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David
Barker
David
Barker's film "Afraid of Everything" was one of the best films
shown at the Austin Film Festival in October of 1999. His
film is in black and white and was shot by Austin cinematographer
Deb Lewis. It concearns a New York yuppie couple who have
shut themselves down emotionally and sexually since the wife
lost her leg in an accident. The wife's younger half-sister,
who has been raised in another country, comes for a visit
and upsets the comfort of passivity which the couple have
enveloped themselves within. The film is Bergmanesque with
a subtle hint of Jim Jarmusch's "Stranger than Paradise" thrown
in for contrast and dramatic impact. The actors in the piece
include Nathalie Richard and Daniel Aukin as the couple and
Sarah Adler as the half-sister. Miss Adler recieved the Lodger
Award for Best Actress in a Competition Film at the Festival.
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| 1. You didn't really talk much about your cinematic
background at the Q&A after the film's showing at the Austin
Film Festival. This is your first feature isn't it? |
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I'd always planned to make films, but the last time I finished
one was in 1984. In between, I dropped out of NYU film school
during my first year, then studied anthropology and cooking.
I have a pretty good film history background from obsessively
watching films for the last 20 years. In college, I worked
for several years in the university (Chicago) film library,
which let me watch 16mm printed in a very structured way.
For instance, I watched all 85 of Chaplin's films in chronological
order, and did the same with 150 of Griffith's films. All
along, I was trying to make films, and had the background
to know what I was trying to get, but each time I tried to
shoot something it basically sucked, and I was unable to figure
to break through this. I shot and discarded several films
(including one feature) that were not up to what I saw as
my minimum standards, but it was a good (though expensive)
learning process. I then ran a postgraduate film school in
New York, which let me sit in on any classes I wanted to,
as well as invite anyone I wanted to meet to come and teach
a class there. After that a friend and I started a small distribution
company, handling documentaries and foreign films in the US,
and that allowed me to learn a lot about the business ends
of the job. Finally, I went back to school at in the MFA program
at Univ California San Diego, to study with two filmmakers
whose work I knew: Jean-Pierre Gorin, who co directed 7 films
with Jean-Luc Godard, and Babette Mangolte, a well-known cinematographer.
Although technically an art school (I was one of only two
film students there), they were both great (and harsh) critics,
and I made another unfinished film. It was only after I dropped
out of that school and returned to New York that I began "Afraid."
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| 2. I know you have known the actors in the piece,
at least Sarah and Daniel, for a while. What was it like working
with actors who are also friends? |
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I think it is always best to work with actors that I know.
Besides the obvious work of defining the drama for scenes,
etc., when we are rehearsing I try to pick up on physical
and vocal rhythms, to help develop the character's bodies
and voices, or to help guide them into areas that will be
read true for them rather than 'acted.' It generally takes
some time to get to know the person, and learn how to work
together. Many of the great performances in film have come
from actors and directors who knew each other well, the most
obvious being Lillian Gish/DW Griffith and Robert DeNiro/Martin
Scorsese.
As for Sarah, I sent her the script through a French producer
friend. Though I had written the script with her in mind,
we were all pretty surprised when she called to say that she
was interested.
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| 3. Daniel's performance was particularly
interesting and controlled, perfect for the character, so I
was surprised when you described him as a more hyper person
in reality. What made you feel he could do the role? |
| I met Daniel in Austin when I saw him in a performance
with a theater group called Physical Plant. He is a very physical
actor (this is true of the great young British actors in general)
and I wrote the part with him in mind. The hard part about it
was not to be controlled, but to be so uptight and remain open
to the audience at the same time. |
| 4. The actors have a lot of "business" on screen
which tells us about their characters, how much of that was
scripted? |
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Some of it was scripted, the rest was worked out during the
rehearsal period. There was no improvisation on-set.
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| 5. Can you tell me about the scene where Sarah
crawls into bed with Natalie and nuzzles her neck? How did it
evolve? How did you direct the actors? |
| This scene was shot exactly as written, and was
written in one draft. The scene did not require much 'direction,'
really just the creation of a mood that would allow the actors
to get into the space of it. The camera require a little more
direction, to determine exactly when you would realize where
Iris was, and see Anne, etc. There is one small sound trick,
you hear a car passing just as the pan reaches Nathalie's face.
This pulls you away from her at the moment you land on her face,
making it a more complex moment. Other than that this one is
very much 'au naturel.' |
| 6. The film ends with a few questions unanswered.
Can you tell us about how you envisioned it in script form?
How did this change in shooting and editing? |
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The ending as scripted took place between Donnie and Anne
on the intercom, and this scene was originally much longer.
After Anne walked away, Donnie continued to talk to her, breaking
through his emotional reserve, and for the first time expressing
his full love for her. As we cut the film, I realized that
the first part of the story was really taking place from Iris'
point of view, and the the story ultimately needed to resolve
itself between the sisters, not the husband and wife. The
sequence with Iris at the airport was shot just before we
submitted it to Sundance, 10 months after the rest of it had
been shot.
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| 7. I love the arty opening shot of the Statue
of Liberty. Whose idea was this? How did you achieve the effect? |
| These shots were part of a sequence which is now
mostly at the end of the film, where Iris is riding the bus.
The were shot out of the window of the bus with a long zoom
lens on the highway leading to the Newark airport. The rest
is the genius of Deb Lewis. When the opening sequence of the
film became the closing sequence during editing, we used the
shot with the Statue slowed down to anchor the voice and that
particular line of music to Iris' subjective life, and the statue
to anchor the film loosely in New York. |
| 8. The rest of the film is a rather stark character
study which seems to be rather straight-forward. Did you have
to resist temptation to be more "cinematic" (visually gimmicky)
in the body of the film? |
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One of the big problems with learning to make (or watch)
films right now is that the visual culture that made great
filmmaking possible is no longer available to us. Films are
built out of shots, which are dramatic constructions in the
same way scenes are. An image-like the opening shot-has an
emotional tone to it which can be fairly complex, but is not
a dramatic construction. Shots are complex dramtic constructions
which can unfold through time, by editing, etc. To the extent
that Afraid remains visually involving but doesn't seem tricky
is the extent that Deb and I succeeded at this. We spent a
lot of time looking at films from the 1940's to figure out
how the visual language worked.
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| 9. How did you concern yourself with "pacing" during the
filmming? In editing? |
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"Pacing"--the speed at which information is given to the
audience--is primarily constructed in the shooting stage.
In our case, with a very limited number of shots (I think
about 300 in the end) we knew that it would be slower, character
and performance oriented film.
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| 10. How did you get the money together to make
the film? |
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I have no idea. We picked a date to shoot, and went forward
as though we had the money, although we didn't. When the cast
and crew arrived in New York, we had less than $6000 to work
with, and somehow we raised the minimum necessary to continue
during the rehearsal period. I have no doubt that if we had
waited to shoot until we had raised the money that we would
still be waiting.
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| 11. Are there any plans for distribution you
can share with us? |
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It will almost definitely show on US cable at some point
next year. There has also been interest from Japan and Europe.
We have not reached a theatrical agreement for the US yet,
though hope to do so before the end of the year.
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| 12. Where has the film been shown so far? |
| Sundance, Walter Reade Theater (NYC), American
Cinemateque (LA), Huntington International Film Festival, CMJ
Film Fest --winner "Best Feature", Chicago International Film
Festival, Austin Film Festival. It has not yet shown in Europe. |
| 13. What are you working on now? What are the
members of the cast up to now? |
I'm working on several projects at once. I think my next film
will be a revisionist noir film about a retiring NYC detective
who becomes involved in his first sexual affair at age 52. It
is in color, and has killing and naked parts.
Nathalie Richard is a genuine actress, can be seen in the US
on tape in the Merchant Ivory film "A Soldier's Daughter Never
Cries," "Up Down Fragile" by Jacques Rivette, and "Irma Vep"
by Olivier Assayas. She works equally in film and theater, and
seems to work non-stop. Although she is not very well known
outside of France, there is a small group of critics and filmmakers
(myself among them) who consider her the best ensemble actor
working today.
Daniel Aukin is the artistic director of SoHo Rep, an avant-garde
theater company in Tribeca (NYC).
Sarah Adler appeared in my play "Does Thinking Take Place Out
Loud?" and is currently learning an American accent for a shot
at a small part in a pretty big film. |
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Thank you Mr. Barker for taking the time to discuss your
film with us. I look forward to seeing your work in the future
as I look forward to further chances to speak with you.
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