Page 314
a book that in some way corresponds to your experiences, good or bad, and you might feel stronger because you see yourself reflected in it. That's what being in the world is all abouthaving common experiences with other people. I hope that's the effect the film will have.
MacDonald:
During the film's coda, we see a home movie image, of you and hear you sing the ABC song. The last words of that song, and of the film, are, "Tell me what you: think of, me." Obviously, the song relates to the film in several ways, but is your use of it, on one level, a comment on the whole enterprise of making film? Do you mean that films are attempts to please whatever is left of the father in us and that the audience, which is now going to make a judgment of the film they've just seen, is an extension of patriarchy?
Friedrich:
Well, in a way, but that was the joke end of it. When you make a film, you do it to get a response, and presumably most people want a good response. I surely can't imagine making a film and hoping everyone will
hate
it. The conclusion of
Sink or Swim
was more a way for me to acknowledge my absurd ambivalence. A lot of the stories in the film are about doing things to get my, father's approval, and then at the end in the last story I decide I'm not, going to swim across the lake to please him. I've made a sort of grand gesture of turning, back to shore, swimming back to my friends who will hopefully treat me differently than my father has treated me. But then in the epilogue I turn right around and sing the ABC song, which asks him what he thinks of me! I believe that, to a certain extent, we can transcend our childhood, but in some way we always remain the child looking for love and approval.
MacDonald:
I would guess that whether or not men like this film is going to have a lot to do with their ideologies about family. I'm sure it will make, some men uncomfortable; it will expose them.
Friedrich:
A surprising number of men have come up, to me afterward and talked about the film from the vantage point of being fathers. That wasn't foremost in my mind when I was making it, but their responses have been interesting: the film brings up a lot of fear in them, a lot of concern about how they're treating their own children. Many of them express a profound hope that they won't do major damage to their kids.
MacDonald:
At one point your father takes you to a movie theater and you see this film about people who didn't care about Western culture.
Friedrich: The Time Machine
[1960]. I used that film because it was one I remember seeing, but also because: I could address the issue of people who have abandoned civilization. In the story, the time machine transports the main character into the year 20,000 (or whatever). He goes into the library, which no one uses, and sees that the books are just rotting away. The people, oblivious to history, are living a life of pleasure and yet are slaves to green monsters who control them and finally