Horror Business: Steve Mitchell on Directing Larry Cohen Documentary, KING COHEN
Nick Taylor
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King Cohen is a fantastically fun documentary that tells the larger than life story of the prolific writer, directer, and producer Larry Cohen, the creative genius behind such beloved horror classics as It’s Alive, The Stuff and Q – The Winged Serpent.
In addition to being a charming and humorous romp into 70’s genre Hollywood, what lies at the heart of the film is Larry Cohen’s fierce irrepressibility as an artist. Throughout the course of his career, Cohen was a man who wouldn’t take no for an answer; a cliche statement that gets thrown around a lot, but trust me when I say that in the case of Larry Cohen, it’s completely true. The lengths Cohen went to protect his artistic integrity and make the movies he wanted to make were incredibly ambitious and in some instances, borderline insane.
Cohen’s iron will and resourcefulness is best articulated through the film’s exploration of his guerrilla filmmaking techniques which were outrageous, fascinating and completely reckless. For one shot, Cohen had a taxicab drive down a sidewalk in New York City at full speed in the middle of the day with no permits. Despite the danger, the philosophies behind his guerrilla filmmaking approach are infectiously inspiring and in this regard, the movie acts as a priceless ‘how to’ guide for aspiring (and daring) genre filmmakers on a budget.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPblr7nKaYw]
Featuring interviews with John Landis, Joe Dante, Martin Scorsese, JJ Abrams, Rick Baker, Mick Garris, Ryan Turek, and a particularly hysterical exchange with Fred Williamson, King Cohen is a fun watch and a special treat for horror fans. We caught up with director Steve Mitchell (you may know him as the writer of Chopping Mall) to hear all about his directorial journey behind his documentary feature debut.
Before we do, here are Steve Mitchell’s 3 keys to documentary filmmaking:
- Learn how to interview. Being a good documentary filmmaker means being a good interviewer. Learn from the best: Steve recommends Playboy interviews, and (despite recent news) old Charlie Rose interviews.
- Characters are everything. The secret to doing any effective storytelling is great characters. Even in a non-fiction documentary. Make sure your documentary has a strong central character then use his life story to illustrate the many sides of his character.
- Boredom = death. Documentary filmmaking is a marathon, not a sprint, which is why it’s critically important to choose a subject that you will be interested in long term. Without sustained enthusiasm, a project is in danger.
Dread Central: Hey Steve! King Cohen was so much fun! I really enjoyed it a lot. How’d you come to do a documentary about Larry Cohen?
Steve Mitchell: Well, I was working at Image Entertainment doing DVD special features commentaries and things like that, and one day, for some reason I was looking at Larry’s IMBD page. I knew Larry’s credits pretty well; I was a fan of his work, but I was surprised by the number of movies in his filmography that I didn’t know. Then I realized that a interesting thing about Larry is that while he was busy doing his movies, even though a lot of the checks came from studios or distributors to finance the pictures, he was making them very independently. He was making them Larry’s way. He was also doing a lot of mainstream work at the same time … and I said, “I don’t know anybody that has ever had a career quite like his.” And that’s where the idea took hold. It took a while to get us in production. Getting any movie financed is a tough road. I tried crowdfunding–I said, “Oh, this is great! You put your trailer up and you offer them posters or t-shirts or coffee cups and then they give you money and you make your movie.” Well, I was spectacularly bad at it. And I didn’t know anything.
DC: What did you try, Kickstarter?
SM: I was working Indiegogo. There’s a whole skill set to that that I was completely unaware of. But the idea was always in the back of my mind and then eventually, I had the very good fortune of meeting Matt Verboys who was one the co-owners of La La Land Records, a soundtrack label that was I was a customer of. We were introduced at Comic-con and he said, “Are you the Steve Mitchell that co-wrote Chopping Mall?” So, we became pals. We were kindred spirits; we liked a lot of the same movies … At one point, he said he and his partner had been toying around with the idea of doing things other than just music, and because my head is made out of cream cheese, it took awhile for it to penetrate, but finally I said, “Oh! maybe Matt might be the guy.” So, we had lunch and I mentioned I wanted to do a documentary about Larry Cohen, and he was already interested the second I finished the end of ‘Cohen.’ By the end of the lunch he said, “I don’t know how we’re going to do it but we’re going to do it.” He was right, and here we are–albeit a couple of years later.
DC: Very cool…So I feel that a sign of a good documentary is that it’s typically suggestive, where people extract their own meaning. From your perspective, what was the core story at the heart of King Cohen?
SM: The thing about documentaries is that there is no script. You don’t preplan it and then go out and get it. Maybe Ken Burns does, on some level, but he’s retelling history. I’m basically creating a portrait of a character and I knew that Larry’s filmography would be interesting, I listened to him enough on commentary tracks and feature ads, and someone wrote a book about him–So I said, “This guy is interesting.”
But you don’t know how interesting somebody is until you actually meet them, talk with them, discuss their career, and interview them. So, my big takeaway (and I got this pretty quickly) was that Larry was an interesting character. Not just an interesting filmmaker from a credit standpoint, from the amount of scripts he wrote and movies he made, but an interesting character … Getting to know Larry was interesting, but I had no idea the form the movie was going to take, other than that I would use the spine of his career to attach aspects of who he was.
After we did all the interviews, I said “Okay, my idea here is to create a portrait of an idiosyncratic creative filmmaker and writer, using his career as chapters or examples along the way.” So what my editor Kai Thomasian and I tried to do was to use each film that we cover, or each example we use, to reveal something about Larry. That was essentially our script. We were using the spine of his career to build a portrait of who he is.
DC: It sounds like you were really strategic in how you edited, using every single movie to reveal something different about Larry, to the point where, collectively, you paint this very large portrait of this very fascinating person. It made for a pretty interesting audience journey.
SM: I’ve actually had some criticism that I went from A to Z, but the chronology of someone’s life will help tell your story. The chronology of someone’s life shows what they were like when they were young—if they were stupid or silly—and then when they get to the latter point of their career, you see a certain amount of wisdom based on experience. In my case, two interesting things happened. One, Larry’s still the same crazy madman he was when he was young, mentally. He’s still the same creative person with tons of ideas … He represents a certain era of filmmaking. Martin Scorsese talks about the renegade spirit … Larry is a force of nature. He is very strong-willed; he is relentless in his pursuit of anything. He does not concede anything in a discussion. He’s right and he’s going to use his battering ram intelligence to whip you into submission.
Part of why Larry’s movies are Larry’s movies is that he would not accept the idea of not being able to do something, especially if someone told him he couldn’t … Larry never worried about anything other than getting the movie made absolutely the best way he thought he could make it. That included one of his superpowers–the ability to think on his feet and take advantage of something in the moment … You can do that more easily today, because of the equipment. I shot some of King Cohen with my smartphone. What happens is that you have the technology at your fingertips so you can make films and YouTube stuff with very little gear. But you have to have the ability to know how you can do something on the fly that will serve the story that you’re telling.
That’s part of what makes Larry’s movies interesting, especially Hell Up in Harlem, because he was just running around New York City like a crazy man, shooting stuff, when and where he wanted. I don’t know if the movie makes a whole lot of sense, but that’s partly why it’s so damn enjoyable. Black Caesar was actually a script, but Harlem he was making up mostly on the fly … Larry was unique, in that he was able to think on his feet the way he could. That’s primarily because he’s a writer.
DC: I’m sure that the wealth of material was overwhelming, in terms of what you shot and what you could have shot. Seems there’s enough about Larry Cohen’s life to fill a ten-hour Ken Burns special if you really wanted to. How did you approach putting this into a feature-length documentary? In other words, what were the key themes that you wanted to organize the film around?
SM: The key themes that I wanted to organize the film around were the films. I had fifteen hours of footage with Larry alone, then there were all the other people I’ve talked to. I had a lot of raw footage.
There are a number of great stories that I couldn’t use because Larry is long-winded and says everything twice. That’s not a bad thing … I’ve interviewed people where you’re sitting there trying to drag stuff out of them because they just don’t have anything compelling or interesting to say … Being a good documentary filmmaker means being a good journalist, being a good interviewer and listening, is very key. I learned how to interview by reading the old Playboy magazines … Back in the day, they were the gold standard. Watching guys like Charlie Rose when he was on the air, he was an excellent interviewer.
When you do a documentary, you’re not just a guy with a camera–that’s what a cameraman does. I really want to emphasize that. I didn’t take a writing credit for the movie, but I did essentially write the movie. I wrote it in the editing room. I also created hundreds and hundreds of questions with tremendous attention to detail whenever I could, to try and extract interesting answers.
As a filmmaker you have to listen to the answer because there might be a follow-up. They might knock out a couple questions you were going to ask down the line … Your job is to be a storyteller in terms of getting the story, not making the story–there’s a difference. Getting the story is easier some days than others.
With Larry it was a breeze. The first day we shot with Larry … I asked him my first question and he was all answers. I could’ve gone out to a three-hour lunch and come back and he still would have been talking. Sometimes you interview people–famous people, interesting people–and you can’t get two or three interesting thoughts from them … You have to be prepared for that as well. You have to really work on what I call the “hunting and gathering” of information.
DC: If we could shift gears a little bit, what do aspiring documentarians need to know if they want to enter this business?
SM: To be cynical, it’s great if you know people who have money. No one wants to write a check in the film business. When I was at Image, I went to the guys at the front office with this idea, and they said, “Oh, sounds really interesting, why don’t you make it, bring it back and maybe we’ll acquire it.” People want you to spend ten dollars and then they’ll pay you one dollar for it.
One of my best friends asked me in the beginning about King Cohen, “Steve, do you think anyone really gives a shit about Larry Cohen?” And I said “Yeah, I do. I’m the audience. If it can be interesting to me then I know it’ll be interesting for other people.” So, you always have to choose the project based on your enthusiasm for the material and/or the subject. This a marathon, not a sprint … Being interested in the project over the course of the project is a big issue too. I remember interviewing a director about a movie and he just said, “This is where I got bored with it.” Well, you know, I could feel that in the picture. You can’t allow yourself to be bored.
The secret to doing any storytelling is great characters. Larry Cohen is a great character. Luckily, he was surrounded by other great characters. That all contributes to getting through the project. This kind of work is too damn hard not to put all your energy and your passion into it. I never stopped caring about what I was doing with this movie. Great movies are made by somebody crafting a story, telling a story well. And I think that’s the big decision anybody has to make before they embark on any project, much less a documentary project.
Also, don’t lose sight of your original idea, and do everything you can to make that happen in a deep and personal way. Again, I got lucky with Larry. Then I continued to get lucky with all the other people that I talked to. But at the end of the day, this is a movie about a certain character, and he’s an interesting character. That’s the trick. If there’s anything that anybody extracts from anything I just said, it all starts with character. The character is the one thing in storytelling, fiction or nonfiction, that never changes.
DC: What did it take to get Larry on board?
SM: I knew someone who got me Larry’s home phone number … He said, “Come on over to my house.” So, I went to the famous house, and I said, “I’m interested in doing this project,” and he said, “Well, I’m very flattered.” And he said that if I could get it financed, and we could get started, he would help me in any way he could. He was true to his word, right from the get-go. I didn’t have to sell him on it … I’ve read a couple of the reviews where people said I didn’t bring a lot of style to the movie, and I beg to differ, because my style was to let the subject be the style of the movie. Sometimes the best thing you can do as a storyteller is not get in the way.
DC: There are so many great quotes in this movie, I was writing them down after a while. What were the most compelling Larry quotes or philosophies for you?
SM: That little bit at the end where he’s saying you have to believe in your movie and not let anybody tell you otherwise, was a very key thing for me … You just have to believe in yourself and you have to believe in your ideas. I still believe at the end of the day, you have to believe in what you’re doing, otherwise it’s too damn hard to run a marathon.
I’ll tell you one thing that’s interesting about my experience with this. When we took the picture to Montreal for Fantasia, that was our first festival screening and I felt pretty good about the picture. Enough people that I know and trust to tell me the truth were saying how much they liked the picture and I was feeling confident–not cocky, confident–and I said, “It’ll be okay.” Then ten minutes before we were about to show the movie, the thought hit me, “What if they don’t like it?” Because it doesn’t matter what I think, it doesn’t matter what my friends say (even if I trust their judgement), the audience is going to tell you if the movie is any good. the audience is going to tell you if it’s funny. I didn’t think the movie was as funny as it is until the audience started watching it … about half an hour into the picture, Michael Moriarty, who was sitting in front of me, turns and he goes, “It’s wonderful, it’s wonderful”… and I’m going “Okay, maybe we’re in good shape.” But you don’t know … the audience is arbiter of everything. It doesn’t matter what the critics think, it doesn’t matter what your friends think, the audience will tell you if a movie is good.
DC: So for filmmakers, there are so many books and courses out there and most of them are bullshit. Were there any resources that were particularly helpful in getting this project off the ground?
SM: For screenwriting, the William Goldman book, Adventures in the Screen Trade. The other book that’s great is Sidney Lumet’s Making Movies. If you want to know how to make movies, read that book … If you’re a young filmmaker and you want to be in this business, don’t think because you can take your smartphone out and make a movie that you can make a movie. You have to know something about art and about life, and technology … Sidney Lumet is one of my personal gods, I’m a big fan of his and I wish I had met him, he said that at the end of the day, remember you’re the boss. You get all the credit or you get all the blame.
DC: Any tips on how to best pitch a documentary project to producers?
SM: I do think in general, the less you say is usually better, because if you start to explain it, they have a chance to lose their place … Documentary pitching isn’t any different from fiction pitching except you want to bait them and hook them enough for them to start asking you questions. If they’re just sitting there and politely listening, you’re dead. And if you speak too long, you’re dead. Because most people have ADD and if you’re sitting in an office, the magnetic pull of your smartphone is greater than the stranger in front of you most of the time. So, if you’re the stranger in front of that other guy or gal on the other side of that desk, you’ve got to hook them. You’ve got to say, “I want to do a movie about…” In the case of my partner Matt, all I had to say was “Larry Cohen” and we were off to the races.
DC: Steve, this is was a whole lot of fun and extremely informative. Thank you again!
SM: My pleasure. This was fun for me, too!
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