XX/XY Interviews
by Jamie Stuart
XX/XY
had it’s New York premiere Tuesday night as the closing feature of the Gen Art
Film Festival. The night ended with an after party at a Times Square strip club.
The film is down to Earth, inspired by filmmakers like Paul Mazursky and Claire
Denis. The story begins with college students played by Mark Ruffalo, Maya
Stange and Kathleen Robertson involved in a love triangle. 10 years later, as
they’re all settling down their lives intersect once again. Drama ensues.
Today is Wednesday and I’m at iFC headquarters for a chat with writer/director
Austin Chick and Petra Wright, who plays Ruffalo’s girlfriend in the film’s
second half. The sandwiches are pretty good, too.
Jamie Stuart: How was the premiere last night?
Austin Chick: It was good. This theater was huge. It was the Astor Plaza in
Times Square.
JS: Yeah, it’s like the size of The Ziegfeld.
AC: Yeah, it’s ridiculous. 1400 seats or something. It was pretty full.
Petra Wright: Yeah.
AC: If that was 1400 seats, there were probably 1100 people there. Way more than
I expected.
JS: Apocalypse Now was playing there last year.
AC: That’s right. I remember that.
JS: So, when you started this out you were planning for a DV shoot?
AC: Yeah. It was my first movie and I sort of assumed I would never be able
to... Not that I assumed I wouldn’t be able to get the money, but I wanted to
plan for the worst case scenario. I tried to write something that I could make
even if I only had 50 cents. I wanted to do something that was sort of in that
range. Initially, I thought it was going to be shot on DV. As this progressed a
lot of stuff just started to snowball. It worked out really well. Got a free
camera from Panavision. Bunch of stuff fell into place.
JS: What were you doing before? How’d you get from here to there?
AC: Well, I managed the L Cafe in Williamsburg for a while... That was when I
was in school. I went to film school.
JS: Where?
AC: SUNY Purchase. I got out in like ‘98, I think. I lived in Williamsburg and
commuted up there. So, I was there. Got out of school. Had written a couple of
scripts. Decided I needed to write something that felt right as a first film,
and was also small enough in scope that it could be made easily. So, I wrote
this with that in mind.
JS: At what point did you become involved in this?
PW: About a year into it. When the casting began. I met Austin in the casting
sessions.
AC: She had been in a movie that was shot by the same woman who shot my film.
Uta Briesewitz. How do you say her last name?
PW: Uta Briesewitz.
AC: Yeah, close enough. So, Uta had shot this movie that Petra had been in. That
film had also been cast by Ellen Parks who cast my movie. I’d been hearing
about Petra, she’s based in Los Angeles. It wasn’t until we were really into
the thick of casting that I met her.
JS: How was it working with him?
PW: It was great. I can be honest? With Austin everything was phenomenal. We
were pretty much at each other’s throats the whole time! No. It was a love
fest. Yeah, it was one of the greatest things that ever happened to me. This
film was phenomenal. I loved the role so much. The writing. You don’t get
handed stuff like that. That’s the kind of stuff you sit at home and salivate
over and wish that it comes your way one day. I don’t even know what to say.
I’m unabashedly enthusiastic!
JS: You seem to be pretty influenced by the late-60s/early-70s. What is it about
that period you find so interesting?
AC: A few things. But those were movies where people actually had something to
say. People were taking risks. It was a time where there were a lot of different
voices in film. The filmmakers had very clear stamps they were putting on the
movies they were making. I also like the fact that they were about things that
seemed complicated and challenging. Not just sort of glossy, simplistic stories
-- but they were often very dark and challenging. Thought provoking. I just find
that stuff exciting.
JS: One thing I kinda noticed, for all the hoopla during the ‘90s about indie
film -- the whole deal about it -- it seems more like in the last few years the
indie movies that I’ve seen are more in the vein of those types of films. I
think it’s because there was such a market for indie films during the ‘90s
that most of the films weren’t about anything. But it’s sort of like, if you
want to make it now as an independent filmmaker you really have to want to make
it. You need to be that determined and individualistic about your approach. How
hard was it to put this together?
AC: It wasn’t easy. Putting it together in some ways was easier than I
expected. But it still wasn’t easy. From the time I wrote the script to
preproduction was pretty short. But making the movie -- any movie, especially a
low budget film like this -- without any real experience or track record...
People constantly doubt whether you can pull it off. It’s like every day you
wake up in the morning and think, How am I gonna get screwed today? You just
sort of keep plugging along. I think from start to finish it’s been 3 1/2 half
years. Which in terms of movies is a short amount -- and that’s like from
writing to release. There’s these stories you hear, it takes like 10 years
just to get a movie made. I don’t know if I have the stamina for that.
JS: John Malkovich has his directorial debut is coming out with Javier Bardem.
They first met to discuss the movie in ‘96 or ‘97. It took that long for it
to finally get made. How was it working with Austin? Is he
controlling or does he give you freedom?
PW: Austin was very hands off. He was really, really specific in rehearsals.
That was incredibly helpful. That gives a lot of room for you to bring whatever
it is you have to bring. It was really open that way. Always open to discussion,
different approaches.
JS: How about the visual approach? Was that more from you or did the
cinematographer help with that? It had a very specific look. The shot that I
remember, kind of early on, he’s walking through a train station and there’s
this long tracking shot. Something you wouldn’t normally see in a movie these
days.
AC: That might’ve been Uta’s. Again, with Uta and also with the production
designer, I had really specific ideas, general ideas, sort of overall ideas for
the movie. But in terms of how we would we would figure out how to approach a
specific location was very collaborative. There were some movies that I made
both of them watch. We spent a lot of time talking about them. In particular, a
film shot by Agnes Godard, Claire Denis’ movies, also shot The Dreamlife of
Angels. Shoots very close. The camera’s on a tripod, but it’s very
loose. So, it creates this landscape of faces. That was something that we talked
a lot about. In terms of how to shoot the first part of the movie, another film
that we watched was Days of Being Wild, by Wong Kar Wai.
JS: Christopher Doyle?
AC: It was probably shot by Christopher Doyle. It’s been a long time since I
saw it. It’s been 3 years since I saw it. 2 years. There’s things about the
light he uses. It worked in terms of how to shoot the first part of the movie.
We shot a lot of times with fluorescents. In some cases we greened the
fluorescents even more to give it a really pukey look.
JS: He likes mixed lights.
AC: Yeah. Because the first part of the movie takes place so much at night and
in these sort of grungy locations, we were looking for ways to separate spaces
with light. I knew that I wanted to start the movie out with a lot of yellow and
blue, then it becomes more green as it moves toward the turning point. Then the
second half of the movie the whole palette changes, which is mostly because
it’s different locations. They’re no longer living in shitty Lower-Eastside
apartments. These big open loft spaces look like they were decorated by Pottery
Barn. It’s this sort of muted, more mature palette. That was all stuff that we
discussed long before we got there.
JS: Since you were originally planning for DV, then switched to film, how much
adapting was necessary? How much was planned and how much was improvised?
AC: There were things that I knew that I always wanted to get. The flossing
scene, for instance. From very early on I hoped to shoot that scene that way. We
actually looked for bathrooms specifically to shoot it that way. Because we had
so little money -- and because we switched to 35 pretty late in the game -- it
was really hard for us to lock down locations. A lot of the time we were walking
onto locations totally cold. On those days there was very little playing. But
there had been all this general prep, watching other movies, talking about an
overall approach to shoot the movie. So, I think that Uta and I -- and also Judy
-- we all knew what we were looking for. We’d walk into a location, spend a
little time looking at it, talking about it. Quickly, we’d be able to come up
with how we were gonna shoot the scene. A lot of it was done on the fly.
JS: Your character is a difficult character, because I can imagine the men
watching it aren’t going to be that sympathetic towards her. You’re the one
that’s trying to catch him. Whereas women are going to be much more
sympathetic to your character. How did you go about that?
PW: I didn’t think of it in terms of: how can I garner whose sympathy? Nothing
like that. I just approached it dealing with imaginary circumstances. Just
dealing with every scene. Working with the relationship. It’s interesting
afterwards. There are definitely camps. But what I also always love is the
moment of the hand on him. I think it was at Sundance, there would always be
couples who afterward would talk about it. The guy would say, “Oh, I think
it’s so cool at the end how she takes him back.” The girl would look at him
and say: “Are you out of your mind? That’s not what that meant!” It’s
just so funny! Different interpretations. I don’t want to stereotype here, but
I think it can be more of a male fantasy -- or hope -- sort of the ideal
situation that you could have the cake and eat it too. The woman’s gonna take
you back no matter what you do. She just loves you so much.
JS: I thought it was a little like The Age of Innocence, where she does
finally in her own way trap him. He’s forced to commit.
PW: That’s an interesting way to look at it. That wasn’t certainly in my
mind playing it that way. It was really just coming up against situations.
What’s the next step? I also don’t know how it’s going to end up. Whether
they work it out or not.
AC: Everybody dies.
PW: Everybody dies...
JS: What I thought was that the way it ended -- if it had been a Hollywood movie
that would’ve been the beginning of the third act. A Hollywood movie
would’ve found a way for them to wind up together.
AC: We joked about this when we were shooting the movie. We were gonna sell it
to some distributor who was gonna make us reshoot the ending. In the reshoot
Claire would bump into this handsome lifeguard, who she’d hook up with at the
end. Then Coles would be able to live happily ever after with Sam.
PW: Lifeguard...
JS: So, what’s next?
PW: I am right now doing a play. Doing that in LA. See how it goes. Maybe move
it to New York. Then I’ve got a few things that haven’t quite solidified
yet. I also recently finished a film called Sam and Joe. That’s going
to festivals now.
AC: I’m working on another movie that I’m hoping to shoot later this year
called Love is Easy. It’s another complicated relationship dramady. Sex
comedy with dramatic elements. Sex drama with comedic elements. Probably working
again with Mark Ruffalo on that. Just beginning to put it together now. I’ve
got this project I’m writing to direct for producer Casey Silver at Universal.
Sort of a sex comedy, I guess.
JS: With dramatic elements...
AC: I guess so. We’ll see.
-Copyright 2003 by Jamie
Stuart