Interview: Todd Sklar

You know the story: kid moves to College Town from Big City, kid hates College Town, kid graduates and moves to Los Angeles, kid moves back to College Town, kid goes to [ed. removed by request], kid shakes the foundation of independent film distribution.

And now the kid, filmmaker and Columbia resident Todd Sklar, is back and mere days away from the world premiere of his feature-length debut, Box Elder. Todd recently took time out of his sleepless schedule to talk to The Bathysphere about his films, his idols, and his big ideas to reinvent the distribution model...

Todd Sklar: writer, director, actor. Am I missing anything?

Producer, I guess, too. Those are the only four I’m proud of. Everything else I’d probably take an alias for. I guess distributor, too. But I don’t really care about it. Just “dude.” I’m "a guy."

Sunday night, Paul Thomas Anderson - once again - denied the prize. Finish the sentence: P.T. Anderson wins an Academy Award when…

When they start giving Academy Awards for guys who make better films than should be made. How good is [There Will Be Blood]? It’s unbelievable.

Have you made up your mind as to where it ranks in his oeuvre?

I think it’s probably one of the best films I’ve ever seen, to the point that you have to watch it several times to recognize that it’s flawless. It’s flawless. There aren’t flaws in that film to help point out its strengths. From opening frame to end, it’s just perfection.

I’d never seen Gangs of New York before, and I wanted to watch that because I’m just so enamored with Daniel Day-Lewis. And I was watching that and it made me feel like Martin Scorsese’s a bad director, watching where he put the camera on Daniel Day-Lewis. It takes a man like Paul Thomas Anderson to show you how flawless of a performance it can be, with the pacing and the editing. It’s just an exercise in perfection.

So I would say it’s probably one of the best films ever made. I would say Barry Lyndon meets Citizen Kane.

Better than Magnolia?

Yeah, I think so.

Can you explain the meaning of the name "Box Elder" for anyone who may not be familiar with the song? What was Plan B if “Box Elder” was taken?

If it was taken, I probably would have went with “Fuck You Mom and Dad.” (laughs) Something like that, something very college-y. Or “The 400 Bros.”

I just wanted to realize that I wasn’t going to be making this pretentious film. When I recognized that I wasn’t going to do that, I had this safety net, like I had to have some sort of artistic merit to what I was doing. So I figured if I gave it a title that was a little bit more esoteric, then I would never take it too lightly. Because it is very lighthearted – it’s a comedy – but I’d like for it to remain somewhat thematic. So the reference was basically just a reference to the bugs [box elders]. They’re very codependent, they swarm, they’re very loud, kind of unique looking, but they’re also completely harmless and just a nuisance. They don’t do anything, they’re passive-aggressive – they’re just kind of like college kids.

You’re in the movie. Your friends are in the movie. It’s a movie about college kids set in the town where you went to college. Just how much were you writing yourself and your personal experiences into this movie?

Probably a fair amount. I felt like after I changed and grew up a little bit, I didn’t have to fully make that jump to start pointing out what was wrong with me before, I guess. And I also felt like if I was going to point and complain about something, I wanted to do it with a smile, and the only way to do that is if you don’t take it too seriously. And the only way to do that is if you involve yourself. I figured that way it would keep it honest and more fun-loving.

Is it fair to read Box Elder as a critique of college culture?

That’s the way I hope it would be read. That’s perfect.

And what is that culture, exactly?

I think it’s primarily a culture of haves. It’s a want-have type thing. It’s primarily the effect of this unhappiness with a good situation, but a paralyzing fear of “it could be worse so I’m not going to strive for anything better." There’s just a lot of settling. It’s a very American thing. It’s a very cyclical, American culture thing in general. But I think this is the time in life when you’re supposed to take risks. You’re supposed to try things. There’s a lot of shelter, there’s a lot of systemic things that are supporting you, so you should be able to do things, to take risks. You should be able to kind of explore. And instead of doing all that, it’s just like, “Well, this is the most comfortable it’s ever been and it’s not going to get any more comfortable after this, so I’d better really enjoy things now,” instead of actually take advantage of what’s going on.

Is that what you’re doing right now – taking risks?

Yeah. Just recognizing that this was going to be the last chance to do that in life. I’ll gladly take this risk now, because if I fail miserably now, it’s a lot better than if I fail miserably five years from now.

Box Elder's subject matter and episodic format evoke similar works like The Rules of Attraction and Kicking and Screaming. Did you have any others specifically in mind while writing Box Elder?

The 400 Blows is a big reference point because I really wanted something that was that honest. Its fruition, its structure, and the way it’s shot really fits its themes. They had that rebel kid and that film was shot like a rebel. [François Truffaut] hollowed out his VW and used it as a dolly, just doing whatever had to be done and running around just like a kid in the streets, and I think that plays to the honesty of the film and the energy. So I wanted to really capture that, even though obviously I wasn’t making a film as important as The 400 Blows. Thematically I wanted it to fit that feeling.

Box Elder underwent a couple of well-publicized re-shoots last summer and withstood a number of other setbacks and headaches typical of a low-budget film. Percentage-wise, how much of this movie is the Box Elder that you set out to make a year ago?

Ninety-nine to one-hundred percent. But it took making eighty-percent of the film I didn’t want to make to get to that point.

I don’t know how anyone makes their first film without completely screwing it up one whole time and then redoing it. I can’t imagine a different process. It’s just like we were talking about earlier with risk-taking - to take the risk of saying, "I’m going to go do something I’ve never done before and I have no business doing," is ballsy.

If you had to do it over again, what would you do differently?

I don’t think a thing. Nothing.

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Have you ever had more fun in your life than when you were making the movie?

No. Not even close. It was just the absolute greatest joy in the world. There’s nothing like it. It is just the finest experience you can ever have.

You get a thrill – you complete a painting or you’re in the process of a painting – there’s a thrill you get out of it, like a runner’s high. I can’t even imagine that spread out over the timeline of an entire movie.

That’s true. That’s a really good point, and it is like that. As a director, you kind of have to keep the ship afloat – keep everybody happy – so you’re constantly worried about other people. And as you’re worrying about everybody else, their job is to make you happy. So it’s a really healthy relationship. I’m sure a lot of films don’t go like this, but ours was this really healthy relationship with everybody caring about each other. Every moment you have you just share these moments with people. It’s like you’re just on top of the mountain with your best friend. It’s so great.

What’s the most consistent praise you hear for Box Elder?

Just that it’s very relatable. People are really, really astounded by how it’s like a real movie, which is weird because that’s one of those things that I think a lot of people would maybe take offense to, but I love that. I like the fact that people still go into it thinking it’s going to be some YouTube thing. That’s great. That’s what I wanted to do and I really like that underdog atmosphere.

And I get a lot of comments on just how honest it is. People who really get it comment on how it really reminds them of college in a memory kind of mode, which is good because that’s something I intended to do. People are always like, “I know those people. I know those guys.” That’s the best compliment I get.

As a filmmaker, do you identify yourself with the town of Columbia, and furthermore, does that make you the White Rabbits of local filmmaking?

(laughs) Maybe having some limited amount of success coming out of this, I guess, but content-wise I don’t think I’m anywhere near them.

This film, obviously, I associate with [Columbia] a lot. That’s why I shot it here, but also just the ambivalence of a college student and the whole story really matches this city. Columbia is like this very progressive, kind of hip, artistic-supportive community in the middle of Missouri. This is like the kind of city that is always at odds with where America is going. I feel like these are the college towns that are the outliers that create some type of balance.

But I would say the film is more indicative of my upbringing in Minneapolis just because it has that kind of rebel attitude. I don’t know if it comes off that way in the film, but that was the kind of French New Wave influence I really wanted to have, like, “Fuck it. Let’s make a movie.” And that’s a very Minneapolis thing; not as much a Columbia thing.

You see Columbia as a progressive town?

Yeah. I do. Well, only in relation to Missouri. (laughs)

Yeah.

Other than that I would say not at all. But it’s an interesting thing – it’s one of the only college towns that has really mastered a balance of keeping that college/progressive attitude but also clearly being a very suburban place. A lot of other college places don’t have that, like Austin or Madison - those are like legitimate cities. And then you have other college towns like Bloomington or Athens or Boulder that are just like joke college towns. If a Martian came to Boulder he’d say, “This is a college town. This is a joke. This is not a real place.” So I find it interesting that [Columbia] has a mix of that. And it pulls it off very well, but at the same time it doesn’t really do any of them wholly successfully.

The music of Box Elder – The Modern Lovers, Pavement, Beulah, Baltimora(?!) - is one of the movie’s most immediate attributes. How did you select the songs for the soundtrack? Which songs do you feel worked especially well?

A lot of times the song came first, before even scenes did. In particular, two that always were kind of rotated in and out were the two Modern Lovers song, the opening and the closing, or opening with “Debaser” by Pixies and close with “Blue Boy” by Orange Juice. To me it was like there were two films there – there’s this energetic one and there’s this more casual, attitude film that I went with. And I knew that I wanted one of those two and that was going to set the tone of the whole film.

And I think most of those songs are in my “Most Played” on my iTunes. I felt like I wasn’t too far away from the subject matter, that my taste in music would still fit the characters, so I felt like I could get away with that.

Another charming flourish is the recurring use of jump cuts. Are you working on a directorial trademark or did you simply feel that it suited the film?

I love jump cuts. I wish there were more film tricks, like little cinematic things I could do and not feel guilty. Like every time I pull one of those I feel like I’m too pretentious and it’s not going to fit.

I think I will always be able to exercise the steadicam and the jump cut just because I love those two things so much, so like my passion for them will not allow me to take them into the kind of cartoonish area. Oh my god. I love jump cuts so much. In Rushmore, when Bill Murray jumps over that fence and it’s just this little seven-frame jump cut, and I was like, “That’s a great jump cut. It’s time to do jump cuts.”

What’s next? Western? Buddy cop?

(laughs) I have another film [ed. Driving in the Dark] that I wrote before Box Elder, kind of like a foray into the American Dream. It was a lot better film and I wasn’t ready to make it so I put it on the back burner. I want to make that in probably a year.

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What’s your loftiest ambition as a filmmaker?

If I could make two more films, that’s going to be it. If I can just get two more out, I’d be just the happiest camper in the world.

You know what? I would say that my loftiest ambition is to be at a point where I could somehow be a PA on a Paul Thomas Anderson film. If I can somehow work with someone who can get me that job, that would probably be my loftiest ambition - to somehow have a conversation with him.

It’s almost fitting too, because his whole thing with Magnolia, with casting Tom Cruise, the whole condition to that was that Cruise would get him on the Eyes Wide Shut set for a day to meet Kubrick. And I would like to do that.

Do you want to go on the record and say something for the fans who’ll be reading this interview ten years from now when you’re nominated for three Academy Awards and the Box Elder two-disc special edition is available at Wal-Mart?

(laughs) Yeah. Do it. Follow your dream, you know? Pursue things, don’t be afraid, take risks. That’s the biggest thing – don’t be those guys in the film. As much as I love those guys and I miss that phase of my life, that’s a phase in life that’s there for a reason, and like, make the most use of that. If you’re given a full house, don’t fold because the guy next door has four of a kind. Bet the farm. Bet the farm. The only way to find out what he’s got is if you call.

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Box Elder premieres Monday night at The Ragtag. Full tour dates, trailer, and additional information can be found at the official [Box Elder website].

[interview by Zach Noland]