Interview
SLIFF 2015 Interview: Trent Harris – Director of THE BEAVER TRILOGY
Director Trent Harris’ THE BEAVER TRILOGY screens at The St. Louis International Film Festival Saturday, November 14h at 7:30pm at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium. Harris will be in attendance and will receive a Contemporary Cinema Award. Ticket information can be found HERE. It will be on a double bill with director Brad Besser’s THE BEAVER TRILOGY PART 4. Trent Harris will also attend a screening of his 1995 science fiction comedy/musical PLAN 10 FROM OUTER SPACE on Sunday November 15th at 6:30pm at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium. Ticket information for that can be found HERE.
The long, odd tale of director Trent Harris’ THE BEAVER TRILOGY begins in 1979 with the chance meeting between Harris and an earnest small-town dreamer from Beaver, Utah. Charmed and amused, Harris soon accepts the stranger’s invitation to come to the small town of Beaver to film a talent show, where the enthusiastic young man dons black leather and a blond wig to perform in drag as Olivia Newton-John. Harris captures the outlandish spectacle on tape, producing “The Beaver Kid,” a strange, funny, and ultimately poignant portrait of a true outsider. Not willing to let the story go, Harris then creates a dramatic piece, “The Beaver Kid 2,” based on the documentary. This interpretation, shot in 1981 on a home-video camera with a budget of $100, features the young Sean Penn re-enacting the same scenario. Still possessed, Harris rewrites the script yet again in 1985, casting Crispin Glover in the lead and shooting another version, “The Orkly Kid,” as an American Film Institute project. The three pieces then are finally re-edited, compiled, and screened at the Lincoln Center in New York City in July 2000, eventually playing to acclaim at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. The St. Louis International Film Festival also offers Harris’ PLAN 10 FROM OUTER SPACE whose playful title self-deprecatingly references Ed Wood’s infamous PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, often cited as the worst film ever made. After some bruising reviews for his RUBIN AND ED, Harris decided to one-up Wood and show the critics just how bad a film could be with PLAN 10, but he failed in his endeavor: It’s a sly and knowing hoot. When Lucinda Hall (Stefene Russell, now culture editor at St. Louis Magazine) discovers a century-old book penned by a mad Mormon prophet, she deciphers the odd artifact and is sucked into a world where spacemen, polygamists, and angels run amuck. Is she deranged or has she uncovered a diabolical plot to change the world led by Nehor (Karen Black), a peeved alien from the planet Kolob?
Trent Harris took the time to talk to We Are Movie Geeks in advance of his appearance at The St. Louis International Film Festival
Interview conducted by Tom Stockman October 28th, 2015
We Are Movie Geeks: Your films THE BEAVER TRILOGY and PLAN 10 FROM OUTER SPACE will be showing at this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival.
Trent Harris: I just finished restoring PLAN 10. It had been lost for a long time. This will be the first screening of it in quite a while.
WAMG: Have you been to St. Louis before?
TH: No, I’ve only driven through. I’m really looking forward to it.
WAMG: You’ll be receiving the St. Louis International Film Festival’s Contemporary Cinema Award.
TH: That’s quite an honor!
WAMG: And you’re going to be teaching a master class on independent filmmaking. Tell me about that it. Is that something you have done before and enjoy doing?
TH: Yes, I’ve done things like that before. I usually call it ‘Finally the Horrible Truth About Independent Filmmaking’. I wouldn’t consider myself a great teacher but that is something I enjoy doing.
WAMG: Do you still live in Salt Lake City?
TH: That’s correct
WAMG: What’s the local movie scene like there in Salt Lake City? It’s pretty vibrant here in St. Louis.
TH: It sounds like it. There’s a huge documentary community here that’s been getting a lot of national attention recently.
WAMG: Did you grow up a movie buff?
TH: Yes I started watching films when I was just a kid. My first job was as a projectionist in a movie theater when I was about eight years old.
WAMG: Who were some of your favorite filmmakers growing up?
TH: I grew up in a small town in Idaho so basically I grew up watching Elvis Presley movies and Japanese monster movies and things like that. It wasn’t until I got to college when I realized what movies can be. I saw an Ingmar Bergman film and I had never seen anything like that before and I got started in film right after that. I would say Stanley Kubrick is the Filmmaker that I admire the most. It’s hard not to like that guy’s films. He made one great film after another. I’m heading to Argentina tomorrow and a film festival there will be showing three of my films. Then I’ll go to St. Louis.
WAMG: Will they be showing THE BEAVER TRILOGY there in Argentina?
TH: Yes, they’re showing RUBIN AND ED, THE BEAVER TRILOGY , PLAN 10, and this movie called THE BEAVER TRILOGY PART 4. I’m not sure if they’re showing THE BEAVER TRILOGY PART 4 in St. Louis there or not.
WAMG: Yes they are. I have not seen that one yet. I saw somewhere where you claimed to be one of the first filmmakers to embrace the Internet. Can you elaborate on that?
TH: I think I was. When PLAN 10 came out and premiered at Sundance in 1995, I actually had an Internet site at that time. But nobody could look at it because nobody had a computer or knew what the heck that even was. I got turned onto it because the guys who did the special-effects for PLAN 10 had also done the effects for the Star Trek TV show. I was in their office one day and they wanted to show me something called the Internet. That was the first time I had seen it and they put up a site for me for the premiere of PLAN 10. We actually streamed the premiere party that we had for the film but I don’t think anyone could even watch it. Stefene Russell and I had what we called ‘the world’s first world press conference’, the first press conference on the Internet. We went up to the University of Utah because they had The big computers and satellites and whatever you needed, but I think there were only two or three people that even listened. One of them was in the UK, one of them was in Australia, and the other was in Utah.
WAMG: Are you a Mormon yourself?
TH: No.
WAMG: From what I read it sounds like PLAN 10 FROM OUTER SPACE uses Mormon doctrine for its science fiction elements.
TH: Yes, I grew up Mormon and was familiar with the doctrine. A lot of people think I made this stuff up but it’s straight out of Mormonism, what with God living on a planet called Kolob and a lot of other Mormon things that are interesting but that they don’t like to talk about much, But those are my favorite parts that I ended up putting in PLAN 10.
WAMG: Have any of your friends or family been offended by PLAN 10?
TH: There’s always somebody that will be offended by something but the movie did incredibly well in Salt Lake City. The first week it came out here, it was the number one film in the country per screen average. Every screening was full. It was in the Hollywood Reporter and Variety. Of course it was only on one screen.
WAMG: Have you seen The Book of Mormon?
TH: No I have not. Have you?
WAMG: Yes, I just saw it for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Very politically incorrect but very funny. Karen Black was in PLAN 10 as well as your film RUBIN AND ED. What was she like?
TH: She is one of the most delightful people that I have ever met in my whole life. So many movie stars are no fun to work with, but Karen was exactly the opposite. When she heard I was making PLAN 10, she called me up and said that she heard I was making a new movie and wanted to be in it. I told her that it was so low budget I didn’t have the money for her. She said she didn’t care and she would be up there Friday and to make sure I had a role for her. She was just wonderful and it was a real heartbreaker when she passed away a couple of years ago. We had stayed friends right up until the end.
WAMG: Crispin Glover was in THE BEAVER TRILOGY and then a few years later he was in your film RUBIN AND ED. He seems like an odd duck. What was he like to work with?
TH: When we did the first part of THE BEAVER TRILOGY, he was really a delight and then it got more difficult when we were doing RUBIN AND ED. I don’t like to badmouth people but I’ll just say that I wouldn’t want to work with him again.
WAMG: Let me ask you a couple of questions about THE BEAVER TRILOGY. This fellow known as ‘Groovin’ Gary’, he was the original Beaver Kid though he’s never actually identified in your film. I found out that he died in 2009. Did he know that he was something of a celebrity?
TH: He certainly did. In 2001, when the final edited BEAVER TRILOGY came out and I think he was totally surprised by it. That movie just continues to play all over the world. It’s had the most remarkable life.
WAMG: Are you surprised that people still want to talk about it?
TH: Yes and I’m kind of sick of talking about it to tell you the truth. But he was so wonderful. People just gravitated towards him and his energy and how much fun he is in that movie. Even high-powered actors like Sean Penn and Crispin Glover don’t hold a candle to his performance. It’s something to watch.
WAMG: Yes, just a lot of natural charisma with that guy.
TH: Boy is there ever. I really liked him a lot. BEAVER TRILOGY PART 4 really explains a lot of things about him and how his life evolved after the movie.
WAMG: I was a little confused because in the sequences with Sean Penn and Crispin Glover there’s this suicide attempt scene. I’m not sure where that came from.
TH: He did shoot himself soon after I filmed him. It didn’t kill him though. He shot himself in the chest but it wasn’t fatal.
WAMG: How did he die eventually in 2009?
TH: A heart attack.
WAMG: Tell me about Brad Besser and your collaboration on BEAVER TRILOGY PART 4.
TH: Brad just came into my office one day and said he’d like to make a movie about me and kept asking me questions. People do that periodically and I thought it would just be an interview and it would be done, but he followed me for almost 4 years. It was incredible. I would go to Cambodia, and he would be there and I’d go to New York, wherever I was, he would show up. It seems like he interviewed everyone I know. To tell you the truth, I didn’t know what he was making a film about. I didn’t know it was about what it ended up being about in terms of his look at the Beaver Kid. That was a good choice on his part because you can film me forever but I don’t think you’re going to get much of a film out of it.
WAMG: Would you ever consider remaking the Beaver Kid’s story again yourself?
TH: No. Please no!
WAMG: I know Brad Besser will be here in St. Louis for the screening of BEAVER TRILOGY PART 4 along with you.
TH: Oh good, I didn’t realize that.
WAMG: Does Olivia Newton-John know about THE BEAVER TRILOGY?
TH: I don’t know for sure. I tried to get her a copy back in the 80s. Sean Penn actually bought the house that she lived in previously and we were trying to get it to her but I think at that point she has gone back to Australia, and also celebrities were very paranoid about stalkers and things like that then.
WAMG: What was Sean Penn like as a young actor?
TH: He hadn’t done much at that time. I think he was shooting FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH or had just finished it while we were working on this project. You could tell right off the bat that he was going to make it. I’ve met a lot of actors, but with him there was just no question. I met Johnny Depp when he was young and I thought there was no way he was going to make it.
WAMG: You said you’re tired of talking about THE BEAVER TRILOGY, but it is the film we are showing at the St. Louis international film Festival. Do you sometimes feel that it has overshadowed some of your other works that you might consider to be better?
TH: I don’t know if I would say they are better, but yes I wish some people would pay more attention to some of my other films but I’m happy that people pay attention to THE BEAVER TRILOGY. I am flabbergasted that it has received as much attention as it has. I’ve been interviewed so many times about it and it’s usually the same questions.
WAMG: It’s a unique experience. You moved out to Hollywood at one point.
TH: Yes I was in Hollywood for about 12 years.
WAMG: Is that when you made RUBIN AND ED?
TH: Yes.
WAMG: Did you enjoy Hollywood?
TH: No. It was not a good experience. It seems that every cliché you hear about Hollywood is true. The crazy dishonest agents and the cigar chopping producers and the big breasted bimbos. All that stuff is really true.
WAMG: What is your next project?
TH: I’m working on a movie called WELCOME TO THE RUBBER ROOM. I’ve got quite a bit of it done.
WAMG: Is that a documentary?
TH: No. It’s about a beatnik type bar on its last night. It’s about to be torn down and turned into a Pottery Barn so it’s about all these malcontent artists trying to figure out what to do. It’s pretty funny. Stefene Russell is in it.
WAMG: She’s a St. Louisan I believe.
TH: Yes, she was in PLAN 10 and another film I made called DELIGHTFUL WATER UNIVERSE and in my RUBBER ROOM movie too. She’s great.
WAMG: You filmed that in Salt Lake City?
TH: Yes there’s a big studio space in a warehouse. We built a big set there.
WAMG: Maybe you can come back to the St. Louis International film Festival when WELCOME TO THE RUBBER ROOM is complete.
TH: I hope so.
WAMG: I’ve enjoyed talking to you.
TH: I hope you got what you needed.
WAMG: I did. Thanks a lot and we’ll see you in St. Louis.
TH: Thank you
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