Otto; or, Up With the Dead: Writer-Director Bruce LaBruce
By: Mr. Disgusting
Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a boy of no wealth and some distaste. My name is Otto. I unlive in Berlin sometimes, sometimes farther north, depending on mood. Then again, I only have one mood: dead. Undead. I find it difficult to make an unliving because I am homeless. I recently starred in a movie called Otto, made by a crazy lesbian avant-garde filmmaker named Medea Yarn. She paid me a little, but I'm waiting for the royalties. Speaking of royalty, I was once anointed Prince of the Zombies. It was at a garbage dump. You had to be there. You'll have to excuse me for now. I have to go eat some roadkill. A bientot. x Otto
BD: Is Bruce La Bruce your real name? It’s such a cool name…
BRB: Thanks! It’s generally spelled Bruce LaBruce, although sometimes people spell it Bruce La Bruce and I don’t mind. It doesn’t bother me. It’s not my real name, but it’s a riff on my real name. It’s also an allusion to one of the minor Warhol superstars, Rod LaRod, who was in Nude Restaurant, and who was known as Andy’s “boyfriend.” He might have been named after Rod LaRoque, the silent film star.
BD: Your first profession is a photographer, correct?
BRB: I consider myself a filmmaker, a writer, and a photographer in equal measures. I publish a lot of my photographs in magazines and show them in art galleries (I’m represented by a gallery called Peres Projects). I took all the production stills myself from Otto; or, Up with Dead People that you’re showing on your website. I used to shoot for porn magazines, but now I do more fashion stuff.
BD: What type of things do you photograph? Is horror a regular theme?
BRB: This is my first horror-type film. I do like to work in blood, and I’ve done several photo series, including porn ones, in which the models are blood-splattered.
BD: You seem like a very interesting character, tell me about yourself, where you come from, what inspired you, how you ended up with a film at Sundance…
BRB: This is actually my fourth film at Sundance, and my third world premiere there! I went to film school at York University in Toronto in the eighties, but I dropped out of production because you had to finance your own films and I was broke and it all seemed too complicated. But then I got involved in the punk scene and some of my friends were making underground super-8 films, so I started doing that, and it eventually led me to making feature length movies.
BD: What inspired you to be a filmmaker as opposed to a photographer?
BRB: My parents were big movie buffs. They used to take my siblings and me to the drive-in every weekend. I guess I consider myself an artist who works in film, but I do love all types of film and filmmaking.
BD: What films inspired Otto?
BRB: The films I was most inspired by for Otto were Curtis Harrington’s Night Tide, Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls, and George A. Romero’s Martin. They’re all related because they’re movies about lonely misfit characters that may or may not be some kind of monster or mythic creature (a mermaid, a ghost, and a vampire, respectively). So I wanted to make the same kind of story about a zombie. I also love George A. Romero’s zombie movies, of course. In fact, I saw his new one, Diary of the Dead, this year at the Toronto International Film Festival, and I thought it was brilliant. And now Otto is playing in the same section as Diary of the Dead at Sundance, in Park City at Midnight, so I’m really thrilled about that.
BD: Otto is a very political zombie movie - is the film a reflection of your own experience or just what’s going on in the world today?
BRB: Well, I learned that from the master, because Romero’s zombie movies are extremely political. But most of my movies have some sort of political angle or they include social commentary. The world is so monumentally fucked up these days that it’s hard not to be political on some level.
BD: In addition to the political sub context, Otto is a gay zombie movie. How in your face is the gay aspect and are you afraid of it turning off some viewers?
BRB: My movies are also very personal, and I’m gay, so it’s hard for me not to make a film with gay content. But I don’t necessarily think the gay element is the most important. The idea of the film came partly from running into a lot of kids these days who say the feel like they are dead or that they feel dead inside. Porn can make people feel that way too. So can being gay, if you’re constantly dealing with disapproval and hostility. But I hope all kinds of people will be able to relate to the story.
BD: Otto sounds pretty intricate, was it difficult to sculpt such a unique story?
BRB: It was difficult. I had an amazing young artist from London, named Dr. Wunder, whom I met on the Internet, do great elaborate storyboards, which were based on the very intricate script I wrote. But then when it came to the editing process, we realized that a lot of what worked on the page didn’t work on the screen. So we had to simplify it and pare it down. It was a little painful, but necessary.
BD: Is Otto representational of somebody you know? Maybe yourself?
BRB: There’s a lot of me in Otto. I’m naturally an introvert, so I relate to his isolation. And I was kind of a sissy growing up and I got picked on and bullied a lot, just like Otto. But of course I also relate strongly to Medea, the flamboyant female filmmaker in the film, who makes a documentary about Otto.
BD: From the stills we see there are a few other interesting characters in the film besides Otto, what are their roles? How are they involved?
BRB: Well, there’s Medea Yarn, the lesbian underground filmmaker, who is inspired by the legendary, amazing experimental filmmaker Maya Deren. You see examples of Medea’s films within the film. She’s also making a political-porno-zombie movie called Up with Dead People, which stars Fritz Fritze. You see scenes from that movie in the film as well, in which he and his boyfriend, Max, become revolutionary zombies. Medea also has a brother named Adolf, who is her cameraman, and a girlfriend named Hella Bent, who is a silent film star. And then there’s Rudolf, Otto’s ex-boyfriend…
BD: We can see from the stills that the film is quite bloody, but just HOW bloody does it get?
BRB: There is some decent blood and gore, but it’s really not a horror movie per se. It’s a melancholy gay zombie movie! Somebody already called it an Emo zombie movie! I don’t know how I feel about that.
BD: How does it feel to be part of Sundance 2008? Are you nervous?
BRB: When I first attended Sundance in 1995, it was like two snow banks and Jared Leto, fresh from My So-Called Life! It was the very first year that Slamdance started. I returned the following year with my movie Hustler White, and Slamdunk, the alternative to Slamdance, had emerged. Then when I went three or four years ago with my last movie, The Raspberry Reich, it was a total zoo. Paris Hilton was there, and there were all these big Hollywood parties. So it’s kind of brutal now, but the core people who run the festival are really cool and have always been supportive of my work, so that’s the main thing. But yes, I’m nervous!
BD: Is this the first of many horror films? What’s next?
BRB: Otto was so much fun that I would actually consider doing a real “hardcore” horror or science movie in the future. The world is sort of turning into that type of scenario anyway, so maybe it’ll be a documentary!
OTTO will have its WORLD PREMIERE at January's Sundance Film Festival
