For @vincentdonofrio @RealHopeDavis & their many fans, this is a reply to an email I sent back in 2006 re GUY. I had asked Kirby where the idea for the script came from.
The main female character (referred to only as “Camera” in the script) was a kind of cross between a very committed art performance artist and a stalker. My background is in art (conceptual art – I went to California Institute of the Arts) and I’ve always thought there was an element of being a stalker to any verite doc filmmaker – the combination was certainly somewhat autobiographical. In fact, the original idea (which was as a doc) was even more extreme: I would shoot myself randomly calling people out of the phone book and ask them if they wanted to be the subject of a feature doc. When one finally agreed, I would go over to there house and begin shooting before they even answered the door. I would keep shooting well into the evening, until they asked me to leave, and continue shooting as I convinced them that I had to stay the night, and then the next day, and so on. I decided to change it to a dramatic film and looked to Last Tango in Paris and Kobo Abe’s “The Face of Another” as inspiration.
Best, Kirby
The main female character (referred to only as “Camera” in the script) was a kind of cross between a very committed art performance artist and a stalker. My background is in art (conceptual art – I went to California Institute of the Arts) and I’ve always thought there was an element of being a stalker to any verite doc filmmaker – the combination was certainly somewhat autobiographical. In fact, the original idea (which was as a doc) was even more extreme: I would shoot myself randomly calling people out of the phone book and ask them if they wanted to be the subject of a feature doc. When one finally agreed, I would go over to there house and begin shooting before they even answered the door. I would keep shooting well into the evening, until they asked me to leave, and continue shooting as I convinced them that I had to stay the night, and then the next day, and so on. I decided to change it to a dramatic film and looked to Last Tango in Paris and Kobo Abe’s “The Face of Another” as inspiration.
Best, Kirby