Jack Dunphy Will Take You on the Ride Until the End
In a conversation with Travis Wood, Dunphy discusses his latest short film, 'Bob's Funeral,' whether Sundance prizes move the needle, and the toll of personal nonfiction filmmaking.
by Travis Wood
For the decade that I’ve been watching short films, Jack Dunphy has always had something incredible out. I first discovered his short film Serenity on Vimeo Staff Picks in 2013, and then would go on to run into him at various festivals over the years. His films have played dozens of festivals, notably Sundance three different times. This past year, his latest short Bob’s Funeral, won the best nonfiction short film there. Bob’s Funeral is incredibly deserving of such a prestigious award: It makes me laugh and cry so hard, and I’m delighted it’s available for the world to see on Mubi. I spoke to Jack about that film, what he’s learned about navigating Sundance, and how making personal films has affected his personal relationships.
Travis Wood: To kick this off, I love Bob’s Funeral. And after watching it I was like, “Oh, this is what he was referring to in Brontasarous when he was like, ‘And then I took a break from making another film that was really difficult.’ So can you tell me a little about the timeline?
Jack Dunphy: I've been working on this feature documentary about my life and my dad's death for almost ten years now. And so basically Bob's Funeral was extracted from that. I took a one minute scene from that movie and expounded on it and added a little more animation, but most of the animation was already done for the feature. But I thought, “The feature's changing. I'm going to redo all the animation for that and I want to use a lot of the assets and material from it and make it its own thing.” I needed to put something else out, and I'm glad I did. It really is its own thing that's outside of the feature. But it’s also representative of what the feature is going to be tonally and character-wise with my family and everything.
What’s the status of the feature?
We are doing it. A lot of money just fell out a couple days ago because of a very stupid, avoidable thing that I had no control over. I watched it happen. It's a feeling of helplessness. I couldn't do anything about it, and so now I'm scrambling to find more money and that's where it's at. But it's coming along.
So when you do work, is the money used to bring on support or just to find time to sit down and do these editing and animations?
That's where the money goes. Basically, it helps me live. It helps me not have to substitute teach again. So it’s a monthly stipend. I mean, I control when I get it, but if I got all of it at once, then I would blow it instantly. So I basically I hit up my line producer when I need an allotment. And if I was still using and drinking, that would be a lot at 3:00 AM. Like, “Dude, send me some money.” But those days are no longer, so a lot of the money goes into my living stipend. And then it does go to the line producer. He does it for a fee. If I need animation assistance, then some of it goes to them. And the big chunk is when I have to do follow up interviews with subjects, because it's been so long and so many people have been involved with the movie behind the scenes and in front of the camera that are now part of the story. So yeah, a lot of it goes to production. And then in the end, it'll go to post. I'm already in post, but it'll go to music licensing and that stuff.
It's very cool that you've played Sundance multiple times. How did it hit the first time and how does it hit now?
It doesn't happen every year. I've been rejected more than I've been in. The first time was just surreal. I think I was twenty-one, and it was like the second festival I'd ever even submitted to. So it really was like a fluke. It's a needle in a haystack kind of story. And then somehow it happened the next year too with Chekhov. And when it happens twice in a row and you're that young, there’s this imposter syndrome. This isn't indicative of me actually being talented. This is just two flukes in a row. But also, it’s just the norm. It'll always be this way. And of course it will not. And because Sundance had taken me in when I was so young twice in a row, I would take every rejection very personally.
Getting back in this last year with Bob's Funeral was very, very gratifying. And I was like, “I'm ready this time. I'm going to do it right.” I was never ready before. I was too young. I would be in buffet lines with Werner Herzog, just trying to summon the courage to talk to him, and I never could. And so this time I'm like, “If Werner Herzog's there, I'm talking to him.” Of course, Werner Herzog was not there. It was not the A-list, star-studded scene that it was the first two times. It's very different now. It’s scaled down. They were having budgetary issues. Robert Redford's not there anymore. He doesn't give the speech anymore when you go to the Director's Ranch thing. It was less intimidating because of that. It had less of a Camelot feel. But also, as a person, I am less intimidated by show business and celebrities. So it was very cool this last time. I lucked out and won an award, and that was nice. But it was also like, “I can handle this now.” And it's not this feeling of, “I'm not supposed to be here.”
What do you think being ready for Sundance looks like?
If you're a short filmmaker and it's your first time in Sundance, there's no way to be ready for it. But go in there, take your confidence pills. I mean that metaphorically. Don't actually do drugs. But manufacture confidence if you have to. Don't be scared of people. Everyone is just figuring it out. You'll meet people and be like, “Oh, this is a film professional. I'm so intimidated.” But they don't know what the fuck's going on. They're nervous. They're just trying to sell. Everyone's as scared as you are inside.
The other big thing I would say is: Understand that this is business. This is not a sleepaway camp for filmmakers. I thought it was the first time. But this is a business ordeal. And that doesn't mean I can't make new friends and have a good time and party and be a little irresponsible. But this is business. So go in with that mindset. And then go to a ‘lower tier’ festival and rip it up. But Sundance is business.
Do you feel like winning a top prize at Sundance moves the needle in a big way?
Yes. The Sundance Award did move the needle. It did move the needle because it woke my producers up on the feature. They were like, “Oh, Jack's still alive, and he had some accomplishment here, and the short’s indicative of what the feature will be. OK, let's pump some fresh blood into the feature. Let's raise some money.” And I got a manager and they're like, “Dude, we're going to get this money before the end of the week to get the machine of the feature happening.” I raised all the money myself, but it was because of the award and the attention from Sundance. Now, half of that money just fell through. So it's very much three steps forward, two steps back. But even that is progress.
I'm stoked to hear that. Taking a step back, how does your family and other people you're close with feel being incorporated in the work?
They're used to it. I’ve been making the feature for so long, and they've been interviewed for it; I've harassed them with the camera at times when I shouldn't have. But Bob's Funeral was another level of exposure. I think Bob's Funeral was like, “Oh, he actually is going to put this together.” So it was a good thing for my family. Not my dad's side of the family. They hate it. But my family on my mom's side, it was good for all of them to see me be successful, to turn tragedy into art. I think it was healing for all of them except my sister. My sister was very mad that I used ten seconds of her eulogy without asking. It was a mistake. I thought because she had agreed to the feature that she knew that footage would just be involved in my work. She's never had that reaction. It's fucked up our relationship. She's barely talked to me for a year. The best episode of my podcast was her episode. It was the most moving. People loved her from the episode; it was the one I heard about the most. But she just asked me to take it down because it was making her feel unwell. So I had to take it down, and that was a gut punch. And she's still not super thrilled with me. So it's taken a big toll on my relationship with my sister.
That's tough. It's almost easier when you make up stories or people and they're disembodied from the work. But I think it is pretty brave when you're like, “Yeah, this is truly it.”
Yeah, it's tough. Generally, if people are in my work, I love them and want to celebrate them. Very rarely am I talking about someone I don't like. But the problem is I want to get things right through art. I think I’m most articulate through my work. And I'll make this grand artistic gesture and articulate how I feel about this person through the work, and it's like, “This is as good as it gets from me in terms of expressing my love or trying to clarify feelings of guilt.” But the problem is a lot of people don't care how good the art is if they feel personally affected by it. That's probably inconceivable to people like you and me who make films. It's like, “But it can't get any better than this.” And they're like, “I don't care. Deal with me.” But then I do that, and it doesn't matter either. So yeah, it is tricky. You're not going to walk away unscathed, even if you're someone who's trying not to hurt people. Someone's going to threaten to sue you, someone's going to stop talking to you. But then there's going to be a lot of other people that are like, “This is amazing. I'm so glad you did this.”
With the clip of you being naked and commenting on your dad's dick, I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is really pushing it, but in a good way.” Is there any stuff that you ended up cutting or saving that you felt went too far? Do you ever feel like there's a “too far” or “too revealing” in your work?
There can be a “too revealing.” I just wrote an article for Talkhouse to promote my podcast, Revelations with Jack Dunphy, and I was like, “Alright, wait until they see this!” But it was just crickets. And I think I maybe pushed it a little bit too far. It's a film magazine, and I'm talking about my dad hitting me and this gray zone of how I lost my virginity with sex and and drugs, and I'm a minor in the story. I mean, it's the truth, but it was too much. And I could feel a sort of shyness from the hypothetical reader. So I don't feel like I've gone too far in my work, but I think I am now becoming a little bit more mindful of what the context is.
There was a time where I was going to repurpose the animation that eventually was in Bob's Funeral to TikTok. I don't even have a TikTok account, but I see friends doing so well there, so I was like, “Maybe I'll do that.” And thank God I did not put stuff about my dad dying and my dad's dick on TikTok. That's just not the place for it.
In Bob's Funeral, the only thing that I pulled back on was the amount of time I showed my dad in the hospice bed, because that's very graphic, and I think I take it right up to the limit of how much an audience member can take in the context of that short film. But the feature is going to be its own context, so there will be more graphic stuff in that. And even within that, there's a line. How much do you show? At what point does it just become an endurance test for the sake of it?
A lot of your shorts together just feel like just one big Jack Dunphy world in a really cool way. I’m curious about the bigger vision of how these stories tie together. Is there a specific process of narrowing in on, okay, this story to me is now short material?
A lot of it comes from necessity. I try to make something for the Sundance deadline every year, which is how Bob's Funeral got made. It was just like, “Alright, the deadline is coming up, what do I have?” And out of that necessity, I think about what I’ve been thinking about the longest. What story do I have in me?
And now that I'm focusing more on the feature, some of those stories go into the podcast now. But in terms of it all feeling like one world, that is definitely something I'm aware of and want to continue doing. You seeing all the shorts and referencing Serenity from ten years ago is very gratifying because the idea is that it's all the same body of work. I want people to feel like they can go back and be like, “Oh, this is a different chapter in the Jack world.” That's very rewarding with artists that I like. I'm actually not a big Bukowski fan, but Tom Waits observed something about Bukowski that I think is very, very true and appealing. He's like, “Bukowski took you on the whole ride. When he was working at the post office, he told you about the post office; when he was getting laid a lot for the first time in his life, he told you about that. Then when he is in Hollywood and they're making a movie about him, he tells you about Hollywood.” So I want to take the viewer and the listener — the audience — on the whole ride. As long as I'm not drunk in an alley or dead, I will continue to take you on this ride until it ends.
Is there anything you want to say about your podcast, Revelations with Jack Dunphy?
Yeah, it's basically the short films, but audio. I interview people in my life and also artists of note who I respect and have personal relationships with that need to be amended. There needs to be amends made in some of them, and it's become something that I'm proud of and people respond to in the way that they respond to my personal doc stuff. So it seems like something I should keep doing. It's very difficult. I spend way too much time on it, and like my films, it's going to start really eroding my personal relationships, but it is what it is.
Anything else you want to add?
I acted in a couple movies that people should be on the lookout for. In Anything that Moves, this gross out, erotic thriller, I play a very bad cop. It's directed by Alex Phillips, who did All Jacked Up and Full of Worms. And then Paradise and Lunch directed by Jordan Tetewsky and Josh Pikovsky. It’s going to be really good. People should be on the lookout for those.
Travis Wood is a director from Minneapolis, sometimes based in Brooklyn. His short films have been selected for multiple Vimeo Staff Picks, SXSW film festival, True/False, Rooftop films, an NY EMMY award, and featured on NoBudge, Booooooom and Directors Notes. He is a current member of Meerkat Media and part of the commercial directing team at Farm League.
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