Q&A for "Saint Misbehavin" at High Falls Film Festival, May 13, 2009

Q & A Session for
Saint Misbehavin'
High Falls Film Festival
Little Theatre, Rochester, New York
May 13, 2009

 

L-R: David Becker, Michele Estrick, Wavy Gravy, and ???? (name
inaudible)*

Q: To the producer and the director, how did you start, how long did it take--

????: The genesis of the film--

Estrick: I met Wavy in '92, we did some benefit work in '96 for a couple of years, and I've never met anyone like him in my entire life.  I thought that everyone who got the privilege to be around him felt like going out and helping somebody.  I saw a light around him, a good light.  So I thought, "I've got to introduce him, the real Wavy Gravy, not what a lot of people think of him as."  But also, I really wanted to put him in front of as many people as possible around the world to see how fun it is to make world a better place.

Q: Just to follow up, I read that you worked on the film for a decade.  How did that happen?

Estrick: How did the decade happen?

Q: Did you literally start ten years ago?

Estrick: Yes.  The first shoot was at Woodstock '99, which didn't end up in the film at all.  We ended up with about 350 hours of footage, and the movie is 87 minutes long, so we have lots of Gravy!  We were in the editing room for two years.  Wavy has about ten films, at least.  I could've made a film about anything.  I didn't want to make a biography, I wanted the film to be his message.  You really have to figure out which story you want to tell, and picking the right story to tell.  And if you're ever with Wavy, he'll tell a story about right now, and then he'll go back to the past, and then come back to the present, and so that's what it's like to be with him.

Q (to Wavy Gravy): What are the major differences between the '60s and now?

Wavy: I've always believed that we're the same person trying to shake hands with ourselves.  These are the good old days.  Everyone says, "Oh, God!  I miss the sixties!  I loved it!"  Well, Eternity Now!

Q (from ????): How did you get through the past eight years?

Wavy: One breath at a time!  As I say, I prefer to smoke bush rather than pay attention to him.

Q: I'd like to know how you learned about clowning.

Wavy: My own training came about through an improvisational group called The Committee.  The type of clowning I employ is called intuitive clowning, rather than classical clowning.  There's the Ringling College in Sarasota if you want to learn that type of clowning.  The kind of stuff that I do comes from within.

Q: Can Grown-Ups come to the camp?

Wavy: We have nine weeks for the children, and one week for the grown-ups.  You can come for one day, or one week.

I would also like to say one thing.  This film was made before the last election.  For many years, I supported Nobody for President, and a lot of anarchists got steamed because I defected to Barack Obama.  So I told them, "Nobody made me do it!"

Q: How long did you work with Tiny Tim, and what was he really like?

Wavy: For many years.  Tiny Tim would have these old time Philco players come inside him and he would channel them.  I remember one time we were doing a show and he came off the stage upset, and I asked, "What's wrong, Tiny Tim?"  and he said, "Rudy Vallee came inside, and he wouldn't leave."

Q: Did you ever write with Robert Hunter, and if so, what was that relationship like?

Wavy: No.  He's writing with Dylan.

Q: Do you still see Bob Dylan?

Wavy: I haven't seen Dylan much lately, he tends to be pretty reclusive.  But he put out another damn fine album this year, I don't know if you have checked it out.

Q: There's a controversy about what kind of lunch box you used to sell weed out of.  Was it a [inaudible], or a Donald Duck lunch box?

Wavy: I would stand on the corner of Haight and Ashbury and sell a lid, but they were just the tops of my Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Flavor.

Q: Why couldn't the Hog Farm vehicle persuade Jerry Rubin to come out of his madness?

Wavy: Jerry was on his way.  He'd started a big vitamin company and was jaywalking when he was terminated.

Q: Mr. Gravy, this is a serious question.  I think you're a sage and a visionary.  What do you believe will happen with aging flower children?  I mean, what's going to happen to all of us?

Wavy: I am nostalgic for the future.

Q: With all the things you've done in your life, is there anything else you would sort of like to accomplish?

Wavy: First of all, you gotta know that 501 (c) 3's are really taking it in the gut, and the Seva Foundation is an organization that is near and dear to me, and is in desperate, dire straits.  And if you want to, check us out at seva.org.  Seva is a sanskrit word that means "to service of humankind".  We not only work with blindness, but we're also taking on diabetes in the Indian Reservations.  With talking circles and elders, and their campaign to bring back the Buffalo, and actually have made a Winnebago reservation made for it.  So I'm more than just another pretty face!

Estrick: I like it when Wavy says when we're at a restaurant, and the waiter says, "Can I get you anything else, sir?", and he says, "a side order of humankind while you're at it!"

Q: What are you planning on doing with the movie now?

Becker: One of the things that we're going to do is do a college tour with the film. We're going to bring Wavy and some of his friends, and some musicians along with us. We really want to reach the younger generation at colleges and at public schools--those are great places to take the message. So it's going to be a big part of the outreach program that we do to get the film in front of young people. We think that now is a great time to tap into young people, with all the hope and inspiration that's going on in the country. To show that you really can change the world, and have a good time doing it. That's one of the goals for the film.

Q: Can you talk about the distribution of this wonderful film?

Estrick: We would love for you to go to our website, and sign up to be on our e-mail list so that we can let you know where we'll be next, and what's happening. We're talking to distributors now. We're not sure what's going to happen, we just know that we want to pour some Gravy on the world.

Q: Where will you be next?

Becker: We premiered at SXSW, and played the Santa Cruz and Full Frame Documentary festivals. We'll be doing Michael Moore's Film Festival, The Woods Hole Festival in cape Cod, a festival in Oklahoma City called The Dead Center Film Festival, and we're going to do a big, free screening.

* If you know the name of this person, don't hesitate to contact Erin. (But remove the "dontspamme" part).

NYFF- HBO Directors Dialogue: Todd Haynes - October 6, 2007

45th New York Film Festival
HBO Directors Dialogue: Todd Haynes
October 6, 2007

Todd Haynes in New York Film Fesival's Green Room for I'm Not There. Photo Credit: C.J.Contino

Saturday at the New York Film Festival, Village Voice film critic J. Hoberman conducted an HBO Directors Dialogues with filmmaker Todd Haynes whose new film, I’m Not There, premiered at the festival a few days earlier. I was at the premiere and took notes at the Q&A, and thought it would be a good complement to take additional notes at the Directors Dialogue to get further insights from Haynes on his directing styles and choices for I’m Not There and his other bodies of work. What follows are highlights of the discussion and questions and answers from the audience.

Hoberman opened by saying “the greatest pleasure a film journalist can have is to come across a movie you never heard of from someone unknown and to have the privilege to write about it first 20 years ago.” The film refers to was Haynes’ 1987 super 8mm movie Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story. Hoberman called it a completely brilliant and original movie. He then went through the laundry list of Haynes’ other film including Poison (1991), Safe (1995), Velvet Goldmine (1998), Far From Heaven (2002), and finally I’m Not There (2007). Hoberman pointed out that most of these films have multiple stories and address certain pop culture text. In each case, there is a certainty of irony. He asks Haynes if these films were made with love, and what he’s a fan of.

Haynes responded that he’s an intense, wild fan of movies, music, and even of Hoberman’s work, referring back to Hoberman’s original review of Superstar, a film that would never have been shown commercially. This review launched Haynes’ career. Many theatrical venues wanted to show the film.

Hoberman moves the discussion over to Haynes interest in Bob Dylan.

Haynes recollected his high school days. He attended Oakwood, an artsy school in Los Angeles that had a radical, mythical history founded by progressive actors in the 1950s. It was in this environment, he first encountered Dylan’s music. After graduating in 1979, he moved to the East Coast for college at Brown University, where he studied semiotics, and became interested in glam and punk rock. It was not till the end of his 30s (he had begun his film career already) when he got back into Dylan. He finished making Velvet Goldmine and took a few years off. Most of his friends were starting their lives already, having families. He didn’t have any of those things in his life. Something was missing. He wanted to enrich himself. Since he was a creative person, he had the opportunity to externalize his troubles, and was very grateful for it. At the time, he was interested in 1950s melodramas (ala Douglas Sirk) and wanted to work again with Julianne Moore (who he worked previously with on Safe).

At the end of the 1990s, Haynes drove across country to Portland, Oregon, to live with his sister. He listened to tapes of Dylan in the car. Half way there, he bought some more folk music to listen to . When he got to Portland, he read a bunch of Dylan biographies. It became inevitable that his obsession would result in making something creative.

Hoberman mentions that Haynes started writing the screenplay for I’m Not There in 2000. During this time, Dylan published an anthology, ’s documentary, No Direction Home: Bob Dylan came out, and Twyla Tharp’s ballet based on Dylan’s songs, The Times They Are A-Changin’, played on Broadway. But Haynes focuses most of the film on Dylan’s life in the 1960s up until the 70s, the end of the Vietnam War.

Haynes said he couldn’t commit to Dylan’s entire life. He wanted to focus on the core elements and roots of his origins in the 60s era. That was enough. Dylan ultimately created his own escape at the end of the 60s until he had his motorcycle accident in 1966. Then he went to Woodstock and raised a family. In many ways, he never really came back. Dylan’s access and visibility have been under his own terms ever since. That’s what the whole last story with Richard Gere’s Dylan character, Billy, is all about. Billy is the most metaphorical character.

Given how protective Dylan is, Hoberman asked Haynes how he got permission to use Dylan’s music in the film and what Dylan thought of the film.

Haynes said he’s not sure Dylan has seen it yet. He sent the DVD to Dylan’s son Jesse, because he knew that Dylan didn’t want to come to any public screenings. Before even making the film, Haynes called up producer Christine Vachon. He was very bashful about it, because he knew it would be hard to get Dylan’s permission to use the songs. There was no way he could make the movie without the music. Prior to making the film, Haynes met with Jesse, who is also a filmmaker, in Los Angeles. It’s so hard to be the kid of a famous person. One thing Dylan has been able to do all along is keep his family protected.

At that point in the script (which was then titled I’m Not There: Suppositions On a Film Concerning Dylan), Haynes had seven Dylan characters, one of which eventually got absorbed into the Woody character, making the final amount six. Dylan had been opposed to every dramatic version of his life before, until that moment. If there was ever something Dylan wanted done about his life, it would have to be something this open and unconventional.

Audience Q&A

Q: Do you see parallels between I’m Not There and Velvet Goldmine? Did you get David Bowie’s blessing for Velvet Goldmine?

TH: Artists are always changing themselves. The first person you might think of is David Bowie. I wanted the rights to Bowie’s songs, but he wasn’t interested in having his story on film. Bowie’s version of self-transformation was about dressing up and applying make up. Androgyny. I’m Not There and Velvet Goldmine are very different films. Different music genres and traditions. Velvet Goldmine is a British story, whereas I’m Not There is American story.

Q: Why do you choose Cate Blanchett for the role of Jude in I’m Not There?

TH: I was obsessed about different actresses in their age range. I looked at pictures of actresses and put them in Dylan’s hair. Saw Cate on stage in Heda Gabler in Brooklyn. Saw her scale and proportions. She’s beautiful. On a physical level, I was stunned by her proportions.

Q: How do you work with such a large body of music?

TH: It was an embarrassment of riches. The selection of cinematic references started in the script stage. Music would be telling the story, built into the film’s concept. For example, the song “Ballad of a Thin Man” had such an important historical meaning. It expressed the inside/outside dichotomy. Another song, “Goin’ to Acapulco,” was a personal favorite. It’s absurdly melodramatic.

Q: You started the script in 2000 with seven Dylan characters. What are other changes were made?

TH: I did stop everything on the script when going into production on Far From Heaven in 2001, which occupied me completely till about 2003, but at that point, I had gotten the rights from Dylan to use the music. Then started researching and starting over from scratch. The process of being a pure fan was changed. The missing seventh character was called Charlie, a Chaplin-esque figure.

Q: Did you study of semiotics at Brown influence your filmmaking?

TH: It has. The semiotics courses are now part of the modern culture and media departments. Semiotics studies post-culturalism. It’s a post-humanist look at pop culture and media.

I Was There - Notes from Todd Haynes' "I'm Not There" At 45th New York Film Festival

45th New York Film Festival
I’m Not There
October 4, 2007

Cate Blanchett as Jude in I'm Not There. Directed by Todd Haynes, US, 2007; 136m. Photo Credit: Jonathan Wenk/TWC 2007

I'm Not There opens in limited release at Film Forum in New York on Nov. 21.

Last night at the New York Film Festival, I saw Todd Haynes’ extraordinary narrative/mockumentary/experimental/biopic I’m Not There. The film beautifully and strangely yet effectively, weaves the tales of six different versions of legendary folk/rock singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, each played by different actors of varying ages (and gender ala Cate Blanchett’s terrific performance) at various stages or incarnations or dreamlike moments of Dylan’s life. I’m Not There was the most challenging, engaging and artistic film I have seen so far this year. There are definitely elements of Haynes’ earlier works here, which I’ve always been intrigued by, yet he presents us with fresh and new ideas, that to some may seem a bit jarring, but well worth the experience.

Richard Peña, Program Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, introduced the film along with its director Todd Haynes. Haynes told the audience that it meant a tremendous amount to him to have his film there. “This is a city Dylan so loved,” he said. He also mentioned how difficult it was to get the project financed and gave a big thanks to Harvey Weinstein (who was in attendance) for being someone who stepped in. “He is a courageous guy,” Haynes said.

Haynes then went on to introduce a lot of people from the film who all got up on stage. They included: Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Marcus Carl Franklin, Michelle Williams, co-screenwriter Oren Moverman, producers Christine Vachon (Killer Films), John Sloss and Jim Stern, executive producers John Wells and Wendy Japhet, music supervisors Randy Poster and Jim Dunbar, casting director Laura Rosenthal, production designer Judy Becker, titlist Marlene McCarty, assistant Tonya Smith, and last but not least, director of photography Ed Lachman. Also in the cast, but not present to my awareness was Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, and Ben Wishaw, all who round out the rest of the Dylan avatars in the film.

After the screening, Richard Pena (RP) moderated a Q&A with Haynes (TH), Blanchett (CB), Marcus Carl Franklin (MCF), and Michelle Williams (MW).

(RP) Can you tell us about the structure of the film?

(TH) The script tried to suggest the ways the stories would be intercut, told in a linear order. I created a dialogue with my subject’s lives. The only way the film could work was that the stories had to fill each other in. One fills in the past of the other. The characters were dreaming each other’s stories. The motifs and ideas came from Dylan’s songs.

(RP) How did you all prepare for your roles?

(CB) By talking to Todd. The script was like a logarithm or algebra. Todd put together a song for each character. I had also read Bob Dylan’s Playboy interview.

(MCF) I’m not as experienced as these actors are. I listened to Dylan’s music. Basically, I did my homework.

Audience Questions

Q: How did it feel interpreting Bob Dylan as a woman?

(CB) I didn’t really think about it too much. It was incredibly genius to cast a woman.

Q: Why did the six Bob Dylan characters in the film have different names other than Bob Dylan?

(TH) To really play out the idea of him occupying different psychic places in his life, it would have been too difficult to make him one character. Most biopics blend fact and fiction. Dylan gave himself different names over the years.

Q: How do you deal with the people who would rather see a more direct version of Dylan’s life?

(TH) People don’t have to like the film. Dylan was received by an incredibly popular audience in the 1960s. This was my subject. I didn’t want to dumb it down. I tried to be true to the story.

Q: Has Bob Dylan seen the film yet?

(TH) We don’t know yet. He hasn’t come to any public screenings. We gave his son Jesse the DVD. Heard that Dylan saw Martin Scorsese’s documentary, No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, on TV when he was traveling in Spain.

Q: Were all the performances in the film song by Dylan? Did any of the actors do their own singing?

(CB) I had guitar lessons, but Todd wanted my character to have a male voice come out of my mouth during the singing scenes.

(TH) There was one actor who’s here today who did do his own singing. (Haynes is referring to young Marcus Carl Franklin. The audience applauds.)

Q: What was your relationship with the editor in terms of choices you made to tell the story?

(TH) This was my first time working with Jay Rabinowitz? We started out very closely following the script. It’s a long, big film. It was a challenge to make it work. For example, Richard Gere’s character comes last in the story, but we put little pieces of him earlier in the film.

Q: The film encompasses stages of Dylan’s life up until the late 1970s. Why doesn’t it go further into the present?

(TH) I was paralleling a lot of different events that took place in the film. For example, when Dylan had his motorcycle accident, he eventually goes to the Woodstock in 1969, but he was as far away from the psychedelics of that movement. He went into the past with his music. He never fully returned.

(RP) The turning point was the motorcycle accident. Could you talk more about that?

(TH) I didn’t want to make this film just for Dylan fanatics. Didn’t want to overplay the motorcycle accident, but wanted to make it clear enough. It kind of book ends the films.

Q: What inspired you to make this film?

(TH) I got into Dylan’s music in my late 30s and read a lot of his biographies. I was looking for excitement of change in my life. I associated Dylan with adolescence and the excitement of the future and the unknown. The idea of changing was something I was confronting. These are huge changes and they cause huge repercussions. I dramatized that.

Q: The core of Dylan is identity. Is there a huge question for you about human identity in your thinking?

(TH) The single thing I see in my films is about identity. Dylan found expectations of identity stifling. I found this to be a beautiful model.

Q: Did you have the actors in mind when writing the script?

(TH) I don’t usually think of actors in my mind. Only one actor came to mind, that being the wife character played in the film by Charlotte Gainsbourg. I was so indelibly blessed with these actors. They don’t have to risk everything for a movie like this.