THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 26, 1995 TAG: 9501260042
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 112 lines
``YEAH,'' FILMMAKER Kevin Smith shook his head and looked down at his feet, ``my mom HAS seen the flick and she told me to clean up the language.''
Mom isn't the only one.
Twenty-four-year old Smith has delivered a surprise hit comedy with ``Clerks,'' a low-budget, black-and-white movie depicting an absurdist night in a New Jersey convenience store. The featured characters, Randal and Dante, are clerks who hate their jobs and endure their shifts by observing the crazy folks who pass through.
After causing talk, and ratings controversy elsewhere, it opens Friday at the Naro Expanded Cinema in Norfolk.
Filmed with a shoestring budget of just $22,575, the film almost became the only movie ever given the dreaded NC-17 rating for language only. These boys, as well as most of the customers, talk dirty. After an appeal by Miramax pictures, the film was given the R it needed to get wide distribution.
``I couldn't believe all the fuss,'' director Smith said. ``There is no nudity and no violence in the movie - just language. We didn't cut a damned thing to get the change. In fact, we didn't know what to cut. They never told us - never gave us even a hint.''
``Clerks'' must surely be the first movie that got made because its director sold his comic book collection to raise money.
Smith, a slightly paunchy lad wearing his baseball hat backward, sat for an interview in New York's posh Four Seasons Hotel, where a one-night stay would cost as much as several days shooting on the picture.
``The first thing I did toward getting this movie made,'' the director said, ``was to drop out of film school.'' He left Vancouver Film School after just four months, putting the remainder of his tuition money into his movie.
He returned to Leonardo, N.J., where he had worked for four years as a night-shift clerk at Quick Stop Groceries. His script was about two late-night clerks. One worked in the grocery store and the other in the video-rental store next door. ``Are they me?'' Smith repeated the question. ``Well, yeah, I can identify. I've had girlfriend troubles and I've had job troubles. I wrote the part of Randal for me to play, but when we got into filming, I realized it was impossible.''
Jeff Anderson, a high school buddy who had never acted before, got the acting job.
Desperate for cash, Smith sold his treasured Batman comic book collection for $3,000. (Now that the movie has made money, he's bought most of it back.)
The film was still in financial trouble when a flood hit the New Jersey town as an aftermath of a 1992 winter storm. The disaster turned into fortune when the Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursed him for a car lost to the flood. That money was funneled directly into the movie.
Sarla and Tarlochen Thapar, the owners of the grocery story, allowed the boys to film there late at night. The video store next door was laughingly referred to as the ``production office'' and editing took place there during the day. Scott Mosier, a friend, joined Smith as the producer and sound engineer.
``The technical things were done by friends of mine from the film school,'' Smith said. ``I was the writer and the director.'' The actors, most of whom are not actors at all, came from a nearby community college.
``I guess I've been exposed to white trash and this movie is about two steps down the ladder from that,'' he said. ``But, hey, these people are real. I worked at a gas station, too, and I know that customers are very crazy.''
He is surprised that people have seen ``Clerks.'' ``At first, bootleg video copies were being passed around - and people were looking at it. It surprised me. Still, I didn't think anyone would ever pay to see it. I saw this movie as mainly a calling card - something leading to something else. Everyone always wants to see something you've made. I would have this to show, but I didn't think it would ever even get into a theater.''
Things changed when the movie was shown at Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival in Utah. The festival is a haven for cheap, independent movies made outside the Hollywood mainstream.
Miramax, the little distribution company that made films such as ``The Crying Game'' and ``Pulp Fiction'' into hits, bought it for theatrical distribution and invested a pile of money to add a soundtrack including things like ``Kill the Sex Player'' by Girls Against Boys, ``Chewbacca'' by Supernova and ``Panic in Cicero'' by Jesus Lizard. ``The soundtrack was a real surprise,'' Smith said. ``We never would have been able to get those cuts without the new money.''
Universal Pictures has given him a whopping $5 million to make his next movie, ``Mall Rats.'' It's a modest amount by movie standards but a huge increase over the budget for ``Clerks.'' `` `Mall Rats' is all about hanging out,'' he said. ``I told them we could cut costs by having the actors stay over at my place. That way we wouldn't have to pay for hotel rooms. They told me that wouldn't be necessary. But I don't want to get spoiled by having investment money. There is an advantage to being low-budgeted and cheap. The advantage is that they leave you alone and let you do what you want to do.''
Smith's advice for fledgling moviemakers:
Stay away from film schools.
Get as many credit cards as you can.
Never make a short film - make a feature. People never look at short films.
After ``Mall Rats,'' he plans to make ``Dogma,'' a comedy about religion. ``I've always been told that I could go to a priest and tell stuff and it would be all right,'' he said. ``This movie is about stuff like that. But I won't be laughing at faith or anything. I'll be laughing at organized religion. There is a difference. After all `A Man for all Seasons' was one of my favorite movies.''
Having introduced ``snowballing'' and other colorful terms to mainstream moviegoers, he promises to heed Mama's order to cool the language in the next film. ``It'll be tamer, but not too tame,'' he said with a smile. ILLUSTRATION: MIRAMAX color photo
Director Kevin Smith, left, and producer Scott Mosier made "Clerks"
on a $22,575 budget.
B\W Photo
Jeff Anderson, left, and Brian O'Halloran starred in ``Clerks.''
by CNB