Penelope Spheeris is happy to keep getting it done

DIrector Penelope Spheeris in Chicago

DIrector Penelope Spheeris in Chicago

Penelope Spheeris’ journey from New Orleans carnival kid to big time Hollywood director was as exciting as the logline suggests. And, if you ask her, she hasn’t even arrived just yet.

One of four children born to a father who owned a traveling show in the Big Easy and a mother who worked in a factory while bartending at night, she grew up to rank among the greatest directors in American cinema.

The Decline of Western Civilization trilogy and Wayne’s World are just a few of the victories she scored along the way.

During last weekend’s Chicago International Movies & Music Festival (CIMMfest), Spheeris discussed her life and career at a masterclass titled, “Hollywood Inside Out.”

“Ultimately, what I do when I make movies is the study of human behavior,” she explained to a group of fans at Gideon Welles restaurant in Lincoln Square. “I’ve never figured it out, mind you.”

That may be true, but the stuff that she has figured stands as a pillar of modern American cinema.

Part one of The Decline is a documentary about the LA punk scene that Spheeris also wrote and co-produced in 1980. It not only ranks as the most talked about film of the year it was released, but has also been selected for preservation by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

The blockbuster comedy Wayne’s World, released in 1992, created a handful of lasting pop culture phenomena, including the joyful second act of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

Spheeris credited her unique family, which includes two gay siblings, with helping her achieve early career success.

“(My mom) was married to a pig farmer in Kansas,” she explained. “When she was 19, she met a 41-year-old carnival owner … and so she ran away with the carnival. Because of that, I’m attracted to freaks. Honestly, literally, and I mean that in the most kind and loving way.”

Her ease with cultural outsiders — along with equipment “rented” to her music video production company, Rock ‘N Reel — came in handy when she started filming The Decline.

“During the day, I would shoot my music videos — Seals & Crofts, Funkadelic, and the Doobie Brothers,” she said. “At night, I would go to punk clubs and use the equipment that Capital or CBS or whoever it was had rented. Then I would put it back like nothing happened.”

 

 

With an artist’s passion, Spheeris sounds happy recounting how she scrounged up the resources required to finish early projects. But after breaking into the mainstream film industry, she encountered a new set of challenges.

“The transition that was rough for me was to fit into studio Hollywood,” she said. “Because it’s like, ‘what do you wear?’ They want you to be unusual and different and all that but they really don’t. They want you to be a good girl and do exactly what they say and be conventional and conform, you know?”

She quickly learned that actual ability has very little to do with how Tinsel Town regards half of its inhabitants: what really prevented Spheeris from making the A-list was the fact that she was a woman.

“I worked with the Weinsteins in the late 70s,” she recalled. “They harassed my head to a point where I didn’t want to make movies any more, and I know you’re recording and I hope they f—ing hear it.”

Enduring the experience didn’t take her out of the industry, but overcoming it didn’t change much either.

“All I got on the table which is solid money right now … is a surfing dog movie,” she continued. “You know, they don’t give that sh—t to Oliver Stone and Michael Bay, do they?”

To a certain extent, Spheeris is still living the life of taking “whatever job I could get.” Fortunately for film lovers, one of the ways she overcomes such adversity is to keep making movies that people want to see. She’s currently pursuing “a country and western musical” titled, Lust ‘n Rust.

“It’s set in a trailer park,” she says. “I know trailer parks. I was raised on Patsy and Johnny Cash and Hank because that’s all my mom listened to.”

The other is to go forward with an unshakably good attitude. While revealing intimate details about her life and career, Spheeris seemed to draw from an endless reserve of comfortable charm and natural happiness.

“The other day, somebody goes, ‘geez you were making movies back in the day when there were just about like four or five woman directors,’” she joked. “I’m like, ‘yeah, now there’s six.’”

Penelope Spheeris received the CIMMfest 2017 “Baadasssss Award” on November 11 at the Davis Theater. To learn more about her life and career, click here.