the women would somehow pick up the man. I wasn't sure what style I would use. I just thought I'd use the ideas that came from the optical printed films in a narrative, I did decide to change from a barrage of images to long takes, I tried to develop the space by moving objects within the frame. After it was finished, I realized that I was using a minimal narrative as a context for the formal elements of film itself. Now that I look back, it seems like there's a direct correlation between
for instance, and the story idea for
though I did occasionally break up that regular alternation, so that it wouldn't be too predictable.
I took the script and scratched out certain scenes that helped to
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explain events, deliberately leaving it open-ended. I wanted the viewer to be able to add to the basic information: if forty people watch the film, they'll have forty different stories. That interested me.
Why the title?
It was supposed to refer to the fact that the script was typed on eight-and-one-half-by-eleven paper, and it also refers to a perimeter or an area, text and form at once. '8 1/2 ? 11' is more obviously a dimension than a reference to typing paper, and that's the way the film is supposed to work: the narrative is removed and the formal elements come forward. So many people ask me what the title means that I think [laughter] I'm the only one who understands it.
of course, came out, of this film. It's something of a joke that the title refers to a larger format and that: film is, longer; but at the same time it isn't a joke because I thought of
as being less narrative and more photographic [11 ? 14 is a photograph paper size] than
even though there are more stories in it.
In one section of
you handhold the camera. Why only one?
Those pans across the bodies in
are so different from the rest of the film that I don't like it. I wanted the film to pivot around that point, but it does more than pivot around it: the scene jumps off the screen at you. When I filmed two people in bed for
I used a static camera. My approach to film is generally conservative. I don't think of the camera as an extension of my eye. I don't have that kind of romance with the camera. I use it as a precise tool.
uses the illusion of a candid, continuous shot filmed in a busy campground, but it's as fully fabricated as
.
Yes. Usually I choreograph the movements of the characters within the frame, but at the same time I like to incorporate the random movements of unaware passersby.
has no controlled actors, only 'documented' campers. However, the soundtrack is completely contrived and post-synched.
It creates an illusion that is immediately recognizable as an illusion, particularly since you're tracking through the campground in slow motion and the sound is played at a normal speed.
The day before I shot the film I recorded about four or five hours' worth of sound at the campground; different parts of conversations and a lot of ambient noisepeople putting up tents and things like that. I also manufactured sound: I wrote little lines and had people say them; I used some sound-effect records that I knew would be recognized as such. I wanted to combine 'real' and 'manufactured' sounds, so that the audience would question each sound.
There are funny sections, like the orgasm when you pass the little pup tent. Do youset out to make funny films?
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I've probably been holding back. I want to make a much funnier film. Some of my humor is so dumb thoughpuns that I should resist, but don't.
Where was the film shot?
Mothy Lake, about forty miles from Milwaukee. When I was small, there would be about five or six other people. Now, since it's so close to Milwaukee and Chicago, there are miles of people.
It's a funny situationthousands of people 'getting away from it all.'
They rebuild a suburb.
