an interview with mark romanek
by daniel robert epstein - suicide girls
sg username: anderswolleck

11.05


that first time i noticed the name mark romanek was the nine inch nails closer video. i remember how annoyed i was that it was censored by the damn mtv. i was super happy when i got a bootleg that had the uncut version. romanek is a perfectionist and you can truly see that in his music videos. each one has its own distinct style that is clearly romanek’s but yet at the same time it fits in perfectly with the band and the attitude they were trying to get across with their song.

chicago born romanek has received numerous awards and accolades for his innovative music videos. now, like the auteur directors spike jonze and michel gondry, he is finally receiving his due with the new dvd, the directors label vol. 6: the work of director mark romanek.

the dvd set features many of romanek’s best videos such as scream by michael and janet jackson, 99 problems by jay-z, closer by nine inch nails, novocaine for the soul by the eels, hurt by johnny cash, and many others. it also includes a documentary on romanek's career, a conversation with chris rock, ben stiller, and robin williams, video and audio commentaries with romanek, making-of segments, a 56 page booklet with photographs, an interview, and more. buy the work of director mark romanek

daniel robert epstein: i have some specific questions about the nine inch nails closer video. i heard it was shot on some really old film, is that true?

mark romanek: we did use a slightly out of date film stock but it was still a contemporary film stock. they had stopped making it three years before and we found some of it. all the new color film stocks have this t-grain, like little ts that are interlocking. the film stock we used had the original old granular grain. the new stocks are just really modern looking, really sharp, really contrasty, very fine grain. we didn’t want that. normally you don’t want to use that kind of stock because the colors will be off. it does have a shelf life but in this case we didn’t care, the more fucked up it was the happier we were.

dre: did the uncut version of the video ever get released?
mr: i think it’s on nine inch nails’ compilation and it’s on this one obviously.

dre: are you a big fan of the dvd compilations palm pictures has put out?
mr: yes and there are more people that deserve one.

dre: who else?
mr: roman coppola, jonathan dayton and valerie farris, jake scott, [jean baptiste] mondino, david fincher. a lot of people.

dre: i was just spoke to julien temple because they just released the great rock and roll swindle on dvd. i said to him that, when you watch a mark romanek video you could tell it was your work. but julien’s work wasn’t like that. does it come out looking like a mark romanek video because you try or just because you did it?
mr: i just sort of do what i do. i try to do it as sincerely and as purely as i can. i try to be the one to make all the decisions so that it feels like there’s a single author behind it.

dre: so you believe in the auteur theory?
mr: for a little four minute video yeah. it’s still wildly collaborative and there are still lots of things you can’t control and don’t want to control so you either embrace or jettison.

dre: how do you come up with the idea of a video?
mr: i have a backlog of ideas on a file in my computer so if i don’t get an idea i can go into a backlog and see if any of them can be retrofitted. sometimes i’ll have an idea that i think is really good and the other people involved don’t like it or can’t afford to do it properly so i’ll just put it in the file. sometimes i’ll just be driving around and get an idea for a video that’s not connected to anything and i’ll put it in the file. i try to have the idea for the video emerge from listening to the song but sometimes nothing comes. sometimes i’ll get a bunch of ideas that are kind of obvious but you don’t get beyond that.

dre: is that a scary feeling when nothing comes?
mr: in the beginning of my career i guess that would be scary. but now i have the confidence that either i’ll eventually think of something or one of those old ideas will work. if i don’t get an idea i’ll wait for another song. i’m not going to force a bad idea on something just because i want the job, that would not be very fair to the artist.

dre: the closer video feels very in tune with the song.
mr: in retrospect but at the time it was a tough sell. because it said fuck in it, it caused a little bit of a ripple. when i suggested making it look like an old silent movie to trent [reznor]. his reaction was, “why? why do you want it to look fucked up?” i showed him some old movies and some old photographs and played the song for him and he went “ah, i see what you are after.” back in 1994 it was a pretty unusual idea to make it look like a silent movie.

dre: the videos criminal and the devil’s haircut don’t seem complex conceptually on the first viewings.
mr: i’m fascinated by two things. i’m fascinated by what makes one image resonant and another image flat. that which makes an image have teeth and all these layers and what makes another image just banal and have no interest and resonance. knowing the difference is a really interesting dynamic that i always struggle with. i think it’s because the film that made me want to be a filmmaker was 2001: a space odyssey. that was this big spectacle film made by mgm on a grand budget but it was like a riddle, everyone talked about what it meant. i had never seen a filmmaker that had made a film on such a grand scale that was so obtuse and such an enigma to people. so i became fascinated by the idea of just never really explaining much and just putting little things, little enigmas and little details that make you think. i try to put those two ideas together, resonant imagery that seems to be layered and just enigmatizing things. that’s what i think draws you in.

dre: back when i saw one hour photo the production notes never mentioned your first film, static, and from what i read you’re not very proud of it.
mr: well it is embarrassing juvenilia.

dre: i remember some really cool shots in it such as when the camera pulled back from a band onstage.
mr: you saw it?

dre: yeah i saw it about eight years ago on vhs.
mr: wow, you are one of the few people.
i made that film prematurely. what happened is that i read that all the great filmmakers made feature films before they were 25 and i thought “oh i have to make a feature film before i am 25 like orson welles and kubrick did. but i wasn’t technically ready to make a film. i wasn’t a mature enough person to have anything of interest to say. i got the opportunity to make it and so i did. some people like it but i just find it incredibly embarrassing.

dre: i never knew that keith gordon would become such a great filmmaker. i knew he was a great actor.
mr: he always wanted to be like john cassavetes. he wanted to be able to make films and act and have the two things feed each other.

dre: that doesn’t work out unless you look like tom cruise.
mr: or john cassavetes.

dre: when did you do your first video?
mr: back then there weren’t really video directors so if a band had a friend who was a filmmaker they’d ask him to do their video. i used a bunch of pop music in that film [static] and some music from steve jansen [of the band japan]. japan then asked me to do videos and so the first video i did was for them back in 1987 or 88.

dre: does the dvd compilation include those videos?
mr: no i didn’t go that route. i didn’t do the generous and courageous comprehensive body of work because i just find the early ones too humiliating. i started it when i thought i started to get decent with constant craving by kd lang.

dre: i got a chance to talk to david fincher when panic room was released and i brought up the fact that george lucas says he wants to go back and do experimental films again.
mr: he’s been saying that for 20 years, i’m waiting for him to do it.

dre: what’s interesting is that music video directors get do their experimental films, you guys get to try everything. i imagine that when you finally get to make the movie you wanted to make, one hour photo, you had all this knowledge handy.
mr: the great advantage is that i’ve shot so much film in so many different kind of aesthetics that i have this real ease and confidence with the technical part of filmmaking. at this point i don’t have to think and worry about that kind of stuff. that allows me to think and worry about the more important things in making a feature film which are telling the story, making the actors comfortable, helping the actors give interesting and true performances. those are the really hard things. knowing where to put the camera and how to do good lighting effects or making it look good or bad or whatever you want it has become second nature so that’s the great advantage. if you were to make a first film without all the experience you would have to deal with all those things at one time and that is probably why a lot of first films aren’t so hot.

dre: i read one hour photo had a 12 million dollar budget. but the scream video, with michael and janet jackson, cost six million dollars.
mr: one hour photo had its limitations but it was written to be made affordably. the scream video was bloated for a lot of different reasons that weren’t on camera. they wanted a huge video but they only gave me two weeks to prepare it. so when they give you two weeks to prepare something that they want to be huge and you have no time afterwards to do the visual effects you just have to throw money at every problem. a lot of that money didn’t really go on the screen

dre: it certainly looks like it did.
mr: we tried to but a lot of it was just to get it done.

dre: maybe half of it went on screen.
mr: yeah and one hour photo was designed to be a smaller film. i wanted it to look good, but it wasn’t that important that it look a certain way as much as it was important that the story be engaging and compelling to people with tension and the actors were giving good performances.

dre: it is funny how people say that robin williams in one hour photo was his creepiest performance ever but in insomnia he killed like ten people.
mr: we actually made one hour photo before insomnia so the idea of him even doing a creepy role was pretty weird. insomnia came out first because it took forever to cut one hour photo.

dre: [nine inch nails’] hurt is such a personal song for trent. i remember reading that when he first heard it played in clubs it kind of freaked him out a little bit. but in your video, hearing johnny [cash] sing it made me realize that the song was obviously very personal to johnny as well.
mr: oh he knew, we talked about it

dre: how did that influence making the video?
mr: we talked about it in the course of making it. but with that video i jumped on a plane went to nashville and just made it without having anytime to think about it. johnny was only available for a very brief time. we had no money so i could only use locations that were free. because i didn’t really have a concept, i wanted to film johnny cash singing. johnny was about to go off to jamaica to his ranch for the whole rest of the year so we wouldn’t have another chance. so i just scouted around his house and said we’ll shoot here and here and here and i went to the museum and saw it was in a state of disrepair. i went “well johnny isn’t looking that vital. he’s getting quite old and the museum is also in a state of some disrepair maybe i should just film what’s here and not try to prettify anything.” i was emboldened to do that by the way johnny had treated his whole career of music because he was extremely candid and straightforward. i’ll just film the way he looks and maybe i’ll actually extenuate the lines on his face by this hard subset kind of lighting.

dre: where did you shoot that audioslave video [cochise]?
mr: it was shot on slab of concrete in the san fernando valley but we built this scaffolding and attached that construction elevator to the side of it.

dre: what do you know about suicidegirls?
mr: it’s linked from some site that i go to all the time. i kept seeing these images and i just clicked over to see what it was and i thought it was brilliant.

dre: you’re not tattooed or pierced though.
mr: i’m not a suicide boy in that sense but i don’t find it unattractive

dre: the suicidegirl style, partially came about because of the work you did. what kind of culture do you feel you subscribe to, if any?
mr: i don’t think i do. techie, maybe. i’m just this midwestern guy who grew up in the suburbs of chicago, pretty straight.

dre: a lot of directors especially big music video directors don’t write, they develop. when did you realize you could write?
mr: well i wrote the script for one hour photo out of sheer frustration. i tried to do a bunch of other movies that i didn’t write and some that i did write. but they were just either too expensive or they couldn’t figure out how to market them or they just didn’t come together. i started getting really frustrated and the frustration resulted in this three week burst of writing where this whole idea came out. i think subconsciously i figured out how to write something that they couldn’t say no to because i learned all the ways that they could say no. either it’s too expensive, it’s a period piece, there’s not a good star role, it’s too much of an ensemble. all these reasons they pick to say no. i didn’t write it in a calculating way, but afterwards i realized i wrote something that they couldn’t say no to. it was affordable, contemporary, very relatable premise that they can easily sell. your local one-hour photo guy becomes a stalker and it has a great castable lead role.

dre: were you happy with the response to one hour photo?
mr: it got a lot of good reviews so it was not considered a failure. it was massive on home video. it seemed like i hit a solid double, not a grand slam. good enough that i could make another movie.

dre: is the movie, a cold case, what you are doing next?
mr: that got put on hold until after [tom] hanks finishes the da vinci code. we were going to try to rush it before but we decided not. there’s another film i talking about doing really fast. i’m going to find out literally today if i’m going to do that. it’s a straight horror film.


click to visit the suicide girls website





back to press