David Meiklejohn, director of My Heart is an Idiot, talks to NIFW about the making of a documentary, crossing the country in a van, and the most pondered subject of them all: love.
So you've made a documentary about love. Do you have a definition of love after all this?
After hearing so many people talk about what love means to them, I started to understand the ancient expression, "See the Buddha, kill the Buddha." Anyone claiming to know the definition of love is a false prophet, and should be regarded with caution. That disclaimer aside, I think love requires a unique definition for each individual, the same way one person would decide what it means to be a success. Throughout this process I've learned a lot about what I personally want in a loving relationship -- a co-conspirator and shenanigan-monger who respects me as a creative person and inspires me to acts of bravery -- but I'm hesitant to offer that as a blueprint for others. Like Elliott Smith sings, "Everyone is a fucking pro, and they all got answers from trouble they've known, and they all gotta say what you should and shouldn't do, though they don't have a clue." We're all pretty clueless when it comes to romance, which is why I think this movie will appeal to a lot of people.
What was the genesis of this film? Was this your first time making a documentary?
This is both the first and third documentary I've worked on. It's the first documentary I ever shot, but after shooting was finished I've since worked on and completed two other documentaries -- one about the punk band Rise Against and their friends and family, and one about my older brother who ran for State Representative as a Green candidate in Maine. When My Heart Is An Idiot is finished, it will be the third documentary I've worked on, but the first one that is feature length.
How Davy and I came to work on this project is explained in the videochunks, which you can watch here: myspace.com/myheartisanidiot. Basically we were both sappy, love-obsessed nerds who had the same amount of filmmaking skill -- i.e. we didn't know a thing about it -- but wanted to make some type of film about love. Two years and an incredibly steep learning curve later, here we are, more skilled, wiser, and still geeked about love.
How did people react to speaking with you about such an intimate subject?
At first I was amazed how most people were so comfortable sharing such intimate feelings. If the conversation lasted long enough, they inevitably dropped some crazy love bomb about a past experience that just astounded us. It helps that Davy is so charismatic and engaging, and people just love to divulge to him. Now getting Davy to divulge to me, that's a different beast altogether. You'll have to wait and see!
If you could have interviewed anyone for your documentary that wasn't included in the film, who would you have chosen?
We were in LaPorte, Indiana, for an afternoon looking for the diner that Jason Bitner made famous with his book photographs salvaged from a back room, and we asked directions from this teenage Goth kid sitting on the sidewalk. He was all hunched over, dressed in a tattered black shirt with fishnet arm sleeves, dark makeup, shoulder length hair parted in the middle. It was like one in the afternoon and he was just hanging out on the curb. I think he would have had an interesting take on love, being perhaps the lone Goth kid in a very straight-laced midwestern town. Outsiders like him often have the most pointed and poignant advice, I've found.
What was the most eye-opening part of making My Heart is an Idiot?
For me the most eye-opening part is just how long it takes one person to edit an entire feature-length documentary. This thing's a beast!
What was the idea behind the video chunks on youtube?
The videochunks are my version of show-and-tell. I wanted to open the process up and share it with others, in hope that their input would make this project better, and also with the hope that they would be inspired to begin or continue to work diligently on their own projects. There are a lot of lone wolves like me out there creating silent masterpieces behind closed doors, and I want to know about them, but I figured I'd have to make the first move and set an example. Since I started posting the chunks, I've gotten a lot of messages from people who tell me about their own secret documentary ideas, and I always try to remind them, "what are you going to do about it?" Basically, I want to a community of people who dig the project, who will gush about love, and who are interested in the filmmaking process. Oh, and vanity is a reason too. A nice compliment is wicked good motivation.
You've now crossed the country in a van. In your expert opinion, which state has the most people in love? Most romantic spot in the country?
There's a ton of love circulating in Austin, Texas, which isn't a state, but it's the only city that makes Texas worth keeping, in my opinion, so that sort of counts, right? And the most romantic spot in the country -- aside from Ann Arbor, where I'm all smooshy right now -- is certainly San Francisco's Castro on Halloween night. The energy is hotter and sexier than any place I've ever witnessed, fer shure.
True or false: Love hurts.
Sure, that's true enough. Love hurts in the same way that getting the Death card during a tarot reading hurts: it's not about pain, but about change. I think it's much easier to love someone than to be loved by someone. Dropping baggage, tearing down walls, becoming vulnerable, believing in a lover, these are some tough challenges that I've faced with love, and struggling through them has certainly changed me. It's as much pain as pleasure -- it both hurts and heals at the same time. But when I'm in doubt, I always think back to the words of my favorite writer Helene Cixous, who wrote that we must have the courage to be afraid to be hurt, we must suffer the world, because that is when poetry is born.
What is the future for My Heart is an Idiot?
Finish editing, theatrical release, Oscar win, and then world domination! But one step at a time, you know?
What's next for you as a director?
I've got a notebook titled "The BIG BLACK BOOK of Less-Than-Awful IDEAS" that's been filling up with possible future films. My three-year plan is to do a short film after this one, followed by two feature-length fictional films. Oh, and somewhere in there I'd like to get paid too. That would be nice.
So you've made a documentary about love. Do you have a definition of love after all this?
After hearing so many people talk about what love means to them, I started to understand the ancient expression, "See the Buddha, kill the Buddha." Anyone claiming to know the definition of love is a false prophet, and should be regarded with caution. That disclaimer aside, I think love requires a unique definition for each individual, the same way one person would decide what it means to be a success. Throughout this process I've learned a lot about what I personally want in a loving relationship -- a co-conspirator and shenanigan-monger who respects me as a creative person and inspires me to acts of bravery -- but I'm hesitant to offer that as a blueprint for others. Like Elliott Smith sings, "Everyone is a fucking pro, and they all got answers from trouble they've known, and they all gotta say what you should and shouldn't do, though they don't have a clue." We're all pretty clueless when it comes to romance, which is why I think this movie will appeal to a lot of people.
What was the genesis of this film? Was this your first time making a documentary?
This is both the first and third documentary I've worked on. It's the first documentary I ever shot, but after shooting was finished I've since worked on and completed two other documentaries -- one about the punk band Rise Against and their friends and family, and one about my older brother who ran for State Representative as a Green candidate in Maine. When My Heart Is An Idiot is finished, it will be the third documentary I've worked on, but the first one that is feature length.
How Davy and I came to work on this project is explained in the videochunks, which you can watch here: myspace.com/myheartisanidiot. Basically we were both sappy, love-obsessed nerds who had the same amount of filmmaking skill -- i.e. we didn't know a thing about it -- but wanted to make some type of film about love. Two years and an incredibly steep learning curve later, here we are, more skilled, wiser, and still geeked about love.
How did people react to speaking with you about such an intimate subject?
At first I was amazed how most people were so comfortable sharing such intimate feelings. If the conversation lasted long enough, they inevitably dropped some crazy love bomb about a past experience that just astounded us. It helps that Davy is so charismatic and engaging, and people just love to divulge to him. Now getting Davy to divulge to me, that's a different beast altogether. You'll have to wait and see!
If you could have interviewed anyone for your documentary that wasn't included in the film, who would you have chosen?
We were in LaPorte, Indiana, for an afternoon looking for the diner that Jason Bitner made famous with his book photographs salvaged from a back room, and we asked directions from this teenage Goth kid sitting on the sidewalk. He was all hunched over, dressed in a tattered black shirt with fishnet arm sleeves, dark makeup, shoulder length hair parted in the middle. It was like one in the afternoon and he was just hanging out on the curb. I think he would have had an interesting take on love, being perhaps the lone Goth kid in a very straight-laced midwestern town. Outsiders like him often have the most pointed and poignant advice, I've found.
What was the most eye-opening part of making My Heart is an Idiot?
For me the most eye-opening part is just how long it takes one person to edit an entire feature-length documentary. This thing's a beast!
What was the idea behind the video chunks on youtube?
The videochunks are my version of show-and-tell. I wanted to open the process up and share it with others, in hope that their input would make this project better, and also with the hope that they would be inspired to begin or continue to work diligently on their own projects. There are a lot of lone wolves like me out there creating silent masterpieces behind closed doors, and I want to know about them, but I figured I'd have to make the first move and set an example. Since I started posting the chunks, I've gotten a lot of messages from people who tell me about their own secret documentary ideas, and I always try to remind them, "what are you going to do about it?" Basically, I want to a community of people who dig the project, who will gush about love, and who are interested in the filmmaking process. Oh, and vanity is a reason too. A nice compliment is wicked good motivation.
You've now crossed the country in a van. In your expert opinion, which state has the most people in love? Most romantic spot in the country?
There's a ton of love circulating in Austin, Texas, which isn't a state, but it's the only city that makes Texas worth keeping, in my opinion, so that sort of counts, right? And the most romantic spot in the country -- aside from Ann Arbor, where I'm all smooshy right now -- is certainly San Francisco's Castro on Halloween night. The energy is hotter and sexier than any place I've ever witnessed, fer shure.
True or false: Love hurts.
Sure, that's true enough. Love hurts in the same way that getting the Death card during a tarot reading hurts: it's not about pain, but about change. I think it's much easier to love someone than to be loved by someone. Dropping baggage, tearing down walls, becoming vulnerable, believing in a lover, these are some tough challenges that I've faced with love, and struggling through them has certainly changed me. It's as much pain as pleasure -- it both hurts and heals at the same time. But when I'm in doubt, I always think back to the words of my favorite writer Helene Cixous, who wrote that we must have the courage to be afraid to be hurt, we must suffer the world, because that is when poetry is born.
What is the future for My Heart is an Idiot?
Finish editing, theatrical release, Oscar win, and then world domination! But one step at a time, you know?
What's next for you as a director?
I've got a notebook titled "The BIG BLACK BOOK of Less-Than-Awful IDEAS" that's been filling up with possible future films. My three-year plan is to do a short film after this one, followed by two feature-length fictional films. Oh, and somewhere in there I'd like to get paid too. That would be nice.
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