 When
I was 13, I was lucky enough to have a friend old enough
to drive named Ralph. I can now thank Ralph for some
of my early experiences in youthful debauchery, but
nothing too sinister, mind you. Our adventures would
include trips to far away record stores that I would
never be able to get to on my own, and trips to seedy
pool halls and backyard parties in cities other than
the ones that were walking distance in my hometown of
East Los Angeles. This was all fun, but the best thing
Ralph ever did for me was when he showed up one summer
night with with a couple of friends and two movies in
hand for an impromptu movie night. He showed up with
Frank Zappa's "200 Motels" and this black
& white film called "Forbidden Zone."
In a sense, it may have been a bit of a crossroads for
me. Because after that night, one of those two movies
would be one that I would watch again and again and
start me on a glorious, self-chosen path of absurdity.
Later on in high school, when friends turned to drinking
and drugs, I found comfort knowing that I did not need
that type of escape, because I had already found it!
Music, art, cinema were to become my drug. Not only
could I be taken to worlds of surrealist hallucinations
from my screen and from my speakers, but I started to
figure out that I could create my own as well.
It has been 20 years now, I am 33 but I am still grateful
to that film for skewing my artistic sensibility towards
the land of absurdity. I subsequently discovered David
Lynch, Werner Herzog, Harmony Korine and other champions
of surrealism and absurdity, but FZ will always have
a special place in my heart. I essentially fell into
the Forbidden Zone 20 years ago, along with Frenchy,
Gramps, & Flash and I have no intention of leaving.
Below is an excerpt from a recent conversation I had
with Forbidden Zone director, Richard Elfman.
-Ego
PLUM:
I remember being 14 years old or so and going to the
BlockBuster Video not too far away from where I grew
up where I'd rent this one beat up copy of Forbidden
Zone. We (my friends and I) would sit in the garage
and watch it; return it, and rent it again. It was eventually
stolen or it disappeared, but there was a VHS copy we
would share and pass around for the longest time. I'm
wondering if this is how it happened for a lot of people
too? It was almost more of a myth we passed down, more
than a movie.
ELFMAN:
You mean like Ulysses? Supposedly it was an oral tale
for two or three centuries before it was actually written
down. You know, Homer's Odyssey? (laugher)
PLUM: Right, right! (laugher)
I gotta tell you, it played such a profound role, for
me as an influence...
ELFMAN: Thank you, Ego! I admire you
as an artist so I take that as a great compliment.
PLUM: Thank you. Really, there is this
aesthetic that is both visual and audio, which
is the Elfman-esque. This is what you and your brother
have created and it is something that I ran with and
tried to follow in your crooked footsteps, so thank
you.
ELFMAN: First of all, you very much
have your own voice. But I love the wildness and the
originality, and the "life is absurd" vision,
so I think we have some overlap.
THE
INFLUENCE OF OTHER DIRECTORS AND THE ROLE OF MUSIC
PLUM:
So this is something I'm curious about. Forbidden Zone
really is such a unique film and doesn't fit into any
category with other films, but there had to have been
some sort of references you were making. Let me throw
out a few filmmaker names and you tell me if i'm close,
or give me some thoughts: David Lynch and Eraserhead?
ELFMAN: I don't think I saw that until
after I did Forbidden Zone, although I love the film.
I'm a big fan of Lynch's.
PLUM: How about John Waters and Pink
Flamingos?
ELFMAN: My favorite John Waters' films
are like Serial Mom. I was never into the high campy
stuff.
PLUM: Right. Russ Meyers (Faster Pussycat,
Kill! Kill!), maybe?
ELFMAN: Now there's a high level of
absurdity. There might be certain similarity there,
of breaking rules and complete absurdity, but I wouldn't
say I was influenced by him.
PLUM: Looking at it in this point of
view, I think it's more like a cartoon, if anything?
ELFMAN: Oh yeah, I was definitely influenced
by Max Fleisher.
PLUM: Right. The Betty Boop guy.
ELFMAN: And I was definitely influenced
by R. Crumb. I've certainly paid homage to those before
me, but not the esteemed gentlemen filmmakers you've
mentioned. Forbidden Zone, remember, is really my stage
show and what we did with the Mystic Knights of the
Oingo Boingo. The Mystic Knights were turning into a
rock band and no longer doing the cabaret type of stuff,
so I wanted to capture on film what I had been doing
on stage. And that was really half the reason I did
the film. These are my musical stage numbers.
PLUM: Music is obviously a huge part
of the movie. Besides the stuff that your brother (Danny
Elfman) did, you use Cab Calloway, Josephine Baker,
etc. How important was the role of music in the film?
ELFMAN: What I had done with the Mystic
Knights of the Oingo Boingo was that I had a rule: nothing
contemporary. We did pure renditions of things that
people could no longer hear live. The classics that
you talked about. Things that most people had never
even heard. And then completely avant garde things that
Danny would do. So it was either completely new off
the wall, or recreations of older things. But nothing
contemporary.
PLUM: So what kind of direction would
you give Danny when he was working on music for the
film? Was it stuff that already existed from the Mystic
Knights live shows? Or was he writing original score
for the film?
ELFMAN: For the stage show, I didn't
give him direction. He just created wild stuff. But
for the film, he had a challenge because I had so many
different types of music and he had to weave it all
together for a background score, including his own musical
numbers.
CLICK
ON THE PLAYER ABOVE TO LISTEN TO THE REST OF THIS INTERVIEW,
AS WELL AS SOME OF RICHARD ELFMAN'S FAVORITE MUSIC TRACKS!
This conversation has been paraphrased and cleaned up
for clarity, coherence, and continuity. But no content
has been changed or omitted. Unedited version is available
on the radio player.
|
