Bounding out of Sundance with critical acclaim Miranda July’s "Me and You and Everyone we Know" opens in Boston, well Cambridge, this weekend. On a journey across the states, the film opened in New York and LA two weeks ago and adds Kendall Square Cinema to the list this week, with more to follow in the future. Today being July 1, Bostonist thought it a great opportunity to catch up with Miranda July. She answers some questions about how to make it as an artist, outreach, and casting. Read the Interview and watch for a Bostonist Contest running Monday through Wednesday next week. We're giving away an IFC movie pack, tote bags (everyone loves a tote!), and tickets to catch the flick on the big screen.
"Me and You and Everyone we Know" involves the ideas of technology and human connection, so how is that playing out in your life as you go around discussing the film?
My movie functions much in the way that all the emails and signs and fantasies do in the movie - it propels me towards people, and it draws people towards me, but it does not make actual connection easier.
The arts in Boston is always an endangered thing, and in the Times article on you this weekend, they mention that you "haven't worked a day job since you were 23," which made Bostonist drool. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that? How has it been, being a working artist?
Well, keep in mind that my rent in Portland was about $300 for most of the time I lived there. And I lived very very cheaply. But I did have the time and freedom and energy to make things all the time, and I think this is the most useful thing at the beginning. I think it is the best job in the world, but it is also relentless, without end, all-consuming.
Bostonist has been aware of your projects for years, in particular Big Miss Movieola. Can you talk a little bit about that project and some of the films and art that came from that? Did it serve as a good outlet for girls and art?
I started it really as a way of creating a context for myself, however unconsciously, but with the attitude of the era, which was large and authoritative - everything had to be a revolution! Girls and women would send me their short movies and I would compile them onto tapes with ten movies per tape, and send them back out so that the women could see each other's work and feel part of a community. I wasn't so interested in the existing film communities - film school and indie film and even the art-video world. They all seemed irrelevant to what I was interested in.
How do you feel about "Deadwood" and did it shape your impression of working with John Hawkes at all? Did you try to make him say cocksucker at some point? What kind of dude were you looking for in regards to the shoe salesman?
I had never seen Deadwood when I cast John. He just walked into the audition and was exactly the kind of intense, heartbreaking, slightly scary and yet charming kind of man I was looking for.
What was the coolest part of working on your movie? The most fulfilling?
Finishing production was probably the most fulfilling point, the second you are really done with the last shot and you can say: I will never have to do that again for the first time. They should make a badge for that.
How are you feeling about Me and You? The reception to the film?
I love the movie, it is just the kind of thing I would want to see, which was the point in the first place. It couldn't really be better so far. I just hope it lasts long enough for all different kinds of people to see it, people who don't live in bigger cities, etc.
What are you doing next?
Right now I'm finishing a book of short stories. I also have a new script I'm working on, but I'll try not to work on that until I get a little distance from this one.
How would you encourage someone to see your film?
I just say: you should come to my movie, here's a card for it, here's where it's playing. Basically everyone understands that it is very hard to make a movie and so they at least pretend that they will go.
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