DC Film Society: Adam's Rib March 1, 2007

Forty Minutes with Craig Brewer

At last year’s Oscars the rap group "Three 6 Mafia" provided one of the highlights with their Best Original Song win for It’s Hard Out There for a Pimp. That moment wouldn’t have been possible without writer/director Craig Brewer, who featured the song in his film Hustle & Flow. The Audience Award winner at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, Hustle & Flow also garnered star Terrence Howard an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Now Brewer is back with his next film, Black Snake Moan, which, like Hustle & Flow, is produced by John Singleton and his partner Stephanie Allain.

As immersed as Hustle & Flow was in rap, Black Snake Moan is even more so with vintage blues music. In fact, the title comes from a 1927 blues song by Blind Lemon Jefferson. Samuel L. Jackson plays Lazarus, a down on his luck former blues musician in Tennessee whose wife has just left him. Christina Ricci co-stars as Rae, a troubled young woman who has become the town tramp. After her boyfriend leaves town Rae spirals out of control into endless sex and drugs. She ends up beaten and cast off onto the side of the road. Lazarus finds her and takes her home. He quickly learns that Rae’s wounds go far beyond the physical. Lazarus forgoes traditional therapy and chains Rae to his radiator while he attempts to turn her life around. Meanwhile, he rediscovers his passion for the blues and starts his own romantic relationship with Angela (S. Epatha Merkerson), the town pharmacist.

Brewer recently sat down for a roundtable discussion about his new film, his past struggles, and the music he loves:

Question: You’re obviously not afraid of controversial imagery in your last two movies. You’ve got a pimp. You’ve got an old black guy that chains up a white girl in the South. How do you think people will react to the imagery?
Craig Brewer: I can only speak as to what audiences are doing. I think that they see the poster and think, “Man, do I want to see this movie?” and they go, “How can we not? We gotta find out what the hell is going on here.” Then they get into it. I find that, especially with a big ol’ crowd they get to the point where she’s in that chain and it’s both shocking and exhilarating. I’ve been in audiences where I’ve seen old women cheer. It’s a very interesting mix to be in an audience because I think that they’re looking at this not so much as controversial Southern iconography and the imagery, but they’re looking at two cultures. Not black and white necessarily, but old and young. What I wanted to do in this movie was have that aged wisdom that came from a place not of judgement or a place of righteousness but really came from a place of understanding. He (Lazarus) says, “Look, I’ve done some crazy things.” Lazarus’s character has done a lot of crazy things in his day and has suffered through a lot of demons. He put that junk behind him for a while and he’s trying to be a little righteous with this girl, saying, “You’ve got to stop this.” But the more he’s with her he’s almost saying, “Wait a minute, you know I don’t know if I can completely run from myself. I’m a night man. My job is to maybe sing these songs where I swear and get people screaming and get ‘em dancing and maybe even get ‘em sinning.” But that’s who he’s got to be. So I can only speak to what audiences say. You always get in trouble, I think, when you know critics have to put their name to something and they have to put their opinion on what they think of it. It get’s a little shaky there. But audiences are feeling it a great deal. And I don’t think I’m necessarily pandering to them. I think I’m taking them on a journey where they don’t quite know what’s going to happen next.

Adam Spector: Do you think audiences will be at all uncomfortable?
CB: I wanted to take the audience on a ride where they would be culpable. I wanted them to lust after Christina. I wanted them to feel uncomfortable about this white girl being in this black man’s house. On a number of levels I wanted them to be uncomfortable. I wanted them to be uncomfortable for Sam’s safety, Sam’s character’s safety. I wanted them to be uncomfortable, because, man, she’s kind of coming on to him and that’s inappropriate. Not from a race standpoint even, but from an age standpoint. I mean, he’s so old. He’s so big. She’s so teeny, and so young, and so taboo. We’re talking about taboo, we’re talking about the blues. You know, we’re talking about the South and we’re talking about those collisions that have brought about some of the worst elements in humans. But also it’s brought about our best stuff, it’s brought about our best music.

Q: Your films have got a very multi-ethnic cast. You’ve got DJ Qualls in Hustle & Flow and Christina Ricci in Black Snake, but for the most part your main characters are African-American. There’s some people that would ask...
CB: Why am I telling these stories?

Q: Yeah. As a white boy from Tennessee, do you think you can tell stories about the African-American experience?
CB: We’re living in very cautious times right now, where people look to movies as having to adhere to some sort of moral standard to some extent. I don’t necessarily live in that world. I wasn’t ignoring race but I didn’t think it was something that I should have stayed away because it was there, because I have such a love for the music. Do you wait to tell the story that’s in your heart, that you desperately want to tell the world, for an African-American to tell that story? Or do you make sure you go into it knowing that there’s going to be that kind of scrutiny? You better nail it. You better be respectful to a culture. I have African-Americans as leads in two movies that I’ve made about rap and blues. You know what I mean? I don’t know how I could have done it any other way but with African-Americans. But at the same time I’m not trying to put a patent on anybody. I’m not saying all black men are pimps no more than I’m saying that all white girls are nymphomaniacs...

I understand that I am in a little bit of a sticky place. I think the thing that I just want to tell people is, “Give me the benefit of the doubt. I’m coming with true love and true understanding.” I know blues, and I’ll be even more honest. I wish more African-Americans would embrace blues. It has been, to some extent, abandoned by African-Americans. There’s not many young blacks who know much about the blues. These were true pioneers, these were Delta bluesmen in Mississippi, in segregated Mississippi, in a place where there was a true, palpable threat of death, both from levees breaking and flooding homes. I’m not talking Katrina. I’m talking about old songs. To the fires of hell, to a woman’s lust, to being lynched. They (the bluesmen) chose, in a time where people had to be very, very quiet, to sing and shout out these things in their head, these fears. I think that the music, in its repetition, in its beat, in its fierceness at times, is the thing that made those bluesmen take control over that fear instead of having that fear control them. I think that’s the lesson that Lazarus is trying to convey to this girl. I do not go into these things flippantly. I really am careful, even when I’m being reckless.

AS: Give the subject matter, when you were making the film and working with the actors, how did you keep it from being an exploitative film? How did you try to inject reality into an outrageous situation?
CB: Well, I think that, like with all melodrama, what you do is you have an outrageous situation. You get people to try to play it somewhat straight. But the great thing about having Sam Jackson and Christina Ricci is that they have their own personas. They really are movie stars. What I mean by movie stars is that I put them in that Jack Nicholson department. I put them in the Bette Davis, the Katherine Hepburn department. They are presences unto themselves. Sam Jackson has a theatricality to himself. Christina has that too, and to see two people who have that, that’s already part of their essence. It’s their truth, they’re not putting on a show. That’s really how they are, how they react. But they’re still playing it straight. Both Sam and Christina really cared about these characters. Christina had a connection with this girl. She desperately wanted to play her. Sam wouldn’t leave us alone. He had to play this guy. He’s a Tennessee boy. He knew this character. I found it rather refreshing to see Sam in a role like this. He could be a little bit of his badassness, but he’s much more subtle in this movie, I think, than people are used to. And also, I can’t remember any time where I’ve seen Sam romantic. And to see him with S. Epatha Merkerson... So you get the right people with you and you put a lot of trust in them and God and hope that it’s all in focus.

AS: In both Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan music is featured as not only essential to the story but as a vehicle for redemption and fulfillment. Does that reflect the way you feel about music?
CB: That’s definitely the way I feel about rap and blues. For me at least, the creative spark really starts with the music first. The music is not the frosting. The music is the cake. That’s why Black Snake Moan is in this Southern fable type of way. Blues is filled with mythology. It’s filled with parable, and so it informed the way I wanted to do this movie. I knew that I was going through a lot of pain in my life. I was trying to get Hustle & Flow made for three years, and I was just going to do it on video, just like I did my first movie. Just do it at home. It’s so funny. I was going to make the movie with Three 6 Mafia.

AS: They would have acted in it?
CB: Yeah, Al Capone, who did two of the songs, was going to play DJ (the protagonist). We would just do it on video. And then Stephanie Allain got involved and John Singleton got involved, and then with all these studios, it was just like, “Hey, we could do a movie like that, but we probably don’t want to do it with you. This is going to be a director’s story and we can’t have a white guy doing the black experience, so to speak.” I wasn’t trying to do the black experience. I was trying to do this guy’s experience. They also didn’t want to do it with Terrence Howard. They also didn’t want to do it with Three 6 Mafia. So I started having these wild anxiety attacks. I’d never had anything like that in my life, and my dad died of a heart attack at 49. I think that was on my mind a lot. Actually, that plot point is in Hustle & Flow. That’s what Hustle & Flow is about. I felt like this movie (Black Snake Moan), even though I wanted to do these music genre movies, had to be a movie that was living in this almost outrageous scenario. It had to be something of a world that I wanted people to experience, to have a great time with, to be afraid and aroused and offended and the same time they can’t really completely take it seriously. Let me assure you, as someone who lives in the south, we do not have white women chained up and chained to radiators. It’s not happening, and I don’t think anybody who’s going to come see the movie (will believe) that this is what happens every day. Just like I don’t think any 13 year old who saw Hustle & Flow said, “I gotta be a pimp.”

AS: From what you’ve said it almost sounds like Black Snake Moan was therapeutic for you.
CB: Absolutely, I needed it. I’m not Sam Jackson in this movie. I’m that hot girl on the end of the chain. Hollywood and entertainment can make it real easy for you to get lost. Because it’s the art of the hypothetical. Your movie may work if Brad Pitt is in it. I’ll tell you one thing. I remember people saying to me, “We’ll make Hustle & Flow, but you gotta make it funnier, because we can’t like this guy. We can’t make him human. If we make him funny, we can laugh at him, then we can handle it better.” And I’ve had studios tell me that. So you tend to get lost a little bit because you so desperately want to make movies, you want to be working. Listen, it’s not like, “Oh, I need to make a movie for my career,” I need to make a movie so I can eat. You know, I had a baby. I didn’t have health insurance. I mean I had to go down to Jackson Avenue with everybody else and apply for state health insurance so I could have my kid. So I was ready to sell my soul numerous times with it. But, for whatever reason, you know, I didn’t. But it took a toll on me. I started getting wild ... just losing myself a little bit. And when you’re that untethered, you know, you tend to get a little reckless with yourself. Then you reach that point, you know, kind of like where Christina is in that garden and she’s lost. She’s screaming and crying. She doesn’t even know where she is anymore. I just wanted, like, a dad, you know, my granddad to say, “Son, we’ve been here. You need to just do some yard work. You need to maybe eat some good food or make some food. You’ve got to remember that life continues on and that you are entitled to happiness and that you are entitled to love.” I know a lot of people who did not have unconditional love in their life and it’s a true crime. I really believe in the healing power of people. I really do believe you can make a choice to love someone and to ignore the bad parts of them, you know, and not focus on that. You do more good to them and to yourself by concentrating on the good.

Q: So your mindset when Allain and Singleton came along was, “OK, I might actually get this project (Hustle & Flow) off the ground. So during that time you started thinking about this film?
CB: Yeah, because it just wasn’t getting off the ground. And what’s even worse, man, is that everybody in Memphis knew that John Singleton was doing business with me. And everyone was like: “Man, Craig, you’re paid. You’re going up the ladder,” and we couldn’t pay our rent. We’re selling furniture. I sold all my videos that I had collected since I was 14 years old. Citizen Kane, that my dad bought when it first came out on video, he got it for me. And I had this big yard sale, 400 videos. I go over to my friend’s house and I see my movies. It was an exhilarating time but it was a real terrible time. So I wrote this movie right after I wrote Hustle & Flow but it was before I shot Hustle & Flow. So, when Hustle & Flow came out and they said, “What do you want to do next?” I said, “Well, all of you people who passed on Hustle & Flow, boy, have I got a movie for you!”

Q: That’s the one you wanted to do.
CB: It really was because I want people to know, and they may not feel it, I don’t know, that I’m really trying to do something. I’m really trying to tell this set of movies. And then, after that I think I may do something different, go back to theater. I might take Hustle & Flow to Broadway and make a musical or something. But, until then, I’ve got this idea, this country movie that I want to do in Tennessee, this next one I’m doing, Maggie Lynn. The script’s all ready. We’re gonna be casting soon. And then I want to do my soul movie because I really love Stacks. I love the story of Stacks. But I love the story of the sanitation workers in Memphis, and the moment between Otis Redding dying in December of ‘67 and Dr. King being assassinated in April of ‘68. It was a very interesting time in Memphis, Tennessee. It’s called 4/4, which is four beats to a measure, which is also April 4 (the date of the Dr. King’s assassination). It’s also called the “common time,” which I always liked, 4/4, The Common Time. So that’s the soul one.

Q: What for you, if any, has been the price of success? You have mentioned hustling to get Hustle & Flow made. So now that you’ve achieved that level of success, it would be nice to get those Hollywood projects. Are you looking at making those compromises?
CB: No. I’d really like to try not to. The thing is I know it’s really the thing to do, to be the rebel and say, “Man, I’m not going to sell out,” but I’m already kind of a bat, you know. Neither a bird nor a beast. Because in Hollywood I’m that crazy Southern guy who makes movies like this. But back home I’m the Hollywood sellout. (Laughs) So I can’t win for losing. And also I didn’t begin my career with absolutely everybody applauding. Hustle & Flow was panned by critics and praised by critics. It’s hard to know what success is anymore. I made that movie for $2.5 million. It grossed a total of $23.5 million and people we’re like, “You know, that’s not like My Big Fat Greek Wedding and it’s definitely not even Napoleon Dynamite.” What is success? Is it critical reviews? I don’t know. Crash, everybody hated that movie. Critics hated that movie. Audiences seemed to like it. The Academy seemed to like it. Who are we supposed to believe on this? The true price, I guess, of success is ... I mean I don’t think there’s any downside to success. You know, I’ve worked with my name on my shirt. I’m happy, I really am. The problem is: Can you move on to your next movie? Can you go from being a person who is like, “I’ve gotta make a movie or I’ll die,” or, “If I could just make one movie, then I’m good.” But then you have the option suddenly, you can make more. Then you’re left with: What kind of filmmaker do I want to be?

Q: Who are your influences? Clearly your parents...
CB: Yeah, my dad was a big influence on me because, he had a lot of big influences too. I guess if I were to have a couple of heroes, it’d be Sam Phillips. He made a label called Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee and he was the one who recorded B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, and Rufus Thomas. He also recorded Elvis Presley. I always liked what he said and that was that really you’ve just got to get passionate people in the room and make sure they get there on time and make sure you get the microphone placed right and then wait for that magical moment and hit record. I’m trying to do that with actors. I’m trying to get the right kind of actors together where I can just get this thing going and hopefully I can record it correctly. But when we’re talking about influences, I’m one of those guys that grew up on Spielberg movies, like everybody else. I was inspired by Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark. I didn’t go to college or anything like that. I didn’t go to film school. I got really into theater. I really got into Tennessee Williams, and Beth Henley and William Inge, David Mamet, Lanford Wilson, August Wilson. They were the greatest playwrights ever. August Wilson, you know I look at a play like “The Piano Lesson” and what that piano meant. The piano itself was a metaphor as well ... the position that it put that family in. Man, they can sell it, they can so easily sell that piano.

Q: The soul of your whole family.
CB: Yeah. I wish people could look at the radiator and the chain in the same way. To me it’s about faith. To me that radiator is faith, and it keeps you warm, it cools your fevers. You put your head to it. I think I was inspired through those playwrights, through Tennessee Williams knowing that a glass unicorn represented Laura Wingfield (in “The Glass Menagerie”) and her club foot because none of the other horses looked like this unicorn. Then she finally gets kissed by the gentleman caller and he breaks the glass unicorn and the horn falls off. I had a playwriting teacher who told me that you’ve got to put the skull in Hamlet’s hands. What that means is that if you had to burn your play or your book or your movie, what is that one image, if you were just left with that, that could hopefully describe the struggle of the movie or of the piece? To me, yanking on that radiator and her just screaming to get free of that. As much as some people would say, “This poor girl is being held against her will.” I’ve seen something else. I’ve seen someone that is so angry at the world and so out of control that suddenly something goes, “Come here. Sit down. I’m not going to let you go.” and doesn’t let go. And from that comes tears and ultimately rest and perhaps peace just to even listen a little bit.

AS: You bookend Black Snake Moan with film of Son House, the 1930s blues legend. Where did you find those clips?
CB: There’s a bunch of clips like that, that you can find online. But really, where my passion comes from, is that there’s all these guys in Memphis, white and black, young guys, college guys and older. And we love those blues artists, those soul artists. And we collect video. We find everything. I’ve got Ike and Tina (Turner) doing this washing machine commercial. It was live, I think, in Germany. They’re selling washing machines, but their singing is awesome. And then Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson. There’s some incredible old black-and-white footage of them that’s out there and we know it’s almost like looking for the Ark of the Covenant. We’re looking for the tablets of Moses because we feel like this is it. You can’t do another interview with these guys. You can’t call up Charlie Patton. He’s gone. Like Robert Johnson only left us two pictures of him. I mean, two pictures in this day and age? You think about “God, if you can get some footage of these people.” I was delighted to put that footage in the movie in two places. One: I think it kind of saved my ass, because I was thinking that I’ve got a lot of people who saw Hustle & Flow. They’re coming to see my movie. I wanted an old man to go, “Hey people, this isn’t a hip-hop movie. This is a blues movie. This consists of that which is between a male and female when they are in love, and when one or the other deceives the other one.” And I needed someone to get us started and to think right like “Hey, this is not what you’re expecting. It’s going to be a tale and it’s going to take us into some dark places. Here we go. Are we ready?” Then, even at the end of it, he comes back and says, “Man, sometimes that kind of blues can even make you wanna kill somebody.” And you’re just like, “Oh no, what’s going to happen next from that?” So there’s that part where it helped me... I remember watching Risky Business and when you see Tom Cruise put on those black Ray-Bans and that gray blazer and he’s walking through his suburb and he’s rounding guys to come over to his house to... He’s being a pimp, and this music starts up. I remember saying, “Dad, what’s that song?” and him saying, “That’s a famous song called ‘Mannish Boy’ by Muddy Waters.” So I had to buy that song ... and then it just became addictive. I would collect this music and I would love it and I felt that I was special because I knew that this was special, that this was something that was recorded once and these people aren’t around anymore. They made this contribution ... it’s incredible music and I just wish people knew how special these artists were. They were important.

Adam Spector
March 1, 2007