RC: Yeah.
GVS: You can make playlists -- take all your songs from one artist and bunch them together.
RC: So have you made a playlist yet?
GVS: Yeah, it's not music that I've chosen; it's music that came from the office computer that was downloaded by Scott [Green]. So there is a lot of Joy Division.
RC: Back to movies -- so, ultimately, how do you feel about this latest film, Paranoid Park? Do you like it? Are you happy with it?
GVS: Yeah, but I don't really have a lot of conceptions about it for some reason, and I'm not sure why that is.
RC: Different than with your other films?
GVS: All the other films, I have ideas about what they are. And this is the first one that I didn't really have an opinion about, which is weird. I just hear people say stuff about it and I go, "Oh, OK."
RC: I wonder why?
GVS: Maybe I've broken through. Or maybe I'm just at an age where I don't have such attachments.
RC: Like you could just make it and then let it go?
GVS: Or maybe because I wasn't trying to make it do a particular thing. I do have opinions about Elephant and Gerry and Last Days.
RC: What about Last Days? Were you a Nirvana fan?
GVS: Yeah.
RC: And did you know Kurt Cobain well?
GVS: No, not well. I'd met him once, and I'd talked to him a couple times on the phone. I met him at his manager's house. I was doing a fundraiser [against the] anti-gay ballot measure in Oregon. [Kurt's] manager, Danny Goldberg, who is a big activist, helped us put together an L.A. fundraiser -- like a movie-star fundraiser. And the night before, [Danny] had us over to dinner, and Kurt and Courtney showed up. Courtney is from Portland, so we have a lot of friends in common. And then later Kurt played a fundraiser in Portland for the same issue.
RC: And are you friendly with Courtney still?
GVS: Yeah, I've seen her off and on. I run into her.
RC: Did you see Nick Broomfield's documentary Kurt & Courtney?
GVS: I remember that [Kurt & Courtney] was sort of the pinnacle [of his career], wasn't it?
RC: Yeah, but what do you think of his approach, particularly with that film?
GVS: I think that it's an example of how far you can go. It's a little like Michael Moore. I'm totally entertained by it.
RC: Do you have a theory about Kurt's death?
GVS: I've never really thought that there was a strict conspiracy. I think it was a weird situation, which is kind of why I made [Last Days]. There were a lot of mixed emotions surrounding his death. And there was this missing period of time during the last few days [of Kurt's life] when people who were around hadn't said anything, and the people that were around either weren't allowed to talk or just didn't talk. I also thought that perhaps not very much did happen. And because it was a mystery, because it was hidden, it became very interesting. But it's possible that if you really knew what happened, it might not be that interesting.
RC: Right.
GVS: Our film is sort of about [Kurt] wandering around and occasionally running into people. And that was it. He was found dead. We didn't really say how he died -- because we didn't really know.
RC: You're not really into the entertainment factor with your films, are you?
GVS: Well, I think that they can be entertaining. I just wasn't into results. There are too many answers concerning Kurt. Obviously, he had lots of things about him that indicated that this might happen.
RC: Lots of indicia.
GVS: Indicia?
RC: It's a real word.
GVS: Indicia. That's a good word. Now I can use it. Yeah, so it's really about those things -- little indications, indicia. Like with Elephant, originally we were going to make it solely about high-school violence, but it really became more about the kids themselves, just existing. You see these things drifting by, and the time it takes to look at these things allows you the time to go over the indicia and contribute thoughts of your own -- participate in a result with yourself, not necessarily with the film telling you what the results are.
RC: And these two issues [Columbine and the death of Kurt Cobain] are very delicate.
GVS: They're really delicate. I wanted to include the ideas of the viewers as well. So, if you were a psychologist and you're watching it, your ideas could actually be part of the film, rather than be discounted. There are so many varieties of information. If I said [about the shooters at Columbine] that they were told they were outsiders and that they would always be outsiders, and they became despondent and decided to kill themselves, but while they were at it they figured, 'We're gonna kill ourselves, why don't we take as many people as we can with us, 'cause we hate them' -- and that's probably the theory I would put forth -- if I'm so busy putting that forth...
RC: You'd maybe miss the actual --
GVS: Well, I'd miss all the other possibilities.
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