97: Death to Wacky
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Not long ago, I went to see this movie called Fast Cheap and Out of Control, hadn't read any reviews, hadn't seen any ads for it, didn't know anything about it really, except that it was by Aeromaris, the documentary filmmaker whose work I like, and the friends of mine enjoyed it, and it was great, it had funny moments and reflective moments and interesting characters, totally satisfying soulful film. And after the movie I'm walking through the theater lobby, and I see the poster for the movie, which I somehow missed on my way in, it was a bright unnatural yellow. The main characters in the film are photographed with this fisheye lens, so their heads are huge and their bodies are tiny, and they're in big print, the poster says these words, the bizarre at its best. And I realized what was going on, someone somewhere thought that this film was wacky, or they thought they could sell it as wacky, which if you see the film is astounding, it's a great film but it's not wacky, there's a whole section in the film about death, meditation on death, it's not wacky. Tom Bernard is one of the co-presidents of Sony Picture Classics, he saw what a great film, Fast Cheap and Out of Control was, had bought the distribution rights from Aeromaris, in a bathroom at the Sundance Film Festival, it was he says the only quiet place to get anything done without competitors overhearing, and he says they market the film is wacky for a simple reason, wacky sells, market a film is wacky and people come to see it. Well I mean to me one of the ultimate wacky sells on a movie was Brazil, and what was the sale, I don't even remember that, what was the ad campaign? Even in the company of men it was a very dark comedy, and wacky to some extent, and that's a movie we released and I think the campaign is a bit strange, a bit wacky. I don't know if you've seen any of these films but they are every single one of them, you know they have very dark films, these are bleak films really. I suggested to Mr Bernard that wacky seems to miss a lot of what these films are about, he said no no no, look at the four characters in Fast Cheap and Out of Control, two of them are scientists, one is an expert on robots, one of the worlds leading authority on naked mole rats, there's a lion tamer, there's a guy who carves trees and bushes into the shapes of animals, and so Mr Bernard that is by most people's objective standards actually kind of wacky. The film is a very strange film, the people are very strange, and I think in word of mouth people would talk about it, and they'd say look at these crazy guys, let's go see what they're up to. You know I realize as we talk is that I guess I just don't think of people as wacky, I guess some people just think of people as wacky and something, I mean when I think of all the people in the ceremonies from where I think of our crumb, I mean I think of them as being people who are fundamentally very very serious. Do you see them as crazy guys or eccentric guys or wacky guys? I think they're very eccentric and very wacky, and you know I think that if you know people in your world that you consider genius, and I think these guys aren't all geniuses at what they do, they sort of have a view that is so focused, and so would people call Albert Einstein eccentric? With all respect Mr Bernard, as far as I'm concerned is doing God's work distributing these unusual, interesting, amazing films. With all respect I have a different point of view about this, wacky to me seems to miss the point of everything interesting, wacky eradicates empathy and thoughtfulness and feeling, wacky is what people say when they're too polite to say freak, wacky is what people say when they don't want to feel anything or think anything, wacky is what people say when they don't know what else to say, when you call somebody wacky you're ignoring, you're ignoring
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