I met filmmaker Matthew Bissonette and saw his great film Who Loves the Sun at the Denver Film Festival last November. As he prepares to take the film to SXSW next week (with screenings on March 11 at 5 pm and March 12 at noon), Matt found some time to correspond with me. The results of our little chat are below.

Matt directed and wrote the script for his five-character film, which is losely based on an idea from the Paul Auster novel Leviathan. The main idea sparked by Leviathan is the question “What happens when someone disappears?” The question Matt adds in Who Loves the Sun is “What happens when that person suddenly resurfaces?” The film’s soundtrack is wonderful (Matt talks about it in the interview), the characters and cast are wonderful, and I love the broader themes explored in the film, including secrets, lies and truths, and the importance of forgiveness and moving on.

In a second post (look for it in a few days) I’ll talk to both Matt and producer Corey Marr about some of the logistics of making and promoting their film. Watch the trailer and get more on Who Loves the Sun by checking out the official movie site and the film’s MySpace page.

Now, the interview:

K: Tell me about your background in writing and filmmaking.

M: i studied english lit/creative writing at concordia university in montreal. i seem to recall that the scriptwriting prof taught the guy who wrote Heathers, or something like that. anyway, i wanted to make a film about the time my friend’s mother drove over their family dog; sadly, the teacher of Heathers thought that was totally stupid, and he wanted me to use these little cue cards and block out a real movie (his words). so that didn’t work out so well. however, concordia has a pretty good film department, and i did a minor in theory, which was interesting, but no production.

K: What were your projects before Who Loves the Sun (WLTS)?

M: i co-wrote and co-directed a film called Looking For Leonard (2002) with my friend Steven Clarke. he had a background in production, and i learned a lot from him while making that film; in addition, when we weren’t punching each other in the face we had loads of fun. to make a long story short: movie went to a bunch of fests; had some fans; made some money; hence…they let me make another, that being WLTS.

K: How did you come up with the idea for WLTS?

M: i lifted it from the paul auster book Leviathan, then sort of forced that circle into my square.

K: How did the small cast affect the story and making of WLTS?

M: in my first film we had a fairly large cast, more than 30 speaking roles i believe, and i found there just wasn’t time to get to know the actors in the way you need to, to afford for the best possible working relationship. so, this time i intentionally wrote a story with an isolated location and small cast, hoping that even on a small budget film there would be time to get to know people, and to understand them enough to work with them. i think it was nic ray who said there’s no magic “way” to talk to actors in general, you learn how to talk to each actor in particular, same as any other kind of human.

in making WLTS, because it was a small cast, and because we shot on location very far from friends, family and home, it forced the actors to spend a lot of time together, and that, i think, created the sense of familiarity and intimacy in the film. also, i think the actors understood this, and went out of their way to make those bonds. you can’t really give direction like “be more of a family,” it’s either there or it isn’t. what you can do is try to create an environment that promotes the type of relationships you are looking for in the film.

K: Tell me about the soundtrack for WLTS.

M: i had worked with mac [McCaughan] (of superchunk, portastatic) on my first film, and that was fun and turned out well, and i was really happy when he was up for another foray into scoring.

in a nutshell, i didn’t want anything too country (moody, lonely, ry cooder guitar picking, for example), because we were shooting in a very sort of pastoral setting, and i am interested in contrasts (mix the smart with the stupid, the funny with the sad, classic with the country, etc). i wanted a sort of sirkian-movie movie score type thing, strong melodies, strings, etc. and that was about all i told mac. he has this little computer program that sketches out the melodies, which he sends along, and i drop them into the cut, sort of like story boarding, but with sound. it’s a good way to save cash, because then we have all agreed on the tracks, and they go into the studio and bang it out. we only had one sort of bump in the process. he started talking about flutes, and i mentioned i was worried about it sounding like jethro tull. “don’t fear the tull” is I believe what mac told me, and he was once again correct!

K: What do you think the role of music is (or should be) in films?

M: i believe the popular film wisdom is the best score is the one you don’t notice. i totally disagree with this bit of popular film wisdom. give me the zithers in the third man! the piano in wonderland (the winterbottom wonderland)! i don’t care for seamless, perfect films; they remind me of mariah carey songs. i believe it was david berman who said: all my favorite singers couldn’t sing. i feel the same way about filmmakers. I like things that i notice in films, and music is a huge part of this. if i don’t remember the music, I probably don’t remember the film. further, it seems to me that the best films are like songs, they hit you in a strange mysterious place, and suggest a million wonderful things you haven’t ever seen or heard.

K: So what are you busy with now? What’s your next project?

M: i’m mostly busy with raising my son, who is 5 months old. my next project is a scathing, irreverent trilogy that examines hypocrisy and racism in denmark.