Terminal Scum Explosion

BRAINTRUSTdv interviews Jon Moritsugu

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The anti-illustrious career of Jon Moritsugu arguably began when the Village Voice deemed his 23-minute film "Der Elvis" one of the fifty best films of the 1980s. Since then Moritsugu has worked to redefine the title "independent filmmaker." Moritsugu's most recent movie, Scumrock, made on analog Hi8 video, was awarded Best Film at the Chicago Underground Film Festival and the New York Underground Film Festival. It will be available at GreenCine (DVD and VoD) later this month. Moritsugu's oeuvre will be the subject of a retrospective at the Lausanne Underground Film Festival in Lausanne, Switzerland, October 12 through 16.

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BRAINTRUSTdv: Critics and audiences like to categorize filmmakers, especially those filmmakers who are most difficult to categorize. You've been associated with the Underground and the Cinema of Transgression. How do you feel about such labels being applied to your work?

Jon Moritsugu: Yeah, though I got my start categorized as one of those trangressive NYC folks—Richard Kern, Nick Zedd, Ela Troyano, Tessa Hughes-Freeland, etc.—I feel that my work defies this categorization and is actually more faceted. I've screened my flicks in so many different contexts, situations, types of venues and also been labeled as Independent, Hollywood, Art House, Asian-American, Sell-Out, Staunchly D.I.Y., Straight, Gay, Punk Rock, Low-Budget, Fine Art, Semiotic, Theoretical, Feminist, Naïve, blah, blah, blah. Labels definitely can be misleading, hypocritical and totally contradictory.


BTdv: Have any of these labels ever shaped the way you made your subsequent movies? Did you ever rebel against these descriptions in the work itself?

		JM: I've never made a movie purely as a reaction to labeling, but it has definitely had an effect—even if somewhat oblique—on the actual flicks. Par example, for years people were criticizing my work because of its "lack of Asian/Asian-American content." When I finally tackled this subject matter, I created Terminal USA, a work which rather aggressively pushes "Orientalism" and Orientals into your face. Suddenly I was deemed too radically Asian. Too Yellow Revolutionary. BTdv: In Mod Fuck Explosion, too, there's ironic text about "Orientals" flashing onscreen. In this way your work seems more loosely Asian-American than specifically Japanese-American. Caveh Zahedi has mentioned that he feels genetically predisposed to make
	Jon Moritsugu and Amy Davis in Terminal USA (1993)

films which reflect the aesthetic concerns of Persian filmmakers such as Makhmalbaf and Kiarostami, though he was brought up in the U.S. and is culturally American and didn't see any Iranian films until his career was well underway. Do you ever feel cinematically Japanese, so to speak—as if it's in your genes?

JM: Gosh, no, not really. I feel more in tune with the American and European traditions of indie filmmakers, even though I do like Japanese film. I grew up very Western/American— you know, going to private school, playing water polo, then later hanging out in the punk, underground and artsy scenes—and this has affected my attitude, world view, and filmmaking. I definitely feel more kinship with this type of stuff than with samurais, tea ceremonies and the rice harvest.


BTdv: Speaking of European influences, some of the techniques in your movies inevitably echo Godard: the text flashing onscreen to reinforce a line of dialogue, the uncomfortable editing rhythms and visual non-sequiturs.

JM: Godard is definitely an influence. I love Masculin/Feminin and Weekend and was inspired early on by the art-punk attitude of the French New Wave. Other avant-garde/experimental filmmakers who I consider totally noteworthy: Andy Warhol, Kenneth Anger, Chris Marker, and—what the heck, their work was weird, too—Fassbinder and Lina Wertmuller.


BTdv: In Terminal USA, which you made for PBS in 1993, you chose to censor random dialogue and digitally obfuscate portions of the image which were, at worst, commonplace.

JM: Yeah, I took self-censorship to an extreme in Terminal USA to make "my statement" as an artist.


BTdv: How did you feel as a renegade independent filmmaker working in the conformist medium of television?

JM: It was definitely a hard project to do. I was coming from a complete low-budget scumbag tradition of 16mm production—my two previous feature films cost $5,000 and $12,000 to complete—and suddenly I was given $360,000 to make a TV show. Yes, we were naive, idealistic, and then we went totally nuts. After completing this I had to more or less return to my roots for my next flick, Fame Whore, almost as a form of therapy.


BTdv: Filmforum Los Angeles has represented you as "one of the only true American independent filmmakers. Unwilling to sell out, [Moritsugu] has frequently expressed disgust for the state of filmmaking in general—both industrial and non-industrial...." What disgusts you?

JM: I am disgusted by films that lack a "vision"—a cohesive or strong "attitude" or maybe what you would call "voice." It seems like many industry films are made to satisfy the public's or advertiser's wants and needs rather than taking a specific artistic stance while retaining an original voice.


BTdv: As far as non-industry movies are concerned, do you think affordable digital video technology is helping or hurting?

JM: I feel that DV has definitely created a whole new mode of filmmaking (low-budget, self-financed, independently produced) that has allowed works following a vision to exist. Of course, there are also a lot of DV filmmakers who are using the medium to replicate the mainstream models.


BTdv: You've said, "One of the problems I see with DV filmmakers is that they use the electronic technology to try to make it look like film...I've been trying to exploit the intrinsic properties of video for their own ends." You also claimed to be "dragging video into the gutter," implying, by contrast, that video has succeeded on some level, has acquired polish and respectability. Can you explain how re-introducing video to the gutter, where it has already spent much of its life, is beneficial or instructive?

JM: The gutter is liberating! The gutter is freedom! The gutter is poetry! I think it is all a matter of pushing the boundaries and showing the diversity of the image. A corroded and decomposed and grained-out image can be as beautiful as something that is sharply in focus and of "higher" technical standards. Neither image should represent the way things have to be done.


BTdv: You've referred to digital technology as "cold."

JM: I still feel that digital can be a very cold technology. Compare the warm sound of a vinyl LP to the more trebly, less round sound of the same recording on a CD. The difference is there. Of course, digital footage can be treated to look warm and film-like, etc. But I am still in love with and hung up on the analog—tape hiss, record scratches, loss of clarity. But I also love Pro Tools, digital editing, etc. I just don't think that analog has to necessarily be considered a handicap. Digital rocks, analog rocks, they are just very different.


BTdv: And you've said you don't want to see anything polished in independent films, since you can see that on TV.

JM: I actually think the low-fi, un-slick look [of television] (i.e., Reality TV, non-actors, home-movie-style footage) has positively impacted the visual schema of the cinema. It's opened the audience's minds to the whole idea of content superseding aesthetics. Very nifty indeed.


BTdv: Your loyalty to low-tech is also apparent in the ever-present music in your work. The catchy theme songs which play over your opening credits give each movie the incongruous texture of a sitcom—or maybe a Saturday morning cartoon. Why is music so pervasive in your work?

JM: Just the same way a good tune in your head or headphones can make a car ride, a walk to the corner store, a boring moment totally cool, I feel that a tune can totally inform a scene in a movie, or even an entire movie. I've always thought that filmmaking was fifty percent about creating images and fifty percent about creating soundtracks. So I decided in my first movies to fill the soundtracks with music I liked—noise, hardcore and punk, underground stuff. Plus my early movies were non-sync (shot on 16mm reversal stock with hand-wind Bolex cameras), which really forced me to figure out a way to create a soundtrack without using very much live dialogue. So I employed voice-overs, on-screen text, as well as lots of music. Very simple solution to lack-of-equipment issues.


BTdv: How have you managed to get so many bands to contribute to your movies?

JM: I've made it a point to really highlight the music I use in my movies—you know, give the bands a star billing, instead of just the actors. I also like to release soundtrack albums. All of this definitely makes it easier to enlist the help of musical allies.


BTdv: In the late eighties you came into some production funds through a fairly unique experience.

JM: In 1988, I got into an extreme industrial accident where my right arm was pulled into some heavy machinery—job at a delivery company—and smushed. I actually am really fortunate to still have the arm, as the accident was heavy. But I did get some settlement money which I put into financing some flicks and getting my small production company started.


BTdv: Do you still have the X-ray of your mangled right arm displayed in a back-lit case in your living room?

JM: I have finally retired the X-rays to the closet.


BTdv: It's unusual that a thorough maverick such as yourself would keep close ties with academia. Not only did you attend Brown, but you later taught at UC Berkeley, the University of Hawaii, and San Francisco State. And your students have described you as a very encouraging teacher.

JM: At Brown University—home of semiotics, Marxist theory, etc.—I had a really cool film instructor, Leslie Thornton, who inspired me to "go for it" and pour my heart and soul into filmmaking. I've always thought it would be fun to inspire/infect learning minds with my ideas.


BTdv: Do you see any value in traditional film theory?

JM: I think traditional film theory is somewhat important—sort of like knowing about grammar if you want to speak a language—but ultimately not totally necessary.


BTdv: Do you think it's better for a filmmaker to figure things out on his own or to develop under the tutelage of a mentor?

JM: You can really learn a lot just by doing and absorbing what's out there. Actually, more than teaching any technical or theoretical notions, I try to encourage my students to have confidence in themselves and their art-making with an unwavering idealism.


BTdv: You made Scumrock, your most recent feature, on analog Hi8 video. Your six preceding films, dating back to 1987, were made on 16mm. Why the change of medium?

JM: I used analog Hi8 because I think the footage looks amazing—sort of like Technicolor and Super-8 combined—and it was also within the project's budget. Our camera cost $300 brand new, whereas DV cameras were running in the four- to five-thousand-dollar range at the time. I decided to embrace the budgetary limitations of the project and create a flick using "trailing-edge technology" and all the detritus from our quickly accelerating technological culture. BTdv: Earlier you said "the gutter is liberating." For years the gutter was inhabited by 16mm. Now DV has moved in. Do you think low-budget 16mm filmmaking will survive the ever-
			An aspiring filmmaker (Kyp Malone) contemplates a Bolex in Scumrock (2003)

increasing onslaught of digital image-making technologies?

JM: I think that at a certain point of the past, 16mm was a liberating format. It was a lot cheaper and more portable than 35mm and was embraced by the non-industry—students, documentarians, indie and art cinema. I see a similar thing happening with DV, a similar sort of liberation. I think there will always be purists and others who choose to shoot on 16mm. I don't think it will totally disappear. Vinyl LPs still exist and there has been an actual resurgence in the DJ and record culture, but I remember in the late eighties, when CDs were introduced, that people were predicting the complete demise of records.


BTdv: You actually managed to self-distribute your 16mm work with some success. Is it becoming more difficult to market 16mm prints?

JM: Sixteen millimeter has become an increasingly difficult medium to distribute—very few people and theaters with the equipment, decreasing theatrical audience, lots of expense and overhead. A lot of action now seems to be with DVDs. The public seems more inclined to spend twenty dollars on a movie they can own on DVD than spending twenty dollars to see a movie (ten dollars for the movie plus ten dollars for extra fees like parking and popcorn) as a "one time experience."


BTdv: With technology such as Video-on-Demand, distribution isn't the self-induced headache it once was. In fact, all of your movies are available on demand at GreenCine. But are you comfortable with people watching movies on a computer screen?

JM: I have no problem with people checking out my work on the computer screen. I do prefer the work projected as film, but then again I've also witnessed a lot of bad film projection—out of focus, no sound, upside-down, burned images, equipment breaking down in the middle of the movie, bulbs burning out—not to mention people with big hair in front of you, fights, vomiting, etc.


BTdv: How have you gone about distributing your work on DVD? The same D.I.Y. gusto you relied on when distributing 16mm prints?

JM: I am pursuing it with the same gusto as 16mm distribution, but I'm also trying to enlist the help of as many distributors, sub-distributors, Web sites, stores, etc., as possible. It's a big, wacky world full of DVDs.


BTdv: It's been a while since Scumrock. Are you working on anything at the moment?

JM: I have a completed script for a feature I want to shoot in Honolulu. It's a big movie, so I am looking for the moolah.


BTdv: What sort of technology are you drawn toward these days?

JM: I'd love to shoot it on 35mm but I am also intrigued by HD.


BTdv: No matter how far-fetched, tell us what you see as the ultimate long-term goal for digital video technology in terms of production, distribution, exhibition, and public reception.

JM: I think the ultimate long-term goal for digital video technology is for it to really be accepted as a legitimate format for "moviemaking." Though there are a lot of noteworthy DV projects and features, it seems that people are still reluctant to accept it as a mode of legitimate "moviemaking." It seems that DV has more readily been accepted as a format for documenting and for the capturing of some sort of "reality." Rather than being considered something wholly apart from film, I hope that sometime soon DV becomes widely accepted as a practical format—punk? utilitarian?—from which to create lasting works of cinematic art.