Woman from Mars (2020) - full transcript

♪ The Last Hope - Daniel H. ♪

Dylan: I didn't go to film school because
a number of reasons

the most important being the same day I was supposed to
sign my student loan papers I was offered a job at Troma

I was sitting there in front of the student loan papers

I was like it's either I go to college or a take a job at Troma

and I look at the papers and I'm just like

Man what the fuck am I going to do
Like, do I... I literally have to make the decision like right now

I was like you know what? I just got offered a job in my field today
And I think I'm just gonna do that

♪ Dylan Mars and Vandal Moon - Dark Dancer ♪

♪ Sometimes I wake up wishing I was someone else ♪

♪ Someone who lives in a house by a tree and a stream ♪



Dylan: I'm here on the set of Shakespeare's Shitstorm

This is a movie that is being directed by Lloyd Kaufman
who directed the cult hits

Toxic Avenger and Class of Nuke 'Em High which were huge
and massively influential cult horror films made in the 1980s

And this was from his own production company called Troma
which is the same production company that will be distributing this

Troma launched the careers of Trey Parker
and Matt Stone who created South Park

Uh, James Gunn who directed Guardians of the Galaxy

Uh, Vincent D'Onofrio who starred in The Cell and
Adventures in Babysitting and Full Metal Jacket

and a host of many other incredible performers and writers and directors

So I am in the principal cast which I am really excited about

I play Trinny. An obnoxious social justice activist who's concern
for petty issues often trumps her common sense and causes
disaster and chaos for many of the other film's characters.

The film itself is a contemporary adaptation
of William Shakespeare's The Tempest

and I think it's probably the most obscene
version of The Tempest ever made.

Lloyd: This is the movie that Dylan is in

Return to Return to Nuke 'Em High Aka Vol. 2.
She did a lot of the CGI and editing on it.



Amazing Stuff. Putting my head on the body of a 21-year-old
star of Class of Nuke 'Em High a 1986 classic of Troma.

I was extremely impressed because she was about 13 or 15 or whatever

making her own damn movie and making a feature-length
movie and wanted me to play a cameo in her film

We were down in the basement of the Troma building
and she was doing the lighting, the sound,

also doing shots that were going to be green-screened CGI
and I was pretty impressed from the start

Dylan: So Lloyd is going to show me a scene that we shot in
Albania where a whale jumps over the boat and shits on me

but I have never seen it with the actual CGI of the whale jumping

Lloyd: It's only a piece of it

Dylan: It's only a piece but I'm excited to see that little piece

Debbie: I haven't been in a scene with Dylan
but I feel like if I was in a scene with Dylan

I would have to

up my game to be on the same level as Dylan

because he gives 110 % even with 90 % is required and preferred

he will give 110 to 150 % to the point where
Lloyd says "You can come down a little bit"

Rocko: Well my first impression of Dylan uh well it all started when
I went to Tromaville I went to Troma HQ some odd years ago

just to come and visit as a Troma fan and Dylan was working there
And I met Dylan

I believe she was just editing some promo

and she seemed like a really interesting kooky
character and so I wanted to stay in contact

and being the really obnoxious networker that I am I friended
her on Facebook and kept in contact and bugged her afterward

She seemed like a really cool and motivated, hard-working,
progressive filmmaker so instantly someone I wanted to be friends with

♫ Dylan Mars - Mia ♫

Dylan: Today I am in Union Square Park where I spent much
of my adolescence I went to high school fairly close to here

and after school, I would often hang out here
because I kinda had nowhere else to go

and would sometimes stay here for hours and hours

I would sleep here sometimes. I um, I learned a lot here.

I'm excited to be shooting a scene for my own
film in this park because it means a lot to me.

Today I am shooting a scene for my feature film Spirit Riser

in which the statue of liberty attacks New York and
I have some people coming to play New Yorkers.

Most of them are New Yorkers.

And they are running away from the Statue of Liberty in fear.

Now what I hope to achieve from this is that hopefully,
people on the street will want to also participate

As I have been able to achieve in the past And is
kinda what I'm all about is getting people to kind
of participate and hopefully that will happen today.

I have shot in public parks

I have shot on a lot of boardwalks

I have shot in spaces that were not solely for just making my film
for instance, I shot in the back of a flee market once

And those are often the tools that are available to me

And sometimes it kind of a gamble because
it is genuinely difficult to shoot in public

I can't say I love doing it but simply put I gotta.

♫ Dylan Mars - Heartfantasy1992 ♫
♪ My soul is for the taking ♪

♪ My heart is for my love ♪

♪ And if you were to take it ♪

♪ Then I have had enough ♪

I walk the fine line between perceiving me as male

between people perceiving me as female

and between people seeing me as something totally different

So in some cases,

I feel like I'm able to sort of slide into conversations with other men
With certain ease

because I'm able to lower my voice and sort of talk like this and I can
sort of you know just kind of laugh and you know to be a character

and if you really squint then you can see me as one of the
guys but I'm just wearing a dress and makeup you know?

But in the other hand,

I'm seen as sort of an “other” and I'm seen as sort of this
swish or this homosexual that's sort of one of the girls

And when I'm perceived like that it really depends on the
inflection of my voice or how I'm dressed in a day or sometimes-

♫ Dawn - Daniel H ♫ just the way I'm acting because
I think sometimes I take on different characters
or different identities depending on how I feel

Then suddenly I'm sort of excluded from those conversations often
sometimes by the same people who included me the day before

And sometimes I'm perceived as predatory

because I'm seen as someone who is trying to infiltrate a woman's space

because I'm seen as something other than a woman and the
problem is that any space that I'm in I'm technically infiltrating

Dylan: In God's word I say is that we love one another
God's word is that we love each other

Woman: *indistinct screaming* ...Jesus is righteous

Dylan: You don't really love me is the thing
You don't love me

Other woman: *Agressivley* I love you

Woman: *indistinct chattering* ...in the name of Jesus

Dylan: That's not love Woman:
Dylan is a boy Dylan is a boy

Dylan: I love you for who you are not who I want you to be

Woman: *screaming* This is a man He is not a woman He is
not to be identified as a woman He is a boy in the name of Jesus

Dylan: *sarcastically* For sure Woman: He is a man in the name
of Jesus Dylan: But that's like objectively not true is the thing
Woman: *screaming* That's what it is I'm gonna shout it how it is

Dylan: Okay
Woman: *shouting* Call the cops

When you're like this and you're doing the sort of things that I'm doing
It's hard to really find a sense of belonging

because you're sort of just caught in the middle between all of these
different worlds and I wonder do I feel like this because of who I am?

Or do I just feel like this because I'm just sort of a different person?

And it definitely is a challenge and I hope that
one day I'll feel like I do belong somewhere

but sometimes I just wonder if this is all because of my identity
or just because of my personality or maybe a combination of both

Hey guys um welcome to my room

Uh my name is Dylan Greenberg and today we're gonna be in my room

So here we are in my room

Um and I just wanna thank everyone for coming to my room

and so thank you guys for coming to my room

and here we are in my room

Here is the bathtub.

It's a miniature bathtub that we made for a short film that we just
wrapped production on but is in post now it's called The Bathtub

But this is a little paper cutout of Bob Burch
from Sonic Youth and he's the star of the movie

and here he is riding in the bathtub and we also had
a full-size bathtub that we had on a green screen

but this is for the miniature shots and we used different versions of Bob

This is a machine gun prop I've been
using in things since I was pretty young

This is a Spanish poster of my movie Dark Prism which I'm very proud of

This movie showed in the Canary Islands and I got
to go to the Canary Islands which was really cool

They showed it in a multiplex in the Canary Islands which is the only
time my movie has... any of my movies have been shown in a real

uh like multiplex theatre
like a big-time movie theatre

This is a picture of me when I was interviewed for New York Waste
Magazine which is a pretty legendary punk magazine in New York City

I was interviewed by the really cool rock photographer Robert Butcher
He took these awesome beautiful pictures of me

It was for the 20th anniversary of New York
Waste and I was turning 20 at the same time

So it just felt really special to me because it was
like me and the magazine were both turning 20

My friend Amanda is in there and uh that's me

and I have a vagina here um and I also have tits
way bigger-

I do have tits in real life but these are pretty big

So Dwayne draws erotic art of me and my friends Um, I didn't like
ask him to he just like kinda does it as I guess like a free service?

♫ Slight Chance of Rain - PORT RGB ♫ This is a book that my
late friend George gave me This is also George's necklace

George was a friend of mine who meant a great deal to me

He gave me this book because he knew that I really
really loved Leigh Bowery who was an incredible British
performance artist and he gave me this for my birthday

Since I can't really make these outfits like I can't really
dress like this Because I don't really have the skills
and it's not necessarily what I wanna maybe do per se

I sort of want... My goal is to kind of make my films
and my art to look like this as opposed to making
myself look like this which is what Leigh Bowery did

I really am attracted to this sort of aesthetic in my own art
So I think in that way he's influenced what I do

*Dylan's father crosses the hallway*
Dylan: Oh Hello?

Dad: Hey Dylan:
Oh Hi Dad Dad: Sorry

Dylan: Hey guys it's my famous dad
Camera B: Hi

Dylan: Out and about... um, my famous dad is out and about.
Um TMZ... CBS... All-day. Hot off the press

♫ Paper Clip Architect ♫ This is a New York Times
Magazine that I was in when I was maybe about 16

I would perform with this giant fake guitar that
had a label on it that says "This is a fake guitar"

and then I would flip it over and it would turn into a
keyboard and it would say "This is a fake keyboard"

I had been making films before but this is kind of what brought
me into making the kind of films I make now was performance art

because my films basically were in the beginning video performance art
that end up more drifting towards the horror film genre

as time progressed.

So speaking of film, my first ever feature film was called Glamarus

and it was about 70 minutes long
and it's basically 70 minutes of performance art

its basically various people doing performance art

There isn't a like linear plot or anything that holds it together

And its all kind of connected by this weird doll
which actually is right here

This is the doll that started it all. She was the star of my first movie.

This is Sardine.

This is my movie Wakers which was my second feature film

and this was sort of my bridge kind of between making
a coherent feature and making a performance art film

So there are shots that maybe go on for 3 or 4 minutes

It's very abstract.

I think the right people sort of understood it as a linear film
and then some people sort of were like

no this is like straight up like something
that should be projected like on a wall

This is Shock Treatment which is one of my favorite movies of all time

its the sequel some call it the equal to Rocky Horror

And so instead of focusing on heterosexual fear of queer culture
it focuses on outsider fear of heterosexual and conformist culture

The end of Wakers was very inspired by Shock Treatment I sort of
had the end of it suddenly become this very bright colorful sitcom

This was constructed by uh an effects genius named Evan Para

He made this from a very crude picture I drew for him
And he made it himself and it's obviously very phallic

And some people think he's really cute
and other people think he's really gross

and I think he's both

♫ Computer Plastic - PORT RGB ♫ Over here is a TV that I painted.
I hand-painted this when I was maybe about 16 or 17

And I have since used it in every feature film I have made to this day

Its called the Boob Toob
And I've actually used it in video installations as well

It's a working Hitachi television from the 80s and
its covered in these like very psychedelic designs

and I also made

kind of damaged now

but this is the Boob Toob Jr.

Which is the same thing but smaller

We projected onto the screen and we had a hand back here
and we pushed the hand through the screen

and so it bent the projection and it looked like TV was actually expanding
and the screen was pushed out

This is a VHS of The Very Hungry
Caterpillar and other stories by Eric Carle

The Very Hungry Caterpillar to this day is my favorite uh book of all time

The Hungry Caterpillar is incredible and can do anything

And made me unafraid to be myself

I fucking love the Very Hungry Caterpillar

I would kill for the Very Hungry Caterpillar

I actually I really love the Very Hungry Caterpillar

I like collect Very Hungry Caterpillar like toys
I'm like obsessed with this thing

It's so weird just look at it

It's so weird it's like a weird like a long bunny
It's like a bunny that like its like a tube

Isn't that so grand?

Imagine being like a rabbit but also a tube
That's what a caterpillar is

♫ Dylan Mars - Colossus ♫

I started stop motion animating when I was about 9 or 10

And I was doing stuff just like this
Stop motion animating in front of a computer screen

Of course, now I have much nicer models being built
beyond that, not much has changed

I am pretty much still using the same method of combining
live actors with stop motion because it works so well

I do that and then I mix it up with a blue screen and green screen

The computer monitor actually gives this sort
of old looking feel to the film that I kinda like

It gives it this nostalgia element because it looks like a
projection and in a way, it sort of integrates it more with
the image because its actually happening live in front of it

you don't see any lines or anything between the model and the subject
because they actually are in the same shot together essentially.

Well last night there was some sort of CO2 leak
in my house and um National Grid was called

I had to leave my house for a while. I was worried about our pets.

I uh ended up shutting off all the heat and so
I slept in the freezing cold

and this morning uh I took a shower in uh freezing cold water

and now we're going to set and um I'm a
little nervous because our lead actress is uh...

I can't seem to get a hold of her but let's see hopefully
things will turn around for Dylan Mars Greenberg today

We're gonna shoot no matter what
the show must go on

if they don't show up I'll just shoot something else without them
that's what I've been doing that's what I will do
that's pretty much what I almost always do

I uh... I don't cancel

i'll do something else
i'll rewrite or i'll rework

we don't even have a script today so fucking anything goes

♫ I Want to Live! - Korpx ♫
Ah, and that is the light at the end of the tunnel.

...reach your arm out very slowly.

Great! And Cut.

Have your feet already out like actually put yourself
in this position and then just yeah go like that right?

So kinda like like like re like hold that and
just like like snap yeah into this. Exactly.

Action.

Oh, that's the best one!
Do that one more time it was so good.

Action.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah! Perfect.

♫

Action

Alright. Okay cool.

Kansas: I was running so slow

Dylan: You were running so slow?
Kansas: Yeah

Dylan: You can't really tell.

Actually, a trick is when you shoot from a low angle
with a wide-angle lens it makes everything look fast

Kansas: I know... It looks cool.

Dylan: Action Kansas

No no no no no

Kansas: What?
Dylan: Okay let me show you what I want you to do okay?

So I'm standing right here, right?
Kansas: Uh-huh

Dylan: I want you to run like... to like here so your
shoulder is touching here almost and like look behind
you so that you face is like right... this is a wide-angle

Kansas: Oh sorry I thought you were going to follow me

Dylan: No Kansas:
Okay okay so I'll stop here Dylan: Okay? Cool.

Action.

Yeah.

Go, Hannah.

Oh, that's fucking awesome.

And cut. Cool.
Does anyone happen to have a phone with a flashlight?

♫ Computer Plastic - PORT RGB ♫

Action. Oh my god.
Okay, now duck.

Great. Beautiful.
Let's do the alien thing with the vape.

It looks so good on camera but like it's too dark.
Maybe we'll have to shoot this way.

Lean in to like that machine..
Like step forward and put your head against it like facing... yeah.

Kansas you have to be like this like Do you know? Like shaking?
And you have to lean in way closer Hannah: Okay

Dylan: And a little slower
Lean in like you're right in Kansas's face

like uncomfortably like super close like nose to nose and
then you can blow the vape smoke okay? Hannah: Uh-huh

Dylan: Lean in really close. Really close! And go.

*Laughing* this time we're gonna blow so much vape
smoke in your face you're gonna die Hannah: I'm so sorry

Dylan: Really close. Go.

Perfect! Fabulous!

Hannah: Sorry! Kansas: Is it grape?
Hannah: I don't know it's like Virginia Tobacco Kansas: Oh

♫ Glamarus Trailer ♫

I think all of my films have left me a changed person.

I actually made this one movie called
Wakers that traumatized me a little bit

because it sort of was a parallel of what was going on in my life.

It was about drug addiction and it was about depression

and it was about feeling controlled and
disconnected from your own reality

and sort of in this grey world where people sort of
apathetically interact with you but not in a genuine way

and that film sort of almost foretold some kind of unfortunate
things that would happen to both me and my friends

and I think I made it at a time in a lot of my friend's lives where they
were actually very unhappy and I was unhappy and anxious and upset

and I think when the film came out it was both sort
of cathartic and terrifying because I was sort of
watching my own nightmare that I had put on to screen

and to a degree, all of my films are some sort of amalgamation of my
fears and my dreams and my desires and my thoughts on the world

as I feel any film should be

I feel that most good films you see a
bit of yourself in if you connect with it

My movie Dark Prism was also kind of about being disconnected and
changing one's self and I have a lot of religious iconography in my films

because I've connected a lot in my life with various
spiritual ideas and religious ideas which I tend
to keep kinda private but express through my art

I can kind of almost measure who I was as a person
at the time by looking at what film I was making.

That's how powerful they are as pieces of my own identity.

♫ Dylan Greenberg - Reasons ♫
♪ These are the reasons why I can't get you out of my mind ♪

♪ Get you out of my head ♪

♪ Get you out of my mind ♪

♪ Get you out of my ♪

Glitter: I feel like Dylan's like presence and
personality influence my art more than anything

because I'm pretty literal and draw a lot of pictures for her
I feel like I paint her quite a bit

I don't know she embodies a lot of the things that I
prize and want to elevate

I feel like her methods and her attitude towards making it work
and making it happen has been helpful in kinda reigniting

some of my projects and goals and kind of evaluating
what I wanted to do and what I didn't want to work on
at the moment and where I wanted to put my energy

I don't know how much of my art influences hers
I feel like she has a really strong vision for what she does

A few months after we started dating I curated an art show and she did
an installation within that that featured the both of us and video of us

I mean I was thinking today about just like
what a kind of pure and passionate person Dylan is

and I feel like there's a lot of people who with age and time become
very like callous and like kind of dead-end versions of themselves

and I don't think that's... I've never witnessed that in Dylan
I don't know.

Her emotions are in like a very pure place that a lot of peoples
arent and I think it gives her art this very pure fairytale quality
that is lacking in a lot of content that is trying to be something

trying to be stylish or gritty or real
or um appealing

and I feel that Dylan isn't fueled by that.
Her art and herself aren't like that.

Also that how she is as a person is very pure
and very unfeathered by I think a lot of the embarrassment

and just like dullness that people carry with them

So... I really appreciate that as someone who
can find myself shrinking back into myself

I really appreciate that she is so vibrant and
unafraid to be passionate and emotional

and like fully amused and like loud

and things that most people are always
trying to keep down and suppress.

So... mostly that.

*Sirens from outside the apartment*

Dylan: All of my actors are dropping out of my movie… for good reason.

The weather is terrible. We've probably lost our location because I
don't want anyone to die if we're shooting in the middle of the woods.

Uh yeah.

Someone is like "I'm not sure if I'm coming tomorrow
because I don't know" So that means they're not coming.

If someone is not sure that means they're not coming.

So yeah I've pretty much got hopefully 2 cast members?

But it might end up being 0 cast members in which case I will have
to improvise which will be very interesting and um I'm pretty upset.

Pretty upset because this is how its been going for me recently.

It's really discouraging.
Really discouraging.

I'm just making phone calls up the ass right now.
I don't think anyone is around. I don't think anyone can do it.

No one who is supposed to be in the film is getting back to me
so yeah let's see what happens tomorrow.

Maybe it will be great. Maybe everything will have a way of working out.

Maybe it'll fucking completely fall apart
but no matter what the show must go on.

*Intense scream*

And cut.

Today we are shooting a fight scene that was
supposed to be with a bunch of people and is instead
just between me, Wayne, and Jesse's character.

Jesse: Action.

♫ Faith - Korpx ♫
Dylan: How was that?

Oh my god, you're watching me die oh my god fuck.

Wayne: This is fucking really great.

Jesse: Rolling. 321 Action.

Wayne: Fuck yeah.

Dylan: Okay cut. I think that was good.
Maybe we should get another angle?

That was great. Whatever you got there was great.

I think you should actually hit me with the guitar.

I guess Jesse you should be sort of in
the general same area where Glitter is?

Otherwise, you'll be on camera.

Yeah, and I'm gonna go flying this way.

Glitter: Okay

Dylan: Fuck Jesse. Fuck. Wayne: What?
Dylan: Was Jesse in the shot?

Jesse: I was definitely in the shot.

Dylan: Fuck! Are you kidding man? Fuck!

Glitter: It's okay.

Dylan: Fuck.

Wayne: That was awesome.

Dylan: I don't know if I can do that again.

Dylan: First part of Jesse's fight scene now were following his plan okay?

Okay cut and it's the same thing from this.

Okay and... Action.

Okay great. What's the next part?

Yeah maybe act like you're talking and we'll dub some shit in later.

Wayne: You must understand!

Dylan: Perfect!

Okay cool. And the flying. Let's do that now.

♫ A monster - Daniel H. ♫

You don't need boatloads of cash or the best
gear or the best stuff to make a good movie.

I know tons of people who have all the best equipment
and all the best gear but they never do anything with it.

I know some people who have a camcorder
from like 1998 and they've done incredible work.

You know? I'd rather see a masterpiece shot on an iPhone
than a boring piece of garbage shot on a RED Dragon.

You really don't need the best gear or the best anything.

It's all about your vision and what you have in here.