Abstract

Filmmaker, Robert C. Banks, Jr. discusses his life and career. A lifelong Clevelander, Banks attended the Cleveland School of the Arts (CSA), where he learned many of the fundamentals of art and film. Despite having spent some years pursuing higher education at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland State University, and elsewhere, Banks credits much of his film-making expertise to self-education and collegial exchanges from within the Cleveland art scene. Banks discusses his service in the United States Air Force, which he describes in the context of his ongoing self-education, and describes the experience in both positive and negative light. The artist also discusses several of his own films, his views on film-making as an art and as a profession, the state of art and film-making in Cleveland, and his approach to teaching film students at Cuyahoga Community College and elsewhere. As a filmmaker, Banks prefers to work with celluloid film and extensively discusses the shift from celluloid to digital production, weighing the pros and cons of each. Banks discusses his work in the context of punk rock and the do-it-yourself ethic.

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Interviewee

Banks, Robert C., Jr. (interviewee)

Interviewer

Hansgen, Lauren (interviewer); Bell, Erin (participant)

Project

Cleveland Artists Foundation

Date

12-3-2008

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

75 minutes

Transcript

Lauren Hansgen [00:00:00] These questions- These are the same questions we’ve asked everybody when we’ve done these interviews. But if it goes somewhere else or if there’s something else that’s interesting to talk about, feel free to do it.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:00:09] And if I run off on a tangent, just tell me.

Lauren Hansgen [00:00:10] We would love tangents, actually, we welcome tangents, so say whatever.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:00:14] Well, who you interviewed so far? If you don’t mind me asking.

Lauren Hansgen [00:00:16] Let’s see. Anna Arnold, Al Bright, Malcolm Brown, Johnny Coleman, Miller Horns, Mark Howard, Michelangelo Lovelace, Virgie Patton, and Angelica Pozo. And then today, David Buttram and Lawrence Baker are coming in this afternoon.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:00:32] So are we, like, the last ones, or is anybody else.

Lauren Hansgen [00:00:34] There’s a couple more. A couple more?

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:00:36] You do Kashmir get, by any chance?

Lauren Hansgen [00:00:37] Kashmir. Do you have his phone number?

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:00:39] Actually, he’s in my building, and I see him every other few days. I see him, but he’s hard to get.

Lauren Hansgen [00:00:44] He wasn’t there anymore.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:00:46] Really?

Lauren Hansgen [00:00:46] That wasn’t a good address for him. Yeah. For some reason-

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:00:48] As far as I know, he’s still there. I might be wrong. I see him once in a blue moon, so it’s like.

Lauren Hansgen [00:00:53] And then we need Dexter Davis.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:00:56] He’s a hard number to get. He works at the art museum.

Lauren Hansgen [00:00:59] Yeah, Bill Busta said he was just gonna go find him. Yeah, just go find him in the gallery.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:01:04] I have to go to the museum in a day or so. If I see him, I’ll just let him know.

Lauren Hansgen [00:01:07] Okay.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:01:07] Yeah.

Lauren Hansgen [00:01:07] I’ll give you my card before.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:01:09] Perfect. That’ll be great. Yeah.

Lauren Hansgen [00:01:10] And then there’s people out of state, so we’re figuring out.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:01:13] Well, I have Kevin Everson’s number if you want that.

Lauren Hansgen [00:01:15] Okay. I think we have- I think I have him. Bill Busta is gonna be going and having to go and get some of these interviews.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:01:25] [laughs] That’s funny. You got to sit, bust them out.

Lauren Hansgen [00:01:27] I know. Are we- Is the door shut and everything?

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:01:31] Yeah. We get started. Just a reminder. Table t is really loud. People tend to do it in the middle of important words. Yeah. And I talk with my hands, too, at some point. Everyone does it, so. Yeah. Every so often, just say something like that. Just single thing. I’ll try and just keep my hands off the table. So I’m gonna just drink this while I don’t eat more.

Lauren Hansgen [00:01:58] All right, Are we ready? All right. My name is Lauren Hansgen. I’m with the Cleveland Artists Foundation. It is December 3, 2008, and we’re here at Cleveland State University. I’m with Robert Banks Jr. If you would go ahead and just tell us when you were born and where you were born.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:02:14] I was born and raised in the city of Cleveland, Ohio, and I believe it was on a Wednesday, September 7, 1966, which is actually an important year because that was the week Star Trek premiered.

Lauren Hansgen [00:02:28] Clear, of course, and a lot of.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:02:30] Other famous shows, too. But anyway, that week, a lot of TV innovations.

Lauren Hansgen [00:02:35] When did you first realize that you had artistic ability?

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:02:39] It’s questionable, but unofficially, I want to say around being age 4 or 5 years old, because I was always into drawing. I loved visual art. Watched a lot of TV as a kid, I mean, from a very early age. And my dad, also on the side, had a thing for films. And back then, movie equipment was pretty expensive for the average family, especially for an inner city African American family, so. But we were lucky. We were probably the only family on the street at the time to have home movie equipment. So my dad, every swap would run these films for us. And that, to me, was a huge pastime. So. So around that time, I want to say, you can officially say that was this whole interest in visual art.

Lauren Hansgen [00:03:25] Okay. And then when later on did you realize that you were an artist and you would give yourself that title?

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:03:33] Roughly, believe it or not, a few years after that, maybe. I mean, I want to say as of kindergarten or first grade, I had this thing for drawing. I love drawing. I love working with my hands. I also love the enjoyment of seeing things and seeing shapes and forms and lines and shadows and lights and darks and variations in contrast and all types of things. Of course, as a kid, you don’t know what this stuff is, but you see it and you have an appreciation to it. You’re drawn to it. So I want to say pretty much early on, we’re talking like elementary school, literally.

Lauren Hansgen [00:04:06] And was there anybody that helped you to become an artist or realize that would be something you would want to have as a career one day, or just the influence of your father or were there other teachers or-

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:04:17] You can pretty much say my parents were the beginning stage. They were like an inspiration. See, my brothers and sisters, we were all sort of introduced to the creative field, but not so much as a career, but more or less as a hobby, because my parents were very overprotective. Now, unfortunately for me, I was the youngest of five kids, and I was my father’s only son, so I had two older brothers and two older sisters that were way older than I was, so I felt a little distant from them. But we all had our little hobbies and everything, and it was mainly music. We were all sort of trained in music. And for me, as well as music, I also loved film. I also loved the magic of making things happen. So my parents saw that as a way of keeping me out of trouble because my dad especially was extremely overprotective of me. So he saw the film, photography, drawing stuff as a way of keeping me out of trouble, keeping an eye on me, but also seeing me harness that energy that I was. Because I was a hyper little kid back then. So, yeah, my parents were a key element there. The only problem was it was strictly a hobby to them. They didn’t see anything financially redeeming about this. It was strictly, this will keep me out of trouble until I’m prepared to get a real occupational training, whatever.

Lauren Hansgen [00:05:23] So was there anybody that eventually convinced you that this can be what you do and this is a legitimate profession?

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:05:31] Throughout junior high school, I met a few people and some students, but once again, nothing was seen. Seriously. It wasn’t until I went to the School of the Arts, when the Cleveland School of the Arts was one of the first magnet schools got off the ground back in the early ’80s. This was back in ’81. And my film teacher, who’s Keith A. Richards. Not Keith Richards, Keith A. Richards. He was my first true mentor. And he was strict, he was hard, but he pretty much guided me in the proper path. To both him and Dorothy Lee, they were my first true photo film teachers. And that was the only official formal education I’ve had. And this was like college level training I had with photography and filmmaking. And at that point in my life, I knew that this is totally 100% what I want to do in life. And so they gave me all the guidance. The problem is, though, the guidance that they were giving me and then the sort of homeschooling urban attitude sort of collided because there was this whole thing about higher education that was required. They were saying you need to go on to a university and get formal knowledge of certain things. And unfortunately, I didn’t do that. So the majority of what I learned, that’s all the standard formal knowledge that I have now. That was also taught because I was sort of led to believe that, oh, just go to school and learn all the basics, but you don’t have to get in all the advanced stuff. But the problem is, and this, I’m going to mention this later on, one of the reasons that Northeast Ohio and the Midwest is a problematic area to learn, especially for filmmaking as an art medium, is that we don’t really push the understanding of fundamentals. In day to day nature, science or common labor that ties into the creative aspect of filmmaking and photography. And there’s elements of science and chemistry and elements of algebra. All these things tie into that. Had I known that, I would have had a passion to learn that stuff. But, you know, my film teachers were trying to push that on me, but I thought, oh, you’re just being, you know, pushy academics, I was thinking. But no, it was true. A lot of the knowledge that I needed was from fundamentals of all the other disciplines of what we take for granted nowadays. And, you know, so a lot of that I had to catch up with afterwards. But after them, there were various photographers and artists in Cleveland, artist photographers and people in the city of Cleveland that actually gave me a good jump start. Herb Ascherman, being one really good photographer. I traveled while I was in the Air- I joined the military in the Air Force. I met people abroad, overseas. So basically every other person I met literally was an inspiration. But as far as true mentors, it started with my parents went to my film photo teachers and I met several people since then. But it’s been pretty limited overall because once again, I haven’t been able to branch out into the real world since I finished the Air Force.

Lauren Hansgen [00:08:11] Do you think formal education then ultimately helped you, or could it have hindered you in any aspect?

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:08:19] A combination for me personally, because the biggest problem was, and this is the drawback of having overprotective parents, I wanted to go abroad to learn traditional fundamental filmmaking as well as other aspects of creative photography. And I wanted to go to New York. I really wanted to do that. But my dad especially was, No way, uh-uh, you wouldn’t last five minutes in New York. Now this is back in the early ’80s.

Lauren Hansgen [00:08:41] So he still is the same. [crosstalk] Overprotective.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:08:44] Exactly, yeah. So when I joined the Air Force, excuse me, he was really, really nervous about that. But he figured, well, at least there you’ll be, you know, you’ll get a chance to really get a grip on how, what it’s like to be on your own and be amongst other men your age. And then this whole military thing, which was in many ways a good thing, but it was also a bad thing because for one, my dad was dying of cancer at that point. So it wasn’t until I. He passed away when I got out. But that was enough to motivate me as it was because, you know, he told me, first off, you got to know people, get out there, let people see who you are and what you do, what you represent. And if they can get something out of you. You got to wheel and deal with them. Because my dad had a street hustler attitude as well. A lot of that didn’t rub off on me, though, unfortunately. But it wasn’t until being in the military I realized that, you know, people are gonna judge you by what they see you as. And this is one of the many things that goes in the films that I make and the artwork that I do. Because our society is very shallow and judgmental and extremely one-dimensional, especially the American attitude. And the military especially personified all the things in life I thought were dead and gone, like sexism, homophobia, racism. I thought, oh, well, It’s America with 20th century. We’re going into the 21st century. No, it was alive and well in the military. I couldn’t believe it. So all these things sort of made me realize my dad was saying, hey, be careful who you talk to. Analyze people. Don’t be friends with anybody right away. Just all these common, fundamental traits that we take for granted. Once again, life lessons, as Herb Ascherman would say, were coming into play. And once again, that more than ever was filtering into my creative endeavors because I had no way of expressing this except for making art and everything. When I was in the military, everybody thought I was an oddball. Everybody thought that I was suicidal. Everybody thought I was a loner. And it’s like, no, it’s just. And I was a much smaller person back then. I was a skinny little kid. I looked a lot younger than I am. So everybody thought I was, like, fresh out of junior high or whatever. So everybody, of course, didn’t take me seriously, or they picked on me and everything. And that happened in high school and all that normal nonsense. But I just figured, you know, there are things in life that we can’t change. It’s just human nature. But at the same time, there’s ways to sort of enlighten other people around you as well as yourself, by doing what you do best and everything. So going back to the original question, I guess, which was, what was the question again?

Lauren Hansgen [00:11:08] I’m sorry about education helping or hinder you. And I also. Well, touching on that, I also wonder now how you feel about your experience, experience in the military. Is it a not so enjoyable part of your past, or do you now see it as something that was so necessary to take you to where you are now with your artwork?

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:11:27] I’ll tie that answer with the education. Both of those actually connect very well. Because after high school, I went to the Cleveland Institute of Art. I Did a whole year there, learned a real true. I had a true formal understanding of theory and art history, which plays a key element in what I do in my photography, my filmmaking. And I recommend that to anybody. So I think there’s levels of education that are formal from a university level that I think are very important. However, the cost of going to a high end school like that, and the cost and the difficulties of getting supplies and books and room and board and all this other stuff that comes into play as well. And nowadays it’s even more difficult for anybody to get a formal education. The military was actually, I don’t want to say a shortcut, but it was another avenue that I wanted to take because one, I wanted to get out of Cleveland. I had to get out of the city of Cleveland, I had to get out of Ohio. And if it was a chance for me to get out of the United States, that was great too. So the life lessons from that alone were really important. I did take some courses in the military as well. Met a lot of great people on and off the bases I was stationed at. I was over in England for six and a half months. I was in Korea for a year. And a lot of that was a huge bonus for me. Just to get an understanding of what’s really out here. Read a lot of books and everything, did a lot of photography, a lot of film stuff on my own. And it was mainly just recreational, but there was still me just playing around with possibilities of light and color and whatever. A lot of that really amounted to a huge repertoire of work as well as new disciplines that I had to explore. But the sad thing is I didn’t have the guidance. If I had some guidance, it would have been just as good as any college education. After finishing the Air Force, after my father passed away, I knew for 100% I’m gonna be an artist, I’m gonna be a filmmaker. Because the plan was to finish high school, go to college, and get a job at a production house, which didn’t happen. Cleveland was at that point slowly deteriorating from doing production on a traditional scale. And it was evolving in other things at that time. So when I got out the Air Force, I went to broadcasting school because I had to find some type of commercial occupational certification. So I went to the School of Broadcasting, learned TV production and all that. Everything came full circle there, finished there, went back to school at Cleveland State, did a semester or two here, and I decided, well, I’m not ready for school yet. So I finished. I didn’t finish. I just dropped out after that semester and that was it. And I’ve been doing it ever since on my own. 80% of the knowledge I’ve learned was self taught. That’s seeing films, reading books on films and filmmakers, reading up on art history, exploring other aspects of photography and the history of photography. And at the same time too, just believe it or not, teaching. You know, I’ve been put in a position where I was doing workshops immediately after that, teaching kids filmmaking, basic animation or basic storyboarding, and all types of weird little activities involving 16 millimeter film. Because a lot of what I did as a kid was paint and draw on film, scratching on film, stuff like that. And once again, a lot of this also had to do with not having the luxuries or the facilities to do formal stuff. Or like, at the one school I worked at, it was actually a community center. The woman I worked under, she presented to me. She was another mentor. Her name was Donnie Hill. That was her name. And she wanted me to understand that, you know, when you’re in the inner city, you’re not going to always have the luxuries of these high end facilities that you had in school. Because I was spoiled. I had all these dark rooms and enlargers and equipment and everything to play with. But when you work in a neighborhood center, you won’t have those luxuries. So she taught me how to do things on a poverty level. And that sort of stuck with me. And so it was almost like having a survivalist guerrilla attitude back when I was a kid. That stuff stayed with me also. So a good chunk of that knowledge was just me having the passion to do stuff and learn the stuff. And I tell all my students, if you don’t have it within you, the passion to do this because you love doing it, you’re gonna have a hard time because you’re gonna be asked to do things that won’t really interest you. And you have to find a way of making it something that’s gonna be a part of you, because your services are being used to create something. Even if something you have no interest in at all or something that’s so boring or cliche, whatever. As a professional, you are obligated to make that work for that client. And you have to put 100% into that. And the city of Cleveland especially has a huge community of people that can provide anything and everything creative on a high end scale. The problem is nobody wants to take it seriously. Because we’re Cleveland artists. We’re not New York artists or Chicago artists or L.A. artists. So a lot of what I had to do was just reiterate to people that, hey, look, I’m a filmmaker. I’m not a Cleveland filmmaker, I’m just a filmmaker. I’m also a photographer. And my track record of education is universal. Whether it was the military, whether it was the little college that I had on and off, whether it was high school, whether it was from living in the hood, everything, all that stuff contributes to that. There’s just certain things I feel that you’re not going to get in a book. You just have to really go out of your way. I mean, and as far as books go, I spent a good chunk of my youth at the public library. We had a branch library in our neighborhood. And not only did they have a decent variety of literature, but they showed films there. And aside from my dad running films in the house and at school, when they would show films in the classroom, they would always run films every Tuesdays and Thursdays. And this was the branch library on 55th and Superior. That’s no longer there now. And every Tuesday afternoon and Thursday afternoon they ran films. And I saw films there for five years straight until I just stopped going. Until those. Around the late ’70s when I started junior high, I just slowly drifted away from that. But a lot of the knowledge I had was just watching a lot of obscure short films. And they were animated films, they were avant-garde films, there were documentaries, there were historical films. And this is just something that, you know, once again, I knew this was something that was going to benefit me down the line. And that was something that I made a priority in my life, you know, going to the library along with checking other aspects of media.

Lauren Hansgen [00:17:10] So this is something I think you’ve touched on a little bit. But what were the largest obstacles that you have faced as an artist? And I won’t, particularly as a filmmaker, as opposed to, you know, a more traditional type of media.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:17:27] Unfortunately, there’s been many, many obstacles. And I didn’t want to sort of get into this, but since you ask it, I’ll get into it. All right. We are in a really strong part of the country where it’s all about hands on, blue collar attitude. Build things, ship things, push things, move things, you know, relax, have a beer, you know, enjoy yourself. That’s what the Midwest is all about. You know, we are the true backbone of America and other places throughout the country that are all about building things and making things happen and providing for the rest of the world, whatever. The exact opposite of that, I feel, is what’s lacking in our community. You know, I mean, we have a lot of talented people here, but we don’t have the support, you know, Cleveland- People in Cleveland indulge in several things, but the most important thing, next to building and construction and making sure we have all these great facilities and great institutions and all that, we really embrace our recreational sports, and we really, really, really push that. That’s like something that we have to have here. Next to that, we have a huge club scene, or at least we had a huge club scene. Eclipse scene now is so. So. But recreation, it’s all about recreation activities. The sad thing is the art scene suffers because we are. Unless the art scene is part of the recreational community, it doesn’t exist, or it has no place in the city of Cleveland. That’s one of the biggest obstacles. What makes it worse is that if you’re a filmmaker, at least before the filmmaking trend happened to be this new thing, which was like, literally 20 is going on 20 years. Now it’s even worse because to do film in Cleveland meant, literally, you were either doing industrial videos or training videos or educational health videos or TV ads or PSAs. That’s it. Nothing else to do film as an art medium or creative medium was considered a joke. You know, that was. I would rank them the top three biggest obstacles being here. And the sad irony is I wanted to be as dedicated to the city as possible. I’m still dedicated because I’ve been here all. Most of my life, aside from being in the military. But I really wanted people to know that you could succeed here and do what you want, be what you want to be. And I wanted to set that example. The sad thing is it sacrificed me a hell of a lot. I’ve been in festivals, film festivals all over the world, and I’ve met filmmakers my age or younger that have succeeded. We were all part of this new generation of underground filmmakers that evolved as part of the whole Gen-X thing, whatever you want to call it. The sad thing is half those people have succeeded, moved on to bigger and better things, and their work is getting displayed in all the big museums and art centers, and they’re getting all these festival invitationals and everything. And the biggest bonus for them is they’re in cities like New York and L.A. and Chicago and parts of Canada. And there’s subsidized funding and major support and just everything you can imagine given to these people to do their thing, and they’re getting promoted and they’re making a living now, and a lot of them are doing great. Me unfortunately, because I want to stay here, it’s the exact opposite. It’s just the harder I tried, it was almost as if the more people ignored me or the more that I was being sort of pigeonholed in an area that wouldn’t let me branch out. Because around the early ’90s, when the quote unquote independent film thing happened, which is a whole bogus thing, but. Oh, sorry. All of a sudden, with the new technology, with digital video evolving, which I knew was gonna happen, that’s a whole story in itself. But I saw this coming, you know, me being a film purist. Film purist meaning I love working in film, being celluloid, you know, 16, 8 millimeter, 35, cutting and splicing, the whole nine yards. That’s what I was trained on. And I was trained in video production as well. But I knew for a fact, you know what, this is definitely gonna be the wave of the future, because I saw it. There are people that, once again, you have people that are blue collar that want to work with their hands, but also don’t know how to work with their hands because they don’t know how to knit, they don’t know how to sew, they don’t know how to do a small brushstroke and to do work in celluloid cutting and splicing and doing optical printing. All this traditional stuff that I loved, that’s a milestone in the creative history of the world. Because cinema is still an early art medium. Nobody understands that. But to put that out to pasture, to say, okay, that’s done, that’s old, don’t worry about that, there’s a new way. And with this way, anybody can do this.

Lauren Hansgen [00:21:51] We want it now and fast and easy.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:21:53] Exactly. And now guess what? You open a floodgate. And since the early 90s, and it’s not just hit us all over the world, but in Cleveland especially, there was this benum mecca for people that want to tell their stories, express themselves with video. And video has improved over the years and now it’s like it’s evolved into digital medium. And now it’s a new high definition medium. But for every filmmaker back then, it was me and like 15 other people total, maybe if that. Now you have well over 1500 people right now, if not 2,000 filmmakers in city of Cleveland right now, believe it or not, but yet none of these people have touched film in their lives. They’ve never touched a splicer or an editor or whatever. They strictly have a computer system and a digital video camera or HD camera, whatever. But, sorry. But more than ever I realized, okay, now I’m competing with all these people. The stuff that I did, which stood out at one time, doesn’t stand out anymore. Now the other filmmakers elsewhere that I mentioned, they’ve evolved with the process to Kevin Everson being one. Kevin got into this much later than I did, but he found his niche and he took made the most of it and he’s doing what he wants and he’s doing his thing and he’s getting success. But once again, Kevin is in a place where it’s supported. He’s also part of a university. We have great facilities here that are offering film production and everything. But more or less now I think people are really pushing the industry aspect of making a movie or the career aspects of being in the industry or being in production there, which is fine and that’s good. That’s once again, that’s a blue collar thing. But as a creative medium to be pushed and promoted and marketed, it’s not here. It is never going to happen here. And if it does, it’s going to be in a sort of Emperor’s New Clothes sort of way. And that’s a whole other story right there. But anybody right now can grab a camera, throw it in the air. And my film teacher told me this, and he kept telling me this back from day one, anybody can be artsy as long as they can back it up. And he had a theory. If you take a camera, put it in your tummy and run down the street with it and turn it on and just say it’s art, it’s going to get grants, and guess what? You’ll get all this hype and everything. And it’s true. And there’s been many filmmakers within the last five years alone I’m reading about as being groundbreaking. And yet I read what they’re doing. It’s like, okay, no big deal. But I was doing that 25 years ago at the same time I did it on real film, not with a digital camera. So it’s just the city of Cleveland unfortunately has a real naive perspective of things. And I think, I mean, we have great facilities. We have, going back to the whole recreational thing, we have the Cleveland International Film Festival, we have the Cleveland Cinema Tech, we have the Ohio Independent Film Festival, we have a bunch of other film festivals that come and go through here, a little small events and everything. We have the art museum, we have the Cedar Lee, all this stuff. But promoting filmmakers out of Cleveland that do things aside from political documentaries or aside from doing Social documentaries or things that are more or less commercial or trendy, whatever. Aside from that, nobody really has any interest of anything aside from stuff that’s going to be crowd pleasers. And that’s not just here, that’s everywhere but Cleveland especially, which I feel city that’s literally 10 years behind the rest of the country. We’re like the Johnny Come lately’s of all these media trends and everything. And yet someone like me and a handful of other filmmakers that are still trying to struggle, we are prepared to go on a limb to do something that’s creative and innovative. That’s going to be pretty much something that’s going to hold up over years. But people immediately want to ridicule you and just point you out as being a freak and a weirdo. So being here unfortunately has been a major setback.

Lauren Hansgen [00:25:18] I mean, has it given you anything that you would be sorry not to have done if you were somewhere else?

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:25:25] I’m sorry, one more time.

Lauren Hansgen [00:25:27] Do you think that, I mean, living in northeastern Ohio has affected your art in a necessary or positive way?

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:25:32] Oh yeah. I mean, as far as making my work here, it’s affordable. You have great locations to work out of. There are some creative people that really are into what you’re doing and they work with you. No, there’s a lot of bonuses to being here at the same time. It’s just I’ve sort of used up most of those resources now. I mean, I’m ready to do bigger and better things. I mean, I have a production meeting after this that I’m gonna fight for because I’m trying to get a project off the ground. But the argument is, do we do the project here or do we take it elsewhere? And we may take it elsewhere because I spent 10 years trying to get a big project done here and it never happened. Because the money’s not here. Or if it is here, no one’s gonna give it to you because they’re skeptical or they’re afraid, or they just don’t see that as a feasible investment and everything. I did one feature length documentary years ago and this is actually a key metaphor in what we’re talking about. This documentary was a music documentary about a gentleman who was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. This guy was known not just in Cleveland, but also throughout the United States. He was an underground, sort of a punk, word of mouth, legend type character, whatever. But there’s several guys like that in the United States. But this dude was one of the better ones. He was in Cleveland. I did a film about him. I went out of my way to get interviews with people that knew this guy or family, his friends and people in the music scene. Half those people wouldn’t talk to me because first off, they thought this thing was going to be a joke. And they were at first saying, oh, yeah, sure, whatever. Then when they saw that it was serious, they backed away. On top of that, nobody took it seriously. Aside for the fact that why are you doing a film in this guy anyway? It was all these why questions and what is this for? Why are you even doing this? Like, almost suspicious, even suspicious, but also, like skeptical. The whole thing was. But the film got finished. It wound up being half of a good movie. It should have been a better film, but a lot of it suffered because I didn’t get the support and the cooperation that I needed. Now, there were two other guys of this guy’s caliber that had documentaries made of them. The one has been all over the world, has won major awards. And this guy, as talented as he was, wasn’t as good as this guy. But that documentary had the emotional interviews with all the people that really believed this dude and loved this dude. All the quirky, weird stuff. And another guy, same thing. His music was good and he actually had a little bit more popularity because he was marketed better than this guy. But documentary wasn’t as good as well as the guy, as talented as he was. He was schizophrenic, this other guy. But there was still something lacking. I think my film could have been a great movie. And to this day, I’m devastated. My film didn’t get any further than Canadian distribution. That was it. And it didn’t go any further than that. It won a few awards. It played in every other city, but people liked it. But I couldn’t get one to pick it up. And this is the other weird irony to the whole film. This is the messed up irony. Film Threat magazine reviewed the film along with other magazines and organizations. They either thought the film was exploitive, it was me making a freak mockery of this gentleman because the guy had mental issues, or they thought the film was a mock up, a mockumentary. They thought it was all fake, it was all actors. And when they heard that it was real, they got turned off. They’re like, oh, this was real. And. And all of a sudden their opinions changed. But, so if it was a comedy, it would have been great. And some people said, Rob, just lie and say it’s- It’s a- It’s a fake film, it’s a fake document. Like they wanted me to tell people with Spinal Tap and I’m like, no, this is a real. This is real. So anyway, that film pretty much fell on the wayside, but it was a great learning experience because that was my first take on- Okay, this is pretty much how people accept filmmakers in Cleveland. And this is back in the early 90s, this was made. It was a feature length documentary shot on film, cut on film, an hour long. I did it for 7,500 bucks. I mean, that’s everything. And everybody fall into this whole Robert Rodriguez El Mariachi nonsense about $7,000 movie. Well, no, it cost him 100 grand to finish that film. This film was finished for 7,500 bucks. It was everything you want from a guerrilla film, but yet it was a solid documentary. It just should have been a better movie. It just wasn’t the film that I wanted to make, but I couldn’t use as an excuse I finished it. But many people said, despite all that, that film holds up as a true Cleveland film. That film is all about Cleveland. Everything about the film is Cleveland. Everything. Euclid Tavern, the punk scene, the club scene, everything about this movie was Cleveland. So I’m proud to say that. So I mean, but if had this been made elsewhere, like in Seattle or in Austin, all the other film meccas or Pittsburgh, places that are no different than Cleveland, but have a more of a solid appreciation for anything creative in media, that film would have gone a lot further. So going back to that answer, being here has been a setback. But there’s been pluses too. And everything you need to do something, you’re creative is here. The problem is the support, the moral support, the creative support, the administrative support, the marketing, everything the city’s lacking. Unless you play favorites or unless you kiss, kiss up to people. So who is the subject of the movie? Maybe you heard about it. You know who Supt. Is? Yeah. He’s a Vietnam vet. He suffered from post traumatic stress disorder. He’s word has he’s worse now. He’s completely lost his mind now. But he would do these acapella songs, but he would improvise these songs off the top of his head, literally. And he would come up with the melody, the beat and the rhythm. And the songs were catchy. And I discovered this dude when I got off the Air Force. I discovered him and I was into him ever since the Air Force. And I wanted to make this film and it was a sincere documentary. I was not trying to exploit this guy. I wanted to make a real documentary about this guy. But everybody around him took advantage of him because he had money, because he had disability, and everybody took advantage of him. He had personal cab drivers that drove him around. They took advantage of him. He had his bandmates, they were all a bunch of old school punk guys, but they totally didn’t take it seriously. But what made it worse was this is sort of off the record. But the film wound up being about him being interested in this college DJ who was a DJ at WUJC at John Carroll. He was obsessed with her. And that was the problem because the only time I can get in front of the camera, he wanted to talk about that. He wouldn’t talk about anything else. And it was meant to be about his music. So the film wound up being going from this local legend guy to being this stalker thing and. But we’ve turned it all around. But even still, at the premiere screening, it was a packed house at the Cinematheque. He got up on stage and he was in tears because half the interviews in the film were expressing the truth of what was going on. And he was devastated. He thought these people were his friends and everything. And everybody was speaking the truth, which is why a lot of people don’t want to be interviewed and everything. But he was in tears up on stage and he said, I was really. He told me up front, I’m not happy how this came out. I’m really not happy about. About this. And I’m like. I said, dude, it’s like, I’m sorry, but this is the truth. You know, there’s nothing I can do about it. But he got up on stage and she was in the audience, and he said, you know what? I’m not really stalking you. I don’t know why people think I am, but don’t worry, I’m not going to bother anymore. He said that in front of 375 people. So the screening alone was a circus and a sideshow. But. So in many ways, I’m proud of that project. But I’m still kind of upset about that whole thing because that just ended. It just. It just put me in a whole different understanding of this is what it’s going to be like making films here now. Because. Because when people take you really seriously, it’s too late, because then they think you’re a threat or they think that you’re a hindrance or something. And that’s what I learned about that, because I made films after that that pissed off more people. But those are the films that have taken off, and those are the films that open doors for me, but didn’t happen because it was here. Those films played in New York, Chicago, London, did a retrospective of my work and everything at the BBC. So, yeah, I’ll tell you more about that later if you want. In fact, it’s going to be coming out on DVD finally next year because I’ve been putting it off, but I’m actually going to release it. So anyway.

Lauren Hansgen [00:33:01] Well, what do you feel has been your most important accomplishment as an artist?

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:33:11] My most important accomplishment? Well, there’s lots of them, I have to admit, which is so weird because we’re talking about being in Cleveland, being held back.

Lauren Hansgen [00:33:18] And I’ll make- I’ll make this, I’ll interrupt you, I’ll make this twofold. I’ll ask you, what do you think your most important accomplishment is as an artist? To be successful, but then also like, what are you most proud of? What maybe never saw the most success, but that you thought was just really good work?

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:33:34] You know what? It’s kind of- That’s a weird question because I think everything I’ve done up until now, the majority of what I’ve done up to now, I’m proud of. I mean, there’s films that I’m a little embarrassed about at times, like this documentary, but my short film, X the Baby Cinema, as primitive as that film was, it was the first film of its type that I did because I made a bunch of scratch and draw on multimedia-type films. They’re like collage graffiti that animates. That was the film that I did in response to the Malcolm X merchandising that Spike Lee pulled off years ago. That film is still circulating around. It’s still playing all over the world. And I’m still proud of that film. And that film unofficially opened the door for me internationally. And I’ve been in over 100 film festivals, maybe 300. I lost count. I mean, I’ve been in so many festivals, I won so many awards. That film alone, the film I made after that, unfortunately, which is only one print in his existence, that’s a whole other learning experience, was my film. It was a semi biographical film about my childhood and my upbringing through TV, called my first drug the Idiot Box. I’m still proud of that film. That’s one of my favorite films, actually. But there’s only one print in existence because the lab lost the negative. That’s a whole other story though. So I cherished that one print because. But that film, the films I made after that. But overall, those films as a whole, even the short films I made Afterwards that were more advanced, they were in 35 millimeter. And being able to inspire people and being able to go out and just express the reality that we are more than ever trapped with our own media creations. We’re in tune with the Internet and our cell phones and our iPods, and we are so, more than ever, fragmented. And I witnessed this throughout the family too, because my oldest brother, who’s a great guy, he’s a media freak, he loves technology. And him and his son, all they do is sit at home and they’re trapped to their games and their DVDs and all these iPods and their MP3 players and all this stuff. Basically the same thing I went through as a kid. But at least I knew common sense to go outside and play and interact and create stuff and- But more than ever, people are so trapped with their toys and everything. And the films that I make are about that. And I have no problem saying that, and I’m proud of that. And when I get to go to schools and do workshops and talk to students and kids and try to get them to understand, you know, you’re only young once, make the most of your life. Because we’re flesh and blood beings, we’re also analog beings. We need to make the most of that more than ever now because everything in the world is killing us off. These new diseases and everything and wars and stuff, and all these other unpredictable things that are going on that are just making our lifespan shorter. We need to start getting a grip on embracing life and everything. And a lot of the films I make are about that. I’m totally proud of that. All these films I made, the X Baby Cinema film, the Gold Fish and Sunflower films I made paying tribute to the female gender in our modern era, which we still take for granted as being something else. Why, I don’t know. But I love expressing just simplistic things in life. And when I get to go to a festival, like when I went to the BBC in London, I was especially. I was the honored filmmaker, I was a guest filmmaker at the BBC Short Film Festival, which I was shocked because I was wondering, wow, these people really like these films. So I had to get up there and speak. And I was. And other named filmmakers were there too. You know, my stuff was being played with their stuff that was probably, I guess, on a commercial success level, that was like one of the highest achievements. I mean. But when I get to go to schools and do talks and do workshops and being able to teach, to me those are important also. And the irony is that people that know I’ve been. Lately I’ve been complaining because I’m not really a teacher, I’m not academic. I don’t want to be part of academia. But teaching is mainly a way of me paying the bills right now. However, there still is an enjoyment of going out there and embracing people and getting to understand that you know what we are a media society more than ever. But that don’t let this take you in a direction that’s going to be self destructive. You know, use this to educate you and your family and other people around you. Express your culture, express your religion, express your gender, express who and what you are spiritually and intellectually and make everybody else feel great about themselves. But let’s stop putting negative garbage out here. And that’s the problem. Hollywood and all these mainstream media, whether it’s the Internet or whether it’s video games, it’s all. All violence and sensationalized crap. It’s just sad. And anything I can do to sort of get people to be more proud of who they are and more and thankful for being alive and blessed as well as getting everybody else around them to give them the better things in life, that’s what it’s all about. And to me, those are the highest achievements. And that’s happened several times and I want to keep doing that, which is why I would like to branch out more. But once again, I’m in a situation now where I need money. So I guess the goal now is to try and find a way of using what I’ve established as a way of getting someone with money to back me up, do something bigger and more formal scale. Because it’s all about marketing, promotion. So that’s the next big hurdle. And right now that’s the toughest thing I’ve ever experienced because everything else was nothing. I made all those films by hand in my mom’s basement and in my mom’s attic and everything. It’s true. Grassroots, underground guerrilla filmmaking, but not so much for the sake of being a film survivalist, but mainly just to be an artist that’s passionate about what he does. And to me, that’s- That’s a great- That’s probably my greatest thing. I mean, I still live by that. I’m totally proud of that.

Lauren Hansgen [00:38:45] All right, Is there anything else that you wanted to say?

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:38:49] Well, I truly believe that all the artists in this exhibit, I think we all share the same initial goals and we have a lot to offer and it’s great to be part of this whole exhibit. I guess you could Say, I think this whole thing is important for the city of Cleveland. And I think the people here, the people that claim to love art or the people that claim to love, they love going to these gallery shows and all that. They really need to understand that there’s more to the art scene in Cleveland than going to gallery openings, you know, And I have no problem saying that my biggest pet peeve with Cleveland is that people here love celebrating, once again, more recreational. They love celebrating art, they love celebrating, but they don’t support it enough. You know, I mean, the true passion of art is having it in your room or in your studio or in your house or your car or your basement or in your bathroom, wherever, anything. And just admiring it, but taking time out to take a look at it and just learning something from it. You know, whether it’s an old painting or a piece of sculpture or a piece of music. You know, the sad thing with film especially unfortunately, is that because it’s seen as a novelty medium for entertainment reasons, it really isn’t seen as art per se. And that kind of upsets me at times because a lot of the films I make, I consider art. It’s something you can watch over and over and over again. That’s part of the idea. The colors are there, they move around, the images are there, there’s things that happen, but it gives you, you know, it’s like a time based medium, you know, but because once again, now we have everybody on the Internet cranking out stuff, I think people are more or less overly stimulated by what’s out there as it is. Because now everything you see here moves. Whatever, it’s just not- Which I think we need to start figuring out new ways of trying to re educate people as far as how they should understand or embrace it. Whether it’s still images or if it’s moving images, a lot of people think they know it or if they don’t understand it, it goes over their head. They think that it’s being orally intellectual. No, it’s not the case. I mean, me personally, my work is for the common person. I want the average guy walking down the street or, or anybody that doesn’t have any type of education whatever to look at my work and get something out of it. That’s what I make my films for more than anything else. I also want them to be entertained as well too. So I mean, there’s no reason why you can’t entertain, but enlighten people. And I think that’s what art is all about. But it’s Just once again, people here, I think are trapped in this mindset that it’s strictly something that you go to a gallery, you stare at and you walk away. And if you like it, you buy it, you put it in your kitchen and you forget about it. Then you put it in the attic and let it take dust and you give it to your grandkids. We don’t want it anymore. Well, you know what? Art doesn’t really gain any value until it sat around for a while and then maybe 20, 30, 40, 50 years after the fact, then the value will really be something important to whoever owns it. But that only happens if you embrace what’s on the canvas or in the frame or whatever. So yeah, that’s pretty much what I have to say. I mean, I just think that we really need to sort of take time out to understand what’s going on in the community and what’s going on, what we put put out there, the artists. We’re doing this for a reason. We’re not doing this just for fun. We’re not doing it just for, you know, we’re doing this because we have something to say and we want people to know about it. And it’s not just for African Americans, it’s for anybody and everybody. You know, we want people to be enlightened in all aspects of this medium. So.

Lauren Hansgen [00:42:03] Do you have anything?

Erin Bell [00:42:04] Yeah. Can I ask a question? 

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:42:05] Sure. 

Erin Bell [00:42:06] You mentioned a couple times about, you know, underground and guerrilla filmmaking. And your work has this kind of DIY flavor to it. And given that you made the documentary about Supie T and the old punk scene and stuff, I’m wondering if that has, if the punk rock was ever like a big part of your life or formative in any way. 

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:42:30] You know, it’s so funny you mention that! Unofficially, I was part of the punk scene in Cleveland. I- I never really officially would consider myself a punk rock kid. But back here’s the funny irony about all this. And this is another subject I love talking about. Trends come and go, right? Somebody dresses a certain way and if it’s not accepted, they’re a freak and they’re shunned and everything. But that’s punk rock. Punk rock is just another term for that outcast individualism type thing. That self relying resource for something that you believe in, but. But yet it’s something that signifies rebellion. And that’s all it is. Punk rock is just an extension of the whole rock and roll thing, which is an extension of everything that was rebellious before that. So yeah, a lot of that went into my filmmaking. In fact, that still is part of my filmmaking. In fact, the fact that I work in film now is more punk rock than ever. Along with all these DJs that spin vinyl on their turntables. That same principle, even though people are willing to accept that more, but it’s in the same category. I was into the music. Anything that was that embraced me or that I embraced from a perspective, as far as the music goes, you know, I was into this stuff and I wasn’t aware of it being punk rock, whatever you want to call it, when everything all of a sudden became alternative. I knew it was shot completely shot down completely. It was just okay. The powers that be got their hands on it. And now this new generation of kids are being brainwashed. And that’s the same thing exactly happened with independent films. Literally. It was a parallel right there. I saw this all happening. Hollywood back in the ’70s, late ’60s and early ’70s came to its peak when they started doing new types of narratives to break away from the traditional studio narratives. So at that time that was punk rock, if you want to use that as a metaphor. But you have the Dennis Hoppers and the Peter Fondas and Hal Ashbys and the Donald Camels and the Nicholas Rogues and the John Schlesingers. You know, a lot of these guys evolved out of the British new wave or the French new wave or whatever, you know, John Cassavetes, Orson Welles. And this all started back in the ’50s. And then it came through the ’60s and came of age in the ’70s. It reached its highest peak. And then all of a sudden something happened and it all died. And it was called marketing and making money and Star wars and everything that came after that, which destroyed that. So. So there were these people on the side that still wanted to tell their stories their way, whether it was with film or with music. And that stuff evolved in the 80s. Now the ’80s for what it was, was still the beginning of the end for Hollywood, in my opinion. And the ’90s made an attempt at making a comeback. But the irony was the independent films evolved out of the ’90s on a more commercial scale. So going back to the music thing, it was a parallel. Cause you talk to any kid about who their favorite band is, and I hear everything from Nirvana to Coldplay, you know. But you can’t get away from the fact that a lot of these bands were inspired by the bands from the ’60s and ’70s. But the more underground bands or the more off kilter bands, whether they were disco or rock and roll, think about it, when you Think of a band like, say, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who are extremely mainstream, but yet when they first came out, they were different because they were white guys doing funk in the tradition of Funkadelic and Parliament. That was different, you know, so there were all these bands that were being considered punk or alternative underground that were just different, but they were rock and roll bands or whatever. I don’t know. But. But no, the films that I make totally reflected that. I mean, I was into every other type of music. I was raised on gospel and jazz and rhythm and blues, Motown stuff. But I also listened to a little bit of rock and roll, even though at first it intimidated me. But the more I was intimidated by it, the more I was attracted to it. So I was introduced to Black Sabbath and Johnny Edgar Winter, David Bowie. I was introduced to all that Billy Joel, all that stuff when I was a kid. I was raised around that and I would listen to that along with Earth Wind and Fire and the Jackson 5 and all these other groups and everything. So to me, the more abstract, the better. And I would see films that would use abstract music for a soundtrack. A lot of these films, I can name any of them off the top of my head, but if you took that soundtrack and put it on an album, it would be called industrial music, or it would be called avant garde music. It would be called punk rock and neo. Morricone was probably one of the first punk musicians to score a soundtrack. Everything he did for all those spaghetti westerns and gangster films he made were heavy bass riffs with some weird scratchy guitar and everything, you know, influenced a lot of musicians. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, great movie, period. Great movie. Industrial soundtrack. Banging on metal, scraping steel and reverb effects. That was a soundtrack. That’s industrial music, you know. So I’ll tell all my students who think they know music. You need to first date back to the ’40s and look at what John Cage was doing and the people before him. Look at what the Dadaists were doing. Everything has a beginning and it didn’t happen within the last 10 years. So, yeah, music for me was a key element. And the more obscure, the better. Kraftwerk. Still a great band. I had a revelation a few months ago, even though I sort of knew this back in high school, but it was proven. Trevor Horn, in my opinion, was the man that turned the ’80s upside down. Because that little sample that we all hear with the horns and the De! De-de-de! That whatever, you know, that he basically unofficially started that because he was the guy that was with the Buggles. He would later join Yes. And then on top of that, he produced the Art of Noise and Frankie Goes to Hollywood and all these other bands that use that sound. And. And all of a sudden that sound became the ’80s sample. And to this day they still use it. And I hate it with a passion now because it’s been bastardized beyond belief. Sorry. But once again, these were the guys that were the innovators. And a lot of these guys, whether it was Tangerine Dream or Kraftwerk or what’s that band, Faust or all these weird German bands, they call it Kraut rock, which I hate that term, but so much of that inspired me. Musical scores by people like Jerry Fielding and Jerry Goldsmith or Alex North, you know, I mean, everybody took notice of the movie soundtracks because of John Williams. Well, you know what, there’s been film score composers dating way back ever since sound came around for movies that were phenomenal. You know, Max Steiner, Bernard Herrmann, you know. But a lot of these guys still knew how to manipulate audio, not just for mood and atmosphere, but just to bring things up to a different level, even for a bad film. So. So when rock music became the new staple in the music industry, why not indulge in other aspects of it and use that as inspiration? So, going back to your question, yeah, I mean, and to this day, I still listen to the Misfits and I still listen to the Buzzcocks and the old-school stuff, mainly a lot of British stuff. And to be honest, I’m more influenced by the European stuff the. More the British bands and a lot of the obscure German bands and all that stuff too, so. But, you know, there’s a lot of American bands I like also. But anything that’s obscure and unusual and different, I usually like it, even if it’s nothing original, you know. And the sad irony is there’s a lot of bands that I wish I could use their music for films because I hear their music and I have these images in my head. Now, some of them weren’t officially distributed or being with the barcode whatever. So the rights are open. In fact, I have connections to those bands anyway. And I was wondering. Well, one of my all time favorite bands actually was Godflesh. You’ve heard of them? Yeah. Great band. You know, Justin Broadrick, talented kid. I actually met him, told him what I did, gave him a copy of my showreel and he said, dude, I’d be honored if you use my music for your films. Not the music, not the Godflesh music that’s all copywritten. But his solo projects, which are all just stuff he did on the fly. And he had it just sent on these all small little indie labels. He said, that stuff I own the rights to, you have my full permission, do whatever you want with it and just show it anywhere. I don’t care. And a lot of his music is once again, it’s abstract. He would take different layers of sounds and just do things with them in the vein of the musicians I just mentioned. So he’s one which I’m trying to find the right project to use that music for another band called Skullflower, who did a track called Smoke Jaguar. I want to make a film to that so badly. It’s a 20 minute layer of guitar, drums, that’s all it is and things like that. So anyway, yeah, I mean, I love obscure music. I love obscure cinema. To me, it just works hand in hand. But the sad thing is when someone in a suit takes that and puts it in front of a Brad Pitt movie, all of a sudden everybody’s into it and everybody thinks it’s innovative and cool. And yet you tell people, you know what, I was doing that stuff 10 years ago. That came up in an issue because I mentioned the movie 7. Now, they thought that opening credits scene and the Nine Inch Nails remix of Closer was groundbreaking and innovative. No, in fact, the gentleman I’m meeting with, we had this argument about that because he was making a big deal about how David Fincher broke new ground. I’m thinking, no, he broke new ground for people that didn’t know anything. You know, there’s a lot of people that did that long before he did. And there’s, you know, so, I mean, but to some people, 9 inch Neil is this edgy, innovative industrial music. It’s not. Trent Reznor would tell you that, you know, he’s a rock and roll guy, you know, that’s just trying to be as harsh as possible. But, you know, you want to hear some true down and out depressing industrial music that’s not industrial music. Listen to the Swans. Another inspiration for me. So. So anyway, that sort of answers your question. So I can name you 50 bands that are. That have inspired me. But, you know, I’m sure this is.

Lauren Hansgen [00:51:45] Like your most hated question, but I want to ask you anyway.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:51:48] No, no, go ahead, ask.

Lauren Hansgen [00:51:49] You say you’ve been listening to or been watching movies your whole life. I just want to know, like, what you think are some of the best films of all time or what your favorite is or what you can always watch, what you would watch a million Times over again.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:52:01] I’ll name you maybe five films just off the top of my head I can watch over and over and over again. Okay, these are some of my all time favorite movies. Because a lot of people tend to think, because I’m a filmmaker and I’m avant-garde or whatever that means, whatever, that I only like art films. It’s like, no, I love mainstream movies. I like good mainstream films because I want to be entertained. This is whole misconception that I don’t want to be entertained. I go to the movies for recreation, enjoyment and I don’t go to analyze movies. Now. Films that personally I can watch a hundred times over again. And some of them I actually own. You ever hear of the movie Dragon Slayer? See, nobody knows that movie.

Lauren Hansgen [00:52:36] I’m making notes.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:52:36] Matthew Robbins and Hal Barwood, they were Spielberg’s buddies and they helped Spielberg get to where he was at. And so they went ahead and made their own movie which was just as good as anything Spielberg made. And it came out the same year Raiders came out called Dragon Slayer. Great film. It’s one of my all time favorite movies. Great special effects. Phil Tippett did the monster. Peter McNichol stars in it. Ralph Richardson stars in it. Caitlin Clark stars in it. Excellent movie. I own a 16 millimeter print of it in CinemaScope. That’s how great it is. That’s one of my favorite movies. And sadly enough, it doesn’t have an audience. It has a small cult following. And that’s it. That’s a great movie. 2001: A Space Odyssey. Great film. I love almost anything by Stanley Kubrick with the exception of The Shining. I still think that’s his weakest film. But anyway, Arthur Hiller, who’s known for Love Story and Silver Streak, really talented guy. He was also the president for the Academy of Arts and Sciences. He made a film called The Hospital. That is one of my all time favorite movies. I know that movie dialogue word for word. Excellent cinematography, excellent acting. I love the soundtrack. The way it was shot, the. The characters, the plot. Paddy Chafsky wrote the story. Brilliant film. Underrated film. George C. Scott stars in it. One of my all time favorite movies. I own that on film too. See, I don’t just own the dvd. It’s only films I have on different formats. But I actually own the film prints going back to the Kubrick thing. A Clockwork Orange. I have a film print of that. I own another great movie, Straw Dog, Sam Peckinpah. Excellent film. That film’s being remade, actually. I’m being told they’re gonna remake that. Unfortunately, I’m not a big fan of remakes. Unless it’s something that’s gonna be done in a different style or a different reconceptual way of doing. I don’t know. But I think remakes are pointless. How many is that so far?

Lauren Hansgen [00:54:22] I think that’s about five.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:54:23] Okay, I can give you two more, maybe.

Lauren Hansgen [00:54:24] Oh, yeah.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:54:28] Oh, what’s another one? Oh, this is a weird film. But once again, it was an inspiration for me. It was a sweet, sweet, sweet badass song. It was an art, avant garde film that Melvin Van Peebles made. Now this film, in my opinion, was totally over the top, crazy, political, radical. It was abstract. It was chaotic. It was the film that started the blaxploitation genre, which was strictly a commercial exploitation genre. But that film was an art film. That’s a great movie. Once again, the soundtrack. Abstract, crazy, weird, psychedelic, jazz and acid rock. Great soundtrack. That came out in 1971, by the way, which was actually a good year because every other film on there is from 1971, except for Dragon Slayer. Let me see. Another one would be. Oh, the first Mad Max. Actually, both Mad Max and the Road Warrior. Great movies. Great, great movies. And I’ll give you one more. These are films that I can watch over and over again. In fact, if these films played theatrically, I would go see it in a theater. One more would be Blade Runner, another great movie. And despite what people want to believe, this whole thing about Deckard being a Replicant is a joke. I don’t buy that at all. And if he is a Replicant, there’s other evidence that would support it, more so than what people are saying. So anyway, but that’s just scratching the surface. Those are some of my all time favorite movies right there.

Lauren Hansgen [00:55:55] Thank you very much.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:55:59] I would say Spike Lee, she’s got to have it. That’s okay. But he hasn’t made anything great since then. Have you seen any of those? Have you heard any of those movies? Yeah. Straw Dogs, Blade Runner. Yeah, yeah.

Lauren Hansgen [00:56:13] But a lot of these. This is my new list.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:56:15] Sweet, sweet. That badass. It was a reenactment of what happened in the making of that. You see the movie, the movie. You know what we- Mario Van Peebles is as talented as he is. He can’t hold a stick to his father. His father was a genius. His father was brilliant. That film was so ahead of its time. It was completely ahead of its time. The way it was shot, the way it was edited, the sound, the Soundtrack alone is amazing. And it’s just abstract, but yet it’s a narrative. And I tell people if I can make something crazy like that, I’d be so happy. But no, that film was so cool. It’s just a great film. It’s disturbing, but it’s still, you know, it’s just. It has so much going for it and like, to the hospital. I don’t know what it is. That film, in my opinion, had everything perfectly. The casting, the dialogue, everything in that film is just. I can watch that film over and over and over again. I can still find things in it, but I just love that movie. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, and once again, these are films that personally, for me, if someone made these films now, they would be considered too quirky and too weird, you know, or it’ll be someone being unusual and avant-garde. And it’s like, that’s why movies like Seven or- That’s why I like picking on David Fincher. But you saw Fight Club, right? You saw Fight Club, okay? Everybody acts like that’s this ground. Once again, a groundbreaking story. Look, that story is so cookie cutter and cliche. It’s a- It’s a watered down Twilight Zone episode. That’s all it is. And it was predictive. That’s what made it so bad. I knew what was gonna happen, but everybody was like, oh, man, I was so. I think this is just my personal opinion. I just know for a fact a lot of people, they dumb down their stories to make everybody sort of able to get into it. They still try to make it edgy a little bit, just to make people think like, wow, this is so cool and different.

Lauren Hansgen [00:58:01] But think about how many college houses have a Fight Club poster up in them.

Robert Banks, Jr. [00:58:05] No. Every other student I taught Toy special. Every other student I taught worships that film. And I challenge him. I say, okay, why is it? This is a great film and no one can tell me why. My one buddy says, because it’s only film that’s identical to the book. I’m like, that doesn’t make it a great film. In fact, this misconception that, oh, I didn’t like it because it wasn’t like the book. It’s like, well, the book is its own medium. Film is a different medium. You can’t make a book into a movie. Now, the way Fight Club was structured, they tried to make it like a, like you’re reading a story. So. So I don’t know. I thought it was good. Ed Norton’s great in the film. He’s really good. I thought the cast was great. I just thought Brad Pitt was a joke in the film and his character was a minor character element in the movie, and they should have pushed the other element. I would have gotten more into it if it was longer and if they would have really reinforced Ed Norton’s perspective. But no, they just took the easy way out. And it was meant to be like, like the Matrix. Same thing. Another overrated movie. I mean, technically, I love watching that film, but I would not dare put it in this category because it was a good idea that they disguised with Zen philosophy to push off this whole pseudo William Gibson nonsense with martial arts. I mean, I’m not dissing it, but to me, that’s a total exploitation movie is the Matrix. And the sequels are just despicable. I think they’re garbage. Yeah, so. So, no, I mean, going back to Dragon Slayer that, you know, I mean, there’s no CGI in that film at all. They used a technique called Go Motion, which was- I think that should have been the new special effect, but they didn’t last long. It was basically, you take these fully armatured creatures and you film them at 500 frames a second, but they have every gesture and movement, but it’s- They control everything, remote control and everything. And then when you run it back in real time, it looks organic and alive. And that debit card, they use it, I think, in, was it Return of the Jedi? Remember the rancor monster that Luke Skywalker fought? That was Go Motion. Yeah. And Phil Tippett did the effect for that also. But that film, they took American actors and English actors, and he shot it in England. And it is seamless. You’re just so caught up into it because you don’t. You’re not aware that you’re watching a movie. You’re really caught up into the fairy tale aspect of it. Very few Hollywood films can pull that off. And the bad thing is I mentioned that film, and everybody keeps thinking I’m talking about Dragon Heart with Sean Connery and Dennis Quaid, and I’m like, no, that’s a whole ’nother movie. And I’m telling you, it’s just. That film is so. It’s just. It’s unfair. So unfair that it’s a really great movie. And the soundtrack was. In fact, the soundtrack was nominated for an Oscar. It lost Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the special effects was nominated for an Oscar, and it lost the Raiders of the Lost Ark. And those guys were the ones that worked with Spielberg early in his career. I think they co-produced and wrote Close Encounters with them and Jaws and something else, and then they went off and did their own movie and nothing happened. So, yeah, I used to teach a film class here, by the way, if you guys are wondering, I taught History of the Moving Image here, so. So I did that a couple years ago for Dr. Neuendorf. And. And. But I teach at Tri-C now, and most of my students are young and they just feel that I’m just blowing off hot air. They just, you know, and they keep telling me what they see on YouTube and I’m like, so I check it out. I’m just not impressed. I think YouTube is great for showing people clips of movies or TV ads, whatever, that are rare. I think it’s great for that. And every so often, I’ll see a short film that’s interesting. But most of YouTube, I want to say 75% of it is crap. There’s 25% that’s actually really cool. And I watch that over and over again. But everything else is like. I spend more time trying to find cool stuff than watching stuff. But. But that’s what the generation is now. People judge you now as a filmmaker. If you have 2 million hits on YouTube, you’re a great filmmaker. It’s like, no, that means someone had nothing to do that day, and someone emailed that to, like 100 of their friends, and they all watched it at least one time. That doesn’t mean that it’s good. That just means that a bunch of people are being told to watch this. You know, now if they watch it 25 times a week, maybe they’re getting something out of it. But, you know, I just think that, you know, once again, society here judges success by. If a million people watch you making a film about you talking about committing suicide, that means you’re a great actress, That’s a great film. We gotta get- We gotta hire you. And that’s gonna. We’re gonna make a lot of money. No, that means that people are bored or they don’t have anything going on. In my opinion, great movies stand the test of time. That’s why all those films there, you can run them today, they still hold up. And I mean, 2001, for example, some people, there’s a handful of people think that’s a dated film, but everybody else still believes that it’s ahead of its time. A friend of mine who’s totally in the mainstream Hollywood films, I showed her 2001 a few years ago, and she’d never seen it before, and she was, to this day- That was back in, what, 2000? That was actually around 2000. 2000. When I showed it to her, believe it or not, and she was amazed at how this film was from 1968. She couldn’t get over that. I told her, well, not just it was made, it came out in ’68. It was actually made between ’66 and ’67. That’s when it was made. And one of the effects, the main effects guy, it was Douglas Trumbull, he was 19 years old when he worked on that. And I think of all the kids now that have all iMovie or Aftereffects and Flash and Maya and all these effects. What could you do back then when they didn’t have that stuff? Everything was optical effects. Everything was done physically by hand and with lights and illusion and lens optics and force perspective and slit scan effects. That was what they did back then. And that was groundbreaking because that was basically optical technology pushed a little bit. That’s all it was. But I argue with so many people nowadays because I still truly believe, you know, everyone’s a filmmaker now because technology’s allowed it for them to happen. Now they have the facilities to do what they can do. But if I took all that away from you, and this is the problem I have with my students at Tri, cuz I do this to them, I’ll say, okay, you’re going to shoot today, right? Okay, you’re going to shoot with an f stop of f11 or t11. And they’re like, oh, that’s too dark. It’s like, I know it’s too dark. Guess what? You got to light it, you know, because the iris of a camera, you can open it up all the way, let more light in. You close it down, you let in less light. But that means you really have to bring in lights and to give enough luminance to give character to what you’re lighting and everything. But if you have the iris all the way open, you know, all the natural light or the available light is there and you don’t have to light anything. So little things like that, you know, people are just so lazy or they don’t have any ambition at all. They just want things to be, turn it on, turn it off. You know, switch, turn it up, turn it down. You know, they don’t really do anything except push buttons or click a mouse. And that’s not filmmaking to me. So. So anyway, I’m boring you guys.

Lauren Hansgen [01:04:42] No, this has been great. So interesting.

Robert Banks, Jr. [01:04:45] Stupid. So I don’t know. So, yeah. And see, the bad thing is I’m not dissing Kevin. He’s a good friend of mine, but I always make fun of him about that because he started out as a photographer and a sculptor, so he has the eye and everything. He started making films in the early ’90s after I made my Malcolm X film. And he has taken off. You know why? He first started shooting on film and editing on a computer. Now he strictly shoots digital edits on the computer. That’s all he does now. He tries to mix formats every so often, but he’s totally a product of the whole digital. Even though he’s older than I am, he’s like two years older than I am. But he’s a whole digital geek guy and everything. But it’s his subject matter. He comes across the subject matter that appeals to people. And so he’s been in every major festival in the world now, and he travels, he gets these fellowships. He’s done it all. He’s living the dream. I wish I could live- And the problem is- And he would disagree. In fact, we were talking to a fist fight about it. I still think he’s compromised a lot because he’s one of these guys, he’s like, oh, I like mixing it all up. I’m like, well, dude, you’re using a computer as an excuse to get your stuff done early on time and everything, that’s where he is. I’m not like that. When I do my own stuff, I have to finish on celluloid. Because when my stuff plays, everybody, even if they hate it, they’re still taken by it, you know, what he does is puts it on a dvd, gets it out there. And now it’s just once again, majority of the people he shows his stuff to, they can’t tell a film from a video. It’s just subject matter, subject matter, same thing, whatever, you know, so. And I look at that, I’m like, you know, he visually has a good eye. I’m thinking, you know, he actually did this on film or did something with this. You might have something. He still dabbles a little bit with film, but he strictly shoots film or digital and edits all on a computer and just puts it out there. And, you know. But he’s gotten major success from it. So the sad thing is, though, he’s been in Sundance over seven times now, still can’t get a movie deal. So I said, you’re doing something wrong. Because anybody that’s been in Sundance as long as you have, they would have been with Miramax or whoever, you know, Harvey Weinstein would be banging on your door. And yet you still can’t get a movie deal. He can’t get financing for a feature he wants to do. I’m thinking, well, you’re doing something wrong then, because he’s been in every other major festival. He’s been in Rotterdam, he’s been in Berlin. He’s had stuff at. Not in Cannes, but Cannes has this little side thing, and he’s had stuff shown in there, but still can’t get a movie deal. So.

Lauren Hansgen [01:07:02] Technically, talking for this exhibition, do you- I don’t know. Have you talked to Marilyn Simmons?

Robert Banks, Jr. [01:07:09] Yeah.

Lauren Hansgen [01:07:09] What you want to show and are you going to show? Are we going to show film or stills or what do you want to do?

Robert Banks, Jr. [01:07:13] You know what? That’s a good point. Let’s talk about that for a minute. Anyway, one of the reasons I was concerned about all this was I was really hoping that they were going to either try and get a formal venue for the film people, because I guess it’s just me and Kevin now. Austin Allen’s not going to be involved. Okay. Or Michelle, his wife, Michelle Davis.

Lauren Hansgen [01:07:39] Not on my list.

Robert Banks, Jr. [01:07:40] Yeah, they’re probably not going to be. It’s too bad, because what it was is years ago-

Lauren Hansgen [01:07:42] I got the list after [crosstalk] Marilyn Boyle. Yeah, Marilyn. I got Marilyn.

Robert Banks, Jr. [01:07:48] Years ago, Akron Museum of Art did a show very similar to this, and it was me, Connie Patrone, who’s a teacher here, Austin. In it, I’m Michelle. Michelle. We were the four filmmakers. They tied that showing with the Cleveland International Film Festival, and we had a show there, which I thought was cool, even though I don’t know. Anyway, that’s a whole other story. But the fact is, we had the show at the film festival. When Marilyn mentioned this to me, I was hoping it could be the same thing. I was thinking, well, how are we going to show our stuff? Because I’ve had stuff shown in galleries before, and I don’t particularly like it, because when you see a video monitor in a gallery, you walk up, you look at it, and you walk away. And that’s cool, but a lot of what I have to offer, it needs to be watched, at least for, you know, the amount of time that’s being asked to be viewed and everything. So. So I told, if you guys want that, I can do that. Because. And to be honest, if you. It’s no big deal. But the films I’m making now actually meant for gallery stuff now, because I decided if I’m going to shoot something for a gallery, it’s going to be more gallery Based or something for YouTube or small screen, whatever. So that’s what I’ve been doing lately. So. But I told her if there was a way there could be a screening in a formal environment, I would love that. And I think that would actually help the show out more. But she said she was gonna try and she was gonna talk to the film festival, but I don’t think they got back to her, to be honest. I don’t think she pursued it.

Lauren Hansgen [01:08:59] What if we did it as part of, like, the opening for the, like, as part of programming for this exhibition? Was there, if there was like a day where you would come specifically to watch films? And maybe not in the gallery, but.

Robert Banks, Jr. [01:09:13] That would be nice. I mean, to be honest, I mean, something like that would be great.

Lauren Hansgen [01:09:16] But then would it be bad if there were still in the space or if there was a video monitor in the space?

Robert Banks, Jr. [01:09:21] It would be bad. 

Lauren Hansgen [01:09:22] No, I mean, I’d like you to have presence in the actual show. Even if we do a separate event of that.

Robert Banks, Jr. [01:09:26] Yeah. Because I know I was telling Marilyn, if worse comes to worst, if you want me to give you a DVD on a loop of some stuff, I can do that. And some photos as well. I mean, I have tons of photos from back then as well, so maybe a couple photos and maybe like a monitor, that’s fine, too. But Kevin, he probably would feel. I want to say he may feel more about this the way I do, but I can’t speak for him. But if there was a way that we could have had our stuff shown, it’d be space that would have a big screen. That would be nice. Whether it was in the gallery, which I doubt they would have a space big enough. I know upstairs at Spaces, they have that one room which is pretty big. That wouldn’t be a bad idea. I mean, I have projectors. I told them I would even provide the projectors and everything. Or the Cinematheque was another option. They want to do it there. I don’t know if they spoke to John Ewing. In fact, that’s gonna be in January, right? The actual show opening, it opens January.

Lauren Hansgen [01:10:13] 20th, 23rd, and goes through March 7th.

Robert Banks, Jr. [01:10:16] Really? See, it’s two back at the film festivals after that, actually. But. But yeah, I think Cinema tech either may be booked in January, but they’re not booked in. Let me see. They’re probably doing the January, February schedule now and then March is still probably open. I don’t know. I’m just thinking there’s a possibility. But worst comes to worse, talk to-

Lauren Hansgen [01:10:34] Some people and see about that.

Robert Banks, Jr. [01:10:35] I mean, I’ve. John Ewing Zimmer, if you want to talk to him. And I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t know if Maryland spoke to anybody about that, but I get the feeling they’re just going to keep it simple and easy. But I just know for a fact if it was me and Kevin with our stuff projected in a formal environment, that would be a lot- You would get more of the impact. I mean, I’m really critical in presentation. And when a painting is in a gallery, it needs to be positioned.

Lauren Hansgen [01:10:56] It’s like you can’t have a crappy frame on something.

Robert Banks, Jr. [01:10:57] Exactly. Yeah. And a lot of these films that I’ve made are like. They’re just meant to be seen on the big screen. In fact, the ones that they want.

Lauren Hansgen [01:11:05] Me to promote that. I know that.

Robert Banks, Jr. [01:11:06] Yeah, because all the films that she wanted, because once. This is all the stuff from 1970 to 19, what, 2005.

Lauren Hansgen [01:11:11] 1960 to 2005. And so show of living, working contemporary artists. But we want to emphasize it is sort of still a historical show. We’re trying. So we love older stuff.

Robert Banks, Jr. [01:11:21] Yeah, well. And all the stuff I did at that point was all the cinematic theatricals type stuff. I mean, after 2005, that was around the time when I started doing more gallery type little stuff.

Lauren Hansgen [01:11:30] Because we would like to. Yeah. Do you know. Do you have in mind what you would want to show?

Robert Banks, Jr. [01:11:35] We- I sort of mentioned Marilyn. I know there were several. I know she wants the Malcolm X film for sure. There was a film I did with Dexter Davis called Boneface, and I was gonna. If they were gonna get me the venue, I was gonna run that on film. But that’s up in the air now because that’s 30. Some of these films were shot on 35 millimeters. So they’re really cinematic. But at the same time, I just figured, well, if you just want stuff on the monitor, like X to Baby Cinema would be good for that. Some of the other films, like Motion Picture Genocide, that’s theatrical, but that can be shown. You know, in fact, SPACES ran these years ago. Anyway, they ran these on the monitor. So Motion Picture Genocide’s another one, or MPG, I call it. Goldfish and Sunflowers. That was another one. That’s one of the more sort of psychedelic-type things.

Lauren Hansgen [01:12:21] Well, I have a meeting with the CSU people on Thursday, so we’ll talk about this.

Robert Banks, Jr. [01:12:26] I just see what they see. I mean, I don’t know what Kevin’s gonna show, if he’s gonna just show photography or sculptures or he’s gonna show films or photos. I don’t know. But. But, yeah.

Lauren Hansgen [01:12:34] All right.

Robert Banks, Jr. [01:12:35] Yeah. I mean, it’s just- I told Marilyn I’m just not really- I don’t want to be difficult. I just- I would really like it. We can force change, push the film stuff.

Lauren Hansgen [01:12:42] But that’s- But like I said, very valid.

Robert Banks, Jr. [01:12:45] Very valid point, but it’s Cleveland. You know. You know Spencer Tunick? You know who he is? You know who Spencer Tunick is? That’s funny. You know that guy that came here years ago and he had all those people get naked down there on- Okay, that’s him. Everybody went out of the way to kiss this dude’s ass like it was no tomorrow. And this dude, technically, his stuff’s interesting, but he’s a hack. I’m sorry. But once again, they were more than accommodating what he wanted, but they would never do that for anybody in Cleveland. In fact, I had an idea very similar to that years ago that I wanted to do it. Had more. Had more theme to it and everything, but everybody thought I was crazy, and I was, I was nuts for wanting to do something like that, you know? And it’s just- But yet they accommodate this guy. Whatever. But at the same time, there was a video about him just because he was doing a show at MOCA, and it was in the Cleveland Film Festival, and it wasn’t even a good doc. It was an HBO documentary that was done on TV anyway, but they showed it anyway. I’m just thinking they went out of the way to show that, and yet it’s gonna be on tv, or was on tv. I don’t know. I just thought, once again, it’s like they would push something like that. But something like what we’re trying to do, it’s just, you know, so I’m just, you know. That’s just one of many examples. Today’s the third, right?

Lauren Hansgen [01:13:54] It is, yes.

Robert Banks, Jr. [01:13:56] Okay. And I’m gonna put the 5,803, in fact. Not that I’m a big supporter of YouTube, but if you want to see samples of my work online, it’s on YouTube. The quality is bad, though. My students. Oh, yeah, that. The quality is actually better with that because my students put that on YouTube.

Lauren Hansgen [01:14:17] The motion picture Genocide. I’ve seen that one.

Robert Banks, Jr. [01:14:18] Okay. And in fact, that version is just a work in progress. You got to see the finished version, which is just a little longer, but it’s the same film, but once again, on a big screen, on a good sound system. Like the heartbeat thing. That thing is loud in the theater. You hear that and all the voices in it. That was in fact the guy who did the soundtrack with me on that. And he did the music for or he recorded the music for Extra Baby Cinema. He was a goth. He was a goth musician. His name was Vito Hall. You ever hear of him? Older dude, he was an old-school goth punk dude. And he had an all. He had an all black goth band, which was odd. But anyway, we did the soundtrack for that and he hates industrial music, but that was like an industrial soundtrack and we were doing it old school. And that was done with the eight track mixer and everything. Nothing digital about that. But yeah, he was a really good musician. And what time’s anyway?

Lauren Hansgen [01:15:12] It is almost 11:30.

Robert Banks, Jr. [01:15:15] Okay. I’m okay for time. No, we got that. I gotta do that production meeting at 2, 1:30 actually now, if you wonder what that is, it’s between us here. You know who John Malm is? You want me to stop the recording? Yeah, you better.

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