What Is It?
Nov 20, 2015
(Crispin Hellion Glover, 2005, United States, 35mm, 72 min)
Performance and screening followed by Q&A and Book Signing
Film preceded by "Crispin Hellion Glover's Big Slide Show part 1"
Crispin Hellion Glover performs a one hour dramatic narration of eight different profusely illustrated books. The images from the books are projected behind Mr. Glover during his performance.”
Known for creating many memorable, incredibly quirky characters onscreen as an actor, Glover's first effort as a director will not disappoint fans of his offbeat sensibilities and eccentric taste. Featuring a cast of actors with Down's Syndrome, the film is not about Down's Syndrome. Glover describes it as "Being the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are snails, salt, a pipe and how to get home as tormented by an hubristic racist inner psyche." In addition to writing and directing WHAT IS IT?, Glover also appears in the film as an actor in the role of "Dueling Demi-God Auteur and The young man's inner psyche." Actress Fairuza Balk voices one of the snails.
“ABSOLUTELY the most uncompromising and original thing I've seen. People try to compare it to the likes of surrealist hero Luis Buñuel and trailblazer Werner Herzog, but I say Glover has transcended even them."
-Kelly O, The Stranger
"Scenes with naked women in elephant masks, Shirley Temple, Glover being lowered deus-ex-machina style into a Maxfield Parrish scene...It's like Fellini on psychedelics -- wildly creative but completely twisted."
-Jane Ganahl, San Francisco Examiner
Q&A with Crispin Hellion Glover about WHAT IS IT?