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Waters B. DeMented
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Chatting with the director of Cecil B. DeMented is divine
by JOANNE LATIMER
"Drag queens are really square and they hated Divine at first because he mocked them by being purposefully ugly," recalls John Waters, who's off on another riff that has nothing to do with his latest film, Cecil B. DeMented. And Waters is defending his late friend, Divine, the 300-pound actor who starred in virtually all of Waters' early films.
It's easy to picture John Waters on the other end of the phone, wearing a white jacket and stroking his mustache. Cecil B. DeMented follows Pecker, his film on the absurdity of fame in the art world. His latest targets the absurdity of the Hollywood studio system--as seen through the dogma of its arch opponents, underground filmmakers. A band of guerrilla filmmakers kidnap a movie starlet (Melanie Griffith) and force her to act in their low-budget thriller. It's a hoot, with gorgeous art direction and a knack for mocking the righteous fervour of underground art.
Waters screened his film in competition at Cannes in May. He loves the French festival, recalling when people broke the glass doors at the Palais to see Polyester, his '80 feature. "There was a cinema riot. Polyester wasn't even in competition! Oh, the Palais is so fancy," he says. "Believe me, it's a long way from Baltimore."
Selling out happily
Cecil B. DeMented feels as commercial as Waters' last two films--despite its affiliations with underground cinema. Stephen Dorff makes a great gang leader who imposes celibacy and cinematic purity on his crew.
"People think that ever since Pink Flamingos, I've sold out," laughs Waters. "I've always pleaded guilty as hell to that. What I have always had to do is change what a John Waters movie is. I have to keep current, especially internationally, because my movies would never get financed if it weren't for the rest of the world. You see, my films always do modestly well, which isn't enough for Hollywood. But 'modestly well' is enough for many, many countries. So financing happens. Hollywood is only interested in the box office from the opening weekend."
Cecil B. DeMented's lead character, Honey Whitlock (Griffith) is such a power bitch, that it leaves audiences wondering about Waters' personal encounters with Hollywood's royalty--Honey must have had a role model or two. But Waters pretends to misunderstand the question and, instead, answers about his own relationship with fame:
"Well, fame hasn't corrupted me. But I don't have the kind of fame where you can't go outside. I have the good kind of fame, where you can travel the world, where the people who recognize you are the kind of people you want to meet. I don't get mobbed. Yet, it still amazes me when I get recognized in a foreign country."
Prompted by thoughts of his own early obscurity, Waters launches off on another tangent about his days with Divine. A publicist fusses in the background, saying something like "Two minutes, Mr. Waters," but he pays her absolutely no mind.
Divine and dead mackerel
"I made a joke on fame from the very beginning, when Divine and I had this act. There was no money to promote the films, so we'd rent a hall and do a little show on stage before the screening. I'd go out, dressed like a drug-addict pimp, spouting nonsense film theory--like praising nudist-camp films. Then Divine would come out pushing a shopping cart full of dead mackerel and throw them into the audience. We'd hire a cute little boy to come on stage dressed like a policeman and pretend to arrest Divine. It was vaudeville. We were making fun of what it was to be a director and a star."
As well as spoofing the diva starlets of Hollywood, Cecil B. DeMented also takes some shots at family films like Patch Adams and Forrest Gump.
"But, you see, I'm secretly in awe of Patch Adams," he explains, when asked if his critique has elicited any bad blood around L.A. "It's the scariest movie I've seen since Night of the Living Dead. I respect it and I tremble when I see that ball on the end of the nose. I think it's an extreme, extreme white film. I'd love to see it with an all-black audience!"
More World Film Fest stories
Cecil B. DeMented screens at the World Film Fest and opens on Friday, Sept. 1
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