Simon Rumley Speaks
Between the freshly out-on-DVD The Living And The Dead and upcoming projects Little Deaths and Stranger it seems we've been talking rather a lot about independent UK director Simon Rumley recently and it seemed only right to actually talk to the man as well. We recently exchanged a few emails and Rumley proved quite happy to talk about himself, his work and what's coming in the future ...
Most people who are aware of you on this side of the ocean only know of you thanks to The Living And The Dead. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your history with film?
Sure. Well, I've been in the business for a while now, starting making short films in my late teens when I was at university in Hull studying law. These were on Super8mm with no sound and as I progressed and the technology changed I started shooting more things on videotape and editing them in offline u-matic suites. I think I did my first short with script in 91/92 and that was called Smiles. The next one I did in '93 was called Laughter and actually in the States it comes as a dvd extra on The Living and The Dead. The same year I also did a film called Insanity and together they made a loose trilogy called...yep, Smiles, Laughter and Insanity. Out of these Laughter is the only film I I'm proud enough to show. Funnily enough, it got me an interview at the Royal College of Art which was at the time one of the best film schools in the country. Sadly I didn't get in but I was talking to one of the guys who interviewed me five years later and apparently they rejected Christopher Nolan the same year!
Whilst I was making these shorts I was variously working as a runner in an editing house and and then a production assistant and production manager for a corporate video entertainment company but they didn't like me working on my own projects so I gave that job up, made one more short, this time on Super 16mm, called Phew and started writing feature scripts.
Although all my shorts were psychologically dark, there was nothing similar that I could see happening at the movies and so, inspired by Richard Linklater's early films - Slacker and Dazed and Confused especially - I wrote a youth culture script set in one night in one nightclub in London, 93. This almost got made in the summer of 95 but didn't. Inspired by this experience I decided I'd write another script and make a low budget film with whatever money I had at the time (£4000). This turned out to be Strong Language, a structurally unique movie where none of the characters ever meet each other but all talk directly to the camera. It turns out that as a narrator relates his tale of woe about a night that changed his life forever, all the characters are inextricably linked together. This took about a year and a half to make and another two and a half years to get distributed but it finally came out in 2000 to almost unanimously fantastic reviews.
By that time, I'd already shot my second feature, The Truth Game, about a bunch of late 20 somethings meeting up for a dinner party and hiding the truth from each other - quite a confrontational, antagonistic film. I was having quite a good run at that time and I finally managed to get Club Le Monde off the ground at the end of 2000. The Truth Game came out in 2001 and then Club in 2002.
By this time I was questioning what the point of doing 'youth culture' type films in the UK was since although all the reviews were pretty good, the public didn't really go to see them and the film industry certainly didn't come to see me. So I was considering how to progress and what to do next when, around this time both my parents died within the space of six months and from that experience The Living and The Dead was born...
After you did The Living And The Dead you did a short film I really love called The Handyman. I've heard you say that you were reluctant to go back to shorts, fearing it may be a step backwards. Why did you do the film? Is that a story you would ever go back to and expand?
Yes...Thanks...In the end I did the film for a handful of different reasons and yes, I was initially hesitant about going back to do a short but a/ it was set in America and I was keen to try shooting in the States out with a view to doing more work/features out there b/ we were shooting on Super 35mm and I'd never shot on 35mm before so I was really keen to add that to my Super 8/Super 16mm experiences c/ it had Greta Scaachi involved and I was keen to work with a known actress since all the actors I'd worked with were relative unknowns d/ no-one was really knocking my door down at the time so I wasn't very busy e/ In all my youth culture movies I let the actors and the script dictate the camera so there were no great or interesting or beautiful shots and because the film world judges by what it sees, I was keen to show anyone who was interested that I could do a slick, great looking, exquisitely framed movie and this gave me the opportunity to do so and e/ It was a great script! More than anything, this was really what made my mind up. In the end I thought to myself it's a great script and it'll make a great film so why wouldn't I do it?
Quite a few reasons therefore!
In the end, the film played quite a few festivals around the world and won the Best Short at Sitges which to this day I'm very proud of! Monte Hellman was one of the jurors and I got to meet him briefly in Spain and then hung out with him a few times in LA, drinking margeritas an stuff - v.cool.
I spoke to a couple of production companies about turning it into feature and the writer and me were both interested in doing this, absolutely; I think it'd make an excellent feature, full of brooding intent and intrigue and atmosphere although sadly films with those qualities seem pretty rare on the ground these days. With regards to The Handyman, as far as I'm aware, the producer owns the copyright and I can't see him ever doing it which is a shame...
We've written a bit about Little Deaths here already but can you recap the project a bit?
Sure...Little Deaths is a psycho sexual horror anthology set in modern day London and features scripts written and to be directed by myself, Sean Hogan and Andrew Parkinson - both friends and fellow film-makers specialising in dark material.
My film, Bitch, is about a couple in an abusive and not overly happy relationship and what happens when the girl pushes the guy one step too far. Similar to The Living And The Dead, I wouldn't call it straightforward horror but it's pretty extreme and psychological in its subject matter.
Sean's film, House and Home, is about a middle class couple who indulge in an unusually sordid pass-time but ultimately meet their match. Out of the three scripts, this is probably the most 'pure' horror with plenty of blood and guts.
Andrew's, Mutant Tool, isn't easy to condense but is basically about a Mutant with...a large tool... It's about an ex-junkie prostitute who is trying to go straight but fails miserably and gets involved with completely the wrong crowd. This will be a weird and wonderful film, quite humorous, I think, and perverted at the same time.
Everyone who's read the script has gone 'holy fuck' which is a great reaction but slightly unexpected since we were all writing scripts which we thought were a bit out there but basically just interesting and fun. After seeing The Living and The Dead and reading Bitch, someone, unbeknownst to me, apparently said they thought I needed psychiatric help! In terms of British films I guess there's no real precedent for what we're doing in terms of subject matter and even the horror films which have come out of this country in the last few years have generally been pretty safe.
I think the fact that we're fairly matter of fact about the content has somewhat contributed to eliciting such a reaction. Actually, that said, the reaction's been the same in the States as well so I guess it's hit a nerve everywhere! Will be interesting to see how the finished film is received
Anthology projects are notoriously uneven, what's the appeal of the format for you? What steps are you taking to overcome the challenges of the format?
Yes indeed, Sean's a bit of an expert on them and I'm swatting up on them - watched Three Extremes 2 recently and was so bored that I didn't bother watching the third one. That said, I'm attracted to the format for several reasons: a/ It's notoriously hard to get short films distributed so the idea of putting them together means we can each create and craft stories that otherwise would probably never see the light of day. As it happens, my story is one I've had since I was about 20 and I wrote a lot of it down in shorthand but never finished it. Instead of being about dogs it was about spiders but the psychology of both stories is the same. I never knew what to do with it and never felt it would make a fully fleshed out feature so to be able to make it and showcase it as part of a larger piece of work is ideal. b/ Sean and Andrew were both vague friends when we started talking about doing this and I'm happy to say that a year down the line after many meetings, a few arguments and an Olympic size swimming pool full of beer, we're better friends! Although as a director you ultimately get the majority of the glory, it's still, at time, a very lonely job and even more so as a writer/director. So the idea of being able to make a film with fellow writer/directors who share a similar independent film-making ethos and who also share a similar vision about the darkness of the human psyche is great fun! There's also a respect for and support of each other's subject matter and writing which I think is unusual - certainly in this country where most directors are very guarded about everything they do and, from my experiences, more often than not, people you wouldn't really want to hang out with. c/ From a horror afficionado's point of view, there've been a ton of anthologies through the years from the UK's Dead of Night back in the 40s to more recently the Three Extremes pix to Trapped Ashes. Chuck in Creepshow, Black Sabbath, Two Evil Eyes and many more that I haven't seen and you have a veritable sub genre. So for a fan, it's also great and fun thing to follow in the footsteps of Argento or Romero or Bava! d/ Finally, in working on an anthology, you get a feature credit whilst not doing the work involved in a feature so it's a great stop-gap and technically is something that can be done in a relatively quick period of time. We initially met up about the project about a year ago at which point we didn't have a script or finance or anything. So, on the scale of things, if this does go ahead when we hope and expect it to, it'll be impressively fast in my experience of film-making and it doesn't preclude you from working on other material in the way a normal feature would do.
What comes after Little Deaths? I know of at least two projects you're preparing, do you have any idea which will be ready to go first? Do you think you'll ever find an investor willing to back Exquisite Corpse?
Good question! Stranger, my Chinese project, is looking positive - we were initially looking at a September shoot but more likely it'll be next year.
Indeed, Exquisite Corpse is the other project which I've had for a while but has been considered too hardcore for any traditional producer to pick up on just yet. That said, a lot of people who've read it have been blown away and completely understand what I'm trying to do with it so I live in hope that one of these producers or sales companies who thinks they're cutting edge actually turn out to be!
What draws you to a project? You often get lumped in as a horror director but you're not really … how would you describe your own aesthetic? Do you think your resistance to easy categories and genres has made it difficult for you to get your films out there?
Well, apart from The Handyman, I've written everything I've directed to date. I'm actually really keen to direct more scripts that I haven't written and over the years I've been offered a few such scripts but they've all been pretty poorly conceived and/or executed. My tastes are very varied and I try to watch as many films as I can, both in and out of genre so, in terms of what draws me to a script, I'd have to say the usual cliches of an interesting story with interesting characters. I am attracted to darker and unusual material but I'm also keen on emotion in the cinema and I guess inner personal conflict, both themes which can be found in The Handyman and The Living and The Dead (and Stranger and Exquisite Corpse)! I also like films which have an authority and austerity about them so recent Hollywood films, for example, which I've really rated are Michael Clayton and Capote. Both linear films but very elegant and confident - of course, this is as much to do with the directors as the script
In terms of being lumped as a horror director, I suppose, to continue the above, my aesthetic is a dark one and for this reason over the last decade or so (not so much any more sadly), I've been truly inspired by Asian cinema, mostly Korean with a bit of Japanese thrown in for good measure. But certainly Kim Ki Duk, Kim Ji Woon and Park Chan Wook, in my opinion have made some of the best films from the last decade from anywhere in the world! All have dealt with grown up, dark, psychological subject matters with consummate skill and style to profound visual and emotional effect and you can't say better than that! Shinya Tsukamoto and Tetsuo were big influences on The Living and The Dead and I love A Snake of June as well. Takashi Miike has obviously done a handful of great films although his output is varied. John Woo I've always loved although I'm not sure how his style of film-making converges with mine in an any way although Bullet in the Head was probably one of the most draining, exhausting movies I've ever seen and I think that's an amazing thing to be able to do to your audience, again something I tried to do with The Living And The Dead.
Ironically, The Living and The Dead played as many non genre festivals as genre festivals but it just happens that the genre world is about a million times better at promoting itself than the other film communities. I think most people who watched/programmed/rated The Living and The Dead were intelligent enough to know that it wasn't a horror film but would appeal to a part of the horror audience - essentially I think, the kind of people who like the above directors and who like Jodorowsky and who want to be challenged with something they haven't necessarily seen before. And of course, no matter what you say about the film, the core subject matter is essentially horrific in nature - but whether it's a horror film or not has certainly inspired some interesting conversations around the world and for this I'm glad.
In terms of defying 'easy categorisation' yes, I think it hasn't helped me in terms of making more films but I think once I've got a couple more out there and people start to realise that actually I'm making dramatic films which happen to be very dark, hopefully it'll make more sense to more people and certainly with the likes of Aronofsky, Nolan, Fincher etc, there is an audience for my kinda films!
