I had the occasion to Interview Crispin Glover around this same time last year after seeing his film, “What is It?” A full year later the occasion has presented itself again, this time for his new film, “It is Fine, Everything is Fine!” The film was written by, and stars a man named Steven C. Stewart; a man who is almost entirely crippled by cerebral palsy. Writing the screenplay, and acting in the film were very cathartic for Stewart who passed away only a month after shooting was completed.
But this is by no means a “Make a Wish Foundation” picture. In the film, Stewart, who has a hair fetish, repeatedly has sex with and murders various long-haired women. It is an intense and interesting view into someone else’s fantasy; made all the more intriguing because there are so many assumptions about someone with a handicap.
I don’t care to go into detail about what I thought about the film. I got a great many things out of the viewing, which is all well and good for me, but this is no easy film to get up and walk away from. There are all sorts of issues to consider, and that is something everyone must do for themselves; ultimately alone.
I interviewed you last year.
Crispin Glover: That’s right. So you saw the first film as well then?
Yes I did.
CG: Good Good. It’s a very different kind of film than…
Yeah. It’s a much more straightforward film actually.
CG: Yeah.
But in some way is a lot more complex because it’s a real intimate glimpse into this person.
CG: Yeah it’s really something. I can’t describe how proud I am of this particular film. I know this is a quality piece. I know that it won’t be the most well known film that I’ve ever done, or certainly won’t make the most money or anything like that, but I just know that this is a really good movie. I’m really really excited about showing it to people.
t’s another totally singular film in my mind. “What is It?” struck me like that as well. You’ve accomplished these very unique glimpses, or stories that aren’t generally told. In this film this is especially the case.
CG: And it’s not the kind of story that, like when Steve was not well, there was no way that this movie could have been made unless it was that guy. Because even though he has cerebral palsy; this film isn’t, I mean it has something to do with that, but equally important to it is the fetishist aspect. And you can’t just get somebody to act that. It was important there was a documentation of this man going through this experience. And I haven’t seen something like that where somebody had written a fantasy to experience, and then there’s this documentation that exists in such a particular thing.
And for him was this a unique time to actually get to indulge anything like this? That he had written this story to explore this fantasy with himself?
CG: That’s something that is unknown. I talked about it with David Brothers; it’s hard to know why Steve wrote the script. I don’t think Steve knew why he wrote the script necessarily either. And on one hand, and David Brothers and I have different thoughts on it, David had said he thinks there’s the experience element of it, but I tend toward also feeling that there was a need of getting something out; that there’s a therapeutic element. Professional artists, writers, whatever know that they’re doing that on some level. Maybe not always, but often, and I think, that’s the best part of it with him, is that I feel like he didn’t know that he was necessarily doing that, but he was doing that. He was getting something out, and when he got it out, when it was done, that’s also why it was ok for him to die. But if you asked him, “What was it like experiencing your fantasy?” David and I never did that. I kind of happened quite quickly, but there was time to sit and talk about it, but I don’t know if someone has a fantasy, what that fantasy is when it’s accomplished, if it’s the right fantasy, the right element or not. David will sometimes feel like, “oh well, maybe Steve was disappointed.” But at the same time, David one night when we were shooting and Steve, usually there was somebody that picked him up, he had to be back at his, he didn’t live in a nursing home, but he did live in a cared for facility, but one night no one came to pick him up, and you know, he wore a toupee in the film, and they had to get him back and I was fixing something on the set and David had a car and he drove Steve back that night, and Steve was all messed up and had partial make-up on and he said “This is the best time of my life.” And David said, “what are you talking about, you’re all messed up, you’re sweaty and all this.” And Steve said in a certain way that, he knew it was very serious, he said “No, this is the best time.” And it isn’t just like it was this happy fun time, I think he genuinely just like being around people and just talking because he was often away, but I fell it was also this kind of life accomplishment thing. There’s this other thing, you know we showed it at Sundance, it’s too expensive to have David come around, but we would talk about certain things while we were there that came up, and another thing that kept coming up was, we don’t want it to come off like a “Make a Wish Foundation Movie.” We’re it’s like this guy’s wish was granted. Because the fact of it is, when Steve died, when I thought about it before it happened I thought it wouldn’t have such a strong emotional impact on me. I thought, you know it’s difficult to communicate with him, but you know he’d e-mail me, I’d talk to him sometimes I couldn’t understand what he was saying, sometimes I could, usually I could, ultimately it took some doing, but when that happened it really hit me. And I was surprised at how upset I really was, and I realized how much this man had affected my life. Not just a little bit. Now, starting at the point were I put him in “What is It?” because originally, he wasn’t going to be in it, but it’s been twelve or thirteen years. And I’m using “Crispin Hellion Glover Presents” because people know who I am, but I’m not that major force behind getting it completed and all of that.
But it’s interesting that this guy got me and another person, and all these people, we’re not the only people that were involved there was a lot of people involved, somehow he was able to do that, and I truly felt responsible, I felt forced to do this. Like if I hadn’t gotten this film done, I would have felt like I’d done something wrong. Not even like “Oh this is too bad this didn’t happen.” I would have genuinely felt like I had done something wrong not getting it made, and I would have never felt right about it.
So I’m relieved that this film is done, and I know David felt the same way. And there’s something about it that is… and that’s what’s interesting is, how did Steve get all these people to do that, and feel like that? That’s a pretty strong thing.
Yeah. On that level, and so many others, it’s a great film to get to react to because it has that kind of fulfilling aspect for Steve, but it’s also a very challenging film for the viewer. I think in the press release interview with David he was saying that you kind of knew that the suspension of disbelief was never going to get to happen, so it has this documentary aspect. It’s a really really interesting, great piece.
CG: I agree.
And I appreciated “What is It?” and I appreciate this film for being something you don’t just walk away have just seen something.
CG:To me it’s like “What is It?” was kind of a reaction to, and setting up the concept for me. Obviously it has happened before, but in the whole in the last twenty some years there has been films that just edit out anything that could just possibly make audiences uncomfortable, and I think important morals come through on these films. So to me it was like there was a thesis statement almost made in “What is It?” Where as this film it’s like, ok now let’s just get into it, and we don’t have to worry about that anymore. Of course I know it depends on the audience; people can still get upset about this film, but it’s like “What is It?” was addressing specifically a lot of different taboo areas. This film has some taboo areas, but most of the taboo areas have to do with graphic sexuality, and if people are going to get upset about that, they will.
But this film is an easier film to get behind than “What is It?” because it has the strong cathartic element with Steven C. Stewart, and, for me, it’s a truly emotional experience watching the movie. Anybody that knew Steve especially, they can’t help but get emotional when they’re watching it, but it seems to me, I haven’t shown it as much as I’ve shown “What is It?” before at this point, but the bits that I’ve shown so far, I’m getting that people are getting a strong emotional impact from it, which is good.
I think it’s interesting to put “What is It?” in that context too. I remember I had said to you the first time, that I had read that piece you did on “What is It?” for Apocalypse Culture, and that put it in this greater context of, it’s big purpose is to kind of pose all these questions and make you have to knock them down yourself, and so that was kind of clearing the air for what you’re attempting with this. And moving on to “It is Mine!” where is that one going?
CG: Well I don’t want to talk too much yet about “It is Mine!” because it’s going to be a long time before I may make it. You know, it took me originally nine and a half years with the first shooting day to having the 35mm print of “What is It?” But really a better way to put it, part of it was I made this film at the same time, so really what it is it took twelve years to make parts I and II of the trilogy, which knocks it down a little bit in terms of averages. You know, both of these films are complicated movies. I set out to make simple movies. “What is It?” was supposed to be a simple short film, and it turned complex, and this film was not a simple movie either. So, I own property in the Czech Republic now, and this is where I plan to shoot, not just “It is Mine!” but a lot of movies. There is a horse stables next to my historical piece of property that I bought not too far outside of Prague. But it’s a different language, and I’m learning Czech, but it’s not easy, and I’m trying to figure out how everything works. I did the output, the 35mm print, and the sound at Bettendorf, and they did a great job, they were really good to work with. And it used to be that the Dollar was a better value, but it’s fallen so much, but even still it’s a bit less expensive; it’s working under one roof and it’s a good place to work, so I’ll continue doing that there, and the next film I want to shoot, I really do want to make a simple movie, maybe a couple simple movies in a row, which also would be less expensive. That’s part of why I bought the property is because, all of these sets that we built for “Everything is Fine!” are gone. And I put a lot of money into that stuff, and if I could re-use them, you know re-use the backings and resurface it, then it makes costs go down in the long run, so that’s what my plan is, but I need to start to see how everything works, and really start to know people there; it’s a lot of doing. That’s probably why I won’t make “It is Mine!” right away, because “It is Mine!” is another complicated film, and I want to be totally on top of it before I start making something extremely complex like that. So it could be a long long time. There’s not an… I will be in part III again, and there’s not a specific age I have to be, I shouldn’t be like sixty, but as long… I have a little bit of time to do it still before it’s taken too long.
But you want to go back to “The Backwards Swing” next, right?
CG: Well yeah, “the Backward Swing” was shot in the eighties and it was shot on video and I’ve just gotten the old images transferred digitally, so I’d like to start editing that soon, and I’m not sure what will be the outcome of that. It may not be a very long movie, or it may be; it depends on when I get into it. But yeah that’s the next thing I’m going to be editing; but there’s other thing that I want to start shooting as well.
What is the process with the books for you? They seem to be very performance based.
CG: Well they were originally not going to be for performance; not originally, no. I didn’t even plan to show them. I made them for myself, basically, and then to show them to friends.
And then I published a couple in the eighties, and when you publish books, people say, “well you should have a book reading.” And I couldn’t really do that, because they’re so visual, that the books wouldn’t really make sense if you didn’t have the visual representations. And then I realized, I could do it if I had slides behind me of the books; and it took me a while before I first performed them. So the first time I performed the slide show was 1992. And that’s like what? 15, 14 years ago; but I published the first book in 1987 or 1988, I think. I was 23 or 24 when I published it, so I’m proud of that. So, then, there was a film festival in Olympia, WA. I didn’t have a lot of films out at that time, but they still put a lot of films that I had been in in the festival together, and kind of had a (laughs) Crispin Glover Retrospective; so I thought this was a good time to do the slideshow for the first time. I had gotten the slides all together, and (I used to use a real slide projector, and now I do it from a computer, which is a lot easier for traveling)
Well, I love the performance, I uh-
CG: Well, it’s become more of a performance over the years. When I first did it, it was probably more of a reading, and now it’s much more dramatic.
I’ve seen some of your older videos, like of you performing “Rat Catching”-
CG: (surprised) You saw a video of me performing “Rat Catching”?…There’s one of me, I think, performing “What it is and how it is Done”.
That’s the one!
CG: Yeah, and that was on the Dennis Miller Show, in 1990.
But you have such a specific pace, and it makes it a totally different experience for me, you know, like reading the book and going through it yourself-
CG: Yeah, absolutely.
Which is a great aspect of it. I really, really like the book performances.
CG:ut yeah the books were definitely not made with performance in mind. If I made some now, and maybe at some point I will make some more, I probably would have performance in mind. There was one I actually thought of, you know, because I’ve been doing the same slide show since 1992, and it’s worked, for a long time to do that, but in some of the major cities, this is probably the last time that I should perform this slideshow in this context. Because it would start getting to be too much, so I have other books that I can put in, but there are some other concepts that maybe I would start making; you know, just so I could advertise “New Slide Show!” (chuckles) So it’s not the same one each time. Although, the books work in such a way that people who’ve seen the slide show from years before, and even if they see it another night, it works in the same was as “What is it?” in that there’s different elements each time you see it. And the performances are different as well. I kind of like the slide show in the order that it’s in, but maybe at some point I would vary it.
Do you have any artists that have influenced you and put you in the direction of the film and art which you currently explore?
CG: Are you asking what my favorites are?
I guess so…
CG: Well, you know, it depends. Like I definitely have favorites, it’s like, Beethoven is probably my favorite, and Beethoven’s 7th is used quite a bit in this movie, it’s a bit of a main Steve theme; and then, his 5th piano concerto was the Lara theme; and even a little bit of Beethoven’s 6th symphony, but I use parts that are not as well known; it’s more of a refrain, that’s not quite the right musical term for it, but…Photography, probably my favorite photographer would be Diane Arbus. But even beyond photography, I just, I really…there’s a very strong feeling that you get from looking at her photographs, that are extremely consistent, and I really admire that. And when I was doing “What is it?” she has a series of people at Halloween that are living at a certain home and there were things that I had kind of aspired toward when working with “What is it?”; but “What is it?” doesn’t give that feeling, not to me at least, that Diane Arbus has. But when I was watching the scenes when we were first cutting together the scenes of Steve in the nursing home, those scenes, to me, give me some of the same feeling; which really made me happy, that they were going to be something that I had admired. And it wasn’t designed like that, it wasn’t like we were sitting thinking, “Oh, this will be like Diane Arbus” but it was like, when I watched it I thought, “This is reminding me of this.” And that, that I really liked. And then, probably for my favorite writer, that would be Dostoevsky. So, it’s like, on some level, those things are kind of standards, but then, there’s a lot of great film-makers…I don’t know…there’s, there’s a lot of stuff.
So, are you happy working in film? Is there anything else that you’d like to pursue?
CG: For me, I can tell, now it’s very important for me to continue making movies. Acting in other people’s films, I know, that’s important for me as well, in terms of being able to finance my films and it’s enabled me to able to continue touring. These films, especially these two films, maybe at some point I’ll make a film that’s more readily distributable, in a more typical corporate fashion. But in acting in these films, it’s enabling me to; I don’t count that as a small thing. I wouldn’t be able to survive if I was just using the money from the films. It’s a very slow process until I’ll be able to recoup; but it’s just that, I get paid a lot better and much more rapidly when I’m acting in somebody else’s film. And then that advertisement from those films helps to bring audiences in, because those films are more readily distributable than these, for these types of movies. But, I’m relatively young in my film-making experience, and years from now, things could be quite different. My distribution could be a lot different, I like that I’m knowing about distribution myself, and learning about it, it’s like, there’s an artistic side, and then there’s a business side. I’ve never been, like, a big business-type person, there’s all these meetings, with people, and talking about percentages- all of those things I really, really don’t like. But small business, just like basics, figuring out the percentage of what the box-office split’s going to be, how much I’m going to make when I sell these books, shipping them there, just very basic, small business stuff, I like that. But I could see it continuing to grow as I get better with it, hiring people at some point, but for now I do all of that stuff myself, and then I work with the various people at the theater, so it’s pretty small. I had never hired a publicist before, in my entire career, I had always worked with the unit publicists that the producers had hired for the film. The first time I’d ever hired a publicists was last year when I toured around with “What is it?” and I -had- to hire a publicist in both LA and New York, because, unlike everywhere else in the United States there isn’t somebody working; when I’d go to all these single screen theaters, which are like virtual museums, you know, like, places like the Music Box, but that bring in a certain kind of thought process and culture, and I can tell that’s going to continue to happen, where there’ll be the multiplexes, that are the elements that people in their teens or in there twenties go to for getting out of the house or trying to have a certain kind of social experience, and then there’ll be the DVD element of people seeing that, but the single screen movie houses, which will tend toward being a little more esoteric and thoughtful in bringing adults into those single screen movie theaters. As I travel around, there’s lots of little places throughout the country that have that.
