I had the pleasure of conversing with Crispin Glover recently. It was not the first time. I got to speak with him briefly back in July of 2011 when his travelling ‘Crispin Hellion Glover’s Big Slide Show’ came through locally in Dallas, Texas.
Then, as well as now, I found him to be articulate, intelligent and a delight to speak with.
It is this self same show that Glover has been touring around the world with for years. He begins the show with live readings from books he’s written. What is interesting is that these books are actually pre existing tomes from as early as 1896 that have been altered by Glover to create new works. (Show goers can purchase these at his shows.)
This is followed with a viewing of one of the, (to date two) films that Glover has made himself. The first is called ‘What is it?’ The second is called ‘It is Fine! Everything is Fine.’
(Glover plans a third ‘It’ movie titled ‘It is Mine,’ but it has not been filmed yet. He has said in other places that it will be a while before he makes it.)
After the screening he holds a question and answers session, and follows this with a book signing.
We spoke about the various aspects of the show, the films, and about things yet to come.
He’s just come from some show engagements in London, so I asked him if he finds a difference in the way overseas audiences respond to his films versus American audiences.
C.G. - Yeah… There is a difference. Anywhere over the border, including Canada…The first movie in particular, ‘What is it?’ was designed to go into taboo situations. Most of the actors in the film have Down syndrome, but the film is not about Down syndrome at all. What it really is is my psychological reaction to the constraints that have happened in the last thirty years in corporately funded and distributed film making, wherein anything that can possibly make an audience member uncomfortable is unnecessarily excised.
And that film will not be corporately funded or distributed…I think it’s a very damaging thing.
...When an audience member sits back in their chair, looks up at the screen and thinks 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?
That’s the title of the film. What is it that’s taboo in the culture, and what does it mean when the taboo is… excised and I think it’s a very damaging thing because it is that a lot of the people are asking questions that there is a real education going on…
To cut that out ubiquitously is negative, because once it’s the opposite of education, its propaganda.
I feel that that is what’s happening very much in the United States. When we cross over the border into another country, I feel that most countries are also aware of the propaganda that’s happening in the United States.
Now I’m not saying the United States is the only country that has propaganda. All countries do, but it’s a very specific propaganda, and people in the U.S. have been under this propaganda really for more than a generation…
People get upset about it when there’s a kind of propaganda.
So if it’s somebody saying, ‘look. Let’s ask some questions,’ people can get angry about that.
I have a Q and A after I show the film. If I get volatile responses usually the more volatile responses are in the United States.
I’ve had uprisings outside of the U.S. as well, but for the most part it seems people in the U.S. get more excited and that’s outside of crossing the border.
-I myself witnessed a couple of said outbreaks. They harkened back to two shows he’d performed in Dallas, Texas in July of 2011, where on each night, an audience member became incensed or upset by what they’d seen in the films. I saw Glover confront said people. He never once lost his cool, and eloquently did what he could to address the upset parties’ concerns.
C.G.- I generally try to have a discourse…When people are more upset, I don’t shy away…I often will spend more time on those questions…
…It’s a big part of why I tour…The questions are put forth. There are elements in the film that are there to illicit responses.
Because of that I feel it’s an obligation for me to be there and talk with people and have a genuine conversation.
I feel like it’s almost cowardly to not do that. So it’s important for me to be at these screenings.
I have two different films. I have ‘What is it?’ and I have ‘Everything is Fine.’
It’s important for me to be there with both of the films, but particularly with ‘What is it?’ which is the one that can often really get a lot of questions.
It’s also why I like having it in a forum as opposed to something like online or on DVD.
The fact that it’s dealing with taboo, it’s important to have an audience situation because what one person at the end of one isle might be laughing at, the other person at the other end of the isle might be looking down at person at the end of the isle thinking, ‘what’s wrong with that person? Why are they laughing?’
That’s almost the definition of taboo. So to have that kind of illustration right in the situation, it’s a strong thing to have…I like to be there for that.
-Besides speaking about ‘What is it?’ Glover and I spoke about his other film entitled, ‘It is Fine! Everything is Fine!’
C.G. – It’s the sequel to ‘What is it?’ I had written Steve Stewart, who’s the author ‘It is Fine! Everything is Fine!’ into ‘What is it?’ (Which was originally going to be a short film, and then I turned it into a feature), and I realized that I’d read the screenplay about ten years previously and I’d always meant to produce it, but if I put Steve into ‘What is it?’ I could make his film a sequel.
Steve had been born with a severe case of Cerebral Palsy. When he was in his early twenties, his mother died, and he was placed into a nursing home, and he was very difficult to understand.
Some of the people that were taking care of him at the nursing home were…calling him an ‘M.R.,’ a mental retard; which is not a nice thing to say to anybody.
But Steve was of a normal intelligence, and the emotional turmoil that he must have gone through during this decade that he was locked into this nursing home…I can’t even begin to imagine.
What he did, he wrote this screenplay.
He wrote it in the style of a 1970’s T.V. Murder mystery movie of the week wherein he’s the bad guy.
This was very important to Steve, that he was playing the bad guy.
This is something that he wrote a bit about, and I’ll kind of state it a little differently than his words, but essentially …If you think about it, in most corporately funded and distributed film where there’s a character that has a disability in it, whether that person’s played by somebody who has a disability or not…that character will basically always be a benefactor to society.
That’s okay. There certainly are plenty of people with disabilities that are great benefactors to society, but what was very important to Steve and what he did write about was the emphasis that he was a person.
A person can have dark thoughts…and his character definitely has dark thoughts in this movie.
He plays this really bad guy, but because he wrote it in this genre style, as opposed to a standard autobiography, there’s a certain kind of dynamic that wouldn’t come through if it was written as a standard autobiography.
…The thing that initially attracted me to the screenplay, and what I’m very happy about that ultimately is in the film…there’s a catharsis; an emotional catharsis with his character.
When the whole trilogy is done, really the best film of the trilogy will be ‘Everything is Fine,’ but not only that, I feel like it’s the best film that I’ll have anything to do with in my whole career.
I really feel very strongly about the film. I don’t mean to diminish ‘What is it?’ I’m very proud of that film as well, but it’s because of the emotional catharsis of the Steven C. Stewart character…I hold that on a very high level…that’s why I feel very strongly about it.
-From here, we talked a little about future self projects he’s working on. One of which is a film that would pair him with his father-Actor Bruce Glover.
C.G. - That’s the project that I’ve been developing the most in the last several years. I own property in the Czech Republic. It’s an old chateau that was built in the 1600’s. Next to it is a horse stable, which I’ve converted into a place for building sets…a small series of sound and shooting stages.
I’ve been developing three projects simultaneously that would utilize essentially similar sets with minor variations for all three of these productions.
The current screenplay that is the most well developed is the one that I’ve been working on for myself and my father…He’s an actor. He’s actually in the second film ‘It is Fine! Everything is Fine!’
He and I have never acted in a film together, so that’s a big part of the idea behind this.
-We also talked a bit about the live performance Glover does before each show, and about the books involved.
C.G. - There are eight different books in each of the shows.
I’ve been performing the same show since 1992 with no variation whatsoever. The second show I’ve have to develop more…
How this show came about was when I first started publishing my books…The first book I published was ‘Rat Catcher.’ I made most of these books earlier, and then I started publishing them.
That book, when I first published it people said ‘well really you should have a book reading...’ but they’re so heavily illustrated , that if I was just to read from the book, it would really not make as much sense at is would seeing the visual.
So I knew I would have to have the visuals of books projected behind me as I read them.
-Glover talked about an early performance of his books during a 1983 retrospective a festival was having about some of his films at the time, and about how him performing it went well.
C.G. -The board liked it…
…I started doing a show here and there and I got good audiences to come in and I realized there was a way that I’d be able to distribute a film.
-From there, we talked about the book signings that Glover does after his Q and A’s.
C.G. - I make sure to stay at the venue until every person’s got the book signed.
I have a genuinely personal gratefulness for each of the people who come to the show. Because often an actor or a film maker is paid by a corporation, and they’ve been given a fee… a salary.
Then they’ll do a press junket for a day or two and do a thousand interviews because they were paid by this corporation. They want to help and sell it.
After that, essentially their business is done.
If they’re a nice person and somebody comes up to them on the street, and says ‘oh, I liked you in this movie,’ of course they’ll respond in a kind fashion.
But businesswise on some level they don’t have to, because they’re paid by the corporation. They’re not personally paid by the person who may have paid for a ticket to go see the movie, but that money really went to the corporation.
Whereas for me; I don’t have that corporate intervention. So the people that are coming to my shows; that I do split with the venue, but essentially those people are paying me for the investment I’ve made in these films that I’m so passionate about.
So I’m genuinely very grateful to everybody that’s come to the shows.
-Glover is going to be starting another leg of touring in America on January 6th. I asked him about it, and the itinerary of states he would be visiting. He said that people can find out more by going to www.crispinglover.com and looking under the big slide show there, and also by signing up on his website to receive his newsletter.
C.G. - …My next show is in Nashville at the Belcourt Theatre in January. I think it’s (the) sixth (and) seventh. After that I’m in Chicago, and that’s going to be at the Music Box Theatre. That’ll be on January 13th and 14th.
And I haven’t yet put it up on the web site, but Columbus, Ohio at the Grandview Theatre January 17th and 18th.
Penn State University January 20th.
Then Buffalo, New York… I’ve been forgetting the name of the venue there…
-He’s posted it on his site since our discussion. The venue is the Market Arcade Film & Arts Centre.
C.G. – That’s January 25th and 26th.
…And in Ottawa, Canada January 27th and 28th.
There’s going to be more shows coming up, with more details posted on crispinglover.com.
Also, there’s an official Crispin Hellion Glover Facebook page, and the Crispin Glover Twitter.
…So all of these different ways let people know about these things.
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