FELDMAN INTERVIEW
	Part 2

Arne Zaslove interviews filmmaker John Feldman

Interactive Interview Part 2: film itself, structure, ending, darkness, music, fight scene, love

ARNE: Let's talk around the film itself for just a moment. I have to say that I find it a tremendously re-watchable film. As in "Dead Funny" you play around a lot with memory, can you comment on that?

Yes, they are both very much about memory and how we create our lives in our memories. But they are really very different in the way they look at memory. "Bobby Roos" takes place entirely in Bobby's mind except for the epilogue, while in "Dead Funny" the film takes place both in Viv's mind and in a "reality" tense. So "Dead Funny's" structure is considerably more complex. Aside from the interior of the cabin, there is no "reality" tense in "Bobby Roos." In "Bobby Roos," we first see Bobby in the cabin and we follow the story as he remembers it. So, naturally, it returns to the cabin in the end, completing a circle.

ARNE: How did this structure come about, without a script? Was it in the original treatment?

No, the treatment only told a basic plot: the heckler, the Emily love affair, and then ended with something like the wrist slashing scene. In front of the computer, in the "writing" stage, I created the structure into which that story falls. In fact, for a long time I resisted giving the film a flashback kind of structure, because I felt I had done that enough in "Dead Funny." I didn't want to repeat myself. But as I got into the issues involved in putting together this story, I realized that it had to all be taking place in his head, and I decided my best bet -- in trying to make the film work -- was to draw upon what I had learned in "Dead Funny."

ARNE: I think it's a tremendous structure and very clear -- and it's unusual -- because of the ending. Tell me about the ending. How did it come about?

You know... it's true... the ending is unusual... and in way I have to admit that it's a bit awkward, structurally, but it's the only ending that makes any sense to me... that I can live with for the rest of my life. The ending was the biggest issue for us. We tried putting on an ending that wrapped everything up in a nice little ball, the way good endings generally do, but the whole film fell flat. I was committed to having a very honest ending. In my heart I felt -- and I still do -- that I had to be true to Roger's own situation. I had to give an honest answer to the question: what is the best thing Bobby can do to get himself back on his feet? And the answer is the same as for any addict: they have to totally give up whatever it is that's haunting them, one day at a time, and try to change their life. It takes tremendous strength and it takes support from others.

ARNE: And that's what Bobby does when he puts all his wigs and props away and covers up the mirrors.

Exactly. In a way they are the clearest allegorical statements in the film. So getting back to the ending, I was determined to give the film a positive ending, even a happy ending -- which my other films have not had -- but I was afraid of giving it too much of a "happily ever after" ending.

ARNE: You achieved that. It's hopeful, but not saccharin.

Thanks. In essence it's saying that when one finally makes a commitment to "better oneself" -- to pull oneself up by one's own bootstraps -- all sorts of wonderful things start to happen, good things which are totally unpredictable, and which you couldn't have engineered if you'd tried. Like running into your long lost love just when you need her ... or him... the most, and connecting or rather re-connecting. What's so wonderful about the scene we staged with Annabelle is that the Katherine she created had gone through as much hell as Bobby. That's why the story about her in the car is so important. It would have been corny if his Katherine turned out to be this totally together, all-American kind of sweet-heart who was ready to take him under her wing and help him back to normalcy. No way. She's tentative and cautious and knows enough to know that getting involved with Bobby Roos could lead to lots of heartache.

ARNE: And, of course, Katherine has the final word. Is that line hers or yours?

Hers. "That's all you can do, is start." Last lines, to me, are as important in a film as first lines and I never could have written one so perfect as that. It was written in a moment of inspiration by Annabelle as she lived the moment. It's a tremendously life affirming statement. And it's true: all one can do is start, whatever it is, that's the only totally free action one can do, the rest is in the hands of...well... the universe.

Arne: I guess the film also includes some of Annabelle Larsen's true story?

Well, in a way yes. She, like the father, "play themselves" ... but I don't try to get inside their heads... and that's a big difference.

I didn't get the idea to introduce Annabelle into the story until we were well into it. It's such an obvious idea... and then being able to use the "Alligator Eyes" footage -- which of course makes it all the more bizarre, because the ending implies in a way that he's still living in the movies, except the movie is one that he acted in.

Arne: Let's talk for a moment about the film's darkness. You said that when you were making the film you kept toning it back, and making it less dark, why was that?

Well, we had quite a few screenings along the way, and I kept getting feedback that the film was too hard to take... which I took to mean that it was too unrelentingly dark. And while I knew that the film had to be dark, I kept searching for the right level. It was a question both of content and pacing. The whole flashback structure came about because I needed a way to introduce the element of calm into the film. On the other hand, it is a story of a man going about as far into hell as one can go -- of contemplating suicide and touching madness -- and then turning his life around. So I couldn't be afraid of darkness. And, of course, the music plays a huge role in the emotional pacing of the thing.

ARNE: I have on my list to talk about the music. Has Sheila Silver done the music for all of your films?

Yes. The music is a tremendously important part of the film. It carries a lot of emotional weight. And, you know, when I first started I kept saying that we weren't going to have any music at all. Like the Dogma group. But I don't have dogmas... and besides... music better than anything else can hint at what's going on inside a person's mind.

ARNE: Another great collaboration. Perhaps I should interview Sheila.

Absolutely.

You know part of the awkwardness of the structure comes because it seems that the noose scene and the knife scene are redundant. Structurally they may be repetitive, but I think it's very important to understand that the knife scene is not a suicide scene. He couldn't kill himself with a little pocket knife like that... but he could mutilate himself, which is what madmen do -- which is, in a way, worse than suicide...

ARNE: Which is why it comes after the noose scene.

Yes.

ARNE: Another question on my list is about the fight scene. It's a very powerful scene and yet there's really not much of a fight.

Well .... this could be a long story. Essentially, the main footage of that scene didn't come out as I had planned. We had placed one light shining onto the Heckler, but the bulb blew before the fight even started and we never got a chance to put in a new one... and we couldn't re-stage it. In a way that was one of those lucky accidents. It looks much more authentic -- and makes the heckler more mysterious -- because he isn't lit... we see him in the dark shadows, just as Bobby does. But still we needed a fight that would be rhythmically a powerful inciting moment. First I tried just cutting to black as soon as Bobby charged into the audience, but that didn't work. The problem was that while we needed the fight to be a "big deal" structurally, the fight -- as Bobby says later -- really wasn't a big deal: He threw a few punches, maybe got the guy down onto the floor, but otherwise it was a small fight -- particularly when compared with most fights in film stories. This, for me, increases the pathos. He really shouldn't have been black-balled for this event. On the other hand, as Roger is quick to point out, he did attack a patron and create a lawsuit, which in the real world -- as opposed to the world of movies -- is a big deal. The same thing happened when we were working on the slashing scene. All of a sudden I got nervous that just cutting his wrist in that little way wasn't that big of a deal, and Roger had to remind me that it might not be that big of a deal in the movies, but in real life it is a very big deal.

So our task was to create a filmic big deal. And I justified for myself that it should be a big deal filmically by reminding myself that it all takes place in his head. And in his head he was De Niro attacking this guy. It was a long process making the fight scene. I think a real creative breakthrough came when I took some shots we had done of Bobby as De Niro charging and fighting the camera, edited them into a two or three minute sequence, put them on my timeline, scrolled back-and-forth through them very quickly with the mouse, and recorded it all to tape. I did this a handful of times and then used the resulting footage as one of the layers in the fight montage. Because of the way I created this footage there is a sort of randomness to the fight... making it all the more chaotic and realistic.

ARNE: I gather this is a process that couldn't be done if you weren't working in digital video.

Well it'd be very hard to get the randomness, but the images could be created in an optical printer and quite beautifully so. It would have been a long arduous, frame by frame process that required a lot of planning -- which much filmmaking is. I guess I'm lucky that I found another way.

ARNE: I have on my list here the word "love." You mentioned to me that "it's all about love," what did you mean by that?

Well, you know, "love is all there is." As hard as it is to say that and keep a straight face, it's true. Bobby wants love from everyone, which is part of his problem, which makes love both a good and bad thing. He wants love from his audiences, from Max, from Emily and Jennifer, and his mother, and, of course his father. And maybe he gets it with Katherine, but I hope it's clear from that scene that in order for him to get the love he seeks from Katherine he has to give love as well... and maybe that'll happen. All they can do is start.

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