CraveOnline: By asking these questions, what do we consider entertainment, what do we expect from performers, am I actively engaging with the film?
Rick Alverson: Yeah, you’re actively engaging with the film because you’re here having the conversation with me and I’m thankful.
But even while I was watching the film, thinking about those questions.
Well, maybe it needs to be more of a conversation. Tell me what you experienced.
I thought the idea that in between these performances, it goes from still life to more aggression and violence, to something I described as whoa. So I asked why wouldn’t we expect entertainment to be like that? It’s not what we’re normally given. It’s the start of a question. I’m not coming to major conclusions after one viewing.
On the surface, the movie looks like it has elements of entertainment in general and the history of entertainment, what is titillating, what is frightening and all of these things. It was really important that the thing was a compendium. It has the dynamic range of mainstream entertainment. It was necessary. So in keeping with that, I have a profound problem with metaphor. The thing is loaded with metaphors because I understand that they’re a grammar, but it’s a grammar of misdirection. So essentially the thing is in some ways a booby trap, but I believe one that hopefully provides nutrition.
I’m going to have to delve into those metaphors because I didn’t really read into them.
We can just talk about metaphor. Like I said, metaphor is a construction of language. It’s meant to be referential. A metaphor points at something else and works best in language. The experience of film is a sensorial experience and a visual, aural experience that can be understood by a five-year-old as well as it can be understood by a 90-year-old. It has much better things to offer and those are things that have to be experienced. The act of the metaphor and the sussing out of meaning in the literary sense interrupts that experience, absolutely.
I didn’t know Gregg Turkington’s work before, so I don’t know if this is his act or something he’s only doing for the film, but he’s called a comedian. He gets up and performs. The things he’s saying are funny but he’s saying them in a very challenging way. Then at one point he devolves into nonsense which he gets called out on. So I asked what we expect from a performer because these are very extreme. One is not entertainment at all, one is kind of entertainment…
I have to say, I understand what content and subject matter and narrative do, but it’s really not something I’m primarily concerned with. I’m more concerned with the experience, especially in The Comedy and this movie. It’s been about viewership and it’s been about the experience of seeing and imbibing media. So I’m thinking about the threshold between attraction and repulsion in a formal way. Metaphor is in a formal way, as opposed to what facilitates the narrative of the character.
Given the interest in attraction and repulsion, if people get up and walk out, do you accept that?
I don’t want [people to walk out]. I’d be disappointed if people got up and walked out for a number of reasons. One is that there’s been a lot of care taken, trying as an individual to familiarize myself with the world around me as best I can. And there’s real responsibility to that. I tried to understand the threshold that pushes us too far and that brings us too near to ourselves. So that the intention is to keep people in the film.
