Be Kind, Rewind

[tpfkabi]

i will be there opening day.........if it is widely released.........which it seems it would be.

[picolas]

i'm going to have to see all those movies i should've seen a long time ago.

if this does suck it would be appropriate to remake it.

[Pozer]

mos def acts kinda hokey in the trailer

a lot of little subtle moments (specially with md) are just awkward and unnecessary.

[MacGuffin]

Michel Gondry Makes Jack Black A Hero In 'Be Kind Rewind'
'I like to make things with garbage,' the 'Eternal Sunshine' director says of new film.
Source: MTV

NEW YORK — Embark on a trip to the Tribeca office of Michel Gondry, inarguably one of the most wildly imaginative filmmakers working today, and you might conjure up visions of an "Alice in Wonderland"-inspired lair. Perhaps there would be a series of artisans creating an oversize shoe made of nothing but CD covers or something similarly and deliciously absurd. Really, though, it's just an office with desks and workers, like any other.

Still, at the center of it all is the inspired and slightly eccentric madman himself. The 44-year-old French director welcomed MTV into his lair after screening for us the finished print of his latest film, "Be Kind Rewind" (set for release January 2008), a work many are calling his most mainstream yet. That's not too difficult a label to affix after previous work like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," wherein Jim Carrey has his memories erased in the middle of the night by a stoned Mark Ruffalo, or "The Science of Sleep," a very personal trip of a flick most memorable for a scene in which star Gael Garcia Bernal runs around with giant hands.

"Be Kind Rewind" is accessible, though, if for no other reason than the comforting comic presence of Jack Black, in a role that fits him to a T. Here, the "School of Rock" star is Jerry, a childlike doofus who becomes magnetized and mistakenly erases all the VHS tapes at the video store his friend Mike (a winning Mos Def) has been charged with minding while the boss (Danny Glover) is away. The three leads are rounded out by newcomer Melonie Diaz in a role that was offered to past Gondry collaborator Kirsten Dunst early on.

What happens next is what makes the film both high-concept and, well, Gondry-ish. Jerry and Mike decide that the only way to keep Be Kind Rewind (the store shares the name of the film) going is to re-create movies on their own, in a decidedly low-rent style. Montages of hilariously demented versions of everything from "Ghostbusters" to "The Lion King" ensue. The director summed it up thusly: "It's about two guys trying to cover their mistake in the most absurd way, and in the process [they] get overwhelmed. It's a typical story. By mistake someone becomes a hero." Yes, it doesn't take a subscription to Variety to figure out that their hare-brain scheme works better than anticipated.

Without a doubt, the re-created movies will be the most talked-about aspect of "Be Kind," and it's the element that is most characteristic of Gondry's work. "I like to make things with garbage," he said without a note of embarrassment. All five of his films have possessed a made-from-scratch aesthetic that can't be mistaken for any other filmmaker's. Here, his two protagonists use much of that can-do Gondry attitude to save the day.

Finding the right films to re-create was not without its challenges. Gondry admits that he was unable to gain permission to film his versions of "Back to the Future" or "Superman" (though he says if you look carefully, you'll see a flying man in the background at one point). Many of the films Jerry and Mike re-create are classics from the '80s, an era for which Gondry clearly has affection. He lit up at the suggestion that the film itself recalls the era: "There is a sense of enterprise in this that is very much like an '80s film."

It's not just the plot that harkens back two decades. "Ghostbusters" star Sigourney Weaver has an extended cameo in the film. It's an appearance that Gondry relished. "She came on the set, and we had shot already the re-enactment of 'Ghostbusters.' We showed it to her and she was very moved by it," he said with pride.

Gondry cites two ideas that inspired "Be Kind Rewind." One came from his realization that the old practice of remaking films and creating sequels on smaller budgets back in the 1960s wasn't always so bad. "After the first 'Planet of the Apes,' they all got cheaper, but sometimes they became more interesting. I thought, 'Let's take that process and push it even more," he said.

The other source of inspiration for the film goes all the way back to Gondry's home country. He recalls, "When I was in Paris in the 1980s, I was living in 18th arrondissement, which was the one with the most theaters. And they all got shut down. And I thought, 'One day I'm going to revive one of these theaters and create a community among the neighbors. We would shoot anything we want and finance it ourselves.' "

"Be Kind Rewind" is set in Passaic, New Jersey ("Passaic" sounds poetic in Gondry's heavy accent). While not exactly a mecca for filmmaking, Passaic represented exactly the kind of melting-pot town Gondry felt was perfect for a flick all about community. Of course, even the way Gondry found the setting was uniquely random: "We decided to shoot there because my mechanic, who plays one of the mechanics in the movie, works there. I went to visit him once, and I saw this body shop/ junkyard next to this freeway. It was this little town that was very friendly with Polish, Dominican and African Americans."

Passaic, Gondry explained, is a long way off from the "white suburb in France" where he grew up, a place he says "had no sense of community at all." After working on "Dave Chappelle's Block Party," Gondry said he began to understand what community can mean. "Be Kind Rewind" is a continuation of that.

In the end, the true heart of "Be Kind Rewind" lies in Mos Def's Mike, a good-natured worker for his mentor at the store. Mike idolizes jazz musician Fats Waller, whose story has been passed on to him by Glover and figures prominently in the final act of the story. For Gondry, who himself grew up idolizing greats like Waller and Duke Ellington, the link to jazz is clear. His filmmaking is all about the balance between structure and improvisation on the set. Gondry calls Waller a "punk," and it's clear he could put himself in the same category.

Of course, he's been a punk who's had some big-name collaborators on his side, from Björk to Charlie Kaufman. "Eternal Sunshine," one of the most acclaimed films of the last decade, has clearly been a tough act to follow for Gondry as the specter of Kaufman (who penned that memorable script as well as Gondry's first under-appreciated effort, "Human Nature") looms large for the Frenchman. "Be Kind Rewind" represents just the second film Gondry has directed from a script of his own.

Gondry summed up the arc of his career: "The first film I did with Charlie was not appreciated, and the next was overwhelmingly appreciated. Then the first one I wrote myself ['The Science of Sleep'] was a little less appreciated. The main [challenge] for a director is just to be able to make another movie."

Surely that adoration for "Eternal Sunshine" gives him confidence. "If this movie is not trashed by people, I will start to feel confident," he said with a smile.

[MacGuffin]

[picolas]

re: Danny Glover's name

go big or go home.

[modage]

unfortunately, this movie is going to be TERRIBLE.  i can feel it.

[tpfkabi]

i predict this will top the box office at least one, if not two, consecutive weeks - i say this with no knowledge of same week competition.

[modage]

you wouldn't say that if you had read the script.

[MacGuffin]

i predict this will top the box office at least one, if not two, consecutive weeks - i say this with no knowledge of same week competition.

Rambo.

[tpfkabi]

you wouldn't say that if you had read the script.

no i have not.
i'm just going on what the public will see:
jack black
trailer
poster

now knowing Rambo is opening the same week i retract my statement.

[MacGuffin]

Selling 'Be Kind Rewind' with a slapdash of humor
Off-kilter marketing spins off from the writer-director Michel Gondry's tale of minimalist moviemakers.
By Chris Lee, Los Angeles Times

In Oscar-winning writer-director Michel Gondry's upcoming comedy "Be Kind Rewind," Jack Black and Mos Def play accidental auteurs -- a couple of knock-around film novices who end up making movie magic with a minimum of resources: tin foil and cardboard, a junkyard back lot and an ancient camcorder chief among them.

Portraying, respectively, a well-intentioned video store clerk and his amped-up best friend, Def and Black must reshoot a trove of beloved movies -- reenacting and playing all the key roles in "RoboCop," "When We Were Kings," "Driving Miss Daisy," "Rush Hour 2" and "Ghostbusters," among others -- after Black's bumbling character accidentally erases the store's entire inventory of VHS tapes. They call their charmingly slapdash recreations "Sweded" movies (as in Sweden) to persuade the store's skeptical customers to keep renting. "It's a faraway, expensive country," Black explains to one patron.

It's precisely the sort of so-naive-it's-ingenious conflict resolution that prevails in Gondry's filmic universe -- a place where reality is just a poor substitute for surreality. Now, leading to "Be Kind's" Jan. 25 theatrical release, marketers for its distributor, New Line, are giving the film a promotional push that involves Sweding the Internet, the Sundance Film Festival and one of New York's hippest art galleries. As well, it may even result in a number of famous directors' giving reciprocal Sweding treatment to "Be Kind Rewind."

But a clarification about Sweding first.

"I wanted a name that meant nothing," Paris native Gondry said in Clouseau-esque Franglais about the invention of the verb. "I had in mind, like, the suede shoes -- a fake velvet. A sort of ultra-suede? But I always get the word wrong because I'm French."

In the "Be Kind" characters' reductive reasoning, it's more straightforward to reshoot all the films from scratch than to stock the store with new videotapes. With necessity as the mother of their lo-fi invention, the characters use pipe cleaners to stand in for ectoplasmic tractor beams in the Sweded version of "Ghostbusters." Spray-painted cardboard cutouts substitute for animated wildlife in the Sweded "Lion King." And cheese pizza is meant to evoke pooling blood -- the aftermath of a drive-by shooting in the Sweded version of "Boyz N the Hood."

Aaron Sugarman, New Line Cinema's senior vice president for interactive marketing, said the promotional aesthetic was designed to fit the film's broader theme of individual expression via humble means in the Information Age.

"Everyone's taken by this idea of taking these great movies you love and remaking them into your own thing. It's what half the stuff on YouTube is," Sugarman said. "So we wanted to inspire people to do their own Sweding, to tell them what Sweding is and give them the tools to make their own Sweded pieces. We wanted people to be inspired. Because you can Swede a movie, a Web page, a bicycle -- you can take Sweding and extend it to almost anything in life."

Toward that end, the operating idea behind www.bekindmovie.com is that Black's character has also accidentally "erased the Internet" and visitors to the site are responsible for creating a Sweded replacement. Google has been crudely reborn as "Goolge." MySpace has undergone a primitive makeover to become MyFace (a social networking site for the "Be Kind" characters). Another section of the site allows visitors to Swede photos of themselves onto VHS movie covers from New Line films, including "The Wedding Singer," "Blade" and "Freddy vs. Jason." (You can also see clips of some of the movies Sweded in "Be Kind.")

As well, "Easter eggs" -- hidden features computer programmers plant on some Web pages, intending them as inside jokes or personal asides -- abound on BeKindMovie.com. Taking visitors to nearly 20 ancillary websites, they include Sweded dancing cats, Sweded news and weather pages and a Sweded "arcade" that allows visitors to play the proto video game Pong. A PDF download instructs visitors on how to Swede other sites. There are plans for a channel on YouTube dedicated to fan-generated Sweded films.

Most of "Be Kind" takes place in and around a Passaic, N.J., video store (owned by Danny Glover's retirement-age character) that's rapidly losing market share to a nearby Blockbuster franchise. To hear Gondry explain it, he hopes the film -- and particularly that subplot -- will engender a critical dialogue about consumer culture. As such, the writer-director said he will allow marketers to go only so far with their promotions.

"I want to make sure we're not contradicting ourselves by doing too heavy marketing," Gondry said. "Blockbuster wanted a partnership -- advertising in common, television commercials. But my movie is about an indie video store defending itself against a larger corporation! I said no because using our movie to promote Blockbuster and vice versa would be shooting ourselves in the foot."

He added: "Now I hope our movie will be in their shop."

A more natural place to raise awareness for the film is the Sundance Film Festival, which opens Jan. 17 in Park City, Utah. There, Gondry said he plans to perform music from the "Be Kind" soundtrack, backed by Mos Def and Jean-Michel Bernard, who wrote the film's score. New Line is also planning on creating a "Sweding suite" in a house near Main Street (mostly likely done up to look like the video store from the movie) where people can stop by and participate in Sweding, such as inserting themselves into photos from the film.

And on Jan. 24, one day before "Be Kind" hits theaters, Gondry will also bring Sweding to downtown New York's hippest art gallery, SoHo's Deitch Projects. There, for the better part of a month, he will set up a temporary Sweding movie studio.

"Groups of people walk in and will have access to a workshop," Gondry explained. "There is a very simple protocol: You shoot in camera, edit while you shoot -- which means you stop the camera when you want to go to the next scene, you don't edit. Story lines last five to 10 minutes. And most of the exhibition will be a mini back lot with 15 little sets."

"In two hours, you can walk in, create a story, shoot a movie, watch it in the screening movie. Then you leave and take a copy."

Deitch Projects head Jeffrey Deitch arranged a gallery exhibition in conjunction with Gondry's last film, 2006's "The Science of Sleep," and explained the director's appeal in art circles.

"One of the reasons there's interest in the art world is this handmade quality to what he does," Deitch said. "Even though some of his films are big studio films, there isn't a sense that it's all manufactured studio product.

"People love taking modest material and turning it into art. It connects with a strong new trend where anyone can make a movie in their bedroom and backyard and put it on YouTube and take on the whole world."

Over the last few weeks, in a fittingly meta-narrative marketing twist, New Line has beenreaching out to some of the directors whose movies are Sweded in "Be Kind Rewind" -- Robert Zemeckis, Brett Ratner and Ivan Reitman among them -- offering them the chance to Swede Gondry's film.

"I can't tell you what will or won't come to pass," Sugarman said. "But we think it's as much fun for Ivan Reitman to play with 'Be Kind Rewind' as it is for us to play with 'Ghostbusters.' A lot of people in the film industry have a great sense of humor about this stuff."

For his part, Gondry is proud to help subvert the very studio machinery that enables him to make his movies -- especially if that means empowering the people who go see them.

"When you Swede, you create the product you are going to consume for your own pleasure," he said. "Of course I'm doing movies for a studio. Of course I'm part of the system. But I'm using the space given to me to express a different perspective -- people can create their own entertainment."

[MacGuffin]

Who Wants to Meet Michel Gondry?
Source: Cinematical

As a part of an ongoing series that brings indie filmmakers to you at Apple stores, our good friends over at indieWIRE are bringing you Michel Gondry, director of Be Kind, Rewind, which we'll be reviewing at Sundance. This time around, indie film fans in New York, San Francisco and Chicago will have an opportunity to hear Gondry talk about his latest film. Here's all the scoop:

Apple Store, San Francisco
Monday, January 7th - 7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m
http://www.apple.com/retail/sanfrancisco

(This event will be moderated by SF360's Susan Gerhard.)


Apple Store, North Michigan Avenue, Chicago
Tuesday, January 8th - 7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m
http://www.apple.com/retail/northmichiganavenue

(This event will be moderated by Time Out Chicago's Ben Kenigsberg.)


Apple Store, SoHo, New York City
Friday, January 11th, 7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m
http://www.apple.com/retail/soho

(This event will be moderated by indieWIRE's Editor in Chief Eugene
Hernandez.)

Seating for all these events is first come, first served, so you might want to show up a tad early. If you're in any of those cities and go to the event, come back and let us know how it goes.

[MacGuffin]

APPLE STORE CHAT | Director Michel Gondry Talks "Be Kind, Rewind," Bjork and some Excrement

A standing room-only crowd filled the Apple Store Soho on Friday night to get a glimpse of perennial favorite director Michel Gondry's latest freak-out, "Be Kind, Rewind" as part of indieWIRE's ongoing conversation in film series. The director sat down for an in-depth talk with iW editor-in-chief Eugene Hernandez about the film, as well as his previous work in film and music videos.

The film stars Mos Def as a video store clerk and Jack Black as his idiot man-child best friend who becomes temporarily magnetized after a power plant accident and inadvertently erases all of the tapes. The two attempt to videotape their own crude recreations of the films with props they find around their store (starting with "Ghostbusters," and continuing through "Boyz in the Hood," "Rush Hour 2," and "The Last Tango in Paris"), calling their process "Sweding"; as the films become popular throughout their town (Passaic, New Jersey- in the spirit of the film, a lot of the local residents played extras), the residents start Sweding their own ideas, as the film comes to an ersatz Capra conclusion about the power of filmmaking amongst ordinary people.

"I noticed in my district in Paris there were so many abandoned movie theaters," said Gondry, explaining the origin of the idea. "I had this Utopian philosophy that I could gather people who live next to this theater and give them a camera, and basically the principle will be that they create their own film all by themselves and they watch it all together one week later, and every week they make a new film. It would be very poor technically, but it would be totally compensated by the fact that you look at yourself and your friends."

Hernandez noted that this was, in fact, happening more often, with the spate of current production technology and such websites as Youtube, but Gondry brushed it off, saying "This technology, it was always there since the Super 8 and even the first VHS cameras... Youtube, and all that is...just for the ego, it's to get many many hits." He then added, "I don't want to seem nostalgic."

Of course, the charm of Gondry is that he IS nostalgic (who else would base a story on a video store that refused to convert from VHS to DVDs?), filling his movies with ingeniously analog technology as an ode not as much to a better time as to his own childhood. There is a good deal of artful childishness throughout Gondry's work; the script for this film, as with that of his previous film "The Science of Sleep," seems not to have been written so much as free-associated by a six year-old (it's easy to miss his collaborations with Charlie Kaufman; particularly when working with an actor as mercurial as Jack Black, Gondry could do with a little discipline). A documentary on the director's video box set is entitled "I've been Twelve Forever," but even this seems a little bit generous; when one audience member asked "What was the first thing that you created that you remember being happy about", he answered, without hesitation "My poop." Director Michel Gondry and indieWIRE editor-in-chief Eugene Hernandez at the Apple Store SoHo in New York Friday. Photo by Brian Brooks/indieWIRE

Regarding the term "Swede" for the films, Gondry said, "Initially I thought I would 'Pimp' the movies, but my editor told me it would age very quickly, this term, so I came up with a completely blank name, a name that meant nothing to me." Gondry did not want the actors to study the films being Sweded, saying "I didn't want to just make a copy, I wanted the film to be recreated from collective memory" (much like the recreations in "Son of Rambow" or the grade schoolers' "Raiders of the Lost Ark" project).

What Gondry's films and videos lack in discipline is more than made up for in an intuitive understanding of unconscious association, particularly in his conceptual music videos (think of the lego White Stripes in "Fell in Love with a Girl," or the dancing instrumental monsters in Daft Punk's "Around the World"). This has led to a particularly fruitful collaboration with fellow lunatic pixie Bjork, and the director showed his latest marvel for the singer's "Declare Independence" (their first video together in 10 years), in which a clanging machine spits colored rope into a megaphone, which Bjork shouts into the heads of an industrial audience. Somehow, it makes sense.

"In concert," explained Gondry, "she would jump on the stage and sing with great energy and give this energy to the audience, and then the audience would give the energy to her, and it would effect not only her but the musicians, and the musicians would feed her this energy, and I could see it as a big thread that was giving energy, and I wanted to reflect that with this machine."

To conclude his show, Gondry brought down the house with a Sweded recreation of the "Be Kind, Rewind" trailer, starring himself, which will-- whether he approves or not -- probably find its greatest audience on Youtube. "Be Kind, Rewind" opens on February 21.

[MacGuffin]

Sundance Interview: 'Be Kind Rewind' Director Michel Gondry
Source: Cinematical

Writer-director Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind follows two small-town friends, Jerry (Jack Black) and Mike (Mos Def) as disaster at a VHS-only video rental store forces them to try to replace the wiped tapes ... by re-shooting the films they once contained. When their ultra-low-budget, ultra-high-spirit remakes of films like Ghostbusters, King Kong and The Lion King become hits with customers (who are told the tapes are Swedish imports), Jerry and Mike's absurd yet logical attempt to save the store becomes an unexpected starting point for their own artistic journey -- and a celebration of movie making and movie watching. Gondry brings Jerry and Mike's collaborations to life with the mix of big-idea film making and intimate wonder he's demonstrated in all his work, including Human Nature, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep and Dave Chappelle's Block Party. Be Kind Rewind will premiere at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival; Gondry spoke with Cinematical about everything from the joy of creation, racism in film and popular culture, and how Sundance feels different from other film festivals: " (At Sundance) ... I felt encouraged to continue; in Cannes, I felt really like people were asking me to stop doing my job."

Cinematical: I guess the first, and easiest question is where did the idea behind Be Kind Rewind come from for you?

Michel Gondry: It comes from a utopia I had -- do you say 'having a utopia?' -- a belief I have that people can create their own entertainment. I always wanted to create this community that would come and tell their own story, shoot it -- and watch them. The idea is to not have one entity who creates the work, the project, and another entity who consumes it; the idea is people create their own work, like somebody cultivating his garden.

Cinematical: And in the film, we see the characters go from imitation to actual creation; that was always part of the idea?

Michel Gondry: Yes; it's very important to me that they go through this journey; I don't want to advocate imitation; I want to encourage creation. In this case, they start with imitation because their goal is not being creative; they don't realize they're being creative until they become successful and they are forced to be creative. And actually Alma (Melonie Diaz), who's sort of the smarter, the smartest guy of the band -- she's a girl -- tells them that they are much more creative than what they think they are. And then they realize that they don't have to copy movies; they can create their own. And I think it's very important that people not just make their own entertainment, but that they create it, that they really invent the story.

Cinematical: I was sort of taken by comparing Be Kind Rewind to The Science of Sleep, which was very well received, very stunning film visually -- but a lot of viewers, critics and audience members felt that it was a bit airy on a narrative level, that it didn't really have a plot engine to it; was part of Be Kind Rewind's "We have to save the store ..." plot because of that, to give something to move the movie forward?

MG: Ehhhhh, it's not my favorite part of the film, the fact that they have to save the building; in fact, at the end, you don't even know if they save it or not; what's important is that everybody can recognize they fought, and they brought the city together. I think that's more important than the building. Even if the building goes (away), they're going to find another space. But it's true; in fact, it was an idea from my producer, this idea that the building had to be demolished. I was not really in favor ... but if it can help the plot move forward and then the film is more accessible, then fine, I don't mind.

Cinematical: I was very curious about how you chose the films to "Swede" (Jerry, Mike and Alma's term for the re-shot, re-invented films the store rents); was the engine for that affection or admiration? Was it "Oh, this'll be funny to 'Swede,' or ...

MG: It was more affection; it's more effective, as well, when the movies are more iconic, when everybody remembers them. They cannot be too modern, because they aren't in VHS anymore; the store has to be in VHS in order to be erased for the story. But there is not much nostalgia about (the films chosen) -- although you could find a parallel between, for instance, Ghostbusters and Be Kind Rewind in the way that it's about a business that gets started and it's kind of very '80s; I like this idea that three losers start a business, and it becomes huge, and it's absurd. I always loved that; it's a very good comedy principle. But except from that, I didn't mean to "tribute" movies ... it's not about that; it's about people creating their own entertainment.

Cinematical: Was it tricky getting the permissions to do the "Sweded" versions of the films?

MG: It was tricky to get permission to use the box's artwork; that's what's protected. The film, you can copy the story, it's not forbidden; you can make any spoof of any movie you want. But we had to see the boxes because they make reference to them; sometimes, they shoot the movie only based on what they see on the box. So, every time we had to show the box, that was the difficult part.

Cinematical: On a lighter note, why Sweden?

MG: Completely random.

Cinematical: It's very interesting the film's playing Sundance this year, because in many ways it's about the joy of creation. Do you feel like that's a nice happy accident, that this movie about the joy of making movies wound up at a film festival that we still, correctly or not, think of a beginner's or experimental or avant-garde festival?

MG: Yeah, I think it's a good place for this movie to be; I'm still a beginner anyway, so I feel it's completely justified.

Cinematical: Do you remember what it was like when you had Human Nature, your first full-length feature, here at Sundance?

MG: Yeah, it was much nicer than Cannes, I can tell you, because I've been in both places for the same film. (Sundance) was much more friendly, and welcoming. Although, I know (Human Nature) was not really a big hit (at Sundance), but I felt encouraged to continue; in Cannes, I felt really like people were asking me to stop doing my job.

Cinematical: When you're at something like Sundance, do you get the chance to sneak out and actually see a movies?

MG: Yeah; generally, I see two other (movies), or something like that; it's great but ... I wish I could see all of them. It's just ... (Gestures at the lunch he's finished.) I have to eat while I'm talking to you, and (Sundance) is the same. It's not like I'm busy like a president, but I spend a lot of time talking about the film because I want people to know about it and go and see it, so combined with the time it takes to make a movie, (there's) not much time left. Especially when I go to a festival; it's very close to the opening, so I have other stuff to do, I can only stay two days. But we're going to play music (at Sundance) -- with Mos Def, and Jean-Michel Bernard, the composer of the film, so it's going to be good fun.

Cinematical: It's kind of simplistic, but you take on so many different roles in the making of this film; does making Be Kind Rewind just feel like a slightly larger version of making one of Mike and Jerry's efforts (in the film) where everyone does a little bit of everything?

MG: A little bit, yeah; all those techniques I wanted to use, and of course I couldn't use them in a traditional film, because some of them are so simplistic that you would not believe the world you're creating. So, it was a great opportunity to use all these ideas I constantly have. ...

Cinematical: Was it working on Dave Chappelle's Block Party that introduced you to Mos Def and made you go "I want to write for him?"

MG: Yeah -- well, I didn't write for him; I didn't have him in mind. I didn't have anyone in mind on the first draft; second draft, I think had him in mind. But definitely working with (Mos Def) and, as well, working with Dave Chappelle, made me want to do a movie more about community, about racial issues -- about more American elements; because I'm a foreigner, I would not dare do a story about that, but after Block Party, I felt much more engaged into this type of story.

Cinematical: And race really only comes up once in Be Kind Rewind, when you have to explain to Jack's Black's character Jerry that he cannot, in fact, play Fats Waller. ...

MG: There are a couple of other times; re-enacting the Fats Waller stuff, they talk about him being rejected from (boarding) the plane, and you see the black people sitting on the wing ... and I think another time we talk about the fingers (of people's hands, used as a mock piano keyboard for Jerry and Mike's Fats Waller biopic,) being black and white, but not too much. It's a delicate subject (race), but maybe by hanging with Dave a lot, I felt more comfortable bringing the subject up ...

Cinematical: ... And maybe in a more organic way, not saying, "Let us stop the film to have a heavy moment ..." but just putting it through (the film) it where it belongs ...

MG: Humor is great for talking about important subjects; I mean, if you look at the history of films, they were all paved by super-racist movies. I was talking (about D.W.) Griffith before; his movie (Birth of a Nation) is advocating the Klu Klux Clan; the first talking (picture) is The Jazz Singer, and it's a guy (in) blackface. Movies are really racist, and it's kind of amazing now how the biggest star is actually Will Smith; it's sort of a good revenge in a way. Pop culture has been invented by, I think, people coming from an African ancestry -- maybe not African ancestry, but in more recent centuries if you look at pop music -- or sports, one of the most prominent elements of pop culture -- and it's primarily performed by African-American or Black people. So it's sort of a good turnaround, how do you say?

Cinematical: Reversal?

MG: Reversal, that now the biggest star (is African-American), and there are more and more African-Americans that become big stars.

Cinematical: Looking through all of your films -- and even back to things like the stunning video for (Bjork's) "Bachelorette," which I'm a huge fan of -- storytelling seems to be a big element in your films, whether it's a magical book, or people telling their stories into the camera in Human Nature or people remembering the story of their lives in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ... do you feel like that's something that you're especially interested in, or does it feel more like it's impossible to tell a story without talking about the nature of storytelling?

MG: It's very intriguing to try to understand: What is a story? My girlfriend and I tried to put in words what a story is, and we wrote a list of our ten favorite stories, and trying to figure out what it is. Because people tell you what a story should be in the film industry, and it's very restrictive; I think a story can be a lot of different things. But it's interesting, what makes something be a story; to me there is something I like in storytelling -- you have an event, you have some characters and locations, you have an event that later is going to interfere with the storyline and change the course of it. And I like to visualize the story in geometric shapes, to understand and compare ... that's why it was great to work with Charlie Kaufman, because he has this geometrical sensibility as well; he likes to talk about story in a geometrical way.

Cinematical: And it's good to know the rules before you break them.

MG: Yeah, but I'm not talking about rules, necessarily; I'm trying to understand what it is that makes me feel I'm following a story. What fulfills my sense of "Oh, I heard a story, I lived a story." It's not something I want to learn, it's something I want to find out by myself.