Austin Film Festival Movie Review and Interview: "Muskrat Lovely"

What ensues one would almost imagine to be a Christopher Guest mockumentary, but we know it’s a documentary, right? Truth be told, even the most astute comedic mind would probably not be able to pen the dialogue here. Not to mention the acting. With all due respect to indie ingénue Parker Posey (ok, she’s 37 now, but still…), even our favorite “teacher’s pet” would not be able to deliver the brilliant lines here with such authenticity, tinged intermittently with embarrassment, wide-eyed innocence, joy and hope. These girls and their excitement surrounding the once-a-year celebration of glamour and beauty in an otherwise pragmatic and staid society acts as the true heart of the film. As one girl states, “I wear sweatpants to school everyday.” This is the girls’ opportunity to play dress-up, to paint their nails, to show-off their beauty and talent in a community generally segregated along sexual roles. A place where knowledge of the land reigns supreme to the knowledge of how to apply mascara.

Of course, as the story unfolds, their genuine eagerness fades behind the façade of their bad grammar, lack of verbal eloquence and naïveté. Which is where this movie gave us slight pause in our ability to whole-heartedly enjoy it. The audience, us begrudgingly included, end up laughing at these people, not with them. And herein lies the problematic part of the premise of the film. Admittedly, the idea of skinning rodents on the same stage as celebrating beauty is ironic, if not disgustingly absurd. But that is what these people chose to do. It is what they know. Certainly they see some of the irony, as they admit on camera, but they could not possibly be aware of how foolish and almost barbaric they must appear to the gentrified viewing public of the film festival circuit. And that is sad.

Nicholson said that the community got a good laugh out of the documentary when it was screened for them privately; not surprisingly, however, the people of Dorchester County laughed at different parts of the film than did our audience. Look, we are not castigating Nicholson for making a film that has a laugh at the expense of the same people to whom she has sold products for her ad agency’s clients all these years, we just feel there is something bittersweet about laughing at these almost helpless folks. But, as Nicholson stated, people like being on camera and sharing their story. And, as she told us the old saying goes, exhibition is a stronger urge than inhibition. Nicholson’s movie paints a wonderful portrait of a regional story, highlighting the natural beauty of a land most of us will never visit and the connection of its residents to that land. A story that will make you laugh at its characters, root for its underdogs, recoil or gag at its violence and laugh…a lot, all as your heart goes out to them. You just might feel a little guilty about your quasi-callous amusement.

We will keep you posted on Nicholson’s success and the future projects as she tries to get “Muskrat Lovely” picked up and distributed, an actuality we believe is inevitable. After the screening, Nicholson was kind enough to give us a few minutes of her time to discuss her career and her first feature-length film. What follows is a transcript of that conversation.

So, you work in advertising as an art director?
Yes.

How long have you wanted to make films?
Not long actually. (laughing) Well, because I didn’t really ever think about it, ya know? I mean, I had a pretty good career in advertising. And I was just sort of humming along, and you know, you get higher and higher and you do more management stuff. And then everybody lost their jobs after September 11th, especially in New York, me included; so I started to do freelance and I was always interested in the idea of making a documentary. I did a lot of (XXX) and stuff in advertising. I liked the idea of making a documentary; so I just thought “maybe I should intern or something.” So I interned, ya know. I just worked for free for this small documentary place and the guys were really nice and they were working documentarians. They did a lot of educational films but they were doing this one thing about women and sex, so that was fun. And so, then, after that I took a class on film, and that was really fun. And then I thought maybe I could do something [a short] and I did one. And then I was like, “Ooh, I wanna do that again.” And then I just came across this [idea for “Muskrat Lovely”] like a year later.

How was it to go from being an art director at a very high level in advertising to being an intern?
It was actually really refreshing. It was really fun cause I like doing the work. So, I had gotten to the point where all I was doing [in advertising] was meetings, and it was really boring. So it was fun to do work again.

So is this [your nascent film career] like an Augusten Burroughs-type thing where if you can make enough money doing it you would leave advertising? Or have you thought that far down the line?
Oh, I don’t…I haven’t really thought that far. It’s just the last two years of making – cause it’s only been two years total since I started doing the research in October 2003, so it’s been two years now to go full circle, which I consider a good time. You know, I don’t consider that too slow, but mostly I’d like work and then take time off to do the film and the go back to work for awhile, and all the people I work for, they all knew that that’s what I was doing and they’ve been so nice. They’d keep an eye out for me and be like, “Oh, I know you have to go promote your film now, so we’ll cut you loose on this date.”

So you’d work on projects/campaigns that had set start/finish dates?
Yea, well, I worked on one that went from April-August of this year, which was really hard cause I had to like fit a lot of stuff in the cracks.

How long was the shoot for "Muskrat Lovely"?
Two-and-a-half weeks. We would do a lot of our outdoors shots early in the morning and had a lot of really good luck, honestly. Cause I think about it and I think how many things could have gone wrong but didn’t. Especially since I didn’t know what I was doing (laughs). And, I was really panicked about the weather. I mean, it was the middle of February and the last time I had gone down there it was frozen. There were no guys out on the water; everything was white. It wasn’t those pretty brown reeds. It was completely different when I took my scouting photos. But, luckily, when we went back down they’d had like a little thaw for about two weeks, and we just happened to be there. So it was like 50 degrees on the hottest day. It was about 30 in the morning.

Where did you stay while down there?
At the Days Inn in Cambridge (laughs). And they were totally nice cause we had to bring all that equipment in every day and back out in the morning. I would get up early and have to ask if they would make coffee at 4am, and they’d say “Oh, alright..” Cause they usually didn’t make it till 5am. They were very sweet.

Did you find the men in the community less willing to be on camera? Were they more self-conscious?
They were a little more shy.

Do you think their tentativeness came solely from shyness or do you think they were worried about being exploited?
No, no. They’re just shy. They work on the water by themselves all day long and kind of hang with their crowd. And here we come asking them to do all these silly things. They all had a sense of humor. They were all funny, and I think they wanted to be funny, so they said “ok.” But some of the guys did say “no,” but enough agreed and we got a bunch of good ones.

Were you more inspired by documentaries or mockumentaries in making your film? Because some of the scenes, especially the dance scene on the stage, seemed very “Waiting for Guffman,” what with the goofy robotic choreography, etc.
Well, that’s very flattering, cause I love Christopher Guest. I think those movies come out of a really, really…I think, actually making a mockumentary would be harder cause first of all you have to write them. So those movies are brilliant. I just got luck and found something funny. But I think it comes out of an understanding of seeing something and just…I mean, that’s like twice as much work to me, what Christopher Guest does. Because he gets it and makes it into something that is a reality, and it is so much harder.

Right, it’s like a “story-truth…”
Yea. I just have to see it and get it down. That’s all I have to do.

Obviously people are going to come out of the film having had a laugh. But do you think they will also come out feeling empathy for the characters? In that we all do things, almost ritualistically, that may be a little embarrassing if we share it with outsiders.
Yea, but I think also, well not so much that as it is, I read some rule about documentaries that says exhibition is stronger than inhibition. I mean, it’s fun to be on camera, not for me but for a lot of people (laughs). But I do hope that people have empathy. And I do hope that people approach it and think, “This can’t possible be true; this is ridiculous. I have to see what it’s about.” And by the end they just sort of walk away and say, “Oh, these girls just happen to live in a place that’s all about hunting and they just want to have a pageant. And why shouldn’t they?” But I hope people do think that cause that’s what I thought at the end.

Were you nervous that, since you obviously grew somewhat close to these folks and they were somewhat vulnerable inletting you look into their lives, not that you’d betray them but that people would be laughing at them and that they might end up just looking like a bunch of rubes, although you know they are just good country folk?
Yea. And I really worried about that when I showed the film to them. But they understood…they might not look at in the same way other people do, otherwise they wouldn’t live the way they do, because their perspective is different. But they do understand that it’s [the festival] sort of a ridiculous combination. And they took away from it the part of the film that is equally important to me as the funny part, which is that it’s really beautiful there and there is a lot of misunderstanding. If you just heard about it you would totally misunderstand the history of the place and the nature of the people who live there. You would misunderstand all these things. Hopefully the movie explains all that and makes you sort of fall in love with it. And they got that part of it, in spades.

I know you premiered at the Hampton’s Film Festival, what made you come to Austin and where do you go from here?
I like the films that Austin programs. They (AFF) have two other films in the documentary competition that I wish I had done. “Dirt,” I wish I had done that, and actually, I thought about that cause there’s a raceway. Haggerstown Raceway, near some of my relatives and I went there this summer and thought, “Wow! This would make a great film.” And “The Outdoorsmen,” I wish I had done that one, too. I just like the type of films that they program.

Do you think if you continue to make films you will be drawn solely to documentary filmmaking?
Yea, but I don’t think I’d rule anything out. I didn’t think I’d make a documentary two years ago. So I wouldn’t rule anything out.

So where do you go from here in terms of more festivals, marketing, distribution?
All of it. I hope to get it on tv. That’s what I really want. I want it to be on air. Cause that was my goal – to make something that could entertain a mass audience. It’s really fun to go to festivals, and they’re wonderful. But it’s even better when you can say to someone, “I’m on tv tonight.”

Sure. You made it for it to be seen, after all.
Exactly. That’s why screening that are big are great because there’s just that many more people that are watching and you get to see their reaction. To think you entertained someone, there’s nothing better than that.

Do you find it more rewarding than making a successful ad campaign?
No, because in some ways you can do that [tell stories] in advertising. The only problem is commerce gets in the way. There’s so many levels…

You’re selling a story instead of telling one
Yea. And you can make amazing stuff, I mean look at all the stuff Nike’s done. And I’ve done some stuff that I’m really proud of and is really fun. Stuff where my mother will call and say, “Did you see that commercial, etc…” And I’ll say, “Yea, mom, I did that.” So I just think you can do great stuff. It’s just that you don’t always get to do it exactly the way you want because there’s an approval process.

In filmmaking you don’t have to have a client to please.
Right. You don’t have a client, but I also pay for everything. (laughing) So there’s a trade-off. And you end up doing everything. I don’t have an assistant. I don’t have, I wish I had, a proofreader. So I still like advertising and still have fun doing it.

Well, thank you very much for your time. Good luck and congratulation. It’s quite an accomplishment for your first feature.
Thank you.