A Moon In The Gutter Q&A: Claudia Barton From Gamine

When I first discovered the remarkable Gamine, a London duo made up of Claudia Barton and Ian Williams, I was immediately struck by how cinematic and totally unique their sound was. Looking over their influences I noticed they had as many film figures listed as they did musical ones and I felt an immediate kinship to them, so it is a great honor to have Claudia be Moon In The Gutter's first ever short interview subject.
I hope this serves to introduce some new people to the wonderful world of Gamine and I would like to ask everyone reading this to visit their official site and MySpace page for more information. They also have a LastFm station set up where you can listen to Sabotage, one of the most striking and ingenious albums of the decade.
Thanks so much to both Claudia and Ian for taking some time out of their busy schedules to do this for me and for putting up with my rather daft questions!



MOON IN THE GUTTER: Can you tell me a bit about your background? Where are you from originally and what sparked your passion for music and film?

CLAUDIA: Ian grew up on a farm, in the garden of England, perhaps it is still possible to hear those farmyard animals instilled in his melodies. I was brought up in a house void of music, so had to make up little songs of my own to fill the emptiness. Czech and French new wave helped my rehabilitation into society. With friends like Chytilová, Jean-Luc, Henri Michaux, Brel, Michel Legrand, and J.P. Donlevy I knew I would never be lonely again.

Then at seventeen I met Ian, who showed me that pop didn’t have to be a filthy word. My sphere of influences became quite wholesome. He says we have Catholic tastes. I see it as a cultural animism, finding soul in all, nearly all, mediums and genres.

MITG: How did Gamine initially come together?

CLAUDIA: Gamine always existed. Well it did long before I was even born. Ian is several decades older then me. It was just a twinkle in his eye until we met in a casino in St Petersburg where I was singing for vodkas. He was with Bill Pritchard, and they both realised that this concept they had been working on could be made flesh. So after some months straightening out my accent and teaching me how to dress and carry myself I became the avatar for Gamine.

MITG: I'm struck by how you have as many cinematic influences listed on your profile page as well as musical ones. Can you talk a little bit on how much the world of cinema means to Gamine and how it affects your sound?

CLAUDIA: The world of cinema is very important to Gamine - it is where we nick our best ideas. We have been so rapacious, a cinematic tension now comes naturally.



MITG: Can you describe your songwriter process? Is one of you more responsible for the lyrics and the other the music or is it more of an even split? Also do you create a song around a certain style or influence or do they just sort of fall into one?

CLAUDIA: Ian has written great volumes of musical ideas, scored neatly in pencil, it’s sweet really. So when the mood takes us he plays through them and when he plays one that I fall in love with, I use all my feminine wiles to get it off him so I can write some lyrics to it. You see, he is a terrible hoarder. He has promised to leave me the manuscripts in his will. So the inspiration for the songs is always in the music, Ian, in his wisdom, admits the musical credit is due to the universe, for mostly the tunes come like divine intervention. But to keep things simple we split the credits 50/50.

MITG: I'm very impressed by all of your influences as I see so many of my favorites there from film figures like Bardot to Delon to composers from Nicolai to Preisner. Also, it is fabulous to see Jimmy Webb and Richard Harris on there as I don't see those two giants mentioned enough. Admiring so many great musical outsiders, have you two encountered much resistance to your sound or has the opposite been true?

CLAUDIA: For years all we met was resistance. We had been working on this all encompassing epic pop album (never yet released) but nobody wanted to hear, surf pop, pop, disco, trance, dance, ballads, and a rock anthem with great lyrics on one album. I think they found it distasteful. So we just wrote Sabotage and released it expecting the usual barrage of rotten fruit and veg, but instead our audiences were reduced to tears. Grown men who hadn’t wept in years would come up after the shows choking and try to find the words to tell us they would like their copy of the album signed. It wasn’t at all what we expected. So our music is reactionary; aggression, or sorrow, so far. I’d like to have a go at fear, and maybe one day joy. The next album is designed to make people fall asleep.



MITG: Who are some modern artists you feel kinship to? Alison Goldfrapp is one of the only people I can think of who manages to sound so distinctive while embracing so many different styles. Whose around on the scene right now that you find yourself listening to?

CLAUDIA: Gamine is a bit of a loner. If I said we felt a kinship with some modern artists, doubtless they would deny any mutual feelings. However, Anthony and the Johnsons, The Czars, Dustin O’ Halloran, Ilya, Linda Perhacs, Marina Celeste, Mariza, Messer Chups, Richard Hawley, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Zerocrop are sort of around, at least they are still living and we have been listening to them recently. I am going to watch Dengue Fever this week but Ian says he would rather stay home and listen to Yol Aularong and Ros Sereysothea.

MITG: What has been the most exciting and/or strange moment in Gamine's career?

CLAUDIA: We played a contest for the saddest music in the world at the premier party for the film The Saddest Music in the World at the Cafe de Paris in London. It was packed, smoky and riotous. We refused to play until there was absolute silence, but once Ian struck the first chord of "Checkmate" a sweet sadness seized the room.

The Director, Guy Maddin, was to present the award to the winner at the end, and he stood on stage, quite bemused and said, “I think Gamine should have won this,” but the event had been rigged and he had to hand the award to some music industry product. Perfect!



MITG: Can you talk on some future plans in regards to a new album, touring etc?

CLAUDIA: Very soon our lullaby album will be complete. We will, of course, perform many shows when it is released, although we expect the concerts to be short, as, if the music has the desired effect, the audience should be asleep by the second or third song.

MITG: Is there any particular song that stands out to you as an ultimate introduction to Gamine for a newbie that you can think of?

CLAUDIA: There really is no defining song for Gamine. For people who think they might know us there is bound to be a nasty shock at some point. But ‘Love and Poverty’ might be a good representative from Sabotage. It is stark, dark, sad, and seraphic.

***Finally, just for fun I asked Claudia five general questions centered on some of their influences***

MITG: "Je t'aime... moi non plus"...Bardot or Birkin's version?

CLAUDIA: We don’t mind which lovely lady performs it.

MITG: Kieslowski's Three Colors Trilogy...Blue, White or Red?

CLAUDIA: Ian says White, I say Red.

MITG: Favorite Morricone Score?

CLAUDIA: This week it’s Queimada.

MITG: Delon or Belmondo?

CLAUDIA: What is day without night?

MITG: Tom Waits...Before Swordfish Trombones or after?

CLAUDIA: I never stop marvelling at the man!

***

Thanks again to both Claudia and Ian for taking the time to do this.

A Moon in the Gutter Q&A with Author Sean Kinder on actress Susan Peters

Author Sean Kinder has been a colleague and friend of mine for several years, and I was thrilled recently to read a wonderful article he co-wrote on the late Oscar nominated actress Susan Peters in an issue of Films of the Golden Age. Sean has kindly agreed to take some time out of his busy schedule to share some thoughts about this special undervalued actress for Moon in the Gutter.



MOON IN THE GUTTER: Sean, Thanks so much for doing this. Can you please start out by giving just a little background information on yourself.

SEAN KINDER: First, Jeremy, let me thank you so much for the opportunity to answer your questions about the wonderful, but sadly forgotten Susan Peters. She truly was a fascinating lady, and it was a pleasure doing research on her and co-writing an article about her with my friend and colleague Therese Duzinkiewicz Baker. Speaking of Therese (or Terri as her friends call her), she's not here today to answer your questions, but I do want to make sure she gets mentioned and acknowledged for her contribution to the article. She did as much research and writing on the article as I did, the whole experience being a collaborative effort.

Okay, now a little background on me. I am a librarian at Western Kentucky University. My research interests are quite varied, but two areas that I particularly like are biography and film history, especially Hollywood's Golden Age. Researching Susan Peters was an excellent way to combine both interests.



MITG: How did you first become interested in the career of Susan Peters?

SK: I first learned about Susan in a rather unusual way. I was leafing through Quinlan's Illustrated Directory of Film Stars (1986), when I stumbled across the brief entry about her, which left an indelible impression on me. Here was a woman who had been poised for major stardom when fate dealt her a cruel blow, robbing her of her promising career. The more I thought about Susan's story, the more it fascinated me. I knew that I had to learn more, so I began the research process. It wasn't long before I realized there wasn’t that much written about her. I thought this might be a great publishing opportunity, so I approached Terri, who is also a classic film aficionado, to see if she might work on it with me. She
readily agreed, and the rest is, as they say, history!



MITG: Can you give us a little background on Susan and her career?

SK: Susan was discovered by a talent scout during her senior year at Hollywood High school and not long afterwards, Warner Brothers signed her to a three year contract. The studio didn't know what to do with her, so she was given mostly insignificant roles, which never gave her a chance to shine. When Susan’s contract was up for renewal, the studio dropped her. Fortunately, directors S. Sylvan Simon and Mervyn LeRoy recognized her potential, and M-G-M signed her. Under that studio's fine tutelage, Susan's star began to rise, and she blossomed into a fine actress. In her third film for the studio, she was nominated for an Academy award for best supporting actress.



MITG: What are her key works and what are three films you would perhaps recommend as ideal starting points for new fans?

SK: If I had to recommend three of Susan's performances, I would say Tish (1942), Random Harvest (1942), and The Sign of the Ram (1948).

Here a few remarks about each choice. Tish might seem a rather odd choice, as Susan is billed under three actresses--Marjorie Main, Aline MacMahon, and Zasu Pitts—who dominate the screen with their silly, side-splitting hijinks. Director S. Sylvan Simon, however, also manages to spotlight Susan, whose innocent and naïve character carries off some of the most poignant and affecting scenes in the film. This film, Susan's first effort for M-G-M, showed what Simon knew all along--Susan had true screen presence, and with the right material and direction, she could develop into a fine actress.
Any lingering doubts about her talent were put to rest in her next film, Random Harvest, for which she was nominated for an Academy award for her portrayal of Kitty. Be sure to watch for her key scene, the one when she meets fiancé Ronald Coleman in the church and talks to him about their relationship. The way she emotes and allows an epiphanic moment to play across her face is sheer magic and worthy of the nomination.
Finally, The Sign of the Ram is important because it reveals how much her craft has evolved over time. It also shows her skill in using her real life pain and adversity to shade and modulate her portrayal. The result is compelling, courageous, and even a little disconcerting.



MITG: I'm intrigued by her stage career, specifically the version of The Glass Menagerie she did. Can you give us just a little information on this?

SK: After completing her last film, The Sign of the Ram, Susan continued acting on stage and even starred in her own television series. One stage role she was keen to play was Laura in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. Unfortunately, her physical condition prevented her from playing Laura exactly as Williams had written her, so she wrote to the playwright, asking his permission to play the character a little differently. He gave his consent.

MITG: Your article is fascinating in the information it sheds on her, sometimes tragic, personal life. Are there any thoughts you would like to share on that here as an introduction to your article?



SK: Jeremy, up to this point, you may have noticed that I have carefully danced around Susan's personal tragedy, shying away from disclosing the details of what exactly happened. That was a deliberate choice because I thought that perhaps some of your readers might want to read the whole story of Susan's life and career, and I don't want to spoil it for them. Let me just say that Susan's tragic accident changed her life forever, shortened her career, and even lead to her premature death.

MITG: What are your hopes for the article and how do you see it fitting into her legacy? What would you most like to see come out of it?

SK: Unfortunately, if people have heard of Susan Peters, they probably only remember her tragic accident. That is so unfortunate because Susan deserves to be remembered for so much more. She was a sweet, beautiful, vibrant, hard-working young lady who was incredibly talented. It is my hope that this article will stimulate more interest in her and her all-too brief career. If the article encourages readers to watch Susan's films, then it will have served its purpose.



MITG: Can you give us some information on your research methods? How long did the article take from genesis to completion and are you happy with the final product? Also are you still gathering material on her for any possible future projects?

SK: Terri and I began by trying to gather as much information about Susan as we could. We soon learned that some sources of information would be hard to come by because of their rarity, inaccessibility, or limited availability. We placed interlibrary loan requests to obtain some of these items, and most libraries filled our requests. In addition, we scoured books, reference materials, and the Internet, tracking down as many resources as we could find. Plus, we tried to locate photographs of Susan. Most of the photographs that you’ll find in the published article came from our personal collection.

Next, we attempted to find and watch as many of Susan’s films as we could. Some were shown on Turner Classic Movies (TCM), while others we found on Ebay or through private vendors. We took notes on every film we watched, and Terri created binders to help us organize our ever increasing amount of material.


***SUSAN PICTURED WITH TINA AUMONT'S FATHER, JEAN-PIERRE in ASSIGNMENT IN BRITTANY***

Then, we sat down to write the article, dividing the writing in half. When we both finished our respective section, we read them aloud, allowing the other person to comment and provide constructive criticism. I think that this type of “editing” process was essential because it helped give the article a uniform feel and consistent voice. We didn’t want the article to sound like two distinct voices thrown together. We wanted them to blend and complement each other, and we tried to make a conscious effort to merge them into a smooth, cohesive whole.

The whole process took around 9-12 months, from start to finish, and it was a very rewarding experience. We have been very impressed with what Bob King and the rest of his team at Films of the Golden Age did with our article, and we hope to supply another article for him soon.
Perhaps our only disappointment in the research stage was that we weren’t able to speak with Susan’s son. We tried to find him for an interview, but weren’t successful.

As to your question about whether we are still collecting material on Susan--no, we aren’t, although I still keep my eyes open for vintage photographs of her.



MITG: What are some of your future endeavors?

SK: Well, as I mentioned above, we hope to do another article for Bob King, either for Films of the Golden Age or Classic Images. Also, I am working on a full-length biography of fellow Kentuckian Una Merkel, another actress from Hollywood’s Golden Age. Like Susan, she has not received the attention she deserves, so I’m going to see if I can remedy that oversight. I am making great progress with the book, and a publisher has already expressed interest in it.

MITG: Thank so much Sean for taking the time to answer these and for introducing people to a valuable legacy.

SK: You’re welcome, Jeremy. I thank you again for the opportunity, and I wish you continued success with your blog.

A Moon in the Gutter Q&A with Author Derek Hill on his Charlie Kaufman and Hollywood's Merry Band of Pranksters, Fabulists and Dreamers

Today I'm very excited to present another exclusive interview here at Moon in the Gutter for my readers to enjoy. This week I have the honor of sharing a Q&A I recently did with a writer I greatly admire named Derek Hill. Many of you will be familiar with Derek's work in print via publications like Video Watchdog and Videoscope, as well as his online activities which includes his terrific blog Detours.
This Q&A is mostly concerned though with Derek's new book, one of the first major publications centered on a very special and unique group of modern filmmakers. Entitled Charlie Kaufman and Hollywood's Merry Band of Pranksters, Fabulists and Dreamers, Derek's new book focuses on filmmakers like Sofia Coppola, Wes Anderson, David O. Russell and of course Charlie Kaufman among others. It promises to be an important work and I am thrilled to help promote it here. The book is already out in England and while the release date in the States wasn't supposed to be until September, it appears Amazon is already shipping it. Damn my luck for pre-ordering it from Deep Discount.
A big thanks to Derek for taking the time to do this. As I read over his answers, I realized we have a lot in common in our history of loving film as well as our shared admiration for this special group of filmmakers.

Moon in the Gutter: Derek, thanks for agreeing to do this. I greatly admire your writing and this is a real treat. Can you start out by giving us a little background on your life and work?

Derek Hill: Thank you very much for inviting me and thanks for the kind words. Briefly, regarding my background, I was until recently a resident of my native Portland, Oregon. Travelling has always been a vital element of my life, so I've uprooted again and I'm currently living in cloudy, rainy, rural Ireland. Hopefully, for the foreseeable future. As far as my writing background is concerned, I've been working in the trenches, so to speak, since 1989. Started reviewing books and movies (and getting paid) for small genre periodicals. But since 1999 I've written for a number of publications (print and online) such as Images—a Journal of Film and Popular Culture, The Third Alternative (a UK magazine now known as Black Static), Video Watchdog, VideoScope, among others. I was a regular DVD reviewer for the All Movie web site for a couple of years, and a book reviewer for Mystery Scene magazine. A little bit of everything, I guess. Oh, and then there's blogging, of course.

MITG: Who were some of the key influences that got you into writing, specifically writing about film. Was there a pivotal moment for you in your youth that captured your imagination?

DH: I wouldn't say there was one significant person who influenced me initially. I always wanted to be a writer and since films were ever-present in my life from an early age, I'd do things like "adapt" various novels into screenplay form. This was when I was eleven or twelve. At one point, I "adapted" a storyline from Creepy magazine into a script thinking if I could only get it into the hands of the right person, it would get made. My screenwriting ambitions sort of dimmed not long after that. My teens were pretty lost and reckless and for a time I didn't do much but get into trouble. I don't want to be melodramatic about this, but film became this sort of lifeline for me during a particularly bad couple of years in my late teens. I started engaging with films on a deeply personal level. Serious readers and music lovers do the same thing and it changes you, marks you, and there's no turning back after that.
In my early twenties I did what many film lovers (cineastes, cinephiles, obsessives) do, which is work at a good video store. It was either that or get a job at a good second-run cinema and I couldn't manage that. At the time, the store was one of the best, if not the best video store in Portland due to its extensive foreign, arthouse, and classic collections. I started filling in the gaps and furthering my own film education. Although I later took some extended studies film courses through Portland State taught by a great teacher (the film critic and writer Shawn Levy) that made me even more serious about writing film criticism, I soaked up more about cinema in those five years at the video store than anything else. Just to have access to so many different kinds of film was a great opportunity. Definitely a pivotal moment in its way.


Other than that, the most important film moment that happened to me was probably being taken to see Apocalypse Now during its original theatrical release when I was ten years old. I have no idea what my mom was thinking, but I'm glad she did it. I was changed from that moment on—or scarred depending on your viewpoint—and it was then that I realized that a movie could be more than a just a story, something to soothe you from daily reality. It completely warped me. I couldn't entirely go back to "kid movies" after that. It was like this weird rite of passage. Sure, I still watched what all the other kids were watching (The Muppet Movie, The Black Hole, Rocky II), but I was also supplementing it with stronger, more adult fare like Stanley Kubrick films and Mad Max and Monty Python films. So yeah, I can blame Francis Ford Coppola for my film-going degeneracy… as well as my mom.

MITG: Onto your upcoming book, first of all congratulations on it. I am greatly anticipating reading it as I think it's a fascinating idea and I believe that it's the first major book written on this important group of young American filmmakers. Can you tell us a bit about what inspired the book initially?

DR: Thanks. I just thought that there was a level of shared sensibilities at work. Defining these filmmakers under an "independent" film label or a "Sundance" label or what have you, seemed much too broad and erroneous for what I wanted to do. The through-lines connecting these filmmakers on thematic, character, and stylistic levels were more important to me. All of these filmmakers have distinctive approaches to storytelling and style, but I found that they were, for the most part, all attracted to angst-filled characters essentially in spiritual or existential conundrums. The majority of the films were essentially comedies, but there was a level of underlying seriousness or melancholy or philosophical soul searching that appealed to me that felt completely antithetical to everything else coming out of Hollywood… or anywhere else for that matter.



MITG: According to the reports I have read, the book is mainly concerned with the careers of Charlie Kaufman, Spike Jonze, Wes Anderson, Michel Gondry, David O. Russell, Richard Linklater and Sofia Coppola. It's an inspired group and I was wondering what the challenges were isolating this particular group at perhaps the expense of leaving out other modern major players like Paul Thomas Anderson?

DH: It was difficult. I wanted to add more filmmakers to the mix, but for the sake of some semblance of thematic consistency and the fact that I had a word count limit, I had to keep it focused. Certainly, filmmakers such as PT Anderson (Punch-Drunk Love is examined, though, in the last part of the book devoted to singular films by other directors that have similar angsty/surreal/comedic themes) and Quentin Tarantino could be legitimately argued for, I guess. Using Linklater as a bridge between the independent filmmakers of the 1980s and early 1990s and the post-Tarantino independent film scene, my intention was to localize it to a group of American directors (Michel Gondry excepted) that were blurring the lines between drama, comedy, fantasy, science fiction, what have you.



It made sense to me to focus on Charlie Kaufman as the center of it all, due to the impact his screenplays have had on audiences, critics, and other screenwriters. In the latter case, I wouldn't say that other screenwriters are necessarily influenced by him in an imitative sense--story construction or narrative themes, though that one Will Ferrell movie seems awfully Kaufmanesque in a blatant, watered down way--but Kaufman has raised the bar for what you can do within the constraints of a seemingly idea-barren Hollywood commercial system. Kaufman is perhaps not a household name (I'm not sure that could ever happen in this day and age) but he is the first real screenwriting "superstar" we've had since Robert Towne, judged for his actual talent and not for how much money he's being paid. And now that Kaufman is directing, we might see a fully-fledged great filmmaker emerge. I thought about putting Alexander Payne in the book, but again, I wanted to focus on filmmakers that had shared comedic sensibilities in many ways or who were latching onto similar strange thematic currents or tonal ones. So in that respect, having narrowed it down to those parameters, I was able to pare it down.

MITG: Of the main filmmakers the book covers do you have a personal favorite? I must admit that I love the entire group, with probably Coppola being the one I admire the most. Outside of a personal favorite, is there one that kind of stands out to you as being perhaps the most important culturally?

DH: When I started on the book, I was partial to Linklater and Coppola. Still am. But I really fell in love with Wes Anderson's work. I had always liked his films, but I felt distanced from them to a degree, shut off from their emotional core until I saw Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou back in 2004.



Everything shifted after that point and I'm a great admirer of all his films now. I'm not sure if any of them will influence other filmmakers in the manner that the nouvelle vague or New Hollywood did for subsequent generations. Perhaps on a superficial level the influence is there, with advertising and other films (Napoleon Dynamite, Garden State, Juno, Stranger Than Fiction, Shopgirl) appropriating stylistic mannerisms and such. But I don't see anyone racing out to become the next Linklater, Anderson, or David O. Russell. What I hope is that young filmmakers will be inspired by their work and simply forge their own paths, find their own stories to tell. On that level, I hope that these filmmakers cast a larger role within the culture.



MITG: I strongly believe that time will someday recognize the mid to late nineties as a key period in American film history. Without giving anything away from your book how do you think this period compares with other already noted movements such as The French New Wave and the various independent movements in American cinema from the late sixties and early seventies?

DH: It's an unconscious movement to be sure, but I think there's a strong philosophical and thematic connection between these filmmakers and New Hollywood and to the earlier nouvelle vague. I think the playfulness, from either a narrative or stylistic standpoint, that shapes many of the films in my book is directly tied to the nouvelle vague. That sense of experimentation--albeit on a much more expansive and expensive level than anything Godard or Truffaut had access to—was a defining feature of the earlier French wave. The desire to ground many of the stories within the framework of gritty, "everyday" reality, but then shifting the parameters into something more theatrical, absurd, or outright fantastical seems to me linked with the French directors, specifically Godard. But it's definitely more of a "spiritual" influence, I think, than some kind of direct correlation. Same with the New Hollywood influence. It's there, obviously, especially in the sense that all of the filmmakers in my book (except for Linklater) are routinely working within the constraints of the Hollywood (either with the major studios or with one of their "independent" divisions) machine. There have certainly been problems, failures, missteps along the way, but they're still getting their visions out there intact. Film movements are a romantic notion. I'm not sure cinema is capable of moving us on the same expansive cultural level that it did decades ago. There are simply too many other distractions for our entertainment cash. But whenever you least expect it, another wave comes crashing down. A Dogma 95 emerges fully formed or a "mumblecore" or something strange and beautifully unintentional like the directors in my book. The medium is always changing, so I guess the expectations should as well.



MITG: The book is already out in Britain. How has the reception there been? Do you find, in general, that these filmmaker's more provocative works have been more accepted outside the states?

DH: The worst I know of was from some woman reviewing for a UK daily tabloid who hadn't read the book, didn't understand the title (which is a play on John Pierson's book Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes: A Guided Tour Across a Decade of American Independent Cinema, something she obviously didn't get) and asserted that I'd written the book as an excuse to trawl through my DVD collection. I only wish I'd thought of writing about films I already owned--it would have saved me a lot of expense and research time tracking down all the films! Then again, I guess making things up is part of the training for tabloid writers. But other than that the book is doing well over here and I've received some very nice email from readers who were familiar with one or two of the filmmakers but maybe didn't know anything about the others or the nouvelle vague. Now they're exploring the work of Godard, Truffaut, Rivette, Rohmer, and others. That's extremely gratifying, since those filmmakers are unjustly relegated, I think, to the pantheon of the unapproachable for many people… when they're anything but. So, I couldn't be happier. And the reviews have ranged from the good/decent (Total Film) to the great (Empire).

MITG: Can you tell me a bit about your research methods in writing the book? Is it a specifically critical guide or were there any interviews conducted for it?
Also, did you have any trouble securing a publisher for it considering this isn't a movement that has reached universal acceptance?

DH: I had no problems with my publisher. My editor at Kamera was immediately receptive to the idea and enthusiastic and supportive through the entire project, so I was left alone. There were interviews planned, but not everyone answered my interview requests and the ones that did eventually had to drop out due to their own work commitments. I was disappointed, but I honestly don't think it hurts the book. Hopefully, if I get a chance to do a revised version in years to come, we can finally get those interviews in there.

MITG: What are your hopes for the book and are you happy with the way it came out?

DH: Yeah, I'm happy with it. There are perhaps things I would do differently now, but I think it reflects what I set out to accomplish. I wish it could have been longer… though maybe no one else does.

MITG: Finally can you tell us about some of your future plans?

DH: Well, I'm writing a book on Alex Cox's film Repo Man for Wallflower Press' Cultographies series, though it won't be out for a few years. Also, I'm hoping to write another book for Kamera on contemporary dark filmmakers—directors such as David Fincher, Christopher Nolan, Darren Aronofsky, Guillermo Del Toro, Michael Haneke, Gaspar Noe, and Park Chan-wook. I have a couple of proposals with publishers at the moment for other books, one being on a specific director and another on a specific film. And I would certainly never say no to working on a longer book focusing on any of the directors I just dealt with. I get a feeling that I haven't yet heard the last of them. I'm also working on a crime novel while waiting for one or more of the above projects to come through, so I'm trying to keep busy.

MITG: Thanks so much Derek for taking the time to do this...I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.

DH: You're welcome, Jeremy. Thanks again for inviting me to your great site. Cheers!

A Moon in the Gutter Q&A With Filmmaker Nicholas McCarthy

Earlier this year I was fortunate enough to see a powerful short film entitled CHINESE BOX, a work from Los Angeles based filmmaker Nicholas McCarthy starring Samuel Ball and Petra Wright. I was extremely taken with the film and am thrilled to present here an exclusive Q&A with Nicholas on it and his career in general.



Moon in the Gutter: Nicholas, thanks so much for taking time out of your schedule to do this for Moon in the Gutter. I found your short film, CHINESE BOX, to be extremely well done, intelligent and really quite moving so I am excited to hear your thoughts on it.
To start off, can you tell us a little about your background?


Nicholas McCarthy: I started making films on my uncle's Super 8mm when I was about 10 years old. I went to film school at SUNY Purchase College in New York, lived in Brooklyn for a while after that working as a grip, then moved to Los Angeles where I've directed a series of shorts that have played at festivals. Later this year I'll be directing a feature.


MITG: You mentioned to me that you had worked for awhile with Hal Hartley during the mid nineties. Can you talk a bit about this? How did that come about, what were your duties and what are your memories of the experience?


NM: Hal was a SUNY Purchase alumnus and he came in to work with film students on their thesis projects when I was there. I ended up interning for Hal's production company and at the post house where he cut all his films after that.
Hal's approach to filmmaking is extremely particular and it was fascinating to watch him work. This was during the time of AMATEUR and HENRY FOOL, and I had the chance to sit and watch him edit, as well as hang around on set a little. He was working in a sort of golden era of indie film in New York then and was the perfect person to thrive in it. He never seemed to have any illusions about going to Hollywood, preferring to make films his own way.



Hal has an aesthetic sense you can trace directly back to the same classes I also had taken at SUNY Purchase. A professor named Tom Gunning taught a seminar on Bresson and Godard there that changed the life of everybody who took it. Hal's films contain references to many of the movies shown in that class. So it was very cool to come out of film school and see there was a guy with some of the same influences who was such a successful filmmaker.


MITG: I know we share a lot of similar tastes film wise. Can you go into some of your influences and are there particular filmmakers you continue to follow?


NM: I try not to discriminate between movies, and like to think I can find something to enjoy in everything. But I've always been attracted to what might be called low art. The films that struck me the most when I was a kid were usually disturbing, repulsive, or troubling in some way. Horror movies, or anything that explored some sort of negative state of mind, like film noir. I saved up money to buy a VCR when I was 13, and watching things like ERASERHEAD, PINK FLAMINGOS, and those foggy, cropped tapes of 70s horror movies that were around really turned my head around. Simultaneously there was this incredible revival film scene where I grew up in Boston and I was able to see classic films in 35mm, so I also got to see and love Hitchcock, Antonioni, SINGIN' IN THE RAIN...
Today I continue to watch a lot of older films, but there also always seem to be terrific new movies every year, from all over. And because of technology we are in this new age of filmmaking where directors can do incredible things they never could've before. I think it's an exciting time. My favorite film of the last decade probably was CHILDREN OF MEN.



MITG: On to CHINESE BOX. Can you kind of lead us through the process of making a short film like this from the early stages, to writing, casting, shooting, editing and finally getting it screened?


NM: I'd made a number of shorts previously and had taken them to festivals, but CHINESE BOX was an unusual case because essentially it was a commission. My friend Mike Plante, who is a film festival programmer, started doing this thing called "Lunch Films," where he took filmmakers he liked out to lunch and in exchange you made him a movie. Mike travels around and shows these at different festivals and film societies. All the lunch films I've seen have a more offhand sense than you might get from another film from the same director, because they are sort of these side projects. And there are some really great directors who've done them -- Martha Colburn, George Kuchar, Bobcat Goldthwait did one that's hilarious.



So after Mike asked me to do one, I did what anyone not getting paid to make something would do -- I sat around not making anything. I used the excuse that I was too busy trying to get my first feature film made. Then Mike told me the next place that the Lunch Films collection would show at would be Sundance, so that forced me to sit down and write a script. I had been to Sundance with another short back in 2005 and wanted any excuse to go back.



In the end I ended up conceiving the movie pretty far outside how I usually go about making films. I had been working for a couple of years writing screenplays and working on these bigger projects I wanted to get made, and my mind had been filled with notions of what would attract money to what I had written. But with CHINESE BOX I wanted to just make a film with a couple of actors that captured a simple idea.



After I wrote it I was introduced to my actors Sam Ball and Petra Wright through a mutual friend who thought they might be good. It was obvious when I met them that they were perfect. We had an afternoon of rehearsal and a day of shooting. From the moment I sat down to write the idea to when we finished was only seven weeks. I had no idea how the movie would play until I watched it at Sundance with a crowd, but it turned out to be an adventure worth going on.


MITG: CHINESE BOX is essentially a dialogue piece between two characters and yet you make it extremely cinematic, something that really impressed me. Was it difficult keeping it from feeling at all stagy or play like?


NM: When my friend Sam Zuckerman, who produced it for me, first read the script, he confessed he had no idea how any of it would be interesting. And hell, maybe it's not to some people. The script is just dialogue, with almost no stage direction. I felt it was all going to be how we shot these actors that would save it from being a stage play. In the end I settled on trying to disarm the viewer with the camera and cutting, to be deliberate but not intrusive. There's also a careful little special effects shot we did. The idea was to try to imbue it all with a sense of purpose, and that would push the mystery of what's happening between these characters.
I talked with my DP Bridger Nielson about going for this really bright, shallow focus look to emphasize the actor's faces, and to find a way to shoot them that played with how much we identified with them. Unfortunately there was one image we never got that we wanted, the camera staring at the back of the actor's head. But we did get these great profile shots that went a ways to sell the feeling that something unusual is going on between these two.


MITG: I'm particularly impressed with the closing of the film as it is more than a bit ambiguous if I am reading it correctly. Did you ever experience any pressure in regards to perhaps ending it a bit more traditionally? I find the final shot extremely resonate but I can imagine some might want things resolved a bit more, so did you ever consider a different resolution?



NM: The movie was always a sort of conceptual piece in the sense that we are never given information in a traditional expositional way about what's going on with these people, it's all inference. So really there was no other choice but to end as we began -- ambiguously.
What's odd about this as a director is you have to be very specific with your actors and your editor about what's going on with the characters. It's just that the audience is never told, directly. So the film in that way is like this tiny conspiracy. That said, most people I talk to seem to completely understand what the story with these two is, though other people have had some other surprising interpretations. It's all cool to hear.


MITG: What are up to these days and what are your hopes for the future?


NM: I'm directing a feature later this year called THE HIVE. We're shooting it in the Caribbean. The film is a sort of slow burn horror story that's about a group of people on a tiny island who end up having to deal with one of their friends as she gets sicker and sicker and ends up threatening their lives. Some of the people I worked with on CHINESE BOX will be making it with me. Hopefully you will write about it at MOON and hopefully you will like it!


MITG: Thanks so much for taking the time to answer some questions and congratulations on CHINESE BOX. It's a wonderfully evocative work that I have watched several times now. I wish you much luck on your future projects and I hope we can do this again.

A Moon in the Gutter Q&A With Filmmaker Terrence Kelsey

Recently I had the opportunity to view an intense and very well done short film entitled Spek.ter. Over the past few months at Facebook, I have had the great pleasure of getting to know and become friends with the creative force behind Spek.ter, the writer and director Terrence Kelsey. Terrence, who shares many of my tastes and loves in film, was kind enough to participate in another Moon in the Gutter Q&A and I greatly appreciate it. I hope it proves interesting and both of us would appreciate any comments readers might have to offer.

Moon in the Gutter: Terrence, thanks so much for taking the time to do this. First up, can you tell us a bit about your background?

Terrence Kelsey: No problem. Let’s see. I’ve been into movies since I was a little kid in the 70’s. Music and art (as in drawing) were my first loves. But once I saw Star Wars when it first came out, something snapped in me and from that point onward I knew I wanted to be a storyteller of sorts. I immediately began writing my own short stories, I think in the second or third grade, and having copies made to give out to my classmates.



MITG: What initially got you interested in filmmaking?

TK: Again, Star Wars and the fact my parents got this new 70’s toy attached to the family TV set for me to play with called Showtime - long before they began 24 hour programming in the early 80’s. Back then Showtime came with a black box that sat on your TV set, hooked up to your cable. There was a black button for regular television and a red button for the Showtime station. But they wouldn’t come on until 5pm. During the day, there would be this blue screen showing the movie listings for that particular evening.
Sometimes when I wasn’t out playing with my friends, I would amuse myself hours on end by staring at that blue screen with the upcoming movie titles and listening to whatever FM radio station tunes they were playing. And when 5pm hit, my eyes would light up as Showtime would come on and begin playing a series of movie trailers for the films being showcased that month. One of my favorite trailers to watch was Brian DePalma’s Carrie.
Showtime also had very cool booklets (like TV Guide) that gave the synopsis to each movie and told the rating and gave the elements justifying that rating, like we see now (back then, movie ratings didn’t list things like graphic violence or nudity etc. in the newspapers. But Showtime did in their booklets). That’s how my friends and I knew which cool R-rated movies to watch when our parents weren’t around. For the record, my parents were the most liberal about letting me watch whatever I wanted, unlike my friends’ parents who were more strict.
The only R-rated flick my Mom refused to let me see as a kid was Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes - given the cannibal subject matter. She watched it first and said “no way!” Total bummer.
For the longest time I wanted my parents to buy me a Super 8 camera and projector from the Sears or Consumers Distributing catalogues, which they never did - fearing I would tear them up like I normally did with my toys and various musical instruments. I knew I would never do that. But oh well.
To compensate, I used to draw my own make believe one sheet theatrical poster ads as seen in the newspaper’s movie section (on the music side, I also used to draw my own album covers for my imaginary rock group). Plus, I had one of those old cassette tape recorders. So sometimes I would write out my own stories and record myself acting them out, then play it back like I was watching my own movie - kinda like a one-man radio stage-play.
Other times, my friends and I would create our own adventure stories (like the movies we had seen on Showtime) and act them out in the hills around our apartment complex, even in the storming rain, much to our parents’ chagrin.



MITG: I know you are a fellow horror enthusiast. How did you first get interested in horror and who are your biggest influences in the genre?

TK: I first got into a horror through this late night TV program my mother used to watch in the early 70’s called Creature Features, which aired in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was on that program when I first saw a trailer for George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, which at the time scared the shit out of 5 year old me. The little masochist inside myself quickly noticed that I liked that thrilling sensation, and I knew I wanted others to feel that too (whether they liked it or not).
As for genre influences that’s a tough one, ‘cause I’m influenced by a lot of different horror directors, as well as particular movies made by non-Horror filmmakers. As far as directors go within the horror thriller genres: Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, John Carpenter and Brian DePalma are my biggest influences. Movies made by non-horror directors that have influenced me greatly are Richard Donner’s The Omen (my favorite horror film and one of my top 5 favorite films of all time), William Friedkin’s The Exorcist and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.
The one horror film made by a horror director that also made an impact on me was (again) Night of the Living Dead. SPOILER ALERT: the whole black & white photo montage at the end of my horror short Spek.Ter was inspired by the ending to that film, especially with the use of the creepy music.



MITG: Horror aside, who are some of your other favorite filmmakers and are there any that have come out recently that you follow?

TK: Oh, this could go on forever! Sergio Leone is my all time favorite director - I consider him to be the ultimate visual storyteller.
Some notable others: Tarantino for sure. Hitchcock. The Coen Brothers, Louis Malle. Sidney Lumet. Scorcese. Bertolucci. Coppola (both Francis and Sofia). Mira Nair. Kathryn Bigelow. Danny Boyle. And the list goes on.
Don’t know about new directors. Sometimes I tend to forget that there are filmmakers whose past films I liked very much and totally forgot to follow them. Tom Twyker is one of those directors. I loved Run Lola Run and its only recently his other films have been brought to my attention, via various friends. So, though he’s technically not new, currently his post RLR films are new to me.
Other times, I may discover an older director’s films and coincidentally see a connection to what I’ve accomplished with Spek.ter. Jean Rollin would be one that comes to mind, particularly with his ultra-stylish erotic vampire film Le Frisson Des Vampires. My short would make a great opener if they were screened together.
If I had to name at least one new director, then Rian Johnson is someone I’m currently following. I really enjoyed Brick. And I totally loved his latest film, The Brothers Bloom.
Overall, there’s way too many filmmakers (both living and deceased) whom I enjoy emphatically from all over the world.



MITG: On to Spek.ter. I was really impressed by the film and appreciated how ambitious it was. Can you tell us the initial idea behind it and kind of tell us what went into the process of preparing it?

TK: The idea for the short goes back to a feature script I had written as far back as 2002. I had spent several years working with some producers to get the story made, but we didn’t see eye-to-eye with my David Lynchian/Japanese Horror puzzlebox vision of the story. They wanted something that was simple and easy for the average person to comprehend, and I wanted something that left things ambiguous, so the audience has to think about what’s really going on. Unfortunately, most people just want to turn their brain off when watching a movie. That’s fine sometimes. But all the time?
I wrote numerous drafts of the feature, so much so, that I lost my initial supernatural vibe. The story became an Italian giallo of sorts. There’s stuff in those latter drafts I like, but its not the story I originally wanted to tell. So I and the producers parted ways amicably.
It was in 2005 when I decided to make the short, to get back to my original supernatural concept and it took me nearly a year to raise the money myself through various means and get all the pre-production elements in place. I was already in talks with the main girls you see in the short for the feature. When I decided to do this as a short film, I asked them if they were still interested and obviously they said, “No!” Just kidding.



MITG: Since it is such an ambitious short film, were there any particular problems you faced in making it?

TK: The main problem we had there was never enough time in the day to get all of the shots I wanted. But that goes with all types of filmmaking, especially the indie kind.
The only real problem we faced was some of the stunt work. SPOILER ALERT: when Keisha is attacked at the front door by the killer in black, we weren’t really sure how we were going to choreograph and film it. My storyboards didn’t come in handy that day. Luckily, I had a friend there who was a trained martial artist and he came up with something simple that would film well. That’s what you see in the short.


***Serena Toxicat, Terrence Kelsey and Keisha Jackson***

MITG: I was really impressed with the cast, especially your lead Keisha Jackson. How do you go about casting a work like this?

TK: Keisha was referred to me by one of my best friends from high school. Apparently, the two of them have been friends for 10 or 12 years at the time I had mentioned my story to him. Plus, she and the other girl Serena Toxicat were both Suicide Girl models. Of course, neither girl is using their real names for the short (or Suicide Girls for that matter).
While Serena has a performance background, Keisha was totally new to this. She had the look that I wanted and my instincts told me she could pull off what was required of her, acting-wise. I’m satisfied.
And since my story deals with an Erotic Goth pin-up model and has full frontal nudity in it, I naturally gravitated towards working with these ladies who came from that Alternative Pin-up Model scene.


***Silvin Morgan Battaile and Terrence Kelsey***

MITG: The cinematography of Silvin Morgan Battaile is also very well done. Can you detail the relationship a director has with their cinematographer, and is it difficult communicating your visual ideal for the film or does it just work out naturally as the filming progresses?

TK: I’ve known Silvin for almost 10 years, since our sophomore year at film school. I’ve been watching his work during that time and we kept in contact afterwards. I knew he’d be the one to bring my visual sense to life.
Over the several years I had tried getting the feature version made, he and I met on occasion, going over the script and my storyboards.
When it finally came time to shoot the short, we were mostly prepared. But we had a few disagreements on certain shots I wanted, yet he still complied with my vision. There were also times when he would enhance a shot I had come up with. And other times when he came up with shots that I liked better than what I had initially envisioned.



I’m sure each relationship between a director and cinematographer is different - good and bad. Luckily, my working relationship with Silvin was a good one. He’s a VERY talented and dedicated visual stylist.

MITG: I know Spek.ter has played a lot of festivals. Is there one in particular that stands out, or do you have a memory in particular of presenting the film that stands out?

TK: Sadly, I couldn’t go to any of these festivals. So, I have no idea how they played to the various audiences around the globe, with exception of a couple I had heard back from the festival directors or those who had attended the festivals.
Seems most people liked it, even if they didn’t entirely understand the story. I can consider that to be a good thing.

MITG: So what’s next for you?

TK: Right now, I have two feature scripts ready to go (both horror/thriller -related), which I’d like to be my debut and sophomore efforts. Hopefully, things will pan out as planned.

MITG: Thanks so much again for doing this. I really enjoyed Spek.ter and can’t wait to see more of your work.

TK: You’re very welcome. And thank you Jeremy for your kind words and support. I appreciate it very much.

***Thanks again to Terrence for doing this. The stills above (along with dozens of others) can be found at his Facebook profile, which is located here.***

A Moon in the Gutter Q&A With Director Jeffrey Goodman

Recently I had the chance to watch and write on a terrific new modern noir starring Tom Sizemore and Sasha Alexander called The Last Lullaby. This incredibly effective film is the first feature from a very talented young filmmaker named Jeffrey Goodman. Jeffrey has been gracious enough to take part in this Question and Answer session for Moon in the Gutter that I hope everyone will read and enjoy. Those of you who have already had the chance to see The Last Lullaby know that Jeffrey is a major talent to watch, so I hope this interview on his background, influences, and experiences making his first film will prove interesting. For those who haven't seen the film, I hope it will cause them to search it out as it is a real winner.



MOON IN THE GUTTER: Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you first became interested in film?

JEFFREY GOODMAN: It really happened my third year of college. I was on a program that year in France. And it was the first time I was exposed to Godard and then to a slew of other things.
France is always an incredible place to be a cinephile. But that year, 1994-1995, the energy was particularly potent. Tarantino had just won the Palme D'Or for Pulp Fiction and all of 1995 the French were celebrating the 100th anniversary of their baby, the cinema. That energy, that year, got me in deep and has seemed to engulf me ever since.


MITG: Who were some of the filmmakers who inspired you to become a director, and whom among your peers do you continue to get inspiration from?

JG: My favorite contemporary is probably Andrew Bujalski. But I'm also a big fan of David Gordon Green. The guy that made me want to become a filmmaker was Godard. But the other guys I really love are Michael Mann, David Lynch, Howard Hawks, Takeshi Kitano, Abel Ferrara, Michael Cimino, Jacques Becker, Orson Welles, Abbas Kiarostami, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Raoul Walsh, Fritz Lang, Leos Carax, Jean Eustache, George Cukor, and Robert Bresson.



MITG: Tell us a bit about how The Last Lullaby came to be and lead us through the process on how a lower budgeted independent film gets made.

JG: Patiently. And definitely with a little luck.
I first made a short film from Max's story. And that eventually led to us expanding it into The Last Lullaby. I quickly realized that to make Lullaby the way I wanted, I would probably need to raise the money myself. And so, after living in Los Angeles for a little over seven years, I came back to my hometown of Shreveport, LA. I put a business plan together and fortunately was able to find the financial support. I have 49 investors in all, 48 of whom are from the Shreveport area.



MITG: I was really impressed with both the look and sound of the film. Can you talk on your behind the scenes collaborators on the film?

JG: Once again, another area where I was very fortunate. Granted, I had very clear ideas on how I wanted the film to look and sound. But, without the right people in the key positions (Cameraman, Production Designer, Sound Mixer, and Composer), there's no way I could have accomplished these things.
I looked at a good many reels before finally hiring our people and want to quickly mention a few words about each of them:

Richard Rutkowski (Cameraman) -- His work on the movie Blackbird convinced me that he had the right aesthetic. But then when I mentioned Killer of Sheep and we had a conversation about it, I knew I had found my man. Richard's maybe the only guy on set that worked harder than I did.

Elizabeth Mickle (Production Designer) -- Beth had recently done Half Nelson. But what really impressed me was the long phone conversation we had about All the Real Girls. We totally connected, and I knew she knew what we were after.

Scott Clements -- Dave Koplan, our producer, found Scott. And he did an amazing job. For a shoot where we were flying from one location to another, the sound was pristine. To have a guy deliver sound like that as you enter post is truly one of the greatest gifts someone can give you.

Ben Lovett -- Probably the single most difficult person to find for the film was our composer. Every reel I listened to sounded too big or too symphonic for the intimacy and feel I was after. Finally, late in the game, Ben's reel came to us. And after the first track, it was clear.



MITG: Along with your direction, the thing that struck me the most about the film was the wonderful work of your two leads, Tom Sizemore and Sasha Alexander. How did they come to be in the film and what was it like working with each?

JG: We cast Tom first. And really, actually, he came out of a pretty unremarkable process. Once we hired our casting director, Emily Schweber, the first request we gave her was to try to land us a name actor in the lead role. So once Emily was on-board, she immediately called up all the major agencies and management companies in Los Angeles. She told them about the role, our shooting dates, and the amount of money we had to pay the actor. Then they generated names that she brought back to us. Tom's name came out of this process. And, as he was already on a short list of mine, I immediately asked her to get him a copy of the script.
A few things were really important to me for the role of Price: a. That he was believable as a hitman. b. Was middle-aged. c. Was believable as Midwestern. One of the things that jumped out at me when I first read Max's story was that it was different from most other noir I'd read. It was neither urban (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, or New York) nor ethnic (Italian or Irish). And so even though we were filming in Louisiana, I really wanted to respect the rural, Midwestern quality of Max's work.
Once we had Tom on-board, it was all about rounding out the picture. I knew I was gonna give the film a fairly "invisible style". And that the movie would really hinge on whether or not the audience related to this bond that Price and Sarah had. Emily brought Sasha to my attention, and I was impressed by this fascinating combination of strength and vulnerability she seemed to carry.
Both Tom and Sasha were extremely committed to the film and to making their work together ring true and believable.




MITG: Some of Tom Sizemore’s personal problems have made some filmgoers forget what a powerful actor he is. He’s wonderful in this role and brings so much damaged humanity to it. Was it exciting for you as a young filmmaker to be working with someone who has worked with everyone from Scorsese to Mann, and was there any hesitation in casting him due to his sometimes-shaky rep?

JG: I was very excited to work with Tom. I'm a long time fan of his work and thought he was perfect for the role. Sure, because I raised the money, there was definitely some concern of, "What if he acts up?" But, I had such a strong team (producer, etc.) alongside of me that I finally felt okay taking the leap.




MITG: I was really struck with how well you used the score (which is wonderful by the way) in the film, in that you never let it overwhelm a scene. The spare way you used the score reminded me of something like Michael Small’s music in Klute, and it is so refreshingly different from the way most films use music now. Can you discuss the relationship between a score and a film as you see it?

JG: That's so funny that you mention the score to Klute. I was actually trying to get my hands on it during the editing of Lullaby as I thought it was close to what I wanted. But it's a really tough score to find. I still don't have it. Think I lost the two or three times I bid for it on e-bay or maybe it's not even available. I can't remember.
But to answer your question, I really wanted to use as little music as we possibly could. I was trying to get back to that feeling of The French Connection, Klute, McCabe & Mrs Miller, Shampoo, movies that all let the natural sounds of the scenes drive the majority of the moments. I really wanted to get far away from wall-to-wall music. Ben (the composer) and Philip (the editor) were both very helpful in making this happen. I can't say that there was necessarily a philosophy about when to use the music as much as there was this desire to have as little of it as we could without making things unbearably spare.



MITG: The Last Lullaby has been getting a lot of justified acclaim. Has there been any experience in particular regarding a festival or kudo that really stands out to you so far?

JG: Any kudo feels great, you know. So much of this process seems to be tall hills and difficulty that the occasional acclaim feels absolutely incredible. Probably the two best moments for me though, as far as this goes, is seeing Sasha win Best Actress at the San Diego Film Festival and Ben recognized for his music at the Brooklyn International Film Festival.



MITG: When will the film hit DVD and will it contain any extras?

JG: I expect the "first run, limited edition" DVD will be available in the next four weeks or so. We'll be offering this off the film's website and in conjunction with Neoflix, who is also handling the online sale of Ben Lovett's Original Score for the film. This "limited edition" version will just contain the movie. But I'm optimistic that in the future there will be a DVD with special features.
There's a good number of people who have been waiting to see the movie and haven't had the opportunity yet. So I thought it was important to go ahead and get a DVD out.

MITG: What’s next for you?

JG: My next project is with Peter Biegen, one of the two writers of The Last Lullaby. Right now, the project's entitled Peril and is about a young boy, alone and on the run. I've raised the first round of financing for the film and am waiting for Peter to deliver the first draft of the script. I'm thinking of films like Kes, L'enfance nue, Germany Year Zero. I'm hoping to really place the audience in the head space of this young, alienated boy.


MITG: I always love to read filmmakers lists of some of their favorite works. Would you care to share 5-10 films that you can’t imagine life without?

JG: Films I can't imagine life without. Wow, okay. Pierrot Le Fou, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Stranger Than Paradise, Shoot the Piano Player, La Chienne, The Shop Around the Corner, Funny Ha Ha, Kings of the Road, The French Connection, and Blow Out.

Thanks again to Jeffrey Goodman for taking the time to do this. More information can be found on Jeffrey's official blog. It was a real pleasure, and please seek out The Last Lullaby and keep supporting independent film!

A Moon in the Gutter Q&A with Musician and Artist Tess Davidson

I love young artists and have a great admiration for anyone with a creative fire inside them. I first came in contact with Tess Davidson a couple of years back via my Nastassja Kinski site and she has proved to be one of the most interesting friends I have ever made online. I didn't realize Tess was a musician until earlier this year, and her band An American Werewolf is just the kind of fascinating project I would expect from someone with such exceptional taste. I always like to highlight new talent here when I can so I am happy to present this interview with Tess, an artist I expect great things from in the future. Thanks to her for for agreeing to do this (and for realizing how great both Die Hard III and Nina Persson are) and for supplying such interesting answers.


Moon in the Gutter: Tess, thanks so much for taking the time to do this. Can you tell us a bit about your background?

Tess Davidson: I grew up in and am still residing in a tiny town in Massachusetts. I never finished college. I am basically a failure. I'm also an identical twin, she is much more successful in life than me. I'm trying to figure out how to switch places with her.


MITG: So I know we both share a real passion for film and music. What got you interested in both and what are some of your earliest memories that fuelled your passion?

TD: First I'll start with my love of film. My father let me watch almost anything when I was young. I know my mother wasn't a fan of him doing that, but I sure was. He 's into pretty much everything non mainstream. The first real memory I have of watching a film was the scene in Night of The Living Dead when one of the zombies is biting body part like it was a piece of chicken. I thought it was the greatest thing I had ever seen at the time. I remember watching films like Paris Texas, My Life as a Dog, 2001, The Red Balloon. I vividly remember my mom being pretty upset when my dad came home with Freaks after work one night. I only remember two films he was adamant about me not watching, Badlands and A Clockwork Orange.
I would say my passion for music was directly influenced by my older brother, Sam. He is also a musician and has been ever since I can remember. I remember sneaking into his room when I was young and listening to Nirvana on tape. When he caught me he wasn't mad like I assumed he would be, he asked me if I liked them and I said absolutely.


MITG: We’ll discuss music in a bit. Tell me first how film has influenced you and what are some of your favorites?

TD: Films influence me heavily. I can't imagine someone not being influenced by a great movie. You just get completely lost in it. I like to pretend I am my favorite character while watching a movie and tend to think that way hours after it's ended. I'd say my absolute favorite films as of right now are Badlands, Amelie, Paris Texas, And God Created Woman, Memories of Murder, Kill Bill (I like to count the two halves as one whole), Slither (James Gunn's horror/comedy), Betty Blue, and Die Hard III. It's always changing, but Badlands consistently sticks at the top.



MITG: Okay, tell me about American Werewolf?

TD: An American Werewolf is a girl who makes music deep in the woods. She lets the beast out in her songs. You'd never be able to meld her with me in everyday life. She's so different from me. I don't know where she came from. I'm painfully shy in person, which is something I am desperately working on because people need to interact with people. It's important. Wow this sounds pretty pretentious, but it's the best way to describe it.


MITG: On to musical influences, who are some artists that have and continue to inspire you?

TD: Karen O is a major influence. She is everything I have ever wanted to be. I have to be careful not to mimic her, it scares me that I might. I'd say Yeah Yeah Yeahs are my favorite. My ultimate band. I was really into The Beatles during high school. It's all I would listen to. John Lennon is indescribable to me. I'd call him a musical god, but he probably would just laugh at the notion. The Cardigans are the band I've been listening to the longest. I absolutely love them. Nina Persson is incredible. I love how they were so sweet in the beginning of their musical career and continued to get darker, and I'd say better. The passed couple of years I've really been getting into Fiona Apple. My sister has been a fan since Tidal, so I guess I could say I was too but she never really affected me until later in life. The Clash, Talking Heads, and The Cramps are all huge influences. Lou Reed too. Oh god, Regina Spektor too. She's great! Also The Strokes and The White Stripes. Jack White just seems to be unstoppable. I've been in love with him since high school. Elvis Costello is a big one for me as well.


MITG: Can you talk a bit on how you mix your interest in both film and music with American Werewolf?

TD: They definitely collide together when I create. A few of my songs have come out of watching movies, even television. My song "No Telling When" is about Lost. Hey, it's a good show. I actually came up with the song "12 Monkeys" after watching the film. I had been humming a melody throughout watching it and knew that it was going to be more than just another rambling thought. Sometimes while making a song I wonder how it would fit a scene in a film. I believe the soundtrack is one of the, if not most important, element to a film. While I am making music I've got tons of images going through my head, almost like little music videos. I think music is as visual as it is audible.


MITG: Talk a bit about performing live as opposed to recording. Do you prefer one over the other?

TD: Right now I am in a place where I need to learn to relax onstage. Like I said, I am extremely shy and tend to dwell on things I shouldn't. I find recording much easier than performing at this point. My nerves get them best of me when I play live and I think it really shows. Maybe it doesn't, who knows. I can only imagine what I look like up there.


MITG: Where can people interested hear or see American Werewolf?

TD: They can go to my myspace page or official site. I have only ever played in the Boston area, so I guess come to Boston! The more of a demand I gain the more I'll get out. I'm still straddling the local music scene.


MITG: What are your plans and hopes for the future as far as your music goes?

TD: I hope to reach a wider audience. That would be nice. I hope to get better as time progresses. I started out by just grabbing an old mic and tapping my thumbs on a notebook. That was my first song. I wish I still had it. I was amazed at the reactions it was getting on myspace when I first started a profile. I am still shocked and flattered when people tell me they are fans. I think the most surreal moment came when I got an email from Zach Galifianakis telling me he loved my stuff last winter. He's trying to help me out now and get my music around LA or NY or wherever it's supposed to go. I would be satisfied with him just being a fan and nothing more. He is a swell guy. Very kind.



MITG: Okay, a bit of fun here hopefully…five films, five actors (or actresses), Five bands and five albums you can’t live without.

TD: Okay, I will list them out here. I want to be fair so I will list five actors and actresses.

Actors:
Martin Sheen
Jack Nicholson
Adrien Brody
Paul Newman
Gael Garcia Bernal

Jesus, that was tough. I'm not sure I want to stick with that but I will.

Actresses:
Charlize Theron
Audrey Tautou
Ellen Burstyn
Brigitte Bardot
Nastassja Kinski

Bands:
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
John Lennon
Jack White
The Cardigans
Elvis Costello

Albums:
Show Your Bones (Yea Yea Yeas)
Long Gone Before Daylight (The Cardigans)
Plastic Ono Band (John Lennon and Yoko Ono)
This Year's Model (Elvis Costello and the Attractions)
Extraordinary Machine (Fiona Apple)

Thanks again to Tess for doing this. Tess' An American Werewolf can be found here for those interested in exploring more of her work and it contains all the necessary links to her sites...