Hey folks, Harry here with Anton Sirius' interview with filmmaker Bryan Johnson about his upcoming View Askew feature... VULGAR. I have a screener for this that I haven't checked out yet, because I have a ton of screeners to get through here, but I'm looking forward to it. Here ya go...
Bryan Johnson Interview
Bryan Johnson is the odd individual who wrote and directed the View Askew film Vulgar, which finally gets a theatrical release this month. I'd tell you where and when this interview was conducted, but I don't want to give the MPAA hit squads hunting Bryan down any clues.
Anton Sirius: So what prompted you to fictionalize the Paul Reubens story?
Bryan Johnson: Heh.
AS: Of course I'm joking. I think. It's your first feature... just explain a bit about how this all came about.
BJ: Well, a very dear friend of mine, Kevin Smith, made this film called Clerks- not sure if anyone's heard of it, but it's out there somewhere. And due to his success he was able to help a few of his friends make movies. He and I and another friend of ours, Walter, were hanging around the Quick Stop one night, just shooting the shit, and a drawing that Walter had sent to Kevin back when he was in film school came up. It was a clown dressed in garters and a bustier whose name was Vulgar. (AS- That ended up being the View Askew logo.) And the topic of discussion was, "What would this guy's story be?" We kicked it around for a little bit, and Kevin said he was going to write it up as a movie. A few weeks later I asked him if I could do it, and he said, "Sure, go ahead." I'd never written anything before, but I said what the hell, sounds like something I'd like to do.
Then after Kevin and Scott (AS- Mosier, View Askew producer guy) read it they were kind of jazzed, and decided they'd like to exec produce it. And it just kind of snowballed from there.
AS: So how did the story happen to take this particular turn?
BJ: Well, you see what the clown looks like, what the logo looks like, and he would never have a heart-warming, average kind of story. But I felt as I was writing that it would have to be some pretty horrific circumstances that this guy would have to undergo.
AS: So rather than do the light comedy, cross-dressing, with gangsters somehow involved, mistaken identity blah blah...
BJ: Yeah, exactly. It came out, I guess, of wanting to write a movie that I would really like to see. I don't know what that says about my character though. It came out of watching a ton of movies, and not really liking a lot of them, and finding that a lot of the stuff was sort of the same. Just me wanting to make a movie that I would go out and watch, or rent or whatever, and saying, "Wow, that was really different. I dug that."
AS: One of the things that kept me hooked into the movie, and I don't know if this was intentional or not, but you seemed to be playing a lot with the conventions of other film genres as you were shooting it. You know, you'd do the little Michael Bay 360 degree sweeps and that sort of thing just out of the blue, in a scene that had nothing to do with the action genre.
BJ: I think that comes from not going to film school, and being heavily influenced by everybody else's work, and just picking out things that I liked from other movies. Plus, not wanting the film to be pigeon-holed into one particular genre. You can't say, "This is a comedy, this is a drama." I just wanted to get it all over the place and not really nail it down.
AS: So this being your first feature, and not having gone to film school, what were some of those influences, some of the films and filmmakers you learned things from?
BJ: I would say primarily David Lynch. I'm a huge fan of Lynch. And it's not hard to see some of that influence- the father character comes from Frank in Blue Velvet, for instance. The Coen brothers, and their quirky, weird kind of humor. I find if I go to a Coen brothers movie in the theater, a lot of people don't laugh at the same stuff I laugh at.
AS: So you're seeing them in nice, shiny suburban multiplexes then.
BJ: There's nothing worse than a suburban multiplex where every motherfucker has to talk during the whole movie. "C'mon, man, it's only two hours. I know every word you're gonna say, and they aren't nearly as interesting as what's going on up on the screen, so shut the fuck up!"
AS: (laughing) Yup. You didn't just make the film with View Askew production help, there's also a lot of Kevin Smith's acting stable involved too- Brian O'Halloran in the lead, Jason Mewes pops in there...
BJ: When it was first written, which was back in '95, those were the only people I knew. My whole basis for casting, any sort of technical help, came from Kevin and Scott, so I was like, "OK, I'll write this, and O'Halloran would be great for this part..." Because he is a very Dante-esque character, he's a lovable loser- he's even more of a loser than Dante, really. Originally I imagined Jason Lee as one of the brothers, and he's a phenomenal actor, but I don't think it's the kind of thing he's into. I'm speaking for him here. But by the time we got around to shooting, he was involved in other stuff anyway.
AS: Not to imply in any way that Vulgar isn't the sort of picture he'd want his rising film career to be associated with. "Hmm, transvestite clown movie, let me check with my agent..."
BJ: But Ethan (AS- Suplee; go check imdb!) was always totally up for it from the time I first wrote it, and he's a fantastic actor too, and he was cool with the sensibilities of the film.
AS: This one was shot in 16mm... obviously I think you probably want to work with a bigger budget in the future?
BJ: I would, but I can't imagine anybody will give me another project, or anything really, after seeing the movie. But I think anywhere between $5-7 million would be a great step up.
AS: Well, putting on my little Variety reporter hat, the direction was good, there were a lot of nice touches in it. It's just the material you were shooting was a bit off the beaten path.
BJ: I'm hoping that anyone who sees it that would be in a position to give me work would be able to look past that. Really, I'm not going to do Vulgar II, I'm capable of doing other stuff that's a little more palatable.
AS: What did you have in mind?
BJ: Well, we have a couple of ideas. One is, it sounds so pathetic to say it now after Blair Witch, Mothman etc. etc., but it's based on the Jersey Devil. It actually was written right after I wrote Vulgar, and the only thing it shares with them is the whole 'local legend' aspect.
Another is something I'm working on with Scott, about a fallen teen star. It's set in the '80s, and she made a deal with the devil for success, but the terms of the contract weren't clearly spelled out so her 'success' was that she was a one hit wonder. So three demons get sent from Hell to claim her. It's kind of a road movie, with them following her and trying to capture but saying, "We're down in Hell all the time, why are we trying so hard to get back? Let's take our time and kick around up here for a while."
AS: Kind of Crossroads meets Selena.
BJ: (laughing) Yeah.
AS: Which did you like better, writing or directing?
BJ: Well, um, in terms of time they were about the same. Wrote it in 28 days, and shot it in 26. I think I liked the directing better, but just because it's really cool to see it come off the page and come to life. You're sitting there alone in your room banging it out and you're like, "Is it good, is it not, who the fuck knows." But when you see that many people read it and say, "Alright, I'm with it", and then you see actors bring something to the character that you never thought of, that's really cool. Of course that doesn't always happen. Sometimes they bring something to the character and you're like, "Mmmm, nah, I don't think so." But yeah, I think the direction was more fulfilling, just watching the project come together.
AS: Cool. Just to wrap it up, what's the reception been like to Vulgar?
BJ: Well, we weren't expecting a very warm response. Kevin and Scott, early on, both seemed to think it had more of a European feel.
AS: Bergmanesque.
BJ: (laughing) Yeah. I never expected everybody to embrace it. And if they did, I don't think that would be a world I'd like to live in. It'd be very weird.
