Popatopolis | Clay Westervelt | 2009

One of the finer and more worthy candidates for widespread acclaim at Raindance was this feature. Anyone who grew up in the VHS/PAL video age will remember Chopping Mall and Return of the Swamp Thing even if the name Jim Wynorski does not immediately ring any bells. He was the exploitation film director responsible for these titles and plenty more. He is – as Popotopolis rightly informs us: a highly prolific director with an output that numerically outstretches Scorcese’s.

As a piece of work, there’s what Popatopolis is and what it does. As a documentary, it follows the painstaking process of Jim getting together a group of actresses and a crew to make a film in three days ‘The Witches of Breastwick.’ It also works as a character study as interplayed with hilarious action is interviews with the interested parties including sweet and tender views of the man himself from those that know him well, including his Mum. There are impressions given of Jim – the man, his methods and work from an eclectic cast including the legendary B-movie director Roger Corman. Jim has been in the business of making low budget features for a long time under various pseudonyms and has garnered respect – even if his methods are demanding and unorthodox. He did after all make Chopping Mall when he was only 21 – at the same time Raimi was making The Evil Dead – at more or less the same age.

Popatpopolis doesn’t draw this comparison, but Wynorski, like Corman decided to stick to the low budget feature as opposed to going into mainstream cinema.

The three day shoot with next to no money means that there is no wardrobe, make up – or semblance of proper co-ordination. A self confessed movie geek (his kitchen cupboards are full of movies), Jim provides none of the usual creature comforts. The make up and towels are brought in by the female cast themselves. ‘The Witches of Breastwick’ is a soft porn film and there are creative differences. One actress wants to keep a pair of pants on during a simulated sex scene and wants to know in her defence if Jim has never “pulled them to one side to get nasty.” “No” Wynorski blankly replies. The same actress wants to keep a pair of glasses on protesting on continuity grounds – who also later is made to go over the same line time and time again. Though evidently tired she goes on until it is delivered protesting at not having the time to go through what is needed like it was in the old days of low budget movie-making.

This is the clever part about this film – it follows a new demand made on those concerned whilst revoking the charm of what was. The scenes where the ‘witches’ gather around a fired cauldron, for the rest of the crew to rustle paper to simulate fire when the fire goes out harks back to the methods of Beaudine and Wood – well loved B-movie directors whose output is charming and innocent. But the methods here are purposely imposed by a Hollywood, as one actress rightly points out doesn’t make B-movies anymore, only A or C movies.

What Popatopolis does is hold a mirror to Hollywood’s nastier modern self: in an opening sequence, Jim is waiting for an actress to turn up for an interview. She eventually drives in late to see him, without much of an apology – or a resume, which Wynorski takes as a typical gesture. “Here’s a lesson for all you stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid chicks in Hollywood…and there’s plenty of you.” The vacuous nonchalance of the woman concerned deserves the sentiment.

But ‘Witches’ is nonetheless successful having been bought by a respectable amount of broadcasters and has proved as a training ground for one of the crew who has gone on to assistant direct in multi-million features. This is what Hollywood was good at in its production of such films, giving newcomers the opportunity to cut their fledgling teeth. B-movie features were never made with enormous budgets but were not meant to be painful to endure in their making. It is considerably more fun watching the making of ‘The Witches of Breastwick’ than it must have been to make it.

A lone criticism of Popatopolis is the lack of any direct questions posed by Clay Westervelt to Jim himself. It would have made the movie slightly more complete had we known Wynorski’s opinion as well as others involved. It is apparent that Jim likes making films with hot women in them (“let’s pop some tops”), but it is doubtful he really enjoyed the ructions that making a rushed effort creates. This does not detract however from the serious points underpinning the film.

Popatopolis is a good film and a very enjoyable watch providing a cultural commentary on the lot of the modern film maker. Two weeks after this was shown at Raindance, David Putnam, responsible for Chariots of Fire told an interviewer at The London Film Festival that he would not bother making an ‘intelligent’ film as Chariots was, as now he did not believe that he would get the green light on the mid-range budget. What we are left with then are movies made with massive budgets or camcorders. Popatopolis although dealing with a very different subject matter, subtlety evokes the shame of it.

Find out more at www.popatopolis.com