New York Press: All of your three main film adaptations have such a different feel. Jellyfish is very European, Wristcutters is American Indie and $9.99 is claymation. What motivated the different styles for each film?
Etgar Keret: Well, Jellyfish and $9.99 are both collaborations. One of them is with my wife [Israeli artist Shira Geffen], and the other is with Tatia Rosenthal [director of $9.99]. And I think that, whenever you collaborate with a person, it is a meeting point between you and that person. My wife and I, we really like many movies from French directors, so I think that our visual work finds a meeting point there.
While, with $9.99, Tatia really likes Paul Thomas Anderson, and I really like Robert Altman, so I think these influences work more as our points of reference. When you collaborate, it’s always about the relationship that you can have.
With Goran [Dukic], when he made Wristcutters, he really took my story and made his vision, since that wasn’t a collaboration. It was his interpretation of the story.
What attracted you to Tatia Rosenthal as a director?
I saw a short that she had made of one of my stories at NYU called "Crazy Glue." It was another adaptation of a short story of mine, and I realized that her claymation could work really well with my stories. I think that my stories have fantastical elements in them, but they have some sort of hyper-realistic tone at the same time. In Tatia’s work with claymation, she creates a hyper-realistic fairy-tale feel I was aiming for. It is work of this world, but still not something completely of this world.
My understanding is that you wrote the screenplay for $9.99.
Yes, I co-wrote it with Tatia, and it’s based on six of my short stories.
Why did you choose six stories? How do they inform each other?
I asked Tatia to pick all the stories she likes the most, because I’ve written almost 200 stories so there are a lot to chose from. From those stories she chose, I picked those that would have the most interesting relation among them. Not one closed narrative arc, but a relation among them that would create something. It’s like with Jellyfish.
There are three separate stories in Jellyfish. It’s creating a story based on the emotional relationships among the narratives. It’s also creating a story of ages, too. I can only describe it to you like this. I saw this show called John Smith. It follows this man from when he is a baby to when he is about to die, and it uses separate stories from different periods in his life one after the other to give his life story. It’s kind of the same thing in $9.99, but not with one person.
What is easier for you, short story writing, directing or screenplay writing?
I like film for the collaborating, but, after I finish a movie, I take two or three years by myself. I find directing much easier than writing. When you write, you have to make something out of nothing. And when you direct, you make the film based on a recipe or plan. After you write a screenplay, you can improve it, you can work on it during rehearsal or change the cast, et cetra.
So even if you fuck up with anything, you will still have that movie. When you sit in from of a blank page, you know there is no guarantee that you will come up with a written work. The difficulties I find with directing are different: trying to get backing for a movie, or trying to get an actor to be in it. But creatively, I really find writing much more difficult—well, I don’t find it difficult, but with writing, you need a kind of miracle, you need this spark in order for something to happen.
With directing, you may have a spark to make a great movie, but, even without the spark, somebody on the set will come up with a good idea, or an actor will improvise something, or you discover something later in the editing room. There are so many elements and thinking minds involved that it takes the weight off your shoulders.
Are there facets of collaboration that are difficult? $9.99 is set in Australia, which is a change from the stories. With things like that, where other people are influencing the story’s presentation, how does that affect your feelings about making movies?
Collaboration also has a downside. The strong points of collaboration are always the weak points of collaboration, too. You bring your own work, in which you have pride, and someone interprets it. The downside is that it sometimes can disappoint you. You find something you wanted better or something that you didn’t see. When you accept that relationship, it’s like getting married or something. Relationships are never perfect, you know. I have been part of collaborations that are more successful, others that are less successful, but if being a part of a collaboration weren’t efficient, I wouldn’t do it.
$9.99 premiers in the US and in New York on June 19. Has it already debuted elsewhere?
Yes, it came out in Paris a few weeks ago, and, actually, it has been doing very well there. It has already been playing there, I think, for a couple of months.
Did you go to the premiere in Paris?
Yes, there and for a few other screenings. It got very good reviews. It was a surprise for us because this was our first commercial release, and we didn’t know how people would be able to digest $9.99. Obviously, it’s a great movie. Unfortunately, in the US it’s a very crappy market when it comes to art house, so I don’t take France as a predictor. But France was still a good start.
Who is your favorite actor or actress from all your movies? Do you have a favorite adaptation?
It’s funny, when were were putting together $9.99, the two main actors we had in mind were Tom Waits and Geoffrey Rush, and Geoffrey Rush is in this film and Tom Waits, was in Wristcutters. I can say I was very close to my wish for who I wanted for this film. I love Geoffrey Rush for many of his movies, and Anthony Pagalia will be in $9.99, too. They were both in Lantana, and that was an Australian film that influenced us a lot when we were working on $9.99.
Music also seems to play a major role in the three main films based on your work. The laughably bad Russian pop song in Wristcutters, ‘La Vie en Rose’ at the opening and ending of Jellyfish, and the string arrangements in $9.99. Is music important for your adaptations?
Music in film very emotional and at the same time it’s slightly alienating. It’s brain and heart working together. We spent a lot of time on the music. I think it’s the glue that makes $9.99 work.
It seems as if, with films like Waltz with Bashir and The Band’s Visit, there has been an Israeli film renaissance of sorts in the past few years. What is your place in that?
I know Ari Goldman [Bashir director] very well. We have been friends for, oh, I would say fifteen years. Israel is a small country, so I guess artists are bound to know one another.
A lot of people want me to make my work like Ari’s work when we could not be more different from one another. His animated documentary was very politically engaged, and I’m very removed from violent political realities. My work is more fairy-tale like. I think we are very original, personal art house filmmakers. You really cannot talk about a typical Israeli movie. We are so diversified.
