Kaufman Coughs Up the Answers

At 2:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon, a packed room in Hanover Hall listened on as independent filmmakers talked about their craft. The panel included Dee Snider, Joe Christ, Leslie Culton, Jeff Gomez, moderator Brad Linaweaver, and Troma Films president Lloyd Kaufman. The following is an earlier Q&A The Daily Dragon conducted with Kaufman:

Have you always believed in the do-it-yourself approach to filmmaking?

That was always the idea. I very much bought in to the auteur theory of filmmaking where the director is the auteur. And the film comes from the heart and soul of an individual or a very small group of individuals. We have evolved what the critics call the Troma touch. It’s an ensemble in our case. Michael Herz and I have worked closely together on writing and directing the many, many films over the 25 years we’ve been in business. And we call ourselves the Troma Team, because everybody on the set is a director. We want everybody involved in directing, especially the actors and the guy who delivers the pizza. It’s very important because they can all come up with good jokes, good camera positions or good moments in a script. So we’re very much an ensemble.

The Toxic Avenger was a sheer stroke of genius. What was the critical reaction like when it came out?

The movie theaters didn’t get it originally. [At first] we couldn’t get The Toxic Avenger into any of the theaters because they didn’t get it. They didn’t understand that this wasn’t a horror film, but a satire. It was a comedy.

What sort of advice would you give to up-and-coming filmmakers?

To thy own self be true. That’s what Shakespeare said. And I think that’s really the only way to go about art. Movies are both art and business, but it’s not a sausage business. Unfortunately, most movies are sausages. Hollywood is making these $50 million movies now. They’re spending $50 million dollars on a piece of crap. And they have to make movies that appeal to all people at all times. They can’t take any risks. As a result, you have movies like Conspiracy Theory. It’s like baby food. You can live on baby food, but it’s very boring. A lot of people don’t want to eat baby food. They want jalapeno peppers. They want some nice, spicy vegetable soup. That’s what Troma is. Troma is the jalapeno pepper on the pizza of the cultural world.

- Jon Waterhouse, Editor

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