In the past couple of years, virtually every notable Chicago film culture institution has done some sort of retrospective on the works of Guy Maddin. The Siskel Center, Northwestern's Block Cinema, U of C's Doc Films, the Music Box -- all have dedicated huge chunks of programming time to the Winnipeg-based director's slightly gauzy, playfully deviant cinematic creations.
Though his films aren't always silent, Maddin's work dwells in the golden era of the silent film, utilizing antiquated film stock, fuzzy atmospheric trickery and willfully schmaltzy fairy tale plotlines.
From his early films, like "Tales from the Gimli Hospital," "Careful" and "Archangel" to recent work like "Cowards Bend the Knee," "Heart of the World" and "Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary," Maddin has continually melded an archival knowledge of silent film with a wildly experimental mindset and wholehearted embrace of the preposterous.
All this might sound like pomp and artsy artifice, but ultimately, Maddin's films are pretty goddamned funny. Case in point, "The Saddest Music in the World."
Starring Isabella Rosellini, "Kids in the Hall" alum Mark McKinney and "Henry and June" nymphette Maria de Madeiros, the film tells the story of a Winnipeg beer baroness who holds a contest to find the world's most depressing tunes.
Issabella Rossellini and Mark McKinney
Maddin plays the story to the hysterical hilt, pitting African drummers, bagpipe troupes, Mexican troubadors, faux-Serbian cellists and over the top Broadway numbers against each other in an event that closely resembles "Celebrity Death Match," only without the clay.
There are all of the signature fixations that show up throughout the Maddin anthology – constant snowfall, sperm, amputees, and beer, lots and lots of beer.
Both patently absurd and freeze-frame beautiful, with the backing of IFC Films and a recognizable cast, it promises to catapult Maddin beyond the legions of loving students and film geeks into the arms of a confused and amused filmgoing populus.
We caught up with Maddin by phone from his Winnipeg compound to talk about his latest work, being a "creaky punker" and surviving the harrowing streets of Chicago.
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Thanks for taking time to speak with us from up there in Winnipeg. Ever spent any time in Chicago?
Yeah -- I've been to Chicago several times. I remember the time I was there for the Chicago Underground Film Festival back in 1995 and my whole purpose for being there was to meet Kenneth Anger.
I was out with walking around with my handler, this pretty blonde girl. And a panhandler accosted us using a gun and took us to an ATM machine where my credit card didn't work because there was something wrong with it.
So he took us to his gang's bar and had a couple of his pals hold me at gunpoint while he took the girl off for a very long and disturbing walk.
She ended up being rescued by some taxi driver before she was raped, and she remembered where this bar was and the two of them came back and just as my captors were allowing me to go to the bathroom to take a leak, these two people returned to the front door and I just ran into the open back door of the taxi and was rescued. It seems very Joe Mannix, but it really happened.
And you're not completely shitting me?
No, not at all. It happened at exactly 11:00 p.m. on a Saturday night I think, and my rescue happened just as the bar lights were going on at 4:00 a.m. in this club -- wherever it was -- maybe ten blocks away from the Hilton. We didn't have to walk too far to get into some very sketchy territory. It was strange.
Because it took so long, it was actually very boring. I had no idea how I was going to get out of it, but I got out of it all of the sudden. It was a little bit like waking up from a bad dream, but it really happened. I've been back to Chicago a couple of times since and the first time I was really cringing.
But since then I've learned to relax. You know, I just need to go to Wrigley Field and see Sammy hit one out or something and I'll feel better...
Glad to hear you made it through that. It sounds like you've run into some real characters. I just watched this documentary on Fellini and he was particularly obsessed with the casting process. It seems like you share that fascination in your films.
I'm not really a huge fan... I did like the recent documentary "I'm a Born Liar." The faces in some of his later movies especially are unbelievably singular, heartbreaking in some cases.
You seem to also seek out those kind of faces...
Well, yeah, in the case of this kidnapping, these guys sort of cast themselves in the roles. I think I got some sort of divine retribution there. I skipped out of the festival with my handler and we went out to see some sort of tap dancing festival or something and we must have had some guilty look on our faces or something that said “KIDNAP ME.”
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005: Guy Maddin
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