Joining us for this installment of The Pink Smoke's favorite pretentious thought experiment/goofball children's game, we welcome filmmaker Allen Cordell. Cordell got his start directing one the first videos for Dan Deacon before eventually moving on to creating a duo of classics for Beach House. Along the way he's worked with artists as diverse as Cloud Nothings, Spank Rock, Waka Flocka Flame, Future Islands and Girl Talk. One our favorite Cordell works isn't a music video at all, but a reworking of An American Werewolf in London's infamous transformation scene, called Meatloaf Jack.

His feature film debut is currently in development.

On to the game: a storage facility houses the collected works of five filmmakers. A raging fire breaks out and Cordell has just enough time to save exactly five prints. All of the other films will be entirely lost to history. Cinders. Ashes. Soot and embers. Which five prints will Cordell save? He can pick five films from a single filmmaker or one from each artist or anything in between. Will he be selfish and refuse to think of an imperiled work's place in cinema history? Or will he weigh each film's cultural value against its personal meaning to him? Remember: he doesn't have a lot of time to react - the place is blazing and he's gotta go with his gut reaction...

~ ALLEN CORDELL ~
~ interviewed by christopher funderburg ~

THE PINK SMOKE: Ok, so you know the deal: the complete filmographies of five directors are stored in a burning warehouse.

You have just enough time to save five films. But you gotta act quick. Your five directors are:

ALLEN CORDELL: Um, it's pretty easy for the first four. For me, I would say, for Ken Russell: Altered States.

PS: Why is that?

AC: Because it has some of the trippiest visuals I've ever seen in a movie. In a mainstream Hollywood movie.

PS: And is it a film that's personally meaningful to you or something you think is worth saving?

AC: I personally like it, that's why it's important to me to save it. I would be really sad if I couldn't watch it again. I also think it's a really cool movie that other people should have the opportunity to watch and should watch. And if they ever decide to remake it, I'd like to be the guy to direct it. 

PS: The Hollywood fat-cats should hire you to do that, you’d be perfect.

AC: For Stuart Gordon, it would be From Beyond…

PS: Really?

AC:…which is one of my favorite movies. 

PS: And not Re-Animator?

AC: Re-Animator's great, but I'm more into From Beyond. It has to do with parallel dimensions, which is a weirder concept than reanimating the dead. I just think it's a cool movie and I love the colors of that film - just the colors of that film alone are really cool. Neon pinks with blues and weird creatures swimming around in them - when they open up the, uh -

PS: When they have their pineal glands stimulated?

AC: Yeah.

PS: Have you seen his later Lovecraft movies like Dagon and Castle Freak?

AC: I haven't. But I was surprised recently to read that Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna were the guys who wrote Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

PS: Yeah, Gordon has a bunch of stories about what a miserable experience it was. I believe he was supposed to direct Honey, I Shrunk the Kids but just had a horrible time working with Disney, like he was getting explosive nosebleeds. And I think quit and handed it over. But he had some relationship with Roy Disney because later he did The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit for them. And that was supposed to be an animated film based on a Ray Bradbury story and play - they even produced character sketches and designs and everything. But doing Ice Cream Suit as an animated film also fell apart.

AC: I just find it kinda reassuring that people who make movies that are fucked up, that the movies those two have made, they get to go on and make these big mainstream Hollywood movies. I guess it's the same thing that happened to Peter Jackson.

PS: Yeah. Absolutely. You know Gordon's start was he directed Sexual Perversity in Chicago, David Mamet's breakthrough play, and came out of a theater background. That was his origin - doing theater, directing the premiere production of Sexual Perversity. But what's next? The warehouse is burning down around you! You got three guys you haven't touched: Wong Kar-Wai, Julian Goldberger & Stanley Donen.

AC: Wong Kar-Wai would be Fallen Angels. I think that movie is really, really good. And probably one of his lesser known films, for some weird reason. 

PS: I think it's because it's one of his least romantic, in some ways. I think people really like In the Mood for Love and Chunking Express and Happy Together because they're so romantic.

AC:But there's nothing more romantic than the scene [in Fallen Angels] in the tunnel when they're on the motorcycle - he's there with the girl who's been cleaning up all the crime scenes, she’s embracing him from behind. That is one of the most romantic moments in all of his films.

PS: I agree. It's one I like a lot. I feel like I understand why it gets overlooked - because it's off-model a little bit for him.

AC: It's more rough around the edges, maybe just a little bit rougher.

PS: It's also funnier and I don't think people think of him as being a funny filmmaker. That guy on the motorcycle, he works at the little food stand - he's a goofy character.

AC: Yeah, he's mute. I like that movie. Who's next?

PS: You haven't mentioned Julian Goldberger or Stanley Donen. You can pick multiple films from a director, you don't have to just take one from each. You don't need to feel bound to take one each.

AC: That's true. I may take an additional movie from one of the directors I already talked about. I may skip Stanley Donen. But for Julian Goldberger, I would take trans - that's the only film of his I've seen, but it's a really good movie.

PS: And what is it? I feel like a lot of our readers won't be familiar with it.

AC: It's a movie about a kid and... it kinda reminds me of a less aggressive Harmony Korine. But it's still just as beautiful and just as haunting. Without being as obnoxiously in your face. It's an understated movie, but I think it's really poetic in its simplicity... Stanely Donen? He was a dance choreographer? 

PS: Uh, sort of - although, I don't know how much to tell you. I want to keep to the rules of the game.

AC: He did Singin' in the Rain - which is a really cool movie. But... I only get five movies. Maybe I'd also save... You know what? Fuck it. I'm going to save Singin' in the Rain.

PS: Okay - that's a good one! Those are your final five choices?

AC: The dance numbers in that movie are insane.

PS: Agreed - I'm glad you saved it. Singin' in the Rain is - it might be - it's one of my five favorite movies of all time. You will catch me on days when I say it's my favorite movie. So let's go through it. You've got your prints outside the blazing warehouse:

And so Stanley Donen, now that the game is over: he was an old Hollywood guy. He did Charade, On the Town, It's Alway Fair Weather, movies like that. He is now - actually, I don't know if they're still together - but he's Elaine May's boyfriend. They're an old people couple, is what I'm sayin'. 

AC: Oh - so I've met him! Through Julian.*

PS: Donen is an old Hollywood fixture. He definitely gets treated like one of the greatest directors of all time because of Singin' in the Rain, but I don't think his output warrants that reputation - I mean, Gene Kelly is clearly the auteur on Singin'.

Donen also did this awful movie in the 80's called Blame it on Rio - Michael Caine and his best friend go on vacation in Rio and Caine falls in love with his friend's daughter, their daughters have also come on the trip - Demi Moore plays one of the girls, who are teenagers. It's a really gross, poor-taste comedy. It makes no sense that it got made. I would've been tempted to save it just so people could be aware of it.

Most of the other filmmakers we dug into a little bit - with Ken Russell, he has a really wide and varied filmography; you're leaving some very famous stuff behind. You know - Tommy, The Devils, any regrets?

AC: Tommy would've been a real possibility.

PS: What about The Devils? Is that one you considered?

AC: I've never seen that one.

PS: Really? You should check it out - that probably would've been the one I saved by Russell. It’s unreal how good it is. He's a funny director in some ways. He has so many facets - where he ends up later in his career is so different from where he started out. He starts off doing unpredictable biopics and literary adaptations and then he does that glam-cinema from the Tommy era, that and Lisztomania; then he embraces difficult to categorize thrillers or actually horror films - this knowingly funny smart sleaze, still with touches of the psychedelic, that’s what he gets into later in his career: Lair of the White Worm, Crimes of Passion, Gothic. 

AC: Yeah - Lair of the White Worm is a good one! I love that movie. 

PS: It’s great. And I’m telling you: seek out The Devils. Anything else? Any regrets? It's too late now - are you sitting in the ashes saying "goddammit, I wish I had saved Funny Face?"

AC: Chunking Express would've been one I'd be sad to lose, by Wong Kar-Wai. But if I had to pick between Chunking Express and Fallen Angels, Angels is the one that I'd pick, hands down.. 

PS: And how are you going to face all the people who adore In the Mood for Love and now want to murder you?

AC: I'm just going to make them watch Fallen Angels.

PS: Excellent - thanks a lot for doing this with us, Allen!