Category: Interviews

An (Imaginary) Interview with Steven Spielberg

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I’m not really sitting with you right now, Steven Spielberg, but I want to be.  There’s really nothing I could think of that would be more of an achievement.  To be honest, I don’t think about your movies enough anymore, and I don’t reference you enough in my pieces on this site.  It’s because talking about you is kind of old hat.  You are unequivocally the most successful, and the most household name-y of any movie director in history.  You created my childhood, and millions upon millions of other childhoods.  Your name had as much market value in the 80s and 90s as McDonald’s and Reebok.  (I made that last sentence up but it sounds real!)

So anyway, yeah, I’m sitting here (not really) with the most iconic living legend filmmaker of all time, Steven Spielberg:
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An Interview with Zachary Levy, Director of ‘Strongman’

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Zachary Levy’s film, Strongman, is one of the rawest and best cinematic portraits in recent history. In it, he follows Stanley ‘Stanless Steel’ Pleskun, the self-proclaimed ‘strongest man in the world at bending steel’. Over the course of the film, we intimately see Stan’s ups and downs, which are at times comedic, at times tragic, and at times, that perfect, indescribable mix of both. This is a film one watches and never forgets, and thinking back on it later, you almost feel as though you’re thinking back to a chapter of your own life, even though you may have nothing in common with Stan’s experiences and surroundings. It’s that vivid.

I reviewed Strongman a few weeks ago, and I recently had a chance to sit down with Zach and chat about his film. The interview is spoiler-free, so if you haven’t seen the film yet, no worries. But do yourself a favor and see it soon. It’s currently available on iTunes and on DVD.
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An Interview With Gavin McInnes of ‘The Brotherhood of the Traveling Rants’

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Gavin McInnes is often referred to as “The Godfather of Hipsterdom”, having co-founded the seminal international publication VICE in 1994. But as bold as that moniker may be, it doesn’t tell the whole story, as it was but one chapter in his bizarre legacy of a life. He’s been a cartoonist, played in punk bands, taught English to kindergarteners in China—and since leaving VICE in 2008, this modern day renaissance man has carved a niche as an essayist, an actor, a comedian, a musician, a pundit, and recently, a feature-length filmmaker. His docu-dramedy road movie, The Brotherhood of the Traveling Rants, received a glowing review from yours truly a few weeks ago. His next film, How To Be A Man, is already in the can, and he is currently shooting a third. All this, while juggling a job as the creative director of ad agency Rooster New York. Not to mention, he’s also a husband, and a father of three kids. To say his days are full is an understatement, and I’m honored he found the time to chat with us here at Smug Film.
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An Interview with Roko Belic, Director Of One Of The Greatest Adventure Movies Of All Time, ‘Genghis Blues’

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Genghis Blues is one of the greatest adventure movies of all time.  Thank god it’s also a documentary, because if it were fiction, you’d never believe that a legendary-yet-unknown blind bluesman would join up with a ragtag group of twenty-somethings to travel to an equally unknown place, Tuva, deep in Siberia and bordering Mongolia, to sing the most difficult technique of singing: throat singing.

As I’ve been interviewing for this site, I’ve come to find that a lot of documentary filmmakers dive into the deep end on their very first movie.  That was certainly the case with Mike Jacobs, whose brilliant vérité epic Audience of One was also his first feature.  I think it’s a testament to the form.  Vérité filmmaking certainly requires less; you don’t need a script or a crew or even much gear.  In fact, all you really need is an idea, a camera, and the willingness to go all in.  That third quality is pretty rare, and as you’ll see from my interview, Roko and his brother have that quality in spades.  However, it’s pretty rare that first timers have the massive success that Roko had.  Genghis Blues was not only a journey of a film, but also a journey that took a kid from college into adulthood, to San Francisco, to Tuva, to the winners circle at Sundance, and finally, to an Oscar nomination for best documentary, all on his first at bat. 

What Roko Belic achieved with this film is beyond remarkable.  I sat down with Roko to find out just how that story got to be so well-told, and what life was like after Blues’ premiere in 2000.
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An Interview With Mike Jacobs, Director of ‘Audience of One’

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Audience of One (2007)

If you follow my posts at all, you’ve probably noticed that I’m fascinated by cinema vérité.  In fact, someone once told me that I used the word ‘vérité’ too many times in one of my pieces. Well fuck that.  What else are you supposed to call it?  Anyway, the concept is interesting to me: you tell a story by just filming people in their daily lives.  How do you know when to stop shooting?  Or start, even?  How much does your observation have an effect on what’s happening?  (I have a theory that Mark Borchardt finished Coven BECAUSE he was being followed by Chris Smith’s camera in American Movie).

Vérité is one of the most naked modes of storytelling.  You’re out there without a script or even an outline, you shoot on instinct and rely on your wits and intuition to build the story in your head, only to stitch it together later in your editing suite.

I was fortunate to sit down with Mike Jacobs, whose documentary, Audience of One, is one of the most fluid, interesting, and hilarious examples of cinema vérité ever made. It’s about a pentecostal pastor, Richard Gazowsky, who receives a message from God that he has to make the biggest science fiction epic of all time, telling the story of Joseph. He then embarks on this lofty pursuit with the help of his congregation, and of course, their donations. As one might assume, they run into many, many ups and downs along the way.
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