The Room (2001) - full transcript
A narrator describes his fascination with an open window that he used to pass by every day as a child. He could hear music coming from an unseen room in a house in his neighborhood. Many years later, now an old man, he buys the house not knowing it is the very same that caught his imagination. At the end of his life, he finally understands the reason for his childhood obsession.
This short film is called "The room."
It's a film that I co directed with Eric Lisa,
who is a friend of mine.
And it's my first shot and directing,
which I've always wanted to
do even before I started acting.
And hopefully I'll come back with more.
I love short films.
My partner, or my to be partner called me.
He said, I have a short story that I'd
like to direct and I'd like you in it.
And he faxed me from Holland too. I was doing
a movie in Montreal and I called him back.
I said, when I pass through Holland again,let's meet
Like six months later we meet
and we hit it off really well.
And we started talking and
talking about the story.
It's a novel and it has to be translated into film now.
The screenplay is basically voiceover,
of a man who tells how he comes
back after along time to his place of birth.
And he has a very odd experience.
And it's about a room that he watched
when he was young, from the outside.
He never knew who was living in there,
but there was always music coming out
of the room and it fascinated him.
It was sort of like and he ends up living in that
room for a couple of days and he finds out something.
That's all it is.
We both really liked the story and
we thought and as we hit it off so well,
we started exploring it.
I said, we have to get in there.
We have to make it come to
live rather than just a voice over.
The language needs to be more normal, less literature.
It needs to be shorter.
I want to shoot it in black and white.
I want to shoot it in anamorphic.
And the beginning needs to have...
the beginning is weak and the end is very delicate.
As we were developing and said, I have to ask you this.
I've been wanting to direct.
Will you do this with me?
And he said "of course".
I can't tell you what a joy it was
to direct something together,
with somebody who totally...
what spurred this on was as I
would talk to him about stuff,
he would mention something that I was
just thinking, and that's kind of strange.
And I've learned to appreciate that rather than go,
because it freaks you out.
But we had something really close going.
So, when we did it was a dream.
The crew was nice, it was easy
We had more than enough room
to shoot, to play around.
I rewrote the script one more time.Then i
did the script only as a voiceover.
And then we developed an idea of how
to make the man really be alive.
And now so there's four realities in this ten minutes.
There's the past, the future, the now and
The fourth one I can't tell you,
because some people get it, some people don't.
The story comes from a writer in Holland who's
very well known he's in his sixty as i guess now.
47 years ago this was his first story he ever wrote,
he didn't know he wanted to be a writer but he had
this story and he thought I can send it into a newspaper.
Let's see what happens.
And he was pondering on what he was going to do in life,
and he'd forgotten about sending it into the newspaper,
and then two weeks later,
he opened the newspaper and was in there.
That story we took from the Dutch
literature, translated it into English
and then translated into it film,
we probably cut half of the words out.
Then improvised.
Some of it is improvised on because
it's very little here and there,
and we felt that we had to break that every
other moment so it didn't become poetry,
and we showed, he came to the opening of the film,
and he said it's a better film than the story.
And he's a very respected writer.
He's one of the high writers,
and to us that was like really generous and he meant it.
He wasn't faking.
He said Good for you.
Because we had to talk to him
before we got the story we said no.
We're not going to screw around with it.
We're going to try and make it the best we can.
Following your story and then we got his blessing.
And then it went to festivals
and it was on television twice.
So we got quite a big audience,
we send it into Sundance,
we got as close as 32.
When it was down to 32 movies out of the 1400,
we dropped out but that was close.
The music was very interesting.
I was thinking of SETI,
and he's a Dutch. I think he was in Paris,
but there was a Dutchman who
was the first piano player,
who came up with the music and
he's a friend of this writer.
So one of the first ideas was I'd love
to use them and he said
"No, when you want me. I'm there."
So that was great, but my partner said there's
a guy that I worked with before,
who makes very interesting music,
and I would like to try and see what
he comes up with if we can't use it.
We'll throw it away and he came
up with such simple music.
It's nothing.
But it's great.
What I like about stuff that I like to direct,
is that it's different.
It's not what you would expect me to do,
it's not something I've done before,
but it's something I can do.
It's an expansion or an extension of what you've done.
now I understand that the chances that
you get to do this are small,
and that people are not necessarily money people,
whoever are not necessarily ready
to give you that chance,
it's a lot of money and films nowadays are not
that much about point of view or meaningful
droolingor kicking ass or whatever.
It's all about product.
And if I feel strong about something,
it can be product and it will have an audience.
But to get there is kind of difficult.
I have time, I think.
So I'm a patient man, and I'm not going to sell out.
I'm not going to sell out in terms of giving away too much,
and then feel that I'm just on
this slide and go down.
So I'll wait until it happens.
Directing the room was just so much fun.
It's where I belong.
It's where I belong.
I've always felt that I'm a better director than an actor,
but of course, I have to prove it.
So let's see if I can prove it.
I've got quite a bit of Americana
sort of thing in it going.
It's sort of a strange cowboy coming back home.
And there's quite a few parallels with me,
because i came home doing this film as a director.
After doing all this stuff in Germany, America,
and having this whole career, I come home to do
it ten minutes short in my own country,
with a partner who is just bliss.
It's quite a moment. This little film
was quite a moment for me.
And now it's on the DVD.
It's a film that I co directed with Eric Lisa,
who is a friend of mine.
And it's my first shot and directing,
which I've always wanted to
do even before I started acting.
And hopefully I'll come back with more.
I love short films.
My partner, or my to be partner called me.
He said, I have a short story that I'd
like to direct and I'd like you in it.
And he faxed me from Holland too. I was doing
a movie in Montreal and I called him back.
I said, when I pass through Holland again,let's meet
Like six months later we meet
and we hit it off really well.
And we started talking and
talking about the story.
It's a novel and it has to be translated into film now.
The screenplay is basically voiceover,
of a man who tells how he comes
back after along time to his place of birth.
And he has a very odd experience.
And it's about a room that he watched
when he was young, from the outside.
He never knew who was living in there,
but there was always music coming out
of the room and it fascinated him.
It was sort of like and he ends up living in that
room for a couple of days and he finds out something.
That's all it is.
We both really liked the story and
we thought and as we hit it off so well,
we started exploring it.
I said, we have to get in there.
We have to make it come to
live rather than just a voice over.
The language needs to be more normal, less literature.
It needs to be shorter.
I want to shoot it in black and white.
I want to shoot it in anamorphic.
And the beginning needs to have...
the beginning is weak and the end is very delicate.
As we were developing and said, I have to ask you this.
I've been wanting to direct.
Will you do this with me?
And he said "of course".
I can't tell you what a joy it was
to direct something together,
with somebody who totally...
what spurred this on was as I
would talk to him about stuff,
he would mention something that I was
just thinking, and that's kind of strange.
And I've learned to appreciate that rather than go,
because it freaks you out.
But we had something really close going.
So, when we did it was a dream.
The crew was nice, it was easy
We had more than enough room
to shoot, to play around.
I rewrote the script one more time.Then i
did the script only as a voiceover.
And then we developed an idea of how
to make the man really be alive.
And now so there's four realities in this ten minutes.
There's the past, the future, the now and
The fourth one I can't tell you,
because some people get it, some people don't.
The story comes from a writer in Holland who's
very well known he's in his sixty as i guess now.
47 years ago this was his first story he ever wrote,
he didn't know he wanted to be a writer but he had
this story and he thought I can send it into a newspaper.
Let's see what happens.
And he was pondering on what he was going to do in life,
and he'd forgotten about sending it into the newspaper,
and then two weeks later,
he opened the newspaper and was in there.
That story we took from the Dutch
literature, translated it into English
and then translated into it film,
we probably cut half of the words out.
Then improvised.
Some of it is improvised on because
it's very little here and there,
and we felt that we had to break that every
other moment so it didn't become poetry,
and we showed, he came to the opening of the film,
and he said it's a better film than the story.
And he's a very respected writer.
He's one of the high writers,
and to us that was like really generous and he meant it.
He wasn't faking.
He said Good for you.
Because we had to talk to him
before we got the story we said no.
We're not going to screw around with it.
We're going to try and make it the best we can.
Following your story and then we got his blessing.
And then it went to festivals
and it was on television twice.
So we got quite a big audience,
we send it into Sundance,
we got as close as 32.
When it was down to 32 movies out of the 1400,
we dropped out but that was close.
The music was very interesting.
I was thinking of SETI,
and he's a Dutch. I think he was in Paris,
but there was a Dutchman who
was the first piano player,
who came up with the music and
he's a friend of this writer.
So one of the first ideas was I'd love
to use them and he said
"No, when you want me. I'm there."
So that was great, but my partner said there's
a guy that I worked with before,
who makes very interesting music,
and I would like to try and see what
he comes up with if we can't use it.
We'll throw it away and he came
up with such simple music.
It's nothing.
But it's great.
What I like about stuff that I like to direct,
is that it's different.
It's not what you would expect me to do,
it's not something I've done before,
but it's something I can do.
It's an expansion or an extension of what you've done.
now I understand that the chances that
you get to do this are small,
and that people are not necessarily money people,
whoever are not necessarily ready
to give you that chance,
it's a lot of money and films nowadays are not
that much about point of view or meaningful
droolingor kicking ass or whatever.
It's all about product.
And if I feel strong about something,
it can be product and it will have an audience.
But to get there is kind of difficult.
I have time, I think.
So I'm a patient man, and I'm not going to sell out.
I'm not going to sell out in terms of giving away too much,
and then feel that I'm just on
this slide and go down.
So I'll wait until it happens.
Directing the room was just so much fun.
It's where I belong.
It's where I belong.
I've always felt that I'm a better director than an actor,
but of course, I have to prove it.
So let's see if I can prove it.
I've got quite a bit of Americana
sort of thing in it going.
It's sort of a strange cowboy coming back home.
And there's quite a few parallels with me,
because i came home doing this film as a director.
After doing all this stuff in Germany, America,
and having this whole career, I come home to do
it ten minutes short in my own country,
with a partner who is just bliss.
It's quite a moment. This little film
was quite a moment for me.
And now it's on the DVD.