CIFF: Rock And Roll, Movies And Local Director of The Ghosts Eddie O'Keefe

By Steven Pate in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 10, 2011 4:20PM

This is part of Chicagoist's coverage of the Chicago International Film Festival.

Eddie O'Keefe must be riding high on his flight from Los Angeles to his hometown of Chicago for the screening of his short film The Ghosts at the Chicago International Film Festival this week. Appropriately subtitled "A Teenage Fever Dream," the story concerns a good girl spurning the homecoming king in favor of one of the dangerous greasers who emerged from the town dump one day, but this 13 minute love letter to rock and roll might better be described as what might happen if Phil Spector took some tainted ecstasy and wandered off with Dziga Vertov's camera. We spoke with O'Keefe in advance of three scheduled screenings of the film at CIFF.

CHICAGOIST: The titular Ghosts of your film are a group of greasers from the wrong side of the tracks, and it makes me think about how American pop culture is kind of haunted by this romance of the suburban 1950s high school experience. What is it about American teenage rebellion in the fifties that seems so timeless, and what about it transfixes you personally?

EDDIE O'KEEFE: I think Americans are infatuated with the 1950s and all that comes with it -- the images of the nuclear suburb, Dean, Presley and Brando, old Cadillacs -- because we long for the romantic simplicity of that era. We live in a really fractured, complicated world today and there's something nice about the straight forward, black and white austerity of the '50s. You know, the "when men were men and woman loved them," sort of thing.

We've strayed very far from that boldfaced naivety -- thankfully, in a lot of ways -- and I think we've sort of lost an overall sense of what it means to be American. The 1950s feel like the most American of times really. Decadent, brash and young but also up-tight, conservative and ignorant. We dig those contradictions. You see photos of people from back then and they seem to have it figured out. Unlike us they seem to know what it means to be an American. Or at least I like to think that.

Also the basis of rock n roll is in the '50s and pop music sort of feels stagnant today. I think people like the purity of music and film from back then. Modern pop culture more or less begins in the '50s and I think we like to revisit the roots.

C: Your film is caught up not only in a certain kind of imagery, but also in its a certain kind of soundtrack--to the point where it's hard to imagine the film without the music. What was your process for incorporating the music into the film? Were you seeking images to match a certain sound? Vice versa?

EO: Music was a huge part of The Ghosts. It's also a huge part of my life (and the lives of pretty much everyone in the cast and crew), so I guess it only makes sense that it comes through in the movie. I remember wanting The Ghosts to feel like an old garage punk song. Like something loud and manic and imperfect. Like "Louie, Louie." I was relentless in the edit about the tempo and pacing of the movie. I cut things left and right -- forgoing important narrative beats in lieu of sheer velocity. I wanted it to basically have wall-to-wall music and narration (sometimes on top of each other) because I felt that was the best way to maintain the incessant gut-punch punk song vibe.

Also, I'm kind of a musician trapped in a filmmaker's body. Most of my buddies are in bands and I'm totally jealous of them. They know that. I think music is the ultimate art form and if I'm honest with myself I think film sort of pales in comparison. It takes Citizen Kane two plus hours to hit me one-eighth as hard as "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" or, like "All The Single Ladies," or whatever. There's something primal about music that I love and film just can't quite match for me. Anyway, I'm lucky in that so many of my friends are musicians and could write music for the movie. About half of the soundtrack are original compositions and the other half are songs I used illegally (but don't tell anyone that, ha).

C: There are a lot of cinematic touchstones swirling around in The Ghosts, from Nicholas Ray to Badlands, and personally I picked up stylistic resonances from Guy Maddin. Do you feel your film is in dialog with any particular other films or directors? Who would you say your influences are?

EO: You definitely picked up on some of The Ghosts influences. Badlands is probably my favorite movie of all time, actually -- so that's totally spot on. I wouldn't necessarily say that The Ghosts is having a dialogue with the movies/directors you cited (though I would be honored to be a part of that canon or work), but I definitely think it's a kind of ode to those movies. It's a love letter to Ray, Anger, Pennebaker and Malick, for sure.

C: Can you talk a little bit about the making of the film? Where and when was it shot?

EO: We shot The Ghosts in July of 2010 in the western suburbs of Chicago. It was made with an insanely talented cast and crew of people (some of whom I have known from infancy) who worked for free, save the cases of PBR which were consumed every night during wrap. We made it for a few thousand dollars which was raised on Kickstarter and donated by family.

C: What's the experience of getting to screen your work at your home town's film festival like for you?

EO: It's a tremendous honor to be able to screen The Ghosts at the Chicago International Film Festival. It's great to be back home and have the opportunity to be a part of such a great Chicago tradition. It's also going to be surreal to watch the movie with everyone who worked on it. I can't wait.

C: The obligatory question: What's next?

EO: I'm currently writing and developing a few different things out here in LaLa Land, some of which I'm a co-writer on and some of which I will hopefully direct. I recently had my first screenplay optioned by Imagine Entertainment. It's kind of a subverted John Hughes high school movie with an unsolved murder that happens in a suburb of Chicago in 1983. We shall see. Either that or I'll be serving you coffee at Starbucks when the dream bubble bursts.

The Ghosts screens tonight, Monday, October 10 at 6:30 p.m., Friday, October 14 at 5 p.m. and Sunday, October 16 at 11:45 p.m. O'Keefe will be present for a Q&A after the Friday and Sunday screenings.