Looking for Cormac is a 33 1/3 minute, documentary that follows three filmmakers as they travel across the South West in search of the well known, solitaire author Cormac McCarthy, author of All the Pretty Horses and the very well known No country for Old Men, due to the success of the Coen’s Brother’s adaptation. So, I have found myself looking for Cormac as well and interviewed Eric Davies, one of the filmmakers of Looking for Cormac.
"We never thought we would find him"
Art Nouveau Magazine: You three were involved in the making of Looking for Cormac; how did that happen; and when?
Eric Davies: We made the film twelve years ago, in 1995. This was when Cormac was still slightly unknown. His books had been reprinted by Vintage, and the three of us, we were friends, I knew John from Japan and Jim from New York. We were all trying to write - we had a writing group that met infrequently and always dissolved into more of a drinking group. So, we got to talking – just like it says in the film…ANM: Which books of his made you decide to do your documentary, or had the biggest influence on you at the time, if there is one?
ER: I think Blood Meridian was our favorite book it was so big and so bleak and violent. Outer Dark and Suttree to a lesser degree. I think it is important to say that we all felt like we had ‘discovered’ this guy, the next Faulkner or whatever they were calling him back then.
ANM: Had you been to Texas before shooting your documentary?
ER: Yeah, I think I had been there, for work, doing some film research on the Kennedy Assassination. I am not sure about the other guys. Jim has since won some awards down in Texas for his paintings, coincidentally.ANM: What was your motivation(s)? Knowing the man as very reclusive,
didn’t you think it was going to go to a dead end, a little risky, or simply provocative?
ER: That was part of the draw – the reclusive thing. I mean, truthfully, and without robbing the film of any real motivation, we never thought we would find him. But, when you look around at other great writers/recluses – Salinger, Pynchon – isn’t that part of the attraction? They seem almost mythic, these writers who are hiding out, ignoring the world. Could be we were pathetic fans, I don’t know, but I do know that if we had found him, we did not have any idea what we were going to say.
ANM: Where you aware of the ignorance of the people you have met through your travel?
I mean they didn’t have a clue, who Cormac McCarthy was.
ER: Well, it felt like Cormac McCarthy was pretty unknown at this point. Much to his chagrin, I am sure. English Majors knew who he was, but the average guy on the street had never heard of him. So finding anyone, I mean anyone outside that community of writers and readers, who knew anything about Cormac McCarthy was a real challenge. We even interviewed some other authors – they did not make the final cut – and they were also somewhat in the dark when it came to Mr. McCarthy. What was really shocking, and was really the downfall of the project was how, in 1995, few people in the FILM world knew about McCarthy or cared about him. Since the film is actually one big homage to this man’s writing, it would have helped if everyone we showed it to had known who the f#@k he was. I suppose if we had made it NOW, things would be different.ANM: It really became fascinating to watch your documentary as we really have the feeling we are stepping in one of Cormac McCarthy’s novels, with the number of characters running into your quest, referring to the sequence with the conversation or I’d rather say the monologue of the homeless man, who imagines where Cormac could be living, there’s a lot of irony in it. How did you handle that?
ER: Well, we intentionally followed Cormac’s own course through America – and we visited places that he had written about – like Knoxville – but we were overwhelmed by the random characters we met. Really shocked. And, we did not set out to instigate all of those interactions. That homeless man, he appeared out of nowhere, and I cannot really say we understood it or understood the irony of the situation. Nor can I remember when we felt it – that amazing feeling like we were inside a McCarthy novel – but by the time we reached the border of Texas, things had started to get really weird. You know if you have read his books, esp. his latest book, being inside the world he writes about is not necessarily the safest place to be. But we just kept shooting, letting the camera roll.ANM: What was the general feeling during and specifically after 2 weeks of shooting for the 3 of you?
ER: We were lost in America. It is a big place, and there are so many sad and beautiful stories. We took to drinking a lot of whiskey at the end of the day.
ANM: Why choose that format for the filming, a question of budget, or simply an exercise of style?
ER: Budget. I owned the camera – a consumer-quality Hi-8 camera. Radio Shack mics. We took the color out mostly because it looked better, once we hit the post process. I am an editor now, and most of the time I know how to make something look better than it is.ANM: Adding more reality?
ER: It is all reality – although people on YouTube have accused us of faking our run in with the law, when the police descended on us in El Paso. If only we had the wherewithal or the resources to think up something like that.ANM: Combining the influence of Easy Rider and On the Road, it’s clearly a road-movie, but there’s also another dimension to it. In French (I’m French, by the way), we say "cinema-photographie", when we have lot’s of landscapes, the film gives us time to absorb the surroundings, like Jim Jarmusch movies, ( Dead man, Down by Law), right?
ER: I hope so, that sounds maybe a little better and a little more deliberate than the film actually is. The music had a lot to do with it, the pace I mean. Most of what you hear was the banjo, played by John McKay. He had never played the banjo before, but he knows a guitar backwards and forwards. Once we got back, and heard the banjo music that John had improvised, we knew we had the soundtrack. The music really lends itself to the images of the passing landscape. And we had hours of landscapes to choose from.ANM: After the huge success of No Country for Old Men, at the cinema, did you or do you have many people coming to you?
ER: We have been interviewed by a Spanish journalist, (based in Madrid) and we have had sporadic inquiries through YouTube (most of that unwanted interest), but aside from that – not much. One PBS producer considered incorporating the film in a series on American Authors. A professor in Ohio has used the film to teach McCarthy to his students. I guess the film has the same steady stream of interest it has always had (You used to be able to rent it from some of the eclectic video stores in New York City), and that is because people love Cormac McCarthy. They love his writing. I suppose if we were more adept at self-promotion we would have made a bigger deal of the film, riding on Cormac’s own success… like re-releasing the film on DVD, with liner notes, and a bonus track, and stuff like that. Getting a foreign distributor, that’s what we’ll do.*(I think I mentioned, a producer and friend of mine met Mr. McCarthy and gave him a copy of the film, back in 2002. He had no comment.)
ANM: With an honorable success awarded at a video festival in the United States (before the movie No Country For Old Men came out), did it change things career wise? For the 3 of you.
ER: Well, it did change things, but we did not become big stars. For me, as an editor of films and documentaries, I have to say Looking for Cormac has gotten me more work than anything else I have ever done. Lots of starving filmmakers find it inspirational, and they ask me to help them with their films. Of course, they have no money, so that kind of success is tempered by reality. Jim became an editor as well, after being an Art Director for years – I think the film helped him along to that career choice, but he insists he had no idea what we were up to in Texas (I should mention, Jim Collier has also had one of his screenplays optioned, so I think he knew exactly what we were up to, and just used the experience to become a better writer). John McKay has an album planned, as well as another film – based on the long-lost music of Jack Foy, a sort of Dylanesque musician, and another mythic figure – but John was already a success in the music business, and we had nothing to do with that.So, going backwards, back in the late 90’s, we all tried to move past the ‘fame’, and the awards (film festivals are a sham actually) and we attempted to make a follow-up picture on the writer Madison Smart Bell, and bars in America. That film hit a bit of a snag when we drank the budget. We then worked apart on various films, and real life projects – like relationships and careers and families – but we hope to get back on the road someday. ‘Make another picture’ as John says.
Just so you know the version of Looking for Cormac up on YouTube is the enigmatic re-cut, done by Jim Collier. Like a re-mix. Someday soon, we hope to put the original version up. Hopefully before The Road comes out as a movie and the world rediscovers Cormac McCarthy all over again.
ANM: I would like to say I really enjoyed your film, I find it exquisite! Well done!
ER: THANKS. Cheers.To find more information about Looking For Cormac please click here.