After making three micro-budget independent films that changed American cinema, Andrew Bujalski has made a fourth micro-budget independent film. But Computer Chess is something entirely different.
The narrative of Andrew Bujalskis beginnings - Funny Ha Ha, innovative micro-budget cinema, the birth of a movement dubbed "mumblecore" - seems like something film history is ready to solidify, regardless of the fact that Bujalski (as well as other filmmakers grouped in with him) take issue with the classification. Regardless of the details of this movement (or non-movement), one thing is certain: Bujalskis first three films depicted twentysomethings navigating life issues and relationships with a subtle deftness and dogmatic attention to realism that were rarely employed in American independent cinema beforehand.
However, movements can only last so long, and Bujalskis fourth feature, Computer Chess, marks a radical departure for the filmmaker - in certain respects. Set in 1980, the film revolves around a tournament of chess-playing software programs that do battle with one another in a quest to see whose computer program plays the game with the greatest skill. Yet far from a work of realism, the picture contains surrealist imagery, idiosyncratic details, and narrative delivery modes that - at times - recall a glitchy computer program itself. Somewhere between the realms of low-budget independent cinema and a kind of dreamlike cyberpunk - William Gibson by way of Salvador Dali - Computer Chess is a highly inventive picture that adds new narrative elements to filmmaking much as Bujalskis debut film did. Its just that these elements are way, way weirder.
I recently had the chance to sit down with Bujalski to talk about his feelings toward technologys encroachment upon human social relations, as well as what it felt like, as an artist, to leap into an unknown style.
Tribeca Film: I was thinking about the maxim that is often used today, that more often we are treating humans like computers and computers like humans. Whats your take on that idea?
My wife noticed the other day that - you know, the UPS guy used to be a guy youd make friends with. Hed drop stuff off at the house and youd talk with him for a bit. But nowadays, the typical UPS guy knocks on your door, drops off the package, and by the time you open the door theyre gone, because theres a computer tracking their movements, ensuring maximum efficiency. Theyre being controlled by the computer. You dont chat with that guy anymore. Hes on the go! That algorithm is maximizing his efficiency, but that lack of conversation is the human cost of efficiency.
A period piece is never really about then, its always about now.
TF: Theres a kind of unacknowledged presumption at the heart of technological progress - all progress must be good.
Yeah. It certainly seems nuts to say all technology is bad, I mean, the wheel was technology, and Im sure the wheel had some unintended consequences - there always are. Thats where it seems doomed to try to stop technology - the best thing you can do is try to keep up with it. Today though technology progresses so rapidly that it seems the culture doesnt have time to work with it and really absorb it, adapt to it. Its not like our moral abilities can keep pace with Moores law.
TF: The film takes place in the not too distant past, yet from a technological perspective its the stone age. So that juxtaposition is very telling. What was your interest with respect to highlighting that tension?
That might be a feature thats particular to our times, that thirty-some years ago could seem so distant. Im not sure that it was like that in previous generations. At the time in which the film is set I was a young child, but I have my hazy childhood memories of it, so its a time period thats alive for me, in a sense. Because Im a Luddite a large computer is not hilarious to me in and of itself, but it was exciting to be on set with these objects that I kind of remember, their loud clacking keyboards and whatnot.
You could never have made a movie on an analog video camera back then, even though the camera we shot on was then at the height of its popularity.
But a period piece is never really about then, its always about now. Whether its a Civil War movie or a sci-fi movie or whatever, its a metaphor for today, a jumping off point to talk about today. This movie never could have been made in 1980, for a number of reasons - for one thing, you could never have made a movie on an analog video camera back then, even though the camera we shot on was then at the height of its popularity. We had to wait for cultural standards to get to such a weird place that it was acceptable.
TF: Its also interesting to me, the idea explored in the film of the computers almost being sentient. The computers being treated as if theyre human, subtly, unconsciously - the characters of course dont believe the computers are sentient, but sometimes it feels like theyre almost acting as if they do.
Well you know, on my way to this restaurant this morning I was late. I got directions from Google Maps, and it told me to turn left on Bowery, and the numbers were going in the wrong direction, and even though I was a bit confused because the numbers were going up and not down, I kept walking and ended up being late because Google Maps had told me to walk that way. And I thought, Google Maps cant be wrong?
There was no imperative toward tastefulness in Computer Chess.
TF: Right, right. So - back to the film - the film has a certain kind of surrealist imagery that it employs, a sort of glitchy surrealism, like the film, at times, feels like a computer program falling apart. What was it like, to take such an artistic departure from your previous work? How did you feel out the new territory?
Well, there was no footing, it was supposed to be a leap of
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After making three micro-budget independent films that changed American cinema, Andrew Bujalski has made a fourth micro-budget independent film. But Computer Chess is something entirely different. 
