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 CHRIS CUNNINGHAM - PART 1INTERVIEW BY ANDY CAPPER SELF-PORTRAIT BY CHRIS CUNNINGHAM
Chris Cunningham is a dark, reclusive genius who lives in an underground cave beneath the Thames. He spends his days rocking back and forth in a creaky old chair while projecting binary code onto the wall and reading the Russian translation of Dante’s Inferno while Squarepusher records play backward at 78 rpm through speakers made out of space-shuttle rockets. And all the while, he’s frowning and sighing. Pretty much every article I’d ever read about Chris led me to believe that the above would be true. So I was quite relieved when I met him a few years ago that it wasn’t. At all. Instead, the reclusive-ish genius that made the darkest music videos and short films ever is actually one of the giggliest people I know. It’s a giggle that reminds you of when you would sit at the back of class and be pissing yourself with laughter at the teacher’s speech impediment or at the giant dicks you were drawing in your geography textbook. For this issue we spoke to Chris about the new photography and films he’s been working on and how they relate to two of his favorite topics: British soft porn from the late 1980s and videos of dogs wanking themselves off. Vice: The main thing we had in common when we met was our appreciation of classic British “top-shelf jazz mags,” AKA softcore wank books. Chris Cunningham: Ha ha, yeah. My favorites were always Razzle and Men Only. Those were my favorites as well. What is it about them you liked? I’ve often tried to figure it out. I think it’s the photographic style. It was really unlit and plain. My photographic style is starting to get more and more overtaken by that look. I’ve just shot Grace Jones for a magazine and the way I shot her is kind of like the way they would shoot the girls in Razzle. How? The girls in Razzle were usually flashing their tits while eating baked beans by the side of the road. Ha ha ha, no, I mean I just shot her in a really plain way. I don’t think sex should be lit in a complicated way. It should be really plain. The other mags of the time had a lot of expensive lighting but Razzle was the opposite. A lot of other British soft porn was like big-production lighting with girls wearing elaborate silk robes in four-star hotel rooms. Yeah, I didn’t like those ones. What were the posh ones called? Well, posh is the wrong word really. Ha ha ha. But things like Playboy and Penthouse, at the time, made Razzle seem like snuff. Playboy and Penthouse would have girls shot through soft focus lenses on long exposure with log fires in the background. The Razzle stuff was meat-and-two-veg porn. It was girls next door and secretaries, shot really simply. And that style of porn is what’s come back around again. You have Sasha Grey wearing no makeup and being shot with Contax cameras. And that’s how Penthouse is doing things now. Yeah, well, something must have happened to me in the last seven years because it’s not something I pay much attention to anymore. And seven years ago I would have felt a lot more comfortable talking to you about it! There’s no thrill in acquiring porno anymore. The days of going to the newsagent, really nervous, aged 14, and pleading with the guy in there to sell it to you are gone. Absolutely. Actually when I think about it I reckon the things that shocked me most when I was a teenager are the things that were most important in influencing my work. Like what? I remember the Readers’ Wives section of Razzle and it was so shocking to see these horrible-looking women, with their bodies all mashed up, shot in this plain style. And I took that style of photography to shoot unusual things that you wouldn’t ever see in real life. I’m talking about stuff like the Rubber Johnny book or the shots I just did of Grace Jones, for example. Actually I guess that style of photography is like what Vice has sometimes. Most of the imagery for my photography book is of that style. What’s the book? It’s a book of my own photography and stills from films, all taken by me over the last ten years really. Wow. When’s it coming out? I think I’ve got to get a couple of feature films finished first. There’s one I’m working on now that you could loosely describe as a horror. Actually talking about this reminds me of that scene in American Werewolf in London when he changes into the werewolf in the front room. That really shocked me. I think it was because it was shot in a brightly lit, stark front room and he’s naked and although there’s something really shocking happening in it there’s a sexual element to it. CONTINUED CHRIS CUNNINGHAM | 1 |
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