sundance 2006 - Zoael

INTERVIEW BY EDDY GILBERT HERCH
DANIEL CLOWES IS NO STRANGER
to comic book readers, whom
he has won over to the “alternative”-side
from standard super-hero
fare by the droves. His ground-breaking
comic book Eightball, steeped in
the tradition of underground comics of
the Sixties with a modern sensibility,
has satirized middle-class mediocrity,
artistic pretension, teenaged angst and
a panacea of everyday, modern
dilemmas. Ghost World, his
Generation X portrait of two teen-aged
best friends, was in keeping with the
mood and dark humor that typified
Clowes’ earlier works.
Terry Zwigoff, director of the
Directors’ Guild Award-winning documentary
about the life of pioneer underground
cartoonist Robert Crumb, cowrote
the screenplay adaptation of the
Oscar-nominated Ghost World with
Clowes. That film contained an in-joke
from a short story featured in Eightball
entitled “Art School Confidential.” Art
School Confidential is now Clowes’
and Zwigoff’s second collaboration for
the big screen.
The story of an art student, Jerome
(a breakout performance by
Max Minghella), who dreams of
becoming the world’s greatest artist,
again breaks down pretension and the
frustrations of teens and adults
trapped in middle-class limbos of their
own creation.
The questions posed to Daniel
Clowes are about his process of writing
only. I did not go into detail about the
plot or characters in the film because
those questions would have been
redundant to a planned interview with
the film’s director, Terry Zwigoff,
which we hope to publish soon.
EDDY GILBERT HERCH/FILM FESTIVAL
REPORTER: I’ve enjoyed Eightball, in
which the graphic-short story, “Art
School Confidential,” first appeared.
For you personally, how does your
graphic storytelling translate to the
screen? What are you happy with?
What doesn’t work?
DANIEL CLOWES: I don’t really think
in terms of “translating.” it’s an entirely
different thing, especially in the case
of Art School Confidential. I didn’t
use the source material as anything
more than a starting point.
EGH/FFR: Do you see screenwriting
as a completely separate craft, or are
the two compatible?
SUNDANCE 2006
Life Imitates Art School
Daniel Clowes Opens a Door to a New “World” with Art School Confidential
“Professor” John Malkovich “reassures” bright newcommer Max Minghella.
DC: There are many similarities. Both
tend to be dialogue and image-driven,
but the experience of reading a comic
is very different from that of watching
a movie. There’s a certain indescribable
organic process in writing a comic with
words and images simultaneously that
can never quite be replicated in devising
a film, but each form has it’s advantage.
Film, in both screenplay and postproduction,
is a far more fluid medium
in terms of editing, for example.
EGH/FFR: With two successful adaptations
behind you, would you ever
write a story directly for the screen?
Are you planning other adaptations?
DC: I don’t think of Art School Confidential
as much of an adaptation.
There is really only about one minute
of material from the comic in the final
film. I am fairly ruthless when it comes
to adaptations, especially with my own
work, in terms of any loyalty to the
original. I am only interested in writing
movies in which I have carte blanche
to invent, change and delete at will to
make an interesting script. I probably
wouldn’t be the right guy to adapt a
Harry Potter book.
EGH/FFR: How does your professional
11
and personal friendship with Terry
Zwigoff differ? Are you comfortable
suggesting new projects to him, or
does he approach you? Does Terry
read your comics and suggest to you,
“This would be a good screenplay?”
DC: We are mostly just friends, and our
professional relationship is an extension
of that. Our “partnership” is ridiculously
unbusinesslike and informal.
EGH/FFR: Is there a give-and-take relationship
between you and Terry Zwigoff
when developing a picture, or do you
work autonomously from each other?
DC: With the screenplay for Art
School Confidential, I worked out
the basic plot in advance with Terry’s
input, and then I went off and wrote
the first draft by myself. It was written,
however, with Terry in mind and
my intent was to write something
that he would find interesting and
amusing.
EGH/FFR: Did you go to art school?
Did the character types that inhabit
the world of Jerome come from your
experience?
DC: Of course, though ultimately the
characters all took on lives of their own,
quite separate from their role models.
EGH/FFR: What process did you go
through to expand the graphic-short
story into a feature-length screenplay?
Did the short story’s original themes,
mood and dark humor guide your decision-making
in writing the script?
DC: I didn’t even really think about the
comic at all. I merely set out to write
something that captured the odd,
intense emotions I felt when I went off to
art school in Brooklyn at age eighteen.
EGH/FFR: What does Art School
Confidential try to say to an audience?
DC: If I could answer that question, I
would just say it rather than spending
two years of my life working on a movie!
EGH/FFR: Which cartoonists do you
admire? Which screenwriters inspire you?
DC: I like lots of cartoonists; Kim
Deitch, Steve Ditko, Mark Beyer, Basil
Wolverton, Chester Gould, Chester
Brown, Julie Doucet. As for screenplays,
my favorite, at least in terms of
a pure reading experience, is one
called Edward Ford, by Lem Dobbs.