SFBG: Is that a goal, to work on a studio project and use that money for a more personal piece?

Jay Duplass: Kind of. We’re still figuring it out right now.

MD: It’s more like let’s make the next best movie that we possibly can make. Whatever form that takes. But writing in Hollywood has definitely allowed us to make our own movies. We love the idea. I mean it would be awesome if we could become Hollywood writer mavens and take that money.

SFBG: A little John Sayles-ish.

MD: Yes! That would be awesome! It’s hard to break in. And we found that since we established ourselves as writer/directors no one will basically give us a writing job unless we promise to direct it. It’s the opposite of what you’d expect. I always thought it [worked out so] you write a few hits and then they let you direct something. But for whatever reason, the system does it like this. I think they realized the efficiency of writer/directors.

JD: We’re compulsive filmmakers. We’re compulsive eaters, we’re compulsive everything!

MD: Basically that’s how we made Baghead. I mean, it was the same process as Puffy Chair, except we went out into the woods and got our asses kicked. Once you get into the woods at night, you need lights, you need generators and friggin extention cords so we had to beef up a little on that end of it. And we had to call our friends in Austin to come bail us out because we just couldn’t get an exposure in the camera. I mean, we were fuckin' terrified goin' into making Puffy Chair. 'Cause we had tried to make feature films in the past and they were miserable failures. We had made two good shorts that had gone to Sundance in 2003 and 2004, and we were like, “Let’s try and get a feature film into Sundance!” So that was like our fear-based filmmaking throughout the entire thing. With Puffy Chair, we had seen the light of making a feature film that works, but it got scary again because we were like Baghead might not be the smartest for us to make—

JD: It’s the dumbest second movie to ever make for yourself—

MD: -- 'cause it’s not built for success.

The brothers Duplass.

SFBG: I saw it this past January at Sundance and people really fucking loved it! People were laughing and screaming!

MD: The tone management of that movie was the biggest nightmare in the world and we were like, “We’re doing it!” And then everyone started telling us that we’d be setting ourselves up for failure by making such a big departure from The Puffy Chair. That’s when the fear came back in again. Jay and I are terrified of making a bad movie. I mean, we’ve made them before and now there’s some level of, “We’re here now, people like us, people like our movies…” We used to be so afraid to get to the top of the mountain, not that this is the pinnacle of our careers, but now we’re afraid that we’re gonna fall off. We’re certainly farther than we ever thought we could get, but there’s definitely some fear involved.

SFBG: To me, it seems like a smart move to make a genre film as your second film because it seems like your goal is smaller and can be achieved easier. Which could help you from not hitting the typical sophomore slump of “I’m gonna make the biggest and best-est film known to man. Richard E. Kelly tried that with Southland Tales last year and it was a total disaster.

MD: Yeah, I heard it was a mess. It’s true, in the end, Baghead really feels like a good move for us. I mean, Puffy Chair took us a whole year to sell after Sundance! And there was no advance sale. Baghead on the other hand was like, sold within 48 hours of returning from Sundance. It was huge for us!

JD: That was like the dream, you know! That’s what you’ve reading in filmmaking books and magazines since 1991. You take your movie to Sundance, there’s a bidding war and then they give you a big chunk of money and you go away happy. We spent the sixteen years between that point and now, disillusioning ourselves about that reality… and then it like, happened to us!

MD: The best thing about the whole Sundance thing… and I didn’t think it really was true, is all the late night espionage between the sales agents and the buyers there!

JD: Driving around from condo to condo, passing off Sundance prints in parking lots. It was fucking nuts!

MD: People from Fox Searchlight showing up at 2:30 in the morning, in their pajamas to get a print and rushing off with it, having someone drive it to LA that night! I mean it was wild! And we were like, “Okay the phone’s ringing… Who is it? Okay… That’s probably someone from this company… Okay… What you’re gonna do is talk to ‘em, tell ‘em you're really excited, and then about 30 seconds into the call, tell ‘em you have to go because you have to go into another meeting!” It’s down to the last detail!

SFBG: Did you have a coach for this?

MD: We learned the first one through Cinetic Media with Puffy Chair. And they kinda made us aware of the nuts and bolts of it all. And then Josh Braun refined it further with us this year with Baghead. It was so fun! We had the flu, but we were at Sundance and we were like, “This is awesome!”

JD: We sold it, sick, at Sundance!

MD: Yeah, after we sold it at like 2:30 in the morning, we celebrated with a Pizza Hut pizza. It was soooo great!

SFBG: Baghead really worked for me because I love genre films, especially stalker films, and like Puffy Chair, this concluded with a totally fucking heartbreaking ending.

MD: We really like to drive towards our climax.

JD: We like plot, too.

MD: Loose and shaggy works well when you’re on a structure that’s pounding towards the end. We were surprised how much attention we got from Puffy Chair. But we’re pretty sure it’s because the Hollywood execs saw we had gotten the structure thing down. Where we fit in Hollywood though, that remains to be seen. We’re still trying to noodle our way around in there.

JD: And the only answer to that is, “We don’t know.”

MD: What most filmmakers do is they have to fake their confidence and say they know what they’re doing just to keep people off their back. All three feature films that we’ve shot, when it comes down to like, two days before we finish, we’ve changed the ending pretty drastically or even changed it right then and there on the set. And the concept of having to call the studio and be like, “Can we get approval to change locations?,” and have them say “Well, why are you guys doing that?," and then we explain, "'Cause we feel like it’s the right thing.” What are they gonna say when we do that to them? I don’t think they’re gonna like that.

SFBG: Wait go back a little. You just finished another film besides Baghead?!

MD: We just shot one in April, The Do-Deca-Pentathlon. It’s about two brothers who are competing in their own individual Olympics. It’s our personal take on what’s been happening with the recent Will Ferrell movies.

SFBG: I recently watched Joe Swanberg’s Nights and Weddings and I was curious about what it was like for Jay to act in the film as opposed to directing. Both of you have acted in Joe Swanberg’s films. Did you guys get to make up your own characters or did --

JD: Joe was like, "You’re my older brother and you have a baby," and I was basically like, “Okay, I’m just gonna be terrified.”

MD: That movie really sold us on Joe Swanberg. I was all prepared to hate Nights and Weddings because I don’t really like Joe’s movies, but I ended up loving this one. He usually has that “I can shit on the floor and you’re gonna watch it” kinda feeling in his films, but not this one.

SFBG: And yet, you (Mark) are amazing in that opening break-up sequence of Joe’s Hannah Takes the Stairs.

MD: There’s no slight to Joe, but basically Greta (Gerwig) and I got together that night of filming that scene and we were like, “We’ve gotta make an arc here,” because there was no arc goin’ on. We’re so proud of Joe, he struggled through Nights and Weekends. He shot the movie, it wasn’t working, and he went back and reshot 60% of the movie a year later. And that was Joe growing up. It’s so painful to re-shoot anything, much less over half the movie. I think Joe is ready to make some good stuff now.

SFBG: Amy Taubin of Film Comment really goes to town on Swanberg’s “Mumblecore” trilogy (Kissing on the Mouth, LOL, Hannah Takes the Stairs) in a recent piece. It’s aimed at him and his films, but I’m curious what you think. She writes, “That Swanberg believes that his life and those of his friends are separate from the war or the global meltdown that is upon us seems to me reason enough to bring back the draft.”

MD: Wow. Well, the thing is, I can totally see that point of view. Even Jay and I get sick of ourselves. When we show up at the South by Southwest Film Festival, it all gets a little much. The truth is, Jay & I have such a specific sensibility in the type of films we want to make that if one of us were to actually befall a true human tragedy, I think the way we make movies now, would be dead. Because we’re just mining the tiniest things, our own personal issues with relationships and cell phones, for lack of a greater thing. For someone who has lost a child to watch six mumblecore films in a row, I could see them being like, “Fuck these guys. Get real here!”

Scene from Baghead

JD: When we were in our 20s and making movies we never dreamed it would be valid to make a movie about a dude who can’t get the answering message for his answering machine right (This is John, 2003). Why would anybody wanna watch it? There’s so much wrong with the world? For us, it was accidental by making movies that were making fun of ourselves. And that was the only time anybody cared about what we did. The smaller we get, the more people like it.

SFBG: Are you worried about being connected to the “Mumblecore” genre, if and as a backlash kicks in?

JD: We’re less worried about a backlash then we are about making a bad movie. No one’s ever gonna be harder on us than we already are. So people need to just back off because we’re already destroying ourselves better than you could ever do.

Speaking of which, I had a little tragedy the other day, I don’t know if this will mean anything to you but the other day I accepted the reality that I fucking hate salmon. I hate that shit! I hate it with a passion!

MD: It’s a fishy fish.

JD: It’s a fishy fish but the thing is it’s the perfect food right: Healthy, lean, omega 3’s, the whole deal. But I hate it: The taste, the look, the smell, the skin. I don’t like any of it! Don’t want to have anything to do with it. It was very sad… and yet very liberating.

MD: It’s like breaking up with someone who’s perfect for you on paper but who you’re not in love with.

JD: That’s exactly what it is. I’ve moved on with my life.

SFBG: And you don’t have to go back!

JD: Exactly! I don’t have to go back! It was small, but it was really, really big. I hate salmon and I’m not afraid to say it.

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks teaches Film History at the Academy of Art University and hosts the film series MiDNiTES FOR MANiACS at the Castro Theatre. Contact him at www.midnitesformaniacs.com

BAGHEAD
Opens Fri/1 at Bay Area theaters
www.sonyclassics.com/baghead