What Is It? To Be Honest, We’re Not Entirely Sure | But perhaps Crispin Glover can shed some light on his film What Is It? this weekend at Metro Cinema.
Find It...
WHAT IS IT?
Metro Cinema (Zeidler Hall, The Citadel). Fri-Sat, July 25-26. Tickets: $15, available in advance and at the door.
Film tours may come and go, but when Crispin Glover’s name is attached to one, you can rest assured that it will be anything but ordinary. After all, this is an actor who is equally at home playing the nerdy underdog (Back to the Future) as he is a mute, sneering assassin (Charlie’s Angels)—and he’s surely the only actor working today who can boast of having played both Andy Warhol and Grendel.
In addition to his wildly varied onscreen career, Glover is also a self-published author, screenwriter, and director, and it’s the combination of these various personae that gives his stint this week at Metro Cinema (where he’s presenting his 2005 film What Is It?) such an air of anticipation. Sure, he’ll screen the film—which he wrote, directed, edited, produced, acted in, and personally financed—but afterwards there’s an hour-long dramatic reading from several of his books (along with visual accompaniment, collectively called Crispin Hellion Glover’s Big Slide Show), with a Q&A and a book signing to round out the evening.
Glover has long been branded an eccentric, and, as you can probably infer from the above description, this madcap tour will definitely not convince anyone otherwise. He talked to SEE from his home in Los Angeles about his future as a filmmaker, the creative restraints that come with Hollywood funding, and why almost every other actor in What Is It? has Down’s syndrome.
SEE Magazine: What Is It? has been getting generally positive reviews since its release in 2005, although critics are having trouble summing up what exactly it’s about. How do you define it?
Crispin Glover: First off, most of the actors have Down’s syndrome, but the film is not about Down’s syndrome. Really, it’s my psychological reaction to the corporate restraints that have happened in the past 30 years or so, where in any film that is corporately funded and distributed, any content that can possibly make an audience member uncomfortable is necessarily excised.
I think that’s a very damaging thing to the culture, because you want an audience member to sit back in their chair, look up at the screen, and think to themselves, “Is this right what I’m watching? Is this wrong what I’m watching? Should I be here? Should the filmmaker have done this? What is it?” And that’s the title of the film. What is it that’s taboo in the culture? What does it mean when the taboo is ubiquitously excised? The people asking these questions, they’re genuinely asking something. There’s an educational experience that’s happening.
SEE: But it’s not that the actual plot is about this critique of corporately funded film.
CG: That’s correct. Here’s the other thing I’ll say, which is more of an outline of the story: “Being the adventures of a young man whose...” Hold on a second... [Pause.] It’s interesting, I’ve been stressing this part less lately. I’ve been talking about this other element more, which is what we were just talking about. I’m not asked to repeat this that often, so I stumbled for a second. Anyhow: “Being the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are snails, salt, a pipe, and how to get home, as tormented by a hubristic, racist inner psyche.”
SEE: It’s interesting that you haven’t been asked much about the plot. How do you feel about having the ideological side of the film focused on so heavily?
CG: I purposely focus on it, because I know that it’s a major element of the content. It deals with taboo, and that element is important. The plot is really very simple. And that’s okay, but it’s not the reason for the film existing. It wasn’t a plot that I came up with and said, “This is a great plot—I will therefore make this movie.” There were other reasons why the film came into existence, which had to do with promoting a concept for a whole different screenplay than this one.
The concept that I had put into this other screenplay, which I was trying to get corporate funding for, was to have a majority of the characters played by actors with Down’s syndrome. I went to one of the major, so-called independent, corporate film-funding companies, and they were interested, but ultimately let me know that they were concerned about funding a film like that. It wasn’t about the viability of having a majority of the characters being played by actors with Down’s syndrome—it was the concept of those characters not necessarily having Down’s syndrome that was a taboo subject.
And I realized that was a true topic to deal with, and that I should continue in that vein when I made What Is It? That’s why I don’t veer away from it. That is what the content of the film deals with. The storyline, even when I started it as a short film, was a structure that was put in place in order to sit a concept upon.
SEE: So you decided to have most of the characters played by actors with Down’s syndrome before you had this realization about the agendas of corporate funding. Why did you choose to showcase Down’s syndrome specifically?
CG: Again—and I have to be careful about the way it’s worded—this film does not showcase Down’s syndrome. It has actors in it that play characters that don’t necessarily have Down’s syndrome, which is different than showcasing it. The reason that I did that in the original screenplay, which will now be part three of this trilogy [It Is Mine; the second, It Is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE, was completed in 2007], is a very different reason from why I did it in What Is It?
But I’ve found something interesting about people that have Down’s syndrome for a long time. There can be a different sense of self. There’s not necessarily a learned social masking that happens with people that have Down’s syndrome, and this can be quite interesting when one is in acting class: often acting exercises are there to take somebody’s social masking away, by using exercises that distract people from putting those masks up. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that somebody with Down’s syndrome is a great actor, but I do think that there’s something about it that can lead to very interesting performances.
SEE: Do you think that that honesty is part of the taboo? Why do you think the taboo exists?
CG: The taboo is not about working with people with Down’s syndrome. The taboo that is happening in this film is that they’re playing characters that don’t necessarily have Down’s syndrome. What the fear is—which I understand—is that they will be portrayed as being violent, or bad people, and for the most part these are sweet, very good-natured people. But this screenplay definitely does have violence and other things like that in it. That’s where the taboo lays, because people can question, “Is it right to have somebody that has a guardian portraying these things?” I would answer to that that it is right, because the guardians have given permission for this, and it’s used as a therapeutic element to be involved in an artistic environment and have artistic expression. My experience, certainly, was that the people involved in the film had a good acting experience.
SEE: Obviously you’re not looking at how much money you’re making off the film to measure its success. How do you gauge whether the film is doing what you’d like it to do?
CG: If the film causes genuine discussion, and if people are truly thoughtful about it—and if I don’t lose an incredible amount of money—that’s what I’ll consider successful. [Laughs.] I know that in the long run, even though it’s an incredible amount of work and I won’t recoup in terms of box office sales, but I’ll be able to recoup by the fact that I’m touring with the film and performing the slide show with it, which is something that I’m proud of. That’s fine. To me, that’s success. And I am getting closer to that point.
SEE: You’ve been very forthright about the fact that you’ve taken on roles in Hollywood films in order to directly fund your own movies, which, in a way, are direct critiques of Hollywood.
CG: Well, I’ve shifted what my focus is in what it is that I’m pursuing [as an actor]. Earlier in my career I was quite selective about trying to find films that would psychologically reflect what my interests were—this would be right after Back to the Future came out, when I felt like I could have a selectiveness. The first film that I acted in after that was River’s Edge, which is still a film I’m quite proud of. But subsequent to that, most of these films really didn’t do that. They didn’t necessarily make that much money, and they weren’t necessarily that good for my acting career.
I put [actor/writer] Steven C. Stewart into What Is It? in order to make his screenplay into a sequel of sorts. Steve was born with a severe case of cerebral palsy, and in 2000, one of his lungs collapsed—it became apparent that if we didn’t shoot something soon, we may never get to shoot anything at all. It was right at that time that the first Charlie’s Angels film was coming to me, and I realized that the money I made from that film I could put straight into funding the Steven C. Stewart film, and that’s exactly what I did. And within a month after we finished shooting [EVERYTHING IS FINE], Steve died. I’m very relieved to have finished that film.
SEE: When you look back on your career so far, are you happy with the choices you’ve made?
CG: Yeah. Everything informs something else, and things that I’ve learned and dealt with are things that have gone into something like making What Is It? I feel much better about my career now than I ever have, mainly because I’ve completed these films. These things are very important to me.
CRISPIN IN A NUTSHELL
Crispin Glover has played Herman Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener, Raskolnikov from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and even Grendel from Beowulf. He’s worked for Jim Jarmusch, Gus Van Sant, David Lynch, Milos Forman, and Oliver Stone—but in addition to all this highbrow stuff, he’s also been in a Friday the 13th movie, both Charlie’s Angels films, and two entries in the Back to the Future trilogy (the second one, it should be said, against his will).
He’s been in close to 50 movies in all, but if you want a Crispin crash course, here are five key performances that capture his unique essence.
The Orkly Kid (1985)
Glover’s longtime interest in no-budget “fringe” cinema dates back to his participation in Trent Harris’ unique collection of vignettes: a documentary about a Salt Lake City eccentric named “Groovin’ Gary”; a “dramatic reinterpretation” of that documentary starring Sean Penn as Gary; and an expanded remake of the second segment in which Glover gives his version of Penn’s performance. The climactic drag number, in which Glover dresses up as Olivia Newton-John and sings “Please Don’t Keep Me Waiting” at a talent show, has to be seen to be believed. Hunt around the internet and see if you become a believer.
River’s Edge (1986)
Arguably Glover’s most inspired sustained film performance can be found in Tim Hunter’s drama, inspired by a true incident in which a California teenager was killed in the woods by her boyfriend, who showed her body to several friends, none of whom reported the crime to the authorities. The film is resolutely drab and low-key—except whenever Glover walks onscreen as Layne, the group’s manic leader. Sporting long, greasy headbanger hair under a wool cap, gesticulating urgently with his hands, and spouting half-baked theories of “loyalty,” Glover creates a character who’s at once laughable yet terrifying. It’s the kind of spellbinding, following-its-own-rhythm performance Christopher Walken has made a specialty of.
Late Night With David Letterman (July 28, 1987)
Few remember Glover’s indie comedy Rubin & Ed, but everyone vividly recalls the time he showed up for Letterman “in character” as the long-haired, platform-shod nerd he played in that film. Gasping for breath, nervously reading gossip items about himself from L.A. Weekly, challenging Dave to an arm-wrestling match, and then nearly kicking him in the face, Glover created seven of the most palpably awkward minutes in talk show history. Most likely a performance-art stunt that simply got out of hand, the segment nevertheless temporarily derailed Glover’s career—he wouldn’t land another movie role for two years.
Wild at Heart (1990)
Perhaps the most entertaining side trip in David Lynch’s sprawling road movie occurs when the story pauses for a few minutes so that Lula (Laura Dern) can tell us about her psychologically troubled cousin Dell—a kid who loved Christmas so much he’d wear the same filthy Santa suit all year long. (On the rare occasions when he’d dress normally, he’d still spice things up by putting cockroaches in his underwear.) Glover’s finest moment: when Dell’s mother discovers him hunched over the kitchen counter in the middle of the night, dozens of wadded-up peanut butter sandwiches piled up around him. Asked what he’s doing, Glover pauses a second or two before shrieking, “I’m making my lunch!!!”
“Ben” (2003)
We almost picked Glover’s brief but intense appearance as “Train Fireman” in the opening sequence of Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man, but we decided to go instead with this bizarre music video, created in connection with the 2003 remake of the horror movie Willard, one of Glover’s few mainstream starring roles (pictured above). The Lynchian clip features Glover singing Michael Jackson’s classic ballad in a stylized theatre; he carries a large rat on a velvet cushion through the audience, and before long, little white rats start emerging magically from women’s cleavage. Then, men and women in Nazi uniforms rush the stage. Deeply weird, highly unsettling, and oddly beautiful—much like Glover himself.
