WEBVTT

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Old years. It's show time.
People fake good money to see this movie.

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When they go out to a theater, they want cold sod. That's

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a little hot popcorn and no monsters
in the Projection Booth. Everyone pretend podcasting

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isn't boring off. I do see
the story of the Wizard of Oz as

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the story of David Lynch himself becoming
a filmmaker. David has gone over the

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rainbow from the very first film ever. He lives in a different reality than

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you or I do, and that's
quite obvious. Why would Lynch be that

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absorbed for the Wizard of Oz?
Did you watch the Wizard of Oz on

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a perfect day at the perfect time
as a child and it sort of baked

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into his subconscious Hey hoaks, Welcome
to a special episode of The Projection Booth.

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I'm your host, Mike White.
On this episode, our old friend

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Alexander O Philippe is back and talking
about his latest film. Though he's got

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a lot of films coming out over
the next little bit, here his latest

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one from twenty twenty two, Lynch
Oz. It is a amazing look at

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the influences of the Wizard of Oz
onto the films of David Lynch. Of

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course, it goes a lot deeper
than just while at Heart does some amazing

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work in this I highly recommended the
movie itself is making its way around the

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country right now. I think it's
playing at the IFC Center in New York.

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It's playing at the Detroit Film Theater
the weekend of the seventeenth of June

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twenty twenty three. It is well
worth your time to check that out.

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I hope you enjoy the film,
and I hope you enjoyed the interview essay

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films happy They don't happen that often
in twenty twenty three, and I'm very

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curious what were some of your inspirations
for the way that you put this film

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together As far as being an essay
style film. There's a lot of reasons

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why this particular film end up being
this way. The first reason being COVID.

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We started working on Lynch as in
Earnest in March twenty twenty literally as

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things started shutting down, so obviously
didn't have the luxury to go and interview

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people in person or on camera,
so that was a huge consideration. But

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also when you're dealing with the topic
like Lynch Oz, which is fairly esoteric.

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It's a film fundamentally about the mysteries
of influence and inspiration on the creative

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process. It's certainly not about answering
questions. It's about opening new doors and

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new windows into possibilities, ways to
interpret or look at David Lynch's works,

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to look at the Wizard of Oz
through a different lens, all of those

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things. And so therefore I was
really attracted to the idea of essentially getting

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participants who were one completely willing to
go down the rabbit hole with me and

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to see what we could find together, but to really in a way give

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each one the opportunity in the space
to develop a full thesis. Really,

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the six chapters are six different than
you had connected ideas and ways to explore

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and to reinterpret or re envision the
possible connections conscious and unconscious between the works

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of the Village the Wizard of was
So, what was the seed of the

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idea? Where did this come from? Because obviously you've done movies on Psycho,

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on Alien, and with Alien you've
got the Francis Bacon connection. Francis

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Bacon David Lynch, Is that taking
that path or how are you getting to

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lynch us it's all very intuitive.
One thing leads to an other, you

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know. As I like to say, it's all about what I love,

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and it's about passion. It's about
following this passion that I have in trying

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to mind the significance of those films
in the public consciousness. I'm very interested,

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obviously, you know, if you
look at my buddy of work in

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those movies that are more than just
movies that have become cultural events, and

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they become cultural events for certain reasons, right, that's because they tap into

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our collective psyche in at a particular
time in history for very different reasons.

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Psycho was a hit for completely different
reasons that an Alien was a hit,

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and that's what I'm exploring in the
film in Memory, and I think the

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Exorcist resonated for different reasons, and
there was of Oz and so on and

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so forth. Right, So I
think clearly I'm very interested in that.

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I'm very interested in the way that
certain movies break out and why do they

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break out, and what is our
relationship with them? What does that mean?

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Very interested in the idea of movies
almost as these sort of living,

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breathing entities, right that sort of
come to us that find a way to

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come to us on the Selver screen, and because we need them at this

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particular time in history. This idea
that filmmakers and writers and creators are in

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a way conduits for mythological archetypes and
ideas to come back through time perennially to

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either haunt us or teach us something
or reflect something about who we are at

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certain times in history, because those
are the stories that we need at this

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particular time. I think if you
look at film as myth and if you

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look at film as dreams, as
collective dreams, then I think there are

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it's undeniable that there's something to that
you mentioned the sick different chapters of the

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film. Where do those folks come
from? How do you work with them?

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They came from my dreams? Nay, some of them are friends.

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What's interesting about this process of making
this film is that, again, once

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I committed to the idea of telling
the story in chapters, I couldn't just

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interview or ask to interview fifteen people, because if all fifteen say yes,

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then I have a five hour film, right, So that's that was not

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possible. So I had to really
literally go one by one and so for

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me, it was really finding people
who you know, intuitively got it and

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were willing to go there with me. And then beyond that, there's different

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reasons. Any Nicholson, I've known
her for a while now, but she's

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brilliant, obviously, and I had
listened to her podcast episode on The Wizard

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of Oz, which I thought it
was really great at some really wonderful ideas,

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and I felt that she would be
able to really anchor the narrative in

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the importance and significance of the words
of Oz in culture and started essentially making

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these connections to the works of David
Lynch. She's the anchor really of the

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piece. John Waters was longest shot. I'm really glad he said yes,

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And I felt that there was something
really important there in the sense that obviously

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his career and David Lynch's career are
sort of ran parallel, right in some

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ways. I don't know they're necessarily
friends, but they obviously do know and

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respect each other a great deal,
but they were They both really grew up

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and were influenced by the Words of
Oz in very powerful ways, and so

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I thought that was a very important
voice for the film. People like Karen

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and Aaron and Justin and David Lowry
and Rodney Asher. I've known them for

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a while, and you know,
it's always such a joy for me to

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be able to pick their brains about
anything film related if they're willing to go

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there and were. Rodney was a
no brainer, obviously, because he always

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deals with sort of multiple realities and
what's real and what's not ideas that are

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very close to this. I felt
that he would be an incredible match,

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and sure enough, in fact,
he's just the perfect chapter right after Amy,

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because you think you're anchored, you
think you're grounded, and then and

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incomes Rodney and he literally pulls the
rug from beneath your feet. And then

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by the end of his chapter you
don't even know where you are. It's

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am I the Wisden of Oz.
Has our world been transported elsewhere? You

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know, what's real, what's not? It's wonderful stuff. So that was

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it. They came one by one, and and of course I approached a

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number of people who didn't want to
do it or couldn't do it and didn't

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work out. And you're never going
to get everybody if you want, unfortunate,

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fortunately or unfortunately. But at the
end of the day, just going

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one by one like this. And
I didn't know for sure that I was

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going to have six chapters. It
could have been seven, it could have

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been eight, it could have been
five. But they started talking to each

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other. The chapters did in some
very interesting ways, and like somebody will

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bring up an idea in one chapter, and then in the next one that

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ideas goes in a different direction or
expands. It was a multi step process

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when in the writing process. First
I interviewed them over the phone and essentially

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what I call a jazz interview.
So we riffed on the idea of Lynch

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and Oz, and I kept fishing
until I felt like they had given me

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enough for what I thought was a
thesis. And at that point I transcribed

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the interview and I wrote what I
thought was their chapter, send that to

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them for approval, with some suggestions
and ideas the things to potentially add.

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And then they went back and said, no, they want to cross this,

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and they want to remove this.
They wanted to add this. So

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it became more collaborative at that point, and eventually, when we were happy

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with the script, I sent them
back to a recording studio to rerecord their

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voice over and that's what you have
in the film. So it's been a

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really unprocessed Yeah. Yeah, as
you're reading what they wrote, are you

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already starting to think of all the
mental images, all of the things that

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you want to put there for the
visuals you have to end That actually really

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informed the scripting process of what could
be in the film or not, because

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again we don't have the luxury to
cut to them on camera, so everything

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had had to be told visually.
So on a very micro level, I

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had to think from the scripting stage
very meticulously about what we're going to watch

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on screen. Now. Of course, a lot of that stuff ultimately ended

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up changing during the editing process,
but I could not send them a script

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without having the confidence that we would
be able to handle every single micro moment

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visually. Wouldn't have been possible.
One thing I didn't want to do is

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to send them to recording studio and
then three months later come back and say,

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oh, you know what, can
we do it again because I messed

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up? Yeah, you don't want
to do that. So it's a very

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involved, very different process every film
that we make. Every single film is

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completely unique and different, as different
challenges and demands but it was really fun.

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I really enjoyed this particular process.
You said you started around March of

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twenty twenty. So what started then
was that the reaching out to people,

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or was that Okay, I've got
everything, we're recorded now and now it's

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time to do the visuals, or
what was that moment. We may have

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actually started the process a little bit
earlier, but that's that. March twenty

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twenty was when I started actually having
the audio interviews with them, just or

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low fi low rez phone interviews to
start fishing for their chapters and where you're

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like, Okay, in six weeks
we'll be able to meet in person and

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talk about this, or where you're
pretty realistic as far as the long haul

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of the pandemic, No I had
committed to. Certainly didn't know that the

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pandemic was going to last the way
that it did. Nobody did, right,

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I mean, I'm sure some people
did, but certainly not the general

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public. But I was committed to
making the film in this particular way and

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never look back. I was that
it wasn't a let's do a preliminary interview

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and then I'll see you in three
months in a studio. That never crossed

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my mind when it comes to the
visuals. Obviously, editing is key for

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this movie. Tell me about that
relationship with your editor and how are you

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actually are you cataloging all of these
moments and saying, Okay, yeah,

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this time code, we're going to
go to here or is it more organic

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than that? Yeah? No,
David Lawrence, it's amazing he did.

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This was my second feature with him. He also did Leap of Faith,

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or film on the Exorcist and William
Friedkin. He's a massive cinephiles. He

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brings so much to the table,
so many options and solutions and things I

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haven't thought of. I mean,
every day is a sort of geek fest

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because we were literally geek out about
every single moment, and so I'll have

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always clips in the script as I'm
envisioning it in my head. But he

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knows that doesn't mean like it has
to be this way, and so he

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will he has folders of other options
or things that I've I haven't necessarily thought

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of that he will present so that
we can literally audition each clip. And

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it's very important to us to make
sure that every single clip but it doesn't

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just tell an A to B kind
of story. It's like somebody talks about

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something and then boom, this de
illustration. Sometimes that's the way it works.

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Becomes an art form when the clips
work on multiple levels, and so

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sometimes you have to really audition a
number of clips. It's a very painstaking

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process. We're talking I can't remember, but we have well over a thousand,

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if not twelve hundred, maybe fifteen
hundred clips, I don't know,

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So you do the math. It's
a very intense process and then full of

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discoveries, you know, sometimes it's
discoveries, it's happy accidents. Things happen

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all inevitably in the editing room that
is always unexpected and sometimes miraculous. Do

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you have any examples of something that
happened like that in this one off the

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top of my head thinking about creating
these sort of connections in chapter one between

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the Wizard of Oz and It's a
Wonderful Life, which is it's so astute

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by the way of amy to mention
that the joy then when somebody says this

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is to go and find these mirror
effects in a way, right, so

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when she talks about the Wizard of
Oz going away and coming back, just

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the way that it's a wonderful life, went away and then came back.

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We found these shots that essentially act
as avatars for the films themselves of George

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Bailey going away and coming back,
and the same with Dorothy. But David

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had a wonderful made a wonderful discovery
of he's telling me about the scare the

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scarecrow dance when he dances around and
falls on his butt, and then of

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course it's the great sort of dance
and it's a wonderful life when they fall

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into the pool, and he presented
them to me side by side, and

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my gosh, it's just like such
a beautiful sort of mirror effect in the

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way that again it's somebody will mention
something and you will deliver this line,

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and you're fishing for evocative parallels between
those films. But then you when you

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realize that those parallels go beyond just
the narrative structure of the stories themselves,

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that there are moments in the film
that serendipitously create this mirror effect. That's

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super cool. It's a joy for
me to do this. And yeah,

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I mean we've had many of those
things happen. Yeah, I never really

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would have brought those to mind either
the whole idea too, of Dorothy saying

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there's no place like home, and
then George Bailey on the other side of

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the screen praying to get back to
his wonderful life. Of course, way

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back in ninety one, when I
was reading my first film book, have

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I think was David Boardwell was talking
about the parallels between Star Wars and Wizard

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of Oz. So I was so
glad when that came up on screen.

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I was like, yes, this
is perfect. So it was great to

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see that. I loved all the
way that the idea is tied together.

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And that's just something that you've done
so well for so many years now,

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and this is just another stellar example
of your talent. Thank you. We

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worked very hard at it, but
it's a joy and it's again for me,

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it's really about communicating my just love
of movies, and I see our

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films always is a little bit of
a bridge between film studies and the general

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public. This idea that film study
and scholarly books on film, as incredible

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as they are, I think a
lot of people are maybe a little bit

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intimidated by them. And I'm talking
about just cinephiles, people who may not

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even consider themselves cinephiles, people who
just love movies, who love to watch

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great movies. But I think I
think those people like to go through the

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exercise of deconstructing films and trying to
discover things and talk about film with their

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friends. And so to me,
I think part of the role of my

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films is precisely that's to debunk this
idea that you need a PhD. In

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order to have fun deconstructing movies.
That this is something that we can all

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do in in some way, and
that there are rewards at the end of

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the rainbow over for all of us
in doing that. That's the joy,

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not just a film, but of
art in general. Right. Art has

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to be engaging and fun, and
it's a process of discovery and dialogue and

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conversation. And you're not you're not
just conversing with your friends. You're conversing

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with the artists. You're conversing with, and in the case of artists who

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are long dead, you're still conversing
with them because they're still reaching out to

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you through their work. So to
me, this idea that work of art

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can only be interpreted in one way
is so reductive and silly. It's like,

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that's not what art is about.
And I'm not just talking about films

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like the films of David Lynch,
which obviously there's many ways we can interpret

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them, but even the words of
Oz, which seems to be a very

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straightforward story. I think there's many
readings of it that you can make.

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I almost like the idea of you
being stuck when it comes to the pandemic

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and having these restrictions put on you. It's like I always say when I

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talk about movies made under communist rule
or where there's some sort of censorship or

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something. Here you are. You
have these wonderful audio essays, you have

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all of these film clips, and
that's it. You can't go out,

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you can't shoot anybody, you can't
do the talking head interviews. I love

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that you had that impediment that you
turn into an advantage. That's the thing,

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right, It's like, you're a
filmmaker. You have to figure out

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a way to make films. And
I should also mention that at the time

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I was also working on another film
in tandem, so it's called to taking

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It also is just coming out now, and the Cantalog is going to be

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releasing it. I believe through vinegar
syndrome on blu ray pretty soon. That

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one is about the john Ford monument
Valley Westerns, and it's about the semiotics

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of money in Valley. That one
was what's interesting, it's very similar.

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It's also told there's no talking heads, it's voices, but they're criss crossing

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voices. In this particular case,
there's a chorus of voices. But we

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had started working on that film before
the pandemic and actually had made the decision

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to approach it that way, that
we were not going to film the interviews.

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And so when COVID hit all of
a sudden, we were working on

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two films, and one by design, the other one not by design that

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involved just telling a story completely visually
through clips, and so it was there

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were different but very similar challenges.
And so yeah, the pandemic really occupied

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me. I was occupied by those
two films. Now, the one thing

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that I know for sure Amy brings
up, and I hope everybody listening to

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us realize this, is that David
Lynch does not like to talk about his

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own work. So what was his
involvement with this if anything, Because I

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imagine he had to have some sort
of thing going on because you use his

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image on the poster. No,
he has no involvement in the film.

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He was the first one that I
reached out to. I was pretty clear

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that he was not even want to
participate because, as you said, he

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doesn't like to talk about his work, and quite frankly, it's better this

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way. Essentially a film like this, which is again, it's not about

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trying to crack the David Lynch riddle
or solve Lynch in any way, shape

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or form, because that would be
a stupid exercise to do. There's nothing

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to solve. There's nothing to solve
about the creative process. But I still

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felt that I needed to reach out
and say, we're making this film,

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would you like to participate in typical
Lynch in fashion? His response it was

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very nice, but he said I
need to keep my eye on the donut.

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Yeah. You can read that in
a lot of different ways. My

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interpretation of it is that basically he
needed to really focus on his thing.

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So he's been aware of it,
and that was the extent of it.

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I don't know that he's watched it. We had a screening of it at

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the coronat the Island Film Festival.
His sister Martha lives there, and she

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came to the screening and she introduced
me on stage and why did the film

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loved it? She then came to
tell me stories about how she does remember

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David just being obsessed with the Wizard
of Oz as a kid, which was

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really cool to hear. Oh,
But and then she said, I'll talk

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to him about it. I'm sure, I'm sure he'd love it, but

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I don't know to this day whether
he's watched it or not. And again,

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I think we all know he's not
particularly interested in this stuff that's made

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about him, and I totally respect
that. Well, I totally respect that

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You've dealt with some living filmmakers,
some who have gone to the great beyond

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Hitchcock. But with Lynch, it
doesn't matter if he's still with us or

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not when it comes to discussing his
films, because he won't be part of

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the discussion. That's right. And
it's interesting because you could make the argument

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that just you know Hitchcock in a
very different ways, you know, and

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certainly for Psycho, they both are
the men behind the curtain, which is

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very interesting, and like maybe I
have a curtain fetish or something. I

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don't know. Will there be a
third one? Really to this, I

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don't know when did the movie get
locked and when did you first see it

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with an audience. We premiered at
Tribeca last year or so, twenty twenty

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two, and that was Yeah,
that was the first public screening and went

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super well. It's gone to make
festivals around the world and I went to

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many of them. It's been really
well received. And obviously now we're opening

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it. Just it opened in New
York and it's about to open in LA

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and thirty plus cities. Now.
They keep adding theaters in the States and

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in Canada, which is very exciting. And yeah, I'm really hoping that

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Lynch fans come out and geek out
with us, and I hope that people

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are just curious or cinephiles in general. I think this is a film that

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goes beyond Lynch, and as as
I've said, it's really a film about

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the mysteries of cinema and the mysteries
of inspiration influence, and it's a film

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too experience on the big screen.
I'm really helping to see this on the

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big screen because it just it looks
amazing, just the quality of the clips

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looks fantastic. Just on my little
screen, I'm like, gosh, this

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looks so sharp. Oh yeah,
no, it's it looks really quite stunning

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on the big screen, and especially
a lot of these sort of like split

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screens. There's a lot of sort
of stuff that it's best appreciated, I

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think on the bigger screen. Yeah, So when does the john Ford film

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come out? We had some theatrical
screenings a couple of weeks ago, and

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I think Tivad is coming up.
I think they're still working out the ZVOT

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situation. The Blu ray will be
available, I think in the fall.

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Again it's called it's called The Taking, and people are interested in go to

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Decknalogue, which is the k A
n A lge dot com and look for

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details. But yeah, I'm super
proud of that film too. It's it

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definitely belongs and the continuation of the
filmography, the preoccupations that I have about

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movies and the way that movies work
on our brains. And then then we've

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got the William Shatner film that's about
too You're released as well. We premiered

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a south By Southwest this year and
working on plans for a release. So

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yeah, there's a lot going on, So tell me about the Shatner film.

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It's the best way that I can
describe it. So it's called you

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can call Me Bill, and it's
the best way that I can describe it

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is it's a mystical film about William
Shatner at ninety two and about all the

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things that he deeply cares about now
at this point in his life, after

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having had the life being extraordinary life
that he's had that he continues to have

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because he has way more energy than
you and I combine, and I guarantee

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you that he is a powerhouse.
Though he's like an energizer bunny. I

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have a lot of admiration honestly for
him. And he's a real he's a

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real inspiration. There's a you know, it's a film I would say very

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much about death, about the fact
that he knows that no matter how long

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he lives, he's going to die
soon. And he knows that and it

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bugs him because he's, as he
says, he's having too good a time

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here, which is wonderful. It's
a deeper, darker, stranger film,

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I think than people anticipate, and
it's We've had an incredible response out South

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by Southwest critically, the film is
has really been embraced as well. It's

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been a joy to kind of see
that. And so I'm about to go

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to a number of big festivals now
internationally to share the film with some of

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those audiences. And then Legion m
which produced a film along with us at

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Exhibited Pictures. Legion them are They're
wonderful. It's really our second collaboration with

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them. Memory was a finished film
and then they came on board at Sundance

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in twenty nineteen, but this one
was truly a co production and they've been

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wonderful partners. They really know what
they're doing. I hope we'll have any

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more collaborations with them. They're just
wonderful people. So what else? What's

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next for you after that? There's
two projects that right now are at the

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contract stage, so hopefully I'm not
jinxing anything by saying it, but yeah,

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one is Texas Chainsaw Massacre fiftieth anniversary
film, which obviously I'm chumping at

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the bit. That's going to be
a special one and very unique angle on

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this one as well, That's all
I will say. And then another one

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it's a true crime story related to
Psycho, so adding stepping back into the

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shower as it were, but with
true crime elements, and it's very stranger

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than fiction kind of story, almost
like a whole of mirrors of real life

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Norman Bates and Buddy doubles and stand
ins and Buddy doubles to the Buddy double

354
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and all kinds of weird, creepy
stuff. So that's what's on the duckhead

355
00:29:18.279 --> 00:29:22.000
right now. And then in the
film on Vertigo, which been working on

356
00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:25.839
on the side, which will take
me a long time because that's a very

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00:29:25.880 --> 00:29:30.880
personal film but very important to me. And then all kinds of other projects

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00:29:30.920 --> 00:29:36.039
that were various projects in developments,
have various stages of developments. Yeah,

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00:29:36.240 --> 00:29:40.640
it's a busy time, you know
that. I'm excited to see every single

360
00:29:40.680 --> 00:29:44.720
one of those. Been a fans
and stay one, so can't wait.

361
00:29:45.319 --> 00:29:47.799
Thank you so much for your time. It's always great talking with you.

362
00:29:48.440 --> 00:29:52.559
Thank you so much, and thank
you for your supporting And I hope people

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come and enjoy Lynch Shaw's on the
big screen with us um um um um

364
00:30:26.920 --> 00:31:29.480
um um um um um um um
m m m and sign Way and The

365
00:31:29.720 --> 00:32:05.720
Black Light Don't Front Sea Side Play, The Flame, Blue Skies and Times

366
00:32:05.880 --> 00:32:20.680
stay day, some ship among the
star back where the clouds. Surbuve F

367
00:32:25.759 --> 00:32:52.400
travels like m droop so the chimney
tops. That's high silver from the plans

368
00:32:52.920 --> 00:33:28.440
flin the bainbow whine a way by
little bluebets, riby of the rainbow, white m