photo by Karina Longworth

At Monday afternoon’s press conference following the NYFF screening of Go Go Tales, the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Richard Pena introduced Abel Ferrara as “a dear old friend of the Festival,” but the maverick filmmaker went on to tell one or two stories that put that characterization into question. I had never seen Ferrara in person, but I thought I was prepared for his persona: something like the drunken, half-psychotic uncle that you can’t help but love. That perception didn’t turn out to be totally off, but I was surprised by Ferrara’s extremes: passive-aggressively needling Pena and the Festival one minute, lapsing into by all indications heartfelt tributes to his influences the next.

I’ll have more on Ferrara’s gaga Go Go Tales later today. For now, you’ll find transcribed highlights from the press conference after the jump, including Ferrara’s thoughts on Cassavetes, Leonardo DiCaprio, and how Harvey Keitel convinced him to start shooting digitally.

On the Go Go Tales‘ real-life inspirations:
“The funny thing is, you gotta be very careful what you say in this day and age. It’s a very litigious society. You start talking about your inspirations, and you end up in a courtroom. So somewhere in a city to be nameless, on a street to be nameless, between 19th and 21st, there was a place kind of like [the strip club in the movie]. For me, because I knew the people who had the place, it was like the neighborhood bar, which meant that I could drink for free. And not to name-drop, or to bust anybody, but Leonardo diCaprio, you’d walk in, and DiCaprio would be–this was before he was “Leonardo DiCaprio”–he’d be under like two or three of these tall, beautiful women. Somehow, he got the lap-sitting privileges–they could sit on his lap. And I’d walk in and I’d hear, [affects Mouseketeer voice] ‘Hey Mr. Ferrara!’ and [mimes double take] woah, where’d that come from?”

On his history with New York Film Festival press conferences:
“I remember being on this stage, the last time I was here, which was like 85 years ago–they didn’t like any of the other movies. [Ferrara looks over at Richard Pena, who, seated next to him, smiles uncomfortably from behind a paper cup of water. Ferrara continues, almost apologetically.]

He took a lot of flak for King of New York. The people who had the season tickets weren’t up for that one. [Several members of the press giggle derisively.] I remember, we did the press conference, it was me, Nicky St. John, Chris Walken and Wesley Snipes. And the first question was, ‘You know, a film that looks like a cross between a perfume commercial and a bad B-movie–how do you guys feel about that?’ [Louder giggles] No, but they asked about the improvisation, and Chris looked at me like, ‘You’re not gonna answer that question [are you]?’ Like, you can’t answer that question. You’re not gonna tell where the rabbit came out of the hat.”

On sugar-coating the sex industry:
“There’s something magical about [the club in the film]. We wanted to do the film not in the way that life is, because that’s a very difficult life for the women working there, the guys trying to make a living doing it. We tried to take a very harsh reality and try to find a very comic movie. We say, this is our first intentional comedy.

What’s that Forrest Whittaker film, he plays the soldier that the gay…? Crying Game! So the producer, Massimo Cortesi–anybody that puts up all the money for a film out of his own pocket I’ll love for the rest of his life and mine. And then they’ll come up with the wackiest things to say, like, ‘Did you see Crying Game? We should have a surprise like that.’ This is like halfway through the movie, so I’m like, ‘You want to shoot the rest of the film upside down? How ’bout that?’

But the fact is, I didn’t want to tell him, but there was a surprise, and it’s that these girls are not really dancers. They’re not go go dancers, but they have a dream, they have a talent. So if somebody says, ‘Well, that chick can’t dance,’ or, ‘Her tits are too small’ — my composer kept saying, ‘Aren’t you gonna get girls with big tits?’ Well, they’re not go go dancers, anyway. One’s a magician, one’s a ballerina, one is something else…”

On doing a comedy:
“I told Scorsese we were gonna do a comedy. He started laughing so hard. But The Life Aquatic [he pronounces it a-qwee-ah-tic] was another film in the groove that I knew we wanted to try to make.”

On the film’s brilliant sound design:
“I’m not really big on post-production, on looping after the fact. We had two live cameras, and we had cameras hidden, [because] in a club like that they would have the survielance cameras. We just did the basic: two booms, the wires we’re not big on, we had a really good sound man… [turns to Go Go star Willem Dafoe] You didn’t do much looping, did you? Ah, well you can’t find him. Once the film’s over, he’s gone. Like a cool breeze. And he might be talking in a German accent [mumbles, trails off]…”

On one of the production’s false starts:
“I wrote this six years ago. Me and Sylvia Miles, we were gonna do this on Crosby Street, in a loft. Franky had built the $500,000 version of this. We had a reading once with [Harvey] Keitel, and Sylvia gave that performance then. And then we didn’t talk to each other for five years.

When you get a movie that you can’t finance–or, sometimes, you get a movie that you make more money not making. We sold this script a few dozen times. And now, we can’t sell it anymore, because we made it.”

On shooting digital:
“Harvey trained us into like shooting–you know, when you shoot film, you have like a ten and a half minute mag, which is nowhere near as long as he needs [to get the take right]. From an independent, low budget world, when that camera’s running I’m like [mimes gears moving in his head] the girl at the checkout counter at the grocery store. That’s one thing I like about the digital: I keep that camera on even when I go home. If I’m feeling it, I’m feeling it. Now we have two cameras, which means if we have a bad performance, we have it twice. So we would shoot long takes. I mean, you need the actors to be able to do that. But when you have the people here…”

On the influence of Cassavetes:
“I never met him. I read a script that was given to me while he was still alive, there was no names on it, but I think he might have given it to me. I mean, it was a script you couldn’t get financed if you owned the bank. But it was strong. I mean, he was it for me. That kind of filmmaking. Everything about him. I mean, the films were so powerful.

I remember seeing, um, not Woman Under the Influence–the one with Peter Falk, and his wife comes home from the insane asylum? [Female voice from audience shouts, 'Woman Under the Influence!'] That was Woman Under the Influence? Okay. Woman Under the Influence, I was watching it in a theater, up in the suburbs where I grew up, and there was four people in the theater: me, the girl I was with, and this guy, who was exactly the character in the movie, and the girl he was with. Those movies, you have to take a walk every once in a while. And the guy’s with me in the back, and he goes, ‘You like this piece of shit?’ And I was like, I don’t want to say ‘Yeah, it’s great,’ so I go [shrugs] ‘I don’t know, it’s a little confusing. I thought I was in the movie that’s playing in the theater next door.’ He goes, ‘This is what I come home to every night! This is what I put up with every day!’ It’s like, he’s saying, ‘This is my life, exactly. Who wants to watch that?’ It was great.”