Filmmaker, graphic designer, photographer. Illustrator, musician, painter. Having entered graphic design through conceptual art because what was officially declared as ‘the real art world’ seemed to be too exclusive and uninviting, Mike Mills has come a long way since and listing all the highlights of his career automatically means carrying coals to Newcastle. In his first solo show in Germany titled The Only Way Out Is Through - where his The Boy and the Creature, a direct transcription of the entire film E.T. into typography that he would love to get listed as his third full length film on IMDB, is screened as well - he tries to examine how the individual interacts within a larger historical context by putting personal stories and examinations onto canvas but never out of proportion.

Lodown had the chance to talk to the almost irritatingly grounded artist about his experiences with Hollywood, predators and Winnie the Pooh while he was in Berlin in an unfriendly January.

What happened after Thumbsucker got released in the US...
I was hoping there’d be another Mike Mills movie by now.
I’m writing on a new script since my first movie was released... and that is taking me forever. Another reason for this massive delay is that Thumbsucker didn’t do well.

Not on a commercial level, but artistically it was a huge success in my opinion. And the critics seemed to like it as well.
I don’t know, it was kind of mixed. As you know, I’m living together with Miranda July, and her debut (Me And You And Everyone We Know), THAT is a movie that did well with critics AND people. In relation to that, mine wasn’t a success really. It also didn’t really help in terms of producing a follow-up that the film world and that business related to the film industry, went down a little. So instead of directing another movie, I realised my first feature-length documentary Does Your Soul Have A Cold? which deals with people taking anti-depressants in Japan. It didn’t get enough of a release unfortunately, but it’s available via iTunes. But to be honest, that’s how I always saw my career, it’s not just ‘same thing, same thing’, it’s very different projects and a lot of them are pretty un-commercial.


Do you think that people expected a different type of movie from you than Thumbsucker?
(laughs) Yeah, a better one.

I mean stylistically, you know, less narrative and a little bit more over the top...
Yeah, some people did. I mean... I don’t know. It’s weird.

Were you may be disappointed by the reactions... did you possibly even become a little bit disillusioned?
Hm, you know, wherever I was before Thumbsucker, I was just this artist-graphic-design-music-video person. If people did press about me, it was because they like what I was doing. Like you guys, back then you were looking for me, you found me and decided to do something about me, simply because you were into the things I was doing. But when you’re making a film, when you’re directing a movie with movie stars like Keanu Reeves and Vince Vaughn, you immediately become a target. It’s a whole different level, and it’s much bigger. In the press, for various reasons, all of a sudden you get slaughtered. They can be very critical of your intelligence, or even your judgement... it’s not just you as a filmmaker, but you as a person. (laughs) And sometimes they’re not all wrong. It was a big lesson for me, and I wasn’t really aware of that...
In America Thumbsucker only did $1.300.000, that is very little. For the people that released it, it was considered a failure. But it had its own life on DVD and by now a lot of people seem to have noticed it. As every year goes by, more people seem to like it, it’s as if the film is getting better with time... maybe because it’s seen as being less trendy and more, I don’t know... timeless? Even the movie star thing isn’t a big deal anymore.

Seriously, what is there not to like about Thumbsucker? It has a great soundtrack, the editing is flawless, a fantastic lead in his first big role, a strong narration...
(laughs) Man, you should’ve controlled the universe! Seriously, that whole experience was just a big learning process, it’s a whole different way of being in the public. Film directors are just hated... people think they’re in a privileged position. It was emotionally difficult for me to make the transition from being an artist to being part of the film industry which basically is the epitome of ‘thumbs up, thumbs down’ culture.

Did this influence your work as a graphic designer in one way or another? You know, did you suddenly start to question yourself?
Hm, it didn’t really change me... I hope I’ll be able to finish my new script sometime soon. And if you didn’t like Thumbsucker, you’ll most certainly hate my next movie. But to be totally honest with you, it was hard, it was really hard to get all this negative feedback. I feel a little tougher now, though... and I’m happy for it. And I’m not taking it as personal anymore as I used to. You know, before Thumbsucker, I never really read film reviews, I didn’t really pay attention to that part of the industry... I had to learn that certain people will always write something nasty, I’ve known other people getting railed, people that I like and whose work I respect very much.
Now that we talk about it... you know what else is a funny thing? People come up to you and tell you straight to your face that they didn’t like it. No one ever came up to me before to tell me that they didn’t really like that one Air video, and I’m sure that there must have been a lot of people who simply hated the videos I did for Air... but being officially a filmmaker: ‘You did that Thumbsucker thing? Man, that was sooo nostalgic and stupid’. And people tell you this at a dinner party where you sit at the table with 20 other people for another two hours... and that is completely normal. It’s confusing, Miranda plays a role in her own movie, right? And people come to her, thinking she is that character from the film and talk to her in a weird way... I still don’t know what to make of that. (laughs) When people meet us in the streets, I’m invisible all of a sudden or they knock me out of their way in order to get a picture of her... and these people aren’t really different from us, it’s just whenever they see someone they know from a movie, they unconsciously change all of a sudden.

I know what you mean, but sometimes you just can’t help but feel completely star struck. But let’s talk about the documentary Does Your Soul Have A Cold? you finished recently... was it a project you developed by yourself or did people attract you to it?

That was actually my idea... it was part of my plan, when I went to Sundance with Thumbsucker, my agent asked me what I want to get out of this. And I immediately knew that I wanted to make a documentary about people taking anti-depressants in Japan. That was my one goal. I don’t really draw a difference between movies and documentaries - even though there are huge differences in terms of filmmaking - because in my opinion both have to be narrative. I’m interested in blurring the lines between making a documentary and making a movie.

So far I just saw bits and pieces on the internet, but it certainly doesn’t look like your average documentary, there seem to be a lot more going on visually...

Yeah, it’s like an early Jarmush film. Once you’re in that movie, it’s not only about people suffering from depression, it’s actually more a portrait of the people themselves. It turned out to be not about ‘here’s the point, and here’s what you should think about it’, it’s more an intimate portrait of modern life in general.

I was wondering why you quit the The Directors Bureau back in 1995?

Well, my dad had just passed away... and I was getting into this ‘man, life sure is short and you got to live like you really want to live’ way of thinking. You know, in the beginning I saw doing ads as a great way to learn about filmmaking, it wasn’t only about making some decent money. All of a sudden I was able to use 200 extras and a crane for the camera and all these kinds of things... and I just like the process of shooting, I love shooting. But when 2005 came around, it was almost 10 years later, and I realised that I just can’t say this so easily anymore... there are a lot of parts about advertising that are just whack and I don’t like being a part of it anymore. I don’t like being part of a machine that makes alcoholism look more interesting. So I decided to quit The Directors Bureau because I didn’t like the idea of doing ads anymore... you know, I was a partner there and I knew all the staff, they were all good friends and obviously you want them to be employed. But I really felt that I had to quit and luckily they accepted my decision and we’re still friends. (laughs) But the truth is that I still haven’t found another way to make money. I’m doing it much less, still I’m doing an ad every year and a half.

And there’s nothing wrong with that?!

It’s a mixed bag, it’s difficult. And I totally get your situation with the magazine, that you need a certain amount of advertising in order to stay independent. But when you have an ad space and meet with the ad people, it’s still different than writing for these guys, right? And I’m directing for them which is a little bit closer to sleeping with them. The real problem is, that I’m very lucky to do high-end ads that are very creative, and they hire you because they know about you and they treat you like an artist... so the whole experience is actually kind of great. You get paid a ton of money and it’s really seductive. It’s a big ego-boost. It’s like people going ‘wow that was so creative, what is your next great decision?’ And I’m sure that these people can easily turn on you, that things could become really ugly really fast because there’s so much money involved, but I have never had such an experience. So you’re getting really comfortable and it turns out to get really hard to turn down a $100.000 salary for a two week job... and it’s easy to end up doing more jobs than you actually thought you’d ever do. It’s a constant negotiation.

But at least you’re aware of the pros and cons... something that the very majority of people involved certainly won’t do.

But it troubles me, and I still haven’t figured it out yet. I go back and forth about how I feel about this whole thing all the time. But the cool thing about it is... I make money there, so I don’t really need to worry about selling anything through my exhibitions. So I can make a weird piece about 1971 like I did for the exhibition at Pool Gallery. And that’s why I can make a film like Thumbsucker or can afford the luxury to work for a year on a documentary about depressed people in Japan. Personally it gives me a lot of empowerment... but I still have deeply mixed feelings about my contribution to society.

What about your contribution to Pool Gallery? I can imagine they expected something different from you... as fantastic as I personally think the concept for this exhibition is, it’s a tough sell for these guys.

They never gave me a weird vibe, you know... I actually don’t worry about them too much. I tried to split it. The Winnie the Pooh piece for example, I can’t imagine anybody buying it, but it’s one of the pieces I’m most excited about. Others are on the same page in terms of the research I did, but they’re probably a bit more gallery-friendly, or individually more art-friendly. But as I said before, I’m so happy to not have to worry about these things too much... it must be so weird making art and you HAVE to sell it. That must be a very unpleasant trap.

I was wondering about the story behind the ‘bear chronology’ you’re showing at the exhibition...

I’m doing a lot of environmental projects lately, a lot of things about animals. At the moment I’m doing this book that is about mountain lions in California... it’s a collaboration with photographer Takashi Homma. We’re going to a lot of places where mountain lions really interact with Los Angeles. They are a symbol of wilderness and they’re far more dangerous than bears... and somehow they have learnt to co-exist with Los Angeles, one of the biggest symbols of artificial life. I became really interested in the way we treat predators like bears or mountain lions and why we are so afraid of them. It’s funny, I think we need something that is... more than us. But we’re afraid of the fact that we can’t control these creatures. For me it’s a great sign of hope that there’s something much more powerful than us, the humility in that makes your world a lot bigger. (laughs) But I don’t really remember how I made the transition from doing these pieces on bears to the piece about Winnie the Pooh. I think I was interested in trying to figure out who owns the rights to that money making machine. I think it’s interesting that it’s an amazing story that captures people’s hearts, but it’s a billion dollar industry as well. Then I found out that there’s a real bear the character’s based on, that there’s a real Christopher Robin... and it kind of grew from there.

Other pieces in the exhibition, well, I wouldn’t necessarily call them nostalgic even though they offer a personal trip down memory lane. It’s more like your reflection on a very prominent part of your past. Is it an important aspect of your personality to try to get to the bottom of certain things from days long gone?

Yes, I’d say so. I always liked studying and I always liked to figure out the system behind why I think what I’m thinking now. You know, getting out of the prisons that you don’t know you’re actually in. And that hopefully explains the title of the exhibition as well... the only way to freedom is you have to go through all the shit that keeps you tied down. I believe that the very majority of what I think is shaped by the way I was brought up, the history of my parents and the history of the place I was raised. In an attempt to be more aware or free, you have to unravel the past. For example, my dad was gay and in the closet for almost all my life and then all of a sudden came out of it. So suddenly there was this huge truth which he thought he needed to hide for such a long time. Obviously, I knew that something was wrong, that something was very disturbing, I just couldn’t point my finger at it. So trying to figure out what’s behind the other side of the facade, I somehow was born to do that.

Is it an easy process for you to reveal really personal things from your past and share them with an audience?

Well, I like a lot of people who do that. People like Ed Templeton or Allen Ginsberg... a lot of authors I admire are really like that. So a really personal thing that YOU only know about, that you went through and that might even be a little embarrassing and intimate, that’s a real gold nugget. Ed’s art for example, all his messes and contradictions and desires, it is so revealing and there’s something very generous about it. On the other hand I try to not make everything about me and myself only. It’s more about finding and using this gold nugget of something that’s happening to me and go out... to other people, or to a broader perspective or to link it to other things outside of myself. And hopefully communicate with an audience in a way that’s not ‘poor me, look at these bad things that happened to me’, but a vehicle to connect with them.

Which you perfectly did with that offbeat, humour-filled piece about your mom and her fantasy husbands (Bogart, Mc Guyver, Neil Diamond)... you’re telling something really personal, but it’s up to the audience to figure out or maybe even decide to take it for granted, to simply accept it as something true.

That’s wonderful you said that, that’s exactly what I was aiming for. The author Raymond Carver, and to a certain extend even Milan Kundera’s The Unbelievable Lightness of Being, it’s a horrible movie but the book’s great because a lot of it feels really true, it’s so specific and weird... and I really tend to gravitate towards that. It makes it more valuable to me.

I Think its the same with music. Let’s take an artist like Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy as an example, he’s often so shockingly honest, I’m not quite sure if I really want or need to hear all his personal stories... 

Exactly... or Neil Young. I like Neil Young so much more than Bob Dylan because his material seems to be much more raw and honest.

As a last question, you’re this all-round Renaissance man that elaborately jumps between art and graphic design and filmmaking... any ambitions to grab your guitar and play in a band again? 

I play all the time, it’s one of my favourite things. This is the best thing about me... (laughs) if I do say so myself. I play guitar every day. And the only persons who hear it are Miranda and my dog and I don’t need anybody else to hear it. It totally makes me happy. It totally satisfies me. I don’t need to get better. I don’t need to be seen. I don’t need to get famous for it. I don’t need anybody to understand it. It really is just for me. Miranda asked me recently why I don’t want to record it since I play every day for at least half an hour. But no way, this is just for me. I mean music probably influences me more than anything... I’m always envious of music. Take M.I.A. as an example, the lyrics are really intelligent and clever and political, but you’re also allowed to simply dance to it or to admit that it just makes you happy because of the melody. I love that music works on a very emotional level, you know, the way certain chords can change your mood. Plus it’s cheap and totally public and you can have a very profound revolutionary experience with it. And seriously, going to a show and dancing together with a friend, man, that’s a really big world opening there for you, all the stuff that’s going on between you, you won’t get that anywhere else.

words: Forty

portrait pic: Foley

www.mikemillsweb.com

www.pool-gallery.com