Cam Archer Director of ’Shit Year’

Shit Year is Cam Archer’s second feature, following a well received Wild Tigers I have Known. The film focuses on the identity crisis of a retired actress, played by Ellen Barkin, who is no longer able to detect her true self among the reminiscences of the past roles.

Let’s start with the beginning of your film. Who is Anita Zimmerman, the person you’re dedicating your film to?

Well, she was my aunt. She died ten years ago. I guess that when I’m finishing a project, I always like to think of people that meant something for me, or influenced me in the past. I am a bit cautious though, not to pick people that would raise too many questions.

In your last film you’re dealing with the problems of a retiring actress. Is it fair to consider that your two previous short documentaries dedicated to the actors Jonathan Brandis and River Phoenix, who both committed suicide at a young age, prepared the grounds for Shit Year?

You can look at things like that, but I think most of my work so far somehow contributed to this last film. I can’t think of approaching subjects that I have no interest in or no connection with, so all the movies that I’ve made until now are somehow about me. Before Shit Year I was going through a stage of feeling depressed and isolated so then I realized I wanted to say something about what I was experiencing. I thought I could make a character out of these feelings. And then it’s great to have actors to sort of take things in and give them a shape, make them longer and recognizable. But the initial emotions always come from me.

Talking about actors, as far as I understood, you were considering Sissy Spacek for the role of Coleen?

I’ve seen this piece of information myself circulating on the Internet. With Sissy Spacek it was actually another project, about a woman suffering from Trichotillomania, a hair-pulling disorder. We were supposed to do that film before Shit Year but instead, we got money for this one. So for Shit Year I actually had Ellen Barkin in mind.

You deal with so many different times and spaces that mix together. Can you tell us something about creating this universe during the editing process?

I wrote the film out of order because only certain scenes would occur to me at a time. There was a disordered chaos in the writing process, which lead to another chaos in the shooting trying to make sense out of the first one, and of course, a bigger one at editing. It was never a conscious disorder though. It was just happening and then I was trying to make sense out of it. I’m more interested with playing with time, order and memory in my own life. I don’t have a straight forward time to take on in my experience. I always go back and forth between the present and the past because it’s like I’m unable to let go of the past. And this inability creates the disorder.

In your projects you always have a special connection with music…

There were definitely some scenes that demanded certain sounds. But all the sound, sound design elements and music had to fit naturally in this chaos. I love music and I think I listen to it more than I watch films. Usually for my films I use soundtrack songs that I am close to. For Shit Year, most of the songs come from bands of my friends. The film was already so personal throughout every other stage, that it made more sense to me to choose this type of music, and then place it in the background. I like it to give a unitary feeling.

Is there any connection between Shit Year and Bergman’s Persona?

Definitely! I was kind of hoping people would pick that up. Shit Year is like putting on a record and getting more of it with each additional playing. I’m not saying you should necessarily watch the film again, but I do hope that something from the film or a certain connection will occur to you also later. I think that’s the general case with art: we want you to be thinking about it even after you’ve already experienced it!

By Maria Diceanu