Photo by Wendy Jones Fletcher
Miranda July
Issue #24
The writer-director-actress says she’s relieved people understand her debut feature, the critically acclaimed Me and You and Everyone We Know
By Ann Heppermann
Published: June 1st, 2005 | 2:54pm
The prolific and talented Miranda July has yet another impressive accomplishment to mark off her checklist: “create buzz at 2005 Sundance Film Festival.”
Me and You and Everyone We Know, July’s debut feature, had festival bloggers taking time out from their movie-going in Park City, Utah, to write things like “triple-threat darling of the 2005 Sundance” and “the kind of film people search for at Sundance.” It also received official recognition in the form of a Special Jury Prize for “Originality of Vision.” And then there was the big thumbs-up from Roger Ebert, who ranked Me and You and Everyone We Know as his “favorite feature of Sundance 2005” and included it in this year’s “Roger Ebert’s Overlooked Film Festival.” Accolades from famous movie critic: check.
As one would come to expect from a woman who directed a music video for Sleater-Kinney, published stories in The Harvard Review, and made her acting debut in Alison Maclean’s Jesus’ Son, July assumed writing, directing, and starring responsibilities for her film. Like its creator, it defies simple description. While it’s at its heart a quirky love story between a would-be artist and a shoe salesman, Me and You’s endearing, interweaving subplots make it a sweet and complicated exploration of art, life, and love. July, an erstwhile Portland resident now living in L.A., took a moment from her busy life to talk on the phone about her film, Sundance, and finding inspiration on Chicago’s El train.
First things first: when did you get the idea for Me and You and Everyone We Know?
It actually came to me in 2001, during a trip to Chicago. I first thought of the idea for the movie when I was on the El. I had just gotten onto the train and there was sort of this sense of the movie that just hit me. I probably have what the four story lines were written down in a journal somewhere. It’s like its soul was born on the El. It was kind of magical. From that point, I kept adding things in a free-form way.
In the movie, you star as Christine, a would-be contemporary artist who falls in love with Richard (John Hawkes), a shoe salesman. How much of you is in this movie? Did you ever think anyone else could play the part?
No, I never did think of having anyone else play Christine because I’ve been in everything I’ve done. She’s quite a lot of me but not entirely me. She’s more me in my early 20s, as far as her struggle to get people to look at her and her tape. She’s sort of like a more lost version of me. I’ve never had a character in my work that is an artist. It was so much easier to write about the kids and the guy who sells shoes. I did it because it was totally embarrassing to me. I felt I should swallow the embarrassment.
There are some pretty frank, yet humorous and playful scenes dealing with childhood sexual exploration. Why was it important to address this in the film?
I’m interested a lot in the idea of children’s power, and I feel there is no real place for it. The idea that a child would have power, or even power over an adult is so interesting to me. And there’s so much anxiety in it that the whole topic has become nullified. I wanted to widen that space by working on people’s fears, but at the same time, there are also great hopes and memories. Like you remember what it was like when intimacy didn’t contain so much fear or information.
I loved the young character Sylvie (Carlie Westerman), who is obsessed with domestic happiness. Was that dream of domestic happiness something you fantasized about as a child?
Well, when I was younger, I really did have a time where I was obsessed with the Macy’s catalog and other catalogs that came in the Sunday paper. I’m hard-pressed to know how I ever thought that by having all that stuff I would have a normal life. It made me feel guilty for wanting those things. The age Sylvie is in the movie was the most intensely materialistic time of my life. That was not how I was raised and I felt shallow wanting matching sheets. At the same time, on some level, Sylvie is the girl I wished I was. Even the way she looks, she doesn’t look real. When I was editing her I had moments where she seemed like a cartoon character.
OK, so what was the Sundance Film Festival like?
It was pretty amazing. For one thing, I’d been working in one room for months and months, and my world had become so small that it was pretty incredible once [the film] played at Sundance. I was at the festival for the full 10 days, so the attention I got was so much more than compared with the performances I do. To be honest, I was just so relieved that people were understanding the movie and seemed to be liking it.
What was it like to finally see Me and You and Everyone We Know on the big screen?
Pretty crazy. Until then, I’d never had the opportunity to see it on a high-resolution screen with an audience. It looked so much better. When I first started watching it, I was seeing all of the edits I would have liked to have changed. It took me a while to settle in and figure out that the first screening was going well. Gradually, I was hearing laughter and engagement [with] the film. It’s like that same feeling you get when you’re doing a performance, that kind of “Yes, I have them” feeling. And that was really what I had hoped for.
How has making the film changed you as an artist? Do you think you’ll do any more of them?
Making a movie is so substantial that on one level it forces me to take myself seriously. If you’re kind of on the fringes, there’s a freedom in that. After the movie, sometimes I wake up in the mornings and think, “Wow, I pulled it off.” That’s pretty incredible.
For more information visit www.mirandajuly.com.
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