Film Courage: I know we were having a conversation before we got going [before the filming] about
the competition online and how hard it is it is to get people to see your work.
Where do you stand on creating things that audiences may be willing to pay for versus
creating work that is meaningful to you and maybe it’s going to [appeal] to a little
niche audience?
Jack Perez, Filmmaker: Well I don’t think I’ve every been any good at let me just
craft something just to be a big audience favorite.
Because I think that it’s hard enough for the filmmaker (for me) to get interested in
a particular story anyway.
In other words I never felt that…even though I can execute any story and I’ve done television
and I’ve done things that were scripted, I can make that movie, I can make that hopefully
work.
To set out to make a film, that story has to be meaningful personally otherwise I won’t
have the strength to go through all the obstacles and the “no’s”…there has to be something
driving that for me personally.
And I never thought I was necessarily skilled as an architect of that kind of audience,
crowd-pleasing, super commercial movie.
I just hope that because I do love commercial cinema (there is plenty of commercial movies
that I love) that some how that love by way will find its way into what I’m doing and
contain those elements and hopefully it will be more personal.
But yes…I’d probably be a wealthy man if I was skilled in that.
But I think the people who do make commercial movies (we can rattle them off) going all
the way back to Spielberg or Michael Bay, they are, I think that is how they think.
In other words I don’t think they are sitting around saying “Let’s make a commercial
movie.”
That may be on their mind but their taste are exactly that commercial so it just happens
that the audience is of course going to connect because they are that audience and they are
the perfect and they are the perfect people to make that stuff.
Otherwise everybody would be able to make that if it was simply a matter of instructions
on how to make…and then everybody would then just go “Yeah, I want to be rich.
Let’s just do that.”
And it’s not for lack of trying, everybody tries, a lot of people try.
But for me I have to find a story that is valuable in some way to me and then I’m
happy to add on all of these “commercial components” or exploitative components or
any of those things that you find in a commercial movie but at least the foundation is personal.
Film Courage: I’m thinking of a movie like (and maybe people will disagree with me) but
INTO THE WILD about Christopher McCandless’s story.
I hadn’t heard of the book [by author John Krackauer] before the movie came out and did
not realize there was this whole cult following.
But that is one where you wouldn’t expect the audience to resonate (even though I think
it’s a fantastic movie and I loved it) but it’s a very special story and it’s not
about an everyday thing but some how it was able to resonate with millions of people.
Jack: Right, well probably because of the very specific nature of the story about somebody
putting themselves out into the wilderness into that extreme.
It’s not the specific act that everyone can relate to, I think it’s the internal
thing that everyone is going through.
That’s what I’m talking about, that there is something universal in those feelings.
I think for example that’s why they always talk about…everybody involved with TAXI
DRIVER said “Were making this for us but probably no on is going to get it.”
And then it turned out to be this huge hit because there was a billion very alienated,
lonely, angry individuals out there that went “Oh my God!
I identify with that.”
So I think we’d be a lot richer filmicley if the business allowed for more of those
movies to be made because a producer is going to be for something that obviously people
can relate to.
But people are much more complicated than the way they are depicted in Hollywood movies.
And so every once in a while when something presents a reflection of that if it gets out
there I think it will be successful because people will be like “Thank you!
Thank you for showing me that I am represented.”
As opposed to it just being a cartoon or an advertisement for life.
Film Courage: So even something like LEGALLY BLONDE and it’s a great film which I enjoyed
but it makes light of someone who is ostracized and in real life people probably wouldn’t
be like “Well, I’m just going to get all dolled up and go in there and show ‘em!”
It’s going to be a lot of pain behind the scenes but it’s definitely showing something
that many people have been through but in a light way where it feels safe.
Jack: Well that’s bound to be the more commercial…if you can illustrate those really painful, awkward
things in a way that manages to be entertaining or safe (which I think is a really good word),
because most people go to the movies…they go to the movies they take it like a tonic.
They are not going to be…unless you are going to a torture film, you’re not going
to be ripped apart, you’re going to be soothed.
So camlflouging or sugar-coating or I don’t know how you put it, real things in a Hollywood
way is a real art and a real trick and if that can happen…like for me I resisted GROUNDHOG
DAY.
When GROUNDHOG DAY came out I was like “This is just a one note thing.”
I think most people thought that “Oh this guy wakes up every day…hah hah?”
And then when you actually watch the movie Harold Ramus and Bill Murray do this brilliant
job at getting at a lot of real deep things in this very silly, gimmicky movie and that
was obviously their intent that dealing with somebody who is bitter and had given up and
doesn’t give a sh*t about people anymore, has disconnected and is just a user and then
from this twist of fate now has to go through the stages of processing that until he becomes
a human being.
I mean if you made a straightforward movie about that without the gimmick I don’t think
it would be as popular necessarily, people wouldn’t go to see it.
But with the twist and the comedy and the Bill Murray aspect, the whole thing, it becomes
this much more pleasurable thing to swallow and a surprise and that’s why I love this
movie because I thought Wow!
It was this superficial, sh*tty thing and it turns out to be actually quite complex
interesting movie and I love that.
And there are times when I want that or my message or my identification in a nice candy
package, I don’t always want it rough.