TV Interview - The art of ambiguity

If director Todd Solondz were the religious type, he’d probably worship at the Church of Ambiguity.

And if he invokes the words “fraught with ambiguity” to defend the nebulous morality of his films one more time, someone should take an unambiguous ruler to his knuckles.

The perennially controversial director of Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995) and the critically divisive Happiness (1998) has raised the shock bar yet again with his scabrous Storytelling, a film about the subjective nature of “truth.”

In the two-part film’s politically incorrect first half, a black professor named Mr. Scott (Robert Wisdom) beds a naive white student Vi (Selma Blair), who later cries “exploitation.” In the second story, exploitation rears its head again when a nebbish filmmaker transforms a documentary about the suburban middle class into an inadvertently cruel comedy.

As difficult as it is to get a feel for the particular moral or amoral perspective of Todd Solondz’s films, it’s doubly hard to pin down the slippery auteur on just what, exactly, he is trying to do in his body of work. Talking to Solondz is a little bit like trying to get a man who’s up for parole to admit he’s guilty.

Creative Loafing: Do you think Americans are defined by politically correct behavior in a way they are not even able to see?

Todd Solondz: That term itself is a bit of a minefield. It’s somewhat bankrupt because it’s been so used and abused by different sides of the debate. And the movie, in fact, is deliberately set before that term was even coined ... a little more like 1985.

It’s very important, I think, to be polite and considerate out there in the world. And of course it’s like stepping on eggshells when it comes to the subject of race. But when [I] make a film, I have to be impolite. I have to try to attack these things head-on so we can question the ways we perceive each other in terms of race, sex and so forth and the way we imagine we perceive each other — to what extent we buy into certain cultural and historical stereotypes and myths and to what extent we like to believe we don’t.

I’m interested in the idea of identification — do you identify with one character more than another?

Pardon the pun, it’s not black and white. Everything is fraught with ambiguity here. It is a kind of dance that takes place between this student and this teacher, and the motives are not entirely innocent or pure. And as much as I may sympathize or empathize to a certain degree with Vi, I remain critically detached at the same time.

Do you think there is an element of self-critique in Storytelling?

I do think the questions are all legitimate: Is your work immoral, or moral, cynical, misanthropic, etc.? I feel I can defend myself on these points. The difficulty is, while I think there is a moral gravity and moral underpinnings to what I do, it’s not made explicit. I don’t tell the audience — nor do I want to tell the audience — what to think and how to feel. I don’t have signposts out there for people to get their bearings in this way. It’s all fraught with ambiguity, and this is what I find compelling.

Do you feel like you ex- perience more moral certainty in your own life than you try to reflect on the screen?

Oh, well, gee, you know every day there are moral issues that confront you and none of us are capable of recognizing them and acknowledging them at every point. So much is not so cut-and-dried and the fact that these aren’t heroes and villains and there aren’t always clean-cut answers, this is what makes it alive for me, and this is what makes me, I suppose, want to do what I do.

If you could encapsulate your worldview, what would you call it? People have called you cynical, amoral or misanthropic ...

Oh gee, well, what am I about? I’ll say that one of the difficult things is, I make these movies all comedies. And the idea that they’re comedies doesn’t sit well with a lot of people, I think. They’re terribly sad or painful, sorrowful comedies. But they are comedies. I’m very much moved by what I find to be funny and vice versa. I think much of this would be unbearable without a certain amount of humor ...

You take a couple of jabs at American Movie. What bothered you about that movie?

It’s not the film itself, but the response that the film elicited that troubles me. I saw it here in New York at a very hip, downtown, sophisticated film theater — the Film Forum. And you couldn’t help but question the nature of the laughter at these not terribly sophisticated characters from Wisconsin. The nature of documentary filmmaking itself — the great challenge — is not to exploit, and it’s arguable that one is able to surmount or transcend this obstacle.

Do you ever fear that your movies are going to evoke the same kind of laughter?__

Well, they have, which is why I’ve often said my films aren’t for everyone. Especially people who like’’ them. What I mean by that is that sometimes people look at the movies as just a joke. Yes, I do call them comedies. But that doesn’t mean they’re jokes. They’re terribly serious for me, and to not recognize that is more troubling than those who just accuse me of being immoral.??

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