I had a cyclical Glover weekend beginning with Beowulf on opening night and concluding with a screening of Crispin Hellion Glover’s newest film It is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE. EVERYTHING IS FINE. is about a man with Cerebral Palsy who is confined to a wheelchair and is almost completely unintelligible.  He has a long hair fetish and is irresistible to women, but his romantic encounters begin his murderous rampage.

I met up with Crispin at the café at the IFC Waverly Theatre in New York and watched the new film, which opens this week, on his laptop. The café was dimly lit with a few accent light sconces and there was an Eraserhead poster in a reflection in the window. I suppose it was the perfect ambiance for this latest installment of the It Trilogy. Afterwards I was able to speak with Crispin for awhile about the film.

 Alyson: So, how long exactly have you been working on this film?  It’s been years. . .

 Crispin: Yeah, it’s the sequel to What is it? and Steven C. Stewart is in that film as well.  From the first day of shooting What is it?, which originally was made to be a short film to promote another screenplay which will end up being part three, which is called It is Mine --  from the first day of shooting to the 35mm print of What is it? took 9 ½ years. This film [EVERYTHING IS FINE.] was originally shot in the year 2000, the end of 2000 and beginning of 2001, and I had completed the editing of What is it? at that point, but was still really in the major portion of the problem of What is it? which was a technical problem. That was the thing that really made both of these film take the longest. And I had to finish What is it? before completing this film. Really, to get both of the films to a 35mm print took 12 years. I’d originally read Steve’s script for this in 1986, so really it was about 20 years ago or more that I first read it and Steve probably wrote it, or started it, in the late 70s.

 AC: This really seems like a film that wouldn’t have been made by anybody else.

 CG: Yeah, it’s a funny thing because, this story also – What is it? has a long story behind it, but so does It is Fine!. I try to think about what the best way to go into all the stories is, but I’ll start with What is it? since that’s part one of the trilogy. Before that started getting made there were two writers that approached me from Arizona, this was about 1996, to act in a movie that they had written and they made an offer to my agent which they shouldn’t have done because they didn’t have the money to make the film, but it did get me to read the screenplay. And I read it and there were interesting things about it, but there were things that really didn’t seem to work as well. And it was right around the time I felt that the next first time director that I worked with would be myself and I stuck with that. And I told them I would be interested in acting in the film if I changed some things in the screenplay and there was one major thing that I wanted to do. So they came out and met with me, and there were other things as well.  The most important thing was that I wanted to have most of the characters in the film to be played by actors with Down Syndrome and they were fine with that concept, so I set about to rewriting the screenplay, and then David Lynch agreed to executive produce the film for me to direct.

 So I went and met and one of the larger corporate entities to get funding for the film and they were interested and they had a number of named actors that were interested in being in it and after a number of discussions it was decided that they were concerned with funding a film where the majority of the characters were played by actors with Down Syndrome. So, it made sense for me to write a screenplay for a short film that would promote a concept of a majority of the characters being played with actors with Down Syndrome to be a viable idea.

 So, I wrote What Is It which was originally made to be a short film and we shot that in about four days and when I edited it together in about a six month time period it came out at about 86 minutes, the final film now is about 72 minutes so it’s a lot shorter than what that film was but it became apparent to me that if I put more work into it that I could make it into a full feature film. I knew that the screenplay It is Mine was going to be able to be a sequel.

 I had written What is it? as having all the actors have Down Syndrome, but when I started conceptualizing it as a feature film I would need to put more things in it because there was really not enough depth for it to be a feature. I put myself in it and I started thinking about the screenplay that I had read in 1986 written by Steven C. Stewart and I realized there were certain thematic elements that had similarities. So I decided to put Steve into What is it? and make it as a trilogy of movies.

 As I expanded the film Steve and I kind of play -- the names of our characters are -- Dueling Demi-God Auteurs, and at the end of the movie I’m at the top of this throne and Steve chokes me to death and kills me then he’s at the top of the throne ready to be the auteur of the next story. So really What is it? properly sets up Steve being the next storyteller of the film. It is Mine, when that film is made, I will be in that film as well, so actually will be a sidequel to What is it?, because, of course, I was killed at that end of What is it?.

 Now, one can see EVERYTHING IS FINE. completely separately from the other films. What is it?, as I expanded it and made it into a feature film . . . what the studio was reacting to wasn’t really the viability of working with actors with Down Syndrome it was really more that that in and of itself was a taboo subject matter. People with Down Syndrome were playing characters that did not necessarily have Down Syndrome and I realized that really anything that in the culture was considered taboo, anything that could possibly make an audience member uncomfortable in any way whatsoever in corporately funded and distributed film within the last 30 years, those things either had to be excised or the film would not be corporately funded or distributed.

 And I felt that this is a very damaging thing to the culture because it’s at that moment that an audience member sits back in their chair looks up at the screen and thinks to themselves, “Is this right what I’m watching? Is this wrong what I’m watching? Should the filmmaker have done this? Should I be here? What is it?” And that’s the title of the film. What is it that is taboo in this culture? What does it mean that a taboo has been excised ubiquitously within the last 30 years. And as I say, I think it’s a damaging thing because when these audiences are asking these questions there’s a genuinely educational experience happening and to ubiquitously get rid of this means there are not genuine questions being asked by the most important form of communication in the culture. And it ends up stupefying the culture and of course, that’s a very damaging thing. That’s what What is it? very much deals with, it juxtaposes many taboo elements in such a way that audiences genuinely do have a lot of questions and concerns at the end of the film. And that’s part of why I tour around with it and do a question and answer period at the end of the film.

 EVERYTHIG IS FINE. is different than that it has some taboo subject matter in it, mainly it’s the graphic sexuality that Steve had written so carefully in the film. I have some graphic sexuality in What is it? which entirely involves the Steven C. Stewart character in order to foreshadow this element. But, also, I wanted to get every taboo subject matter out of the way in a certain way in What is it? just to open the doors and say, “ok, we’ve dealt with this lets go not into some serious films that are dealing with things and what difference does it make if it’s dealing in taboo subject matter.” And in particular, I really do feel strongly about this film by Steven C. Stewart.

 What is it? is my psychological reaction to the corporate constraints that have happened in the last 30 years and there’s a certain intellectual removed ness from the characters and it serves a purpose for that particular film and I’m really proud of What is it?. But, when the whole trilogy is done EVERYTHING IS FINE. will be the best film of the trilogy, but not only that I think it will be the best film that I’ll ever have anything to do with in my career. And I think that because it’s a very unusual film in that it’s not something that could be replicated, it had to have to Steven C. Stewart in it because not only does it work on a hero’s journey story structure level, but it’s also a documentation of this particular man, living this fantasy. And you couldn’t just hire another actor that happened to have Cerebral Palsy to play the part because this film is as much about Steven C. Stewart having this particular hair fetish and then truly being involved with it in front of the cameras and living out this thing that he had written.

 That’s why in the year 2000 that when one of his lungs collapsed, it because apparent that if we didn’t shoot something soon that we wouldn’t be able to shoot anything at all, and it was right around the time the first Charlie’s Angels film was coming to me and I realized the money I made from that film I could put straight into making the Steven C. Stewart film and that’s exactly what happened. I shot Charlie’s Angels and went and met with Steve and David Brothers, my co-director. David started building the sets, I went back to LA and acted in a film, an independent film, for about a month, and then went back to salt Lake and we started filming. And over a period of six months with three smaller productions we shot the film and within a month after we finished shooting, Steve died.

 In fact, Steve called us and asked if we had enough footage to continue to make the film without him, and of course it was very sad and difficult day to let him know that yes, we did have enough footage. I had always known how important it was to Steve, but especially after that I realized he’d stayed alive for a long, long time, specifically in order to get the movie made. He’d write emails and things to me asking when things were happening. I had contemplated about what I would think when he died and I kind of felt -- cause I knew it [Steven’s death] was possible, and part of why we were making it before we finished What is it?. There was a certain communication difficulty, he was difficult to understand and if you listened to him and spent time with him you could understand and and some people understood him quite readily and some didn’t understand him at all. I could understand him sometimes particularly well and sometimes not as well as others. But, I kind of felt -- because there was a difficulty in understanding and it was limited communication -- that when he died that I wouldn’t be so sad. But, on the day when that happened I realized how much influence this person had on my life, a positive influence.

 My whole way of working now, how I decide to make movies, is specifically for funding films -- I act in films specifically to fund the films that I am so passionate about. Charlie’s Angels was the first film I chose to do specifically for that reason, and it ended up being a good thing, it was good for my career, the film did really well, I ended up liking the role that I had in it. Then films like Willard and Beowulf, that’s coming out this weekend, all of these things have ended up being very helpful and a positive thing for me. So, he affected my life in a very positive fashion. David and I joked about it when we opened the film in Sundance, that Steve made us make this film. You don’t think of him as being a powerful person in a way, when you look at him. There was something and it wasn’t just me and it wasn’t just David there were a lot of people that ended up doing something about it. I would have genuinely felt, not just that it was a mistake or something, but I felt like I would have done a bad thing if this film had not been made, so I am quite relieved…quite relieved to have gotten it made now.

 Alyson: Art is supposed to evoke feeling, especially ones we don’t often get to feel from watching a film, like feeling uncomfortable, and that’s something that still doesn’t always get address even in independent film.

 Crispin: Yeah, I hesitate to call independent movies . . . on one hand there is no such thing, even this film What is it?, I self-financed these movies, I edited What is it? myself, I co-edited EVERYTHING IS FINE. . . . I’m very hands on in these films and even that you can’t call independent. Independents are smaller corporations dealing with the same distribution factions that the larger corporations deal with, so they’re not independents.

 Alyson: It was great to see Margit Carstensen again, she’s still so striking.

 Crispin: Yeah, she is.

 Alyson: Was this her first English speaking film?

 Crispin: Well, I don’t think it was her first English speaking film, but it is definitely the first film she has made in the United States. Which I knew to my advantage, because even after all these years after World War II, especially in LA and New York, there’s a certain amount of, really I call it a prejudice, against people who are German. There’s all kinds of great German actors that I can use toward my advantage that have worked with people like Fassbinder that would be interested, intrigued to work in the US. She was just genuinely great to work with.

Alyson: Yeah, she was always so fantastic in all the Fassbinder films.

 Crispin: Yeah, and I asked her what it was like to work with Fassbinder and she said he really didn’t direct her at all. And, I believe her because I’m sure there are certain actors he must have worked with a lot . . . but she, as I was watching her, I felt like I was watching a Fassbinder movie because he knew he could just get a great performance by casting her in the part. She knows what she’s doing.

 Alyson: Now, you’re not going to be releasing your films on DVD, correct?

 Crispin: There are no current plans for something like that. I always need to stress that I’m a target for pirates. I just don’t want people to do that. Part of the reason that I am touring with it and not putting it on DVD and slowly going around with it is that I do need to recoup the monies. And unfortunately because of DVDs at this point there are no small distributors that will solely recoup on theatrical distribution elements and I have far more wherewithal to go through the country over a period of years, maybe a decade, it’s hard to know how long I’ll be touring with my films. I plan to go everywhere I can go. I see people writing things on the web sometime like, “Oh he doesn’t want to come here,” and it’s not that I don’t want to come somewhere, it’s just that I’m trying to make it work organically with my schedule as an actor. It’s very time consuming and I haven’t finished touring with What is it?, it made sense to release EVERYTHING IS FINE. at the same time as Beowulf because I knew the amount of publicity I could get with it.

Alyson: Is it also the experience of the entire show you’ve put together? It seems like the film is meant to be seen in that way and on the big screen.

 Crispin: Yes, yes, particularly the books that I perform, I perform eight different books before the film and it’s an hour long dramatic narration of all the books and they’re heavily illustrated. Then I show the film, then I have a question and answer session, then I have a book signing. So, it’s a long show. The books work particularly well before showing What is it? There are themes and element that work together, but because EVERYTHING IS FINE. is a difficult film to sell, it also makes sense for me to do it with this film as well.

  It is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE. opens at the IFC Waverly Theatre on November 21^st and will be screened nightly until the 27^th . For information on other cities visit www.crispinglover.com.