What Are You Working On?
Writers on their works in progress

Dan Roentsch

writer and filmmaker

Dan Roentsch (pronounced "wrench") (website) spent the 1980's and 1990's producing and directing more than thirty plays Off- and Off-Off Broadway in New York City. He is the author of the novel Face of a Stranger; the LumpenBlog! (a comic novel in blog form), and the director of a short film, Raw Power. He is the former editor of the libertarian magazine The Radical Capitalist. He lives in Manhattan.

I'm working on a lot of projects right now, but the ones that seem to demand the most of my time are, first, the LumpenBlog! This is the comic novel in blog form that I started in January of 2003, and for which I've written over a hundred thousand words. I'm also working on the print version of Book I of the LumpenBlog! tentatively titled Cruel Women, Stupid Men. LumpenBlog! online is now in the chapters that make up Book II, tentatively titled The Taste of Pure Babe.

I consider myself to be a writer primarily and a filmmaker second. As for types of writing, I seem to be spread out across novels and screenplays at the moment, and haven't really thought about whether or not I would call myself a novelist more than a screenwriter or a playwright and so on. But the most fascinating -- and soon to be most absorbing -- project is the production of my short film The McO Filter, a 30-minute look inside the disturbed and perverse psyche of a right-wing television talkshow host.

 
Your bio says you working in New York theater for years. How did you move from theater into filmmaking?

The fact that I really had nothing to show for the effort except clippings. David Mamet, in the introduction to his published screenplay for House of Games, remarks on this phenomenon in the live theatre: the phenomenon of being unable to build on one's record, to point to what one has achieved, with the knowledge that if you've done good work it will help your career. He goes on to say that when House of Games wrapped, the cast and crew had the reverse feeling: because it was a movie, they knew that people would see their work and they would benefit from the fact of their having done good work.

It's one thing to know, intellectually, that the theatrical project you're dedicating the next three months of your life to is never going to be seen again. It's another thing to spend those three months, put up a show that gets exceptional work from all the practitioners, and then see it torn down, never to be seen by anyone anywhere ever again. And it's another thing still to go through that process over and over again for more than a decade. You end up wanting to walk up to strangers on the street and grab them by the lapels and say, "But you should have been there in the summer of '87!"

At least, that's how I felt. I guess some people are temperamentally better suited for that life than I am. Sometime in the late 90s I was reading an article that quoted me from something I had written in 1985 and published in the smallest of small-circulation magazines, and I took that as a sign: anything recorded -- no matter how poorly distributed -- is alive until all the copies are destroyed. Anything live -- no matter how well-received -- dies as soon as the last curtain rings down.

So of course the answer is to make movies.

 
What led you to working on this short film?

I was watching a popular television commentator one day when he happened to make certain matter-of-fact claims that were absurdly incorrect. First he stated that all religions have a God, and specifically mentioned the "Buddhist God." When I heard that I thought he was joking, since there is no God in Buddhism, but he was dead serious -- or dead-panning.

Second, he stated that Jefferson and Madison wanted all Americans to have a personal relationship with God. This also challenged my credulity, as Jefferson and Madison were both proud Deists, which is to say they believed in an agent they called God in order to answer certain outstanding metaphysical questions, but they did not believe this agent took a personal interest in the affairs of humans. These are not obscure facts.

When he was challenged on this particular subject by his guest, he rambled on about how he had a living room full of books "by and about the founding fathers," as if filling a room up with books were the only credential he needed to publicize his outrageous fantasies as the truth.

So I thought, this guy can rationalize anything. And then I thought, what if he were stalking a rock star like some miserable fan who believes that his life will be incomplete unless he can be the center of his idol's attention? And what if the rock star turned around and sued him? Would he have her on his show? Would he challenge her even if she could prove it? What would his rationalizations be then? How would he deal with, first, wanting her to know she belongs in his life, and, second, wanting his audience to know he would never, ever have that kind of pathetic interest in anyone?

So I wrote the script. The character of the talkshow host Lamprey McO will be played by Charles Willey, who was in Raw Power, and I will direct. Right now we're in pre-production, and I anticipate shooting for ten days in March.

 
What is different about this project from previous projects?

This is my chance to get it down on film. Recorded. Forever. Live theatre is good, print is good, film is great. My opinion, but that's what's different about this. The challenge, as opposed to print, is that with a film production you not only have to plan and organize for the aural and visual, but you have to organize a cast and crew and they all have to be in top form unless you want it to be all about giving yourself a migraine. Which I think I feel coming on anyway.

We live at a great time right now, when the Internet is making digital distribution accessible to more and more people, so it seems kind of lame to say that I kinda sorta hope that this will be distributed or screened someday because I know that, by hook or by crook, it will be.

 
What's next?

I expect production -- principal photography -- to be complete by June, and post to be complete by the end of the summer. The Nugget Brothers will most likely score the track. One of the Nugget Brothers, Kevin Murphy, will be production and post-production sound guru as well.

Links

Dan's bio on his website.

Interview on the Erotic Authors Association site

Dan as he appears on on the Flork Literature Map

See more What Are You Working On? interviews.

published 24 Jan 06 on Too Beautiful. email copyright 2006 Mark Pritchard, Bernal Heights, San Francisco