Todd Solondz’s tapestry of depravity

Todd Solondz has been making audiences feel uncomfortable since 1995. His landmark look at bullying “Welcome to the Dollhouse,” was followed-up with a tapestry of depravity called “Happiness.” His films are usually set in Jewish-American communities in New Jersey or Florida and might be considered “shondas for the goyim” if they weren’t so incisive and thought-provoking.

His newest film “Dark Horse,” stars character actor Jordan Gelber as a portly 35-year-old schlub living at home with his parents. He ostensibly works for his old man, but that really means spending the day making online bids for mint condition toys from childhood cartoon shows. When he meets the mysterious, faraway Selma Blair (reprising her role from Solondz’ 2001 film “Storytelling”) an unusual relationship commences.

I had the good fortune to speak with Todd Solondz this week in anticipation of “Dark Horse’s” release in New York City. It will open in additional cities in the US and then internationally as the summer progresses.

Hi, Todd. My allergies are going nuts, forgive me if I sneeze at you.

It’s fine by me.

The lead in “Dark Horse” wears a number of ridiculous t-shirts, including one that says “Matzo Ballin’” featuring an anthropomorphized matzo ball done up in hip-hop attire. Where can I get one?

They are available on the Internet, but I don’t know the website.

I tried Googling it, but the images that came up were a cartoon of an old grandmother, then the 1966 cover of Time Magazine that says “Is God Dead?”, then, and I swear I am not making this up, a Batman water gun.

Well, it is good to know the computer is thinking.

So, “Dark Horse.” As with many of your films the lead character is something of a cautionary tale. Many of us identify with the “man-child” trope, but there is a lot of ambiguity here. You want to like him, and generally you do, but then he sometimes acts like a real jerk. How important is it for you for audiences to identify with a character? Or is it okay to just treat these people like an anthropological study?

It’s something of a gauntlet of sorts that I throw down

I didn’t expect people to exactly sympathize with the Bill Maplewood character, the pedophile character in “Happiness” and “Life During Wartime,” either. It’s something of a gauntlet of sorts that I throw down. I say here’s an off-putting, obnoxious, abrasive character who is not very likable at all. Yet what makes him compelling to me is that there is an inner life, a heart that’s bleeding and pulsing and an emotional pain, which makes me care about him – even if I may not want to sit down to lunch with him.

Yes, the man-child genre is very popular right now, but I think this is a very different approach. I think it is fair to call it a cautionary tale, there is a price to pay when one tries to prolong one’s youth. It’s a male version, I suppose, of what women go through when they get into cosmetic work.

What’s so interesting is that his childhood didn’t seem that great. He had issues with his brother [Justin Bartha] and his father [Christopher Walken] and while his mother [Mia Farrow] was very nice to him, there isn’t evidence that he had an idyllic past.

For me it is more compelling to say that if he’s a boob he’s a boob with a painful inner life

No, but that doesn’t make one stop from clinging to the dreams of one’s youth. And why is it that you have a set of parents that are similar enough, at least in part, to their children, and one son is a functioning adult in the world with a career and the other can’t leave his junior high school bedroom? There’s a certain amount you can explain, but there is an inherent mystery to the phenomenon. It’s easy to write him off as just a boob, but for me it is more compelling to say that if he’s a boob he’s a boob with a painful inner life.

This may sound strangely specific, but, as it happens, I am a huge backgammon fan. The mother and son are seen playing backgammon and later there’s a big conversation about their backgammon games. I can’t deny that I got excited about this. Was there a symbolic reason you chose that game?

No symbolism, but it seemed more cinematic than just a game of cards, and I didn’t think it likely they’d play chess together.

Chess has too many connotations? Like it is a game of emperors?

Too cerebral for these characters, so I thought they would be more likely to play backgammon. The mom, you know, isn’t quite so swift about it and the son being somewhat impatient about it, it seemed like a great way to show the dynamic of that relationship.

It’s weird when you are watching a movie and when something that you particularly like shows up that would normally just be the white noise in the background, it can resonate for you in an unexpected way.

That happens all the time.

Similarly, of course, as a Jew I always have my eyes open for Jewish signifiers, and there’s plenty in this film. In the son’s room he’s got Hebrew coke cans on a shelf and the house is decorated with some posters of Israel the family probably picked up in 1991. For those who know you and your background there is always an implication that your characters are Jewish, but you tend to go out of your way to make sure everyone knows.

I don’t want to hide that they are Jewish, but I don’t want to advertise it. The Israel poster was a situation where we had about eight other non-Jewish posters that we couldn’t clear. But Hadassah agreed to give us this and we needed something hanging there.

That’s fascinating to me because one could argue that your films take a little bit of a jaundiced view towards Americans and their relationship to Israel. When the poster is prominently seen it isn’t exactly in the most pro-Jewish moment in the world.

These are secular Jews, so the Hebrew Coca-Cola is just another collectable thing for him. It is devoid of anything spiritual. The poster is equally non-religious, but it is a statement of their political sympathies. It is going to be inevitable, given the art direction in his room, that we’ll see the poster in the background and there will be a conflation with the juxtaposition. However, I wasn’t interested in making a cheap shot.

Israel comes up quite a bit in “Life During Wartime.” Michael Lerner’s character basically retreats to Israel. It can be interpreted as he’s fulfilled a dream by moving to Israel, or it could be that he’s failed at creating a life for himself so his last chance is to go to Israel.

There is ambiguity with his relationship to Israel in that film. The first time it comes up is on the date when he describes that that’s where he wants to be buried. It is something of a critique of the American-Jewish relationship to Israel. Of course, the Israeli-Jewish perspective is very divided from what the American-Jewish perspective is. This movie, however, is not about that critique or even satire.

Your films always have an air of deviance to them. Do people say things to you that they wouldn’t say to other artists, thinking “oh this is the guy who breaks the rules, I can be provocative around him”?

It says something good about humanity that 90% of the time when people do stop me they are polite and complimentary. I say it’s a nice reflection because I know how many people hate what I do, but they have the discretion not to assault me with their discontent.

The topic of bullying is very big right now – it’s a hot button issue. Your film “Welcome to the Dollhouse” was ahead of the vanguard in 1995. When you see this discussed in the news are you thinking, “Hey, where were you decades ago?” Do you think bullying is bigger now?

I’m not a social scientist here, but I imagine bullying is just as vibrant and vital a rite of passage as ever. The thing about bullying, of course, is that it doesn’t stay in junior high school. Anyone who has a boss or has a social life or works in the fields – there are bullies everywhere.

Is the current campaign to stop bullying foolish?

There may be ways to end things, again, I’m not a social scientist or psychologist, but just telling people to “stop bullying” doesn’t seem like a very wise or effective approach. You know, now they talk about how Mitt Romney was a bully – I don’t know what’s so surprising about that. Specialists are trying to figure out how to change behavior but, you know, to merely say “stop bullying” and giving out little ribbons is a little silly.