“As far as we can tell we’re not going to leave the hotel today,” laughs Mark, sitting up and placing his feet squarely on the center of the coffee table as he does so.

“It’s a day of rest,” agrees Jay, also now sitting up, scrunching himself in the corner where the couch meets the wall. “We got driven in a limo about three blocks last night. That was pretty cool.”

With that the two suddenly break out in huge grins and start snickering almost uncontrollably and I can’t help but think I just missed a great joke. At the same time I get the distinct feeling this is the way they’ve been starting all their interviews today, both suddenly jerking a bit more upright and positioning themselves in a way that I can now tell they’re ready to begin.

“We like to get a feel for people as they come into the room,” deadpans Mark, “seems to [help] break the ice.”

Thus explains the two minute conversation we had on limousines, High School and the Senior Prom. I shake my head a little bit trying to stifle my own laugh, the smile on my face betraying how much I’m already enjoying getting the chance to speak with both these guys.

That said, with time at a premium I turn our attention back to their film, asking the brothers which one of them had the original idea to construct a pseudo-thriller about a guy with a paper bag over his head. “One of the crew members of our last feature The Puffy Chair, I don't remember who it was, had the idea that a bag on someone's head could be scary,” answers Mark. “[They] came up with the idea while we were traipsing around the woods shooting and we were all having this conversation about what is the scariest thing you could think of. His response was about sitting in your living room, reading a book, it’s quiet and you look over at the window and there is a guy with a bag over his head staring back at you.”

“We started laughing and saying it was pretty funny, and then we all ended up having nightmares that night thinking about it.” We were all talking about [the idea] the next morning at breakfast and were like, yeah, that’s fucking terrifying. You know, where you’re out [in the woods], it’s a real rural area, there are a lot of windows and there’s no one else around and there’s nothing you can do. We suddenly got really excited [the idea] could be both funny and scary at the same time. That’s where the real inspiration came from, being scared but being annoyed at yourself at the same time because you’re scared over something that on the [surface] seems so stupid.”

But just because the duo had the idea didn’t mean they were ready to make a movie out of it. For them, filmmaking is a process requiring a connection to the material they’re working on and, for a little while at least, the idea an outdoor stalker wearing a paper bag on his head fell a bit by the wayside as they worked on other projects.

“It wasn’t for about another six months that we revisited it,” Mark admits. “At that point we’d been traveling around the festival circuit with The Puffy Chair and, I guess, you know, a bag on your head doesn’t make a whole story. We always write about things that are happening to us in our lives, and we spent a lot of time around desperate actors and desperate filmmakers trying to be successful – and we were [two] of those people.”

“We wanted to try and make a story about the modern desperate actor, about their trials and tribulations that would match up with the idea of Baghead, I don’t really know why. In a lot of ways, [filmmakers] are like modern day heroes. For us, a hero is a person who battles, a person that goes into the battle and knows they’re going to lose but they go on in anyways.”

When you’re trying to become a successful [director] or actor you pretty much know you’re going to lose. There’s not much winning gong on there. So, as annoying as that archetype can be there is a sweetness and a heroism there that we wanted to [celebrate].”

All of which I actually find quite fascinating, especially considering that, a certain point, a viewer discovers that film really isn’t as much of a thriller as it appears and is actually a subtle (and sometimes quite stirring) commentary on the nature of artistic creation.

“That’s awesome,” exclaims Jay in a somewhat surprised tone. “We never thought about that. But, I think you’re on to something. Everyone seems to take away something different from the movie, for us, we try to set up situations that are awkward, are funny and that feel real and then people can experience them however they want to experience them.” 

“That’s part of the great thing about Baghead, it plays so differently for different groups,” agrees his talkative brother. “Sometimes it’s just balls out comedy, sometimes people are just shitting their pants and sometimes people are just quietly interested in the relationship aspects. The range of responses has been pretty out there.”

“But we are interested in the creative process,” responds Jay. “It is kind of what we deal in everyday. Especially because we’re so collaborative, that’s a big thing for us. The way that our collaboration works is that it’s really hard to make a movie. It’s kind of like the two of us equals one actual filmmaker, and I don’t want to run down a road that Mark doesn't want to go down. It’s painful enough, a struggle enough, trying to do it [make a movie] with it being just the two of us and we want to make sure that we’re both connected on it, that we’re both excited about it, because I think that’s what keeps us going through the insanity of making Independent Films.”

Greta Gerwig, Steve Zissis, Ross Partridge and Elise Muller in Sony Pictures Classics' Baghead

All of which sounds like a ton of pushing and pulling between the duo forcing me to wonder when, if, the pair know when to say enough is enough and walk away from the other in order to recharge their batteries. “We were talking about that just before you came in,” admits Mark. “We’re never going to figure that out. Jay and I are in that completely fortunate reality of having a lot of opportunities now. A lot of people want to make movies with us where, as our whole life has been how are we going to get the money to make this independent movie, now it’s about picking the right [movies] and do things correctly. It sounds like a whiny problem to have but it is a different set of problems and you have to figure it out.”

“And it’s pretty much why everyone in U.S. Weekly is completely miserable,” interjects Jay with a snarky giggle. “Not that we’re even remotely there. But the options of success are weird things and they don’t necessarily make you happy. You have this feeling you’ve been fighting so hard to get to a place and then when you’re getting there you don’t want to squander the opportunities, you want to do everything, but you can really overwork and forget to enjoy yourself if you’re not careful. We’re trying to figure that out right now.”

Even with Hollywood beckoning, however, the world of Independent Film is the place both of the Duplass brothers feel most at home. But there are limitations to playing in that world, most of them having to do with both time and money. Shooting schedules are usually tight and purse strings tend to be held fairly close to the vest. I wonder aloud if these kinds of limitations help or hinder the types of character-driven stories the duo tend to be most fond of.

“We’re definitely available material filmmakers and believe in having limitations,” answers Jay. “I think we would get overwhelmed with an enormous crew, not just with the hubbub and the noise but with the lack of intimacy. We like the intimacy of the actors, we like taking our cast and crew away from their homes and have all of us living there together and getting into a camp-like environment. It’s like basic training or the Army – we’re all in this shit together.”

“Everyone gets paid the exact same amount of money no matter what their skill level and everyone is welcome because we’re all trying to make this movie. There is something about doing [this] in a short filming period of three or four weeks, of having that inspired feeling that nothing is here based on the money, that instead they’re here based on the ideas and on our talent and what we all can bring to it. That mentality keeps everyone on their toes because they all know the movie is going to only be as good as what we give to it creatively. We can’t lean on anything else. We’ve got nothing if we’re all not inspired.”

“We under crew a little bit,” admits Mark, “but the positive side of that is that most sets have a lot of people who feel their time is being wasted and that they had plenty of better other things to do. Everybody on our sets are desperately needed and they know it. They know that if they left the movie would die, and there is something beautiful about it. People know they are really needed, and not just because we need them technically but because we need them creatively, too.”

So, as the old adage, says, less really is more. “It is,” he agrees, “for us so far. But, we’ve also created these movies so that they’re structured to live inside their budgets, they’re written for their budgets. We wouldn’t make certain kinds of movies inside this budget range because it really would kill us.”

Getting back to the film itself, I ask about what, if any, the duo feels towards to audience in regards to the twists and turns their film takes as it runs its thrifty 80-plus minute course. Is it right to pull the rug out from under your viewers and give them a decidedly different experience then the one they’d thought they were getting? Is a bait-and-switch fair?

“All we can do is make a movie that we love to watch,” answers Mark. “That’s the best thing we can do. But we were certainly conscious of tonal shifts in this movie, not so much because we were wondering if the audience would not like it if it didn’t go the way they wanted it to go, but more in terms of is this going to work at all.”

“We wanted to make a movie where you care about the people and the relationships,” continues Jay interrupting, “one that would be funny and one that would be scary, too, and we weren’t sure how to make that tone work in unison. We wanted it to feel like one movie and not feel like three living inside of one, that was our main goal with our primary thoughts being we just wanted people to care about the characters. That was the main thing at the root of it all. If that happened, everything else it was like no matter which way it [fell] we were going to be fine. We tend to think in terms of what is the movie we genuinely really want to see and hopefully that will in turn play out [well] for audiences.”

“What we want people to do is say let’s go see this funny relationship movie,” states Mark matter-of-factly, “but it’s also called Baghead so there must be something else on top of that. That’s what I want people to feel when they go in. What’s the baghead portion about? What’s going on there? I want them to think that’s there’s going to be something a little different when that part starts coming up but they’re not at all sure what to expect.”

“We didn’t want to make a horror film that competes with other horror films,” continues Jay. “We wanted to make a movie about people who were just like us, who look like us, who feel real and they happen to experience some pretty scary things. We’re just hoping potentially when you do shoot a movie that does feel real and then that ‘thing’ shows up that it is really scary because there is some tangibility to it. That it is frightening because it isn’t the usual types that exist in most horror movies.”

Terror gets naked in Sony Pictures Classics' Baghead

With our time up, I find myself admitting to the pair that I think pulled it off, that the things they were shooting for with the film definitely ended up working out pretty much exactly the way they wanted to. As proof, I offer up the fact that the Baghead press screening was the only one I have ever been to in Seattle where a fellow critic ended up slapping me across the face because one particular jolt of terrifying adrenaline startled her so incredibly much.

“That’s awesome!” exclaims Mark with a laugh. “We can definitely take pride in that.”

“There was this woman at the [SIFF] screening last night,” starts Jay trying to subdue his own chuckles, “she was just spasming out all over the place. By the time it was over she was just exhausted. We were just like, yes! Sitting there watching that was pretty great.” 

Which is exactly how I felt watching the movie myself, pretty great, the same going for the euphoria going through my body as we said our goodbyes and I made my way out of the press suite. Smiling as I exited the hotel and felt the first droplet of Seattle rain, I was reminded again why I do what it is I do. It is because of great movies like Baghead and even better interview subjects like Mark and Jay Duplass. Here’s hoping the former finds its much-deserved audience and the latter pair has a career I can help cheerlead for many decades to come.

Additional Links:

-  Baghead Review by Sara Michelle Fetters
-  2008 SIFF Blog by Sara Michelle Fetters
-  2008 Seattle International Film Festival Home Page
-  Baghead Theatrical Trailer

Article posted on Jun 13, 2008 | Share this article | Top of Page

Copyright © 1999-infinity MovieFreak.com  

Back to Top