An Intellectual Independent Primer

First-time filmmaker Shane Carruth provokes senses with heady and brave feature

Shane Carruth achieved the perfect dream for an independent filmmaker. In 1999, at the age of 27, and with no film background, he raised $7,000, made a feature, submitted it to the Sundance Festival, and not only got in, but won the Grand Jury Prize. Though not unheard of (Kevin Smith and Robert Rodriguez managed to do the same), it remains a remarkable feat.
Primer tells the story of two ambitious engineers - Abe (David Sullivan) and Aaron (played by Carruth) - who, while working toward one goal, accidentally stumble onto a different, more profound and disturbing one: the potential for reversing the flow of time within an enclosed space, i.e., time travel. The result forces the two friends to make drastic choices.
Tandem talked to Shane Carruth, 32, when he was in Toronto.

You're an engineer and a mathematician. I'm not. So I have to admit that following the logical process in Primer was not easy. Did you do that on purpose?
"Yeah, you know, my favourite films are the ones where I'll see and I'll feel like I got a core part of the story. If I have to take another look, I'll find that there was more information in there - there was some other stuff going on that I didn't realize. So, I mean, I wanted to make a film that is not, you know, completely simplistic and it's not ever really summed up but the information is in there if people are interested in it. I would hate the fact that people think that I'm trying to make it complicated. I know that the film is difficult - it's difficult for everybody. It's not, you know, high-brow or whatever. I just hope that if people are into that sort of thing - because that's what I'm into - they'll get it."

Don't get me wrong; the film works. I'm just saying that as a viewer I couldn't let up or I'd miss everything...
"That is true, yeah. I've seen people that would walk in like five or six minutes late and then it's like, 'ah, just forget it. I'll come back later, it's too much'."

It's basically a get-rich scheme for the characters, but there's a darkness that comes out in both of them. What happens?
"Thematically what I was interested in is the idea that you can have these two guys, or group of people, that have a very conventional relationship up front. They have, you know, some amount of trust between them, and, because of the introduction of this power or this device, and changing what's at risk, you wind up with them in a position where they're not as fairly good or evil but they're not able to be around each other because there's simply too much at stake. There's too much to trust the other person with. I mean, when the other person has the ability to alter your life in a way that you may not even be sure about, and puts you in a position where you're feeling like you're in someone else's path, you don't know your position in the scheme of things. To me, that's something at risk that's worse than maybe physical pain. And so thematically that's what I was interested in. But I mean, with these guys, they're presented with this power, and it's very much how they both react to it. You know, the very first question to me is so easy. It's: these guys are technical experts but maybe ethically not so much. They haven't had to deal with the ethical implications or morals of what they're doing. And so, the first thing, even without talking about it, they're making money. They're making money on the stock market to survive. And, to me, it's: what is the next thing you would want once you have this thing that you've been striving for your life, for your whole life, what's next? And so, for one of these guys, it's a reputation, it's a name, he was perfecting this one moment so that he's perceived to be a better hero, that he can somehow save the day. And to me these guys are just blindsided by the fact that they're given the ability to pursue their basic instincts."

This is your first film. Not only do you write it, and you directed it, but you're also in front of the camera. That shows a lot of confidence.
"Well, the thing is, I think it seems like that now but at the time, it wasn't a film that was going to Sundance, or a film that's thankfully getting distribution. It was something that we were shooting in my parents' house for no money. And so, at the time it didn't seem like that. At the time it was just a necessity. You know, I had done some casting calls, I tried out over 100 guys for the role, and it was a very bad process. I wasn't offering to pay them until I was getting what I paid for, and I was very worried that these guys that were showing up were expecting who knows what. And unfortunately they weren't really preparing - they were reading directly off the page, even when I had them come back a second or third time, and, I couldn't tell anything about their performance from that, and that made me nervous. But what also made me nervous was the fact that, if, one of these guys, if we shoot for two weeks or three weeks and then they decide they want to do something else - I can't re-shoot that. I don't have the money to do that, so, I became very nervous about limiting the number of people that could ruin the whole thing if they left, and so I just decided to step into that role. I'd memorized half the script myself anyways. I kind of had been performing it for these guys as they were trying out to give them an idea of what we were looking for. And so, it felt like I'm one less person I had to call every day."

And would you do that again?
"You know, before this year, I would have said no, because I'm much more interested in writing and directing, but, kind of seeing how much credit actors get for the films they're in, I don't know. To be honest, if I can play a small role and not break the film entirely, I'll probably try and do it, because for one, it puts you in the mind-set of the actor. It makes conversations much easier when you're right there in it, performing with them; you kind of know what's going on. You know what the interaction is, as opposed to kind of observing it and getting the points from that. So, I don't know. I don't have any delusions of being a big actor or trying to be an actor or whatever but, I might try it."
Is this now your full-time gig or are you going back to engineering?
"I don't know. I think it probably has everything to do with whether people decide they want to watch the film when it's released. I mean, if it does poorly, I think I'll be in a position where the only way I can pursue another film would be kind of as a hired gun on another project, and I don't think I'd be very good at that role. So maybe I'll have to go back to engineering. But if it does well then you know, it's a different story."

Do you have children? Are you married?
"No. I'm not."

I'm asking because what troubled me a bit is that your character is married with a small child. Yet his actions show no concern for the family.
"There's very little deleted from the film that's 78 minutes, and there probably could have been an 81-minute version. That's about what's missing, and it's mainly because of technical problems that it was deleted. But there's a small portion that kind of talks about, or hints at, why it is that his life is different from Abe's. And these are guys that are roughly physically the same. They're intellectually roughly the same, and yet one of them has a house and a family, the unofficial leader of these guys in the garage, whereas the other one is in an apartment, has no family. And, there was a portion, a 45-second segment about Aaron, that he got married mainly because he had gotten his girlfriend pregnant. And so, he married her and they had a family and because of that they bought a house and because of that he has the garage, and it kind of all stems from this one moment. But when he finds himself in a situation where he's not necessarily walking away because he has a double who is fulfilling that family man role, it's just for the first time he has the ability to say out loud what it is that he wants, that he wants to step away from that. And I know it's not pretty, and it doesn't make him a great, nice guy but I do think, at least from my experience, from some of the people that I've had some long talks to, I do think it's a possibility that that character exists. I know that I've met that guy before."

As an engineer, is what you're portraying possible?
"You know, everything until we start saying it affects time is based on real stuff. I mean, super-conductors, exhibiting dia-magnetism in objects that aren't magnetic or metal - that exists. It usually takes machines the size of a house and they have to be cooled to near absolute-zero, and our guys are using the combination of different things to make it happen at room temperature, and I mean, I actually got to go to Boston last week to talk to some guys from MIT specifically about what these guys are doing in there. And that was kind of a fun conversation because it's stretched, but it's based on real stuff. So yeah, up until we start saying that it affects time, it's pretty close to what is out there."

The film lends itself to a sequel.
"Yeah, you know, that's the thing. I've always thought of it as kind of a creation story. By the end of the film we've got two guys that know how to build this device - know how to have this power, and yet they're pretty much at odds with each other, and one will clearly have the problem of becoming obsessed with a certain moment. But the thing is, the creation story is what's interesting to me. What comes next is more of like action films - there's not really anything thematically interesting that I can see in it."

Primer is currently playing in local cinemas.

Publication Date: 2004-12-05
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=4689