Verve and vigor, bits and pieces

Clu Gulager: not a normal filmmaker

Clu Gulager’s prolific career of film and television roles—most famously the serial western “The Virginian” and the ‘80s cult classic “Return of the Living Dead”—made it somewhat surreal to talk with him, particularly since he’s disarmingly self-deprecating and sincere. When Gulager asked me where I’m from, I told him I arrived in Tulsa with my parents during that late-70s influx of American Airlines employees from New York. “Your dad and I had something in common,” he said. Gulager also worked (briefly) for American and the job prompted his move from Holdenville, Oklahoma, to the Big Apple, where he began acting.

Joe O’Shansky: So, you’re coming to Overground to show short films and film fragments?

Clu Gulager: Yes, [“John and Norma Novak” and “Fucking Tulsa”] are a portion of the films I’ve made over my life. I’ve always wanted to be a filmmaker. I made my way through life as an actor in New York, then later in Hollywood. But I had yearnings, an equal desire to be a filmmaker. So when I started making a little money, I’d begin as much as I could, and I generally ran out of money partway through the film. So I have portions of films. They are what they are. Bits and pieces, I call it. I’m really not a normal filmmaker.

O’Shansky: It was 23 years between “A Day with the Boys” (Gulager’s 1969 directorial debut that earned a Palme D’Or nomination at Cannes) and “Fucking Tulsa” (1992). What was the motivation to direct again?

Gulager: Basically, filmmakers … are kind of lazy. But people go to shows, and we are born with that desire to put on some kind of show. It seems to be part of our makeup. But that doesn’t mean you have the wherewithal or the time or the momentum to put on a show. In my case, it took many years. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. It turned out that way.

For instance, Larry Clark. I always wrote my own stuff. Larry … he made a film called “Kids.” The guy who wrote it was one of the finest young minds in the nation, Harmony Korine. Larry took that thing and made a beautiful piece of haute cinema. But mine is not like that. My stuff, they’re not complete motion pictures. They’re partial motion pictures. I did them with a lot of verve and vigor, but I’d run out of money … I’m not proud of the fact I only have bits and pieces of films.

O’Shansky: And “John and Norma Novak,” your rock opera—will it play at Overground? 

Gulager: Yeah. I don’t know how many minutes we have. It’s kind of a family project. Most of my films are family projects, in one way or another. 

O’Shansky: “Fucking Tulsa” sounds brutal—violent and uncompromising—like a straight-up horror film.

Gulager: I don’t know what you’ll think of it. I’m an Indian and I was raised in what used to be called Indian Territory. A very brutal land, and Indians were displaced from it. Much murder, much mayhem. I think I was kind of brought up to think in terms of brutality. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten out of that. So when I started making films and writing stories—it seems to me, and I’m not pleased with it—all my stories seem to revolve around death. And that’s too bad because there’s lots more to life than murder and mayhem. But that’s the way it is.

Clu Gulager films, Q&A, and signing
Fri., May 5, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30, Fly Loft Black Box Theater, $15

Film acting workshop with Clu and John Gulager and Diane Goldner
Sat., May 6, 2:45 p.m. – 4:45, Fly Loft Space 2, $10

For more from Joe, read his review of Makoto Shinkai’s wistful animated film “Your Name.”