Suburbia | Penelope Spheeris

[K.J. Relth:] Hello. Good evening. Welcome to the Billy Wilder Theater. [audience applause] So this is the home of public programs for UCLA Film & Television Archive. We are the largest university-based moving image archive in the world and we're very happy to have the Hammer as - their Billy Wilder Theatre here as our home. My name is K.J. Relth. I'm a film programmer with the Archive. And it is my pleasure to welcome you here tonight for a screening of Penelope Spheeris's "Suburbia". This is a really exciting night. This is also our closing night of our seven-part celebration of the 10th anniversary of the American Genre Film Archive. Is everyone out there familiar with AGFA? [applause] Yeah. So they're based in Austin, Texas . They're a really incredible bastion of just weirdo cinema. So not - they started as a 35-millimeter print collection and they have since expanded to, I think, over 35,000 materials which is pretty big for how small of a space they inhabit. They've also recently acquired a 4k scanner, which has allowed them to put out new restorations and preservation digital prints of some stuff that most of us have only seen on VHS, in like crummy third generation versions before. So they're doing really great work. And if you don't already follow them, please follow AGFA on all social media. They also have a great newsletter. I don't like newsletters, but they do a really good job, and it's full of like head exploding .gifs every week. So that's, that's really fun. But tonight, I couldn't think of a better way to end this celebration of AGFA and outsider cinema and, and really like countercultural art, than this film we're here to see tonight, "Suburbia". So, for those of us who haven't seen this before, this is Penelope Spheeris's follow-up to "The Decline of Western Civilization". And we are so, so lucky to have Penelope here with us tonight. So if you will please all join me in welcoming to the stage the one and only, director and UCLA alum, Miss Penelope Spheeris. [audience applause and cheering] [Relth:] That's why he's here, to take the bag. [laughs] [Spheeris:] What's that? [Relth:] I said, "that's why he's here, to take the bag," right? [Spheeris:] No, he's here 'cause I've been with it for 22 years and I can't ditch him now. [laughter] [Relth:] Thank you so much for being here, Penelope. [Spheeris:] Well, thank you for asking me to be here, K.J. [Relth:] Of course. I - when we were talking on the phone before, we, before we saw each other tonight you were telling me that you recently went to go visit your vault, where a lot of your prints are stored. And that you were able to go through some of the materials that you've been storing there and you came across some paper gems, that I - that we were hoping we could talk a little bit about. [Spheeris:] Well, I - when I did "Decline", the first "Decline" in 1980, we couldn't get it into theaters because the word was you couldn't have a documentary in a theater. So somebody said to me, "if you want to get a movie into a theater, you have to write a narrative movie and if you want to do movie about punk rock then write a narrative movie about punk rock." So, neither one of us can remember how we met each other, but Bert Dragin, who's 95 years old, so he has an excuse for not remembering. [Relth laughs] [Spheeris laughs] I met him, and he had $250,000. He came out here. He's a furniture salesman in Cleve- Cleveland. Came out here, wanted to make movies. Said, "I got 250. I like your script 'Suburbia'." I wrote the script. He read it. He liked it. He goes, "but I - we need the other 250." So I went to Roger Corman. And Roger and Bert got along very, very well. [Relth:] So they didn't know each other before this? [Spheeris:] No, no, no, they didn't. But Roger likes anybody that has the other half of the money. [laughter] And so, they got along very, very well. And the cool thing was, you see, this was my first narrative film. "Suberbia" was. And, the cool thing is, I - Roger really - it's true. He taught so many of us how the hell to do this, you know. Shooting a documentary's whole different world than, than shooting a narrative piece. And so what he did was he gave me some notes. In my recollection of the notes were - was that the first thing on the list was, "be sure to sit in the, in the director's chair as much as you can during the day because the job is exhausting." And I thought... yeah. But that's not what it is. I don't know where I got that from. I think he said it to me. But he was absolutely right. You know, you got to, you gotta sit down and chill. [Relth:] And also like remind people who the hell you are, on set. [Spheeris:] Say again? [Relth:] I said, "like just remind people, like yeah, this is my chair." [Spheeris:] Oh, I don't do that shit. [laughs] I know. See that's the thing about a lot of young filmmakers now. It's like they think that directing is sitting in that magical chair, which hurts your butt by the way [Relth laughs] and going "cappucino." "Action. Cut." "Can I have my car?" It ain't like that. It's really hard fucking work, okay? And, I have to say I'm very worn out from it and burned out from it. But here's, here's a couple things that Roger had to say. Okay. And you know what? Here's the thing. To this day, these things really work, you know? And... [laughs] "Work out the movement and business for the actors in advance and don't hesitate to take suggestions from the actors." Yeah. [Relth:] Yeah, that's such a good point like to just be open to - I mean does that mean be open to collaboration or just like to get - to make things more natural, right? [Spheeris:] Yeah all that, and improv. And I'll have to tell you, people always say "Why was 'Wayne's World' so funny?" The dolly grip. Okay, the guy that was pushing the dolly was hilarious. [laughter] And, and he would just say stuff under his breath and I'm like, "that works." [laughter] [Relth:] For real? [Spheeris:] Yeah, so anyway, I'm gonna ask Roger to change his notes. He should say, take suggestions from actors and dolly grips. [laughter] Okay with - when shooting a scene within, within a scene - "when shooting a shot within a scene, particularly a close-up, start a few lines before the actual piece you need." And of course, we all do that, you know, just slide into it. And of course, he always bitched at me about this, Roger did, 'cause I wasn't moving the camera enough. "Use as much movement on the camera as possible. Use a dolly, pan, zoom, occasionally a crane shot." Occasionally a crane shot, why? Because cranes cost too much money. [laughter] [Relth:] Justify that budget. [laughter] Roger only came out to the set on the first day. And, like halfway in the middle of the shoot. But he wasn't looking over my shoulder or anything. [Relth:] I was gonna ask about that because it - did he kind of give you this rundown of, of things to keep in mind before you ever went on set? And then he wasn't there just like - kind of, he let you do your thing? [Spheeris:] Right. Yeah. No, he totally did, you know? This is a kind of a depressing story, but I'm gonna tell it anyway. Are you ready? You ready for a downer? All right! Cool. Before I did this movie "Suburbia", I was at film school here at UCLA and all of us were trying to do stuff in the movies, whatever we could do. And Roger was casting extras for a movie called - he already had done a movie called "The Wild Angels" and he wanted to do a movie called "The Naked Angels". I wasn't naked in the movie, okay, but I acted in that movie. And he called us together one day before the shoot was going to happen, and, you know, put us all in a room. And he had hired The Hell's Angels - good idea - to wrangle, to wrangle the bikes. And we were all gonna go out to the desert and shoot this, this "Naked Angels" movie. Okay, here's the downer part. Not all the people that came to see, you know, to be cast in the movie knew how to ride a bike. So some guy got on a bike. We're all sitting in there in this room. Some guy got on a bike, took the first spin around the corner with the, with the Angels and he died. Yeah, he hit a house and he bonk [...] dead. Okay. [sigh] That was freaky. Roger came out to the place immediately that we were having the meeting and, and, you know, did all the right things. And said, you know, "this is a horrible thing, but we're gonna keep going." My name in the movie was Shirley and I was Animal's girlfriend. And I rode on the back of a bike through the desert. And, I'm sure it's a terrible movie. I don't think I've ever seen it. But, [laughter] I do remember in the pack we were riding and there was a guy in the front that went down. It was Michael Greene... something, and he went down. He had long hair. And me and Bruce, who was Animal, and we ran over his hair as we went past him. Yeah, so should I go back to the list now and shut up? [laughter] [Relth:] You can do whatever you want. [Spheeris:] Really? [Relth:] But we, we did talk about - when I was looking through it earlier, I didn't see the one note that you were mentioning when we were talking on the phone, which was the, the rule about what should happen every ten minutes in a film. Is that on that list, or...? [Spheeris:] You know, there's certain things that Roger probably didn't want to put on paper. [Relth:] Sure. [Spheeris:] But he's, you know, he said to me verbally, after reading the script, that he liked the script. He loved teenage exploitation movies, which is the way he saw "Suburbia". I didn't see it that way. I see it as a profound social statement of the time. [laughter] But to him, it was a teenage expl- exploitation movie. And he told me that, you know, we needed to put - we needed to have some sex or some violence for every 10, every 10 minutes. And my script didn't have that, my original script. [with country accent:] So, you know me, I'm just trying to make it here in Hollywood. And I get back, [laughter] get back on that typewriter and try to ride that pony. And, it's like, okay, sex... So, I have to apologize for the scene where the girl gets her clothes torn off. Okay? I apologize for that. I would never do that today. I have to apologize for the scene when they kicked the, they kick ass on the guy in the garage and all that. But that was what I had to do to get the movie made for Roger to say, "Okay, go ahead, we can shoot this." [Relth:] Yeah, I should say, yeah, that was a bit of a spoiler, but only a little one. How many here are seeing - how many people here are seeing this for the very first time tonight? Okay, that's like half of the people here. [Spheeris:] Wow! [Relth:] That's incredible. That's really exciting. [Spheeris:] Were you in prison? [big laughter] Wow! I'm so - can I thank you all for coming here? That's so awesome that you're coming to see it for the first time! [applause] You know, I have to say it's a, it's a bit of history, if I don't say so, from my, you know for myself. It really is a bit of history in that it was, in my opinion, a kind of dramatic documentation of the time. And if you look at - look at me, just patting myself on the back here. But if you look at the clothes and the graffiti and the cars, and the attitudes and the dialogue, I mean, this is where it all came from, you know. And I'm actually pretty shocked that lately I've been asked to do - this is my fourth talk this week. But I love you, but this is like a fourth talk. It's like... [laughter] Hope I'm doing okay. But, you know, people really wanna know what happened back in those times, 'cause not everybody had an iPhone. All your times, you know, you young'uns out there, it'll all be documented. You can just go check it out and punch some, you know, clicks here and there, you know what I mean? But, [laughs] but back then no, not everybody was shooting, you know? [Relth:] Yeah. Well, it's, it is such a specific document of the L.A. punk scene too, 'cause there was, there were simultaneous scenes kind of happening in different pockets in the U.S. There was a D.C. punk scene and, and kind of like East Coast and West Coast differences. And what I love about this film specifically, is the L.A. and kind of like, valley vernacular that's sprinkled throughout. Like there are certain lines that I won't say now because you'll hear them when they happen where you're just like, that is so specifically SoCal. [Spheeris:] Cool. [laughter] So, so, why - I'm so curious about this - if you've never seen "Suburbia" before, why would you come tonight? Is it because it's UCLA and it's the Billy Wilder Theater and it's kind of fancy, and look at this guy, he's like, "Yep, you got it all, bitch." [laughter] Or is it because you're interested in the time, or what? [Person in audience:] It's because you're here. [Spheeris:] Ahh! [Relth:] It's because of you, Penelope, of course. [applause] [Spheeris:] You're so sweet. I didn't even think of that part! [laughter] [Man in audience:] [...] prison! [Spheeris:] And you're not in prison anymore! Yes! They let this man out. [Man:] "Rock 'n' Roll High School". [Spheeris:] What, say it again? Oh, you want to see "Rock 'n' Roll Hi-"? You can leave now. [laughter] Okay, actually, you know, that's cute that you mentioned that. Because that was 1979. "Suburbia" was '83. I really hadn't, you know, I hadn't done a dramatic piece, and I went for an interview for "Rock 'n' Roll High School". [Relth:] For what? For, for... [Spheeris:] To direct it, mother fucka. [Relth:] To direct it, whoa. [laughter] [Relth:] You know, Allan Arkush, who did direct "Rock 'n' Roll High School" is such a huge fan, and he was... [Spheeris:] Allan Arkush, yeah, we were friends back in the day, but guess what? The bitches didn't get the gigs back then. So, I was so disappointed I couldn't do that movie. [Relth:] Sorry. [Spheeris:] But it was a little too happy for me. You know, I'm more... [Relth:] It's a pretty silly movie. [Spheeris:] It's a silly movie. It's a little too happy, but here's the thing. "Suburbia" is, is, it's a downer. I'm gonna warn you right now. You know, you got to get serious when you watch this movie. So I'm very happy that they're showing "Rock 'n' Roll High School" afterwards, because then you can leave [Relth:] It's a good pick-me-up. [Spheeris:] ...this evening and feel really happy. [laughter] 'Cause that's the way you should feel. [laughter] [Relth:] Well, circling back a little bit to the writing process. I mean, what - had you been working on "Suburbia" at the same time that you were working on the first "Decline" or did that come after? [Spheeris:] No. The first "Decline" was 1980 and, you know, I just had to kind of collect stories. And most of the stories in "Suburbia" are true stories that I collected from my punk-rock friends back then. And even the story - look there's a lot of stuff in "Suburbia" I would never do today. You know, when you see the dogs get shot, I would never do that today. My daughter rescued so many dogs, it's like she would disown me. But we didn't shoot the - we didn't really shoot him. No, don't start. Okay? [Relth:] No animals were harmed. [Spheeris:] No animals were - oh, there was an animal harmed! No, let me tell you what happened! [laughter] [Relth:] Was it one of the rats? [Spheeris:] No, no. Oh the rat's a good story, too, but no. What happened with the - let me just tell you. The dogs are tripwires. Okay, so you see the dogs trip and they'll tell you put a gun shot over it, they look like... okay. But check this out. Where the, where the kids went to live. There it was kind of cockroach-ridden. Okay. So I had, I - this is, this a very special Penelope Spheeris directorial tip, which is, I call it my cockroach shot because I don't know what the fuck I was doing back then, right? And, and, and I knew that if something didn't cut together because I was dealing with non-actors, [Relth:] Right. [Spheeris:] if something didn't cut together, I could always cut to the cockroach. [laughter] Because the cockroach had his shit together, okay? [laughter] So I filmed the whole point just with these cockroaches going along the walls and when anybody muffed their lines or didn't match their hand, whatever, cut to the cockroach, you know. However in the script, there was a little piece where, where Jack Diddley, Chris Pederson, had to kill a cockroach, okay? [Relth:] Right, yeah. [Spheeris:] We had a cockroach wrangler and he... [Relth:] Wow. [Spheeris:] Yeah, we did. Even back in the day, you know, God bless 'em, they have the, the animal protectors there. If you got a goldfish or anything, you had to have like, have the SPCA there. But anyways, so we had to smash the cockroach. And so the cockroach wrangler, he used to carry them in a Big Gulp cup, a whole bunch of cockroaches. And so, [laughs] [Relth:] Was there like soda residue in the cup? [Spheeris:] Maybe. That might have been what brought 'em in. You never know! But I told this cockroach wrangler, we got to - today, we have to smash a cockroach. And he goes, "You can't do that, ma'am." And I'm like, [Relth:] Of course not. [Spheeris:] it's a cockroach, come on. And he goes, "No." I said, "I can't kill your cockroach? "No." I said, "well, are they trained?" "Well, no." 50 bucks, you can kill a cockroach. Okay, so I killed a cockroach for 50 bucks! [Relth:] That's a line item in the budget, cockroach death. [Spheeris:] Anyway, [Relth:] So, outside of that... [Spheeris:] Have I ruined the night yet? [Relth:] What's that? [Spheeris:] Have I ruined the night yet? [Relth:] No, of course not! I wanted to ask about... [Spheeris:] Where's Allan Arkush by the way? [Relth:] He couldn't make it. [Spheeris:] Yeah, right. [Relth:] Yeah. [Relth:] He did send his love and he said, I think, your sister worked with him, or something. [Spheeris:] My sister's gay. [Relth:] Worked with him. [Spheeris:] She was, oh I thought she said she was with him. [Relth:] Oh, no, no, no. She worked with him on... [Spheeris:] Oh, yeah, yeah, my sister worked with Allan Arkush on - my sister worked with everybody. Linda Spheeris, an amazing set decorator. But yeah, no, she's gay she wouldn't have been with Allan. Go ahead. [laughter] [Relth:] And I think he's - I think he might be married. Uh, no, he couldn't make it tonight. But besides cockroach casting, I did want to talk about how you met and sort of enlisted your, your cast of almost exclusively non-professional actors including Flea, who's maybe like one of the more recognizable faces on screen tonight. How - were these folks that you met when making "Decline" or were these people who came in to actually audition? Were you kind of really involved in the casting process? [Spheeris:] Well, the stories that are in there are, are stories about people that I met when I did "The Decline". For example, Darby Crash's mother, poor woman, Faith Baker, had to suffer the loss of two children. One was Darby and one was another child, that when that child died the friends brought him back and put them, put him in her car. [Relth:] The body. [Spheeris:] Okay, that's where that story came from. [Relth:] Right, right. [Spheeris:] So, you know, there was, there was a lot of stories that came from knowing the people I, I knew back then. The, uh, what the hell else did you ask me? [Relth:] Oh, I was just asking kind of how - what the casting process was like. [Spheeris:] Oh, yeah. So me and Bert Dragin, this really straight Jewish guy from Cleveland that made all this money making, selling furniture. He's the coolest dude in the world. We, [laughs] we would go to these punk rock clubs together and we would go, "Oh, that's an interesting person there. Let's go give him a piece of paper and ask him to come and interview with us." So we went to clubs and found people. And some of 'em were my friends. But... [Relth:] Sure. The - and the clubs that you were going to, where did you actually shoot some of the club scenes that we see in this film? Do you remember? [Spheeris:] I don't know. Let me think. You know, that was downtown L.A. They had these like kind of abandoned... what do you call it, like shipping dock things, and we turned it into... an arena. It was mostly [Relth:] Like a shipping crate. [Spheeris:] sound, sound stages. Yeah, whereas with "The Decline", you know, I shot in certain clubs. Yeah. [Relth:] Mmm hmm. [Relth:] That were sort of - that probably served as the inspiration for how you were setting up the clubs in, in this film. [Spheeris:] Yeah. Yeah. I had been to way too many punk rock clubs back then. Yeah. Are you getting tired of me yet? [Audience:] No! [Spheeris:] That dude with the Allan Arkush thing is. [laughter] [Relth:] Let's. get. going. [laughter] [Spheeris:] Like, where's Allan right now, we hmmm. Okay, go ahead. [Relth:] Oh, the other location question. The, the really, I think, like kind of poetic and exclusively like very L.A. thing about this movie is that all of the, kind of, burned out and like, crust punk houses that we're seeing in this movie were in eminent domain, which meant that it had been designated to be torn down to make room for the 105 freeway, which at this point is, has been built and we all know it and drive on it often, but then, I mean, were you actually shooting in that area? Like in that South Gate area? [Spheeris:] Oh, yeah. [Relth:] Yeah. [Spheeris:] Downey. We used to call it Downer. [Relth:] Downey, yeah. My dad actually lived in Downey. That's where he went to high school, in Downey. [Spheeris:] He does? I'm sorry. [Relth:] No, not anymore. [Spheeris:] Okay. [Relth:] Yeah. But what - you were still having to secure permits to do all of that right? To shoot in there or...? [Spheeris:] Okay. Now the bitch is gonna get me busted. [laughter] No, okay, of course. I actually don't remember if we got permits or not, but I do remember that when we were location scouting, I'm like, "this is it man." You know, once I actually - I saw that first and then I wrote it into the script. Because, you know, with, with the kind of budget we were dealing with, you couldn't, you couldn't make, you know, like miles of boarded up houses. [Relth:] Yeah. [Spheeris:] You know, it was just a terrible thing that the government did and I'm really glad that you tell me it's the 105 freeway now because usually when I speak about "Suburbia", I tell the audience that they never - the damn government never made any houses there, they just took it away from the people. But now you tell me they, they actually made a freeway. [Relth:] I think that that's where the 105 was finally constructed and also another like kind of Hollywood story a decade later, right before it opened, that's where "Speed" was shot too, some of the freeway scenes in "Speed" were shot on that final section of the 105. [Spheeris:] Oh, the bus movie? [Relth:] Yeah, the Keanu Reeves movie. [Spheeris:] Huh? I'll be God damned. [laughter] I guess I'm, I'm ahead of my time. [Relth:] You were, I mean, a decade ahead, really. [Spheeris:] Oh, there you go. Yeah, no, it's hard to shut down a freeway there's only free-, you know, like when you're shooting a movie 'cause, well look at the freeways now. I don't know how they shoot a movie on the freeway now. [Relth:] Yeah, unless you're Damien Chazelle and you're making "La La Land". [Spheeris:] Who? [Relth:] The guy who made "La La Land" shut down parts of the freeway to [Spheeris:] Oh, did he? [Relth:] shoot some of the musical dancing numbers. [Spheeris:] Okay. Well, good for him. [laughter] I don't even watch movies anymore. [laughter] [Relth:] Well, you didn't grow up as, as a huge film fan, right? You were [Spheeris:] No, no, I did! [Relth:] definitely in the music scene. Oh, you did? [Spheeris:] I was totally a huge film fan, you know, all the time growing up it was my only escape, that and rock and roll, you know. But I'm, actually, I'm just not a huge film fan NOW. You know. [Relth:] What kind of stuff do you watch now? [Spheeris:] Nothing. [Relth:] Nothing. [Spheeris:] I watch the news and I cry. [laughter] [Relth:] Don't we all? [Spheeris:] I don't know. If you don't, you're fucked up 'cause [laughs] the news, I swear to God, man. I was on the way - I got my makeup all on, I'm sitting here, I'm like, "we got a few minutes, let's watch the news," and I'm sitting there going [blubbering noise]. I'm like, crying my makeup off right before I came over. That's all I do is cry when I watch the news. And that's the only thing I watch, you know. I mean, I don't have any interest in movies or TV or anything like that, you know. It doesn't interest me at all. It's funny, a sweet girl from the AV Club interviewed me recently and, and I told her - I was a little drunk but whatever - I said, I said, I said, you know, "I don't give a shit about Hollywood anymore." And I'd been there did that, enh, whatever. And, you know, as far as I'm concerned, they can blow me. And they used it in the hea- in the, in the headline. [laughter] [Relth:] If you haven't read this interview, it is, it is great. Who - anyone in this audience who hasn't read this AV Club interview, should go read it immediately. [Spheeris:] Yeah, I had no idea they were gonna put that in the headline. And then it went like to People magazine... [laughter] And you know what? It's the truth. I really feel like I already did it and you know - what? Like, I - they asked me to go - this jive-ass agent asked me to go. [with ignorant accent:] "Oh, go and meet somebody over at there, and, and interview for episodic TV." [exhale] And then I do it like five times, it's fucking insulting man. Look what I've done in my life and they don't hire me? They can fuck off. [audience applause] I don't really need the money anyway, I don't care. [Relth:] Yeah. [Spheeris:] Yeah. [Relth:] Yeah. I think that's a great place to end actually. [laughter] [Spheeris:] Bye! [Relth:] Thank you so much for being here, Penelope! [applause] [Relth:] Enjoy "Suburbia" everyone! [applause]