Lloyd Kaufman im Interview

• Do, 08. Mai 2008,
• 637 Wörter,
• 0 Kommentare,
• Tags:
• Cinema,
• Lloyd Kaufman,
• Troma

Indepent-Cinema Urge­stein Lloyd Kauf­man im Inter­view. Kauf­man ist Kopf von Troma-Entertainment, eine Film­pro­duk­tion, mit weit mehr als 30 Jah­ren völ­li­ger Unab­hän­gig­keit. Troma pro­du­ziert sehr ein­deu­tige Gen­re­filme, “South­park auf Dro­gen” umschreibt es recht gut.

AVC: You’re open to people pira­ting your films?

LK: I think it’s actually hel­ped. I’ve writ­ten essays about copy­right law and the Digi­tal Mill­en­nium Copy­right Act that Clin­ton pus­hed through, which basi­cally gives per­pe­tual copy­right to giant devil-worshipping media con­glo­me­ra­tes. Mickey Mouse should be in the public domain by now. What a bet­ter world it would be if other people were doing things with Mickey Mouse! If Shake­speare had lived in our age, he would have been sued for wri­t­ing Romeo And Juliet, because as ever­y­body knows, he pla­gia­ri­zed that from an Ita­lian play. With the Clin­ton act, he would have had his rosy red ass sued right off. That DMC Act is a dis­grace. And the pro­blem with inde­pen­dent art in this coun­try is that inde­pen­dent artists have been eco­no­mi­cally black­lis­ted. HBO hasn’t bought any inde­pen­dent movies for God knows how many years, and if they do, they get them from Fox Search­light or War­ner Inde­pen­dent. Believe it or not, War­ner Inde­pen­dent — I did a lot of rese­arch on this — is actually part of Time War­ner. And IFC, which has never played a Troma movie, is actually owned by Cab­le­vi­sion and the Dolans, who are hor­ri­ble people as far away from the inde­pen­dent spi­rit as you can get. The nice thing about piracy is, it allows the public to get inde­pen­dent art, to get a variety of music and movies.

I was recently elec­ted to be chair­man of the Inde­pen­dent Film And Tele­vi­sion Alli­ance, and I ran on the plat­form of lob­by­ing in Washing­ton to edu­cate the law­ma­kers and FCC that inde­pen­dent art is under assault in this coun­try — and under a pep­per, too, but that’s beside the point. Com­cast won’t talk to Troma. We’ve been in busi­ness for 30 years and have 800 movies, and they won’t talk to us. If we give one of our movies to some midd­le­man at Time War­ner or wha­te­ver, then they’ll talk to them, so there’s ano­ther layer of reve­nue that we lose. The limited access to the mar­ket­place is eco­no­mic black­lis­ting. If you’re an inde­pen­dent, you don’t get on TV. And in the rare instan­ces that you do get on, you get a frac­tion of what that very same movie would get if it came in through Fox or Via­com. With Poul­try­geist, Troma didn’t even have the money to put up, so my wife and I had to put it up. I of course told her she was inves­ting in Trans­for­mers. Don’t tell her.

Unbe­dingt auch den Rest lesen. Bei die­sem Typen weiß man nicht mehr, wo die Iro­nie anfängt und wo sie auf­hört.

AVC: You actually teach a Mas­ter Class at various film schools now. What’s the first thing that you tell your stu­dents?

LK: The first deci­sion is, “Do I want the big man­sion in Hol­ly­wood? Do I want the hookers? Do I want to be on the cover of People step­ping out of a limou­sine with no under­wear?” If that’s what I want, then I gotta go out to Hol­ly­wood and fight my way up the food chain. But if that’s not necessary, then no need. One can stay in New York or Chi­cago or Mem­phis or whe­re­ver and make your own damn movie the Troma way. The other very import­ant thing is, “To thine own self be true” — which is a phrase coi­ned by Wil­liam Shake­speare, who wrote the best­sel­ling book 101 Money­ma­king Screen­play Ideas, other­wise known as Ham­let.

Auch wenn Troma-Filme nicht jedem schme­cken dürf­ten, der Kopf hin­ter all dem scheint einer der hells­ten Hollywood’s zu sein.

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