Gregg Ara­ki: ​‘Each movie I make is a snap­shot of a cer­tain time’

“As a film­mak­er, I absolute­ly wasn’t there in 1994 to make a movie like White Bird in a Bliz­zard. The dif­fer­ence between, say, The Doom Gen­er­a­tion and this are a reflec­tion of the dif­fer­ences in me then and me now. I’m old­er, hope­ful­ly wis­er, tech­ni­cal­ly I’m a much bet­ter film­mak­er – every time you make a film you learn so much. Each movie is a snap­shot of a cer­tain time. The Doom Gen­er­a­tion is where I was at in 1994. I don’t spend time look­ing back at old movies. I was the sub­ject of a ret­ro­spec­tive in Toron­to a few years back, so I was kin­da forced to look at a bunch of clips. They’re all flawed, but to me they’re all per­fect in their own way.

“Slow­dive are one of my favourite bands. I saw them per­form in Los Ange­les and it was a life-alter­ing expe­ri­ence. I’ll nev­er be the same. I nev­er saw them in the ​’90s, and I always thought that I’d nev­er get to see them. It was one of the sad things in my life. But they did a reunion tour recent­ly. They played so much stuff – my only regret is that they didn’t play very much from ​‘Just For a Day’, which is my favourite Slow­dive album. They played all of ​‘Sou­vla­ki’ and they played almost all of the three EPs. It was mind-blowing.

“That’s one of things about White Bird being set between 1988 and 1990. I made my first movie in 1987, so it’s basi­cal­ly going back to when I first start­ed work­ing. The book the film is based on takes place in Ohio, and slight­ly ear­li­er, 1985 I think. I pur­pose­ly moved it to Cal­i­for­nia in the late ​’80s so it would be clos­er to my own expe­ri­ence. Musi­cal­ly, I want­ed to pay homage to all these bands that had made such a pro­found impres­sion on me. It’s been such an impor­tant part in my own com­ing of age.

“In the book, when Kat and Phil meet at the high­school dance, Jour­ney is play­ing. That’s one of things I want­ed to change – I made Kat and her friends more of the cool out­siders, so in the movie they’re at a goth club that was very much mod­elled after goth clubs in which I spent a lot of time dur­ing my twen­ties. We lis­tened to a lot of Siouxsie Sioux and Depeche Mode. That music and cul­ture were so impor­tant to me. I just want­ed to pay trib­ute to that.

“But it seems shoegaze is mak­ing a come­back. Lush are a band I was talk­ing to a friend about just the oth­er day. Ride have got­ten back togeth­er and they’re tour­ing. My Bloody Valen­tine had a new album out. Slow­dive came back. Chap­ter­house came back. I heard a rumour that Lush were hav­ing a reunion as well. It was some­thing I’m sure I read on the inter­net, and then looked again and couldn’t find it. It seems like Emma Ander­son was say­ing they wouldn’t get back togeth­er. But I love Lush – they are on The Doom Gen­er­a­tion sound­track. They’re on the Nowhere sound­track. I saw them a cou­ple of times dur­ing the ​’90s. I love the dynam­ic of Lush with Miki and Emma – the two of them fronting this band and they were both so damn cool. They were like these god­dess figures

“I remem­ber read­ing an inter­view with Miki after the split where she was say­ing that she’s a moth­er now and that she’s done with the whole band thing. Yet that was one of the amaz­ing things about see­ing Slow­dive – they’re all old­er now and they have kids, but when they got up there on stage, it was like it was 1990 all over again. I real­ly liked the new My Bloody Valen­tine album too – it made me feel a great sense of nos­tal­gia for my youth.

“I remem­ber hav­ing cof­fee with Robin Gutherie from the Cocteau Twins – he’s a huge idol of mine. He did the sound­tracks for Mys­te­ri­ous Skin and White Bird. I remem­ber him talk­ing about the start of the Cocteau Twins and how, in his mind, even though their music sound­ed very pro­duced and pur­pose­ful, they were just a punk rock band and they did what­ev­er they want­ed. And I think that’s the exact same way I make my movies.

“I grew up with these bands – I was in high school when the Sex Pis­tols got big, so I got all the new wave and post-punk music when I got to col­lege. That was when it was all real­ly hap­pen­ing. That music got to me when I was at my most cul­tur­al­ly vul­ner­a­ble. It formed me as a per­son. And it formed me as a film­mak­er. Mak­ing White Bird was a chance to go back there.”