William Preston Robertson: Q&A
johnny
An old interview with William Preston Robertson:
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AMC-B: Reverend Bill,I'm going to try to rent "Johnny Skidmarks"
tonight, because you wrote it!
WPR: "Johnny Skidmarks" is not out on video yet, but is currently being
shown on HBO.
AMC-B: Hey, you have any idea if Ethan and Joel do any college
workshops or Q&A sessions? Heck, it'd be great if we could get them to
do an interview in the group (dreaming).
WPR: Ethan and Joel are not big fans of the interview process and it
doesn't matter for what purpose--college workshops, the expansion of the
internet. Really, they hate them regardless. They don't even really
like to do them for their own movies unless contracturally obligated. I
myself had a hard time getting them to sit down for interviews for the
book, and I've known them since our undergraduate college years, and had
Ethan's wife, Tricia Cooke, lobbying on my behalf (she's the book's
creator and editor). I think if maybe someone inncoent was held for
ransom by terrorists who were seeking an interview with the Coens, they
might consent, but I don't know. It's not that they don't like people
or are ungenerous (they are in fact quite the opposite on both fronts).
It's more that they don't like to give undue credit to their opinions,
and personally are uncomfortable when a social fuss is made over them.
I talk about this in the book a little.
AMC-B: Barton Fink is nutso, did the Coens ever mention physical
connections between it and Miller's Crossing, ie: Bernie goes to hell?
We've found some shared dialog and such that seems to point toward that
type of connection.
WPR: I don't think "Barton Fink" was a "Bernie in hell" type concept.
But they did write the script while in the middle of writing "Miller's
Crossing," so they were of a "Miller's Crossing" mind, so to speak. I
give a more elaborate explanation of the relationship between the two
scripts and how they came to be written in my book.
AMC-B: Do you recall the door of the gas station bathroom in Rasing
Arizona? Well, it had grafitti on it that read, "POE/OPE". That just
happens to be the key code sequence to the classic comedy Dr.
Strangelove. Any idea if the Coens intended this reference?
WPR: I don't know who came up with the "Dr. Strangelove" allusion in
"Raising Arizona" (I'm accepting at face value that it's there, because
I have no specific memory of it; it's been a long time since I've
watched it all the way through). The Coens may very well have suggested
it, or the set dresser could have done it on his or her own. More than
anything else, people on movie sets get bored, and putting in little
jokes like that is a commonplace technique for staving off tedium. And
every now and then, the joke actually makes it into the shot. In
"Miller's Crossing," as Tom is reading the newspaper at a diner, one of
the headlines refers to the "Raffo Brothers." Well, John Raffo is the
director of "Johnny Skidmarks," and, like me, a friend of theirs. It's
like that. Writers do the same thing--deposit little word games to see
if anybody notices--and the Coens, who, of course, are writers, do it at
the script stage, too. There's usually no big symbollic intent behind
it; it's just word play. If you look at "Raising Arizona," you'll
notice that Hi's sheet metal hole-punching job is with "Hudsucker
Industries." Sam Raimi, who wrote "The Hudsucker Proxy" with them, also
put "Hudsucker Security" (I think it was "Security") in his movie
"Crimewave." It's all for laughs.
AMC-B: Your name is all over the Coen's films, but it's hard to figure
out the relationship you guys have. What's the deal? You were on Blood
Simple, Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink even Evil Dead
II and yep...The Big Lebowski. Now, I can spot you in BS, but where are
you in the other films, and how the heck did you land this carreer?
WPR: With regard to my own connection to the Coens, my association with
them is friendship-based, not professional. I have written about them
in the past--my book uses excerpts from articles I wrote for "American
Film" and "Playboy"--but those writing gigs were usually just ways to
underwrite my trips to visit them on the set. The hyperbolic credits I
have gotten in their movies is more of a joke than anything else. I
would visit them again when they were looping a film in post production,
a low-key stage of the process in which you sit around a couch in a
sound studio and wait for actors to waltz through to redub their lines.
Since I am a bit of a mimic, during the down times, I would do a few
voice bits. Usually, they'd have something specific in mind for me, but
on other occasions, they would just think it up at the time. Here's a
rundown:
In "Blood Simple," I was the radio evangelist.
In "Raising Arizona," I'm the off-screen "Don't forget the profile, Ed!"
voice. There are a few other background voices I did, but they're so
hidden in the mix, I don't know that you can make them out: I'm the
policeman's voice coming over the squad-car speaker during the big chase
scene with the dogs, and various murmuring background voices when the
FBI are at Nathan Arizona's home.
In "Miller's Crossing," I'm the wailing of Johnny Caspar's son when he
gets slapped. I'm Gabriel Byrne's gagging when he gets choked in
Caspar's great room. I'm also the guy who yells "Spin her, Eddie!" to
the Dane when he visits Verna's apartment, and the guy who says "Beats
me. Beats me. Beats me, maybe she was just--" to Eddie Dane in the
car.
In "Barton Fink," I have one really good bit. I'm John Goodman's
incessant laughing-weeping coming in through Barton's wall.
I didn't do anything for "Huducker Proxy." I was going to play Charles
Durning's ukulele, with the credit "Mr. Durning's ukulele performed
by..." But our schedules just never meshed.
In "Fargo," I did only one small bit. I call to Jerry Lundegard across
the showroom floor that there's a phone call for him. I'm listed in the
credits as "Meat Diner M.C." I was involved in "Fargo's" preproduction
phase, though, traveling around the region, conducting interviews with
Minnesotans in order to capture their accents. I was kind of like the
Alan Lomax of Nordic- American accents.
And in "The Big Lebowski," I do David Thewlis' giggling. The bellowing
of the guy who pushes the Dude's head in the toilet. And the sneezing
and frantic barking of the marmot (in reality it's a ferret) that gets
thrown into the Dude's tub.
One thing I never actually did that the IMDb credits me with is voice
work for Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead 2." I worked on a screenplay for Sam
back then and wrote the unpublished novelization of the first "Evil
Dead," but the credit he gives me at the end of "ED2" is a jokey
reference to the fact that it and "Raising Arizona" were released at the
same time (March of '87, I think; in fact, the very funny intro to the
script of "Raising Arizona" acknowledges this in a group interview
between the Coens and Sam, Rob Tapert and Bruce Campbell). I was on the
set of "ED 2," and did work the tongue of the "Swallow your soul" demon
(on the very first take I broke the wire controlling the horizontal
movement and thereafter could only do vertical movements with it), but I
didn't do the obscenely gesturing, amputated hand or any of the cabin
spirit voices. Those voices were probably all Sam, who himself is a
truly amazing mimic and vocalizer.
Okay.
My spiel is kaput.
And please, don't drink and drive.
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