A Critic Behind the Camera: David Chen & “The Primary Instinct”

I first met David Chen several years ago at the Independent Film Festival Boston. Then, as now, he was hosting the hugely popular SlashFilmcast, and at the time had just launched The Tobolowsky Files – a podcast featuring veteran character actor Stephen Tobolowsky’s playfully profound ruminations on life in the arts. This massively successful endeavor has since been spun off into a Public Radio International program, a book from Simon & Schuster, and live shows across the country.

Dave and I had many misadventures founding the Boston Online Film Critics Association together, shortly before fortune (and a day job) brought him to Seattle. But this week, he’s coming back to his hometown for the Independent Film Festival Boston’s Special Sunday Screening of The Primary Instinct – a Tobolowsky performance film directed by Chen himself.

I caught up with my old friend on the phone a couple weeks ago to talk about The Primary Instinct, the perspectives that change when a critic steps behind the camera, my notes on his rough cut, and the non-profit, all-volunteer film festival where so much for him began.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

Well, this will be quite a homecoming. But I’m a little worried because you went off to Seattle and made a great movie. Now you’re gonna come back to Boston and find most of us still sitting on our asses drinking beer, exactly where you left us.

DAVID CHEN

That wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing because I have fond memories of all of you. The Independent Film Festival Boston holds a very special place in my heart. It’s the first film festival I ever went to. It’s where I fell in love with film festivals. It’s not an exaggeration to say it’s one component of what inspired me to make this movie. It has added tremendously to the cultural scene in Boston and it is a tremendous honor to be able to come back and have my film play here. I hope people will support this festival in whatever way they can, whether by going to see the movies, donating or becoming a member.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

You initially met a lot of people who later became very significant in your life at the Independent Film Festival Boston. Like Rian Johnson, and me.

DAVID CHEN

In ascending order of importance, Rian Johnson and then you. Yes.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

Dave, I’m directing Star Wars IX.

DAVID CHEN

I look forward to seeing that.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

So I already know this story, but let’s jump back a few years and tell everybody else about how you got mixed up with Tobolowsky in the first place.

DAVID CHEN

The craziness all started about eight years ago when I started a film podcast with a couple of buddies of mine. It was a way of affirming my love for film. Because when you’re in college or the post-college period and working, you don’t necessarily have time to get out to the theatre every week… I wanted a way to formalize the process of seeing movies and talking about them. Podcasting at the time was somewhat in its early phases. There were some well-known film podcasts…

MOVIE MEZZANINE

But not every comedian had one yet.

DAVID CHEN

Not every comedian had one, not every film site had one. So I thought there was a way we can make a dent here. Five months later, we got acquired by SlashFilm.com, which at the time was one of the most highly read film and fan blogs on the Internet. Our podcast was rebranded the SlashFilmcast and our profile increased significantly. The SlashFilm acquisition happened in 2008.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

What was it called before that?

DAVID CHEN

The Watchers… but all evidence of it has been removed from the Internet.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

Hold on, I’m Googling.

DAVID CHEN

So shortly after that we had Stephen Tobolowsky as a guest on the show to talk about his last storytelling film, Stephen Tobolowsky’s Birthday Party. Stephen’s stories were really entertaining, they were amusing, they were profound.  And I had this suspicion that there were more stories beyond the ones he told in his film that were just waiting to get out into the world. A couple years after he made his first appearance on the show, I pitched him on a podcast called The Tobolowsky Files, where he would tell stories about his life. We had no idea what form they would take. We had no idea what the stories would be like or what the reception would be, but Stephen’s philosophy in life is “good things happen to people when you say yes.” A philosophy that has been borne out in his filmography!

MOVIE MEZZANINE

Yeah, I’ve seen his credits. Has he ever said no?

DAVID CHEN

He rarely says no because even if you make a film that isn’t the greatest, you might meet someone on the set of that film who helps you make the next one that is great. You might meet a friend who becomes really valuable to you over time. So he rarely turns down an opportunity and he’s been able to make that work. Some people star in a few bad things and their career is dead. But he has had an incredible longevity.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

I know, but my heart still died a little when he showed up in Atlas Shrugged 3.

DAVID CHEN

So anyway, we started the podcast, then it became The Tobolowsky Files radio show, then it spawned a book, and the next logical thing was to try and make a film out of it.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

One day you all just said, “Shit… let’s film this”?

DAVID CHEN

Yes. Exactly in those words, Sean. I think the podcast is a tough sell to people. There are limits to the number of people who will sit and listen to an audio file that’s forty-five minutes long performed by somebody who it’s hard to spell or pronounce their name and it’s hard to convey who they are.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

Also I find that… I listen to podcasts all the time. They’re always rattling around in the background when I’m at work or doing laundry. I’m half-in and half-out. But when I listen to The Tobolowsky Files, I need quiet. I need to pay attention. I really don’t give a crap what Ira Glass is saying most of the time, yet when Stephen is talking I need the lights out, watching my iPad the way I watch television.

DAVID CHEN

It takes a lot of focus. The great video essayist Tony Zhou, who runs Every Frame A Painting, to paraphrase something he said to me on Facebook one time — he said fifty times the number of people will watch something than will listen to something. Just the simple act of putting something on film significantly, dramatically increases that piece of work’s audience. So that was the objective, bringing Stephen’s work to a wider audience by making it a film.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

Having seen Stephen tell these stories live, there’s also the performance element. He’s a brilliant physical actor and man, does he fling his body around.

DAVID CHEN

Definitely. And you know what’s also awesome, Sean? The audience reaction, which I know is your favorite part.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

I haven’t seen the final cut yet but I’m guessing you didn’t take my notes.

DAVID CHEN

We took some notes, but we didn’t take that one.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

So you’ve been a film critic for eight years now. How does your perspective on that change when you go out and make a movie of your own?

DAVID CHEN

The biggest overall change is the sense of when we review films, it’s very easy to subscribe to the auteur theory. To say Michael Bay did a really great job–

MOVIE MEZZANINE

No, he didn’t.

DAVID CHEN

Or to say he did a great job with this part of the film or he messed this part up. But what you find is that there are just so many factors that go into making a film. There are hundreds of decisions that go into making a film. If you’re lucky, there are also hundreds of people making a film. To attribute the cause and effect to any single human being now strikes me as inaccurate at best, misleading at worst.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

I once talked to Barry Sonnenfeld, who was a cinematographer on so many great movies before he became a mediocre director himself. Sonnenfeld said that he loved working for Rob Reiner, because Rob Reiner up-front declared that everybody’s great ideas would be accepted and used, and ultimately attributed to him alone and he could take full credit because he was the director. Rob owned their contributions since he was in the position of saying yes or no to whatever they offered.

DAVID CHEN

Exactly. I think there’s something to that. It’s just very convenient when you’re reviewing something to use that a shorthand. But how much did the editor do? Did the costume designer have input on set? I think the single biggest thing I learned is that you have no idea how much went into making a film so it’s a lot more difficult to attribute direct responsibility to a single human being.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

Every ship has a captain. We also need shortcuts for our reviews.

DAVID CHEN

From my perspective, I had to make hundreds of different decisions. It’s a concert film. It looks very simple. There’s one person standing on a stage talking. But you have to affect how people perceive it. The movie has hundreds of cuts. Other movies have thousands if not tens of thousands of cuts. I had to decide when to make every single cut. We had to decide what color shirt Stephen would wear. We had to decide what the venue would be, we had to decide where to place the cameras. This was just for my film that was very small, but I can’t possibly imagine for a narrative film, when exponentially more decisions are required, that you can reasonably say one specific person is responsible for the quality of the film.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

I don’t like when you say that this movie was simple, because it’s not. You’re in one room with one guy telling a story. Reminds me of when Steven Spielberg handed off The Bridges of Madison County to Clint Eastwood, because the man who directed the most thrilling adventures of our lifetimes couldn’t figure out how to shoot two people talking in a kitchen. Other movies get to go outside, you didn’t.

DAVID CHEN

Yes, this is the Buried of concert films. Which, by the way is another movie that Stephen Tobolowsky was in.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

Oh, I never saw Buried but that’s right, Stephen was the voice on the phone?

DAVID CHEN

That’s correct.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

I don’t see Ryan Reynolds films, usually.

DAVID CHEN

That’s understandable.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

I heard we’re just trapped in a coffin with Ryan Reynolds for two hours and I was out.

DAVID CHEN

That’s your version of Hell.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

So, as a critic, do you find yourself going easier on movies now that you’ve made one of your own?

DAVID CHEN

On the one hand, you do understand what a massive undertaking a film is. But on the other hand, I see movies that have nearly unlimited resources. For them to not have put good work on the script and the story… for them to still ruin the final product, it’s difficult for me to take. So I would say those two impulses balance themselves out, so I guess I’m where I was before.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

In preparing to make this film, did you watch a lot of the classic Spalding Gray pictures, or maybe Richard Pryor Live in Concert or Eddie Murphy: Delirious?

DAVID CHEN

To be honest, this was not supposed to be a straight-up concert film. It was originally supposed to be a more conventional documentary that cut together footage from many different elements of Stephen’s life. A class he taught, him backstage, the concert itself and all sorts of other stuff. We looked at all we had shot and decided the best thing we could make was this concert film. If you imagine infinite universes where this movie took infinite forms, the best form it could have taken in our opinion was a straight-up concert film.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

I’m so glad you did that, because I probably would have been sending you angry emails about how much I rather would have been watching Stephen’s performance.

DAVID CHEN

Well, that’s something that annoys me about certain documentaries like this, which shall remain nameless. But sometimes, there will be a documentary that purports to show you a person and a performance –

MOVIE MEZZANINE

It Might Get Loud?

DAVID CHEN

I’m not referring to any specific film, necessarily. But they only show you brief glimpses of the concerts and I always think to myself: “Man, I wish I could see that whole thing.” This is my way of showing you the whole thing.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

Bless you for it, because I still remember punching the empty seat next to me during It Might Get Loud every time they cut away in the middle of a song. So, speaking as the guy you founded the Boston Online Film Critics Association with I have to ask, are you ready for the reviews?

DAVID CHEN

Honestly, when you pour so much of your life — like hundreds of hours — into something, I know some people take it really personally. And why wouldn’t you? Because you’ve spent so much time on it and put so much effort into it. But honestly, I’m just thrilled whenever anyone watches the movie, even if they don’t like it. Because it just shows they are engaging with something I’ve created. The fact that they thought it worthwhile to give up their time to do so is very flattering. For me, if people are savagely ripping into it, I’ll feel fine with that. They’re actually watching the movie. For someone who is making a very small low budget indie concert film with an actor whose name is difficult to spell and pronounce, it’s a thrill.

MOVIE MEZZANINE

This is spoken like a man who has been an Internet personality for probably way too long, and got used to reading the comments.

The Independent Film Festival Boston presents The Primary Instinct on Sunday, April 26 at 7:30 PM. For ticket information, visit www.iffboston.org