The facts of life
By Susan Gerhard

Kissing Jessica Stein

NO ONE FLAUNTED the campy TV-baby ennui better than Charles Herman-Wurmfeld and his early-'90s compatriot D'Arcy Drollinger in San Francisco's over-the-top pop-rocks schlock-theater scene. With titles like The Possession of Mrs. Jones, Suburbia 3000, and The Cereal Killers, their wild spectacles were the kinds one could only flee from, screaming and crying, sometimes in joy. In these dour days, that whole era seems a dream. So perhaps it's fitting that Herman-Wurmfeld, who eventually fled the scene as well, is living one.

From the humble S.F. film production of Fanci's Persuasion (1994), a credit card-financed café-culture queer sex comedy, Herman-Wurmfeld ascended Los Angeles's ranks to land a job directing the Facts of Life Reunion, the kind of TV world he'd once warmly mocked. But it was indie film Kissing Jessica Stein, written by its stars, Heather Juergensen and Jennifer Westfeldt and opening here this week, that caught industry attention and landed him on Variety's "10 Directors to Watch" list this past January. At $80,000, eight times the budget of Fanci's Persuasion, Kissing Jessica Stein is still a shoestring operation by L.A. standards. "I still drove the truck," Herman-Wurmfeld says. "But I didn't have to share a bed with the director of photography." Produced by his sister, Eden Herman-Wurmfeld, who also produced Fanci's Persuasion, this film was another family outing: they scored locations from their New York relatives, cast their own grandmother as the cranky elder with too much relationship advice, and dedicated the project to their father, who died shortly before they began shooting the film.

Three phone interruptions into a phone interview with the filmmaker, I was made to understand that the life of Charles Herman-Wurmfeld has taken a turn. He got there on bicycle, but eventually he arrived.

Bay Guardian: So the last time I interviewed you was, what, seven years ago, and you were a starving artist. You stole the toilet paper from my place of employment on your way out, as I recall. Has life changed for you?

Charles Herman-Wurmfeld: I left San Francisco in 1997, still broke, on my bike, with my banjo, food and rations for 10 days, and a tent that I bought from Kmart. It was a very lonely ride. The tent from Kmart turned out to be a children's tent – it was only four feet across. Eden biked up to Santa Barbara and met me. We ended up coming to her house in West Hollywood across Wilshire Boulevard. I just remember thinking, 'Oh my god, how am I ever going to survive here on my bike?'

Los Angeles just really took care of me. I quickly landed an agent and started working as an actor on commercials. I was in an agency called Dragon Talent, which was originally all drag queens then eventually became drag queens with pierced punk people with shaved heads and tattoos; I had lightning-bolt sideburns at the time. I did a Compaq commercial and a Carl's Jr. commercial, those fascists. They paid my rent, and I got a flat in Koreatown – you could live here cheaply at the time, unlike San Francisco at the time. And I started crashing courses at UCLA, where I was known as the Bald Auditor. I was playing my banjo out at clubs as Charlie Angel – I paint myself silver and put an incense cone on my head and burn it while I do AC/DC covers. It actually was entrée into a whole Hollywood underground; people there hooked me up with an agent. And it was there I met the musician John Oszajca who became the subject of my documentary that I made two years later. The documentary was called From There to Here with John Oszajca – you'll remember him as the musician who was engaged to marry Lisa Marie Presley.

BG: Ditching San Francisco was probably the best thing you ever did for your career. But it seems like you took part of old S.F. with you, in that you started a Critical Mass in the city most likely to murder bicyclists. How did that go?

CHW: There were like three people doing Critical Mass when we got here. Eden and I joined them, and basically together we relaunched Critical Mass, and it grew and grew. We were on the board of the L.A. Bicycle Coalition when it was founded. I did ride my bicycle here for a year and a half before I got a car. For people in Los Angeles, it's beyond thinking you're crazy.

BG: You and Eden had visionary thoughts about changing the film industry. Weren't you interested in starting some eco-friendly progressive rules for film producers?

CHW: One of the things that fascinates me about production is that it's an opportunity to create a little microculture, and so we thought we really should mold this culture in the image of the world that we would most prefer to be in. So we started developing this idea called Green Screens, which would be a set of guidelines that we would respect – that we would be recycling waste and recycling food into shelters, just making sure that the production is respectful of the environment. We would put our stamp on a movie the same way that the American Humane Association does.

BG: In the meantime, you're doing things like directing The Facts of Life Reunion. Was that weird?

CHW: I was at a meeting on the Sony lot, and I walked past the office of a producer I had heard loved Kissing Jessica Stein when she saw it at the Los Angeles Film Festival, and went in and introduced myself. And she said, 'Oh my god, just 15 minutes ago I got the call. We're going ahead on this movie, I've only got three weeks to do prep, and the script is terrible, I can't show it to you. Everyone's going to tell you not to do it; I'm sure you're not interested.' And I said, 'It's the show I love to hate. And I have to get on the set with Mrs. Garrett, because she was like my grandma on TV.' And I had no money in the bank at all. I'd been working so hard, and I was so exhausted. And I just thought, 'Dammit, I have to make some money.'

BG: Is it too late to start asking about Kissing Jessica Stein? It seems to be revisiting the same themes as Fanci's Persuasion, another polysexual romantic comedy in which characters "changed sides."

CHW: It's kind of the same movie, but it's better written.

BG: Is the queer romantic comedy one of the major contributions of our generation to film?

CHW: I think I've been trying to do the queer romantic comedy, the seminal queer romantic comedy, for years. I tried with Fanci's Persuasion; it didn't work. I tried again; I hope it worked better. It's something I wanted to see on the screen – I thought it would be important socially and politically to see it on the screen. The great romantic comedies are all heterosexual, a man and a woman. It's inspiring to look at those movies, and I love those movies, but I still feel like the whole process of seeing oneself in something has always been abridged. When I read Kissing Jessica Stein, I really saw myself in these characters, especially Helen's character: Really straight in my 20s, making it with too many girls. Something's wrong with this picture. What could it be? Then the slow coming-out process with a straight best friend. It ends up being, of course, a disastrous relationship. It wasn't until I moved to San Francisco at 24 that my coming-out process became complete.

BG: What's your reaction when people compare it to Annie Hall?

CHW: I'm flattered by all comparisons to great movies that I've heard. On the other hand, I read an online review the other day that compared it to Rocky and Jaws. I always sort of take it lightly. 'Kissing Jessica Stein' opens Wed/13 at Bay Area theaters. See Movie Clock, page 85, for show times.