Vaudeville act suits Crispin Glover just fine

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Crispin Glover

CRISPIN GLOVER

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday, “It is fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE”

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, “What Is It?”

Where: Music Box, 3733 N. Southport

Tickets: $17; both shows, $26

Info: (773) 871-6604;
musicboxtheatre.com

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Updated: February 14, 2012 8:08AM

Crispin Glover is best-known for portraying oddball characters in a long list of films, including George McFly in “Back to the Future” (1985), the Thin Man in “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” (2003) and the Knave of Hearts in “Alice in Wonderland” (2010).

This ongoing group of eccentrics and outsiders in big-budget films has helped fund Glover’s other passion — directing. He’s been touring the world for the past six years with two surreal art-house films — “What Is It?” (2005) and “It is fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE” (2007). The first two parts of a trilogy, they both debuted at the Sundance Film Festival.

This weekend, Glover brings his road show to the Music Box for two nights of dramatic readings from several of his visually interesting books, set to slide projections, followed by the screenings. The evening concludes with a question-and-answer session and a book signing, which has been known to go into the wee hours of the morning.

The mix is a new form of vaudeville that is unlike anything else out there.

“There is an interactive element to the show that is akin to vaudeville,” Glover said during an afternoon interview Monday at the Music Box. “It has multiple types of entertainment mixed with other media, and I think that is still very viable today.”

His films are not your typical mass-market fare and consistently touch on taboo subject matter. “What Is It?” features actors with Down’s syndrome, dissected snails, porn-star cameos and a man in blackface. “It is fine” stars screenwriter Steven C. Stewart, who was afflicted with a severe case of cerebral palsy; he plays out his semi-autobiographical, psychosexual fantasies in the film.

“Steve, who died shortly after filming the movie, was very difficult to understand and was locked away in a nursing home for 10 years after his mother died,” Glover said. “But he was of normal intelligence. I can’t even begin to understand the emotional turmoil he was going through. When he got out, he wrote the screenplay. You feel his rage in the film.”

Glover, 47, who grew up in Los Angeles and is the son of character actor Bruce Glover, has been in the industry long enough to see and understand what he perceives as its shortcomings. The lack of funding for films that look at subjects in challenging ways is a topic he confronts head on when discussing his films, which he is distributing himself via the tour. So far, he has refused to stream them online or release them on DVD.

Yet his own films exist only because he has acted in corporately funded and distributed films. He admits he has a “complex relationship” with the situation.

“I don’t mean to come off as someone with a bad attitude because that’s not accurate,” Glover said. “When I’m in a film, I give 100 percent and want to do a good job. But I do have questions about the things that are not being explored in corporately funded films because the subject matter may be uncomfortable to some.”

Glover looks to the works of filmmakers such as John Cassavetes, Luis Bunuel, Werner Herzog and Rainer Werner Fassbinder for guidance and inspiration. But it seems to be Stanley Kubrick who he most admires.

“His films were incredibly thought-provoking and incredibly cinematic,” he said. “They had questions within but also forced people to ask questions. And they were financially successful within the corporate, studio system. I would love to reach a time when my films can line up with corporate interests. I don’t think what I’m doing is far out of what the mainstream is doing.”