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Photos
By Joe Bondi
On
June 16th Lloyd Kaufman made a return visit to Pittsburgh
and I
had the pleasure of interviewing him once again at a undisclosed
location.
Here is that interview- Troma revisited!
1. Why did you decide to write "Make Your Own Damn Movie"?
After the first book "All I Need To Know About Filmmaking I Learned From The Toxic Avenger", which you were gracious enough to promote. Thank you very much. When I was on the book tour many of the fans were asking questions that I didn't address in the first book. I managed to write the first book without any useful information so the questions that came out of the book tour for the first book suddenly hit me well maybe I wrote the wrong book. The second book I decided we'll make that kind of a guerrilla textbook. So the first book "All I Need to Know About Filmmaking" will be the inspirational kind of story about Troma, the theory of Troma and a bit of our aesthetics and the theory of Independent Cinema as we know it at Troma. Then the second book "Make Your Own Damn Movie" would be kind of a guerrilla textbook so people who read the first book would have useful information from which to glean pertinent guideposts toward making their own damn movies. I don't know if you can glean side posts I think I mixed some metaphors there. Bad usage.
2. Who is your favorite character you created and why?
Well I would've liked to have created Larry (Silvio, son of director David Silvio of Kiss of Death Productions.) but I didn't so instead of Larry I guess the Toxic Avenger. Although I heard that Larry carries a mop. I heard he chases the boys in the neighborhood with a mop..the big bully. Yeah..Any rate I think Toxie is probably my favorite character that I created. My wife and I created some children but she gets the most credit for that. I guess out of the one's I'm responsible for Toxie. My wife suggests that there's a lot of, you know if you look at the four movies, you'll see a lot of me in Toxie.
3. Any new upcoming projects?
Troma has two, well first of all we have a couple of new movies coming out on dvd that might be interesting. One is "All the Love You Cannes" it's the Cannes Film Festival. It's a very interesting movie about how Troma goes to the Cannes Film Festival. Anyone who is a movie fan or anyone who is interested in the Cannes Film Festival or anybody who is interested in making or distributing movies should see "All the Love You Cannes". It's a chronicle of how the independent can go to a giant commercial film festival like the Cannes Film Festival and license movies there and promote oneself. The Troma team does it and also manages to punch each other and get drunk and have lots of naked people. In addition to "All the Love You Cannes" there is the movie "Jefftown". "Jeff Towne" is a very good, another in the same way"All the Love You Cannes" is a wonderful reality movie. "Jeff Towne" is a guy. He's a retard and he well actually technically he would be. He really isn't and he lives a pretty normal life. I don't know normal but he's not, he doesn't go through life being a victim. You know he's out there drinking beer and bowling, porno and he goes to meet William Shatner and he's got a girlfriend. It's a very interesting again reality.
It's a documentary called "Jeff Towne" and the central character is Jeff Towne who's a very very interesting, how do we say it? Whatever the politically correct word is for retard? It's a great great movie and it's wonderful mainly because Jeff Towne is a wonderful guy and the people around him, he's got some wonderful friends. There's a female friend of his who is just inspiring. It's a great movie, it's funny. It's terrific because it doesn't take the usual public MPR PBS the usual politically correct way to handle the mentally ill or the challenged or whatever they want to call them. They 're always victims and they always beat them up to be and force them into the victim role and they can't do anything with their lives because they are required to behave that way. That's how they're supposed to behave. This guy he's got a problem but he's living his life. He's having a great time including women, beer and porno. I don't know what more there is to life anyway whether you are retarded or not. So it's a great movie "Jeff Towne" and since reality seems to be the great new trend and since a lot of those people I've seen on television on those reality shows seem to be retarded anyway I think "Jeff Towne" will be far above anything you've seen on reality t.v. I don't think guy really is retarded I just think he's fucked up a bit. Mongoloid, mongoloid is what I think he is.
4. How was the Cannes Film Festival this year?
Cannes was okay. I think the selection was better than usual in terms of playing genuinely independent movies. The kind of movies the festival should be promoting. They had Lars Von Trers movie. They had Sodaberg's movie. They had the one by Gus Van Zant. They seemed to have you know better than usual line up. They had the guy from Canada Denise Arcane something barbarian, The Outlaw Barbarians. Very good movie. A French guy named Bertrand Bellia. His film the Cutlets. So in that regard I think Cannes maybe pretty cool. But it's getting snottier and snottier and more and more less interested in the younger independents. It's all about money now. There's an awful lot of the money, money, money everything. Anyway they can squeeze money out of people. So a lot of the fun of Cannes is gone and there a lot of people didn't go this year too. It was definitely not as crowded as it usually is. So I think the festival is losing a lot of the customary fans but who knows. We'll see what happens.
5. What are some of your hobbies besides movies?
That's it. That's about it. Masturbation..Movies is about it really. I'm kinda interested in China because I majored in Chinese studies. I don't really do much else but movies, you know the sorta things that deal with movies. I guess my family but that's not really a hobby. I don't think so.
6. What do you think has been the secret to your marriage?
My wife is a saint. Basically she puts up with a lot of Tromatic behavior. If you see "All the Love You Cannes". If you see that movie you'll see what she has to put up with. She's very, In spite of that, she's been able to have her own career which is a very important career. I have to respect that. You know we just got lucky. We got very lucky and we happened to match, which is extremely fortunate. Just luck, blind luck. She is a very very very fair, open-minded and extremely intelligent person. Except for marrying me, that was the only non-intelligent thing she did. Other than that she's amazing.
7. Would you let your children become more involved in your movies in the future?
They can do whatever they want. I don't care as long as they don't, I wouldn't let them see it. I wouldn't let them see our movies. I mean I again that's I don't make these decisions, my wife does. But I agree with them. We didn't think they ought to be looking at these movies until they are in their mid-teens. If they want to go into this. I don't think any of them really does. I think they see how difficult it is and they see that I'm driven by...That the only reason I take all the horrible punishment that goes along with being a filmmaker is because I'm a movie nut. I'm totally totally consumed by the art of movies and I don't think they are. So I don't think they would be too interested in being an independent filmmaker but who knows? One of them is 15 and one is 17 so you never know. I have three girls, the other one is a lost cause. She's 22 and she's working on Wall Street. She's never gonna work for Troma. No way. Not a chance. Actually I wouldn't recommend it either unless you just absolutely love movies. They are right to do what they want to do and just go about their business. Whatever they want to do.
8. What's your favorite convention to go to?
Favorite convention? I don't know. I think the Cannes Film Festival is a convention and uh it's probably my favorite just because there is such a mixture of different types of people. The very rich, the very poor, the establishment, the underground media, the fanzines, the mainstream obnoxious studio big shots, the people the snobs who are just snobs and have nothing to offer, the snobs who have something to offer, and then the real people and all these wonderful independent filmmakers go there. Not just filmmakers but actors and writers. It's just a great soup of different extremes and they are all there. I find it rather inspiring. i usually tend to have a creative burst after Cannes. Usually it has a good effect on me even though I may not have such a good time there. I don't enjoy it so much cause we're there...the main purpose of Troma going to Cannes Film Festival is to license our movies to international distribution companies. We're there to make money. So there's a lot of pressure being there. It's extremely expensive, if you look at the movies "All the Love You Cannes" you'll see we have to spend a lot of money to go there. Nothing compared to what the big boys spend but still for us a huge budget. So we have to bring back deals. In spite of all that it's still pretty crazy atmosphere and I find it rather stimulating.
© 2011 Ariann Boisvert
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