Dennis Cooper interviewed by Chris Kelso.
You can watch the interview (above) or listen to it here.
It feels strange talking to Dennis Cooper at this phase of my life. With a newborn child and a full-time job dictating the direction of my time and energy, I’ve been feeling a little out of touch with the writers and artists I’d spent the better part of my selfish 30-year existence devouring—and Dennis Cooper’s work certainly shaped my 20s. I was an obsessive fan and a wannabe writer desperate for a publishing credit. To call books like Frisk, Closer, and The Sluts spiritually medicinal would be something of an understatement (although I know Dennis would balk at this description of his impact). Now, when my life feels at its most chaotic, reconnecting with such a formative influence feels like an act of self-care. Like I am checking in with the Dalai Lama or my favourite college professor.
We scheduled the interview with the intention of discussing the new film project Dennis and his collaborator Zac Farley were working on. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, Zac was unable to make the meeting. So, Dennis and I talk about Room Temperature, The Has-Beens, the reincarnation of a 3-episode TV project for ARTE, and the beauty of successful collaboration. Plus, a bunch of life shit…
Chris Kelso: Who are your cinematic influences? With Zac, is there a lot of crossover in terms of aesthetics or tone as it relates to your individual tastes? What is the sweet spot for both of you? [Robert] Bresson seems an obvious influence. Are there any modern filmmakers you appreciate?
Dennis Cooper: I mean, we’re pretty aligned in our taste and interest and, I mean, sure he likes Bresson. Obviously, Bresson is huge to me, but Zac really likes Bresson too. It’s pretty rare that we don’t agree on things. We almost always agree on film. I do tend to enjoy tricky, complicated, meta stuff, and he’s not interested in that so much. He’s more interested in things that are emotional and sincere. So that’s the only bit that’s different. But I don’t know. We both like this experimental filmmaker named James Benning. We’re both very, very big fans of James Benning. Chantal Ackerman, I know has been important. There’s probably a bunch, but we’re trying not to emulate anybody. So that’s the goal.
CK: I actually watched Like Cattle Towards Glow last night. It’s just been made available to rent on Amazon Prime over here. There is nothing else like that around. I can’t even think—
DC: Yeah, that was totally an experiment. I mean, because I certainly had never made a film before. Zac had made some videos, but he’d never, ever done anything narrative. And so, we were fooling around really. That was it. We only had $40,000, so it was extremely, extremely an underground thing, you know? The people in it are all the guys that we picked up off the street. We had this guy who went out like late at night and went over to people, standing in line to go into dance clubs and saying stuff like, ‘Hey, do you wanna be in a movie?’
CK: Seriously?
DC: Well, that was basically how we got everybody. The movie is in English, but a lot of the guys in it didn’t speak English very well. So, they never really understood what they were saying. We were trying all these different kinds of funny experiments, but I mean, I like the film. After having made the second one, which is more professional, it feels funny that we just ran around and did that film.
CK: Yeah, I think it really works as a nice little isolated piece, but it does feel almost like a pitch for Permanent Green Light. I also love the fact that one of the segments actually really shocked me because I’m never really shocked when I watch stuff anymore. I almost forgot how shocking the medium could be. Like the second segment in Like Cattle Towards Glow with the guy doing spoken word in the club…
DC: Oh, yeah, the one in the club. Yeah!
CK: And it really was quite astounding. I hate the word ‘transgressive’, but I’m thinking about things that shock me into a more active state, you know—a response. And that was really, really shocking to me.
DC: Just to make it even more shocking, Rico, who plays the spoken-word guy, is actually a dancer, but he agreed to do it. Cause we had a hard time finding somebody who would be willing to do it and amazingly he agreed to do it. Right before we shot it, he broke his shoulder and—
CK: Oh, I noticed that-—
DC: Yeah. But he did it anyway. And if you pay attention, you see that he has his arm in a sling, but it isn’t very noticeable. But he was genuinely in pain. Much less from the sex than from being thrown around on the ground.
CK: But that’s commitment. That is commitment.
DC: Yeah, he really pulled it off. And he was getting paid like no money, too.
CK: But it was a daring sort of performance. It takes a lot of courage to take on something like that, and it was incredible.
DC: Thank you.
CK: I think if you do watch it again, it’ll reveal new pleasures for you. Do any modern films leave an impression on you, even in the mainstream domain?
DC: Probably nobody in the mainstream. I mean, I love Wes Anderson. He’s a mainstream, isn’t he?
CK: Yeah.
DC: I’m a huge fan of Wes Anderson. Oh, you know, I like a lot of people, I don’t know if they are influences, but they’re mostly not mainstream. I like Pedro Costa. I mean, they’re all working now, but they’re not really mainstream. I like some mainstream films. I like blockbusters because I just like to zone out. Although I only watch them on planes because I’m just trying to kill time because I go to LA and it’s like 12 hours and so I just watch them to kill time. But I like that stuff. I much prefer, like… shit. I actually prefer watching blockbusters or horror movies than watching sincere movies, like whatever Coda or—
CK: Do you know something, I’ve become really worried about my intake recently because, obviously my day job is as a teacher, which is exhausting, and then I’ve got the new baby—I feel like my art-seeking motivation is diminishing. I find myself compelled to watch stuff that keeps me in a relaxed state or helps me escape or something. And that’s quite concerning because I don’t want to get too comfortable, you know?
DC: Oh, the kid will get a little older and you’ll get your time back,
CK: I hope so. I hope you’re right. Have you seen the latest Julia Ducournau film, Titane?
DC: I really didn’t like Titane.
CK: Oh, you didn’t like it. Interesting. But what is it about the French who just seem to have this sophisticated palate when it comes to extreme or outré imagery? Did you think Permanent Green Light would play more successfully in France or was it just a case of convenience when it came to funding access?
DC: It was, it was. It was mostly just that we were in France at the time and yeah, it just made more sense. We did think it would be interesting to do a film in France. I mean obviously French film is very, very influential on both of us. As for Titane, I mean it got a very good response here, but it got a very good response everywhere. People in the United States thought it was very French. But then people here kept saying it was very American. And I was like, well, it could only be because of me. Cause I was the only American having anything to do with the film. It didn’t seem very American. A couple of people said, it’s like Elephant and I’m like, oh it’s nothing like Elephant.
CK: No, not at all.
DC: I know. No way. But the people who were saying things like that were teenagers giving me opinions or, well, they weren’t really teenagers, but most of them were in their twenties, or the two 15-year-olds in there with those strong reactions to it.
CK: I can’t even imagine seeing a film like that when I was 15. I know you said you’re not a big fan of Titane, but if you’re 15 it would have a huge impact—especially if you grow up in Scotland and it’s a mining town and everything is very repressed and parochial. With Titane, you can see it being quite a formative experience for some.
DC: It’s funny you say that because one of the 15-year-olds is the guy, Milo, who played Leon’s friend—the little boy with the long hair. Oh wow. He was just a genius. I mean all of the people in the film are fantastic and were just perfect and everything, but he was so special. With the other cast members, we really carefully calibrated their performances. So, they did exactly what we wanted. But with Milo, he was so amazing. We were just like, do whatever you want. You know? And just the other day, just like literally three days ago, he wrote me the sweetest thing. Because he’s now a professional actor. He says that experience made him want to be an actor. He was writing just to say how much it meant to him to be in the film and that he wants to work with us again and stuff. This period is obviously very formative for him.
CK: That’s so cool. I think about writer/director duos—bad example, but Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan, Frank and Eleanor Perry, even Schrader and Scorsese to an extent—how does one inform the other? Obviously, you both share directing credit but Zac has the credentials and background in visual art, and you’re predominantly known as the writer, although you do dabble. Is there a process, or is the relationship very symbiotic and organic?
DC: Yeah, it’s really, really symbiotic, organic. We get along extremely well and we’re very different in a certain way, but we just think so much alike. Sometimes you meet someone where you just sync up. I met him, and within two weeks we were collaborating. It was just immediate. We immediately started doing it because it was so natural. It’s a good balance because I’m primarily a writer and he’s primarily a visual artist and when we make the films the scripts are mostly mine and the direction and the visuals are mostly him. I mean, I let him, cause that’s his thing, you know, I’m not a visual person. So, he basically figures out how to shoot the film. I mean we agree about everything and then we shoot it. He’s the director sitting in the director’s chair and he’s making all the decisions. Of course, we discuss everything all the time and I’m mostly watching the performances and working with the performers. So, yeah, it works out really well that way, because you know, we know each other—our strengths and weaknesses. Yet we work really well together. It really feels completely mutual. It feels like it’s both of our work. I collaborate with a lot of people. I collaborate with this director, Gisèle Vienne. But it’s her work.
CK: Absolutely.
DC: Zac and I, we shoot it together. We edit it together and everything is completely equal, but for sure he has a real strong visual sense. I went to film classes when I was in college because I wanted to make films and realized very quickly when I started taking classes and trying to make films that it was just terrible. I could not do it. It was terrible. And I saw the other people in the class making these things and I was like, ‘oh, I can’t’. So, I just gave up, but I always wanted to make films. It’s kind of perfect because you know, I take total ownership of what we were doing even though I’m not technically, you know, the ‘director’.
CK: Yeah, but I’m sure Zac would have ideas about the narrative or the way the film should go in terms of individual arcs, etc. So, I suppose it is always kind of mutual. Inter-weaving contributions.
DC: Well, there’s also, you know, I mean, I don’t know how much you worked on the Strange Bird film, but the DP has a lot of input. That person is the director of photography. So, with the first two films Michael Salerno was the DP, and he had a lot of influence on what was done. And next time we’re going to collaborate with this French artist, and she’s mainly into photography. She also makes films. And she will very much influence what happens too because she has a very strong vision. We like collaborating with people who have a really strong vision. So, the DP doesn’t really get as much credit as they should.
CK: And with Permanent Greenlight—
DC: I mean, when we were making Permanent Greenlight, we had such little time, and we had such an elaborate shoot planned out, we had to keep cutting it. There’s a scene where there’s a funeral and originally, we had like 28 shots we were going to do. And the guy who was coordinating the production was just like ‘no way can you do 28 shots, you have two hours,’ or whatever. So, then we couldn’t figure out what to do. But our DP, Michael, was just like, ‘here’s what we do’. We do a tracking shot, and we cut it down. It wound up being four shots and he just figured it out like that. And I don’t know what we would’ve done if he hadn’t been there and known how to do that.
CK: I’m glad you brought up Michael because obviously he’s a great publisher with Kiddiepunk. I really like their output. It’s obvious he has a very strong visual style that seems to compliment your work so well.
DC: Oh, yeah.
CK: Can you tell me a bit about your next project together, Room Temperature? Will it be a French production? I’m sure I read somewhere that this film was going to be set in LA, but I may have imagined that scrap of information. And is it true you’re also both working on a three-episode television series for the ARTE channel to be directed by your long-time DC collaborator, Gisèle Vienne?
DC: Sure, we’re shooting it in Southern California. The executive producers are in Marseille but everything’s going to happen in Los Angeles and the co-producers are in Los Angeles. And then we also have a co-producer because the people who did Permanent Greenlight, Local Films, are going to do the postproduction. They’re co-producers so technically it’s more of a European production, but we’re going to be working with an American cast when we make the films in Los Angeles. I mean, we do have the French DP. The only person we cast who isn’t American is this young actor who’s going to play one of the parts. He’s French and we’re flying him over. But otherwise, I mean, it’s going to feel totally American. There’s nothing about it that’s going to seem French.
CK: That sounds great. Are you and Zac also working on some three-episode television series as well?
DC: Oh boy, we did. Horrible.
CK: Oh, sorry.
DC: No, it was for ARTE do you know ARTE?
CK: Yeah. The channel.
DC: Basically, we were doing a television series for ARTE. That was the idea. Gisèle would direct, and Zac and I were writing it and it seemed great for a while, but, they just kept demanding more and more and more and more and more compromises and more and more and more rewrites. And this went on for five years. It was so much work and we got so little money and ultimately it got to the point where they pushed us too far. It was like, ‘we can’t, we can’t live with this’. We’re not guns for hire. We have a vision. We want to make the thing and they kept saying, it has to be more conventional, more conventional, more like ‘this’. So ultimately it fell apart, but after five years.
CK: Shit.
DC: So that was that. And then the idea was to change it into a film. So, then Zac and I rewrote the script, and the plan was to make it into a film script and for Gisèle to direct. And that may or may not happen. I suspect not. Then I got this idea that I was going to turn it into a novel, that we would turn it into a novella with minimal dialogue called The Has-Been.
CK: I was going to ask about that. I knew there was talk about you working on that book.
DC: Yeah, so we worked on that for a really long time and now it’s changed into something else. Now it’s going to be like a radio play, but at the same time, it’s a novel. It’s probably gonna be available as an audiobook or maybe as a listening experience. Basically, a novella that’s performed like it’s a radio play. So that’s that. I think it’s the best way to do it because I think it’s pretty interesting on the page—but it was really meant to have these performances and voices… So yeah, that’s going to be our next project after we finish the film. We’re going to do this radio playbook novel thing. It’s about a woman who’s a ventriloquist, who’s the daughter of someone very famous—he’s like the most famous person in the world. It’s based on a true story. Because there was this guy when I was a kid named Edgar Bergen. And he was everywhere. He was like Elvis. I mean you couldn’t get away from him, he was so famous, and he had this dummy named Charlie McCarthy. Very, very famous and he died. Then there was his daughter, Candice Bergen. And if you know who that is, she’s an actress. She was in a lot of films in the seventies and eighties. Anyway, it’s kind of based on that. In our version, the daughter inherits the puppet, who she hated because the puppet always got more attention than she did. Now she lives with this puppet, and she basically treats it like it’s a human being. Chaos ensues.
CK: Sounds fucking great.
DC: Funny. It’s good. It’s gonna be great.
You can find the second part of this interview here.
ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER
Chris Kelso is an award-winning writer and editor. He recently edited Children of the New Flesh: The Early Work and Pervasive Influence of David Cronenberg with David Leo Rice. The book is scheduled for release in June through 11:11 Press.
