As production on Lily & Kat looms, I found it useful to interview myself while I have the time. When Lily & Kat becomes a raving success I wont be able to get away from those journalists and their questions. This will serve as easy practice. I think it also serves as the first time a filmmaker has done this. Kudos to me for being psychotic.
I will interview myself under the guise of Grover Fleming, a renowned British film critic. He hated Hugo, but thought my film was “the dawn of the nü American new wave that marks the emergence of a new voice for a new generation.”
I’m blushing.
GF: Lily & Kat was delightful. The film left me with such a high. It carries the same spirit of a John Hughes film, mixing romance, drama, comedy, and the coming of age story, but it’s definitely it’s own entity.
MP: Yes, that was the intention. To recreate that dynamic, but in a more atmospheric, less dialogue-driven approach. To play with the clichés and caricatures from a movie like Pretty in Pink and work them into something modern, something new. There are so many terrible movies that try to duplicate the formula, but few that actually alter the elements.
GF: There’s certainly a Wong Kar Wai influence, is there not?
MP: Definitely. I love the way his earlier films like Chungking Express and Fallen Angels were alive with this manic energy. Christopher Doyle’s camerawork really brought those films to life. I thought that it was important for the subject matter, two girls living in this city that is very much alive, to have that same texture.
GF: It works very well. I must say, you make the aesthetic very much your own. To someone who has not seen the film, what would you say it is about?
MP: It’s about the end of friendship. Moving on. The transition from college to the real world. The anxiety. The hopelessness. It’s about jealousy and the momentary disdain for those that are close to you. It’s about rejection and the devastation that follows it. On the other hand, it’s about the bliss of youth and freedom. Living in a city filled with energy. The nightlife. The sights and sounds.
GF: Lily is a very complex character. What would you say is Lily’s flaw?
MP: She resents her loved ones and let’s fear control her, making her cynical and detached. She does this as a result of change.
GF: So the theme here is to not let change destroy you?
MP: Exactly.
GF: Let’s talk about your upbringing. Where did you go to school?
MP: I don’t like to talk about it. I feel like film school was a waste of four years and a lot of money. Everything I learned could’ve come out of a book and my own camera.
GF: You feel film school was completely useless?
MP: I learned a lot, but nothing I couldn’t have found out on my own. I didn’t have the guts to drop out though. I was too concerned with my GPA. I had academic OCD.
GF: Many believe it’s a great way to network.
MP: Not one of my classmates has approached me with interest in working on this. Not one. I guess, they thought I was a snob. I didn’t pretend to like their films. It was bad enough I had to sit through my own terrible movies.
GF: Let’s move on. Who are your inspirations as a filmmaker?
MP: It’s unavoidable, but Sofia Coppola has had a great effect on my sensibility. Her minimalism. She has an amazing feel for emotion and atmosphere through the slightest of effort. I always strive to be simple. What you say as a filmmaker has a greater effect when you’re not bombarded with dialogue.
GF: In other words, it’s about what goes unsaid.
MP. Yes.
GF: Go on.
MP: I also look up to her because of her demeanor as a director. She seems like a shy, inward person, so it’s nice to see another filmmaker like that. 2003 was an awakening for me.
GF: What films?
MP: Kill Bill made me want to be a director. I didn’t have dreams of becoming one until that film. Tarantino’s joy behind the camera was infectious. I didn’t know you could make movies like that. Then Lost in Translation was the most important as I grew older. Something about the emotion it captures. It really resonated with me. I wanted to make films that had that effect on people.
GF: What do you consider your favorite films?
MP: There’s too many… Manhattan, All That Jazz, Alice in the Cities, The Conversation… I like the ’70s. Also, the films of Godard, Truffaut and Rohmer. And Hitchcock.
GF: How did the idea for Lily & Kat come about?
MP: It was a combination of a few ideas. Around December of 2010, I wrote an outline for a story about two couples on a double date that takes place over one night. I knew I had to make a movie about the New York nightlife. That whole scene - the clubs, the bars, and the people - it fascinates me. Maybe because I’m not a part of it… Anyway, Lily and Kat were the two girls, but it really centered on one of the boyfriends. He was secretly in love with Kat, who was also his co-worker. In this story, Kat was also leaving to return home, so this date was her going away party and this character’s last chance to reveal his feelings. In the end, it turns out there’s actual a love “square” going on.
GF: Why did you drop it?
MP: It was too elaborate. It didn’t feel natural for all of these characters to have these hidden romances. I don’t know. Maybe it was a good idea. Maybe it’ll be a future project.
GF: So what led you to Lily & Kat?
MP: It was May and I had just graduated. I was also unemployed. I was feeling a lot of things… I had to write or I would go insane.
GF: What sort of feelings exactly?
MP: Anxiety. I couldn’t wait five to ten years to make my first feature. I didn’t know how I would cope with that amount of time. I had just finished an internship that made me want to blow my brains out. I knew I could direct a film right then, but you don’t get that opportunity unless you’re related to someone. It really depressed me. So I had to write something to at least fool myself into thinking I was making my movie.
GF: So you decided to write Lily & Kat.
MP: I had just watched Jules & Jim again and I thought about the story I had. I had a light bulb moment where I realized Lily and Kat should be best friends. It felt like the perfect dynamic to have in this backdrop of New York City. Everyone knows those two girls. And there are hundreds of movies about best friends, but so few about two girls. Only Ghost World comes to mind. So Lily and Kat became my Molly Ringwald and Jon Cryer.
GF: And Henri is the Andrew McCarthy?
MP: Yeah. Except both of the girls are drawn to him and there’s no prospect of Lily having a relationship with Kat…
GF: Of course. So what was the writing process like?
MP: I wrote ten pages a day for seven days. I was done with a first draft in a week. It was easy because Lily was harboring all of my feelings, so the process was more like venting. Everything she felt, said, and thought was coming from me. Her first monologue was something I actually wrote down about myself before I even started writing.
GF: She mentions Holden Caulfield in that monologue. Did Catcher in the Rye serve as inspiration in any way?
MP: Yes. I’ve always related to that character— um, is that like saying I relate with Travis Bickle too? Anyway, it made sense to implement that cynicism and attitude into Lily. Her best friend is leaving so she is sort of retreating from the world as a defense. I know it would be sacrilege to ever adapt that novel, so this would be my opportunity to create my own Holden. Did you see the Art of Getting By?
GF: No, why do you ask?
MP: It’s exactly what I didn’t want to make. It’s a coming of age story where everything rings false and the main character was a poor excuse for Holden.
GF: Well, you succeeded in that respect. So back to writing…
MP: The first draft was terrible.
GF: How so?
MP: It wasn’t a deconstruction of the romantic comedy like I hoped. It was heavy on dialogue with a ton of humor. It was by the numbers. Over the next few months I worked on the characters, stripped it down, made the tone a lot darker and the humor too.
GF: And you had no idea this would be shot a year later?
MP: No. Not until I found out that a family member was interested in getting into executive producing. Thank God for nepotism…
GF: Did you feel your education was adequate to undertake a feature at a young age?
MP: There was no doubt. I knew what I wanted. Making a film is just a matter of making everyone else see that. If you hire the right people and weed out all of your own bad ideas, you’re going to make something that’s at least decent. You need to be able tell when your ideas are crap.
GP: I see. It’s quite apparent you have that barometer. I mean it.
MP: Thanks…
GF: Are you working on anything at the moment?
MP: Yeah. I’m outlining a second feature. This one is a play on Hitchcock. A suspense comedy. But set in the same world as Lily & Kat.
GF: Sounds marvelous. I adore Hitchcock.
MP: I do too.
GF: I must add that the ending of Lily & Kat left me wanting to find out what happens next.
MP: Actually, I’d love to follow these characters as they get older. The same way Truffaut did with The 400 Blows and Linklater with Before Sunrise. That was something I realized early on in writing them. Maybe in five years, we’ll see a sequel…
[NOW I FEEL HORRIBLE, KNOWING THAT I STILL HAVE TO FILM THIS THING…]
