WEBVTT 1 00:00:18.120 --> 00:00:24.280 I used to quite normally sing songs to myself in my play in the backyard. 2 00:00:24.280 --> 00:00:30.800 Now there was in Bisbee a man who ran a local theater, THE local theater in Bisbee, Arizona, 3 00:00:31.580 --> 00:00:40.500 who, to enliven things for himself, did a weekly news thing on Bisbee called the March of Times of Bisbee, Arizona. 4 00:00:41.660 --> 00:00:48.460 And he heard me singing and playing in the backyard, and so he photographed me doing that. 5 00:00:48.460 --> 00:00:56.680 And then he arranged further that I would be taken by my parents into a studio and be recorded singing some songs. 6 00:00:57.040 --> 00:01:00.980 And I, of course, didn't know anything. Movies were just something he went to. 7 00:01:01.440 --> 00:01:12.820 So it fell out that I went to the movies one week, and in between our gang, short cartoons or whatever before the feature, 8 00:01:12.820 --> 00:01:21.940 came the March of Times of Bisbee where I suddenly saw myself on the screen singing, and heard myself too, in the cortical sense, 9 00:01:22.520 --> 00:01:26.320 you know, singing on the screen in my most private play. 10 00:01:27.960 --> 00:01:35.600 This anthropologist made a quote after she saw this that said, about this form of, she said, 11 00:01:35.600 --> 00:01:41.500 It is, I believe, as new and as significant as the invention of drama or the novel, 12 00:01:41.800 --> 00:01:47.300 a new way in which people can learn to look at life by seeing the real life of others interpreted by the camera. 13 00:01:47.660 --> 00:01:54.400 Well, I never forgot that quote, and I think basically that gave me the inspiration for the motion picture. 14 00:01:57.340 --> 00:02:07.380 We're out here on Hubbard Street out in front of Chicago filmmakers, and I'm talking to Brenda Webb. 15 00:02:08.220 --> 00:02:13.860 She's been the outstanding program director of Chicago filmmakers now for a number of years. 16 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:19.300 We'd like to ask her exactly how she feels about experimental film. 17 00:02:20.300 --> 00:02:26.060 Generally, I think it's really nice, and I admire all those experimental filmmakers 18 00:02:27.240 --> 00:02:34.080 who are working in the genre ad infinitum and will continue to do so forever. 19 00:02:35.660 --> 00:02:39.880 I think that, you know, that's the most important thing is that people keep doing the same things forever. 20 00:02:43.640 --> 00:02:44.960 Is there a film in there? 21 00:02:45.900 --> 00:02:46.140 Cagle? 22 00:02:46.140 --> 00:02:50.200 Bill always wonders where the money's going to come from when the important stuff is shot. 23 00:02:50.480 --> 00:02:50.900 That's right. 24 00:03:26.960 --> 00:03:34.940 I was watching a dog the other day, and then I saw these mailer ducks in the park on Mother's Day 25 00:03:34.940 --> 00:03:36.980 where we're going for the dinner. 26 00:03:49.440 --> 00:03:53.060 And we're seeing this dog go down the road, and I was telling him, 27 00:03:53.440 --> 00:03:56.180 see that dog go down the road, what do you think that dog's talking about? 28 00:03:56.780 --> 00:03:59.620 See that dog? He's talking to the asphalt. He's talking to God. 29 00:04:00.060 --> 00:04:04.580 I know that dog. Look at his tail. He's talking to me. 30 00:04:05.560 --> 00:04:17.600 The question is, what is an experimental filmmaker? 31 00:04:20.840 --> 00:04:25.820 How can you tell an experimental filmmaker? 32 00:04:28.040 --> 00:04:32.380 When you're walking down the street and you see someone, how can you tell? 33 00:04:33.380 --> 00:04:35.940 It's an experimental filmmaker. 34 00:04:37.640 --> 00:04:47.980 What are the clues that tells you that you're looking at an experimental filmmaker? 35 00:04:55.240 --> 00:05:10.020 I once saw an experimental filmmaker do this, but this is no kind of clue that he was what he said he was. 36 00:05:10.940 --> 00:05:17.700 But this is just an example, to sort of paraphrase a moment. 37 00:05:25.120 --> 00:05:26.700 You've got normal vision, huh? 38 00:05:27.080 --> 00:05:29.100 I have extremely normal vision. 39 00:05:29.880 --> 00:05:37.320 I'd like to go on. Gailen Merzian is confessing right now that she has normal vision. 40 00:05:37.320 --> 00:05:47.620 I like my ophthalmologist. He's a philosopher. He's a philosophy major, and he's doing research on embryonic cancer cells. 41 00:05:48.280 --> 00:05:52.280 I'd like to know him better. I wish that he would do lectures for laypeople. 42 00:05:53.580 --> 00:06:00.080 I can't even go back and get my glasses fitted, and I probably won't talk to him again for two years, which is when he wants me to come back. 43 00:06:01.040 --> 00:06:02.060 Now, Eiland's turn. 44 00:06:03.040 --> 00:06:06.200 I get eye migraines. 45 00:06:10.580 --> 00:06:16.540 Yeah, I don't get migraine headaches. I get eye migraines. 46 00:06:19.220 --> 00:06:22.200 What do you mean the need? That's ridiculous. 47 00:06:22.760 --> 00:06:24.580 You're talking about mistakes. 48 00:06:24.580 --> 00:06:31.280 That's just, no, that's bullshit. I think like, no man ever wanted a kid. 49 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:35.960 They just want to perpetuate their own ego. 50 00:06:37.320 --> 00:06:39.560 They're not thinking about another child. 51 00:06:40.500 --> 00:06:41.200 No, they do. 52 00:06:41.960 --> 00:06:44.440 They're not thinking about nurturing or mothering or anything. 53 00:06:45.060 --> 00:06:46.040 Yes, please. 54 00:06:47.520 --> 00:06:51.580 All very, very strong incumbents, and the one who is most vulnerable... 55 00:06:51.580 --> 00:06:58.380 You're always telling Brenda and me about how this is archived. This is historic. This is... It's true. 56 00:06:58.780 --> 00:07:05.060 He always drags us around, puts us under bright lights, and tells us how this is archived material. 57 00:07:05.540 --> 00:07:08.960 Wait a minute, wait a minute. I want to hear about this need about having children. 58 00:07:08.960 --> 00:07:14.340 I mean, is this like an instinctive animal sort of need, or is this like... 59 00:07:14.340 --> 00:07:15.900 What are we going to, wild keep it there? 60 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:33.960 This is the son of, the return of, the remembrance of Caligari's cure. 61 00:07:36.420 --> 00:07:42.340 Actually, the best part that I had, since I had several, was Big Nurse. 62 00:07:43.780 --> 00:07:54.340 Because he wanted, Tom has a fantasy about ball busting women, so he was able to... 63 00:07:54.340 --> 00:07:59.520 Now, see, now it gets more difficult, because other things are involved. 64 00:08:05.740 --> 00:08:19.960 Yes, I was the sound person in the film Caligari's... 65 00:08:22.020 --> 00:08:23.420 ...anodote. 66 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:39.620 I don't remember too much about it, except that the camera noise had an arthritic problem. 67 00:08:41.260 --> 00:08:42.040 And... 68 00:08:43.180 --> 00:08:57.140 It's an experience I don't really recall precisely, but I'm not sure how much more I can say, if you know what I mean.