Q&A with John Kenneth Muir

Cinema Sentries interviewed John Kenneth Muir about his new book An Askew View 2: The Films of Kevin Smith. Here is a taste of the interview. Visit their website to read the whole thing.

 

What do you not like about what is going on with film criticism in this day and age?

To talk about the status of film criticism today, some people cannot thread that needle so they make it personal. They decide they don’t like Ben Affleck because he dated Jennifer Lopez and they review his movie based on the fact that they don’t like him rather than what the quality of the movie was. It’s a lot of personal grudge criticism that I don’t like.

I really like that you brought that up in An Askew View 2. You talked about the personal issues that Kevin Smith had been going through and reviewers glomming on to those issues instead of really reviewing his films. It seems like we are in a time where many journalists don’t know where the line is between gossip and real facts.

I agree with you. There are two points in Kevin Smith’s career where that happened. It happened with Jersey Girl and the Bennifer thing. Then it happened with Cop Out with the Southwest thing. Any critic can respond to either of those films positively or negatively. But whether Kevin Smith was booted off a plane for his weight doesn’t play into the quality of Cop Out. If you don’t like buddy-cop movies, say you don’t like buddy-cop movies and this doesn’t work for A,B, and C. But you don’t go after a guy for his weight and make that the headline…focus on the work. I think the fact that we pass judgement on actors or directors based on the flow of information through gossip sites and gossip tv shows is very problematic.

Do you feel a connection to Kevin Smith since you are both from New Jersey?

The thing that appeals to me about Kevin Smith is, yes I’m from New Jersey, but beyond that the generational thing is important to me. As a director, he speaks to the issues that interest me in a way that interests me. Like wow, he’s talking about these things as I’m going through them. As he’s faling in love and getting married, I’m falling in love and getting married. As he is contemplating his religion and faith, that’s what I’m doing. As he has a child, now I have a child. It’s like wow he’s going through it right there with me. That’s why I don’t want him to quit. Because when he’s going into the nursing home and I’m going into the nursing home, I want that movie.

There is a kinship I feel with Kevin Smith. The examples he uses in his films, the films he alludes to, just his whole manner of being. The way the men and women in his films talk is the way that me and my buddies and my wife talk. Hopefully not as foulmouthed, but that’s what makes it funny. This is a guy from my generation who made it and who is making the movies about us and our lives and what we are going through. That is the thing about Kevin Smith for me. He creates these universal stories but gives them touchstones that we can recognize being from that generation.

Read the rest of this interview on Cinema Sentries.

In the year 2002, An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith was the first book to gaze at the cinema of one of New Jersey’s favorite sons, the independent and controversial auteur ofClerks (1994), Mallrats (1995), Chasing Amy (1997), Dogma (1999) and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001). Now, a full decade after that successful original edition, award-winning author John Kenneth Muir returns to the View Askewniverse to consider Kevin Smith’s second controversial decade as a film director, social gadfly, and beloved media “talker.” From Jersey Girl (2004) to the controversial Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008), from the critically deridedCop-Out (2010) to the incendiary and provocative horror film Red State (2011), An Askew View 2 studies the Kevin Smith movie equation as it exists today, almost two full decades after Smith maxed out his credit card, made Clerks with his friends, shopped it at Sundance, and commenced his Hollywood journey. In addition to Kevin Smith’s films, An Askew View 2 remembers the short-lived Clerks cartoon (2000) and diagrams the colorful Smith Lexicon.

Kevin Smith’s Top Five Independent–or Outrageous–Moves

Guest Blogger: John Kenneth Muir is the author of An Askew View 2: The Films of Kevin Smith (Applause Books)

New Jersey-ite and Generation X role model, Kevin Smith commenced his film career with the low-budget Clerks in 1993, a “slacker” comedy that is now synonymous with the independent film movement of the 1990s.  Although Clerks is nearly two-decades back in our rear-view mirrors at this point, Smith’s essential nature as an independent — and occasionally outrageous — filmmaker and social gadfly has remained consistent.

Enumerated below are Smith’s five most independent and/or outrageous career moves:

1. Smith bankrolled his own first feature film, the aforementioned Clerks by maxxing out his credit cards to pay for the film’s budget.

In the end, Clerks personally cost Smith more than $30,000 dollars, but the film sold at Sundance for over $200,000 dollars and effectively became Smith’s calling card to Hollywood.  In this same span, Smith also quit film school and used the last tuition bill to jump-start his film budget.

2. Smith has perpetually questioned the “dogma” of both the left and right political spectrum in his film career, clashing with William Donohue’s Catholic League over his religious comedy Dogma (1999) and with GLAAD over the colorful humor in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001).

Smith doesn’t necessarily court these social controversies, but he is not shy, either, about contending with them.  Smith’s much-publicized battles with the left and right have made him not only an extremely keen observer of human nature, but one who — surprisingly in Hollywood — is not widely viewed as an overt partisan.  In essence, Smith remains an equal opportunity offender, a fact which makes the artist, in many instances, an “honest broker.”

3. The director in 2011 questioned the status quo in Hollywood between critics and studio marketing departments, and then formulated a positive response: a program called “Spoilers” on Hulu that democratizes film criticism.

Sure, Smith is wrong about film criticism being a useless profession.  At Comic-Con in 2012 he railed against film critics writing about “other people’s shit” instead of making their own shit, a rich contradiction for a filmmaker who constructed his fan base, in part, by commenting humorously on other people’s shit, namely Star Wars (1977) and Jaws (1975).  It’s also abundantly plain that Smith’s talent has been held up, affirmed, transmitted and defended by many great film critics, from Amy Taubin to the late Andrew Sarris (who compared the filmmaker to Martin Scorsese).

At its best, film criticism can be a high-minded form of art appreciation, and surely Smith — who has never been shy in sounding off, himself, about other films (from Spider-Man [2003] to Lord of the Rings [2001] and The Transformers [2007])) — must understand that.  Yet Spoilersundeniably continues the national conversation about film, and provides an alternative to those (mostly online) critics who constantly spew bile and seem to have personal axes to grind against filmmakers, actors, and even franchises.  In other words, Smith has provided us another venue to continue talking about our love of movies.

4. Smith self-distributed his own film, Red State in 2011, thus creating for budding filmmakers a new commercial paradigm. 

In 1993, Smith seized control of the actual process of filmmaking by bankrolling Clerks.  At Sundance in 2011, he launched another experiment, this one involving artist control over how films are seen, an eschewing of huge marketing campaigns and saturation advertising.  The bottom line is that insanity is often defined as doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different result.  By taking control of Red State’s distribution himself, Smith at the very least attempted something new.  Hollywood’s blistering, indignant response is proof positive that Smith’s independence struck a nerve.

5. He confounded career expectations and made a balls-to-the-wall horror movie.

By 2011, Kevin Smith was known widely as a director of raunchy comedies. He turned that perception upside down by creating the visceral, brutal Red State, a horror film of accomplished technique and blistering social critique.  He has now successfully expanded the term “a Kevin Smith film” considerably, revealing that his tell-tale Generation X wit and humor also boasts a dark side.

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An Askew View 2: The Films of Kevin Smith by John Kenneth Muir

In the year 2002, An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith was the first book to gaze at the cinema of one of New Jersey’s favorite sons, the independent and controversial auteur ofClerks (1994), Mallrats (1995), Chasing Amy (1997), Dogma (1999) and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001). Now, a full decade after that successful original edition, award-winning author John Kenneth Muir returns to the View Askewniverse to consider Kevin Smith’s second controversial decade as a film director, social gadfly, and beloved media “talker.” From Jersey Girl (2004) to the controversial Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008), from the critically deridedCop-Out (2010) to the incendiary and provocative horror film Red State (2011), An Askew View 2 studies the Kevin Smith movie equation as it exists today, almost two full decades after Smith maxed out his credit card, made Clerks with his friends, shopped it at Sundance, and commenced his Hollywood journey. In addition to Kevin Smith’s films, An Askew View 2remembers the short-lived Clerks cartoon (2000) and diagrams the colorful Smith Lexicon.

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