Filmmaker and SHOCK writer talks about bizarre short horror film GLIMPSE.
Full disclosure: I’ve known filmmaker and writer John Nicol more than half my life. He writes for this very site and in other outlets I oversee. We went to film school together. The latter fact is why his latest effort, the surreal and abrasive short horror mind-fuck film GLIMPSE is of special interest to me, personally. In it, Nicol drags back a glut of 16mm student films he made during our shared tenure in college, black and white and color crazy reels in which friends and colleagues were asked to do ludicrous things in the name of art and academia. He then hacks and splices and rips up these pictures digitally, while artist and composer Andre Becker (who also provides the industrial noise soundtrack and is the star of many of the old films) gets tangled up in the 16mm film stock itself, slowly losing his mind until he becomes sort of absorbed into the celluloid.
I saw the picture for the first time at a public screening at the Little Nightmares short film fest in Hamilton, Canada and was rather affected and impressed. Not only was the strange, hypnotic film wonderfully avant garde and out of step with the more conventional movies that surrounded it, it was almost haunting to see my own memories of the original films and the people I once new from former lives remixed in such strange ways, the entire thing almost serving as a moratorium of history…and a requiem for shooting on film, period.
I wanted to shine a light on GLIMPSE and on John’s sensibilities today, here.
So here we go, then.
SHOCK: Why did you suddenly want to revisit student films and why in this context?
NICOL: I was eager to take on short film, having come off a festival run with my first feature film CHANNEL ZERO.There is something exciting about doing a film on a smaller scale with less pressure attached to it. I had all these shorts that I had made in college and they were more or less going to waste, I mean, I had left all these wet-behind-the-ears, pretentious,16 mm pieces and madness behind me. But why waste their potential? At first I thought about simply remastering them, and creating a sweet little anthology piece. The idea then morphed into something cooler. I decided to shoot some crazy new footage of this cinephile character immersed in the physical hard copies of those 16 mm films; consumed by his own obsessions. All of the new footage would be inter-cut with highlights of all of my college films. GLIMPSE allowed me to resurrect some old flicks and see something new come forth, instead collecting celluloid dust lost in my basement and seen by no one.
SHOCK: Was it surreal for you to go back in history?
NICOL: Completely surreal, but entirely enjoyable; it was something of an exorcism, in the fun sense of it all. I have no real deep attachment to those old films. When I made those flicks, I tried to push buttons and piss off my film professors, while maybe even honing a little of my aesthetic and style in the process.
SHOCK: When the original films were produced, we all used 16mm cameras and stock; cumbersome and expensive and precarious. The movie feels almost like a eulogy for film. Is it?
NICOL: A little bit I guess, for both positive and negative reasons.I always fancied myself a film purist, holding on to the old school ways. I mean, it was sad to see the death of classic cinema, but the environmentalist in me slowly warmed up to the digital ways, and my God, it’s a hell of lot cheaper to make flicks now. Jesus, one of the 5 minutes films I made back then cost me well over six thousand dollars! No wonder I was so broke all the time.
SHOCK: Andre’s music really propels the fever dream feel of the movie. Did you tell him what you wanted or did he just supply some noise?
NICOL: Andre and I have always worked well together. He provided an incredible score for CHANNEL ZERO, it seemed appropriate to ask him for some new magic. I always have thoughts about the pieces I use in my films. I wanted the score to reflect the era when the original 16mm college films were shot. I wanted a industrial, mechanical vibe pulsing through it; I wanted a projector noise and a hint of sleaziness flickering throughout, and Andre easily obliged.
SHOCK: Would you say GLIMPSE is an experimental film?
NICOL: Yes, I believe so. It is different for sure, and not everyone will dig it. But maybe I still cling to the weird desire to push people’s buttons, some bad habits tend to linger or never really die. Experimental for sure, but with a hint of nostalgia and twisted playfulness.
Look for GLIMPSE at a festival near you.
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