{"id":1644,"date":"2011-01-28T13:47:59","date_gmt":"2011-01-28T18:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?p=1644"},"modified":"2013-06-02T13:05:13","modified_gmt":"2013-06-02T18:05:13","slug":"gregg-araki-bss-377","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/gregg-araki-bss-377\/","title":{"rendered":"Gregg Araki (BSS #377)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Gregg Araki is most recently the writer and director of <i>Kaboom<\/i>, which opens today in theaters.<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_858\"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-1644-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo377.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo377.mp3\">http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo377.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\">Listen: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo377.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?powerpress_pinw=1644-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo377.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"segundo377.mp3\">Download<\/a> (Running Time: 24:30 &#8212; 22.4MB)<\/p>\n<p><b>Condition of Mr. Segundo:<\/b> Staring at the canvas from a low angle.<\/p>\n<p><b>Guest:<\/b> <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gregg_Araki\">Gregg Araki<\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>Subjects Discussed:<\/b> Whether or not Gregg Araki looks fantastic, the camera&#8217;s height growing up over twenty years of Araki&#8217;s films, the universe as a dangerous place, Chevron gas stations, the Vermeer in <i>Mysterious Skin<\/i>, backdrops, location in its natural light, how much a moment is dictated by landscape, Araki&#8217;s later films beginning <i>in media res<\/i>, <i>Kaboom<\/i> as a reaction to movies that Araki can outthink, hating being &#8220;ahead of the movie,&#8221; <i>Inception<\/i>, the way in which Araki sends emails, creating more complex narratives in a short attention span age, movie running times, deleted scenes, a secret subplot about Thor, not yet dealing with characters over the age of thirty or post-college life, getting pigeonholed as &#8220;the teenage movie guy,&#8221; being a confused and angst-ridden undergraduate, fondness and optimism, the frequency of mothers in Araki&#8217;s films, gender balance, screwball comedies, <i>Bringing Up Baby<\/i>, Cary Grant as a dumb blonde, James Duval&#8217;s return in <i>Kaboom<\/i>, trying to find innovation when &#8220;every film has been done,&#8221; an alternative juxtaposition of the Wicked Witch of the West, and returning to a naive place.<\/p>\n<p><b>EXCERPT FROM SHOW:<\/B> <\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> Gregg, how are you doing?<\/p>\n<p><b>Araki:<\/b> (<i>with some irony<\/i>) I am doing fantastic.<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> End of the day.  Uh, no visuals.  But anyway&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>Araki:<\/b> In other words, &#8220;you don&#8217;t look fantastic.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> You do look fantastic!  You look like&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>Araki:<\/b> Can we say &#8220;shit&#8221; on this?<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> You can.  You can say &#8220;shit.&#8221;  We can talk <i>Totally Fucked Up<\/i>.  Whatever you want.<\/p>\n<p><b>Araki:<\/b> Okay.  Good.  Yeah, I look like shit.<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> You have exacting standards.  I wanted to talk about your aesthetic.  I noticed that over the course of twenty years, the camera&#8217;s position has actually grown.  It started off as being very much on the floor.  <\/p>\n<p><b>Araki:<\/b> (<i>laughs<\/i>)<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> Very on the ground.  You would see giant billboards.  Chevron gas stations.  And as we&#8217;ve seen you evolve as a filmmaker, we&#8217;ve seen the camera actually rise up from the ground.  <\/p>\n<p><b>Araki:<\/b> Interesting.<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> And I&#8217;m curious about how this aesthetic built.<\/p>\n<p><b>Araki:<\/b> In this film [<i>Kaboom<\/i>], there&#8217;s that crazy crane shot.<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><b>Araki:<\/b> Interesting.  That&#8217;s an interesting metaphor for my filmmaking style.  It&#8217;s gone from underground to above ground.<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> Yes, exactly.  Well, actually, roughly, the camera&#8217;s waist-high.  <\/p>\n<p><b>Araki:<\/b> Yeah, I used to use a lot of what&#8217;s called a hi-hat.  It&#8217;s just a plank of wood with a tripod head.  And I was concentrating on the hi-hat a lot.<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> Was this more your way to look distinct?  Because you had pretty much nothing but a hi-hat?<\/p>\n<p><b>Araki:<\/b> I think it was also just aesthetically appealing to me.  And I think it&#8217;s partly &#8212; you know, my movies are about these characters who are in this vast, hostile universe.  And I think that you get that &#8212; particularly with a wide angle, a wide low shot, you get a sense of this universe being this vast and dangerous place.  I think that sense of space comes a lot from that angle.  You get a sense of that openness.<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> Well, I&#8217;m curious about space.  I was mentioning the Chevron gas station.  And we see, for example, the Vermeer in <i>Mysterious Skin<\/i>.  In this movie, at the cafe, there&#8217;s the big space in the back where we see WELCOME TO THE ONTOLOGICAL VOID.  I&#8217;m curious as to how this also developed.  This large widescreen environment for characters to often walk into and go ahead and bitch and moan.<\/p>\n<p><b>Araki:<\/b> You brought up many interesting things that will be in dissertations done on my movies after I&#8217;m dead, I&#8217;m guess. <\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> Ah.<\/p>\n<p><b>Araki:<\/b> Because a lot of my movies &#8212; particularly the early, early ones, the black-and-white, the two ones that were before <i>The Doom Generation<\/i>  &#8212; is frequently characters walking at night against these phantasmagorical backdrops of Los Angeles landscape.  Usually talking about the meaningless of existence.  And it&#8217;s something that&#8217;s been in a lot of my movies. There is still that sense, even in <i>Kaboom<\/i>. There&#8217;s a shot in particular that&#8217;s very, very similar to one of those shots.  Because I remember we were on the hi-hat.  The shot where Smith is being chased by the animal men, and he runs into that crazy weird stairwell that&#8217;s almost something out of a nightmare.  That shot is very reminiscent of those shots.  Because it&#8217;s also so much about the location and its natural light.  It&#8217;s this weird lit-up stairwell, but the DP did light it.  Most of the stuff is actually from the structure itself.  <\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_859\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-1644-2\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo377.mp3?_=2\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo377.mp3\">http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo377.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\">Listen: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo377.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?powerpress_pinw=1644-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo377.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"segundo377.mp3\">Download<\/a> (Running Time: 24:30 &#8212; 22.4MB)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gregg Araki is most recently the writer and director of Kaboom, which opens today in theaters. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Staring at the canvas from a low angle. Guest: Gregg Araki Subjects Discussed: Whether or not Gregg Araki looks fantastic, the camera&#8217;s height growing up over twenty years of Araki&#8217;s films, the universe as a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_860\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-1644-3\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo377.mp3?_=3\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo377.mp3\">http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo377.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\">Listen: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo377.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?powerpress_pinw=1644-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo377.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"segundo377.mp3\">Download<\/a> (Running Time: 24:30 &#8212; 22.4MB)<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1085],"tags":[514,166,1115,165,1113,9,1114,1116,143],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1644"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1644"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3272,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1644\/revisions\/3272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}