Posted by Ford at srv0.space.net.au on December 28, 1999 at 23:05:30:
I found this Kevin Smith interview in The X-press magazine, a local Perth street press, in my room a few days ago. It's to coincide with the Perth release of CHASING AMY, 3rd of July 1997, but I'm sure none of you have read it before,(although 39,000 people in Perth did!) so here I go, with a View Askew board EXCLUSIVE!!
CHASING AMY Kevin Smith - There Is Nothing I Regret
He's the writer/director/star of CLERKS, MALLRATS and now CHASING AMY
and if becoming an auteur who deals with obsessions about comic books, urban-myths and sexual hijinx isn't enough, he's co-written the script for the new SUPERMAN movie starring Nicolas Cage and directed by tim Burton. He compares notes with Gareth Gorman.
It seems an obsession with superheroes and just what their reproductive organs can do or deal with has paid off big time for Kevin Smith, let's talk kryptonically for a moment.
"I was the man for a while, it's now been handed onto the next guy," he says. "Ironically enough, it came out of CHASING AMY. Some of the executives at Warner Brothers read the script and liked it and that's how I got involved. It was a kick to be involved as I've always been a comic hero fan, but like everything else when you get to a certain point the novelty and the fascination wears off and some days it was like if I hear the word Krypton one more fucking time..."
I take it that as far as your part of the script goes Lois will not be having Superman's baby (check MALLRATS for hilarious diagnosis of sex between superheroes and mere mortals.)
"Exactly. I didn't really get into any of that stuff though. It's pretty much a serious treatment. It's got its light moments but I couldn't get into my superhero anatomy stuff."
Kevin Smith's favourite comic book is SWAMP THING and he believes the worst treatment of a comic book hero on film is the latest BATMAN AND ROBIN flick. But surely it's better than BATMAN FOREVER?
"You're talking about the lesser of two evils. They're both pretty bad."
URBAN MYTH COWBOY
Kevin Smith is more than a director who has an obsession with comic books. He also has an obsession with Urban Myths, which he injects and utilises within his films to great effect.
"Yeah, I'm a big fan of such things," he tells X-PRESS MAGAZINE. "I grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey so the Suburban Myth is a big thing for me. I've adopted a lot of them, the most outrageous one I've heard and only touched on is the Cookie-puss one. It's about a girl who inserts a cookie into her nether-regions and a dog eats it out."
Is that the one where a whole heap of people are planning a surprise party and therefore surprise her in a big way.
"The one where I've heard that, involves the smearing of peanut butter, everyone yells SURPRISE and Yes, there's the dog getting it's dinner. Hmm we'd better stop it there before we get on to the bride and groom truth confessions in front of their respected families."
ME AND THE MISSES JONES
CLERKS, MALLRATS and CHASING AMY form some part of a weird trilogy linked my the intellectual and adventurous Jones sisters, one of whom features prominently in each piece. They are also linked by Jay and Silent Bob, who in CHASING AMY are now comic book icons.
"It just occured to me while I was writing it that there was quite a cult following for them and I just took the playing of MALLRATS versions to the illogical nth degree and turned them into these stoner super-heroes that even they don't respect. In the next film I'm doing they go on a KUNG-FU-ish Road Movie quest for their form of truth."
THIS IS ONE SMART, DUMB MOVIE
MALLRATS was generally berated while the other two were reverentially and artistically hailed. Does Kevin hold a theory on this strange set of circumstances?
"I think what it was - was that people expected CLERKS again or something at least in the style of CLERKS. I think if I had done MALLRATS first, it would have been a completely different story. It would have been, 'Wow, this is one smart dumb movie.' But because CLERKS had came before it, they wanted more of that. CLERKS has a lot of jokes and all that, but there's something going on beneath the surface whereas MALLRATS there's nothing going on beneath the surface."
But surely that's indicative of what hanging out in a Mall is all about. It is all superficiality.
"Exactly. It's just an innocuous way to kill time. It always bothered me that some people were so offended. It was like, 'Can't I just make a film - it doesn't have to say something socially relevant.' For me it was about trying to revive the genre of the 80's, but maybe sometimes dead is better."
EWOK ADVENTURE
Strangely enough, the Smith trilogy also has some connections to the trilogy planned by Lucas. A character named Hopper (sic) who makes his name by making stand up for your rights brother comics gives an interesting theory on racial undertones apparent in the STAR WARS trilogy.
"i'd heard a story that George Lucas has made the character Lando Calrissian black because of the heat he'd gotten for STAR WARS. Some people were going, What? There's no black people in space? Because of that he made Lando's character black. I found that really funny that people would even notice that and then get angry about it. But at the same time it definately is something to think about, so I just played with that and you get the whole Darth Vader tie-in.
What about the 20 years ago today STAR WARS hoopla we've been expeiriencing this year. Good or bad?
"I think it's great if you're a fan, also it's disappointing when a movie that was out twenty years ago is one of the highest box-office grossers of this year. It doesn't say much for the current state of the industry. At the same time any STAR WARS movie is better than none. And as we wait for Mr. Lucas to finish up the new one, we may as well watch the old one. EMPIRE, I still think is flawless, with STAR WARS I found it a tough sit: Are they still on Tatooine?
Ewen McGregor (Trainspotting etc) gets the thumbs up as young Ob--Wan Kenobi.
"Oh yeah, he's a tremendous actor. I think that's inspired casting. I do wonder about Natalie Portman playing Princess Leia's mum, yet Princess Leia's dad, Anakin Skywalker is played by an eight year old. So suddenly there's a huge disparity in their ages that I find a little unsettling."
THE MALE ACHILLES HEEL
CHASING AMY's title comes from Silent Bob's speech about the love that got away. Famous comic book author Stan Lee also delivers a monologue on a similar topic in MALLRATS. Obviously another case of fascination.
"It does fascinate me. It's just that romantic notion of not being able to be with the one you love. I'm a melodramatic fool at heart and it usually works it's way into my movies. CHASING AMY is a complete embrace of that melodrama which was always bubbling beneath the surface of CLERKS and MALLRATS. I definately have an expierience of that to a degree myself, so it works it's way into the movie. People are so busy moving forward, they should take time to look back on just what it is they've done, that puts them or gets them to where they are at a certain point in time."
Anther pertinent point of CHASING AMY is it's central protagonist, Holden, who can't come to grips with the fact that his love interest, Alyssa, has led a more exciting life and expierienced more sexually than he ever will. When he starts hearing stories about her past he loses it badly. It's a classic showcasing of how insular and insecure the male species can be.
"Absolutely. It's the male Achilles heel. I can speak from expierience on the point and there's no way around it, unfortunately."
He also fails to realise she's extremely content with him.
"To some degree it is because she has been around and done so much that she can find comfort with an otherwise boring guy. Holden's no one's answer to excitement, but she's seen a lot and somehow he fulfills an empty need for her and it's possibly even that opposites attract theory. He is the guy who has lived his entire life on one block in one town and she finds that somehow comforting."
Was his suggestion of some Menage action between them and his best freind, banky, the ultimate dumbest, most outrageous idea for him to come up with to solve things?
"Absolutely. It's one of those traits of the male animal to come up with what seems to him a logical solution to a problem but in reality is so stupid. Holden's there thinking, 'yes, I'll watch my friend fuck my girlfriend and it will all be better.' Wake up."
*Thats it. Hope you liked it. Sorry about the typos
love Ford