While Fantastic Fest might be more known for its horror shorts and features, Alamo Drafthouse’s genre film festival in Austin, TX, has a special place in my heart for finding odd-ball, madcap comedies that blend style and genre.
The Guit Brothers, Lenny and Harpo, are known for developing their own genre of sorts, dubbed “trash cinema,” as a way to explore down-on-their-luck misfit characters who seem to bumble and stumble their way into outlandish situations that explore some surprisingly poignant views about life, friendship, and even romance.
We got the chance to chat with Lenny and Harpo about Heads or Fails, the duo’s follow-up to their Sundance standout Mother Schmuckers, to see if we could learn a bit about how fellow aspiring filmmakers can find genre filmmaking paths of their own.
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No Film School: What was the inspiration for Heads of Fails?
Lenny & Harpo Guit: After Mother Schmuckers, we wanted to do a short film with no money again, so we decided to make a film with just the two of us for the crew and an actor who makes us laugh all the time, Axel Perin (who plays Ronnie in Heads or Fails). It was the story of a small-time crook who navigates the city.
This short film reinforced our idea of telling the story of someone who is juggling with life and struggling to find solutions. We tried to distance the film from our own experiences a little more, so we were keen on telling the story of a female hustler. We had the impression that it was something that hadn’t been done 1,000 times before. That’s how Armande (Maria Cavalier-Bazan) [in Heads or Fails] was born. Then we wrote down all the adventures that could happen to her—there were really a lot of them, so we sorted them out to keep the best, the funniest.
Those are the moments that appear in the film.
NFS: As a follow-up to
Mother Shuckers, which is quite similar in terms of energy and tone, how were you able to further develop your unique filmmaking style?
Lenny & Harpo Guit: We try to start from scratch with each film in terms of style, thinking about what best suits the project. There’s often the question of content and form: how do you tell the story of a girl who’s having a hard time?
It couldn’t be too clean. We wanted it to be edgy, always on the go, never time to settle down, a bit like Armande. That’s why we tried to integrate all these little images from her life between scenes. We really think there’s something to be found in the beauty of the ugly. There’s such a sacralization of the image in cinema, that it has to be beautiful, and since we’re failing to make it beautiful, we might as well try to invent our own beauty in the filth. We find that there’s a real charm in dirty images.
Then, of course, our preferred tastes come to the surface: we like things to be colorful, to pop with dynamic editing, so that the viewer never has time to get bored. That’s our biggest fear: boredom.
NFS: What camera(s) and lenses did you shoot on and why?
Lenny & Harpo Guit: A RED KOMODO with a Zoom Canon Super 16 8-64 and some iPhones and GoPros. Kinan Massarani, the DOP, said it was the perfect stuff. We trust this guy a lot.
NFS: The film feels very loose and improvised at times, what was your approach to following a script versus letting scenes play out?
Lenny & Harpo Guit: The script was very thoroughly written, but we like to work on the scenes beforehand with the actors, modifying them with their suggestions and making sure that the script sounds good in their mouths. We also had a lot of scenes with many characters, so there was more room for the supporting characters to fill in with improvisation and bring the world to life, for example in the dice scene. We also try to keep some takes without our dialogue. Often that gives rise to little gems that we manage to place in the edit.
NFS: What’s next for Lenny & Harpo? What type of dream project would you work on if you could?
Lenny & Harpo Guit: We’re still working on a good adaptation of the Bible.
NFS: If you had to give advice to any up-and-coming filmmakers looking to develop their own comedic and cinematic style, what tips would you give them?
Lenny & Harpo Guit: We really think you have to start by making yourself laugh and then other people will follow your universe. We’re lucky enough to be the two of us, so we can test our jokes on each other and see what works, but you have to find some sidekicks and test and retest these jokes. If they make you laugh, other people will laugh too! Some people will hate it too, of course, but you shouldn’t pay too much attention to them. Also, we try to work with people we love in real life as much as we can. We want the film to be a mix of everybody’s personal universe.
That way, the film can only be richer and funnier!
Author: Jourdan Aldredge
This article comes from No Film School and can be read on the original site.
