Film Courage: Knowing that you love these characters with edges how did you make them
still make them redeemable, likable in some way.
Maybe they are not even likable but somehow the audience is not going to give up on them?
Orson Oblowitz, Filmmaker/Photographer: Because they are humans, they are just like you and
me, that’s the point.
If you can just get the point across that these people all sleep, they all eat, they
all breathe oxygen, if you can just get that little point across I think we can all relate
to that.
It’s so silly but I’ve always thought about that because I do like these characters
that are a little off, that sometimes do make bad decisions instead of good decision but
I think if you also show them they’re humans, they struggle with so many of the same things
we struggle with.
How they are going to pay their rent they struggle with, how did the parents love them,
they struggle with all of these very human factors.
If you can just show a little of that I think we can’t help but relate to them.
I try to show people also small details in their personal life.
A lot of this new movie is a guy sitting by himself in a room eating and watching TV because
we all sit in a room and eat.
We all sit by ourselves and watch.
We all have trouble sleeping, well all have nightmares.
These little things so I think that’s how you just humanize them through reality.
Also in your more surreal movie you kind of take that approach where you show there’s
a certain humanity behind that bad decision making, behind the kind of acting in bad faith
type of decisions.
That’s it for me, if you can just get the point just for a moment across you can get
away with whatever you want.
There are a lot of irrepressible characters in cinema that I love.
BAD LIEUTENANT, right?
BAD LIEUTENANT’s Harvey Keitel is the great example of it in that film but he tries to
at one point he really feels like he’s making the right decision and you have to show that.
You show the human side to the character and I think we all will be willing to go for the
ride if it’s also entertaining.
That’s a big part of it as well.
Film Courage: I’d love to see more female characters like that because Author Margaret
Atwood has a great quote and she says women are either painted as total angels or as horrible
human beings but they’re human, so there’s a spectrum.
Whereas it feels like sometimes men can have more of a gray area but I wish it would show
they don’t have to have such clearly defined roles…either she’s a bad character or
she’s great but she can’t be anything in-between.
Orson: Well that was my goal with “Queen.”
[Orson’s film QUEEN OF HOLLYWOOD BLVD).
I wanted to literally take a character that we were so accustomed with the James Bond’s
or Robert Mitchum’s or Steve McQueen’s or any of these great male icons that we’ve
had throughout the years and allow a woman to make those same mistakes.
Allow her to be able to live in that gray area that you’re talking about.
That was really my goal was to take all these characters and say why not let a woman be
it.
You know what…you should have heard some of the irreprehensible things I’ve written
on the Internet about her and it’s because it’s unfamiliar.
We are in this world where we are so obsessed with man and woman and women are a lot of
times relegated to these…either they are these terrible evil you know the woman who
is the psycho crazy woman who destroys everything or she is the angel, love interest savior
character and there ain’t no difference.
We are all trying to figure this life thing out together why can’t a woman make the
same decisions a man make’s.
It’s crazy that the media has sold us this lie for so long.
So Queen one hundred percent and I hope I landed there.
I’m not sure if I did but I tried to let her live in this morally gray area and I would
see how it goes.
Film Courage: And these were comments underneath the trailer or…?
Orson: Just the different comments in the trailer or things I’ve heard people say
to my face, friends who didn’t even realize they were kind of saying something that was
beyond…not misogynistic…it’s just unaware about what they are saying about the character.
“She’s so hard,” “She’s such a witchy witch.”
And I go really?
Because if James Bond did that you wouldn’t say that.
If when Ryan Gosling punches the one actors in the face in DRIVE no one every asked about
it.
No one ever said…but if she does it, if she slaps another person suddenly she’s
evil, sometimes she is cringe-worthy.
We’ve gotten a lot of great reviews but we’ve had a few people that really went
of the misogynistic train on the film…and good…that’s what I wanted.
I want them to show their face.
Show your face, if that’s what you think, say it.
Film Courage: It’s conversation so then again you can’t control the outcome of the
film and it lands where it lands.
Questions For The Viewers: How did you like these thoughts on character?