John
Cameron Mitchell is talking his first experience of Bond
films:
“At the Benedictine Boarding School in Scotland, people
talked about Diamonds are Forever like: ‘in the titles,
there’s a diamond in that girl’s pussy!’ I
loved them instantly. They seemed so naughty back then.”
Cinematic naughtiness is something
Mitchell knows all about, judging by his second feature-length
release, Shortbus. Coming five years after fellow genre-defeating
debut Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Mitchell’s latest contains a DIY blow
job, S&M and an impromptu ejaculation over a Jackson
Pollock reproduction. And that’s just the first scene.
Sex, sex and more sex. And some sex.
So where does this interest in that
most instinctive of human actions hail from? Mitchell links
it back to what he calls an "erotophobic" upbringing, recalling how
he was "brought up in a strict Catholic/military environment
where sex was the scariest thing imaginable". He smiles
for a second. "Which of course made it fascinating."
That closeted younsgter has now morphed
into a pensive, witty and deeply engaging 43-year-old who
has come to regard sex as "the nerve endings of people's lives".
Openly both a homosexual and a visitor to Gertrude Stein-esque
salons like the one depicted in Shortbus, Mitchell is bemused
that intercourse assumes, as he sees it, such a negative
connotation in both cinema and modern life.
"Sex is always tied solely to trauma," he rails. "It’s
almost seen as a cliché, just not worth it. And you
know, it isn’t only tied to trauma! Like in Shortbus,
sex is not the problem. The characters don’t shy away
from it." Emboldened, Mitchell decided to create something
different: "an emotionally-challenging comedy that would
be sexually frank, thought-provoking and, if possible, funny."
Coming up from behind?
Indeed sex was an unavoidable theme in Mitchell's first
effort. In that film the director himself acted the role
of Hedwig, the eclectic victim of a bungled sex-change operation.
Yet in Shortbus, despite setting the film in his home of
New York City, again writing the script and discussing themes
much more relevant to his personal life, Mitchell the actor
is conspicuous by his absence.
Why is that? "I hadn't enjoyed my time being actor
(off and on for five years)," he admits. "Acting
is about instant gratification, being the first to be liked.
But I got bored speaking words I didn’t believe and
now I like myself more." In fact, Mitchell explains,
this actorly retirement seems likely to be permanent: "Any
writing that I come to consider now (as an actor) really
has to blow me away."
For all his on-screen ennui, Mitchell
is going along pretty nicely as a director. On the back
of a host of gushing reviews, Hedwig & the Angry Inch
won a host of awards, nominations and official selections.
Shortbus hasn't started life too poorly either: to date
the film has been invited to the London Film Festival and
gained critical applaud from Close Up Film!
Yet Mitchell is less and less entranced
by accolades. "For
Hedwig, winning awards was very gratifying," he says
wearily, "but with Shortbus it doesn’t matter
so much, because I‘ve been there now - I don't feel
the horse-race need this time. Awards only require box office
figures; they don't necessarily go to the best films."
Is this simply a modish attempt at
sullen cool, or does this director really dislike glittering
prize nights? "Actually
the Golden Globe nomination ceremony was kinda a hoot," he
laughs, perking up. "Meeting Helen Mirren in an elevator
with David Hasselhoff, bad boys smoking out the back like
it’s a fucking prom, me wondering what the hell is
going on..."
A buff revealed
Despite such fun-filled memories, Mitchell retains a natural
suspicion of audience ratings, reviews and, especially, wary
backers understandably made cautious by pornographic levels
of explicit content. But these annoyances do not remotely
detract from a boyish enthusiasm for films splayed far and
wide across the cinematic spectrum. Ask him his favourite
film and you'd better be prepared to listen.
"I think maybe it's A Woman Under The Influence by
(John) Cassavetes." I try to ask why, but Mitchell continues
breathlessly. "What else? Iquru by Kuwosawa, Nights
of Cabiria by Fellini (probably his best film)... Oh, what
about Lumet? He was always so willing to try a different
genre - look at Murder on the Orient Express and Dog Day
Afternoon! Oh and I like Finding Nemo a lot. I fucking love
Mary Poppins. I like a lot of children’s films actually:
Bedknobs & Broomsticks, Oliver! the musical..."
Eventually, as suffocation threatens,
I manage to butt in, and quiz Mitchell on where the inspiration
for Shortbus could possibly have been drawn from? He muses
for a second, then reveals: "Altman's Nashville was
very influential - in some ways it has helped get Shortbus
get accepted, by erecting a very specific demi-monde for
the nation. Both films are into mixing elements - music
in Nashville, sex in Shortbus."
Mitchell also mimicked what he calls "the disparate
techniques" of Altman, Cassevetes and Mike Leigh. For
Shortbus, the script and characters were developed by director
and actors in a workshop-style format: after assembling his
cast and deciding to base his film around a typically polysexual
underground salon, Mitchell collated character suggestions
that had arisen in the auditions and set to work on a plot.
"The actors were, in effect, generating the character
and their struggles," he recalls. "I used this
information to develop the story and explore themes into
a traditional script. That became our structure: we'd workshop/rehearse
for a few weeks, then I'd work on the script for a few months,
then back to workshop." Awaiting finance, this process
lasted for an incredible two years. Mitchell didn't mind: "No
script ever suffered from time taken..."
New York but where next?
As crucial to the film's evolution
as this improv was the setting itself: Mitchell's beloved
New York City. Doing his best Lonely Planet impression,
he advises me: "Come
to New York to be shaken up by life, to be fucked, to be
forgiven from sins real or imagined. Some people are destroyed
by NYC, others are made better than ever. It has the most
interesting people on the planet. To find them, you just
have to sift a little further along the Metro."
Mitchell is fairly fond of London
too. Having begun his career as a playwright and enjoyed
Broadway success, he is keen to return to the West End. "I acted in a play in
London years ago," he discloses. "A newly-discovered
Jean Genet play that probably should’ve remained in
the drawer. I would love to direct there though - I think
London is the most interesting theatre town in the world,
the capital of theatre."
Could Mitchell's next career step
be on the boards of a London stage? It's hard to know;
when quizzed about forthcoming projects, he seems genuinely
unsure. "Something called
Oskur Fishman might be my next film, but I'm also I am making
an animated film." He stops. "Then again I might
just toss it off and make a novel, do something cheap…"
As with both Shortbus and his irresisitible style of converting
rangy thoughts into languid, fun-filled speech, Mitchell
seems lovingly adhered to a world of improv, of making it
up as he goes along while keeping his interests prioritised
and having a blast. One thing is certain though: the man
is sexually fixated on Bond films. Just ask him for his favourite
007 actor thus far.
"Roger Moore - I thought he was
very dry. And I liked his feminine attitude. And you know,
best of all, there was something slightly gay about him.
Just watch Moonraker..."
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