Mocking the Doc (with bells on)

While two out of about 400 (well, three if you count an ingenious German short film about elder care, retirement, apprenticeships and zombie killing that I can’t for some reason remember the title of) cannot be considered a trend, I still think it is worth pointing out that a couple of the most popular titles to be discovered by audience during the opening weekend just happened to be mock documentaries. The British import Morris: A Life with Bells On had its North American premier to a virtual sellout, while Sundance favorite Paper Heart packed both of its houses nearly beyond the breaking point.

Personally, this is not a format I think works particularly well for a full 90-plus minutes. With rare exception (last year’s horror double-team Cloverfield and Quarantine both come to mind), films that go in this direction usually tire me out. You just can’t sustain the gag, and after a while it almost always begins to feel like the energy has waned and my attention span has wavered right along with it.

Not so with this pair. The former, still looking for a domestic distributor (and certainly is deserving of one), revolves around the trials and tribulation of an English Morris Dancer (a peculiar folk dance involving hankies and wooden sticks), while the latter stars (and was written by) Charlyne Yi and revolves around her sudden romance with movie star Michael Cera during her filming of a documentary all about love.

They’re a crazy little pair with just about nothing in common, yet both are made so skillfully that if you didn’t know they were fake going in you’d almost think (especially in regards to Paper Heart) they were 100-percent real. The casts for both films are decidedly game, staying in character even when the central action has nothing to do with them at all. They are perfect examples of how to do this genre proud, and I think if general audiences are given they chance both of them might end up doing reasonably well as far as ticket and DVD sales are concerned.

I actually had the opportunity to sit down with Charles Thomas Oldham, writer and star of Morris, on the eve of his premiere and our free-flowing (and quite funny) conversation lasted almost a full 40-minutes before we both came to realization we should probably end or we might end up sitting on couches at the W Hotel for the rest of the afternoon. While I’m not going to reprint the entire thing, I liked the film so much I’d be remiss for not at least transcribing some of the better bits.

So many comedies don’t come close to meeting expectations, so to encounter one that pole vaults right over the top of them it’s the least I can do to spend a couple of minutes urging you all to check it out. It’s part of the job, after all, and I have to say that, if it wasn’t, I’m not entirely sure I’d love to doing it near as much energetically do.

It’s a big night. Are you excited about your North American premiere? “You always get nervous because, it’s your baby. In the case of Morris, [I’ve] lived it and breathed it for three years. Suddenly you’re putting it in front of audiences and you don’t know what’s going to happen. You think, ‘Why didn’t you laugh at that bit? I liked that line, I thought it was funny.’ Then they laugh at a different bit you didn’t expect and you think to yourself, okay, fine, whatever, I get it. At a certain point you just have to let it go. The audience decides for you if you got the job done, hopefully for us they’ll think we did.”

Are British comedies better than their American counterparts? Do you worry that British humor just doesn’t connect for audiences over here or is that a cliché argument not worthy discussing? “I’m thinking of what you’re saying there and, naturally, I would always think of Frasier, not just because I’m in Seattle but because it is my favorite comedy. That’s the best English Farce outside of Fawlty Towers that’s ever been written. It’s so well done, and I keep on watching [that] and thinking this is so amazing, and yet it’s so English, and yet it is also so popular over here [in America]. I think any comedy that is done well, and especially if it is not nasty and it is done genuinely, I think it will translate, doesn’t matter if it is British, American or something else. Good comedy makes people laugh, and I [think] we made good comedy.”

What were you thinking when writing this? Did you always know you were going to act in it as well as write the script? “It was actually as calculated and as cynical as that. I’ve been an actor for a while now but I came to acting quite late. I used to be an investment banker and a lawyer and then I discovered I wanted to wear tights and makeup and all of that. So I went to drama school quite late and graduated at 32, which is a tough time to leave especially when you’ve got red hair and are 6’3”, and I was really struggling.”

“At the same time, though, I was able to start doing really well doing voiceover work. I’m very lucky to this day to being voiceover work, but you get to the point where you have to make a choice, and that’s to be doing voiceovers all the time or, in the back of your mind, you say I’ll put all this success here to good use and write something for myself to star in. I’ll give myself the chance no one else is giving me. And so, using the Noel Coward school of writing and the like, I wrote myself the biggest part, cast myself in the lead role and then had an absolute ball. It’s that simple.”

Why Morris Dancing? Where did that come from? “There’s something about Morris that just appealed. We knew we could make it for cheaply. But, basically, at the end of the day I just thought it was funny. I look at Morris Men and can’t help but think, yeah, that’s funny.”

But how do you prepare for a role like this? How do you become a Morris Folk Dancer? “This is your forensic cross-examination quality because you’ve uncovered my deep dark secret. The truth is I lived with a Morris family when I was 16. When my parents went to Australia I stayed in the U.K. and went to stay with my next door neighbors. I went from a typical, British Middle Class with a small ‘c’ and not particularly artistic family [to] a very, very folksy, artsy, energetic family surrounded by artists of all types doing Morris Dancing in the backyard during BBQs. It was the most extraordinary different world, and I think was assembling nuggets [back then].”

“Obviously I wasn’t writing a film, but there was something about the Morris world that was permeating through me and I channeled that for the script.”

Were you surprised at all at the cast (Naomie Harris, Derek Jacobi, Greg Wise, Ian Hart, Dominique Pinon) you were able to assemble for this film? “Completely and utterly. I get such a kick rattling off all the names. Given that we were paying them a 150 Pounds a day – everybody got that, it was a flat rate – it was absolutely extraordinary that we were able to get the talent we did, especially to that extent. If I never work again, I can die happy after having made this having acted beside Derek Jacobi and Greg Wise and Ian Hart.”

Ian Hart is such a criminally underrated actor. I mean, funny enough, over here he’s not so much, but back home he is. I mean, he [was] in Dirt over here and that was a much bigger hit in America than it was in [England]. But he’s just the most outstanding scouter, and he’s fantastic just to have around. I love telling the story about when we were shooting one day [outside] and we had about 200 extras there and the kids, as they always do, want your autograph afterwards I felt like a total fool. I kept looking at them saying, ‘Actually, you want his autograph,’ and they’d be like, ‘No we don’t, we want your autograph. You’re the star. Why?’ So then I’d be like, ‘Harry Potter?’ and the lines would suddenly go like whooom! and my whole line evaporated. But he was great; he stood there for at least an hour signing autographs and pictures for the kids. It was great.”

Sounds like you almost wanted to pinch yourself a little bit. “Yeah. Maybe. I mean, like Naomie Harris flew in immediately after the Pirates of the Caribbean 3 premiere – and I’m betting her agent had no idea why she wanted to do it – and she jumped on a plane and she was here filming the beach scenes the following day. Freezing, just freezing her backside off on a cold Dorset beach, and she didn’t complain, knew her lines inside and out, and was just a total delight to work with. Same thing with Dominique Pinon, who is a hero if mine, he was just mental and brilliant. It really was a real master class of actors. We were so incredibly fortunate. It was great.”

What was your immediate reaction when you got a call from SIFF asking to premiere your film? “When we got picked for SIFF it was really out of the blue and it was like, wow, that’s f**king fantastic. We were beyond thrilled, and it was a great opportunity for us to come to the States and hopefully sell it, but there is that moment when you step off the plane and think, how are people going to respond to a film about Morris Dancing? Are they going to like it? All that goes through your mind. But it was brilliant to be picked for SIFF. I’m still a bit unbelieving that it actually happened.”

What do you hope happens from here? What are your plans? “Worldwide domination, ideally, is the plan. That sounds nice.”

“No, seriously, ideally I’d just love to do this again. That’s really what we want to do. I’ve been a lawyer, I’ve been a banker, they are the worst jobs on the planet. They’re dull, and they’re uninspiring to me (although there are [probably] plenty of people out there who enjoy being lawyers and bankers - I'm just not one of them). I love [acting], and I certainly love filmmaking. It is the most extraordinary way to make a living. You’ve got Derek Jacobi or Dominique Pinon saying your words and you just think, yes, I lived a charmed life. In the end, I think the only thing you could ever want after that is the chance to do it again.”