Lodge Kerrigan On Keane

Cinema Scope, Winter 2005

Lodge Kerrigan's films try to put you inside people's heads. In his debut, Clean, Shaven (1993), he does that explicitly, through the use of a highly manipulated sound-image relationship. His second feature, Claire Dolan (1998), gives a sense of the detachment and alienation that the main characters are feeling via a chilly, highly composed visual sensibility. Kerrigan's latest film puts the viewer in his protagonist's head in a way that's both more subtle and more visceral: Keane never lets its schizophrenic protagonist out of sight, never even blinks from showing -- in a straightforward realist style that would make André Bazin weep -- the way in which his day-to-day life has been destroyed by his mental illness.

Whatever one thinks of Kerrigan's earlier work, he was clearly offering a genuinely independent voice at a time when American cinema was redefining that term to accommodate commercial visions. Clean, Shaven told the story of a mentally disturbed man (played by Peter Winter) trying to reconnect with his daughter. It is a highly ambitious debut, one that not only deals with complex, sensitive subject matter, but also integrates all sorts of artificial sounds (voices, echoes, electrical-sounding distortion) by way of illustrating the inner turmoil that is, for Winter's character, ever present. That artificial soundtrack is quite off-putting, but thinking back, it's hard to believe that it was released at about the same time as The Brothers McMullen (1995) was hailed. Clean, Shaven might have felt like it was biting off a bit more than it could chew, but man oh man it bit. There is a kind of seriousness -- and a seriousness that has a formal as well as a thematic quality -- to Clean, Shaven that was, at that moment, clearly on its way out.

This is part of the reason that Claire Dolan felt like such a surprise when it came out three years later -- the year of Edward Burns' "feminist" No Looking Back and the same year that Todd Solondz's Happiness was released. But just as Burns and Solondz began to sink into comfy positions as indie cinema's good son made good and bad boy who just won't shut up, Kerrigan continued to search ambitiously for new interests and different styles. Claire Dolan stars the late Katrin Cartlidge as a prostitute, Colm Meaney as her scuzball pimp, and Vincent D'Onofrio as the guy who loves her. This sounds like well-worn territory indeed, but Kerrigan renews the tale with rigorous attention to photography and performances. The cinematography is chilly: geometrical, steely, and reminiscent of John Boorman's Point Blank (1967). The performances, on the other hand, have a sort of white-hot intensity that is at times relevatory. A scene where cab driver D'Onofrio gets robbed by his two passengers remains seared in my brain; there is a simplicity to his trauma that is, counter-intuitively, startling.

Keane's visuals and subject matter are a lot closer to Clean, Shaven. Kerrigan again deals with a schizophrenic man trying to get his daughter back. William Keane (played by Damian Lewis) is a man just on the edge of homelessness (he lives in a seedy residential hotel), clinging to memories of his daughter. He carries news clippings about a kidnapped girl everywhere he goes, though there is considerable ambiguity about whether his daughter is a fragment of his imagination. A great connection can be made between Keane and the Dardenne brothers' Rosetto (1999): Both Kerrigan and the Dardennes are interested in exploring the connections between violence, loneliness, and economic marginalization, and both Keane and Rosetto do that via realist, sometimes dreary, shaky handheld photography and painfully low-key performances. That said, the soundtrack to Keane is utterly different, crowded but naturalistic, sometimes intense but never artificial. This is also true of the film's performances, which are close to what we see in Claire Dolan. Keane's leading actors -- Damian Lewis, Abigail Breslin, Amy Ryan -- Are playing less alienated characters than the walking-dying who populate Claire Dolan, but their sense of lost-ness is just as affecting. While the characters aren't fully fleshed out, it's not a problem. We come to know certain aspects of the denizens of Keane -- emotional blind-spots, physical tics -- in alarming detail, much as we came to feel the disaffection of the characters in Claire Dolan.

What we can see in Kerrigan's career, then, is actual development and advancement. It may sound trite, but looking at these three films, you really do get a sense of someone taking risks with forms, figuring out what works, and then taking new risks that bear the mark of older lessons. We see in Kerrigan a filmmaker who is intensely committed to developing his command of the art, and willing to draw upon all the powers that art has to offer. This kind of risk taking or constant reinvention is what independence is supposed to offer a filmmaker. American independent filmmakers like Nina Menkes know this: American filmmakers from an earlier generation, like Robert Young, knew it too. Lodge Kerrigan is best understood as continuing this tradition.

Cinema Scope: Maybe we can talk a little about how you got hooked up with Steven Soderbergh; I see he's the producer for Keane

Lodge Kerrigan: He called me out of the blue about three years ago and said that he liked the films I made and asked if there was any way he could help. Actually, at first, I thought it was a practical joke that one of my friends was playing. He's helped a number of filmmakers working outside of the studio system. We started to work together on a film about child abduction entitled In God's Hands, but unfortunately there was extensive negative damage and I had to abandon the project. The insurance company ended up reimbursing 100% of the costs. At that point I was still interested in the theme of child abduction, but I decided to write an entirely new script -- I couldn't imagine remaking the same film again -- and we continued from there.

Scope: Can you say a little more about In God's Hands? What was the film to be about?

Kerrigan: It dealt primarily with child abduction and the relationship between religion and psychosis. It's the story of a man who belongs to a grassroots, fundamentalist Christian organization. When the film opens, he is in the midst of a psychotic breakdown and believes the world is on the verge of ending. He is hospitalized and, shortly after his release, his daughter is abducted while in his care. He loses his faith, his family falls apart, and he ostracizes himself from his community. It's about how he comes to terms with his loss and tries to rebuild his life.

Scope: How far did you make it?

Kerrigan: We'd finished production and had started the editing process.

Scope: Do you think your previous films have had trouble with distribution? Why do yu think that they haven't had much national distribution, in the United States anyway?

Kerrigan: It's a question of economics. I don't make overly commercial films. It is expensive to open and support a film across the country in hundreds of markets, and the majority of distribution companies, being in business, want to maximize their profit margins and their profiles. So they go after films that will ensure that. Having said that, Clean, Shaven, which was distributed by Strand Releasing, played in I think 35-40 cities in the States, which is pretty good considering that it was a small film. Claire Dolan, on the other hand, got very limited distribution in the US [by New Yorker films] and played just a few cities.

Scope: Do you think that there's something about Clean, Shaven that made it more distributable than Claire Dolan?

Kerrigan: I don't. I think Claire Dolan was distributable. I think there was room.

Scope: With Keane, do you feel like you're continuing something that you started with Clean, Shaven and Claire Dolan?

Kerrigan: I tend to make films about people who are on the margins of society and who just want to lead a normal life, so in that sense, yes, it is a continuation. But my own point of view has changed over the years and will continue to do so, and in that sense every film is a departure. There are numerous themes that are specific to each film and on a formal level, all three films that I've made, or four if you include In God's Hands, stylistically are very different.

Scope: One of the things you've left behind is the highly manipulated soundtrack from Clean, Shaven. Do you feel like that's a decision you made consciously, or did you feel like you had tried that and wanted to move on to something else?

Kerrigan: I found that in Clean, Shaven, I wanted to emphasize what I imagined it would be like to be psychotic, to be in Winter's skin, and for the audience to experience what he experienced. And as a result, the film was incredibly subjective, and as auditory hallucinations are a primary symptom of schizophrenia, I wanted the sound design to play a significant part in constructing that world. I wanted the audience to be aligned with the protagonist, and see the film from his point of view. In Keane, I wanted the audience to be emotionally aligned with the protagonist and so the aesthetic is less subjective and more based in naturalism and realism, as I thought it would have the greatest emotional impact.

Scope: So what kind of decisions were you making about editing and camera movement and so on to give a sense of closeness and of compassion?

Kerrigan: By having Keane in the frame the whole time, by shooting handheld in a lot of live environments, by not over-lighting -- we shot a lot of real locations with a lot of available light. I wanted a sense of realism to help underscore that there are people like this in real life, theat there are people who are ill, who maybe make morally questionable choices, but how are still good people and who deserve compassion.

Scope: Do you think that the film's style is documentary-like?

Kerrigan: To some degree. You talk about the editing or the camera work; there is no traditional coverage in Keane. It's all choreographed within the scene. So, as a result there's a lot of in-camera editing. The choice of when to show a reaction, or when to leave one character and go to another, was all very carefully planned out. We would rehearse for hours and hours before we would turn on a camera.

Scope: So would you rehearse on the same day, then, and then turn the camera on?

Kerrigan: Yeah. Although we had extensive rehearsals in pre-production and we had the good fortune of being able to rehearse on location, which is invaluable. When we were shooting, we would rehearse for hours. In part this was to make sure the choreography of the camera worked correctly, because there is the added risk of no coverage. But it was also for performance reasons. You have to find the point hwere everyone's performance is at the right pitch, or at the right level. That can take time, because different actors, like everyone, have different rhythms.

Scope: So it sounds like on the one hand, it was very naturalistic and spontaneous, but also very controlled, very much planned.

Kerrigan: Yes, it was.

Scope: How big was your crew? I was thinking specifically about the scenes at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

Kerrigan: We operated with a lighter grip and electric team, but apart from that, we had a standard size crew for New York. But the crew was really adept, and really supportive of the live-environment shooting. They would remove themselves from set unless they were needed. If you shoot in a live environment, you want to be as unobtrusive as possible, so obviously you want as few people actually on the set as possible. It's funny, but film doesn't really operate that way for the most part, because most people want to be on set, in order to do their jobs and also because they love the process of filmmaking and want to watch it happening. But even though we had a standard size crew, in public places, where there were live environments, we kept it to a minimum.

Scope: So do you think that kind of tension, between something that's highly controlled and something that's spontaneous, plays out in other ways in the film?

Kerrigan: I don't know. I hope so. I just wanted it for a sense of reality, but I'm sure it did create a real tension. We shot a lot of the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City, and it's live; we couldn't shut down the terminal. And we're shooting scenes while buses are arriving, and while hundreds of people are going through that terminal, at any given moment. It definitely added to the tension, but it also added to the focus of the crew and the cast.

I went into these environments to create a sense of reality. I wanted to shoot in live environments because it bcomes more real for everyone, for the cast as well as the crew. So the energy on set from everyone adds to this. But, at the same time, it's my view that in order to achieve something you have to have control over it. For instance, Damian's performance is incredibly controlled.

Scope: It sounds a little like the way that Mike Leigh works, which I think is also very realistic, but also very controlled, where everyone knows exactly what they're going to say when they step in front of the camera. Everything's been planned out in advance.

Kerrigan: In that regard, yes. I guess what I'm saying is that a level of control is necessary in order to make good films. And even if you do improvisation, there are different levels of improvisation, and ways to control improvisation. I just don't believe that you can achieve something worthwhile by having no control over it whatsoever.

Scope: Do you feel influenced by Mike Leigh, or other people like that?

Kerrigan: Yes. Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, among others. But not so much in terms of working methods, more that they have a great deal of compassion for human beings and they don't shy away from showing the flaws and weaknesses inherent in all of us. In so much of filmmaking, there is a push to make characters completely identifiable, so anything that prevents an audience from identifying with them wholeheartedly is removed. So characters become idealized, and as a result are less complex and less interesting.

Scope: I felt like the visuals in Keane were closer to the visuals of Claire Dolan than to Clean, Shaven. There's a certain coolness there. Do you agree with that, or do you feel like you have a visual sensibility that runs across all three films?

Kerrigan: That's interesting. I was going to say the opposite, really. I was going to say that I think that all three are distinctly very different.

Scope: So what do you think you're doing differently in Claire Dolan?

Kerrigan: The photography in Claire Dolan is very formal. Everything is highly controlled, but in a different way. It's all very objective, distanced photography. The character is, as a prostitute, in essence an object for a lot of her clients. Men don't go to have sex with her; they go to have sex with an image of her. So the film deals a lot with image, and as a result the camera is at a distance.

Scope: So is this a different kind of objectivity than the kind of objectivity that you talked about with the visuals of Keane?

Kerrigan: Yes. I think Keane more tends towards realism and naturalism, whereas Claire Dolan is very stylized, and everything was very controlled. There was no incorporation of any live elements. So in that regard, I think it's very different. I don't find that I have a particular style. Every time I make a film, I try to find a style that works for that particular film. Although, you're right in saying that there is a certain coolness to Keane. But I think that coolness was more intellectual in Claire Dolan, and it's more visceral and emotive in Keane. There is a coolness to Claire Dolan, because of the nature of her job, the nature of the environment and the city. But it was an intellectual conceit, the idea that she's operating in this world where she has little emotional contact. In Keane, the photography isn't full of warm colours, the design isn't warm. The characters that populate the film are also isolated, and don't have a lot of support. But I think also that there is a great deal of love and compassion between the characters, particularly Keane and Kira, the little girl. And I do think that comes through. But if all of the elements are trying to point in a certain direction, I think it then becomes overkill, and less resonant. I felt it would be more effective to show the grief and sense of loss that Keane has for his daughter, who was abducted, and the love that he feels for Kira in a world where they are isolated and there isn't a lot of external warmth.

Scope: The characters in Keane especially are not only on the fringes of society, but they're poor. Did you want to bring out the class politics of mental illness?

Kerrigan: Mental illness per se, no. For me, the bigger issue is that there is a tremendous amount of poverty in the US, and that incorporates people who suffer from mental illness, but it isn't limited to them. Everyone knows this, but as a society we don't want to face it. I live in New York City and it's been cleaned up, under Giuliani and Bloomberg, in an effort to draw business and tourism to our city, which is a good thing, on one level. But on the other hand, it's very negative and damaging because people who are homeless, including people who are mentally ill, are displaced and thrown to the side.

Scope: In Keane, it was as though one of the results of being mentally ill is marginalization. And that brought the character into contact with somebody who was marginalized for economic reasons.

Kerrigan: My only hesitancy is that I don't want to make generalizations. Having said that, if you suffer from mental illness -- and in teh case of schizophrenia, the onset of the illness usually occurs at an early age, late teens and early 20s -- then obviously you become incapacitated, and it affects your ability to make money and earn a living. In that regard, yeah, people do become poorer when they have mental illness. Of course, there are exceptions. There are people who suffer from mental illness who live in middle-class families, and who are supported by their families and have access to great health care.

Scope: But you chose not to tell that kind of story. you chose to tell a story about somebody who is poor.

Kerrigan: Yeah, I did. If you're poor and suffer from mental illness, what do you do? What if you're homeless as well? Where's the support system? From the 60s on, there has been a mass closing of public mental hospitals, with patients discharged onto the streets. The way our society is structured, a certain segment of our population is going to pay a price, over and over. In addition to the poor, people who suffer from mental illness pay that price. I'm not trying to be self-righteous about it. It's just something I feel strongly about, and I want to show it. I'm not the first to show it, I'm not breaking any new ground. I just think that instead of being critical, we should show compassion. In the media, over and over again, people who suffer from mental illness are portrayed as being violent, dangerous. Statistically, they are no more violent than anyone else in society. Yet every time you read about someone who suffers from mental illness in the paper, it's always in connection to a crime. But why don't we write stories that aren't connected to a crime, to violence? I think that creates a bias. And I, in my own way, try to address that.