2190
(0 votes, average 0 out of 5)
Written by Gregg Shapiro
Jan 13, 2011
“And Everything Is Going Fine” screens at 4:00 p.m. on Oct. 29 at Kenilworth Studio 508, 1925 E. Kenilworth Place.
“And Everything Is Going Fine,” Steven Soderbergh’s documentary tribute to the late, beloved monologist Spalding Gray, is a non-traditional approach to documentary storytelling if ever there was one. Soderbergh and Gray’s widow Kathleen Russo worked together, assembling film footage of Gray, both personal and performance-oriented. This allowed the late writer/performer to virtually tell his own story.
I spoke with Russo shortly before the film screened in Chicago, which was close to the seventh anniversary of Gray’s death.
Gregg Shapiro: Of all the people Spalding worked with over the years, was Soderbergh the right person to make “And Everything is Going Fine”?
Kathleen Russo: I had approached Steven and he immediately said yes. They knew each other because Spalding did “King of the Hill” with him and “Gray’s Anatomy,” which I produced. He had never really done a documentary on Spalding, because “Gray’s Anatomy” was a film of the monologue and “King of the Hill” was a feature. This was a different format for him. Jonathan Demme would have been great to do something like this but he had already done a sort of documentary about Spalding (“Swimming To Cambodia”).
GS: It’s not a bunch of talking heads talking about Spalding. Essentially, it’s him telling his own story through his performances and interviews.
KR: Yes, he was the ultimate talking head. He’s telling his own story, which I love. When Steven first told me that he wasn’t going to go the traditional route by doing interviews with his family members and brothers and friends … at one point we talked about having well-known people reading Spalding’s words over between segues of the film, but he said we didn’t need to add anything to the film, because Spalding is telling the story. We don’t need anyone else’s voices in it.
GS: In the midst of the movie, there’s a fascinating segment from one of Spalding’s monologues where he talks about his gay experimentation. Why did you choose to include that in the film?
KR: I have a great story about that. That was from “47 Beds,” which was before I met Spalding. I’d never seen it because it was on three-quarter inch tape and we didn’t have machinery to run it. I’d never seen it before Steven put it into this film. So I was showing the first cut to the kids (her children with Gray) and all of a sudden this comes on (laughs) and we all looked at each other across the room (laughs). It was something we had never discussed as a family (laughs). At first the kids were kind of like, “I don’t know if I want that out there in the world.” They’re by no means homophobic or anything like that. It’s their dad and it was something they didn’t know about him. The way I justified it was, “This was something your dad did as material, it was a part of his life. It was a real-life experience and he put it on stage as material.”
GS: “And Everything is Going Fine” also features numerous interview segments from a variety of sources, including CBS New Sunday Morning, E!, MTV, Charlie Rose, Bobby Rivers and a very young Joy Behar…
KR: …who a lot of people don’t recognize, at first.
GS: Is part of the film’s mission to ignite renewed interest in Spalding’s films and books?
KR: To renew interest, yes, for those people that were fans. I’ve been on tour with the film at different film festivals all year and I always ask at the Q&A how many people saw Spalding or knew his work. Only about half of the people in the audience would raise their hands. I thought, this is really accomplishing something I never set out to do, which is to hopefully create a new audience for his work. For me, that’s very gratifying.
