Audio transcription

For more interviews and talks, visit the Harvard Film Archive Visiting Artists Collection page.

John Quackenbush  0:00 

March 26, 2011. The Harvard Film Archive screened two films by Aaron Katz, Quiet City and Dance Party, USA. This is the introduction and Q and A that followed. Participating are HFA Programmer David Pendleton and filmmaker Aaron Katz.

David Pendleton  0:20  

–Dominique Cabrera, who's sitting here in the front. Yes. Yes. Actually-.

[APPLAUSE]

–her autobiographical documentaries have played here quite a bit. And we're going to change things up a little bit for the screening on Monday and show her most recent fiction feature film, which stars  Miou-Miou and Jean-Pierre Léaud, and is quite a dramatic and moving story about people sort of caught up during the Nazi invasion of France. So that's on Monday at seven. Folle embellie. Be sure and be here for that. Next weekend, we actually don't have any public screenings. Our April through June calendar is on its way from the printer. And while we're waiting for it to come, next weekend we're going to be doing members-only screenings. Those of you who are members should have received notification. If you haven't, let me know. Maybe we've got a wrong email address or a wrong mailing address. We're going to be showing four nights that are a mixture of new prints recently acquired by the archive, some beautiful classic prints of important films that haven't shown in a while, and some rarities. And it's all just for our members. And then we will resume our public screening the following weekend, with more really exciting visiting filmmakers. The conceptual filmmaker, Morgan Fisher, from Los Angeles, who's quite a character and quite a filmmaker. And we will also be showing-. Oh! There's a third filmmaker here in the audience who will be present and in person, up here. That same weekend, we'll be showing two films by Maple Razsa and our own Pacho Velez: Occupation, about the occupation of Massachusetts Hall during the living wage movement, and their more recent film, Bastards of Utopia, about anarchists in Croatia. So Pacho, wave your hand. Come back in a couple of weeks.

[APPLAUSE]

And Pacho will be here with his collaborator Maple Razsa. And we will as well that weekend have the documentary maker Linda Hoaglund and her disturbing and remarkable documentary ANPO, about the presence of American military bases in Japan. So there's a lot coming up. And there's a lot tonight, so let's get to that. Oh, the other announcement I should make—for those of you who missed last night, or you want to tell your friends, or you want to see it again—IFC is the distributor of Cold Weather, and it opens on Wednesday night at the Brattle for five days. So you all get a chance to see it again, or to direct your friends to go over there. And I invite you all to do so.

This is actually Aaron's second visit to the HFA, because he was here a couple of years ago, when Quiet City was brand new. Thanks to my predecessor, Ted Barron, the much lamented Ted Barron. I mean, he's doing fine! He’s at Notre Dame now! But, I mean, he's not here anymore. We miss him. That's what I'm trying to say. And he says “hi.” But no, he put together a program of new independent work, and very presciently saw that Quiet City was a remarkable film, and brought Aaron here to present the film.

And so tonight what we're doing is that we’ve sort of gone backwards in the retrospective, with Cold Weather, the newest film, last night. We're about to see Quiet City, the second film. Then we'll have a discussion with Aaron about Quiet City. And following that we will end the program with his first film, Dance Party, USA. Quiet City is from 2007. Dance Party, USA from 2006. And one of the interesting things about seeing the films in reverse order is that, once you've seen all three, you can see the way in which Katz’s ambition has sort of vaulted forward every time. And yet, when you watch the films in reverse, it's very easy to appreciate each one for its own scale and its own size and what Katz is able to do with—if we watch it backwards—sort of increasingly smaller budgets and smaller casts.

I should say, a biographical note: Katz was born in 1981. And the places that he's lived are sort of an itinerary of American independent filmmaking. He was born in Portland, which is of course home to Kelly Reichardt, Gus Van Sant, Todd Haynes. Went to school in North Carolina School of the Arts, which is the alma mater of David Gordon Green. Then lived in New York, and now lives in Pittsburgh, from whence Andy Warhol and George Romero both hail. And actually you'll catch a little aural glimpse of Night of the Living Dead, if I'm not mistaken, if you stick around for Dance Party, USA. And in anycase, the two films that you're about to see make a very nice double feature, I think, because they're about young people meeting and maybe falling in love, maybe not. Maybe starting a relationship, maybe not. Maybe hooking up, maybe not. Each film is exquisitely crafted, I think, on its own terms and displays Aaron's ability to create characters that we instantly care about. His really interesting cinematic use, I think, of editing and pace, of silence and music. And I think that's about all I'll say right now. Oh, I should also mention that for those of you who saw Cold Weather, you'll notice that the male lead in Quiet City is Cris Lankenau, who plays the slacker Sherlock Holmes in Cold Weather. And who seems to be maybe Aaron’s stand-in for every man, or perhaps his alter ego, I'm not sure. In any case, here to say a few words is Aaron. After he's done be sure to stick around after the film, and he'll be back for a conversation.

[APPLAUSE]

Aaron Katz  6:02  

Hi. Well, I don't want to say-.

[INAUDIBLE. AUDIENCE SPEAKS WITHOUT MICROPHONE]

Aaron Katz 6:06

Who won? Won what?

[INAUDIBLE. AUDIENCE SPEAKS WITHOUT MICROPHONE]

Aaron Katz  6:13

Oh, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I follow baseball, not college basketball, so I don't know. But thank you all for coming to see the films. I don't want to say too much beforehand. Except that I hope you enjoy them. And yeah, I'll be back to discuss Quiet City afterwards. So thank you very much for coming and hope you enjoy the films.

[APPLAUSE] 

---------------------------------------------------------------------

David Pendleton  6:45

Do you want to be here again?

Aaron Katz  6:47 

Sure, this worked out last night.

Hi. So, I can answer any questions you have about the movie. Or sporting questions that may arise.

[LAUGHTER]

Baseball focused, if possible.

Audience 1  7:20

[INAUDIBLE. AUDIENCE SPEAKS INTO MALFUNCTIONING MICROPHONE] –movie of these two guys. Bravo.

Aaron Katz  7:56

Thank you!

David Pendleton  7:57  

Let me just translate, because people didn't hear. Dominique was talking about-.

Audience 1  7:59  

No question. I had no question. But maybe the question could be, how did you make it?

Aaron Katz  8:05

Yeah, it was about the colors.

Audience 1  8:07

Or this work with lights… on the face, on skin, eyes, lips.

David Pendleton  8:14

Light and color, and making portraits.

Audience 1  8:17

Yes, that was really wonderful.

Aaron Katz  8:19  

Well, I guess, maybe one of the starting points was wanting to make a film about New York, and Brooklyn, specifically, that wasn't reflective of other films we'd seen about New York, but reflective of our own experiences living in New York—that is, myself and the producers and actors. And, you know, that had a lot to do with people, and with quieter moments, and not so much with, you know, the hustle and bustle of crowds that one usually associates with New York. And yeah, the colors, too, were what we saw when walking home from the subway after getting off work. Or something like that. And yeah, and I really love Erin Fisher and Cris Lankenau, the two leads, and kind of wanted, as much as possible, to just showcase them. So thank you. I'm glad you liked that part of the movie.

David Pendleton  9:10  

And there's a question right here. Ted?

Audience 2  9:15  

Hi. I was wondering, how did you devise the characters? Why these characters, out of so many eclectic ones you can meet in Brooklyn? And why did you develop them the way you did?

Aaron Katz  9:27  

Why did I develop them the way it did? Well, this movie actually grew out of a movie that never got made. This is my second film. And after my first, we got accepted into South by Southwest in 2006. So, late 2005 we found out that the film would be playing. And leading up to the festival we started talking about how it had been a while since we’d actually made this movie. We made it in 2004. And we wanted to get going on something new. And so I was writing something to take place in Pittsburgh, which is where one of my producers is from, and where I live now. And the script just didn't really work out. It got longer and longer without getting any better. But there was one character that I really liked in it, who was someone's ex-girlfriend in the script, who's the character of Jamie in this movie. And I liked that character a lot. And was on my way to another film festival, Chicago Underground Film Festival, shortly after South by Southwest, and sort of contemplating how frustrated I was with the script I was trying to write, but that I liked this one character. And just had the idea of putting her in the situation of being alone in New York and trying to figure out what to do, not having anything to do. And so I wrote it with Erin Fisher in mind. She went to film school with me at North Carolina School of the Arts, where many people who worked on this film went. And I really like to make films that are essentially about ordinary people. Cold Weather, too, is about people who are, you know, they're not super successful. They're not big failures, either. They're just kind of ordinary people. And so, yeah, that's why these characters. And yeah, sometimes people were like, “Oh, these guys are kind of losers. Why would you make a film about them?” But I think that these people are just ordinary people that anyone in this room might know. And I think that's something that's really interesting and not that often explored in movies.

David Pendleton  1:45

Question in the back.

Audience 3  11:50  

Hi. I really, also, enjoyed your film. And listening to everybody, it's been great. I don't know how much of a connection it is, but I'm just curious to know if you've yet encountered any of John Cassavetes' work and if there's anything you feel like saying about it. I don't know for sure if I see a connection, but I couldn't help but think of it a little bit.

Aaron Katz  12:12  

Yeah, that's definitely a connection that's been made before, to not only my work, but to some other people who had films in South by Southwest over the years, who were making fairly low budget films about real people kind of interacting. And I respect John Cassavetes work but it's not to my taste. I find the performances to be a lot more theatrical than I like. I feel like it certainly paved the way for a lot of more naturalistic performances. And was it a change of pace from what was going on in sort of mainstream Hollywood, certainly, and acting styles at the time. But for me, there's too much yelling, there's too much theatricality, and it's not to my taste, exactly.

David Pendleton  13:10

There's another question, right there.

Audience 4  13:15

How did you come up with the name Quiet City?

Aaron Katz  13:21  

Interesting. Well, I will tell you, but why do you ask? Or, do you have an idea of why? Or, it sounds like there's more behind the question.

Audience 4  13:30 

Just interested to know how did you come up with the name Quiet City? Well known, New York City is not a really quiet city.

Aaron Katz 13:38  

Right. Yeah, yeah. It's sort of the opposite of a quiet city. Well, our producer, Brendan, thought of it in a dream, which I know sounds kind of lame, but we didn't have a name for the movie. And Brendan called me one morning and said, “Hey, I think I thought of a really good name. I dreamt that the movie was in black and white and called Quiet City, last night.” This is a few weeks before we were shooting. And I said, “Well, the black and white thing I don't think is appropriate, but Quiet City is a good name.” Because I think, as I was mentioning earlier, I think that's more reflective of the experience that we had living there. And I think, certainly, New York is a very loud city and a busy city, in many ways. But especially in Brooklyn, in the areas we lived—at that time, I lived in Gowanus and our producers lived in Fort Greene—and once you get away from kind of the main drags, it's really, really quiet and you're kind of hidden away. And then later, we realized it's also the name of an Aaron Copland piece, which is very good, but unrelated.

David Pendleton  14:42  

With that, can I say-? Oh, I’m sorry, did you have something else that you want-?

Audience 4 14:46

Just a last question.

Aaron Katz  14:47

Sure. Yeah.

Audience 4  14:48

What was the budget for the movie?

Aaron Katz  14:49 

The budget on this movie was about $2,000.

Audience 4  14:52

Wow!

Aaron Katz  14:53

Yeah, I mean, everyone worked for free. We shot the film in about a week, because everyone had to get back to their jobs where they were making money. And Erin Fisher was going to school in Charlotte, North Carolina, and she had to get back there for school. And yeah, we all stayed on the floor of the apartment of our producers in Fort Greene and spent money on food and a few other things. We borrowed our camera and borrowed all of our other equipment.

Audience 4  15:19

Did you use just the handheld cameras?

Aaron Katz 15:21

Yeah. We used an HVX200, which we really liked and was really good for this movie, because it's very light and very flexible in terms of how you can light. You can light with a lamp and some Christmas lights, as we did, for example, in the party scene. And many other places were lit just with lamps. And so we were able to be mobile enough to shoot a film in that short amount of time. Yeah.

Audience 4  15:48

Thank you very much.

Aaron Katz  15:49

You’re welcome. Thank you.

David Pendleton  15:51  

I just have a follow up on the question of Quiet City. And this may be more a comment than a question, but what I really liked about the film is the way that it sort of falls into two parts. And the first part really is the quiet part, where it's just the two of them sort of hanging out in New York City. And in a way, we feel like we get to know these characters by watching them, by seeing them interact. And then in the party scenes at the end, suddenly, there’s strangers asking them questions, and we find out, oh, she works at Applebee's, and like, he's from Florida, or that he's got an ex in Florida, et cetera. And I thought it was just a really sort of wonderful exercise in, like, the different ways in which we find out things about characters that we see on the screen. And there's a way in which I sort of missed, actually, just seeing the two of them by themselves, with all the party scenes at the end. I don't know if that was, like, a conscious strategy on your part, to have this sort of two-part structure, to have the beginning be quiet, and then have all this sort of exposition that's often at the beginning come out at the end. But I thought it was really effective.

Aaron Katz  16:44  

Yeah, well, I mean, it kind of builds toward that, where at first, they're just with one other person. You know, they go to visit the guy where he's trying to get his hat back. And then they go to a party. But I think that's pretty reflective of life, where when you're with just one other person— especially if it's, you know, someone of the opposite sex, who you're perhaps interested in— that you can kind of live in this bubble and live in a kind of a non-reality. But then as soon as, you know, as soon as other people are around, it's like, there's all this invasion into that privacy. And like, the guy at the party asking why he hasn't been hanging out. And, you know, Jamie admitting that she, you know, works at Applebee's. Yeah, it is Applebee's. So yeah, in real life, Erin Fisher worked at a Ruby Tuesday, shortly before the movie. She hated the job more than anything and was mad to have to work at Applebee's as a fictional character, even.

[LAUGHTER]

But I think that all those things kind of come out. The reality of having to live life, having tohave a job and having to kind of go back to dealing with things. And actually, I think that the invasion of that stuff starts even earlier, when she gets a call from possibly her boyfriend. You know, it starts with a  phone call, and then there's a guy there, and then there's a whole party of people there, bugging them. And then, you know, finally they're alone again. But we don't know exactly what happens.

David Pendleton  18:13  

There was a question over here. And then we'll get to the people in the back. Okay. Yeah, look to your-.

Audience 5  18:19 

I really appreciated that, when I saw it was set in Park Slope, I'm glad to see that it wasn't set up at the tony other end of Park Slope, which is what I expected. I actually had a question. I saw how much you really liked to have really close-up portraits, as you said. And even that little scene when they were in the park, I assume it was Prospect Park, where they were having the race.

Aaron Katz  18:43

Mm-hmm, yeah.

Audience 5  18:44

There was no real panorama of the park, which has a lot of open spaces in it. Was that a deliberate decision or…?

Aaron Katz 18:58  

Yeah, I mean, really, the film's about the—I mean, this may be sort of a cliche—but the space between the two of them. But also, the space that contains them. I mean, I think the film is really specifically set in Brooklyn. It's not like it could be set anywhere. But it's more about, like, what's in their immediate surroundings and things that they see. And we did shoot a kind of a wider shot of the park, but ultimately, it felt more right just to have it be in that one take of them doing the foot race. And I think also, especially because of the time of day, when the sun is setting like that, I think that oftentimes it kind of makes you feel a bit insular, because the glare is such that you can only see for a little bit around you.

Audience 5  19:37

That goes along with what you were talking about being in a bubble.

Aaron Katz  19:40

Yeah.

Audience 5  19:41

He talks about it too, about roommates. Wasn't it him?

Aaron Katz  19:44

Yeah.

Audience 5  19:45

There were four of them living, but, you know, he had a girlfriend.

Aaron Katz  19:47

Right. Yeah, yeah. And I think, yeah, definitely, people set up their bubbles. But at the same time, Brooklyn is a really important part of the film. And you know, that's why there's those shots of the city that kind of divide up certain parts of the film. Because I think, what you see every day also has a big effect on how you live your life and how you feel about how you live your life. Are you from Park Slope? Or live there?

Audience 5  20:14

Born in Brooklyn, but I lived in Park Slope. [INAUDIBLE] But I lived there in 1969. And I remember taking a tour of houses under $30,000.

Aaron Katz  20:25

Uh huh. Yeah, back in the-.  Well, yeah, have you seen Hal Ashby's The Landlord? It's funny, because it's supposed to be like a real slum, yet it's on, like, 7th and 16th, or something, where it's really, you know, million-dollar brownstones now. I lived on 3rd and 17th at the time we made this movie, so it's more kind of Gowanus. But we shot up on, you know, that's the 7th Street Station there, for the F. Fascinating, I'm sure, for those of you not familiar with Park Slope.

[LAUGHTER]

David Pendleton  20:53

If I could interject another question here, because one of the things that I love most about the film are these sort of interstitial moments, or sort of like cutaway shots. Like, there’s this incredibly beautiful shot’s of, like, the tree branches, or of the stop signs, that remind me very clearly of, they're called pillow shots, in Ozu’s films, where you suddenly cut away to something else. But there's a way in which the mood of this other shot somehow reflects the mood of what's going on in the scene. And I'm wondering, at what point did you decide to include those? Were you shooting those all along? Or was it when you got to the editing stage? Or was that already scripted into the original screenplay?

Aaron Katz  21:33  

Yeah, well, we went in with the intention of shooting those. And we shot them as we went. You know, if we were shooting a scene, for example, in Prospect Park, we would shoot some shots of the trees as well. Initially, we had the idea to shoot in October, and it was going to be a real fall kind of movie. I think it ends up being more of an Indian summer kind of movie. It's because it was quite warm while we were shooting. The trees were all golden and red, but it was clear skies. So that ended up being kind of the feel of the movie. And yeah, whatever the environment was what we were shooting, we wanted to capture it. And to be fair, we shot with actors for a week, and then Andy Reed, our Director of Photography, and I spent a couple more days going out and shooting some of the other exterior establishing shots.

David Pendleton  22:27  

There was a question in the back.

Audience 6  22:30  

Yes, you had a lot of footage from the subway and I know they're really stingy about permits. Did you guys steal those shots? And if so, did you have any problems doing that?

Aaron Katz  22:39 

Yeah, we did steal those shots. We didn't have any permits for the subway and it actually is legal to shoot on the subway or it was at that time, as long as you don't have a tripod that you're putting down. And I think if you have under five people as a part of your crew, it falls under the category of amateur photography or something like that. We shot in the middle of the night, for the most part. We shot that scene where she gets off the train at the beginning in the middle of the night. We shot between three and five. And also those scenes on the subway. And yeah, some police officers did come by and ask what we were doing, but they didn't mind. The only time when we had a problem is later. After the actors were done we were shooting at the Smith and 9th stop, and we did have a tripod and we were shooting just some shots in the subway, some establishing shots. And a lady from the MTA told us we couldn't be shooting. And yeah, her reason wasn't permits so much as that it was that, and she actually said this to us, that if we posted it on YouTube and Al Qaeda got, like, a look at the layout of the subway, that, what would happen then? Sure, we didn't mean any harm, but we didn't realize the impact, which seems awfully silly to me. But I mean, we had already shot a few shots at the subway, so it didn't matter so much. And I think we ended up not using any of the shots we shot there anyway. We used that kind of long lens establishing shot from quite far away, to establish that subway stop.

David Pendleton  24:20  

Are there other questions? Yes, this one up here, in the front. And then another one in the back. Ted, do you want to bring the mic down to Maureen, down in the front first?

Audience 7  24:32  

How do you handle costumes and overall costume design in your movies?

Aaron Katz  24:41 

Well, Cold Weather probably varies—which is my new film, I don't know if you saw that last night. So, Cold Weather varies from this film. But to talk about this film, it was just the actors’ own clothes. I just told Erin to bring with her from North Carolina, a few selections, kind of like sweaters and things you'd wear for the fall. And, you know, things without logos or anything on them. And yeah, for the most part, I feel like if it's appropriate to the character, I like the actors to wear their own stuff. Stuff that they feel comfortable with, stuff that they would wear anyway, unless there's some reason that it would be glaringly inappropriate. Now, obviously, if we were doing a period film or something like that, it'd be a different story. But even on Cold Weather, for the most part, we did that, but we did a few things like Trieste and Cris's coats we specifically bought to kind of have a contrasting—his is kind of greenish olive green and hers is sort of a dark blue. But for the most part, they're things that they would wear anyway. Yeah.

David Pendleton  25:44 

And how was it different on Cold Weather? There, did you actually select outfits?

Aaron Katz  25:47  

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, for the most part, they wore their own stuff. But in the case of Quiet City, everything is their own. It's just their own stuff. Whereas in Cold Weather, we bought the coats. And in the ice factory scenes, they’re wearing jumpsuits, overalls. Yeah, coveralls. Yeah, that's the word I'm looking for. And those were the coveralls that the guys at the factory really wore. And, you know, there's a few more things. But just for example, like, Robin's kind of distinguishing costume piece is that bright yellow rain jacket, which she and I just met up for lunch one day to kind of talk about the movie, maybe a month in advance, and it was raining out, she had that coat with her. And as I'm meeting with actors, I try and pick out things that I like and say, “Okay, bring that sweater you wore the one time and the coat you wore that other time.” And yeah, I think for me, the most important thing, whether it's costumes, or even how the lighting setup is, is for the actors to feel comfortable and, like, that they can live life but in imaginary circumstances and not feel like they're wearing something horribly uncomfortable, and that they wouldn't wear in normal life.

David Pendleton  26:59  

Thank you. There's a question in the back.

Audience 8  27:11

I was just wondering, at the end of the film where the plane is going up into the air, is that supposed to be indicative of the lead character going back to Florida or what?

Aaron Katz  27:22  

I think it's open-ended. Some people definitely interpret it as her leaving, and I guess so. But, I think, even interpreting like that, it doesn't necessarily mean that she's not coming back another time. To me, I just wanted it to be kind of open-ended, because I think, you know, with relationships that start under unexpected circumstances, there's a lot of outside factors that aren't controllable. And, maybe she'll come back, and maybe she won't. So I'm not sure. And we actually, you know, to be honest, we shot that shot out at the airport and intended to end the movie with them on the subway. But then we had that shot, which was also the opening shot of the movie and felt like bookending the movie in that way. One without a plane, one with it. Kind of left it more open. And I like the idea of any movie that suggests that it's not so much a period at the end of a sentence, but that these characters keep on living, and we're just with them in this case for seventy-eight minutes. And that, you know, maybe there's phone calls in the future, maybe not. Maybe they visit each other and maybe not. But, you know, like The Graduate is the classic example of a film that sort of suggests, well, what now? Everyone has to keep living. It's not like the cameras stopped rolling, and these people don't live anymore.

David Pendleton  28:45  

There's a question over there.

Audience 9  28:55

There's a fair amount of dialogue in the film. How much of it was scripted? And how much was improvised?

Aaron Katz  29:03  

I haven’t answered questions about this film in a long time, but that's a question that gets often asked. And the answer is that if you were to read the script, it would read like a normal ninety-page movie script, but we didn't use it verbatim ever, really. The actors used it more as a guideline or blueprint. And for me, I really like improvised dialogue and I like actors to put things in their own words, and as I was mentioning earlier, to feel comfortable in what they have to say. But I like the improv to come from a structure. To me, it often feels a lot more real than just having completely open-ended improvisation, because in real life, we have a lot of constraining factors. We have our interests and things we're trying to get at, and you know, past histories and so on and so forth. And so I think having this script there as kind of a base to work from is really important to me in an improvised scene. And so yeah, but it is all not to the script. And in Cold Weather, it's probably half and half. Someone asked last night, how much of that was improvised. And I think on Quiet City, I started to feel more comfortable with things being improvised, because on Dance Party, my first film, it was completely to the script. And we were able to mix that more on Cold Weather and have some things to the script and some things improvised, and kind of just go with whatever felt right for the scene. I feel like sometimes people get into a feeling like, “Well, it has to be one certain way, or everything won't gel together.” And so I think we got more comfortable with mixing things on Cold Weather.

David Pendleton  30:53  

This is two films in a row now with Cris Lankenau. I wonder if you could say a little bit about how did you first meet him? And what made you decide to use him twice in a row in the films?

Aaron Katz  31:04  

Yeah, he's from Florida, as he says in the film. And he’s sort of a circuitous route to being an acquaintance. He was best friends with Keegan, my composer's ex-girlfriend. And so I knew him from seeing him around occasionally. And when we were casting this movie, as I said earlier, I had Erin Fisher in mind, but no one for the male lead. And someone suggested that we should look at Cris. And so we brought Cris in. And it was not really an audition, it was more just hanging out and talking. And he read a little bit from Travels with Charley and some other stuff. And we just got a really good feeling about him. And it really wasn't much of a competition between him and the rest of the people. And so yeah, we made this film with him and really loved working with him and wanted to work with him again in Cold Weather. And I did write that film with him in mind. I was talking to some people earlier how I think Cris doesn't get enough credit, because he's really quiet and really ordinary. But I think he's so good at being just natural. And, I think that oftentimes, the kind of performances that get noticed are things that are more theatrical. And yeah, I love working with Cris and hope to work with him again. And I think he's a great guy too. Just being an ordinary person.

David Pendleton  32:42  

Are there other questions in the audience? There’s a question up here, Ted.

Audience 10  32:50

What's your relationship with Joe Swanberg?

Aaron Katz  32:52

Joe’s a friend. Yeah, obviously, he's in this film.

David Pendleton  33:00

Well, we might want to say, for the uninitiated-.

Aaron Katz  33:02

Oh, yeah.

David Pendleton  33:04

Joe's the friend who has the hat that they go to visit, who is also a rather notorious-. Well, you can say more about him. He's another independent filmmaker, notorious to some.

Aaron Katz  33:16

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Joe's, another filmmaker. We met at South by Southwest in 2006, where he had his film LOL. And, we made my first film, Dance Party, in a total vacuum. You know, we had no idea what we were going to do with it. We knew nothing about festivals or anything like that. And so going to South by Southwest, which is a really, really good environment to talk to other people. I don't know, I've never been to Sundance, so I don't know what Sundance is like, but it has an environment that is very different from the one described at Sundance. It has a very relaxed environment, where it feels like, really conducive to discussion and everything like that. And so yeah, I met Joe and a lot of other filmmakers there in 2006. And then in 2007, met some more with Quiet City. And yeah, it just seemed right to put Joe in the movie. You know, we had just met a few months before. Again, for those of you who don't know, he's a man who's made, I believe-. He told me recently that he has seven films ready to go in 2011. So.

David Pendleton  34:27  

Very prolific, and he’s sort of like, one of those love him or hate him. There's a constant critical debate over whether he's a great filmmaker or terrible.

Aaron Katz  34:34  

Yeah! Joe really inspires, like, yes, some people just can't stand him and other people think he's the greatest. I mean, yeah, I think it's funny though, because I think Joe's made some really, really great films and some films that don't work as well, but I think it's funny how much hate– This is probably a boring discussion for people who haven't heard of Joe, but I think it's more what he symbolizes that people are having a debate about than his actual movies. I feel like people often go into his movies having decided what they think before they see them, because of, you know, that he's sort of the most notable practitioner of a certain kind of filmmaking that makes some people mad. And some people think he’s great.

David Pendleton  35:19  

Hunter has a question, in the back.

Audience 11  35:23 

So, I like what you said that you think that the way that the movie ends is sort of that these characters will live on and the stories continue. But, I guess, in the way that the narrative is sort of elliptical, and that it kind of ends where it begins, don't you think that sort of suggests, like, the closing of a book or a finality that almost doesn't, like-? Not to say that it's not appropriate. It's just different and, like, almost-. I didn't expect the movie to end in a way of just closing it like that.

Aaron Katz  35:58  

Yeah, I mean, that's a fine interpretation, too. For me, my interpretation was, you know, what I said earlier. I think some filmmakers want people to get really specific things out of the films. Like, to take, like, “Okay, here's the lesson learned here” or, “Here's what these characters are about.” But for me, it's, I think whatever people take from it is fine. So, yeah, if it feels more final to you, that's okay with me, too. It sounds, possibly, like you wish it was less final. But yeah, for me, as I said, it's maybe structurally bookended in a way, but to me, the suggestion is that the story goes on from there.

Well, any further questions about this film?

David Pendleton  36:51

Other questions? Yes. There's another question there in the middle. Steven’s got it, Ted. Somebody needs to turn her mic on for her.

Audience 12  37:09  

–the friend laying on top of the guy that they're talking about at the party? I don't know. I was just wondering if that was—it's not really that important—but if that was, like, a scripted thing, or, like, in that kind of supposedly casual party scene, that was something that would be sort of improvised? Because, I don't know, it's a very good– I was wondering if you were just lucky enough to catch that or if it's something that was in the script.

Aaron Katz  37:39  

Well, I wish Sarah was here to answer that question. Sarah Hellman, who plays that character, I think is a really great actress. I mean, that's not what she aspires to do, but I think she's really good. And yeah, we spent a long time talking before the movie. And then, as Reed was lighting the scene, we spent another thirty minutes talking about what the particulars of the story were going to be. And we drew some from her own experiences and then fictionalized it in some ways. And yeah, that ended up being the story we arrived at. Then there was a story in the script that she told that was kind of the starting point. And that kind of melded with some experiences in her own life. And we arrived at the story she ended up telling. So yeah, that's how we got there. We did a couple takes of that, that kind of went through the whole story. And it changed a little bit from take to take. We tweaked it a little bit. And I think our last take was the one that we felt like, that we got the story. And that felt right. Alright, well, I don't want to to bore people to tears here. Especially since there's another film.

David Pendleton  38:56  

Okay. Well, I read what you're saying. We’ll stop there. First of all, we won't take a full fledged intermission, we'll just have enough time to sort of clear the room. And then we'll start Dance Party, USA in a couple of minutes. Is there anything that you want to say to introduce Dance Party, USA?

Aaron Katz  39:14 

Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I won't be here afterwards to talk about it with you all. I don't want to say too much beforehand about the content of the film, but maybe just to give you an idea of how we made it or the chronology of it. So this is the first film that I made, and I made it with most of the same people who made Quiet City and Cold Weather. Most of us went to North Carolina School of the Arts. And, as I think I referenced earlier, we, in school, saw a lot of people graduating ahead of us who wanted to make films and didn't, because making film is expensive. And, you know, people wanted to raise $50,000 which in the scheme of independent films, even, not much money, but in the scheme of personal finances that most people graduating from college have access to, is a lot of money. And so a lot of people just sort of arrived at a frustrating place. So, Brendan, who's produced all my films, sometime early in our fourth year, started talking to me about, “Well, what if when we graduate, we figure out, rather than how we want to make the film, and then how much would that cost”—which, you know, if you start making a list of everything that you think might be important to make a film, it gets to be a long and expensive list very quickly. He said that, “What if we figure out how much money we have, and then within that prioritize the most important things, or the absolutely essential things, and then figure out how to do it for that budget.” So we figured we could get together about $3,000 between myself and Brendan and Mark who was a producer on that film. And we would shoot in Portland, where I'm from. We would stay in a place for free, just sleep on the floor. Everyone would sleep in the same place. We would borrow a camera from our editor, and we figured out that we could get a lot of equipment for free from Portland cable access, who much of their best equipment went unused, because most people who were licensed to borrow it didn't know how to use the really good stuff. So we came in and took, like, a competency test thing and got equipment from there for free. And yeah, we made the film for almost no money. And at the time, we had no idea about any destination for the film. We just wanted to make something. And yeah, it's a very short film. It's just over an hour. And we spent about a year and a half cutting it and finally submitted it to Sundance and Slamdance and didn't get in there. And eventually to South by Southwest, which I didn't realize at the time, but the head programmer was a guy named Matt Dentler, who, you know, wasn't the kind of guy just to program stuff that he'd heard about before or stuff that had played at other well known festivals. But, he really did watch everything that was cold submitted to him. And me and a lot of people have him to thank for anyone having seen our movies, I think. Because he just watched Dance Party, USA one day, and then called me and said, “Hey, do you want to come down to the festival in March?” And I said, “Yeah, that'd be great.” And so that's a little bit of the history behind the film. And yeah, it's actually been a long—I'm not gonna watch it—but it's been a long time since I've seen it. So it's probably the first time it's screened in a couple of years, at least. So, hope you enjoy it. And yeah, it's interesting that, you know, those of you who especially watched Cold Weather last night are watching things, like you said, in reverse. Yeah.

David Pendleton  42:52  

And don't forget that Cold Weather starts Wednesday at The Brattle, too. For those of you who haven't seen it or want to recommend it to your friends.

Aaron Katz  42:59

Yeah. So thank you so much, and have a good evening.

David Pendleton

Thank you, Aaron.

[APPLAUSE]

©Harvard Film Archive

One of the few authentic and heartfelt romances from the contemporary indie movement, Quiet City is a film of notable restraint that gives as much attention to its Brooklyn setting as its two characters who just may be falling in love. Careful understatement guides Katz’s resonant portrait of a young couple brought together by chance and curiosity, restricting all background information to an absolute minimum to give the spectator of two young strangers, getting to know each other gradually by gleaning details from revealing gestures and spontaneous comments. Made with a miniscule budget in only eight days, Quiet City gets its title from the evocative Brooklyn locations shot with a rare eye for poetic composition and effulgent colors by Andrew Reed. As the young strangers discovering themselves and the city around them, Chris Lankenau and Erin Fisher bring a charming awkwardness and spontaneous grace to their to their first starring roles. – HG

For his feature debut Katz used a Fourth of July party as the background for a subtle and ultimately touching character study of two teenagers dealing with mid-summer boredom and social pressure. Despite its relaxed pace and improvisational feel, Dance Party, USA is carefully structured, skillfully intertwining its portraits of a feckless womanizer and a skeptical young woman in order to reveal an unlikely but fully believable romance inspired by the revelation of a disquieting secret. – HG