It is what it is
To whet your appetite, here is an Interview with an up and coming director languishing in the hell that is Cleveland, Ohio
An interview from 2nd Wave Cinema
Writer: Philippe Remoissenet
Interviewee Producer/ Writer/ Director/ Actor Alex P. Michaels
Jean Luc Godard hasn't made a vampyre movie yet, but if he did, it might look something like Alex P. Michaels' "Blood Kiss;" a movie where vampyres and blood are never mentioned. If it is true that Valesquez no longer painted objects, but the spaces between objects, then Michaels has done the cinematic equivalent, as he's not so much concerned with delineating plot as in exploring the characters between the plot.
As Michaels explains, "I love cliches. My film starts with a cliche; it's just that I can't help blowing the cliches up. In this way, I can shake up the audience's expectations."
Remoissenet: Tell us about your latest film "Blood Kiss."
Michaels: Well, it's the kind of movie people have seen a hundred times before. Now, they can see it for the first time.
Remoissenet: By that, you're referring to your reinventing of genres. Which is a major theme in your work? Like the TV Movie you won the Emmy for. "What Angels Fear." It was about cops battling drug dealers, but the cops were the drug dealers. But the cop wasn't doing it for money; he was doing it to get his daughter a new house. You didn't direct that one?
Michaels: No, Jim Friedman did. I just wrote the script. Jim did a great job. He stuck too close to the script though.
Remoissenet: That's an unusual thing to say. Usually, writers are worried about directors changing their work.
Michaels: True, but I'm a writer/ director/ actor/ producer. I understand changes. I liked the TV Movie, but I know, if it was me directing, I would have changed the script. I know I did a lot of changes with "Blood Kiss."
Remoissenet: Why did you change "Blood Kiss" from what you originally wrote?
Michaels: After I cast the movie, I wanted the actors to fit into the roles. I wanted someone to have no problem seeing these people in these roles. I took the part of the personality of the actors that was most like the character I had written and played with that. I wanted to give the audience something they didn't expect.
Remoissenet: So, what should we expect with "Blood Kiss"?
Michaels: "Blood Kiss" is about the usual thing. Uhm, vampyres, people dressed in black, fangs, hissing, blood, horror, the, uhm, entire gothic tapestry.
Remoissenet: Which is to say that it's really about none of those things?
Michaels: (laughs) You catch on quick.
Remoissenet: So, in the end what is "Blood Kiss" about?
Michaels: If you and I take a trip to Nice we could film us and the movie would be about Nice or we could film the trip to Nice and the movie would be about us.
Remoissenet: What you're saying is that: the experience is relative to the observation of the viewer or the participant.
Michaels: That's right, and in my films, the viewer is the participant.
Remoissenet: There's no doubt you're following in the footsteps of the French New Wave filmmakers; especially Jean Luc Godard.
Michaels: In Godard's films, one gets the sense that everything's possible, that cinema is being invented for the first time.
Remoissenet: There are those who fault you for not giving prime importance to the narrative in your films.
Michaels: Those who know, know. Those who don't, don't.
Remoissenet: Are you afraid of losing a certain segment of your audience?
Michaels: No, you never loose anybody. They can always get on the train at the next stop.
Remoissenet: That sounds hopeful.
Michaels: (laughs) I'm a hopeful filmmaker.
Remoissenet: You seem to have divided the critics right down the middle?
Michaels: (laughs) I come not to unite cinema, but to divide it.
Remoissenet: Does it bother you when people say they don't understand your work?
Michaels: Picasso had the same problem. But children understood his work and honestly, a child would have no problem understanding my films.
Remoissenet: So, we should all be like children when we watch movies?
Michaels: Films operate somewhere between fairy tales and dreams. Think about it. Ever see a child when you tell them a fairy tale or a dream? They listen wide-eyed and full of wonder. They don't ask what is that character's motivation. They mostly ask, so what happens next?
Remoissenet: Yet, some people are still having problems coming to grips with your films.
Michaels: Some people still can't figure out how to turn a computer on, much less work with one. Some people say, I don't like it, cause I don't get it. I find it amusing that people can watch a movie like "Blood Kiss" and not get it. "Blood Kiss" is about these people, and.
Remoissenet: And?
Michaels: You tell me. Just watch the movie and you can tell me. Honestly, my film is not for the psuedo-intellectuals. Bob Dylan tells us, "To live outside the law, you must be honest." That's what I do in my movies. Show people as they honestly are. There are no good guys, or bad guys. And the plot is what you make of it. The movie shows people as they are. I think that's why I like the film noir genre, so much. It takes the mask off and shows everyone as they really are.
Remoissenet: So, some pseudo-intellectual can't impress his friends by attaching all these twenty-dollar words to your movies. The characters are feeling this because of their repressed emotions and I feel that looking at this in a Jungian manner-
Michaels: (we both laugh)Yeah, if you watch "Blood Kiss", you see what it's about. Although, you can't believe what my characters say. They do lie from time to time. But if you watch the movie you can see the lies. Maybe, not the first time around, but the second or third.
Remoissenet: Is it good to make a movie that people have to watch more than once?
Michaels: Why not? A lot of movies you don't want to see once. I think it's good to return to a time when people actually make movies that make you think. You can watch "Blood Kiss" once and enjoy it because it's not what you expect from a vampyre movie. You can even argue about whether it is a vampyre movie or not because the characters don't have fangs. They don't dress in black either. It's like when Abel Ferrara did his vampyre movie, "The Addiction." Lili Taylor acted more like a junkie than what you see on Buffy.
Remoissenet: So, you don't like Buffy?
Michaels: Don't put words in my mouth. I love Buffy. Yet "Blood Kiss" is not Buffy and if you think it is, you're going to be disappointed. I think the movie, my movie, I think "Blood Kiss" is simply what it is.
Remoissenet: And even a child could see that?
Michaels You said it, I didn't.
For more info on Blood Kiss and Alex P. Michaels, go to www.prelude2cinema.com
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COMING IN APRIL 2001
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