Crispin Glover is Fine in Austin
From February 9 - 11, star of River's Edge and Charlie's Angels Crispin Glover gave several performance readings of his books and screened the first two films of his controversial self-produced and directed It trilogy at the Alamo Ritz. This is what he had to say during the post-screening Q&A about his books, slideshow, self-funding his projects, and his films What Is It? and It is Fine! Everything is Fine.
"I have been performing the slideshow since 1992," Glover said, "after writing and publishing books through my company Volcanic Eruptions. I try to play to the humor in the material which I perform from the books [including excerpts from The Rat Catcher, The Backwards Swing, and Around My House, among others]."
"I started experimenting with old books in the early 1980s, blacking out parts of text by drawing tendrils and such using India ink or writing in the margins. I've always drawn and wrote since I was a child. I was taking an acting class near a bookstore which sold bindings from the 1800s for cheap, so I used books I picked up from there. Around 1985 or 86, I finished my first book Around My House. I have completed 18 books so far and plan to complete several different slide show versions using excerpts from various books.
"In the 1980s, Salt Lake City filmmaker David Brothers and I shot a short film on video based on The Backwards Swing. When I get back to L.A., I will be editing it, after years of concentration on other projects.
"In 1996, I started shooting What Is It?," Glover stated. "When I decided to use the Down Syndrome actors, I met with some writers in Phoenix who changed the script which I had written so it would be easier for the disabled actors. I wanted to use these actors because they are outside culture and can more easily convey that quality. They also have a certain innocence. We shot for 4 days and I cut together the first version, which had a slightly different structure and ran 84 minutes. The actual version is 72 minutes long. It took nine-and-a-half years to finally strike a 35mm print of What Is It? because of sound difficulties and financing issues.
"I was strongly inspired by Werner Herzog’s film Even Dwarfs Started Small while making What Is It?. In What Is It? and all the films in the It trilogy, I want to deal with taboos in our culture by making people question and think. The trilogy is also my reaction to corporate film involvement and restraints over the last 20 to 30 years, which I feel stifles creativity and is damaging and stupefying to the culture as a whole.
"I met Steve Stewart (the protagonist and writer of It is Fine! Everything is Fine.) in the 1980s through filmmaker David Brothers," Glover explained. "Steve was a man of normal intelligence born with severe cerebral palsy who was shut away into a nursing home after his mom died when he was in his early twenties. He was wrongly labeled mentally retarded and spent 10 years in the home until a TV reporter did a documentary on him which caused him to finally be released. I read his screenplay for It is Fine! Everything is Fine. in 1986. The scene which struck me the most was the marriage proposal scene, because I knew that Steve had experienced that sort of rejection many times over during his lifetime. I felt the script conveyed a strong sense of emotional catharsis. He had written it in a genre style similar to 1970s television mystery movies of the week, which I felt was very compelling. I knew from that time that I wanted to make it into a movie, and that I wanted Steve to star in it.
"So, I incorporated Steve into What Is It? in order to make his film, too. He played the role opposite me of the Dueling Demi-God Auteur and the young man's uber ego. Steve actually accidentally fell off the throne during a scene towards the end of What Is It? I didn't take enough safety precautions while shooting that scene. I completely blame myself for the accident and felt terrible about it. He hit his head on the cement throne and had to have six stitches. His health was already fragile and when one of his lungs collapsed in 2000, I knew we needed to hurry and start shooting It is Fine! Everything is Fine.
"I had made some money with the Charlie's Angels movie around that time so I decided to finance It is Fine with the money I was making from Charlie's Angels. We shot it in 6 months during 2000 and 2001 primarily in Salt Lake City in three production segments. A month after we wrapped shooting, I received a call from Steve, whose lung had collapsed again. He asked me if we had enough footage of him to finish the movie. He wanted to take himself off life support, but didn't want to jeopardize the film. The saddest thing I've ever done is to tell Steve that 'Yes, we have enough footage to finish the film.' I'm convinced that if I had told him differently, he would have withstood the pain and kept himself alive for the sake of the movie.
"With It is Fine, I wanted to document Steve's fantasy and help him overcome the rejection he must have dealt with his whole life. There was so much visceral rage in his script. Steve also was rebelling against the stereotype of handicapped people always being viewed as nice. He wanted to take control and be the villain.
"There weren't a lot of detailed descriptions in Steve’s script except for the graphic sex scenes, so David Brothers and I wanted to build beautiful sets to opulently support his fantasy.
"I cut the script from 120 pages to 50 pages in order to afford to shoot it. I felt the graphic sex was essential to the documentation of the fantasy, but I was concerned about finding the quality of actresses that would do both the sex scenes and their roles satisfactorily. So, I cut many of the graphic details in the sex scenes and cut down the number of sex scenes.
"To be honest, I stole the obsession with women's long hair from Steve's screenplay for my character in Charlie's Angels, which as I said, in turn helped finance Steve's movie. The Charlie's Angels movies weren’t so bad to do, either. I really enjoyed working with and learned a lot from the masterful Cheung-Yan Yuen of the talented Yuen family, who coordinated the martial arts sequences.
"It took 6 years or so to edit and strike a print of It is Fine! Everything is Fine. which premiered in Salt Lake City in 2007.
"The third movie of the It trilogy will be a 'side-quel' to What Is It?, in which I will be killed again as in Part One. It will not be completed for many years, because I have just bought historical property in the Czech Republic to build a soundstage. Completion of the soundstage will take several years. I am not as well-known in the Czech Republic so it is harder to get deferred payment workers involved in the production at this point.
"I feel it is best for me to personally tour with What Is It? and It is Fine! Everything is Fine, giving performance readings in tandem with the movies, in order to recoup the money I personally spent completing the films. These personal tours and the merchandise sales will be more lucrative in the long run than manufacturing DVDs of the movies and selling them," Glover concluded.
Anne Heller's article is also available in the local magazine Whoopsy, which has recently re-started publication after a year on hiatus.
[Photo credit: fuzuoko on Flickr. Original photo here. Used under terms of Creative Commons license.]