Film Independent Fellow David Aguilar is an L.A.-based filmmaker who went through the Project:Involve program in 1999. His mentor was lauded writer-director Robert M. Young, whose award-winning career has spanned awe-inspiring documentaries like Children of Fate: Life and Death in a Sicilian Family along with narratives including Triumph of the Spirit, Dominick and Eugene, The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, and Alambrista!, which won the Camera d'Or at Cannes in 1978.
After the mentorship program officially came to an end, the two stayed in touch regularly and cultivated their relationship into one of true collaboration built upon mutual respect. It's not a story you hear often in the dog-eat-dog business of making movies; rather, it's a particularly powerful demonstration of the invaluable contribution a support system like Project:Involve can have towards the career of filmmakers both nascent and veteran.
Most recently, Aguilar served as assistant to Young while he co-produced Edward James Olmos' Walkout for HBO; Young is now attached as executive producer on Aguilar's feature film debut, which he will be producing and co-wrote with another Project:Involve graduate, Manuel Figueroa (who will direct). After seven years of working together, the two sat down to discuss the impact each has had on the other's life and work.
David, how did you come to be paired with Robert for your Project:Involve mentorship?
D: Way back when I did my interview to get into Project:Involve, [Director of Diversity] Pamela Tom had this list of people that were possible mentors, people as well-known as Quentin Tarantino all the way down.
R: All the way down to me! (Laughs)
D: Exactly! (Laughs) I told her that I had somebody in mind that I wanted to be my mentor and I said to Pam, "If I get his contact info, would you go get him for me?" and Pam said, "Sure, but I can't guarantee anything."
Tell me why you wanted Robert as a mentor.
I wanted Bob because of one film in particular that I saw of his that really changed my life and changed the way that I thought about filmmaking; that was Alambrista! It's about this immigrant that comes to the U.S. from Mexico and in my opinion the American dream collapses on him and he has to fight his way out and figure out who he is again after being bombarded by everything that this country throws at you. I was making a film on immigration myself at the time and I saw it and it blew me away. I ended up sampling it in certain parts of my film. I didn't get the rights to any of it, but I showed it to Bob and I'm really glad that he liked it. (Laughs) That's how I knew about Bob's filmmaking. Then I looked him up on the web and figured out that he was the same director as Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, Short Eyes, Triumph of the Spirit and other films that I'd seen that I loved as well, and I was like, "Wow, I have to get him, especially now that I have this opportunity."
Robert, explain how you came to accept the invitation to be part of Project:Involve.
I've always been mentoring people. I think part of my own style of filmmaking is talking out loud when I'm on the set, thinking about what I'm doing. I'm very interested in the aesthetics of filmmaking, whether it's how do you tell a story or how do you approach a problem. I've done a certain amount of teaching but I'm not a formal teacher. I taught at Yale and Columbia — I took Milos Forman's place when he went off to make a film. And I found it stimulating to be talking to young people who were really interesting and facing some of these problems for the first time. And I believe very much in dialogue, in being open and not having secrets. I try to go as far as I can in speculating about how you do things, and you need somebody to be doing that with. So for me it's a healthy process to be talking to someone. Plus, I think it's important; I think you're supposed to give something back. I don't mean that necessarily what I have is some kind of great gift of anything like that. But I have experience and I have questions that I ask myself that I think are relevant and if I can help someone to go deeper into their own process, I think that's a very good thing – that's part of what I’m here for.
I'm interested in all kinds of people; I've made films about black people, I've lived on an Indian reservation, with migrant workers, with Eskimos — a lot of people in different parts of the world. I'm interested in the insight that I'll get from other people. David seemed like a nice guy, serious and committed to wanting to make films. I'm also interested in being a part of encouraging people to have their own voice; I think it's very important. I respect people needing to and wanting to make films and needing to and wanting to make money; I need to make money and want to make money, too. But the thing that really gets to me is people who have something that they're passionate about, that they want to explore, something that's going to be taking people into a deeper reality and not just commercial formula. So when someone comes to me and says they want me to mentor, they're interested in the kind of ideas that I'm interested in, I feel obliged in some kind of way to respond.
David: I remember the first time we met at Borders bookstore on Westwood Blvd. I came away from the meeting with one thing in mind, which was that I had to make films that mattered. I was making a film about immigration and I always was attracted to certain issues, anything that was confrontational — whether it was police brutality or whatever it might be. After that conversation he loaned me some of his work and I was able to see it and really absorb it, and I realized that it's so much of a commitment of your life that there's no time for fluff, you know? There's no time just to make money or do it just because you think you're going to please the masses. I was 24 years old when I met him and he just completely put me on the right track.
Robert: I hope I didn't make you feel that everything had to be an issue, because I don't even believe in making issue kind of films.
David: No, not at all. It's about human experience. That's what I mean by films that matter. Not necessarily issue-driven or message-oriented at the end.
Robert: But true — anything that's true and confronts you with "This is the way things are," and you have to make adjustments for that, where you have to deal with the truth. The truth, even if it's something very difficult to face, is something that grounds you and I think film should be about grounding people in experiences so that they're stronger after they see the film. Of course, laughter is a very important part of that. Humor gives perspective; that's what I think the function of humor is, to put things into proportion.
Those are very basic things I'm interested in exploring. Actually, some of the things that are very basic are some of the things that elude you — it's right in front of you but you're looking elsewhere. You come in thinking, "How am I going to do this scene?" without really thinking what the story is about. You're looking around going, "I think I'll take the shot from up above the lamp." People get distracted and lost about how to tell a story.
This is territory that's incredibly important and that a lot of filmmakers struggle with, whether they're young or more experienced.
Robert: For sure — I'm always struggling with that. Why do you want to make the film and what is it about? Where's the story?
That may be perceived as a selfish pursuit because, as you said, so many others are trying to satisfy investors or audiences. But if it doesn't matter to you, then that passion or that connection won't come across.
Robert: Absolutely. Another interesting thing about mentoring David is that we're all our own very narrow spectrum of behavior, of human experience. So every new person you meet takes you someplace else outside yourself and you learn new things. It doesn't mean that I want to make films that I am only interested in. You find out new things and then your interests broaden in talking with a young person like David, who's really stimulated and interesting. He's bright and he'll say what he thinks, and I say what I think and I don't mind challenging and he doesn't either, so that's good.
So there was a lot working for this relationship right from the start. David, what were you looking for in a mentor in particular, and what were the expectations you had given Robert's work?
David: I didn't really have any expectations because back then it was a six-month thing, so I thought really it was only going to be six months; I thought, "It will be cool to meet him, he's a great filmmaker, I'll get some insight." Never did I think that one day I'd be assisting him on a film like Walkout. That was a really grand experience for me — he'd stop what was going on in terms of setting up cameras and setting up lights and talk to the crew about story, about what's going on. To be perfectly honest, I was there with the crew and not all of the crew understand that — not everybody who works in Hollywood or in the union or whatever, even though they work very hard and do their jobs very well, is necessarily able to follow filmmaking in that way.
Robert: They're not really interested in why you're doing what you're doing.
David: Right, but for myself, that's what I gravitate towards and that's the kind of conversation I like to have about films and why are we making films. I think that's how you figure out what it is you're going to tell, what it is that's important, what should be in the frame, what should be left out of the frame, and that kind of thing. But as far as knowing Bob's work and what kind of person or mentor he would be, I was really open. Shortly after I went through the six-month program, I became a teacher myself and incorporated a lot of things that Bob would say to me in my teaching of high school video production students, so that helped me a lot, too.
Robert: The ideas are not copyrighted. (Laughs)
You jest about this, but this industry is so competitive that I think a lot of people — especially filmmakers who are just starting out — encounter attitudes like that, more experienced professionals saying, "This is proprietary — it's mine, I've worked for it and I'm not going to share it!"
Robert: I understand that, because I've had twinges of that myself, but I deliberately go against that. It took me a long time to figure out certain things because I made documentaries for many years before I made narrative films. Let's say I'm living with Eskimos: I'm going to be gone in six weeks or whatever, so how do I tell the story? How do I find the story without imposing my own views, because obviously if I'm going to be living with people for a certain period of time, the experience would be deepening, so am I going to impose some kind of idea at the beginning that's already going to be limiting the exploration? What is the key to going deeper and deeper and deeper? So those are things that I questioned and wondered about and came up with answers for myself about how I go about something like that. How do I follow my own aesthetic, which is not to have people telling me what to think? How do I make things that are not result-oriented but keep you in the moment, keep you in the process? So those are very important questions, the kinds of questions that I need to keep talking to David about.
One of the answers to some of that is to find a situation; when the audience understands a situation, they are in a position to be able to interpret behavior. I have a lot of theories about how you tell stories and where to locate the audience and putting them in the negative space inside an experience...those are the things that I'm fascinated with and interested in because they further my own abilities to try to tell stories and having somebody that's interested in that process is worthwhile and interesting to discuss it. Then when you're making a film, the process is right in front of us – we can see what works and doesn't work. You can demonstrate ideas.
What are some of the ways that David's thinking or work answer those questions for you, perhaps even teach you in the way that you were teaching him?
Robert: I think it's a feedback process. I'm trying to learn all the time by the process of the way I think, which is to put things out in the air, in the open. I'll say what my instinct is and then I'll test it, I'll question it, and when somebody else is there like David, they'll affirm or not affirm the result. He's making his own feature film now and I'm going to help to the extent I can. I'm very tough on them.
David: Yeah, he is! (Laughs)
Robert: But it's about the script, which is the most important thing — the story. I'm very tough on them but I think they'll come up with something really, really good. Not because of me, but because of their own talent and experience and endeavor. If I think there's something and they haven't explored it or they're settling before they should settle, I'll say that to them. I'll push them.
David: Yes. Bob would put out his ideas for Walkout and I would either confirm or not confirm whether or not I thought it was the right way to go, but it's even more intense in the writing process because you have the freedom to take it anywhere, whereas being on the set I would see that you could only do so much at certain times. But doing it while involved in the writing process, you can't put a price on how much you can learn and the different ways you can explore the story.
Robert: I think the person who's trying to mentor has to have some kind of aesthetic, and by aesthetic I mean some ground rules, some things that you believe in that will position your approach to the material. I think you have to rely on instinct and you have to be centered, but I think that requires a curiosity and a critical faculty that questions the very things that you come up with. Not to kill them, but to question them, and that sharpens the debate in yourself and then you come move to another place where you get maybe a deeper instinct. And there are certain things that I think are very important in storytelling, like I was talking about situation, positions, the audience — once you get a glimmer of the situation then you're able to interpret behavior and that affects the aesthetics of the scene.
David's heard this a hundred times because I made up a little thing to explain that, like you see a guy flirting with a woman and then another woman comes in the room and says, "Honey, time to pick up the kids." Just right there you'd be wondering, "Did that woman he was flirting with know he was married? Does she know the wife? Does the wife know her? Is he embarrassed? Is he not embarrassed?" Every single little choice will tell you something about those characters and you in the audience are pulled into the situation. Now you take that situation and come out of it with a certain understanding of who the characters are without me telling you who they are and just by the way he acts you'll know something about the kind of person he is, the same as all the characters. That's what I'm trying to do and by mentoring someone — I'm trying to teach them that.
And then you take that situation and put it against another situation and then another one, and the audience is somewhere in the triangulation; you've moved the audience to a deeper place, into more complex ideas, and that's how you also position the actors for getting deeper performances. So this is an aesthetic; it's saying, "I want to indicate, I want results. What is the process and how do I stay in the process? How do I take people into the moment?" Those are the questions that I was asking myself and I think a lot of the times they're frankly not answered. Now you may do this intuitively very well; you may also be off, as we all are. But to me it's a process of feedback, of testing if you're off or if you're going deeper. You still need the imagination to write an original story.
I think today's generation and then the generations afterwards — since there are 10-year-olds making films now and it's not big deal—have been trained to just do it. That mindset has been commercialized and purveyed — "Just do it and don't think about it." And now technology enables that.
Robert: Well, I think there's a lot to that in the sense of being in touch with your own instincts and not stumbling all over them. At the same time, I think there's a feedback process that's necessary, which is a critical one of, "I did this, so how does it hold up? Is it really deep enough? Is it self-serving? Does it satisfy the requirements of the story?" You don't have to do everything at once, but what is your strategy? Storytelling is a quest; it's kind of a hunt. You give the audience spores and tracks and they follow to get deeper and deeper. But it's very much about structure, too; ideas have to be located in structure not just telling about ideas, and it's very important to learn these kinds of things, I think. And so if you're mentoring somebody, you have some kind of responsibility and an investment in them. You want them to get these ideas; you can't be arrogant and say, "Look, this is the way you have to do it." I say, "I may be completely wrong, but this is what I think and if you don't like it, then come back with something else."
David: Not only about storytelling, but also the business side of filmmaking. I've learned a lot of from him about that even though he says not.
Robert: I think I'm pretty naïve.
David: But to me, he's not, and whether he's telling me about mistakes he's made in the past or things he would've done differently, I learned a lot from that as far as how to create my company, about how to solicit certain actors or investors or things like that. He has a vast fountain of experience that I can draw from. Filmmaking is communicating ideas to people, whether it's the DP or the actors or whatever emotion you need to get through to certain people to make your vision come to life.
Robert: I don't believe in confrontation; I'm probably more a coward. (Laughs) I think it's about the work. I wouldn't shout at anyone, I wouldn't belittle anyone. I think you have to be modest and listen, even though I talk a lot. But I'm also listening.
Project:Involve is about furthering diversity within the film industry and telling stories that focus on difference of experience. You're talking about achieving a basic connection to humanity, but there are all these different ways of doing that, and empowering a young filmmaker to believe that their sphere of experience is worth it and valuable and has an audience is something that we're trying to do. But it's very hard sometimes and I wonder if there were times when you felt like, "Nobody wants to hear this!" How did you work it all out as part of this relationship?
David: I'm sure that even now Bob is having these problems. He's doing a project that I'm going to assist him on which is set in New Orleans and is called Layla-Azalea. Even in his long career with all the connections he's made and all the stories that he's told and his philosophies and whatnot, he's still struggling to make a film! It still feels like an impossible feat, I'm sure.
Robert: It's very hard, yes.
David: There's him with his 81 years of experience and me being 31, just getting started in my career and going through that process...it feels like an impossible mountain to climb sometimes. But as you discover something that works in the story or you change something and the lights go off, whether it be for myself and my writing partner or with Bob or an actor that we're trying to get involved, that makes it all worth it, that makes it feel like, "Ok, we're getting somewhere!" because artistically the storytelling is coming together and that's always the most important thing.
Robert: My feeling is when you stand in front of God — if there is one — he's not going to ask you, "How come you weren't Steven Spielberg?" He's going to say, "How come you weren't David Aguilar? Because that's the person I created and he has a unique body of experiences." I believe you have to know who you are so you can walk with the people in the street and converse with them then be able to go back to where you were.
Doesn't mean you have to be bound by it; I think you have to question all the ideas. I'm very unorthodox—I have problems with all religions, any kind of orthodoxy. I believe in God without religion. I think you have aesthetics—that's a different kind of thing; that's not telling you "I won't do this" or "I won't do that". I have a real problem with that kind of thinking.
David, did any of this ever clash with something you are very orthodox about? I imagine, though, that an unorthodox approach is very appealing to a young filmmaker.
David: When I was a UCLA student, I was very much into activism and I was involved in demonstrations against Prop 187 and came from that whole front. I remember the first day I went to Bob's house: I went into his back room and saw a picture of him with Subcomandante Marcos from the Zapatistas. So I said, "Ok, we'll do just fine!" [Laughs] It wasn't really much of a conflict philosophically. Sometimes we argue in the moment about the aesthetics or the creative direction of the story, particularly the story that I'm working on now, the feature film I'm trying to get off the ground.
Robert: Well, I want them to challenge themselves and the story as much as they possibly can. You want a story to turn on itself and not be just sort of laid out. That makes it deeper and more surprising. But I can tell you I'm trying to write something right now and having a terribly tough time, so it's not as if this is something easy to do. And that's where there can be friction because they want to make a movie, they want to get going with it, and I'm kind of like an impediment.
David: But when he does that, it makes us not only question ourselves but it reaffirms our belief in ourselves.
Robert: Which is important because you become stronger.
There's a feeling that everybody's against you in this business, so this is practice for that attitude.
Robert: If your story is deeper and more grounded, then you are stronger.
David: Right. That's the thing about the idea of the mentorship: It's not just artistic. It's business, it's how you deal with people, and not just business like creating an LLC type of business, but business in terms of how do you relate to people business-wise, what's good business etiquette, that kind of thing. And that's all very important — it's important on the set, it's important in pre-production, it's important everywhere. I think you have to have really strong belief in yourself, as far as what you believe in, in order to handle people that you may not necessarily like sometimes but you have to work with for whatever reason. Being on the set of Walkout taught me a lot about that.
Robert: Well, if you're defensive about ideas, that means you're afraid. If you're open and there's nothing to fear, nothing that you have to hold on to except that you're going to try to find the truth, then what is there to be afraid of? Anybody can say anything and you can evaluate it from the point of view that you should try to evaluate things from: does it further the story? Does it deepen the character? Or is this just a cheap solution, something that's not true to the character? Is it something that's not good for the story? Maybe it's an interesting kind of a sideline, but stories can hold so much energy that has to be focused and this may be something that's very good but it's going to take you over here. It has to be in the story to be reckoned with, and that's where structure comes in.
So there's possibility but it's also reigned in.
Robert: Yeah! I have plenty of my own films I can cite where I did something like that but that's not what this is about. [Laughs]
Let's go back to when you first met and figured out you liked one another. How did the relationship then grow?
Robert: Well it depended on David, quite honestly. I'm very bad at certain things — like today, I was in my bathrobe and I hadn't even showered when David came to pick me up. [Laughs] I knew we were going to do this but I forgot because I was working on something. I'm very bad about a lot of operational things. So David is the one who kept the relationship going; it's not as if I called and said, "David, how are you doing and what's going on?"
David: Well I had gotten into the [Film Independent] Screenwriters Lab after I was in Project:Involve, so not only did I have my mentors from the Screenwriters Lab, which were great, but I would give my script to Bob and he came to a reading that I had of it.
Robert: Yeah, I would always give comments or talk with him about it. But I hadn't taken any time to cultivate him.
David: I'd go off on my own interests, traveling through Mexico or whatever it was I was doing at the time, then I'd call Bob later and we'd hang out once a week for four weeks or something like that. Then we wouldn't talk for five months. But that's just the life of any creative person.
Robert: When we were working together on Walkout it was very intense. David would pick me up in the morning and drive me and at night take me home, so we would reflect during the trip on what was going on. And so it becomes a very personal kind of thing, too; it's not as if one just talks about a curriculum of sorts. I think the insight that one gets is something that happens in process.
A great quality that's maybe inherent in you, David, or something you learned is that you've got to go halfway — your mentor or whoever it is that you want something from is not going to just give it to you.
Robert: Right — you have to ask, you have to be present, you have to be helpful.
David: And you have to do your research. Before I met with him, my girlfriend at the time was really annoyed with me because I made her sit with me and watch every Bob Young film I could get. [Laughs] You have to do your research, that way the first couple of times that we met and Bob would talk about his films, I knew exactly what he was talking about. I had read up on it. You can't just say, "Oh, yeah, I've heard of that..." If you wanted Robert Rodriguez or Quentin Tarantino or someone like that but you haven't seen their stuff or researched their life, that's going to affect what they can actually teach you.
Robert: My films are kind of like a laboratory, the results of things I was thinking of doing, so you can really see that and talk about it. Then David was right on the set so he could see me working with the actors and the position of the camera and all of those things.
What were some things you witnessed being on the set of Walkout with Robert that really struck you — the kinds of things you want to share with young filmmakers out there?
David: One thing that comes right to mind is Bob would explain the concept, what we're going for, to everybody whether it be the DP, the assistant camera people that are pulling focus, or of course the actors, but also the other producers as well as the executive for HBO or even the gaffers or the grip or the PAs — anyone who is involved.
Robert: Well, I want people to feel they're all a part of it. And they are.
David: And I think that they have to know psychologically where the director is coming from, where the vision is and where the story is, because everyone has to be on the same page. You can't have people who are thinking of something else, even if it's just a PA or the grip. I think they have to be emotionally involved in what's going on in order for it to be a really good film.
Robert: People need feel that you really are sincere about that, that you're not just saying, "Oh, we're all making this together." When I was doing Extremities, there was a shot that I wanted to do where the camera had to go in through a door and be low on the floor, because she [Farrah Fawcett] had been crawling. And we didn't have the equipment, so the crew saw that I was disappointed about it but I said, "I'll come up with another way of doing it; I can't do it this way, so we just won't do it." I didn't ask anybody but later they made something and it worked.
For that same film — a lot of films are bonded and the director has to sign off on it. That one was a very difficult budget and I was skeptical about whether I'd really be able to do it but you sort of massage yourself into thinking, "Ok, I'll probably be able to do it." It so happened that they didn't ask me to sign it and I started shooting; I shot for a little over a week and the material was great though I was falling behind, maybe two days' time, so it was difficult but we were getting some fantastic stuff. The producers came in one day and said, "Oh, Bob, by the way, you have to sign the bond." So I look at it and I see that they've reduced the time by another week. I say, "I'm not signing this. I can't say that I think it is adequate, so what do you want me to do? I can't sign it because I can't say it!" "You gotta sign it! If you don't sign it by 5:00, we're not going to be in tomorrow." I said, "I can't sign it."
I didn't sign it; I said to them, "You like what you see and we're getting the material," and then I crossed a line that as a director I knew I shouldn't cross because the producers don't want you to act like a producer. I said, "Look, it's a quarter of a million dollars for the bond. Don't get a bond, we'll make this work and it's only going to cost you one more week. Because if the bond person comes in, which is going to happen because we won't be on time on this schedule that you've reduced it down to, then they'll take over and it'll ruin the film." In the end they probably made $35 to $40 million on that film and it was made only for $3 million which is still a lot of money, but... So you do have to stand up for what you think is really right.
David: Getting back to things that I learned that I would pass on to people or try to do myself, another is when things go wrong or wind up not the way that you thought they were going to wind up or there's some huge delay for some reason, stay professional, stay in the moment as far as what's best for the story, As far as what can you do or who you can talk with to further things...use that time. Make use of all your time there on the set. Whether you're giving directions to your actor or you're talking with your DP or you're discussing the lighting or Bob and I are discussing a scene or something like that, use that time, don't just let it go to waste.
Right, or get all frustrated.
David: Yeah! Keep your wits about you.
To wrap everything up, tell me more about what you two are working on now.
David: My film that I'm producing, which I co-wrote with the director, is called Faded. Bob is a very integral part it as far as writing and coming up with stretching the story as far as it can go, making it as serious or as funny as it needs to be in whatever particular situation. And I am going to assist him again on his new film that he's going to shoot in September.
Robert: It's a very low-budget film; it probably will be working for practically nothing.
David: It's called Layla-Azalea and I love the script. It takes place in New Orleans, but I'll let Bob tell you about it.
Robert: One summer an actor I like a lot approached me in Puerto Vallarta — I was there showing some of my films — and said, "Will you read my script?" I get this all the time so I said I would and I liked it a lot. I emailed him back and said, "I think you have a really interesting script and I'll help you any way I can." He wrote back and said, "Since you like it so much, would you direct it?" I got excited by that because it's not what I usually do — it's much more a Pulp Fiction kind of thing. I don't mean to be demeaning or condescending in saying that; I like a lot of Pulp Fiction—it's hot, it's immediate, and it's very textured, but some of it is conventional — there's a bank robbery they go through, those type of things. But it's very interesting and the dialogue is good.
So I did a kind of rewrite on it with him. He wrote it for Kankakee, Illinois, and there are these losers drifting around, lost in their lives - that's why they rob this bank. I said, "I wanna do it in New Orleans where the whole city is lost, and the characters that I have in mind are all from movies that I made and they wouldn't live in Kankakee. They could come to New Orleans and they'd be coming for the opportunities that happen when there's a disaster." Whenever there's a big disaster like that, some people show up to see if they can work or scam or whatever. Also, the bank is going to be FEMA. The story didn't have enough subtext for me, so now these people are fighting back in a way - it's not just to rob a bank, it's also retribution. It's, "My house has been destroyed and nothing is happening so if we're going to rob something, let's rob FEMA."
One things that's very hard in this business, because it's an industry like every business is and things get codified and there's a way of doing things, is that when a script comes in, the first thing that happens if they're interested is a budget is made. And it's made by somebody who separates all the actors and everything else like a jigsaw puzzle. No one ever considers the possibility of maybe doing it at the beginning and doing it all in order from there. I do, as much as I can, and I find that the actors grow and scenes are actually the reality that create the characters. That doesn't happen when you do it out of sequence. When I rehearse, for example, I would never go all the way, but it's when we're doing the scene that I go all the way. I don't want somebody repeating something; I want something to happen that has never happened before.
So you shoot everything chronologically?
Robert: As much as I can.
David, are you going to do that with your film?
David: We're going to try to, yeah. We're going to have to because it's about the downward spiral of a man, a man falling apart.
Robert: I think emotionally and for a lot of reasons there are things you discover that way that seem unnecessary if they're out of order. I've done it and I really works for me, but studios will think that's really insane and not a good thing to do.
But what it should come down to is the story.
Robert: Yeah!
David: Exactly.
Robert: One of the things that I believe in very much is the possibilities of what might happen. I like leaving a certain amount to chance.
Sometimes you don't have the budget or resources for that.
Robert: But you could put it the other way, and that is that if you don't have the budget, then you're not beholden to someone and then you can take many more chances. I'm not interested in the story if it's all like sugar; if there aren't chances in it, then I'm not so interested in it.
Well, what's true about that tidiness? It's not life.
Robert: It's a mystery, it's in process, and I like that. I like the danger. I think stories have to have a certain amount of danger, and if you know what's going to happen, you've already killed the story.
Photos courtesy of John Castillo
