Flexing his quads: Interview with Mike Figgis

Mike Figgis sits in a canopied square in the Farmers’
Market on 3rd Street and Fairfax Avenue wearing sunglasses,
suggesting that perhaps he prefers watching people without them
knowing it. Indeed, as his improvisational films “Timecode
2000″ and the newly released “Hotel” prove, he
likes to see what people will do when they don’t have a
script. After Oscar nominations for “Leaving Las Vegas”
(Nicholas Cage won his), Figgis followed with other small, if not
smaller, projects; he off-handedly calls them “weird little
movies” (“The Loss of Sexual Innocence,”
“Miss Julie,” “Timecode”).
“Hotel” repeats that trend in Figgis’ filmmaking;
it was shot in four weeks with no script and little money, though
you wouldn’t know it from the roster of actors involved: Burt
Reynolds, David Schwimmer, Salma Hayek, Lucy Liu, John Malkovich,
and Julian Sands, among others. The film is self-deprecating,
depicting a low-budget film shoot, except in this film the cast and
crew also have to worry about bloodthirsty, sex-crazed vampires.
Like “Timecode,” Figgis reprises his four-quadrant
technique, showing at once four screens of simultaneous activity, a
method simplified by Figgis’ own invention, a do-it-all
camera rig that allows one person to record picture and sound
without needing a crew. Besides being an inventor, Figgis has also
done art installations, acted in theater, and played jazz (he
scores most of his films). While “Hotel” has taken
almost two years to get American distribution, Figgis’ new
film for Disney, “Cold Creek Manor,” is coming out
promptly this September.

dB Magazine: Why did it take so long to get distribution? Mike
Figgis: You saw the movie? I think that’s the answer. The
movie actually was ready for distribution on Sept. 11, 2001 at the
Toronto Film Festival. Obviously we cancelled that and we screened
it the next day. People seemed very shocked by the film. They were
feeling very tender and fragile. dB: Part of that seems to be the
fact that sex and sensuality is a big theme in your films. MF: It
is in most films, isn’t it? dB: But in your films
they’re not terribly repressed. It’s controversial to
step outside of that set of morality. MF: I don’t quite
understand the Protestant ethic of repression in European films and
American films. Most of the films I grew up influenced by ““
Japanese films, Eastern European films, Russian, French, the New
Wave, all that ““ they didn’t have that repression. This
is like a new Puritanism, surrealistic Puritanism because if you
look at American television, the amount of repressed sexuality on
television is something that is deeply unhealthy, responsible for
all kinds of neuroses. dB: “Hotel” merges that
sexuality with a new type of filmmaking of four quadrants and
improved structure. Why do you use the four quadrants? MF:
I’m personally fascinated by the four-quadrant technique. One
of the limitations I’ve realized is that film has always been
the one point of view. It ties in with theories about pornography
and the voyeuristic eye. The minute you open it up to two, three or
four points of view, you’ve taken the audience out of the
perversity of voyeurism and into a more general idea of observing
the way you observe in life, though we could never duplicate it nor
would we want to, but to approximate it is interesting. If you have
three or four points of view, you find your brain props open to a
completely different relationship to imagery and you start to look
for connections. They’re not being given to you. dB:
It’s like a God’s-eye view. Were you consciously
developing it after “Timecode”? MF: Absolutely.
“Timecode” was always going to be a story playing out
in a bravura style, a joyful demonstration of a technical idea.
Within that limitation, it was happy and fulfilling. However, while
I was doing it, what was more interesting were moments when all
four cameras suddenly started to do something together. It was
almost like the choreography of the camera work could become a
narrative of its own. When I was editing “Hotel,” a
hundred other ideas came to me. dB: What would you say to people
who think your films are just technical exercises? MF: It’s
clear to me that there’s really a huge revolution in
filmmaking now. This technology has opened up everything so that we
can’t even look at film the same way we did 20 years ago.
It’s different whether we like it or not. I’d rather be
on the train going somewhere interesting than simply saying
it’s so awful with these reality shows. Why are people so
horrible to each other? They are because no one told them any
different. Our culture encourages them to gravitate to porno and
violence. It’s part of the repression. dB: A lot of the film
is actually improvised. How do you keep it from turning into chaos?
MF: Improvisation is the ability to keep a structure in your head.
It’s never anarchy. The problem with improvising, going
without a map, is that you only have your own brain, your own
memory of that structure. dB: Do you write stuff down? MF:
I’m a notebook hound. Way before I get anywhere near a group
of 35 actors or musicians, I need to know that I have a clear
structure that will work even if I change it. The actors need to
know I have some kind of plan. dB: It seems the improvisation and
control explains why you can attract the stars you do. MF: They get
a lot of control. They also get to work with other very good
actors, which is important for them. But very quickly I have to
establish a certain rule which is that you’re in an ensemble.
It’s not star-based. You might have your moment of solo, but
when it’s someone else’s turn, you have to be
supportive. It’s also not success-based. If it doesn’t
work, it doesn’t matter. It’s really about
experimenting and trying something you wouldn’t normally try,
which by definition is fun. dB: In the cases of Lucy Liu and John
Malkovich, they get off a plane and do a few scenes and leave. How
do you get them to do that? MF: You ask them in a certain way. If
you want to have fun for a couple of days or in John
Malkovich’s case a couple hours, it would be great. If you
don’t, it’s not a big deal either. It’s taken a
while to build up to that level, 12 years in fact. Working with
actors, you either have a good reputation or a bad one depending on
how you treat them. I was an actor for 15 years. I pride myself on
understanding the fragility and the insecurity of actors. dB:
It’s interesting that you sell it by saying it’s fun.
How fun is it really? MF: It’s a lot of fun. For example, I
have actors turning up in the morning ready to go to work,
“What are we going to do today boss?” What you normally
get are actors who’ve been in the trailer for three hours in
make-up and look tired by the time they arrive on set.
They’re also ready to work, but it’s a different vibe.
The minute you say to an actor it’s your responsibility, you
wear something interesting, feed yourself, take responsibility for
your own props, they fall apart the first day and get it, and after
that they start to take real pride in what they’re doing. dB:
You’ve just finished your new Disney movie. Is that your day
job, so to speak? MF: It’s your full-time job whatever you
do. But I’ve also done a documentary on the blues, an
installation in Spain with 17 screens, hundreds of photographs,
sound, and sculpture, which is way far out. I’ve been trying
all these things, but I really can’t wait to go back to pure
film and to try something that pushes these ideas. I’d quite
like to go back and combine film and digital video. I always felt
that film and video both can be used depending on what you want.
It’s all going to end up on digital anyways, as it should.
Interview conducted by Howard Ho.

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