INTERVIEW:
DANIEL BITTON
DOCUMENTARIAN DEPICTS
“THE
DADDY OF ROCK’N’ROLL” — WESLEY
WILLIS!
THE DADDY OF ROCK’N’ROLL
special screening at Wavelength (59 min.)
Sunday April 27, 9:15pm SHARP!
Purveyor of: RAWH!
Many have become obsessed with Chicago rock superstar Wesley Willis — but
only Montreal’s Daniel Bitton has dared to sacrifice himself to
Willis’ World and make this hour-long documentary. Even for those
unfamiliar with Willis’ jingle-like pop songs, this film serves
as an entertaining introduction to the man and his music. And believe
me, you do want to be introduced. It’s also a lot less painful
way of meeting the man than the usual affectionate head-butt he gives
to greet friends and admirers alike. The Daddy of Rock’n’Roll
first played in Toronto last year at the Hot Docs film festival and will
be released on disc and video later this year. Rock over London, Rock
on Chicago, Rock on Montreal, Rock on Toronto — Wavelength is a
music series superstar!
Initially, did you already decide to make a documentary and then chose
Wesley Willis as your topic, or was Wesley Willis your entire reason
for making a documentary? (If your answer is the latter, then why?)
I think it would be pretty pathetic if anyone were to decide “it’s
time to make a documentary!” without first having a subject that
inspires them. I first discovered Wesley WIllis when I was just looking
at things I’d never seen before in a record store, and I noticed
these insane song titles like “Lick a Llama’s Ass.” So
I knew this was something I needed to know about. After getting the first
record, I went a bit nuts and listened to this stuff obsessively for
months, causing my roomate to be concerned for my well-being, as well
as scaring off customers from the café and video store where I
was working (that was a good trick to clear out the place when it was
too busy — fuck, I hate working). Anyways, what I loved about him
was that he’s so unreserved — I was studying jazz music at
university and it was a little stifling, in that people get very technique-obsessed
but they’re too afraid or inhibited to be really musical. Then
there’s Wesley Willis totally being creative in his own way with
no concerns whatsoever. Plus, I just love the way he thinks. So someone
suggested I do a documentary about him, and I called him up and that
was it. Mostly I just wanted to meet him.
What were your expectations at the start of this project?
I didn’t really expect anything becuase I had no idea what I was
doing. I just wanted to meet Wesley Willis and all of a sudden I got
a grant and I had this project on my hands, and had to travel, make arrangements,
get help, etc.
Were you at all surprised at the outcome and response to your film?
It’s hard to be surprised at the outcome when you work 15 hours
a day on something for months and months! The response is funny. A lot
of people just love it. They find it moving, or they just love Wesley
and relate to him. Then there are these people who are just disturbed
by it. It played at a schizophrenia conference for these psychiatrists,
and a friend who was there said they were all aghast. They thought the
whole phenomenon was a circus freakshow — that the audience at
his shows was making fun of him, that his career was based on nothing.
They were totally unable to conceive that people just love this guy,
and that he actually has real talent that people relate to and admire.
Can you imagine these people? It’s one thing for an ordinary person
to feel so alienated and uncomfortable, but these are psychiatrists — people
who are supposed to help other people!
What was it like spending so much time with Wesley Willis?
Well, all he wants to do is get driven around in a car all day. He just
loves that. He was very uncomfortable and shy at first, so he was having
demon attacks. He gets them when you or someone else might feel insecure.
He was torn between loving the attention and not knowing these people.
It was really tense and I was like, “shit, this guy is not doing
well”, but during the first day, when we started playing loud music
full of profanity, he loved that and relaxed so much. Motorhead, Kool
Keith, anything loud and aggressive, or full of “peepee-caca.”
How did you try to address Wesley’s concerns during filming? Did
you ever fear that you were turning him into a spectacle? Or did you
feel that Wesley was generally “in on it,” that he controlled
or was at least aware of what attracted people to his music and performances?
He’s totally on the ball. Sometimes he fakes demon attacks just
to get something he wants, like when we wouldn’t take him to a
junk food restaurant once and he pretended that his demons were hounding
him so we’d take him there! At the show he played in Montreal,
he was selling T-shirts for $15 a piece, and then my friend, who for
some reason dressed up a bit to look good, steps up and Wesley looks
at him and says $40! He’s very perceptive of what’s going
on around him. He gets uncomfortable and annoyed when people do make
fun of him, but from what I saw most people just love him. I was a bit
uncomfortable making a film about him, like I would be about anyone,
I guess. It’s a person — how do you portray a person as a
person and not an object? That’s why I ended up avoiding psychiatric
details and things like that, and I just made it into a little portrait — a “here’s
this great person that I met one time” kind of thing.
Has Wesley Willis seen the completed film? What did he think?
When I called him after I sent it to him, he said his VCR wasn’t
working! Maybe he just didn’t like it, I don’t know. He remembered
that I sent him money, so he was happy about that.
— interview by Dee Ryner
