Monday, December 18, 2006

What Is It?


Ok, so the regulars should know of my historic fascination with the man Crispin Helion Glover. His acting debut as Mr. McFly in Back To The Future paved the road for some of the most bizarre character acting I've seen in commercial filmmaking. In addition to his oddball feature appearances, Crispin fashions himself an artist. Having published 5 different art books, a cd, and now a feature film of his own.

Yes, the premiere of Crispin’s directorial debut "What Is It?" has been making the rounds slowly from city to city. Crispin, devoted to the integrity of the film has dismissed any normal distribution channels for the film and instead, carries it under his arm from town to town for a 3day viewing of the film as part of a performance and Q/A experience.

My friend Jamie gave me the heads up of its appearance in Portland and quickly I heard of its arrival in LA. I've heard whispers of this movie for some years now...and never knew if it was actually released. The only thing I knew about it, was that it starred almost exclusively actors with Downs Syndrome. Enough said, Crispin must have outdone himself on this one I thought.

So tickets were purchased, I coaxing Huey and then Tiffany to accompany me to the night of weirdness. That night, we drove to Hollywood, paid too much for parking, and ate shitty pizza in a rush to get decent seats for the event. We arrived to the Egyptian theater and were greeted by a long line that we had to sit in even though we had purchased tickets online. We got in, and sat through some annoying commercials that you should expect to have to endure at a "non-profit" art house joint.

The lights dimmed and from an elevated stage/podium thing Crispin revealed himself wearing a black suit. He proceeded to recite/perform segments from 11 books he had written/created. Sometimes reading at break-neck speed only to arrive at a single word that deserved extreme emphasis. At times, the performance seemed to drag, but then picked up steam again. All in all, I enjoyed it having owned 3 of the books he read from.

He then presented the film with little description but assured us there would be a Q/A after the viewing.

Ok, so the film. Well, I've been rather wordy already.... and I'm not sure if I could really explain all that went into this thing. Yes, there are people with Downs Syndrome. They act, but you can barely understand half of what they say. There are Snails, and they get the raw end of the deal. Snails are crushed, salted on, sliced, and murdered in a variety of manners. There's Shirley Temple. There's a man in Black Face who pierces his cheek with a syringe. There are nude monkey women. There's a physically disabled man on a giant clamshell. How it all fits together is a stretch. In general, it sort of seems to be an upscale homage to the history of Avant-Garde cinema. Bunuel, Kenneth Anger, David Lynch...On the other hand, its kind of random and a bit offensive. I've always known that Crispin likes to be odd (and thats the thing, i don't think he is Odd, and I don't think he's posing to be Odd, he just likes to be Odd). But I never really thought he liked to be offensive really. And that is what was surprising about this thing...his intent to offend. He admitted that this film is pretty much just a F You to the studios though, but unfortunately it kinda feels like an F-You to the Downs kids as well.

Well, after the movie he rambled about some aspects of its history and intent. All interesting, but also kind of expected and derivative. Don't get me wrong, It was all I had hoped for and more. But I find that Crispen likes to lump himself into a collective of "shock-artists" instead of truly setting himself aside as a singular voice. He has assured us that this is the first in a trilogy of movies he's producing. He states that he's proud of this one, but the next is his passion and what he would like to be known for. I had several questions for Crispin, but unfortunately the Q/A just dragged too long and I wasn't called on so I left. Missed the book signing and all.

So, that seems to fill my weirdness quota for the next six months I think.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

go crispin - GO! refreshing alternatives like fluxus crispo are such a delight, especially in a country where that sad old media whore - queen babs kruger - is still churning out her duran duran record cover design inspired "art"!

8:56 PM  

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