(Warning: adult content) J. Rentilly
LOS ANGELES (TNA) – The myth looms large when one considers Crispin Glover, even if the truths and falsehoods are increasingly difficult to differentiate.
There’s the legendary cabinet of glass eyeballs, the notorious basement full of ancient gynecological equipment, the off-kilter MySpace bulletin postings asking women whether they’re menstruating on the full moon, the obsessive fascination with all things outré and occult, and that inexplicable kung fu attack on talk show host David Letterman, for starters.
Meeting the 43-year-old Glover in person, at his Spanish-style home in the Eagle Rock area of Los Angeles—and yes, decorated with eye-popping artifacts presumably excavated from other realms of consciousness—he appears not so much a man from another planet, but perhaps another time.
He is dapper in a black velvet smoking jacket, his longish hair tucked behind his ears, more handsome than his quirky onscreen personages would suggest, and complete gentleman. Yes, he talks fast, his thought process and ability to articulate those thoughts sometimes dueling feverishly, but it is not with madness, but a genuine, contagious passion.
Glover is a child of wonder, a man of deep convictions, highly moralistic, and richly talented.
If you want to call Glover eccentric or insane, he says that’s OK with him. Mostly, he believes he’s just misunderstood, which also suits him fine. As for the tumbling torrent of rumors and myths about his “naughtiness,” Glover is intent on setting the record straight.
“I don’t know that I think of anything as that word, ‘naughty,’” he says. “I just don’t see the world that way. I understand the differentiation between that which is considered appropriate for certain situations and those that are considered inappropriate, but nothing is naughty to me. Certain things are just inappropriate at certain times.”
Glover – who is in the midst of a whirlwind international tour promoting his stellar work in Robert Zemeckis’ “Beowulf,” while also touring the nation carnival-style with his own directorial efforts, “What Is It” and “It Is Fine. Everything Is Fine!” – says he’s simply too busy to indulge in anything too lunatic these days.
“In my real life, I am so committed to working, I am so busy with things I have to do, that I’ve very little time to be naughty – or even ‘eccentric,’ which people like to call me all the time – anyway. I save it all for the work, I guess,” he says. “In my art, I have a 100 percent interest in examining anything that’s taboo.”
Glover made his directorial debut two years ago with “What Is It,” also known as the film in which people afflicted with Down syndrome have sex, flirt with Nazi-ism, and go on a killing spree, all of which has been overstated by critics of the film, many of whom have not even seen it.
Glover’s latest magnum opus is called “It Is Fine. Everything Is Fine!” and tells the story of a man with cerebral palsy and a hair fetish who falls in love with hookers, kills many of them with his bare hands, and achieves personal redemption of sorts by bedding one of them.
“There are elements to these films that are sometimes pointed out and made as reasons to either see the film or not see the film,” Glover says. “People would go see ‘What Is It’ either because they, salaciously, wanted to see all of these taboos, or they would avoid the film for the same reason, and I think there’s more to these films – the experience of these films in total – than those elements alone.”
Glover says that while there is “graphic sexuality” in these films, “especially ‘Everything Is Fine,’” he “wouldn’t want people to come and see the film just for that.”
“I could make a better list of reasons to see the film than the graphic sexuality,” he says.
Indeed, the experience of watching “Everything Is Fine” is a veritable intellectual and emotional roller coaster. Starring and written by Steven C. Stewart – who suffered cerebral palsy and died shortly after Glover completed principal photography – the film is at first infuriating as its star’s dialogue is virtually unintelligible.
As the story unfolds and Stewart’s character becomes more and more obsessive, perverse, and then homicidal, that fury turns to uneasy laughter and then, with that final sex scene – filmed in hardcore, full-penetration glory – illuminating and heartbreaking. If it’s not the best film of 2007, which it may just be, it is certainly the year’s most unforgettable.
Glover says “Everything Is Fine” was conceived as “a documentation of this dying man’s fantasy life,” which makes it “probably singular in the world of cinema.”
“It’s a film that’s impossible to replicate,” he says. “There is a genuine emotional catharsis in this film that is a very, very rare thing.”
Glover and Stewart first met in 1987 and struck up an instant friendship – though Glover admits it was “sometimes distant, mostly because I couldn’t always understand what he was saying.”
The friendship led to Stewart’s appearance in “What Is It” and then to production of Stewart’s screenplay for “Everything Is Fine.”
Feeling utterly compelled to bring Stewart’s offbeat and sexually explicit film to fruition, Glover financed “Everything Is Fine” by taking work as the stylish hitman in “Charlie’s Angels.”
“I know, for me, that if this film had not gotten made – if I had not gotten it made before Steven C. Stewart died – it wouldn’t be, ‘Oh, that’s too bad that this didn’t happen. Maybe I should have done that.’ It wouldn’t have been a regret. It would’ve been like I’d actually done something really wrong, like I’d done a bad thing by not getting the film made – like I’d actually made a very, very bad mistake in my entire existence,” Glover says.
The film was shot in Salt Lake City, Utah, where Stewart lived in a hospital. Production went largely without incident, except for two obstacles: Stewart’s lung collapsed during filming, signaling a fast-approaching death; and Glover needed an actress “who would be comfortable with the graphic sexuality and also be an effective performer.
“It’s a specialized job,” he says.
One month after wrapping principal photography, Glover got a call from Stewart asking if the filmmaker had enough footage to complete the film.
“He was on life support and actually wanted my permission to be unplugged,” Glover remembers. “That was, of course, a very sad day and a very heavy responsibility to let him know that, yes, indeed, we did have enough footage. And then Steven died.”
Glover is forever changed by knowing Stewart, now routinely taking studio paychecks, like “Beowulf” – which Glover actually really likes – to finance his own filmmaking efforts.
Working with Stewart also brought Glover full awareness that he simply has to follow his muse and make films that are as personal as possible, frequently examining taboos. Glover believes it is his moral obligation to do so.
“It’s that very moment when audiences are sitting in the dark, leaning back in their chair, looking up at the screen, wondering if what they’re watching is right or wrong, if they should even be there, what is this anyway, that people begin to open up and be educated,” says Glover. “Corporately funded and distributed films haven’t done that in 30 years, so now it’s my responsibility.
“My films are my psychological reaction to working in that corporate system for most of my life. I have to do these other films – to right a wrong, sort of, or to make it so I can sort of live with myself,” he says. “I would not be a good person if I didn’t.”
Glover shies away from being termed a renegade or an outlaw, but is happy marching to the beat of his own drummer.
“I don’t think of myself as an outlaw. I’m a very law-abiding person. It’s not like this is a choice,” he says.
“I’ve always had an artistic streak in me, but there is now an element of need in me to communicate genuinely and express myself through this art in a way that is positive and has an educational element,” he says. “This is not shock cinema. This is not being weird to be weird. I have zero interest in that. This is me being exactly who I am, the best I can be.”
(Warning: adult content)