Do you think they’d be any different if you were making them now?
The one I feel differently about is “Barcelona,” because I was dragged to Europe by a relationship and I was doing everything from an American point-of-view. It’s very much an American regard of Europe, from the outside. I’m not really sure I was respectful enough.
When I was doing the Spanish dubbed version, I realized I’d been pretty unfair, and I made the jokes more two-way. Through the miracle of dialogue-replacement I could make things clearer. For example there’s one scene where a guy is attacking the Americans, and I think one thing that might be lost on people is that he was a Swiss-German friend of mine, not Spanish. For the dub I had another friend who could do a mock-German accent in Spanish. He did that character, which made it funnier from the Spanish point-of-view, because the Spaniards weren’t the anti-Americans.
One of the funny things about “Barcelona” is how well it played in Canada and in England, because they’re both outside the United States and the continent, so they could enjoy the fireworks without being implicated. It was also popular in the United States. I mean, there are some people who only like “Metropolitan” and think that everything after that was a dropping-off, but generally it seems to be that if someone’s going to like your stuff, they tend to like the first one they come to the most. If they saw “Barcelona” first, that’s the good one, and they see “Metropolitan” and say, “That’s okay but I like ‘Barcelona’ better.”
Looking back on those early films, can you see your influence in some of the filmmakers who came just after you, like Noah Baumbach and Wes Anderson?
Yeah, Noah Baumbach was clear. The first couple of things he did, he used Chris Eigeman, and that was nice. What I really like is these mumblecore guys. I haven’t seen all the films, but I like the whole idea of it. For them, the scale of production of “Last Days Of Disco” would be like a mega-production. But we’re in the same area because we’re basically doing human-relationship comedy. They helped me come back with “Damsels In Distress” at a super-low budget, because of the whole world of production those guys had created. Not to mention making a star out of Greta Gerwig.
I should say that I was wonderfully influenced by filmmakers who came before me. In the United States, the pioneers were John Sayles with “Return Of The Secaucus Seven,” and Jim Jarmusch’s “Stranger Than Paradise,” and Spike Lee’s “She’s Gotta Have It.” And then there were my Spanish friends. Fernando Colomo was really the first, in the ’70s. And then there were all the English and Australian and Irish directors who were influencing us. And Scottish, like Bill Forsyth. One of my favorite tiny budget films was “That Sinking Feeling.” I just love that. It looks so terrible. It cost like six thousand pounds, and it was the project of a Glasgow Boys’ Club theater program. Totally charming. That’s what was influencing me, along with all the writers like Jane Austen, J.D. Salinger, F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Wes Anderson, that’s both ways. He influences me, too. “Damsels In Distress” is the girl answer-film to “Rushmore.” I think Wes does incredibly great work. He is the champion of the Salinger-esque. I love to do Salinger-esque, but he’s really the champion.
“Love & Friendship” opens this weekend in limited release.
