Richard Linklater Interview

Were you ever a fan of Morgan Spurlock's fast food documentary Super Size Me?
I like Super Size Me. I think Eric liked it too. We were already working on our script. I think Super Size Me already grew out of Eric's book. It goes in one direction. It's entertaining and pretty informative. It's a statement of what happens after you eat it. Our movie shows what's behind the meal - the animals, the workers. That world. If you put them together, you get a good double feature!

Were there any problems from fast food companies making the movie?
We worked underground. We had a different name. We knew, through Eric's experiences, that they wouldn't be pleased with the idea that we were doing a movie. They'd be very suspicious of that. But we had some cover. We're a fictional film, but that doesn't really matter when you're criticising an industry. That's the one thing you can't really do. Do anything that make affect someone's bottom line - that's the one sacrosanct thing where they all gang up against you. So we lost some locations when they found out it was really Fast Food Nation. We stole locations...you have to do what you have to do to make your movie. It's like sausage - you don't want to see how it's made.

Do you think corporations - not governments - now run the US?
I think corporate power is running the world. They've got a lot of power. They've got the legal system behind them. They certainly got the political system behind them. They've got the money behind them. It's a model that's used - it's the efficiency model. It doesn't take any consideration - the true cost of the effects on the people, or the animals or the environment in this case. It's the opposition in a way. And it's not even a person. It's a system. I think the film makes really clear - one person is not going to save it, and it's not one person's fault. It's the way the industrialised world has moved in the last 150 years. You can look at the fast food meal as the apex of this - efficiency'. It's cheap, disposable...there it is as a consumer product. I think with Eric's book, and others, the veil is being lifted off the industrialisation of our food. People are realising that's what it is... this myth of the family farm and healthy food. The thought - -They wouldn't give us anything that's bad for us, would they?' That's all gone. It's trickling down through the culture. Just like people become aware of what's behind the products they buy - child labour is making your shoes in another country. Once you know that, you can make the choice, if you're informed about it. Certainly, they don't want you to be informed about it. They certainly don't want you to be informed about it - and they don't want you to care about the people, the animals or the environment. That's not on the table when you buy your product. Somebody has to inform you of that.

Were the stars in the film keen to do it because of the issues raised?
I think some were and some we didn't really talk that much about the issues. They liked their characters and they liked where they were going. It didn't feel like we were making some big activist piece. We were making a piece of drama. I felt very fortunate that these people came aboard and wanted to be in the movie. They certainly didn't do it for the money. It was an off-the-grid movie with no backing from the industry.

Was it difficult to raise the financing?
I couldn't have done this on my own, that's for sure. If it was a project that I was trying to do, I'd still be trying to finance it. I got lucky that the producer [Jeremy Thomas] was initially involved with Eric. We got almost half our budget from Participant, a company in the US that's a private company putting money into movies that deal with ethical issues. So as a filmmaker, I got lucky - I got lucky to be able to make this film at all. It's not a film anyone wanted to make. The industry certainly doesn't want to make a film like this. They certainly don't want to make a film that has a bummer ending like this! We'll find out if anyone wants to watch it... If you made this in Hollywood, it'd be watered down - in a really nice way. They don't say - don't do it'; they just beat you to death in a very nice way about an issue and it disappears from the movie.

What was the time-scale with your other film, A Scanner Darkly?
I shot Scanner Darkly more than two years ago - May 2004. We had already written the script to this - we had been working on this since 2002. It was just a matter of this all coming together. I finished them at the same time but I shot them almost a year-and-a-half apart. This was a very quick post-production. One screening, locked picture, sound mix, done...Scanner took forever. The longest post I've ever had. It takes 500 hours to do one minute of animation...

Do we eat more shit than ever in a post 9/11 world?
Literally? We're certainly being fed more shit than ever. I don't know if we're eating it.

Rob Andrews