August 31, 2022 • By Conor Williams
Oh, definitely. I think Jonas Mekas was my first influence. I would get the Village Voice in Baltimore, and I had a subscription when I was really young. His “Movie Journal” column was something that I read all the time. Right before he died, he gave me an original flier for Warhol’s Empire, which he actually shot. We became friends, and he was definitely a giant influence on me. He only liked underground movies.
I don’t think Pink Flamingos has ever played at 10:55 a.m. We just had two sold-out screenings the other night. It was so amazing because the audience was so young. They asked the audience: raise your hand if it’s your first time seeing Pink Flamingos. A large number raised their hands, which is kind of amazing and great. This was the first time where at the meet-and-greet afterwards, there were 20-year-olds asking me to sign Pasolini books.
It was the hardest movie to make. What pros everybody was. They worked 20 hours outside with no heat and no food. Memorizing pages of dialogue without any cuts. Most of my memories are about how hard it was. Even watching it, you see Edith [Massey] sitting in that playpen and you can see her breath because it was so cold out. I remember how brave everybody was to make it. The courage it took to be that crazy. I was trying to make exploitation films for art cinemas. Really, I was trying to make films that would be funny to my friends and the film buffs I knew, so I had to make a movie that seemed like nothing else.
Not really. I had three different sequels to Hairspray which I was paid big Hollywood money to write. One a musical, one a TV show, and one a TV movie. They never got made, and I had a children’s special that was developed a long time ago. But I never talk about something while I’m in the middle of it — otherwise, it aborts. And that’s the only kind of abortion I’m against.
Gratuitous nudity these days … What happened to feminism? When you watch all these awards shows, why are all these women nude? You should make them pay for that, not give it away on the red carpet! Brad Pitt doesn’t show his balls! But maybe he should.
I don’t think anybody copies me, but Harmony Korine, Todd Solondz, Bruno Dumont, Gaspar Noé, I like those kinds of directors. They’re sometimes not funny at all. They’re very serious and eerily melodramatic. I just like movies that surprise me.
I’ve kept that secret for two years. They’ve been going through my film archive at Wesleyan University; they have this huge collection. I didn’t even remember what they had! I found stuff I didn’t even know about. They call all the people that were in the movies and see what collections they have … This has been going on for two years now. It’s a major production. I’m really excited. Over the moon!
I love to go into enemy territory. They treated me fine! It’s show business. I’ve done Fox News before. I don’t agree with a lot of them, but so what? That’s the point. I’m not a separatist. You have to be able to joke with both sides and find new audiences. Otherwise, only people exactly like you will know about your work.
I have also been adopted by the fascist provocateurs who have blended with the verbal revolutionaries […] My chaotic flowing tends to make every face similar […] In fact, a right-wing subculture can easily be confused with a leftist subculture. So I understood that the language of the long hair was no longer expressing “leftist things” but instead something quite equivocal, a Right-Left, that was making the presence of the provocateurs possible.
What’s that mean, like “we’re out to recruit you”? It seems to me that whatever the right wing says today, whenever they go after someone, it only strengthens our cause. Anita Bryant was actually, in the long run, good for gay causes because she made people angry and brought people together to fight bigotry.
I really know how to handwrite. They don’t even teach it in schools anymore. I need to feel the actual writing. My handwriting is very Cy Twombly–ish, but my assistants have learned how to read it. They type it up and then I cut it up again, and then I read it into a tape recorder so they can type it.
Writing for the page, you can go into more details about the characters and what they’re feeling. To me, it was new, but it wasn’t that different, because I’ve written so many movies. I wanted the style to be just like I was sitting down and telling you a story in person. I wanted you to almost hear my voice. And that takes a lot of drafts!
Old Carrot Bottom. Ah, there was a gal. Got the surgery and now she’s the manager of a Trader Joe’s. And Feral Street, God, what a bod, what a rod! Bunch of do-gooders from a group called Baltimore Safe House “rescued” her and helped her start anew, off the streets. Guess where she works now? H&R Block, right up the street. And they know! And don’t care! It’s normal now! What’s the world coming to?!
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