Crispin Hellion Glover, Oak Mot, Volcanic Eruptions, 1991.
"Glover has written between 15 and 20 books. Oak-Mot and Rat Catching are featured prominently during his Big Slide Show presentation, and are presented as visual art as much as written art. He constructs the books by reusing old novels and other publications which have fallen into public domain due to their age (for example, Rat Catching was constructed from an 1896 book Studies in the Art of Rat Catching, and Oak-Mot was constructed from an 1868 novel of the same title). He rearranges text, blacks out certain standing passages, and adds his own prose (and sometimes images) into the margins and elsewhere, thus creating an entirely new story. Four of his books have been published so far, through his publishing company, Volcanic Eruptions. Other known titles include The Backward Swing, A New World and Round My House." - wikipedia
"The second book by actor-turned-fringe culture-icon Crispin Hellion Glover. As in his first, 1988’s RAT-CATCHING, Glover has photocopied the pages of an ancient tome, in this case a musty 1868 novel called OAK-MOT, and none-too-subtly reconfigured it by whiting or blacking out text and adding his own handwritten inserts. The technique is primitive in the extreme, which Glover makes no effort to hide; indeed, the book all-but flaunts its rudimentary tackiness.
The overhauled OAK-MOT is, in Glover’s own words, “a story of epic proportions involving pride and prejudice.” It’s also confounding, perverse and demented as fuck.
As for the “story,” it involves Adry, an androgynous, artistically inclined youth, and his twin sister Prosy. Their quiet existence in the country vista Oak Mot is shattered by the arrival of the “New Uncle.” Adry has grandiose, fascistic ideas regarding humanity, and finds a kindred spirit in the New Uncle. But Adry is shot while hunting and eventually dies. The New Uncle leaves to resume his former profession (of caring for an elephant “somewhere else”) while Prosy immigrates to Germany in 1926. There she takes up with a certain “Mr. H,” whose messianic streak reminds her of her deceased brother’s...
Of course, deciphering the hows and whys of OAK-MOT’S faux-narrative will only take you so far. Sentences like “Now the only thing in the world Adry was was his hands” and “Adry thought ‘I kill her dead, and perhaps it is better I should’” don’t exactly lend themselves to linear interpretation.
This book works best as an exercise in dark surrealism of a type the book’s original author (whose name is obscured) could never have envisioned. Anyone wanting evidence of Crispin Glover’s peculiar genius need only read RAT-CATCHING or view his self-directed films WHAT IS IT? and IT IS FINE! EVERYTHING IS FINE. OAK-MOT is in its own way every bit as ingeniously strange as those works.
Note the way Glover’s hand-written additions to the initial book grow increasingly pervasive, and by the end all-but overwhelm it (the relocation to Germany is something that clearly wasn’t part of the 1868 version). He also has fun with select phrases of the original text, particularly the rather mundane sentence “If you brand too deep, the worms will get in.” Those last five words are central to Glover’s OAK-MOT, which doesn’t work as a straightforward novel, but excels as a primo chunk of luminescent derangement." - fright.com
"Wherein all action takes place on the Virgin American prairie around the year 1868, save for the end which takes place in the year 1926.
Oak Mot is a tale of epic proportions involving pride and prejudice.
I wouldn't really classify Oak Mot as a book, but more of a labor of ludicrosity (I know, that's not a word, but it seems to fit). Composed by Hollywood uber-oddball Crispin Hellion Glover, who's probably most famous for his portrayal of the hopelessly nebbish George McFly in Back to the Future (1985), but has made less noticeable, but more satisfying appearances in films like River's Edge (1986), Rubin and Ed (1991), Bartleby (2001), and Willard (2003).
Oh sure, it was a book at one point, originally published back in the early 19th century, but, as he did with Rat Catching, Glover has taken a previously published work, and modified it extensively, adding drawings, photos, and his own writings to transform this fairly obscure book into something...something that defies description. Is it art? I dunno... but I like it.
I wish there was a picture posted of the book, as it's really nicely put together. The dimensions of the book are 7 ½ inches by 5 ½ inches. It's hard bound, with a dark green cover with gold/orange inlay on the cover and back cover. Both covers feature a black and white western-style print of a barely discernable man standing behind a large herd of sheep making their way through a smoky valley. The book contains just under 50 pages, and does not utilize the source material in its' entirety as original page numbers are present, but often indicate the absence of numerous pages. The pages themselves are of a thick and glossy nature, indicating a certain amount of expense in the production of the book. Also, the copy I have has what appears to be an original signature by Crispin Hellion Glover near the front, done in thick, silver marker.
As far as the actual content of the book...well, as I said before, it certainly doesn't conform to the normal definition of a book. One will notice what appears to be some of the original text, mixed in with scrawls, gothic writings, drawings, pictures, and various squiggles and what not, effectively confounding and confusing the unwary reader. While I, myself do not entirely `get it', I can certainly enjoy it, but I feel many people would probably dismiss this as the work of a nut, instead of artistic conceptualization. To get the full effect, if one is interested, you must take this in context with a CD Glover released back in 1989 titled Big Problem Does Not Equal the Solution. The Solution = Let It Be. Which contain selected readings from not only this book, but also Rat Catching, along with some really odd songs (check out his unique rendition of Nancy Sinatra's These Boots Are Made for Walking).
Is Mr. Glover a beatnik for the new generation, or just a looney loner with too much time on his hands? I'd probably say somewhere in-between..." - cookieman108 "cookieman108®"
Crispin Hellion Glover, Rat Catching, Volcanic Eruptions, 1988.
"You likely know Crispin “Hellion” Glover best as a crazy actor who’s appeared in quite a few movies over the years (including BACK TO THE FUTURE, CHARLIE’S ANGELS and the WILLARD remake), but he’s also a filmmaker, musician and author. I use that last word sparingly, as you can’t say Glover “wrote” RAT CATCHING, although it’s very much a product of his twisted mind.
It is in fact a book published in 1896 entitled STUDIES IN THE ART OF RAT-CATCHING. It appears to have been a dull-as-dirt educational treatise (on the capture and disposal of plague-carrying rodents) that Glover has twisted into an exercise in surreal distortion.
Glover’s aims are similar to the famed Cut-Up method of William Burroughs, referring to prose that was literally cut up and then pasted back together in seamless new configurations. The difference is that Glover’s methodology is anything but seamless. He’s actually photocopied the original book and blackened or whited out select words, sentences and paragraphs, often filling in the gaps with his own handwritten notations.
It’s impossible to tell how the book might have read in its intended form, but here’s a sample of Glover’s modified text: “Discretion will not rule. I have faced a lion about being bad a young nothing from having rat. Such beasts had for a bad, slow spirit and not profitable.” And another: “We thought that was the end of the big show. But no! once more it rises from its bed like some agonized, dying thing.”
Not exactly easy reading I will admit. It’s probably best to visualize Crispin Glover reciting from the book himself in his inimitable drawl--something I was fortune enough to witness at two live readings. I guess that’s a large part of why I like this book. I wouldn’t call it “good,” but it’s definitely a work of singular dementia.
It also features copious photographs, some of them part of the original book and others culled from elsewhere. These include a dissected cow’s head with all its various parts identified, a guy with a cut-open stomach, a skinned lamb, a man’s leprosy afflicted face, and a row of seal pelts (which are followed by an entire page taken up with a single handwritten word: “Almost”).
Like all the great surrealists, Glover has the rare ability to render the inner workings of his subconscious intact on the page. There’s a genuine streak of cockeyed genius at work in RAT CATCHING, even if it often looks like a textbook defiled by a madman--which truth be told is precisely what this book is." - fright.com
"I really wish Azon had a picture of the book to display on their website, as it's quite attractive. It's a smallish, hardbound book with black and gold inlay on a deep, red cover with a silhouette of a prancing rat.
As other reviewers have stated, this is not really a book in the normal sense, one that you would sit down with in your reading chair and pour over, but more of a piece of conceptual art. What Mr. Glover has done is take a book originally published around 1896 about a study in rat catching and modify it with edits, artwork, and pictures. Many times the artwork and pictures will obscure some of the text, which can make reading of the book difficult, but it could be that this book really wasn't meant to be read, but just experienced as a visual form of expressionism.
The book ties in with a CD released by Crispin Hellion Glover called 'Big Problem Does Not Equal the Solution. The Solution = Let It Be.' in that he reads passages from the book, with music by Barnes and Barnes.
An interesting book from an interesting artist, but I would be hard pressed to recommend this for everyone. It's not that I don't think people would understand it, even though I don't quite get it myself, but then that's part of the appeal to me. I don't have to understand something to enjoy it. By the way, the copy I got from Amazon has Glover's signature (I'm pretty sure it's his, as it ain't mine) near the front, in gaudy silver paint marker." - cookieman108 "cookieman108®"
Crispin Hellion Glover, Concrete Inspection: A Family Story Where a Mother Is Looking for Something & Finds It, Volcanic Eruptions, 1992.
"Subtitle of Concrete Inspection by Crispin Hellion Glover: “A Manual of Information And Instructions For Inspectors With Standard And Typical Specifications.” Actually it’s a collage telling the story about the narrator’s mother (among other things). Even though it’s a black hardcover with copper engraving (I think maybe engraving is the right word), it feels very zine-ish ’cause of its cut-and-paste approach. Funny that the story would be about the narrator’s mother (and we realize you should never assume the narrator is the author), since when we call the publisher (Volcanic Eruptions) to place reorders, we’re pretty sure that we talk to Crisin’s mom. We’re not 100% sure on this one, but well, pretty sure. Maybe." - quimbys.com
Crispin Hellion Glover, What It Is, And How It Is Done, Volcanic Eruptions, 1998.
"A few years ago, I was on a Crispin Glover kick. I watched the majority of his movies, got his album on cd AND vinyl, and bought each of his books that were published and made available to his fans. But even in that fanboy state, I could see that his books weren't anything too special. What It Is and How It Is Done is probably the least interesting of his 4 main books. Yes, the cover makes it look like you're in for a visual treat, but that's about as far as it goes. Also keep in mind that the picture here is of the second printing. The first printing has a standard hardcover with metallic graphics, while this one uses an image from one of the pages. There's also a slight size difference between both versions for some reason.
So what's the book about? It's mostly a collection of 'weird' pictures with some text here and there. Basically, this is supposed to be art, and it's up to you as to whether or not it's interesting. A lot of the pictures presented aren't that odd, and I kept hoping for something as weird as that of the cover image's. While Rat Catching and Oak-Mot were original books that Crispin edited into works of his own, this is just pictures (both photographs and illustrations) with text here and there. It's nice to look at once in a while, but that's it. The only people that are going to be giving this thing 5 stars are those who think everything Crispin does is brilliant (they obviously never watched Charlie's Angels and its sequel), and won't listen to anyone who thinks differently. It doesn't help that the book isn't very long either, so it's not like you're getting a really big collection of pictures either.
Since the book was so limited, it tends to go for very high prices, even with the reprint. I actually can't believe I paid just a few dollars shy of a Ben Franklin for this book in 2004. If you can get it for a lot cheaper (like 1/5 of that), then you can bump the rating up a star. Otherwise, you're not missing anything by not having this book. There are photo books out there that are MUCH more interesting for a fraction of the price." - Armando N. Roman
Crispin Hellion Glover, The Big Problem... The Solution = Let It Be [CD], Restless Records, 1989.
"When shrunken down to Crispin Glover, the name rings hells bells. Crispin Glover is the legendary eccentric character actor of a lot of classic 1980s and 1990 movies. In 1984, he was termed a “dead f*ck” and slaughtered by Jason Voorhees in FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER, and a year later played ultra-geek George McFly in BACK TO THE FUTURE. His best 80s role was a scorching performance as Layne, a drugged-out small town loser who’s an accessory to murder in 1987’s RIVER’S EDGE. Since then, he has appeared in many a supporting role in films like THE DOORS, THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT, LIKE MIKE, BARTLEBY and the CHARLIE’S ANGELS films. But recently, Glover was the lead role in the deliciously weird remake of WILLARD, as a young man who finds a friend in a white rat named Socrates and foe in a giant brown rat named Ben.
But Crispin Glover was not just limited to acting…oh no! He could sing too! In the credits of WILLARD, he did a stirring and bizarre solo rendition of “Ben,” the classic Michael Jackson theme to BEN, the 1972 sequel of the original film. This drew me to obtain a copy of the classic 1989 debut album called THE BIG PROBLEMąTHE SOLUTION, THE SOLUTION= LET IT BE, wherein he spoke fragments of his books “Oak Mot” and “Rat Catching” as well as unleashed several musical numbers, a few of them faithfully warped covers. Glover is also a director as well, and not only did he direct a music video for “Ben,” but he is also working on a trilogy of theme-based movies.
With THE BIG PROBLEM…, he signed up with Restless Records and enlisted the musical help of Barnes & Barnes. You remember them, don’t you? “Fish heads, fish heads, roly poly fish heads!” Robert Haimer and Bill “Will Robinson” Mumy offered production and performing techniques to much of the album, as well as a cameo by a world-famous accordion-playing satirist I wouldn’t dare spoil for you). So this album comes to the road of total novelty, but that doesn’t mean Crispin Glover can’t be entertaining in his own oddball way. A lot of actors actually try to convince you they are musicians, whereas Crispin Glover simply just wants to show you just how crazy he can be on record as well as off-screen. He comes close to eccentricity the likes of King Missile, and avoids any belated criticism as a result.
The album opens with an Overture, surprisingly enough. It suitably sounds like something that would make an impact in 31 seconds, with The Beat Brothers employing dramatic horns and percussion/drums barging out a play on a great classic movie introduction. Crispin decides to let you get ready for his show, so here is his introduction. Proceed with caution…
Next is Selected Readings From RAT CATCHING. Against upbeat music which seems fitting for an old Warner Bros. cartoon shot, Crispin speaks out a string of dramatic readings from his classic novel, which twisted his own dark vision with one of a vintage children’s book from the 19th century. Crispin spins a warped array of stories about dissecting rats and lambs as well as an anecdote about the Sand-pit Man and his child. Crispin really tears into his material here, and for at least 3:53, he offers an appetizingly strange sample of his classic 1987 Volcanic Eruptions release.
“Sometimes I feel as though I might fade away. Then, I remember my work. I once killed a rat inside a church. I found it during a long sermon, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what that sermon was about.”
The New Clean Song opens with a lone, spoken introduction before throbbing synths and a hypnotic acoustic guitar melody set a darkly appealing backdrop for Glover’s echoed, droned vocals. In this song, Crispin attempts to start over fresh, after witnessing his dreams, his words, answering machine and sink become soiled in some way. It rolls by at a brisk 2:15, so we can promptly get to the next number.
“Yesterday, I had my birthday. Everyone wished me good luck, so I got up on the table.
When I came back home, everyone had left messages on my machine
I felt very clean, I felt very clean
I erased all the messages on my machine, and the tape was clean
And the tape was clean.”
If that seemed odd to you, wait until you get a load of Auto-Manipulator (written by Glover and Charles H. Frieder), which opens like this:
“Women are sweet, and girls are honey, but beat your meat and save your money.”
If you like the sound of beat-box rock-laced hip hop a la Run DMC, then here’s your song. Crispin does an insane rap set to mad drum beats and processed guitar riffs, and it’s all about the all-American past time: jerking off. Crispin Glover does these jerky shifts of tone throughout, from gruff to whiny and natural, as he details his exploits with his wang. It’s absolutely hilarious and offers a nice chance for Crispin to go crazy for 4 minutes. You have to be thankful he didn’t take it a step further and add masturbatory sound effects to go along as well.
“I’m an auto-manipulator, I play with myself, I’m a masturbator
I’m so happy that I be a man, because I’ve got the whole world in my hands.”
Clowny Clown Clown sounds like Weird Al for much of this song, which is set to a acid-popping carnival melody of loopy calliope and clashing drums. Crispin spins a story about his experience discovering a clown and making friends with it, and eventually discovering after his untimely death by illness that maybe he wasn’t as happy as he thought he was. Definitely a strange fable, but cackling Crispin keeps it fresh and wild.
“Thinking back about those days with the clown, I get teary eyed
And really… SNIDE! I think that deep down, I HATED THAT CLOWN!
But not as much as Mr. Far, I think I’m gonna go smoke a cigar…
Want a cigar? It’ll get you real far, like Mr. Far…get it? Mr. Far
SEE WHAT A CIGAR WILL DO! Clown.”
Getting Out Of Bed is an attempt at synth-pop/new wave with strange vocal waves, bell sounds and the most weird lyrics of the entire album. He loses his bedmate and gets jilted, rails against races forming an alliance, and tries to overcome to nervousness of making his bed afterwards. Very peculiar, but nonetheless quirky and appealing like the majority of the album.
“Am I Don Johnson or Swanson and Swanson? The sheets are heavy.
The races must (not) form an alliance.
Where is my concubine? Nervousness is fine.
The sheets must be lifted carefully, from ends of the corners evenly…
If only there was just some lubrication”
His take on Nancy Sinatra‘s These Boots Are Made For Walking is a complete riot. What happens if the jilted lover decides to sing his frustration and anger out? Well, Crispin answers that question by crying and whining and screaming his sad little heart out. The upbeat drum beats and horns only get buried by Crispin’s outlandish delivery, but only until the end, when the horn riff repeats itself crazy until fade out. A definite highlight of this CD, it shows no mercy and is absolutely hilarious.
“You keep playin' where you shouldn't be PLAYIN’
And you keep thinkin' that you´ll never get BURNT... HAAA!!!
I just found me a BRAND NEW box of matches
Yeah and what it knows, you ain't got time to learn!
These boots are made for walking, and that's just what they'll DO!
And one of these days these BOOTS are gonna walk… all… over… you.”
The Daring Young Man On The Flying Trapeze is that traditional number written by George Leybourne, but Crispin takes this seemingly innocent kiddie’s song and turns it into a sadistic, mad joke. Wistful orchestration throughout, Crispin croons and swoons the first moment, turning a jilted young man into a perverted fiend with pent-up frustration, which he unleashes by turning married women masculine and sending her on the flying trapeze herself. Unnerving, but it shows the vocal chops which would be resurrected over a decade later with his cover of “Ben.”
“I play with the miss like a cat with a mouse,
eyes would undress every maid in the house.
Perhaps I am better described as a louse,
But still people come just the same…
I float through the air with the greatest of ease,
The daring young man on the flying trapeze;
My actions are graceful, all girls I do please,
And his love I purloineth away.”
Never Say “Never” To Always is a tribute to Charlie Manson which is sung like a church chorus number with additional whistling and crying child effects in the mix as well. It runs 56 seconds, so it is also a slight diversion to precede the next big epic spoken word section…
We begin with Selected Readings From OAK MOT Part 1, a tale about a family on the prairie that is suitably dark and drab, with spooky background instrumentation throughout. The drum machine thumps out with anger, and keyboards and guitar help build the ominous tone. He starts with a reading of an abridged version of Chapter 1, introducing the atmosphere of the Oak Mot place, and the introduction of a character that is wheelchair bound and looking strangely precocious. Then he jumps over to Chapter 5, about the arrival of the new uncle and Adry’s anger over the desire for one single leader. Crispin goes into hysterics for this part of the reading, before finally confiding in the worms and Adry’s mental picture from the porch at Oak Mot.
“Oak Mot! What a queer name for one’s place! But how beautiful they are, those groups. See what lovely shadows they cast. Suppose it is because the air is so clear, but everything is so bright somehow! And all round it is the same, all around and around.”
It continues for Selected Readings From OAK MOT Part 2, which is a 2:04 spoken reading (set to an acoustic guitar backdrop) of a Chapter 8 segment where Adry wakes up to see the uncle, who compliments him on his hands. In the end, Adry does this bizarre hand gesture which, as Crispin says, “speaks for itself.”
Selected Readings From OAK MOT Part 3 has a more insistent, throbbing synthesizer arrangement. Crispin splices together situations from Chapters 8 and 9, including the moment where Adry encounters a bear and places his head directly in the range of his uncle’s rifle. He then goes on with the result of what happens, bringing us into Chapter 10 and concluding: “The worms will get in.”
Finally, it’s Selected Readings From OAK MOT Part 4, a 25-second piece where in the character Hubert confides in his feelings on the situation, only after 25 seconds, it continues on and segues into an unlisted track 14. Glover actually sings the readings this time (in particular the Mr. Long dialogue), against a flavorful country backdrop, with that special guest I mentioned on accordion.
There are two more unlisted tracks here. First of all, on 15, he comes onto the finale with Chapter 13, talking about the legacy of Adry. With track 16, he sings a German paean to Adry for the span of a minute, before the CD finally comes to an end. And with the arrival of the end, you are supposed to dawn onto the realization of “The Big Problem.” I have a few hunches, but I won’t even try considering that this record was released nearly 15 years ago and probably doesn’t exist now. All you can do is breathe deeply, and be thankful you aren’t even close to the level of bizarre genius as Glover is. At least you know the solution is to “Let It Be.”
As I said before, I had my faith in Crispin Glover restored on account of WILLARD, and now I can look at his debut solo album without having to think directly of George McFly. I will just think of him as Crispin Hellion Glover." - deadmilkboy
Crispin Hellion Glover, What Is It? [film], 2005.
"What Is It? is the name of a 2005 dramatic film written, starring, funded and directed by Crispin Hellion Glover. It is described by IMDb as "The adventures of a young man whose principal interests are snails, salt, a pipe, and how to get home. As tormented by an hubristic, racist inner psyche." As of 2008, the film has only been shown at independent theaters, typically accompanied by a question-and-answer session, a one-hour dramatic narration of eight different profusely illustrated books-slideshow, and meet-and-greet/book signing with Glover.
The film boasts an eclectic and unusual cast. Porn stars Kiva and Zoryna Dreams, as well as several other women, appear nude wearing animal heads. Most of the principal actors have Down syndrome (though this condition is not addressed in the film). Fairuza Balk lends her voice to a real snail, and Glover's role in the film is officially described as "Dueling Demi-God Auteur and The young man's inner psyche." The film includes images of a painting of a prepubescent Shirley Temple in the nude, and songs by cult leader Charles Manson and segregationist balladeer Johnny Rebel, and deals with many types and symbols of racism and prejudice. Glover defended his choices of imagery in a 2005 interview: "It's a film to help start these kinds of discussions. What is taboo, and what does that mean for the culture itself when taboo is ubiquitously excised in corporately funded and distributed film? A culture will die a death of stupidity if it doesn't have different points of view and questions that are raised." Glover made clear when touring with the film that he had no plans to sell it to a major studio nor release for home viewing.
What Is It? is the first in a planned trilogy, to be followed by It Is Fine. Everything Is Fine! and It Is Mine." - wikipedia
“Crispin Hellion Glover, auteur, is a force to be reckoned with.” - Laura Kern
"Glover... puts impenetrably odd and tender poetry on the screen." - Bill Stamets
"It's unlike anything I've ever seen before...the unrestrained id of an artist at full frenzy, unafraid to mount onscreen what others would judiciously edit out. Glover's film is like that of the fever dream of a crazy person. " - Dennis Dermody
"Scenes with naked women in elephant masks, Shirley Temple, Glover being lowered deus-ex-machina style into a Maxfield Parrish scene...It's like Fellini on psychedelics -- wildly creative but completely twisted."- Jane Ganahl
"ABSOLUTELY the most uncompromising and original thing I've seen. People try to compare it to the likes of surrealist hero Luis Buñuel and trailblazer Werner Herzog, but I say Glover has transcended even them. " - Kelly O
Crispin Hellion Glover, It's Fine! Everything Is Fine [film], 2006.
"Although Paul's speech is unintelligible to us, each of the women he meets understands exactly what he says; they often find him wildly attractive. This is Paul's fantasy, of course, and what he is saying within it is painful, honest, awful and makes "It Is Fine!" as much a psychological horror film as it is an exercise in midnight movie madness.
The statement Stewart makes in his script -- that handicapped people can not only be as sensitive as everyone else, but just as horrible -- is made eloquent, if bizarre, via Glover and Brothers' otherworldy vision, rendered via elegant cinematography and a pronounced sense of the strange.” - John Anderson
“Glover's co-director- David Brothers' art direction create streets and apartment interiors of hallucinatory luridness. That, mixed with the thunderous soundtrack of Beethoven, Smetana and Tchaikovsky give the movie a relentless nightmare quality. What Diane Arbus was to photography, Crispin Hellion Glover is swiftly achieving as a filmmaker. Training his sardonic eyes on the strange and afflicted he achieves a mad dark poetry on celluloid.” - Dennis Dermody
“Glover and Brothers force you to see this crippled person as a suave leading man. To say the film is weird would be cliché, it's way beyond that the film drew laughs and gasps from the audience. The odd thing about it all - it works. It's actually refreshing to see someone who actually has cerebral palsy in a film rather than some actor playing someone with cerebral palsy…" - Chris Goret
"Glover's aim is to show that people with less-than-perfect bodies are as human as anyone else. It's a worthy and so-far successful crusade." - V.A. Musetto
"Those who can tolerate sexually explicit psychosexual weirdness will enjoy this cinemutation, the second directorial effort by the demented Crispin Glover. Featuring the late Steven C. Stewart, a Cerebral Palsy-afflicted man, the film is deeply weird, confrontational and often off - putting - but average it definitely ain’t!
For those who don’t know, Crispin “Hellion” Glover is an eccentric actor (best known for his appearances in the first BACK TO THE FUTURE, RIVER’S EDGE, the WILLARD remake, CHARLIE’S ANGELS and most recently BEOWULF) and all-around weird-media sultan. IT IS FINE! EVERYTHING IS FINE is the second entry in Glover’s self-directed IT trilogy, which began with the surreal 2005 shock fest WHAT IS IT? That film, headlined by real-life Down syndrome patients, featured the wheelchair-confined Steven C. Stewart, who went on to write and star in the succeeding film. Stewart, who speaks in an incomprehensible babble, wrote the film after a lengthy stay in a nursing home, and the script reflects both his idealized fantasies (he gets to have sex with quite a few pretty women) and oppressive reality (his character is a deranged misogynist). He passed away within a month of the completion of filming.
Crispin Glover refashioned Stewart’s lengthy screenplay to suit his own nutty sensibilities, with a fractured narrative chronology and quite a few surreal interludes. Glover also financed the film himself (from his CHARLIE’S ANGELS salary) and somehow managed to entice a few name actors to lend their talents, including onetime Rainer Werner Fassbinder regular Margit Carstensen and HOSTEL 2 star Lauren German. As for the film’s release, Glover handled that chore himself via roadshow-style weekend bookings at various theaters across the US (including Hollywood’s Egyptian Theater, where I caught it) together with an hour-long slide show and a lengthy Q&A session. Glover used the same approach distributing WHAT IS IT? and will do so with the final film of the trilogy, so don’t expect these films to show up on DVD any time soon!
Paul is a cerebral palsy-afflicted man confined to a wheelchair and prone to feverish, sexually-tinged fantasies. Bumping his head on the floor of the nursing home where he’s confined, Paul imagines himself a suave ladies man with a fetish for long hair. In this fantasy he meets a woman at a cocktail party and quickly weans his way into her life. But Paul’s dark side asserts itself one night, and he strangles the woman to death in her car. From there he seduces the lady’s twentyish daughter, strangles the gal and then violates her corpse.
More women pass through Paul’s fractured existence, all attracted to him and all mysteriously able to understand every word of his mumbled speech patterns. There’s a wheelchair-bound brunette who blows him off and a haughty blonde cocktease who ends up drowned in a bathtub. Other victims include a too-willing prostitute and a sweet lady with a paralyzed leg, who performs onscreen fellatio on Paul before checking out. But all this is, again, mere fantasy, with Paul stuck, apparently permanently, in the confines of a Hellish nursing home.
Although the film was co-directed with David Brothers (an experienced art director who designed the sets for WHAT IS IT?), it’s very much a product of Crispin Glover’s disturbed psyche. Viewers of WHAT IS IT? will recognize quite a few touchstones, including the harsh, lurid lighting, the noisy, asynchronous sound design, the succession of seemingly unmotivated fades and dissolves, and the cast comprised of handicapped folks of various stripes.
It’s also a rare movie featuring a handicapped protagonist that doesn’t present him as an optimistic, asexual hero. Steven C. Stewart in this movie is portrayed as a psychopath, has much full frontal nudity (something I probably could have done without) and performs in two startlingly graphic sex scenes that cross the line into out-and-out pornography. Some will call the proceedings exploitive, yet Steven C. Stewart himself wrote the script--as Crispin Glover has suggested, maybe it was Stewart who did the exploiting!
It’s that certifiably loony script, incidentally, with its oddly charming naïvete and dark, obsessive air that makes this the delirious, authentically deranged piece of work it is. The film often feels like a maniac’s home movies with its blatantly artificial sets, histrionic silent movie-style performances and goofy soap opera-esque dialogue (“You may be crippled, but you’re still a man!”). It all adds up to... something." - fright.com
You had also mentioned that Steven C. Stewart was subject to cruel
Crispin Glover interview with Aintitcool.com's Capone
Crispin Hellion Glover: It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine By Erin Broadley
Interview at The Onion's A.V. Club
Transcript of Glover's first appearance on Late Night with David Letterman
Crispin Hellion Glover's web page
Crispin Hellion Glover resource center
"Glover has written between 15 and 20 books. Oak-Mot and Rat Catching are featured prominently during his Big Slide Show presentation, and are presented as visual art as much as written art. He constructs the books by reusing old novels and other publications which have fallen into public domain due to their age (for example, Rat Catching was constructed from an 1896 book Studies in the Art of Rat Catching, and Oak-Mot was constructed from an 1868 novel of the same title). He rearranges text, blacks out certain standing passages, and adds his own prose (and sometimes images) into the margins and elsewhere, thus creating an entirely new story. Four of his books have been published so far, through his publishing company, Volcanic Eruptions. Other known titles include The Backward Swing, A New World and Round My House." - wikipedia
"The second book by actor-turned-fringe culture-icon Crispin Hellion Glover. As in his first, 1988’s RAT-CATCHING, Glover has photocopied the pages of an ancient tome, in this case a musty 1868 novel called OAK-MOT, and none-too-subtly reconfigured it by whiting or blacking out text and adding his own handwritten inserts. The technique is primitive in the extreme, which Glover makes no effort to hide; indeed, the book all-but flaunts its rudimentary tackiness.
The overhauled OAK-MOT is, in Glover’s own words, “a story of epic proportions involving pride and prejudice.” It’s also confounding, perverse and demented as fuck.
As for the “story,” it involves Adry, an androgynous, artistically inclined youth, and his twin sister Prosy. Their quiet existence in the country vista Oak Mot is shattered by the arrival of the “New Uncle.” Adry has grandiose, fascistic ideas regarding humanity, and finds a kindred spirit in the New Uncle. But Adry is shot while hunting and eventually dies. The New Uncle leaves to resume his former profession (of caring for an elephant “somewhere else”) while Prosy immigrates to Germany in 1926. There she takes up with a certain “Mr. H,” whose messianic streak reminds her of her deceased brother’s...
Of course, deciphering the hows and whys of OAK-MOT’S faux-narrative will only take you so far. Sentences like “Now the only thing in the world Adry was was his hands” and “Adry thought ‘I kill her dead, and perhaps it is better I should’” don’t exactly lend themselves to linear interpretation.
This book works best as an exercise in dark surrealism of a type the book’s original author (whose name is obscured) could never have envisioned. Anyone wanting evidence of Crispin Glover’s peculiar genius need only read RAT-CATCHING or view his self-directed films WHAT IS IT? and IT IS FINE! EVERYTHING IS FINE. OAK-MOT is in its own way every bit as ingeniously strange as those works.
Note the way Glover’s hand-written additions to the initial book grow increasingly pervasive, and by the end all-but overwhelm it (the relocation to Germany is something that clearly wasn’t part of the 1868 version). He also has fun with select phrases of the original text, particularly the rather mundane sentence “If you brand too deep, the worms will get in.” Those last five words are central to Glover’s OAK-MOT, which doesn’t work as a straightforward novel, but excels as a primo chunk of luminescent derangement." - fright.com
"Wherein all action takes place on the Virgin American prairie around the year 1868, save for the end which takes place in the year 1926.
Oak Mot is a tale of epic proportions involving pride and prejudice.
I wouldn't really classify Oak Mot as a book, but more of a labor of ludicrosity (I know, that's not a word, but it seems to fit). Composed by Hollywood uber-oddball Crispin Hellion Glover, who's probably most famous for his portrayal of the hopelessly nebbish George McFly in Back to the Future (1985), but has made less noticeable, but more satisfying appearances in films like River's Edge (1986), Rubin and Ed (1991), Bartleby (2001), and Willard (2003).
Oh sure, it was a book at one point, originally published back in the early 19th century, but, as he did with Rat Catching, Glover has taken a previously published work, and modified it extensively, adding drawings, photos, and his own writings to transform this fairly obscure book into something...something that defies description. Is it art? I dunno... but I like it.
I wish there was a picture posted of the book, as it's really nicely put together. The dimensions of the book are 7 ½ inches by 5 ½ inches. It's hard bound, with a dark green cover with gold/orange inlay on the cover and back cover. Both covers feature a black and white western-style print of a barely discernable man standing behind a large herd of sheep making their way through a smoky valley. The book contains just under 50 pages, and does not utilize the source material in its' entirety as original page numbers are present, but often indicate the absence of numerous pages. The pages themselves are of a thick and glossy nature, indicating a certain amount of expense in the production of the book. Also, the copy I have has what appears to be an original signature by Crispin Hellion Glover near the front, done in thick, silver marker.
As far as the actual content of the book...well, as I said before, it certainly doesn't conform to the normal definition of a book. One will notice what appears to be some of the original text, mixed in with scrawls, gothic writings, drawings, pictures, and various squiggles and what not, effectively confounding and confusing the unwary reader. While I, myself do not entirely `get it', I can certainly enjoy it, but I feel many people would probably dismiss this as the work of a nut, instead of artistic conceptualization. To get the full effect, if one is interested, you must take this in context with a CD Glover released back in 1989 titled Big Problem Does Not Equal the Solution. The Solution = Let It Be. Which contain selected readings from not only this book, but also Rat Catching, along with some really odd songs (check out his unique rendition of Nancy Sinatra's These Boots Are Made for Walking).
Is Mr. Glover a beatnik for the new generation, or just a looney loner with too much time on his hands? I'd probably say somewhere in-between..." - cookieman108 "cookieman108®"
Crispin Hellion Glover, Rat Catching, Volcanic Eruptions, 1988.
"You likely know Crispin “Hellion” Glover best as a crazy actor who’s appeared in quite a few movies over the years (including BACK TO THE FUTURE, CHARLIE’S ANGELS and the WILLARD remake), but he’s also a filmmaker, musician and author. I use that last word sparingly, as you can’t say Glover “wrote” RAT CATCHING, although it’s very much a product of his twisted mind.
It is in fact a book published in 1896 entitled STUDIES IN THE ART OF RAT-CATCHING. It appears to have been a dull-as-dirt educational treatise (on the capture and disposal of plague-carrying rodents) that Glover has twisted into an exercise in surreal distortion.
Glover’s aims are similar to the famed Cut-Up method of William Burroughs, referring to prose that was literally cut up and then pasted back together in seamless new configurations. The difference is that Glover’s methodology is anything but seamless. He’s actually photocopied the original book and blackened or whited out select words, sentences and paragraphs, often filling in the gaps with his own handwritten notations.
It’s impossible to tell how the book might have read in its intended form, but here’s a sample of Glover’s modified text: “Discretion will not rule. I have faced a lion about being bad a young nothing from having rat. Such beasts had for a bad, slow spirit and not profitable.” And another: “We thought that was the end of the big show. But no! once more it rises from its bed like some agonized, dying thing.”
Not exactly easy reading I will admit. It’s probably best to visualize Crispin Glover reciting from the book himself in his inimitable drawl--something I was fortune enough to witness at two live readings. I guess that’s a large part of why I like this book. I wouldn’t call it “good,” but it’s definitely a work of singular dementia.
It also features copious photographs, some of them part of the original book and others culled from elsewhere. These include a dissected cow’s head with all its various parts identified, a guy with a cut-open stomach, a skinned lamb, a man’s leprosy afflicted face, and a row of seal pelts (which are followed by an entire page taken up with a single handwritten word: “Almost”).
Like all the great surrealists, Glover has the rare ability to render the inner workings of his subconscious intact on the page. There’s a genuine streak of cockeyed genius at work in RAT CATCHING, even if it often looks like a textbook defiled by a madman--which truth be told is precisely what this book is." - fright.com
"I really wish Azon had a picture of the book to display on their website, as it's quite attractive. It's a smallish, hardbound book with black and gold inlay on a deep, red cover with a silhouette of a prancing rat.
As other reviewers have stated, this is not really a book in the normal sense, one that you would sit down with in your reading chair and pour over, but more of a piece of conceptual art. What Mr. Glover has done is take a book originally published around 1896 about a study in rat catching and modify it with edits, artwork, and pictures. Many times the artwork and pictures will obscure some of the text, which can make reading of the book difficult, but it could be that this book really wasn't meant to be read, but just experienced as a visual form of expressionism.
The book ties in with a CD released by Crispin Hellion Glover called 'Big Problem Does Not Equal the Solution. The Solution = Let It Be.' in that he reads passages from the book, with music by Barnes and Barnes.
An interesting book from an interesting artist, but I would be hard pressed to recommend this for everyone. It's not that I don't think people would understand it, even though I don't quite get it myself, but then that's part of the appeal to me. I don't have to understand something to enjoy it. By the way, the copy I got from Amazon has Glover's signature (I'm pretty sure it's his, as it ain't mine) near the front, in gaudy silver paint marker." - cookieman108 "cookieman108®"
Crispin Hellion Glover, Concrete Inspection: A Family Story Where a Mother Is Looking for Something & Finds It, Volcanic Eruptions, 1992.
"Subtitle of Concrete Inspection by Crispin Hellion Glover: “A Manual of Information And Instructions For Inspectors With Standard And Typical Specifications.” Actually it’s a collage telling the story about the narrator’s mother (among other things). Even though it’s a black hardcover with copper engraving (I think maybe engraving is the right word), it feels very zine-ish ’cause of its cut-and-paste approach. Funny that the story would be about the narrator’s mother (and we realize you should never assume the narrator is the author), since when we call the publisher (Volcanic Eruptions) to place reorders, we’re pretty sure that we talk to Crisin’s mom. We’re not 100% sure on this one, but well, pretty sure. Maybe." - quimbys.com
"A few years ago, I was on a Crispin Glover kick. I watched the majority of his movies, got his album on cd AND vinyl, and bought each of his books that were published and made available to his fans. But even in that fanboy state, I could see that his books weren't anything too special. What It Is and How It Is Done is probably the least interesting of his 4 main books. Yes, the cover makes it look like you're in for a visual treat, but that's about as far as it goes. Also keep in mind that the picture here is of the second printing. The first printing has a standard hardcover with metallic graphics, while this one uses an image from one of the pages. There's also a slight size difference between both versions for some reason.
So what's the book about? It's mostly a collection of 'weird' pictures with some text here and there. Basically, this is supposed to be art, and it's up to you as to whether or not it's interesting. A lot of the pictures presented aren't that odd, and I kept hoping for something as weird as that of the cover image's. While Rat Catching and Oak-Mot were original books that Crispin edited into works of his own, this is just pictures (both photographs and illustrations) with text here and there. It's nice to look at once in a while, but that's it. The only people that are going to be giving this thing 5 stars are those who think everything Crispin does is brilliant (they obviously never watched Charlie's Angels and its sequel), and won't listen to anyone who thinks differently. It doesn't help that the book isn't very long either, so it's not like you're getting a really big collection of pictures either.
Since the book was so limited, it tends to go for very high prices, even with the reprint. I actually can't believe I paid just a few dollars shy of a Ben Franklin for this book in 2004. If you can get it for a lot cheaper (like 1/5 of that), then you can bump the rating up a star. Otherwise, you're not missing anything by not having this book. There are photo books out there that are MUCH more interesting for a fraction of the price." - Armando N. Roman
Crispin Hellion Glover, The Big Problem... The Solution = Let It Be [CD], Restless Records, 1989.
"When shrunken down to Crispin Glover, the name rings hells bells. Crispin Glover is the legendary eccentric character actor of a lot of classic 1980s and 1990 movies. In 1984, he was termed a “dead f*ck” and slaughtered by Jason Voorhees in FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER, and a year later played ultra-geek George McFly in BACK TO THE FUTURE. His best 80s role was a scorching performance as Layne, a drugged-out small town loser who’s an accessory to murder in 1987’s RIVER’S EDGE. Since then, he has appeared in many a supporting role in films like THE DOORS, THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT, LIKE MIKE, BARTLEBY and the CHARLIE’S ANGELS films. But recently, Glover was the lead role in the deliciously weird remake of WILLARD, as a young man who finds a friend in a white rat named Socrates and foe in a giant brown rat named Ben.
But Crispin Glover was not just limited to acting…oh no! He could sing too! In the credits of WILLARD, he did a stirring and bizarre solo rendition of “Ben,” the classic Michael Jackson theme to BEN, the 1972 sequel of the original film. This drew me to obtain a copy of the classic 1989 debut album called THE BIG PROBLEMąTHE SOLUTION, THE SOLUTION= LET IT BE, wherein he spoke fragments of his books “Oak Mot” and “Rat Catching” as well as unleashed several musical numbers, a few of them faithfully warped covers. Glover is also a director as well, and not only did he direct a music video for “Ben,” but he is also working on a trilogy of theme-based movies.
With THE BIG PROBLEM…, he signed up with Restless Records and enlisted the musical help of Barnes & Barnes. You remember them, don’t you? “Fish heads, fish heads, roly poly fish heads!” Robert Haimer and Bill “Will Robinson” Mumy offered production and performing techniques to much of the album, as well as a cameo by a world-famous accordion-playing satirist I wouldn’t dare spoil for you). So this album comes to the road of total novelty, but that doesn’t mean Crispin Glover can’t be entertaining in his own oddball way. A lot of actors actually try to convince you they are musicians, whereas Crispin Glover simply just wants to show you just how crazy he can be on record as well as off-screen. He comes close to eccentricity the likes of King Missile, and avoids any belated criticism as a result.
The album opens with an Overture, surprisingly enough. It suitably sounds like something that would make an impact in 31 seconds, with The Beat Brothers employing dramatic horns and percussion/drums barging out a play on a great classic movie introduction. Crispin decides to let you get ready for his show, so here is his introduction. Proceed with caution…
Next is Selected Readings From RAT CATCHING. Against upbeat music which seems fitting for an old Warner Bros. cartoon shot, Crispin speaks out a string of dramatic readings from his classic novel, which twisted his own dark vision with one of a vintage children’s book from the 19th century. Crispin spins a warped array of stories about dissecting rats and lambs as well as an anecdote about the Sand-pit Man and his child. Crispin really tears into his material here, and for at least 3:53, he offers an appetizingly strange sample of his classic 1987 Volcanic Eruptions release.
“Sometimes I feel as though I might fade away. Then, I remember my work. I once killed a rat inside a church. I found it during a long sermon, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what that sermon was about.”
The New Clean Song opens with a lone, spoken introduction before throbbing synths and a hypnotic acoustic guitar melody set a darkly appealing backdrop for Glover’s echoed, droned vocals. In this song, Crispin attempts to start over fresh, after witnessing his dreams, his words, answering machine and sink become soiled in some way. It rolls by at a brisk 2:15, so we can promptly get to the next number.
“Yesterday, I had my birthday. Everyone wished me good luck, so I got up on the table.
When I came back home, everyone had left messages on my machine
I felt very clean, I felt very clean
I erased all the messages on my machine, and the tape was clean
And the tape was clean.”
If that seemed odd to you, wait until you get a load of Auto-Manipulator (written by Glover and Charles H. Frieder), which opens like this:
“Women are sweet, and girls are honey, but beat your meat and save your money.”
If you like the sound of beat-box rock-laced hip hop a la Run DMC, then here’s your song. Crispin does an insane rap set to mad drum beats and processed guitar riffs, and it’s all about the all-American past time: jerking off. Crispin Glover does these jerky shifts of tone throughout, from gruff to whiny and natural, as he details his exploits with his wang. It’s absolutely hilarious and offers a nice chance for Crispin to go crazy for 4 minutes. You have to be thankful he didn’t take it a step further and add masturbatory sound effects to go along as well.
“I’m an auto-manipulator, I play with myself, I’m a masturbator
I’m so happy that I be a man, because I’ve got the whole world in my hands.”
Clowny Clown Clown sounds like Weird Al for much of this song, which is set to a acid-popping carnival melody of loopy calliope and clashing drums. Crispin spins a story about his experience discovering a clown and making friends with it, and eventually discovering after his untimely death by illness that maybe he wasn’t as happy as he thought he was. Definitely a strange fable, but cackling Crispin keeps it fresh and wild.
“Thinking back about those days with the clown, I get teary eyed
And really… SNIDE! I think that deep down, I HATED THAT CLOWN!
But not as much as Mr. Far, I think I’m gonna go smoke a cigar…
Want a cigar? It’ll get you real far, like Mr. Far…get it? Mr. Far
SEE WHAT A CIGAR WILL DO! Clown.”
Getting Out Of Bed is an attempt at synth-pop/new wave with strange vocal waves, bell sounds and the most weird lyrics of the entire album. He loses his bedmate and gets jilted, rails against races forming an alliance, and tries to overcome to nervousness of making his bed afterwards. Very peculiar, but nonetheless quirky and appealing like the majority of the album.
“Am I Don Johnson or Swanson and Swanson? The sheets are heavy.
The races must (not) form an alliance.
Where is my concubine? Nervousness is fine.
The sheets must be lifted carefully, from ends of the corners evenly…
If only there was just some lubrication”
His take on Nancy Sinatra‘s These Boots Are Made For Walking is a complete riot. What happens if the jilted lover decides to sing his frustration and anger out? Well, Crispin answers that question by crying and whining and screaming his sad little heart out. The upbeat drum beats and horns only get buried by Crispin’s outlandish delivery, but only until the end, when the horn riff repeats itself crazy until fade out. A definite highlight of this CD, it shows no mercy and is absolutely hilarious.
“You keep playin' where you shouldn't be PLAYIN’
And you keep thinkin' that you´ll never get BURNT... HAAA!!!
I just found me a BRAND NEW box of matches
Yeah and what it knows, you ain't got time to learn!
These boots are made for walking, and that's just what they'll DO!
And one of these days these BOOTS are gonna walk… all… over… you.”
The Daring Young Man On The Flying Trapeze is that traditional number written by George Leybourne, but Crispin takes this seemingly innocent kiddie’s song and turns it into a sadistic, mad joke. Wistful orchestration throughout, Crispin croons and swoons the first moment, turning a jilted young man into a perverted fiend with pent-up frustration, which he unleashes by turning married women masculine and sending her on the flying trapeze herself. Unnerving, but it shows the vocal chops which would be resurrected over a decade later with his cover of “Ben.”
“I play with the miss like a cat with a mouse,
eyes would undress every maid in the house.
Perhaps I am better described as a louse,
But still people come just the same…
I float through the air with the greatest of ease,
The daring young man on the flying trapeze;
My actions are graceful, all girls I do please,
And his love I purloineth away.”
Never Say “Never” To Always is a tribute to Charlie Manson which is sung like a church chorus number with additional whistling and crying child effects in the mix as well. It runs 56 seconds, so it is also a slight diversion to precede the next big epic spoken word section…
We begin with Selected Readings From OAK MOT Part 1, a tale about a family on the prairie that is suitably dark and drab, with spooky background instrumentation throughout. The drum machine thumps out with anger, and keyboards and guitar help build the ominous tone. He starts with a reading of an abridged version of Chapter 1, introducing the atmosphere of the Oak Mot place, and the introduction of a character that is wheelchair bound and looking strangely precocious. Then he jumps over to Chapter 5, about the arrival of the new uncle and Adry’s anger over the desire for one single leader. Crispin goes into hysterics for this part of the reading, before finally confiding in the worms and Adry’s mental picture from the porch at Oak Mot.
“Oak Mot! What a queer name for one’s place! But how beautiful they are, those groups. See what lovely shadows they cast. Suppose it is because the air is so clear, but everything is so bright somehow! And all round it is the same, all around and around.”
It continues for Selected Readings From OAK MOT Part 2, which is a 2:04 spoken reading (set to an acoustic guitar backdrop) of a Chapter 8 segment where Adry wakes up to see the uncle, who compliments him on his hands. In the end, Adry does this bizarre hand gesture which, as Crispin says, “speaks for itself.”
Selected Readings From OAK MOT Part 3 has a more insistent, throbbing synthesizer arrangement. Crispin splices together situations from Chapters 8 and 9, including the moment where Adry encounters a bear and places his head directly in the range of his uncle’s rifle. He then goes on with the result of what happens, bringing us into Chapter 10 and concluding: “The worms will get in.”
Finally, it’s Selected Readings From OAK MOT Part 4, a 25-second piece where in the character Hubert confides in his feelings on the situation, only after 25 seconds, it continues on and segues into an unlisted track 14. Glover actually sings the readings this time (in particular the Mr. Long dialogue), against a flavorful country backdrop, with that special guest I mentioned on accordion.
There are two more unlisted tracks here. First of all, on 15, he comes onto the finale with Chapter 13, talking about the legacy of Adry. With track 16, he sings a German paean to Adry for the span of a minute, before the CD finally comes to an end. And with the arrival of the end, you are supposed to dawn onto the realization of “The Big Problem.” I have a few hunches, but I won’t even try considering that this record was released nearly 15 years ago and probably doesn’t exist now. All you can do is breathe deeply, and be thankful you aren’t even close to the level of bizarre genius as Glover is. At least you know the solution is to “Let It Be.”
As I said before, I had my faith in Crispin Glover restored on account of WILLARD, and now I can look at his debut solo album without having to think directly of George McFly. I will just think of him as Crispin Hellion Glover." - deadmilkboy
Crispin Hellion Glover, What Is It? [film], 2005.
"What Is It? is the name of a 2005 dramatic film written, starring, funded and directed by Crispin Hellion Glover. It is described by IMDb as "The adventures of a young man whose principal interests are snails, salt, a pipe, and how to get home. As tormented by an hubristic, racist inner psyche." As of 2008, the film has only been shown at independent theaters, typically accompanied by a question-and-answer session, a one-hour dramatic narration of eight different profusely illustrated books-slideshow, and meet-and-greet/book signing with Glover.
The film boasts an eclectic and unusual cast. Porn stars Kiva and Zoryna Dreams, as well as several other women, appear nude wearing animal heads. Most of the principal actors have Down syndrome (though this condition is not addressed in the film). Fairuza Balk lends her voice to a real snail, and Glover's role in the film is officially described as "Dueling Demi-God Auteur and The young man's inner psyche." The film includes images of a painting of a prepubescent Shirley Temple in the nude, and songs by cult leader Charles Manson and segregationist balladeer Johnny Rebel, and deals with many types and symbols of racism and prejudice. Glover defended his choices of imagery in a 2005 interview: "It's a film to help start these kinds of discussions. What is taboo, and what does that mean for the culture itself when taboo is ubiquitously excised in corporately funded and distributed film? A culture will die a death of stupidity if it doesn't have different points of view and questions that are raised." Glover made clear when touring with the film that he had no plans to sell it to a major studio nor release for home viewing.
What Is It? is the first in a planned trilogy, to be followed by It Is Fine. Everything Is Fine! and It Is Mine." - wikipedia
“Crispin Hellion Glover, auteur, is a force to be reckoned with.” - Laura Kern
"Glover... puts impenetrably odd and tender poetry on the screen." - Bill Stamets
"It's unlike anything I've ever seen before...the unrestrained id of an artist at full frenzy, unafraid to mount onscreen what others would judiciously edit out. Glover's film is like that of the fever dream of a crazy person. " - Dennis Dermody
"Scenes with naked women in elephant masks, Shirley Temple, Glover being lowered deus-ex-machina style into a Maxfield Parrish scene...It's like Fellini on psychedelics -- wildly creative but completely twisted."- Jane Ganahl
"ABSOLUTELY the most uncompromising and original thing I've seen. People try to compare it to the likes of surrealist hero Luis Buñuel and trailblazer Werner Herzog, but I say Glover has transcended even them. " - Kelly O
Crispin Hellion Glover, It's Fine! Everything Is Fine [film], 2006.
"Although Paul's speech is unintelligible to us, each of the women he meets understands exactly what he says; they often find him wildly attractive. This is Paul's fantasy, of course, and what he is saying within it is painful, honest, awful and makes "It Is Fine!" as much a psychological horror film as it is an exercise in midnight movie madness.
The statement Stewart makes in his script -- that handicapped people can not only be as sensitive as everyone else, but just as horrible -- is made eloquent, if bizarre, via Glover and Brothers' otherworldy vision, rendered via elegant cinematography and a pronounced sense of the strange.” - John Anderson
“Glover's co-director- David Brothers' art direction create streets and apartment interiors of hallucinatory luridness. That, mixed with the thunderous soundtrack of Beethoven, Smetana and Tchaikovsky give the movie a relentless nightmare quality. What Diane Arbus was to photography, Crispin Hellion Glover is swiftly achieving as a filmmaker. Training his sardonic eyes on the strange and afflicted he achieves a mad dark poetry on celluloid.” - Dennis Dermody
“Glover and Brothers force you to see this crippled person as a suave leading man. To say the film is weird would be cliché, it's way beyond that the film drew laughs and gasps from the audience. The odd thing about it all - it works. It's actually refreshing to see someone who actually has cerebral palsy in a film rather than some actor playing someone with cerebral palsy…" - Chris Goret
"Glover's aim is to show that people with less-than-perfect bodies are as human as anyone else. It's a worthy and so-far successful crusade." - V.A. Musetto
"Those who can tolerate sexually explicit psychosexual weirdness will enjoy this cinemutation, the second directorial effort by the demented Crispin Glover. Featuring the late Steven C. Stewart, a Cerebral Palsy-afflicted man, the film is deeply weird, confrontational and often off - putting - but average it definitely ain’t!
For those who don’t know, Crispin “Hellion” Glover is an eccentric actor (best known for his appearances in the first BACK TO THE FUTURE, RIVER’S EDGE, the WILLARD remake, CHARLIE’S ANGELS and most recently BEOWULF) and all-around weird-media sultan. IT IS FINE! EVERYTHING IS FINE is the second entry in Glover’s self-directed IT trilogy, which began with the surreal 2005 shock fest WHAT IS IT? That film, headlined by real-life Down syndrome patients, featured the wheelchair-confined Steven C. Stewart, who went on to write and star in the succeeding film. Stewart, who speaks in an incomprehensible babble, wrote the film after a lengthy stay in a nursing home, and the script reflects both his idealized fantasies (he gets to have sex with quite a few pretty women) and oppressive reality (his character is a deranged misogynist). He passed away within a month of the completion of filming.
Crispin Glover refashioned Stewart’s lengthy screenplay to suit his own nutty sensibilities, with a fractured narrative chronology and quite a few surreal interludes. Glover also financed the film himself (from his CHARLIE’S ANGELS salary) and somehow managed to entice a few name actors to lend their talents, including onetime Rainer Werner Fassbinder regular Margit Carstensen and HOSTEL 2 star Lauren German. As for the film’s release, Glover handled that chore himself via roadshow-style weekend bookings at various theaters across the US (including Hollywood’s Egyptian Theater, where I caught it) together with an hour-long slide show and a lengthy Q&A session. Glover used the same approach distributing WHAT IS IT? and will do so with the final film of the trilogy, so don’t expect these films to show up on DVD any time soon!
Paul is a cerebral palsy-afflicted man confined to a wheelchair and prone to feverish, sexually-tinged fantasies. Bumping his head on the floor of the nursing home where he’s confined, Paul imagines himself a suave ladies man with a fetish for long hair. In this fantasy he meets a woman at a cocktail party and quickly weans his way into her life. But Paul’s dark side asserts itself one night, and he strangles the woman to death in her car. From there he seduces the lady’s twentyish daughter, strangles the gal and then violates her corpse.
More women pass through Paul’s fractured existence, all attracted to him and all mysteriously able to understand every word of his mumbled speech patterns. There’s a wheelchair-bound brunette who blows him off and a haughty blonde cocktease who ends up drowned in a bathtub. Other victims include a too-willing prostitute and a sweet lady with a paralyzed leg, who performs onscreen fellatio on Paul before checking out. But all this is, again, mere fantasy, with Paul stuck, apparently permanently, in the confines of a Hellish nursing home.
Although the film was co-directed with David Brothers (an experienced art director who designed the sets for WHAT IS IT?), it’s very much a product of Crispin Glover’s disturbed psyche. Viewers of WHAT IS IT? will recognize quite a few touchstones, including the harsh, lurid lighting, the noisy, asynchronous sound design, the succession of seemingly unmotivated fades and dissolves, and the cast comprised of handicapped folks of various stripes.
It’s also a rare movie featuring a handicapped protagonist that doesn’t present him as an optimistic, asexual hero. Steven C. Stewart in this movie is portrayed as a psychopath, has much full frontal nudity (something I probably could have done without) and performs in two startlingly graphic sex scenes that cross the line into out-and-out pornography. Some will call the proceedings exploitive, yet Steven C. Stewart himself wrote the script--as Crispin Glover has suggested, maybe it was Stewart who did the exploiting!
It’s that certifiably loony script, incidentally, with its oddly charming naïvete and dark, obsessive air that makes this the delirious, authentically deranged piece of work it is. The film often feels like a maniac’s home movies with its blatantly artificial sets, histrionic silent movie-style performances and goofy soap opera-esque dialogue (“You may be crippled, but you’re still a man!”). It all adds up to... something." - fright.com
"It comes as a great honor that we at Soiled Sinema bring you this
insightful interview with modern day Renaissance man Crispin Glover.
Although best known as an actor and for playing standout roles in films
like Back to the Future (1985), River's Edge (1986), Charlie's Angels (2000) and Willard
(2003), Mr. Glover is also a distinguished filmmaker/screenwriter,
author, recording artist, and publisher. In this interview, Crispin
discusses his It? Trilogy and his extremely exceptional and fruitful career.
Soiled Sinema: How did the tragic premature passing of It is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE writer/actor Steven C. Stewart affect the conclusion of the trilogy you both set out together to complete?
You had also mentioned that Steven C. Stewart was subject to cruel
abuse which bled over into much of the work you two created. Care to
elaborate?
Crispin Glover: Steve
Steward only wrote “It is fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE.” I incorporated
Steve in to What is it? to make his screenplay a sequel and part of the
trilogy. Steve did not have any involvement in writing “What is it?” or
“IT IS MINE.”
Steven C. Stewart wrote and is the main actor in part two of the
trilogy titled It is fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE. I put Steve in to the
cast of What is it? because he had written this screenplay which I read
in 1987. When I turned What is it? from a short film in to a feature I
realized there were certain thematic elements in the film that related
to what Steven C. Stewart’s screenplay dealt with. Steve had been
locked in a nursing home for about ten years when his mother died. He
had been born with a severe case of cerebral palsy and he was very
difficult to understand. People that were caring for him in the nursing
home would derisively call him an “M.R.” short for “Mental Retard”. This
is not a nice thing to say to anyone, but Steve was of normal
intelligence. When he did get out he wrote his screenplay. Although it
is written in the genre of a murder detective thriller truths of his own
existence come through much more clearly than if he had written it as a
standard autobiography. As I have stated, I put Steven C. Stewart in to
What is it? When I turned What is it? in to a feature film. Originally
What is it? Was going to be a short film to promote the concept to
corporate film funding entities that working with a cast wherein most
characters are played by actors with Down’s Syndrome. Steve had written
his screenplay in in the late 1970’s. I read it in 1987 and as soon as I
had read it I knew I had to produce the film. Steven C. Stewart died
within a month after we finished shooting the film. Cerebral palsy is
not generative but Steve was 62 when we shot the film. One of Steve’s
lungs had collapsed because he had started choking on his own saliva and
he got pneumonia. I specifically started funding my own films with the
money I make from the films I act in when Steven C. Stewart’s lung
collapsed in the year 2000 this was around the same time that the first
Charlie’s Angels film was coming to me. I realized with the money I made
from that film I could put straight in to the Steven C. Stewart film.
That is exactly what happened. I finished acting in Charlie’s Angels and
then went to Salt Lake City where Steven C. Stewart lived. I met with
Steve and David Brothers with whom I co-directed the film. I went back
to LA and acted in an lower budget film for about five weeks and David
Brothers started building the sets. Then I went straight back to Salt
Lake and we completed shooting the film within about six months in three
separate smaller productions. Then Steve died within a month after we
finished shooting. I am relieved to have gotten this film finally
completed because ever since I read the screenplay in 1987 I knew I had
to produce the film and also produce it correctly. I would not have felt
right about myself if we had not gotten Steve’s film made, I would have
felt that I had done something wrong and that I had actually done a bad
thing if I had not gotten it made. So I am greatly relieved to have
completed it especially since I am very pleased with how well the film
has turned out. We shot It is fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE. while I was
still completing What it? And this is partly why What is it? took a long
time to complete. I am very proud of the film as I am of What is it? I
feel It is fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE. will probably be the best film I
will have anything to do with in my entire career. People who are
interested in when I will be back should join up on the e mail list at CrispinGlover.com
as they will be emailed with information as to where I will be where
with whatever film I tour with. It is by far the best way to know how to
see the films.
After Charlie’s Angels came out it did very well financially and was
good for my acting career. I started getting better roles that also
paid better and I could continue using that money to finance my films
that I am so truly passionate about. I have been able to divorce myself
from the content of the films that I act in and look at acting as a
craft that I am helping other filmmakers to accomplish what it is that
they want to do. Usually filmmakers have hired me because there is
something they have felt would be interesting to accomplish with using
me in their film and usually I can try to do something interesting as an
actor. If for some reason the director is not truly interested in doing
something that I personally find interesting with the character then I
can console myself that with the money I am making to be in their
production I can help to fund my own films that I am so truly passionate
about. Usually though I feel as though I am able to get something
across as an actor that I feel good about. It has worked out well.
SS: Do you see yourself -- years from now
-- after all of the legendary tours have become history, releasing the
films for the public in any sort of home format?
CG: Right now I have no plans to stop
touring. The tour is the way people should see the films. People can
find out where I will be touring by signing up for my newsletter on
CrispinGlover.com
SS: At a past Big Slide Show, you mentioned how you initially happened to make the acquaintance
of Steven C. Stewart. Would you care to reiterate this story for Soiled Sinema
readers? How did this personal relationship develop into the creation of the It? Trilogy?
CG: When I was 19 I was acting in a film
made at the AFI called The Orkly Kid. The character I was playing was
based on a person the director had made a documentary about when he was
working on a television show in Salt Lake Utah. He was friends with
another filmmaker from Salt Lake named Larry Roberts who had made a
documentary on Steven C Stewart when Steve was still not able to get out
of the nursing home. When Steve got out of the nursing home he told
Larry that he wanted to make a movie. Larry was an interesting
filmmaker, but was older and doing other things and he introduced Steve
to another younger Salt Lake filmmaker that was making unusual movies
and said maybe they could work on it together. I had also been shown
some of David Brother’s films by Larry and the director of the Orkly
Kid. It was around this time that I had been wanting to make a movie
from one of my books and I had very much liked David Brother’s movies he
was making on video. So I met up with David Brothers and we started
making a movie of one of my books called The Backward Swing. We started
shooting this on video in 1987. Actually this will be the next movie I
edit together as the films took over. In any case while we were working
on The Backward Swing David showed me the script for Everything is fine!
and as soon as I read it I knew it was a movie I had to produce.
Steven C. Stewart’s own true story was fascinating and then the
beautiful story and the naïve including his fascination of women with
long hair and the graphic violence and sexuality and the revealing truth
of his psyche from the screenplay were all combined. A specific
marriage proposal scene was the scene I remember reading that made me
think “I will have to be the person to produce/finance this film.”
SS: Would
you say there is a connection (whether it be aesthetic, idealistic, or
otherwise) between elements of your films and your concept album The Big Problem ≠ The Solution. The Solution = Let It Be?
CG: My
films, books and album “The Big Problem ≠ The Solution. The Solution =
Let It Be?” contain questions or let people come up with their own
questions.
SS: Is it safe to say that most true artists are competent in a variety of mediums?
CG: It is
possible and it is also possible that many artists are far better at
one medium than another, but I have noticed that many good artists are
good in multiple mediums.
SS: Your father, Bruce Glover,is in the second film of your trilogy It is Fine! Everything is Fine..
How was the experience of directing your own father, who we can assume
had much weight in steering you towards your current occupation?
CG: My father was easy to direct in “It is
Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE.” My mother is also in the film. When I was
born she retired as an actress and primarily a dancer. “Steering” would
be the wrong word to use about my choice of profession. My mother did
want me to become involved in dance when I was a child. I went to one
dance class that she taught and she said “Alright girls... and... boy.”
and I never went again.
So my parents were not really able to steer me in an occupational direction.
I am very satisfied with my profession/professions. The one thing I
wanted to be before figuring out that it would be a good idea to enter
in to acting professionally at age 13, was a geologist. My idea of the
profession was that I would find geodes and fascinating geological rocks
and formations. I then realized that a geologist at the time I was
thinking about it, which was the 1970‘s would probably need to work for a
multinational oil corporation finding oil deposits. That did not seem
as interesting to me. I am glad I continued on doing what I do. I still
have great interest in the tectonic plates and volcanoes and geological
formations. My publishing company is called “Volcanic Eruptions”
My father is what I would describe as a blue-collar or working-class
actor. I witnessed my father’ struggles as an actor and did not look at
the business in a glamorous way.
I made a pragmatic choice to pursue acting as a career when I was
quite young around 11 or 12. I got an agent when I was 13 and got my
first professional job that year. Having grown up around the business it
seemed like something that I would be able to do. My father also
teaches acting and has since before I was born. I never formally studied
with my father but I am certain that hearing him speak about things had
influence. I would say that my personality type is not that of a
standard actor’s personality type that would more be someone who enjoys
attention for attention’s sake. That in fact makes me rather
uncomfortable. For me it is important to have an idea that can be
supported with performance or even for media publicity. Because of this I
believe that if my parents had not been in the business and I was born
with the personality type that I have, I probably would have pursued a
very different career path.
> I became a professional actor at age 13 by my own choice. I
emphasize that because there is a large difference in that from when a
child is forced in to acting by parents who choose that career for a
child. I began studying in a professional acting class at age 15. At age
16 I viewed many revival films of the 1920’s through the 1970’s at the
revival theaters that were popular in the early 1980’s before the advent
of VHS competition that led to most of the revival houses closing.
While watching many of the films and being in acting class I began to
understand film and acting as art.
SS: How does your father feel about your ambitious taboo-breaking cinema?
CG: My parents have come to see the films and live shows on multiple occasions and are supportive of both the live shows and films.
SS: Censorship
and context are both reasons for your choice in creating and
controlling the screenings and distribution of your films. How would
you imagine a general audience perceiving your film if it was promoted
and released like your typical Hollywood Blockbuster?
CG: I love showing at
museums, universities, cinematheques and vaudeville theaters. As I tour
through the world it is apparent that as much as multiplexes and home
theater has become ubiquitous that the single screen cultural center is
absolutely vital to a specific audience that is looking to have a
thoughtful experience at the theater be it live or by film. Museums can
attract particularly thoughtful crowds. The forums are greatly
appreciated by audience members. In vaudeville there was an energetic
exchange between the performers and audience. The audience is part of
the experience as opposed to merely being an audience that has no
interaction when alone at home. The Q and A portion of the shows are
extremely helpful with the films, particularly “What is it?” which can
generate a particular amount of demand from the audience in forms of
questions.
All currently corporately funded films by US film ratings must be
made for the viewership of children. The reason for this is that when
the NC-17 rating came about to replace the X rating multiplexes had
become a norm. In the 1960’s and 1970’s films like A Clockwork Orange
and Midnight Cowboy were given the X rating in the US. At that time it
was easy to control if children were able to get in to a single screen
theater or not. When multiplexes came in to being and X was changed to
NC-17 the corporations that ran the multiplexes became concerned that a
child could walk down the hall and easily enter in to an NC-17 film and
they could be sued. So they stated that they would not show films rated
NC-17. Being that multiplexes had become the main source of recoupment
for the film distributors it was no longer viable to distribute NC-17
films. Without viable distribution of an NC-17 rated film no corporate
entities would fund films they cannot recoup on. So at this point in
time corporate funding and distribution entities in the US will only
fund films that are rated G, PG, PG13, and R. R means under 18
accompanied by an adult. Therefore all corporately funded films in the
US must be made with concept that those under the age of 18 are able to
view the film. This means all corporately funded films in the US are
made for the eyes of children. There is certainly nothing wrong with
films that are specifically made for children, but it certainly is
questionable when there is not a corporately funded film company that
will fund and distribute films that are specifically for the eyes of
adults.
Unfortunately I see the corporately funded and distributed films
industry currently as having a hugely propagandizing effect on the US
population at large. It is an enormous topic. I recently read the book
“Propaganda” written in 1925 by Edward Bernays. Bernays was Sigmund
Freud’s nephew and utilized his uncle’s understanding of the
subconscious and became the literal founder of the “Public Relations”
industry. Bernays came up with the word combination “Public Relations”
to replace the word propaganda. The book is not an expose but an
instruction manual for the monied and privileged class through
psychological “Public relations”/propaganda techniques to get the lower
class masses to serve the privileged class with the disguise of
democracy. I feel like this book should be mandatory reading for
everyone in high school so people in the US would have a better
understanding of how things genuinely work in the media.
Stanley Kubrick made some of the most beautiful, thoughtful and
questioning cinematic films ever in the corporately funded and
distributed studio films system. He is fascinating to study. The culture
ebbs and flows and waxes and wanes in terms of how much questioning can
happen in media. We are in a particularly restrictive time right now
with what will be corporately funded and distributed. Questioning could
become even more restricted or less restricted. It sort of depends on
how much people become concerned about the restrictions. Most current
media that is corporately funded and distributed now is designed to make
people not question.
I am not against the basic concept of corporations, but I have come
to notice a similarity to the “Occupy Movement” and what “What is is?”
is essentially protesting. It seems that the “Occupy Movement” is
protesting business interests having an influence in what has basically
become a legalized form of bribery by corporate/business/banking
interests in politicians/political elements which is of course against
the concept of basic democracy.
Relatedly “What is it?” is a protest to the corporate
corporate/business/banking interests in the content of film/media which
ends up leading to corporate/business/banking interest’s propaganda.
SS: For as long as I can remember, River's Edge
(1986) directed by Tim Hunter has been one of my favorite films.
Naturally, it goes without saying that your performance as Layne is for
me (and most other fans of the film), one of the most (if not the most)
potent and memorable aspects of the film. How did you prepare for the
role of Layne and what are your personal thoughts on the character?
CG: The way the character was written made
me think of a certain regional dialect that I had grown up hearing. I
am proud of that film. There was an intention change in the character
from the way it had been written. The character could have been played
as a person who sincerely wanted the best for the murderer character.
But I made the choice to play the character as a person who wanted
people to believe that intentions of the character were sincere in order
for positive attention to be put on to himself.. That is a different
intention than what was written. The dialogue was not changed but the
intentions was changed. There was a certain dynamic that this brought
about in the character within the film. I like my performance in that
film and I like the film as a whole.
SS: You
mentioned the mainstream media’s influence on Columbine High school
massacre killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold in your article What Is
It? Would you consider Layne a "proto-Columbine killer" of sorts?
CG: The repressive culture brings out
troublesome actions. The character in River’s Edge and the film itself
is not a repressive film but an explorative film and film that brings up
questions which is healthy for the culture. I think right now most
films are not explorative and unfortunately are more dictatorial in the
approach as to how the audience is approached as to how to think about
the subject matter. The business interest’s control on how they want the
culture to work for their own benefit. I would say that sort of media
control can bring out negative repressed actions from people.
SS: How/when did you get interested in writing/designing books?
CG: The live aspect of the shows I perform
before the films I tour with are not to be underestimated. This is a
large part of how I bring audiences in to the theater and a majority of
how I recoup is by what is charged for the live show and what I make
from selling the books after the shows.
For “Crispin Hellion Glover's Big Slide Show” I perform a one hour
dramatic narration of eight different books I have made over the years.
The books are taken from old books from the 1800's that have been
changed in to different books from what they originally were. They are
heavily illustrated with original drawings and reworked images and
photographs.
I started making my books in 1983 for my own enjoyment without the
concept of publishing them. I had always written and drawn and the books
came as an accidental outgrowth of that. I was in an acting class in
1982 and down the block was an art gallery that had a book store
upstairs. In the book store there was a book for sale that was an old
binding taken from the 1800's and someone had put their art work inside
the binding. I thought this was a good idea and set out to do the same
thing. I worked a lot with India ink at the time and was using the India
ink on the original pages to make various art. I had always liked words
in art and left some of the words on one of the pages. I did this again
a few pages later and then when I turned the pages I noticed that a
story started to naturally form and so I continued with this. When I was
finished with the book I was pleased with the results and kept making
more of them. I made most of the books in the 80's and very early 90's.
Some of the books utilize text from the biding it was taken from and
some of them are basically completely original text. Sometimes I would
find images that I was inspired to create stories for or sometimes it
was the binding or sometimes it was portions of the texts that were
interesting. Altogether, I made about twenty of them. When I was editing
my first feature film “What is it?” There was a reminiscent quality to
the way I worked with the books because as I was expanding the film in
to a feature from what was originally going to be a short, I was taking
film material that I had shot for a different purpose originally and
re-purposed it for a different idea and I was writing and shooting and
ultimately editing at the same time. Somehow I was comfortable with this
because of similar experiences with making my books.
When I first started publishing the books in 1988 people said I
should have book readings. But the book are so heavily illustrated and
they way the illustrations are used within the books they help to tell
the story so the only way for the books to make sense was to have
visually representations of the images. This is why I knew a slide show
was necessary. It took a while but in 1992 I started performing what I
now call Crispin Hellion Glover's Big Side Show Part 1. The content of
that show has not changed since I first started performing it. But the
performance of the show has become more dramatic as opposed to more of a
reading.
People sometimes get confused as to what “Crispin Hellion Glover’s
Big Slide Show (Parts 1&2)” is so now I always let it be known that
it is a one hour dramatic narration of eight different profusely
illustrated books that I have made over the years. The illustrations
from the books are projected behind me as I perform the show. There is a
second slide show now that also has 8 books. Part 2 is performed if I
have a show with Part 1 of the “IT” trilogy and then on the subsequent
night I will perform the second slide show and Part 2 of the “IT”
trilogy. The second slide show has been developed over the last several
years and the content has changed as it has been developed, but I am
very happy with the content of the second slide show now.
The fact that I tour with the film helps the distribution element. I
consider what I am doing to be following in the steps of vaudeville
performers. Vaudeville was the main form of entertainment for most of
the history of the US. It has only relatively recently stopped being the
main source of entertainment, but that does not mean this live element
mixed with other media is no longer viable. In fact it is apparent that
it is sorely missed.
I definitely have been aware of the element of utilizing the fact
that I am known from work in the corporate media I have done in the last
25 years or so. This is something I rely on for when I go on tour with
my films. It lets me go to various places and have the local media cover
the fact that I will be performing a one hour live dramatic narration
of eight different books which are profusely illustrated and projected
as I go through them, then show the film either What is it? Being 72
minutes or It is fine! EVERYTHGIN IS FINE being 74 minutes. Then having a
Q and A and then a book signing. As I funded the films I knew that this
is how I would recoup my investment even if it a slow process.
Volcanic Eruptions was a business I started in Los Angeles in 1988 as
Crispin Hellion Glover doing business as Volcanic Eruptions. It was a
name to use for my book publishing company. About a year later I had a
record/CD come out with a corporation called Restless Records. About
when I had sold the same amount of books as CD/records had sold it was
very clear to me that because I had published my own books that I had a
far greater profit margin. It made me very suspicious of working with
corporations as a business model. Financing/Producing my own films is
based on the basic business model of my own publishing company. There
are benefits and drawbacks about self distributing my own films. In
this economy it seems like a touring with the live show and showing the
films with a book signing is a very good basic safety net for recouping
the monies I have invested in the films
There are other beneficial aspects of touring with the shows other
than monetary elements. There are benefits that I am in control of the
distribution and personally supervise the monetary intake of the films
that I am touring with. I also control piracy in this way because
digital copy of this film is stolen material and highly prosecutable. It
is enjoyable to travel and visit places, meet people, perform the shows
and have interaction with the audiences and discussions about the films
afterwards. The forum after the show is also not to under-estimated as a
very important part of the show for for the audience. This also makes
me much more personally grateful to the individuals who come to my shows
as there is no corporate intermediary. The drawbacks are that a
significant amount of time and energy to promote and travel and perform
the shows. Also the amount of people seeing the films is much smaller
than if I were to distribute the films in a more traditional sense.
The way I distribute my films is certainly not traditional in the
contemporary sense of film distribution but perhaps is very traditional
when looking further back at vaudeville era film distribution. If there
are any filmmakers that are able to utilize aspects of what I am doing
then that is good. It has taken many years to organically develop what I
am doing now as far as my distribution goes.
SS: On top of appearing in What Is It?, Feral House owner Adam Parfrey published your essay What Is It? in his book Apocalypse Culture II.
What is your relationship with Parfrey and do you have any plans to
once again collaborate with him in the future -- be it in film or
otherwise?
CG: I am friends with Adam Parfrey and he
has influence on both the article in “Apocalypse Culture II” and content
in the film “What is it?” I am always open to collaboration with
intelligent people that I have had positive relations with. So I
certainly would be up to collaborating with Adam Parfrey again.
SS: How does your brilliant article What is It?
relate to your 2005 film of the same name? Is the film an abstract
surrealist portrayal of some of the ideas expressed in your article?
CG: The article in What is
it? was written in 1999 after the feature film “What is it?” had been
locked as a picture edit. It was conceived as an entertainment essay for
Adam Parfrey’s book “Apocalypse Culture II” that would also promote the
film “What is it?”
SS: In your film What is It?,
one of the roles you played was that of the "Dueling Demi-God Auteur."
What are your thoughts on auteur theory and auteur filmmaking in
general? Is it safe to say that the films (and upcoming film) in the It?
Trilogy are a rare modern example of pure and personal "auteur" works?
CG: On
some level the word “Auteur” was used for entertainment purposes with a
sense of humor. Although it is true that Steve is the original “Auteur”
of “It is fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE.”
I am very careful to make it quite clear that What is it? is not a
film about Down’s Syndrome but my psychological reaction to the
corporate restraints that have happened in the last 20 to 30 years in
film making. Specifically anything that can possibly make an audience
uncomfortable is necessarily excised or the film will not be corporately
funded or distributed. This is damaging to the culture because it is
the very moment when an audience member sits back in their chair looks
up at the screen and thinks to their self “Is this right what I am
watching? Is this wrong what I am watching? Should I be here? Should the
filmmaker have made this? What is it?” -and that is the title of the
film. What is it that is taboo in the culture? What does it mean that
taboo has been ubiquitously excised in this culture’s media? What does
it mean to the culture when it does not properly process taboo in it’s
media? It is a bad thing because when questions are not being asked
because these kinds of questions are when people are having a truly
educational experience. For the culture to not be able to ask questions
leads towards a non educational experience and that is what is happening
in this culture. This stupefies this culture and that is of course a
bad thing. So What is it? Is a direct reaction to the contents this
culture’s media. I would like people to think for themselves.
SS: What
are thoughts on the blatant decline of great auteur filmmakers in the
modern Occidental world? Undoubtedly, you have helped to fill the void
in our mostly auteur-less era. Do you believe that Hollywood has
consciously sought out to destroy the auteur filmmaker -- and organic
art in general?
CG: Consciousness in corporately funded
and distributed filmmaking for the most part is difficult to define as
propagandized thought processes end up infusing in to what the
sensibility of the corporately funded and distributed film entity
decides on what is put forth to the population. Every once in a while a
film will come out from the corporately funded and distributed
filmmaking business from a filmmaker that is both intelligent and deft
at making cinematic decisions that have positive cultural messages. It
is rare and difficult for that to happen, but when it does I applaud
those film makers.
The way that US propaganda works is difficult to describe.
Unfortunately the corporately funded and distributed films industry
currently is having a hugely propagandizing effect on the US population
at large. It is an enormous topic.
I recently read the book “Propaganda” written in 1925 by Edward
Bernays. I recommend everyone read it. The first sentence of the book is
“THE conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and
options of the masses is an important element in democratic society.
Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an
invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”
Bernays was Sigmund Freud’s nephew and utilized his uncle’s
understanding of the subconscious and became the literal founder of the
“Public Relations” industry. Bernays came up with the word combination
“Public Relations” to replace the word propaganda. He brought his
uncle’s ideas and introduced Sigmund Freud to the US to help influence
US corporations, Academia and the government. The book is not an expose
but an instruction manual for the monied and privileged class through
psychological “Public relations”/propaganda techniques to get the lower
class masses to serve the privileged class with the disguise of
democracy. I feel like this book should be mandatory reading for
everyone in high school so people in the US would have a better
understanding of how things genuinely work in the media. Once anyone
reads this book they will not be able to see the function of US media
the same way again.
The difficult part of the US propaganda is the way it is put in to
effect is not be committee dictation but by the way corporate/business
interests utilize money to essentially legally bribe
people/government/academia/media to do that which is in the
corporate/business interest.
SS: What are some of the struggles you have
had to dealt with in your ambitious career of simultaneously working
within the Hollywood studio system, but also creating uncompromising
artistic works independently in various mediums? You seem to be one of
the few people that has been able to successfully do that. Why do you
think this is?
CG: There is a strange mix of being
brought up working within the media business and becoming aware of the
amount of control that corporate interests were having on the content of
film in general.
The first time I used discretion about choosing films was not till
after “Back to the Future” came out in 1985. After that film came out
and had made so much money I felt a certain obligation towards finding
films that somehow reflected what my own psychologically interested
were. The first film I acted in after that was “River’s Edge.”
I am not critical of the concept of corporations. I am critical when the result of corporate control causes people to think less or for media in general to come out with less questioning or question causing content. Corporations do not necessarily cause this, but it currently is happening in great quantity. There are times when corporate entities have been behind great questioning films like ”A Clockwork Orange” or ”2001 a Space Odyssey.” I prefer to not be overly political. I concern myself with things that affect me directly.
I am not critical of the concept of corporations. I am critical when the result of corporate control causes people to think less or for media in general to come out with less questioning or question causing content. Corporations do not necessarily cause this, but it currently is happening in great quantity. There are times when corporate entities have been behind great questioning films like ”A Clockwork Orange” or ”2001 a Space Odyssey.” I prefer to not be overly political. I concern myself with things that affect me directly.
The film industry I had thought I had stepped in to was the spirit of
when I was a teenager attending the various revival theaters that were
so popular in Los Angeles in the 1980’s before home theater business
competition forced most 35 mm venues to close. I did not realize at the
time that I stepped in to working as an actor that the kinds of films
that were being funded and distributed had changed.
As soon as I got my driver’s license when I was 16 in 1980 I attended
screenings at revival theaters that were quite popular in LA before VHS
competition cleared many of them away. Many of these revival theaters
no longer exist such as, one of my favorites, the beautiful Fox Venice
with a wide cinemascope screen on Lincoln Blvd.
The films I saw that played in these venues tended to question
culturally accepted truths with performances that underscored these
concepts.
Films played such as:
Ken Russel’s The Devils,
Roman Polanski’s Repulsion and Chinatown,
Frederico Fellini’s 8 1/2 and Cassanova,
John Cassavete’s A woman under the influence,
Orson Welles’ F is for Fake and Citizen Kane,
Billy Wilder’s The Apartment and Sunset Blvd,
John Waters’ Pink Flamingos and Desperate Living,
Todd Browning’s Freaks,
Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 and Clockwork Orange and Dr. Strangelove,
Werner Herzog’s Aguire Wrath of God, Even Dwarfs Started Small and Fata Morgana.
I was a regular attendee of David Lynch’s Eraserhead at midnight on Fridays at the Nuart.
I studied actors giving performances like:
Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces and Easy Rider,
Timothy Carey in Marlon Brando’s One Eyed Jacks and Elia Kazan’s East of Eden,
Charles Laughton in The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Brad Dourif in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and Wise Blood,
Peter Lorre in M
Emil Jannings in The Last Laugh
and Klaus Kinski in Aguirre Wrath of God.
These films and performances characterized the atmosphere of cinema
and acting I believed I was stepping into as a young actor. By 1982, at
age 18, I began to act in feature films. At this time I believed
contemporary culture’s film’s main purpose was to question suspect
things in our culture. I enthusiastically supported the idea of
questioning our culture. To help support the idea, I also questioned the
film industry’s and media’s messages. Sometimes I felt scorned and
isolated; other times I felt accepted and admired. Then, at one point,
in the midst of my career, I realized that the types of films the
industry was financing and distributing had changed almost diametrically
from the types of films I had watched when I was 18.
Now, I have put my artistic passions and questions in to my own
filmmaking with films like “What is it?“ and it’s sequel “It is fine!
EVERYTHING IS FINE.”
SS: Can Hollywood filmmakers like Steven
Spielberg and Michael Bay be considered auteur filmmakers due to their
somewhat consistent and ambiguously "personal" themes? Or would your
consider them "anti-auteur" filmmakers due to their intrinsic lack of
thematic, aesthetic, and artistic complexity? In other words, are
Blockbuster filmmakers merely soulless and totally lacking in genuine
expression and/or are they merely appealing to the lowest common
denominator with the sole goal of obtaining a substantial monetary
return?
CG: I specifically do not use the term
“Hollywood film” because it is overly generalized and “Hollywood” for me
is a place I have lived, so I think of that more as a geographical
place. The specific term I use is “Corporately funded and distributed
film.” I am not so familiar with Michael Bay’s films. I am far more
familiar with the films of Steven Spielberg. Looking both of their
credits up on IMDB ,which can be inaccurate, it seems that Michael Bay
had not written any of the films that he has directed. Bu the definition
I understand of “Auteur” this would mean Michael Bay would not be that.
The film that Steven Spielberg solely wrote the screenplay and
directed is “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” By and by the
definition of “Auteur” it would make him that definition.
I would think all films whether one likes the expression held within
them or not are forms of expression. It may be that some filmmakers
forms of expression are more aligned with business interests. It can be
argued whether their personal interests naturally align to business
interest or if the business interest had caused what is their personal
interest has become.
SS: You have stated in the past that you're
a fan of German New Wave filmmakers like Rainer Werner Fassbinder and
Werner Herzog. Historically, what do you think are the main differences
between Hollywood and European cinema? Why do you think there has been
a decline in great European films and filmmakers?
CG: I admire
both Herzog’s and Fassbinder’s work as filmmakers and it has been a
great honor and pleasure to know Werner Herzog. Herzog of course is
still making great films to this day so he is still a fantastic force. I
am sure if Fassbinder were still alive he would also be a great force.
The decline you may be feeling is probably a general worldwide waxing of
control by business interests and control over the content of film.
SS: Are there any modern films/filmmakers that your admire/respect?
CG: There certainly are.
SS: What films and filmmakers have inspired your It? Trilogy? Have any writers, philosophers, or otherwise inspired the Trilogy?
CG: Some of the filmmakers mentioned above certainly have had influence on my thoughts.
“What is it?” started production as a short film in 1996. It took
9.5 years from the first day of shooting on the short film to having a
35 mm print of the feature film. I wrote it as a short film originally
to promote the viability of having a majority of the characters that do
not necessarily have Down’s Syndrome to be played by actors with Down’s
Syndrome.
The way this came about was this. In 1996. I was approached by two
young writers and aspiring filmmakers who were from Phoenix to act in a
film they wanted to produce and direct. They made a monetary offer to my
agents which they really should not have done as they did not actually
have financing. Nonetheless it did get me to read the screenplay which I
found to be interesting. This screenplay was not What is it? I found
interesting things about the screenplay and was interested in the
project, but I thought there were things about the screenplay that did
not work. I came up with solutions that needed re working of the
screenplay and I told them I would be interested in acting in the film
if I directed it. They came to LA and met with me and wanted to know my
thoughts. There were quite a few things but the main things was that
most of the character were to be played by actors with Down’s Syndrome.
They were fine with this concept and I set about to re writing the
screenplay. David Lynch then agreed to executive produce the film for me
to direct. This was very helpful and I went to one of the larger
corporate entities in Los Angeles that finances films and met with them.
They were interested in the project but after a number of meetings and
conversations they let me know that the were concerned about financing a
project wherein most of the characters were played by actors with
Down’s Syndrome. The title of this screenplay at this point had become
IT IS MINE. And will become part three of the “IT” trilogy. It was known
yet at this time that there would be a trilogy but it was decided that I
should write a short screenplay to promote that the concept of having a
majority of the characters played by actors with Down’s Syndrome was a
viable things to do for corporate entities to invest in.
This is when I wrote a short screenplay en titled What is it? We shot
this short screenplay in four days. I edited that over a period of six
months and the first edit came in at 84 minutes. The final feature
length film of What is it? is 72 minutes. So the first version of the
short film is longer than the final version of the feature film, and it
was too long for the material I had at the time, but I could see with
more work and more material I could turn it in to a feature film. Over
approximately the next two years I shot 8 more days and edited this in
to what is now the final version of the film. I locked the edit of the
film about three years after the first day of shooting what was supposed
to be a short film. Then there were a number of years of very
frustrating technical problems that mainly had to do with SMPTE time
code. Originally I was going to make the film the now old fashioned way
of a complete photochemical process and not digital intermediate. An
optical house in New York that did not give me enough information to let
me know that the SMPTE time code had not been properly put on when the
film was telecined. During this time I worked patiently on the final
sound edit of the film with a number of interns. Finally that sound edit
was finished and it became apparent that the film optical house was not
telling me the truth and prices had fallen during this time so I was
able to make the film using a digital intermediate to ultimately go out
to a 35 mm print of the film. So from the first day of shooting what was
to be a short film to having a 35 mm print for the film took 9.5 years.
> Sometimes people ask me if the length of time it took for me to
make the film had to do with working with actors with Down’s Syndrome.
This was not the case. Even though the film took many years to make much
of the delay were technical issues. What is it was actually shot in a
total of twelve days which was spread over several years. Twelve days is
actually a very short amount of shooting days for a feature film. The
most important thing about working with an actor weather they have
Down’s Syndrome or not is if they have enthusiasm. Everyone in I worked
with had incredible enthusiasm so the were all great to work with
SS: What can we expect from It Is Mine? Do you have any specific goals you would like to reveal regarding the final chapter of your It? Trilogy? Do you have any plans for directing films after your complete the It? Trilogy that you would like to reveal?
CG: I should not go in to detail for “IT
IS MINE.” yet and I will not shoot that next. There are other projects
outside of the trilogy that I will shoot next. The Czech Republic is
another culture and another language and I need to build up to complex
productions like “What is it?” and the existing sequel “It is fine!
EVERYTHING IS FINE.” IT IS MINE. Is an even more complex project than
those two films were so it will be a while yet for that production. I
will step outside of the trilogy for a number of films that deal with
different thematic elements.
The sets for my next film productions have started construction. At
the same time the sets are being built I am in the process of continuing
to develop the screenplay for myself and my father to act in together
on these very sets. He is also an actor and that is the next film I am
planning to make as a director/producer. This will be the first role I
write for myself to act in that will be written as an acting role as
opposed to a role that was written for the character I play to merely
serve the structure. But even still on some level I am writing the
screenplay to be something that I can afford to make. There are two
other projects I am currently developing to shoot on sets at my property
in the Czech Republic. The cost of the set building will determine
which one I actually shoot next. They are will all be relatively
affordable yet still cinematically pleasing.
SS: Would you ever consider directing a film
within the mostly strict confines of the Hollywood studio system?
Additionally, are there any characters (be they historical figures or
fictional) that you have always wanted to play?
CG: It may come about naturally that
corporately funded and distributed film’s interests will naturally come
in to alignment with my own interests. There have been waxing and waning
periods of corporate control of the content of film and right now we
are in a severe waxing of control. We shall see what the future holds.
For more info on Crispin Glover's Big Slide Show, his company Volcanic Eruptions, and the It?" - Interview at www.soiledsinema.com
Crispin Glover interview with Aintitcool.com's Capone
Crispin Hellion Glover: It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine By Erin Broadley
Interview at The Onion's A.V. Club
Transcript of Glover's first appearance on Late Night with David Letterman
Crispin Hellion Glover's web page
Crispin Hellion Glover resource center
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