IT'S PERSONAL: An interview with Funny Ha Ha writer/director Andrew Bujalski. By Warren Curry 12/2/03

Kate Dollenmayer in Funny Ha Ha.

The best filmgoing experience I've had so far in 2003 occurred in June at the IFP Los Angeles Film Festival. It was a Wednesday night, and based on a few recommendations and an overwhelmingly positive review in the LA Weekly, I made some changes to my screening schedule and carved out time to see the debut feature film from Massachusetts' native Andrew Bujalski entitled Funny Ha Ha.

Although the words of praise were the exact reason I was seeing the film, I didn't really know what to expect. If I had held any expectations, it's safe to say they would've been far surpassed. Funny Ha Ha is low-budget, character-driven filmmaking at its best. While the film isn't too concerned with plot, it has an easily distinguishable narrative form -- the story, about the low-key, post college struggles of an imminently likeable young woman named Marnie (Kate Dollenmayer), always moves forward with economy and purpose. Bujalski's wonderful grasp of the characters and tone, and his fly-on-the-wall visual approach, makes for a warm, humorous film that's completely fun, unpretentious, and in its own way, quite original.

This interview with Andrew took place via phone this past September while, as you'll read, he was in New York deep in pre-production on his follow-up feature. He recently informed me that production wrapped on the new project (the superstitious filmmaker won't yet reveal the title) in October, and he is gearing up for post. Andrew also mentioned that he's "tremendously excited about the work the cast and crew did, but nonetheless terrified about the project on the whole." We can only hope that he was plagued by these same feelings of terror at this same point while making Funny Ha Ha.


(Read the review of Funny Ha Ha.)

(Visit the official Funny Ha Ha website)

Was this a project you always knew you wanted to direct yourself?

Absolutely. I'd written a few screenplays beforehand, some of which were with an eye toward being something someone else could do. This one certainly was conceived as something I would do myself. Actually, now that I think about it, some of the stuff I'd written earlier was more toward the direction of something that I could make myself. I come from a filmmaking background more than a pure screenwriting background. I'd been looking around for something I could commit myself entirely to, and when I wrote this script it was clear that this was something I could give years of my life to.

A lot of people coming out of film school move to New York or Los Angeles, write a marketable screenplay, find an agent, try to get their script in the mix at studio or production company, etc. You chose a different approach to embarking on your filmmaking career. I assume this was an intentional move?

Well, as far as a career goes, I wouldn't call it a great career move. I made the film because I wanted to make the film, and not as a stepping stone necessarily to anything else. Any approach is dangerous. To go the route of, "I'm going to bust my ass to sell something to make a lot of money, and then be able to do things my way," obviously there's a huge trap inherent in that. Very few people get to end up doing what they want to do. The way I did it also has the trap of that it's not particularly sustainable. If you can't get the money back then how do you do the next one?

You wrote this script right after graduating from college?

I graduated from college in '98, and I started writing this around the end of '99. Not that long a gap. There had been some other screenplays I'd written in the interim. If you want to take the very long view, you could say they were exercises toward this one.

What in particular were you trying to explore with Funny Ha Ha? Was it therapeutic?

I don't know if art is therapeutic. What I've always maintained is that while very little of it is autobiographical, almost all of it is personal. All of the feelings inherent in it come from life. I don't know how effective a method of therapy it is, and I don't know if it clears up any of the issues in your mind -- it maybe just confuses them more. I wanted to make a film that would mean something to someone the way my favorite films have affected me. That's such a mysterious process, because a filmmaker is always the one who is least capable of understanding their own film. I watch it, but it's all technical to me. You take this blind faith leap that maybe someone will be able to pull something out of it.

Where did the main character Marnie come from?

That character was written for Kate Dollenmayer who played her. Kate was a friend of mine, and a roommate at the time I was writing the script. Just from spending a lot of time with her, I had this feeling that she would be great in the film. I certainly wrote Marnie with an eye toward what I imagined Kate would be able to bring to it. That said, the film is not any more biographical about her than it is about me, but again it was written with her strengths in mind.

You said that while the film isn't autobiographical, it is personal. Given that you're male, why did you decide to make the lead character female?

I found that both specifically and generally it was very helpful for me as a writer to be writing someone else, both in the sense of being able to picture what it would look like when Kate said lines -- that was helpful -- but also to have the main character be a young woman took it outside of my own head in a way, which was really useful. I think a lot of times a trap that I'm prone to falling into is if I was to write a male, it's hard not to end up writing someone who talks and acts just like you do. There are a lot of traps inherent in that. You're dealing with all of your issues in a way that isn't useful to the work.

A lot of the film is improvised. What did the script look like when you began production?

It's a fairly conventional looking script. We did allow room for improvisation, but certainly the structure of the scenes, if not word-for-word the dialogue, is for the most part from the script. We'd work out what would happen in the scenes and how the scenes would go and develop. Within that, there was a lot of room for people to be bringing their own things. There are a couple of moments that make it to the film when someone forgets their line, but that just creates this great moment of disarray.

So when giving your actors such freedom, what is the key to making this approach a success? Doing a lot of rehearsals?

I wish we had more rehearsals, but it might have been a very different film if we had. There wasn't a lot of rehearsal, mainly just because of the pragmatic constraints. When you can't pay everyone, people have their lives and things to deal with, so you have to grab whatever time you can. I couldn't say what exactly makes it work, if it works. Certainly a lot came out of the fact that many of us in the film were friends long before we started doing the film. Definitely knowing each other, there's a short hand that comes out of that, which is very difficult to construct with strangers. I think a lot of filmmaking is this weird sort of sorcery where you're trying to shape uncontrollable elements. I don't know exactly how you do it.

In terms of production too -- production is such a sweat. In just about any filmmaking situation, the production is going to be really difficult and really stressful. Any grand ideas you have tend to go out the window, and it's just a matter of surviving the day. Then you get in the editing room and figure out what you've done. Editing has a lot to do with it too. I think that I could've very easily made a horrible film out of the same material. And I don't mean to brag about my editing skills -- I'm sure another editor could've made a better film, but a lot of the feeling of the performances come out of putting it all together.

The film picks up in Marnie's life midstream and has a very unconventional ending. How did you know where you were going to begin and end the film?

When I started to write the first draft, the opening scene in the tattoo parlor was an idea that just came to me, maybe before I thought I was writing for Kate. And then everything grew out of that…I know that's not a very clear answer. The ending was easier, having built up everything and gone through everything, that very clearly felt to me like the point where the story had run its course. It's not a conventional ending because of the lack of resolution. I've always felt a strange aversion to resolutions -- I don't what that says about me as a writer or as a person, but to me an ending is always when the story's over. When everything that had to happen happened, as opposed to when everything is wrapped up. I don't feel that much resolution in my day-to-day life.

You shot the film in the sorely underutilized 16mm format. Why did you choose 16mm instead of the popular digital video format?

Partially, it comes from the fact that I studied film as an undergrad, so I had experience in 16mm and maybe my affection for it grows out of that. I do wonder if I hadn't had that experience, if I'd just been an autodidact kid with a DV camera, if I'd be used to that and it'd make more sense. I do feel to a large degree that the medium is the message, and I think it would've been a very different feeling film on video. There is so much great work being done on video, and I don't disparage the medium itself, but I do feel like, as often as not, you see people shooting on video because that's the only way economically they can do it. I'm not begrudging that, but a lot of times it's an idea that's clearly intended for film and you feel that conflict -- you feel like it's not right. To my mind, this was very much a 16mm story. I often wish that I could conceive of something that made sense for video, because clearly it'd be a lot easier.

Funny Ha Ha received a glowing review in Variety, and Filmmaker Magazine named you one of their "25 Faces to Watch." Can you point to any tangible changes in your life/career that this attention has caused?

It's hard to say. All that stuff is completely unpredictable to me. I have no idea how things happen or why things happen. June was a very strange month; there was Filmmaker and Variety, and some other press mentions. The film premiered in September of last year, so it'd been around for 9 months. For it to hit like that in June was strange. It wasn't a huge affect on my life. The main thing was that after the review ran in Variety, you get a lot of agents and production companies contacting you and wanting screeners. I try not to feel too bitter about that, but of course I have to pay for dubs and I have to go to the post office, and with the kind of film it is, a lot of those people are not rushing to call back once they see it. It's a really silly thing to be upset about. That spurt of attention is nice, of course. Ultimately, I don't know how meaningful it is. For every 10 people who hear about it, think they need to see it, see it, and then don't care, there probably is someone who does care, and that's great.

You're selling the film on video directly to the public via the film's website. Are you still looking for theatrical distribution in the U.S.?

Distribution would be fantastic, but it's really unlikely. Plenty of distributors have seen it and passed at this point. Video distribution is still possible. I'd be surprised if any distributors were scared off (by the direct marketing). We haven't made a huge amount of money selling videotapes of the film, but the money that's been brought in just gets turned over again into all of the ongoing expenses. It's been great that people have been willing to buy them; it's been helpful. Most of the screenings have been at film festivals, which often end up costing me money, but there have been a few that have paid, and it's great to have that to tie back in to the never-ending expenses.

What sort of feedback have you been receiving from audiences?

Because it's the sort of the film that, if it works or doesn't work, connects with everyone differently in a personal way, there have been a lot of very exciting conversations I've had with people who really seem affected by it, which is all you can ask for. The nice thing about it not being in wide release, being an underground thing, is that I'm not hearing so much from the people who don't like it! There's no need for a backlash yet. I'm sure there are plenty of people who don't care at all, but most of them don't come up to me and tell me. Obviously, I've heard from those people too, and not every review has been glowing by any means. I find the responses are highly individual, and everyone thinks differently about it, which is what I wanted.

Is Funny Ha Ha still making the festival rounds? What's the status of the film?

I've stopped pursuing that because it's gathered a momentum of its own. It's still indeed out there, and it's very nice to be in place where I've been receiving e-mails from people who say they've heard of the film. It's great to still have it out there in the world, but I imagine that will probably start to die down. I don't know where you go from there. I'm trying to make a new film now, and so the amount of time I'm giving to Funny Ha Ha is dwindling. If you talk to any independent filmmaker, you definitely burn out at some point. You have to work so hard to make the film, and when it's done you're just getting started.

Are there any specific films that influenced the style of Funny Ha Ha?

It's hard to say, and I tend to be cagey about that. I meet people all the time who see way more films than I do, but I do see a fair amount. Ultimately, anything that's good will be an influence of some of sort. Every bit of press that I've received, and I don't know if it's really obvious in the film or just because every press person reads every other one, but I always get the same comparisons -- Cassavetes and Mike Leigh, which is incredibly flattering and, of course, also ludicrous in a way. I'd be lying to say that I wasn't a tremendous fan of both those guys, and anyone else who has been invoked in our press, I'm sure I'm a big fan of.

I always felt like the opening scene in the tattoo shop I was stealing from James Bond films. The idea that the opening scene reaches some kind of emotional height, but it's unrelated yet thematically related to the rest of the story. It's kind of a silly comparison to make, but my point being that you are taking things from everywhere.

Can you talk a bit about your new film?

I'm awful at describing it. Methodologically, it'll be similar to the last one. Working with a small crew, minimal equipment, a lot of the same people from the crew, non-professional actors like last time. It will have a lot in common with Funny Ha Ha, some similar themes, but I think it will feel very different and have a very different sort of tone to it.

It's all very unpredictable and scary. I'm about one month away from shooting and it's incredibly stressful. We don't have a lot of our locations, there are still a couple of parts I need to cast, we're shooting in New York City, which is a way bigger strain than Boston. In Boston, we never had a permit for anything. I'm kind of losing my mind about all that, but for the most part it keeps my mind off of the other worries in the back of my head…like what if everyone hates this one? Which is possible, but there's so much to do that you just get through it. Hopefully, a year or two from now, I'll know if everyone hates it.


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