Here's an interview with Lance Mungia, director of Six String Samurai. I sent him off a series of questions, 10 to be exact, because I was curious about what it was like to make a small film with his friends, see it succeed on the Film Festival circuit. To see it get great advance word, then to have that film released to the general public, to get mixed reviews, to see both audience members completely love the film, and for some to loathe it. I was curious about his next film, about what the talent that made this film were doing next... in other words, to see what was going on in his world. The following is the results...
1. HARRY: Well Lance, your baby took it's first steps in the world of
commercial film. Outside of the safety net of the Film Festival Universe
where films such as yours are often embraced. This has to be an amazingly
scary, exciting, horrifying,
wonderful experience for you. If you would discuss what it is like to have
a
project that started off as just screwing around in the desert with your
best
bud,
suddenly is out there to compare with the glitziest of Hollywood fare.
1. LANCE: Reality hit when I saw the billboard on Sunset Blvd. Before that, the release was just some vague, far away notion happening in September. Then, here was this thing that was once just a delirious thought that Jeff and I had, now sitting 3 stories tall in front of the Sunset 5. What a trip. We ate lunch across the street from the sign, and of course, nobody recognized Jeff. We were like giggly kids up to no good.
We'd kinda been building this momentum ever since January, picking up some buzz with every screening. The festivals are a unique animal. In the festivals we've been to, there's such a rowdy, fun loving feeling. Those people are there because they love cinema, y'know? That really started with Slamdance.
Now, all the sudden you're on display for everybody. Even my family and friends back home have read about it in the papers, and it's like walking around naked in a glass house. You're showing everybody just how big your dick is, whether they want to know or not.
The other night, we were taking photos at the premiere, and I was sick as a dog. It didn't matter though, because when Kristian, Jeff and I had our picture taken together... well, that felt pretty damn good. Here was something that started so simply, suddenly putting on airs like it's some kind of Hollywood thing. It's somewhat uncomfortable, but it's just so damn cheesy... sometimes I feel like a Mountain Dew commercial or one of those postgame Disney things. I just want to scream, "I'm going to Disneyland!" "Do the Dew, baby!" I might've done that, but I was losing my voice bigtime.
2. HARRY: On the festival circuit, a few of us film writers, particularly me, began a never-ending love affair with your film. It hit me (and the people that 'got' it) right on the noggin. That early buzz, the anticipation, it certainly was a double edged sword. On one side, it helped to get a theatrical release for the film, but at the same time raised expectations in some to an unreachable level. Discuss that, and whether or not you feel that perhaps a nice big stinky sock should have been placed in my mouth, and the mouths of other writers so that the film could have snuck up and taken people by surprise.
2. LANCE: We'd been getting great press since the film's intital showings at Slamdance. One reporter, after our first Slamdance screening, went on about us on Park City T.V., then even started following us around, just because he wanted to "watch things develop,"he said. He was a very cool guy, but I thought it was pretty strange. Then my producer called me and told me about your review, and you... you were just way over the top. I was like... did I just make Gone With The Wind, here? It's just a movie, ya know. Althought that's not to say I didn't think we had something special, because I really did. But, with a film like mine, we need somebody like Harry Knowles to be over the top, or else we'll slip through the cracks. That's why the internet is so great, films like mine can get reviewed right next to big studio flicks. Then everybody can instantly talk about it and find out more, via our website, at sixstringsamurai.com.(shameless plug, sorry.)
People have to realize nothing's ever as good as the hype, or as bad either. That being said, absolutely in no way should anybody put a stinky sock in it, nor a clean one, especially not you, Harry. We can't throw money at our release, so basically all we have is word of mouth. You once said that a reason your site exists is to find films like mine. That was a very touching, flattering statement. Hell, I'd be a fool not to encourage you on that one! Of course, some people will be pissed off because the film isn't what they thought it was. Other people will see the film's merits. I'm proud to have made a film that polarizes people. There's no doubt it's not what some people are used to. I just shudder sometimes because I'll get emails like, "I just saw your trailer and I got that same giddy feeling I got when I saw the trailer for Star Wars!" Geez Louise!!! C'mon, now. How could anyone possibly put Six String on that kind of pedestal? That's awesome and all, but let's keep a level head. Come back to me in 20 years and tell me it's great. For now, I like your assesment of "cool" much better.
I do guess that with Six String, part of the fun was trying to come up with something new, while putting something you recognize there also. I didn't make the film with a particular audience in mind, I just knew what I liked to see, and what struck Jeff and I as being funny. We were having such a blast doing it. I think that really comes though. Look, just go out partying with your rowdiest friends, and see my movie. That's the kind of whacky movie I wanted to make here. Certain people seem to get that in a big way.
3. HARRY: You've certainly tapped Hollywood on the shoulder and said, "Ummm Hi, I'm Lance Mungia, I'm cool, and can do things cool and cheap," but has that opened any doors, and have you stepped through any into the dank chambers of a 'Major Motion Picture Producer'?
3. LANCE: We've had alot of meetings with some interesting people. Sometimes, some big people are watching your movie, and you don't want to know if they don't like it, because they're people you've heard about and really respect. Or maybe they're people that could possibly crush you like the bug you are. Sometimes you get a call and they like it. That's really a good feeling. If they don't like it, probably you just won't hear back, because you have hype on your side, and when you have that, nobody really wants to turn you into shoejam. But, if you're not careful, you can get caught up in a neverending cycle of talk. People absolutely love to talk in L.A. They thrive on it. You read a lot of things and you talk alot about them. You do a lot of meet and greets with the studios. Sometimes they offer you something. Then you have to decide whether this is something you can turn into a good film, because intitially, it may not be so good. That's why they're offering it, because they want you to make it good. Once I sat down with an exec and he pitched me a bunch of stuff. HE PITCHED ME! At that moment, it's tempting just to jump aboard, even if you don't particularly care for the ideas. It's like the devil going, "Sign here, bub, but don't bother to read the fine print..."
Of course, it's really exciting to get offered anything at all. But, you're fooling yourself, because after awhile, you realize this may not be a movie you want to make, and you can't have that kind of doubt.
4. HARRY: Give us an origin story to where Buddy came from in your and Jeffery's looney lobes. The influences, the homages, the purpose. Why the dialogue was 'underwritten'? Why the music was placed on top so much? Why the rapid editing? Why the quirky humor? In otherwords, where did this film come from?
4. LANCE: Ohh boy. Why not just ask me if I know the combination to the safe in episode 214? (obscure SNL reference)
Ok, let me think... Six String Samurai is about a feeling you get when you watch something cinematic. For me, the big screen is a place to put characters and places that are big. Mythic stuff, I dig. Even something as simple as seeing Clint Eastwood shoot some fruit out of a tree for some little kids in "For A Few Dollars More." I love that sense of mastery about a character. The feeling that maybe this guy is unbeatable. It's so romantic to invent a character that could take on 200 men and win. I may show a Buddy Holly lookalike taking out two hundred Russians with a samurai sword, but really, I'm a romantic at heart. You must be a romantic to think on romantic terms. It seems like a lot of what Jeff and I write together gets pretty grand, so actually, maybe we're both romantics then.
As for the music, I've found that a lot of directors bury their music under the effects and dialouge, and the music loses it's power. Why is it that we remember so much of the music from Star Wars or Raiders? Because the music is on top. Lucas and Spielberg are using their music to drive the story. John Williams is giving them some magic, and they're showcasing it. They've got the balls to crank it up, man, and that's part of what's giving you that high! Morricone and Leone are the same way. Leone even used to have Morricone sometimes score the film before it was shot. Never underestimate either the power of the dark side or a good composer. Part of me wanted to lose some of the music in Six String because I was aware a lot of first timers over use music. But I figured, "Fuck it." This is a music driven movie, the guy has a guitar on his back for cryin' out loud! In a way, I kind of thought of it like "Tommy" or Pink Floyd's "The Wall." Something like a musical, but much more twisted.
I'm suprised that no one has really thought of using rock and roll or rockabilly in an action film. It's such racy, speedy stuff, with a lot of passion and energy. The Red Elvises brought the film a lot of it's sense of fun. Brian Tyler gave the film a lot of it's heart. I wanted the music to slowly start to change from happy go lucky kickin ass rock and roll to much more emotionally resonant score by Brian Tyler. As Buddy and the Kid get further along on this journey, the tone starts to shift, and the music does too. It's always kinda whacky and nostalgic, even with the score I think, but it takes on a deeper kind of soul later on, until the fifth reel is almost entirely scored, with no rock at all other than the guitar duel. During my roughcut stage I actually had some people tell me to cut the scene where the young Buddy wanna-be get's killed by his own blade in the dunes, and the scene with Buddy being drug by the kid. Those people didn't get what the score was going to do to those scenes later on, or just how important to the overall film they were. Once the score was in place, nobody ever said another word about it.
I also wanted to have some deliberately slow, quiet moments in the film, where all you hear is stuff like a sword dragging in the sand or the sound of the wind through canyons. Guys like Kubrick and Hitchcock did that. One of my favorite all time scenes in a film is very simple. It's the scene in "North by Northwest," where Cary Grant get's dropped off in the middle of nowhere by a bus. Hitchcock holds for like thirty seconds on Cary Grant's POV of cars going by and turning into dots in the distance. He does it a couple of times. Fuck! You really know Grant is all alone, both emotionally and literally. That makes it a thousand times scarier than if you just saw that cropduster attack him right away. You know the dude has no place to hide. It's psychologically brilliant. 90 percent of it is the sound. The silence. Hearing the car retreat to the horizon. Geez that takes brass balls! I grew up a few miles from where that was filmed, so maybe that's why I like it even more. Growing up in mostly flat, barren area gave me a real love of open space.
As for the way we were editing, part of that goes back to the music. I listened to the Red Elvises music until everyone around me couldn't stand to be around me anymore. I actually wore out the CD player in my car. I knew every beat by heart. Jeff, Kristian and I talked about the music and listened to it exstensively the whole time. We all wanted to give the fights a rythmic feeling, in conjunction with what's going on in the music. At times it's very slow and lyrical, like when Buddy is charging toward the cavemen in slo mo. Then the music picks up, and the pace of the editing picks up too. I look at editing like you'd think of really good sex. It has to build and ebb. Jeff brings alot of that kind of style from Hong Kong too. He's a great action director/choreographer because he knows the importance of pace and editing. We were always thinking of the camera speeds and movement. Things can be very beautiful when slo motion is combined with fast motion. Peckinpaw may have started that trend, then John Woo and the HK folks took the ball and ran. Hong Kong action Cinema is like ballet. I didn't want to make a film about violence, but about the lyricism of movements. I don't claim to be nearly the HK afficionado Jeff is, or for that matter, probably plenty of your readers either, but I do love how in HK cinema, like Wong Kar Wai, or, in something like John Woo's "The Killer", all the pieces fit. Individually, the shots are insignifigant, but together, they create a masterpiece of fluid motion and pace. For us, it was also the better way to work, because we couldn't afford extensive choreography, and the film wasn't supposed to be centered around martial arts anyway. It wasn't about who could do the highest jumpkick. The martial arts in this film is intentionally very simple.
In filmschool, one of the first things I ever saw was a short film called, "Nine Variations on a Dance Theme." I think it was done at NYU a long time ago. I saw it, and I had to watch it again and again. It struck me deeply. It was basically just a ballet dancer, edited into doing the same series of movements again and again, never completely allowed to finish the dance. It may sound lame, but I swear I almost cried because it was so powerful to me. The dancer was so beautiful and graceful. She was making music with her body. But it wasn't just her that was doing it, it was the editing. The edited sequence extended what should have taken ten seconds into something like a minute or more. It was all about the pace, the music that the film was cut to, and the amazingly fluid grace of the dancer. Everything complimented everything else perfectly. To me, that was very cinematic.
Ok, deep breath... as for the dialogue being underwritten... I loved the idea of trying to tell a story visually. That was a challenge. I admired Eisenstein, and how he used montage editing to create a visual language. I once heard someone say the invention of sound permanently retarded the cinematic language. Having little dialouge was also very practical, because we wrote the script to be done quickly, not thinking that we'd have the money to do alot of ADR. We shot much non sync, and picked a project that we knew would lend itself to that too. I wanted to give the film the feeling of a Foreign film, like Fellini or Leone. (two different guys, but both surrealists in my book.) I really wanted everything to sound unreal, with lots of echos through canyons and stuff. Remember the twang of those gunshots in the Spagetti Westerns? They were coming from another dimension. I wanted to find that place.
