The Hesher

CUMMINGSDIY1

"Hesher's home alone. Hesher's always home alone."

SCREENINGS
2006 - Museum of Modern Art
2006 - REDCAT
2006 - Los Angeles Film Festival
2007 - Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris FRA)
2007 - Film Arts Foundation (SF)
2007 - Chicago Underground Film Festival

and more that I do and do not know about.

STATEMENT:
Monte Hellman one day issued me and my compatriots a challenge: make a film that would "make someone feel something." I thought that this was such a profound idea, that film should exist to provoke an emotion, and that is its sole reason for existence.

I decided upon an emotion and came up with the idea for "the Hesher" while driving home that night. There were two direct pieces of inspiration for the film:
1. The sample used at the beginning of the Quasimoto song "Phony Game".
2. An audition tape of myself performing as Krapp in "Krapp's Last Tape." This was my first attempt at performance and I got very frustrated. I'd always remembered an anecdote I'd heard about some famous actress who had asked directors to slap her face in between takes to keep her in character. I equated face-slapping with good acting. So I slapped myself silly on tape then did the scene from "Krapp's"... The final footage was pretty disquieting.

I created "the Hesher" entirely by myself. I set the camera up as best I could (much like in the audition tape) and then got into character and did the performance. I came up with the concept of doing entirely DIY films - where performer does every function in the creation of the film. The film was created within a 48 hour period on a budget of $50. I have since made two additional films this way ("family" and "launderman").

I wanted the film to straddle the line between performance and fiction and I wanted it to be confrontational. The slaps are real and could not be faked - I wanted that to be clear to the audience. In the interest of process, I hereby admit to coming down with an incredibly severe sinus infection as a direct result of the physical hardship of the film.

When I showed "the Hesher" to Monte Hellman, he was very complimentary. The film was successful - people actually walked out of this first screening, a trend that would continue for the life of the film, even at some of the largest progressive art institutions in the world. People had trouble separating me personally from "the Hesher."

So what was the emotion I wanted to make the audience feel? You'd have to watch to figure it out.