Tim Sutton

Pavilion  Tim Sutton (2012)

Pavilion Tim Sutton (2012)

Tim Sutton is an American screenwriter, director, and producer. Pavilion, his first feature film, premiered at SXSW - South by Southwest, BAMcinemaFest, and Turin, and is a New York Times Critics' Pick. He has also directed Memphis, Dark Night, Donnybrook, and Funny Face, which premiered in Competition at this year's Berlina International Film Festival.

In an exclusive interview for Filmatique, Tim Sutton discusses the vapor of youth, filming the ephemeral, the purity that comes with shooting low-budget, and his next projects.

 

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FILAMTIQUE: Pavilion traces the path of Max, a teenager, from his mother's home outside Syracuse to visit his father in the Southwest over the course of one summer.  While the landscapes change, shifting from the verdant upstate milieu to the parched, xeric vistas of Arizona, the quotidian activities of his life—riding bikes, smoking joints, tentative flirtations with girls his age—do not.  What was your original inspiration for this film, and what significance do you attribute to this chapter of youth?

TIM SUTTON: I decided long before I made a film that my first film would be about youth, but not a typical coming-of-age story, something more abstract, and simple to the point abandoning plot for atmosphere, building and inhabiting an organic world and almost nothing else. Unlike the first films of youth that I love—namely The Four Hundred Blows and Ivan's Childhood—there was no real character arc or danger or specific story I wanted to tell, I just wanted to float around with these kids and let the film rise and scatter like a vapor. That's what Pavilion—and youth—means to me: something you can see and feel but never fully know until it's gone.

FLMTQ: Much like the film's protagonists, Pavilion is a reticent film, the characters' sparse dialogue privileging gestural communication and fleeting moments, their weight amplified by Sam Prekop's haunting score.  What led you to this form of narrative minimalism, rather than, for example, adopting a strictly documentary approach?

TS: I'm not a documentary filmmaker. I was more interested in engaging these kids—their bodies, habits, friendships, interests—with a very disciplined visual language and minimalist approach to narrative. But the film is fiction. Max didn't move to Arizona. Max and Addie don't walk in the woods together. All of that is constructed from a vision that I wanted to see.

Dialogue never mattered to me. What people say isn't that interesting to me. How they move, shrug, ride, smile, act when they're bored—that tells you more about someone than talk. And Sam's score lives in that world completely. The sound of his voice, the music, defines ethereality to me, and that is of course what the film's premise is all about. It's fleeting, and beautiful, even when nothing happens.

 
Pavilion, Tim Sutton (2012)

Pavilion, Tim Sutton (2012)

 

FLMTQ: Can you discuss your collaboration with cinematographer Chris Dapkins?  What would you say were your influences for Pavilion, and how did you work together to create the film's sensual, evocative images?

TS: I consider Chris a co-author of the film and a very special filmmaker. We obviously worked very small, I didn't even use a monitor, and we developed a very natural visual language that is based on patience, intuition, and form over information. There were times when I had to drive the van (which acted as our dolly) and order lunch while he covered scenes and he established relationships with the cast that were different from mine. Other times he executed my exact frame, so we complimented each other and both believed in the same story. We both loved those kids too. We really believed that just watching them could deliver something special. Influences, as far as filmmakers, on this film for me were Claire Denis, Harmony Korine, Terrence Malick and Gus Van Sant, but we really tried to make something unique above all.

FLMTQ: Though little is overtly explained, one transition that occurs over the course of Max's summer is from relative security in his mother's lakeside home to a newfound sense of precarity—his father is temporarily living in a hotel, a fact one of his new friends refers to as "weird."  Thus the film subtly explores the contours and nuances of poverty, a reality rarely presented on-screen given its ubiquity in American life.  How did this element of the story emerge in your research, and why was it important to you to incorporate this aspect intoPavilion?

TS: I just wanted everything to change for Max, the film, and the audience with a single frame. Life can change so quickly. You are safe in a familiar, lush environment and then a second later you are forced into a foreign landscape and a much more desperate way of life. But, within all of those changes, you find your way, you take a new place, you find someone, or you can disappear. The film isn't purposely concerned with the middle class versus a tougher way of life. It is more about what can happen when the landscape around you changes. 

 
Pavilion, Tim Sutton (2012)

Pavilion, Tim Sutton (2012)

 

FLMTQ: Pavilion was filmed with a cast of predominately non-professional actors.  Can you discuss your casting process, as well as how you worked with the actors on set to bring their characters to life?

TS: Casting was completely homemade. I was not in the 'industry' so using a casting person never entered my mind. My mother's friend found me some kids in the town I grew up, and when I pointed to Max, who was just waiting for a friend who I was supposed to meet, she whispered to me, "you don't want to work with him. He's a bad kid.' So I cast everything around him. He had presence and a 'fuck you' attitude that could also soften, but not in an obvious way. He could be a jerk and then completely vulnerable a moment later. He didn't see a camera, he just could live in front of it.

We flew to Arizona with just Max and his dad, no plan other to go to a bike park and see who wanted to be in the film. I told Max's dad that he was going to be in the film when we were taking off on the plane. When we got to Arizona, we were so lucky to meet Cody and Levi and have them open up this strange, dark world to us, but also, that's why the film feels so light, so alive, because we were like Max—we got to town and didn't know anyone—and had to make our way like any new kid. It's a risk you can't take on bigger budgets with 'real' actors. That's a big reason why Pavilion is so pure.

As far as working with non-actors, the main point is not to expect them to be actors. Don't give them lines to read, don't dictate everything. Rather, I would ask how they would do it. I'd set a very disciplined frame, tell them what the scene entailed—almost always something simple, physical, or naturally conversational—and then between action and cut, it is entirely up to them. I trusted them. It doesn't always work, but all I was looking for in each scene was a moment of authenticity, or beauty, or curiosity. I was free to let them be them and build the story naturally, rather from something I had written a year before. It feels like a living document.

FLMTQ: Are you working on any new projects, and if so, can you tell us a bit about them?

TS: My latest film, Funny Face, recently had its World Premiere in competition at the Berlinale in February, right as the Covid shit began hitting the fan, and so now I'm writing something about a traumatized hypnotist in the post-pandemic world. It's a weird, weird time, so we shall see. 

 

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Interview by Ursula Grisham

Head Curator, Filmatique