I was just like after they asked me what I wanted to do
next, I was like, "We're making a New Jersey trilogy." I just figured
that they would let me make three movies out of the success of Clerks.
So, people would keep asking about the third film from the Jersey
trilogy, and I would be like, "Oh my God, I don't know." Because there
was no planned trilogy. So, I usually fall back on that it's the Jay and
Silent Bob trilogy, but Jay and Silent Bob only pop up for one scene in
Chasing Amy Well, I was like, "It's a trilogy about Jersey guys
who just like to hangout." But that's weak, it sounds like I just made
that up on the spot. So now, I figure that each film has a Jones sister
in it. In Clerks, the girl who was with the trainer at the counter
telling Dante he's overweight is Heather Jones, and she talked about her
sister Alyssa. In the next movie, there's Tricia Jones who was writing
a book on sex, and finally one of the main characters in the third movie
is Alyssa Jones.
EC: What are some films that actually influenced you the most and some
films you actually hate?
KS: A lot of people think I hated The Brothers McMullen, but
I didn't. I just thought it was a cute movie, and that's where it about
began and ended. But I didn't hate it. I actually kind of respected She’s
the One because Eddy Burns made it with a lot of balls. It's one of
the most misogynist films I ever saw. I was like, "fluffy adorable independent
boy actually made a movie that slaps women in the face." You have to respect
someone with balls that big. As far as favorite movies go, I am a big
fan of Do the Right Thing, JFK and The Last Temptation of Christ
EC: Do you believe with the all new independent films from
America, that we might he considered "The New American New
Wave"?
KS: Sure I guess, it seems to ebb and flow, and run in cycles. But
the cycle hasn't ended in recent time. The first time I was exposed to
independent filmmaking was with Richard Linklater's Slacker. It
hasn't dulled since that moment, and that was 91. And now we're here in
96, and it has only gotten stronger. When Cassavates came out of the woodwork
he kind of came and gone. Scorsese did the same the thing, as well as
Jim Jarmuch and Spike Lee. The first time I seriously heard about independent
filmmaking was with Richard Linklater, with the exception of Lizzie Borden.
I think we're in a day and age where anybody can make a movie, which is
a good and bad thing. Because everybody has a story to tell, but not everybody
has the talent to tell it. You can go to the IFFM every year and basically
see about three to four hundred films that you will never see past that
day, which is pretty sad because all these people are spending about ten
to twenty thousand to make movies that nobody will ever see. But that's
their dream, so it works out in the end. But out of every 400 bad movies
one uses out of the surface, like Welcome to the Dollhouse. It
all balances out in the end.
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