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| Interview: Daniel Stamm And His 'Last Exorcism' |
by Erik Childress
We first got in touch with director Daniel Stamm at the 2008 South by Southwest Film Festival where his terrific debut, A Necessary Death, was having his premiere. A little over two years later his sophomore effort, Cotton, was slated to premiere at this year's SXSW only to be pulled when Lions Gate bought the film for a theatrical run this summer. Now called The Last Exorcism, I talked to Daniel again about the film that producer Eli Roth wants audiences to tweet positive thoughts about at previews; a task I am happy to oblige.
Your first film, A Necessary Death, not a lot of people got to see past the festival circuit. It was also an is-it-or-isn't-it-real documentary about a film crew determined to capture the final days of a man willing to commit suicide on camera. Was The Last Exorcism conceived in the same way on the page and what made you want to jump back into this subgenre of filmmaking?
DANIEL: THE LAST EXORCISM had been conceived in that style from way before I got involved. Writers Huck Botko and Andrew Gurland had made their fantastic film MAIL ORDER WIFE that way. When they weren't available to direct because they had committed to their upcoming film THE VIRGINITY HIT producers Eric Newman and Eli Roth were looking for a director who had worked in that style. ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE writer Jacob Forman was working with Strike Entertainment at the time. He and I had studied together at AFI and he showed them A NECESSARY DEATH. I hadn't planned to shoot another film in this style but I jumped at the opportunity when it presented itself. I realize I just shamelessly plugged 4 movies in one answer. I would have done more but there was no way to get Chad Feehan's WAKE in there (which is now available through IFC).
Are there any plans for A Necessary Death on DVD in the wake of The Last Exorcism?
DANIEL: That depends on whom you ask. I myself am totally planning on it. But I have been planning on it for your years now, and my planning doesn't really seem to jump over to distributors much. We got an offer from a distributor that I couldn't be more excited about as a company. But they are only interested in doing VOD for now, so I am stubbornly refusing. Maybe I am old-fashioned but there is something to holding a DVD in your hand as opposed to clicking a download button. Unless it's porn.
A Necessary Death, I believe, captured the aesthetic of the documentary format to even greater effect than say the "found footage" style of Cloverfield & Blair Witch and the edited first-person footage of George Romero's Diary of the Dead. The Last Exorcism I also think works better with this method, but how would you have expanded upon it if you had gone the more traditional narrative route?
DANIEL: I think you'd have to completely rewrite the script to begin with. The documentary format allows you to get a lot of exposition out of the way very economically. You'd have to restructure and cut down on the backstory a lot. You'd also have to build the scenes differently on the set. A traditional narrative film allows you to cover a scene from different angles and create rhythm through editing. With the single-camera-perspective you can't do that. You have to block, frame and light differently.
Were you or the writers influenced in anyway by the Oscar-winning documentary, Marjoe, about Marjoe Gortner, his days as a healing tent preacher and subsequent lack of faith in the business of religion? Were there any other films, doc or narrative, that you looked at?
DANIEL: I can't speak for the writers but MARJOE was certainly a great resource for me. I watched THE EXORCIST and THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE, of course, because it was important that we wouldn't repeat anything they had done. And a lot of Lars von Trier's films because that kind of emotional immediacy was something that was important to me.
Audiences may recognize Patrick Fabian, who is so good in the film, mainly from TV roles on shows like Veronica Mars and Big Love. What did it for you that led you to casting him in the film?
DANIEL: I don't have TV so I wasn't familiar with Patrick's work. We must have seen hundreds of people for his role. It was extremely difficult to find someone who had the charisma of a televangelist and at the same time a genuine human warmth. Patrick has both. During the auditions I asked him to improvise a sermon. He was preaching with such high energy and talking so fast that I thought: "I have no idea what that man is talking about - but I want to stand up and cheer.". One of my favorite scenes in the film was born out of that.
Movie fans often complain about things being overused, usually the result of genres and ideas being overplayed in a short period of time. Doesn't the idea of the faux documentary actually reflect, or have at least bled into, so many things we see on television these days? Films like these should actually encourage viewers to question precisely what is real and what isn't when agendas replace facts and points of view are influenced by ignorance in the truth, should they not?
DANIEL: I think that is very much the case with A NECESSARY DEATH. THE LAST EXORCISM concerns itself a little less with that kind of postmodernism so that the question of what is real and what isn't doesn't get in the way of the story's emotional impact. Here the hand-held style mainly helps to take away the fourth wall and make the audience more vulnerable. They are aware that they only see a small part of the 360 degrees around them and that something could jump out of the dark around them at any moment.
How disappointed were you when the film was taken off the schedule for this year's South by Southwest, the very film festival where your first feature premiered?
DANIEL: Lionsgate took THE LAST EXORCISM out of SXSW when they bought it because they didn't want to have it premiere months and months before releasing it, making it 'old news'. That made total sense to me. SXSW will always hold a special place in my heart. That is one incredible festival, and it took my virginity. But then we premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival which was absolutely incredible in every way, so I am really glad I got to experience both over the past two years.
Dare we ask the question that may be on everyone's mind when the movie is over? Who edited the footage?
DANIEL: Satan. Bitch to work with.
link directly to this feature at http://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/feature.php?feature=3066
originally posted: 08/17/10 15:54:08
last updated: 08/17/10 16:00:01
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