On September 15th, we had the opportunity to speak with Matt Johnson who directed, co-wrote, and stars in the new film Operation Avalanche.
The film, which played at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and South by Southwest Film Festival, uses a faux 60’s documentary style to imagine a CIA operation to stage the Apollo 11 landing. We spoke with Johnson about the modern relevance of the moon landing conspiracy and what it was like to make the film feel era authentic.
Can you talk a little bit about how the idea to make this movie came about? Understanding the enduring legacy of the landing and the conspiracy theories, why did you feel now was the right time to explore this idea?
Well because I think it felt like a good way of being critical of places like the CIA without it seeming heavy-handed. I think one of the great things about the moon landing conspiracy is that although it’s not real, like the CIA did not fake the moon landing and I think very few people actually believe that, it is kind of a good way into the notion of media control by government, of “big brother”, of having a national identity defined through a cohesive media story. These types of things that are very much in the world we live in now, but in the 60’s way it just seems more innocent and almost more fun. And beyond that, in terms of just a great plot, it seemed like because no one had ever done an Apollo 11 movie, before about them actually landing on the moon the right way, it seemed like there was kind of an appetite for this film to be made. When I would tell people, “Oh we’re making a movie about the CIA faking the moon landing”, we were always met with a “Oh yeah, I can’t believe that film hasn’t been made yet.” It just seems almost obvious in a way so we had a lot of support in terms of telling the story just from that cliché.
One of the most fun elements of the film is watching famous visuals be recreated through a film making perspective. From a directorial standpoint, what was the experience like trying to make these look as authentic as possible?
It was extremely difficult. It was so hard that if I did have any belief that the moon landing was faked before, I definitely had none after trying to fake it with my friends. Because it is so, so challenging to create some of those effects using the technology they had at the time, which we tried to restrict ourselves to in most cases. Even when we were using modern technology it was difficult to do some of those front screen projection things that Kubrick was doing at the time and it nearly killed us. I mean obviously [the film’s] Kubrick sequence was incredibly taxing, not on me but our visual effects supervisor Tristan Zerafa, I think that’s the hardest he’s ever worked on anything, just because as I said we’re trying to do the impossible.
Can you talk about what it was like to cast the film? Did you always intend for it to include yourself and your collaborators Josh Boles and Owen Williams and know the roles you’d all play?
We knew that the basic set-up for the movie was about these two friends who kind of get in over theirs heads, and we enjoyed doing that in [Johnson’s first film] The Dirties so much and we wanted to make a sequel of sorts to The Dirties, both formally and in terms of character, so the idea that we knew who our characters were really came from a production model more so than writing, because we like to work with our friends and collaborate with people who are in it for the long haul and who understand the story as well as we do. So that’s why Josh, who’s a writer, is also a character. That’s why I’m in it. It just would be too much in this model to ask actors to commit this heavily to these roles. I mean I’m not going ask somebody to do [the film’s climactic] car chase. It would probably be illegal to force somebody else to do that.
Your character seems to evolve from this goofy, excitable character to one in over his head and facing something much darker. What was it like to approach this character’s journey, especially in a film you’re already directing?
Well the reason I wanted to do that was because that character is so much like the real me. I like stories about people who want something so badly that they’re willing to do anything and then are forced to kind of realize the price they’ve paid once they get it. Which I think is something that a lot of filmmakers can relate to or even just a lot of people can relate to, the idea that you want something or think you want something so badly and then you risk and sacrifice so much of yourself to get it and then getting it…the end of both of my films are characters getting the thing that they thought that they wanted and then realizing that the price that they paid was much, much higher than they ever could’ve imagined. And that is really, really true in my real life, which is why playing this character and “directing it” was so simple because I would know when I was being real, because I’m experiencing those same thoughts and emotions that the character is experiencing, as was Owen, and as was Josh. We were all trying to be as close to our real personalities as we could be.
I‘m curious what the reception you’ve noticed at screenings and festivals has been like especially in regards to the idea of the landing being staged? Has anyone challenged you or taken offense for exploring this theory or have they been receptive to the film’s ideas.
Well I think that it’s so much like The Dirties, which was a comedy that we made about a school shooting, which on the surface seems unbelievably offensive and tasteless, as does [saying] “We’re gonna prove the moon landing was faked by the CIA.” Like it seems anti-American and bellicose for no reason. But I think anybody who sits down and watches the movie has a very hard time thinking that we were trying to do anything other than make this time period and this story seem exciting. What we see a lot of at film festival screenings are conspiracy theorists who really believe this is true and really think that we believe this is true and that is something we didn’t expect, but so far no angry citizens. I mean we screened this film in Texas and got an amazing reception and we’re opening in Austin in just a few days, so we’re excited about that. I think only people who haven’t seen the movie would think, “Oh this is just some anti-American propaganda.” Mind you, who knows? It seems like the political climate is changing everyday and maybe pretty soon believing the moon landing was faked will be seen as a pro-American stance.
The film does a great a job capturing a feeling of the 60’s, were there any films or documentaries from that era that inspired you or helped you prepare to take this film on?
Beyond inspiration, we stole openly from a lot of major movies. The biggest one was Gimme Shelter, but also Grey Gardens, a television series called An American Family that we stole a ton from, we stole both narrative and visuals from Orson Welles’ F for Fake, Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool, some of the [Allan] King documentaries we were taking from. At every level we were stealing from specifically docs from that period, and we were trying to, in some cases, recreate certain scenes almost verbatim. I mean they changed obviously cause our movie’s about faking the moon landing, but all the hits, man. All the hits.
Finally do you have a sense of what projects are next for your and/or the kind of stories you’d like to explore?
Well right now we’re making a television series for Vice that’s slated to be released in January that is playing all the same games that Avalanche is playing, but just as a comedy, that we’re really excited about making three seasons of that show right now. And then after that we’re making another movie, but who knows. It won’t be for another year and I think it’s pretty top secret at the moment.
Operation Avalanche opens in limited release on September 16th.
-Nathan Braun
