'Primer' - Shane Curruth Q&A

Jessica Winter discusses the mind-bending 'Primer' with its writer-director.

Aug 17 2005

First-time writer-director Shane Carruth won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2004 for his first feature film, shot on 16mm in his hometown of Dallas for an initial budget of just $7,000. 'Primer' is a densely plotted mind-twister about a pair of corporate-tech friends, Abe and Aaron, who invent a mysterious device that becomes a Pandora's box of paranoia and betrayal.

A lot of 'Primer' conveys information through overheard, even overlapping conversations. Did you set out wanting to find a new way to tell a story?

What I really wanted to see was an extraordinary situation told in ordinary terms. The best way to depict something completely fantastical would be to put it in the most mundane atmosphere and setting. I had a car wreck and it laid me up for about a month, and I found myself watching the Turner Classic Movies channel, and they were showing nothing but American films from the '70s – like 'All the President’s Men' and 'The Conversation' and Terrence Malick's first two films. I was just blown away, because even bad films from the '70s were asking the right questions. Instead of asking, 'How do we perform this in such a way that we get an Oscar and the drama is palpable?', they seemed to ask, 'How would this actually take place in the real world?'

Were you ever concerned that the audience might be too confused?

I did worry about it, so I started showing it informally to friends of friends. If they thought a part was confusing, I would say, 'Okay, but what do you think happened?' Nine times out of ten, whatever they thought happened was right. And I'd say, 'Okay, in that case, do you really think it's too confusing?' And they'd say, 'Oh no, I get it, I just don't think anyone else will.' There is a lot of information in there – it's not tidily summed up. There are pieces that aren't missing, but they're definitely not in the forefront, because these guys are making decisions in a state of confusion. The movie's basically Abe's story – we're learning what it is possible for him to learn. It seemed wrong to be giving more information than Abe could possibly have.

Do you have any long-standing interest in time travel?

At the time I was reading a lot of non-fiction about invention, so I knew I wanted to see the process of invention take place. But the thing that came first for me was the character arc. I was interested in taking a conventional relationship and introducing an unprecedented level of power – two people who have no reason to distrust each other reach a point where they can't trust each other, because there's simply too much to lose. With a device like this, there's a heightened level of paranoia, because if you exert that power, the other person might not even know that his life has been affected. It has nothing to do with character and everything to do with what's at risk, and that's what I wanted to see hiding.

'Primer' opens on Friday and is reviewed here.

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