BY : Peter N. Chumo II

Kevin Smith burst onto the independent film scene in 1994 with his debut feature, Clerks, an ultra-low budget movie about a day in the life of a convenience-store clerk. Infused with lowbrow humor and a pop culture sensibility that would become Smith's trademarks, Clerks received both the Filmmakers Trophy at that year's Sundance Film Festival and the International Critics Week Award at the Cannes Film Festival. At about the same time, Smith started writing Dogma, a religious comic fantasy that would prove to be as epic in size as Clerks was intimate, and continued to polish the screenplay for several years, while completing other projects, such as the critically acclaimed Chasing Amy (1997).

Dogma is a startling blend of drama and comedy, an exploration of faith riddled with sex jokes and bathroom humor. It features an odd assortment of angels and demons, a black man claiming to be Jesus's thirteenth Apostle, a stripper-muse, and, at its center, a young woman embarking upon a rather poignant journey of faith. This ambitious film, which screened at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival, has garnered media attention months before its release because of the outrage of a Catholic organization claiming the script is offensive. TO defuse the growing controversy, Miramax's Bob and Harvey Weinstein bought the movie from Miramax to sheild its parent company, Disney, from attacks by conservatives. Lion Gate Films subsequently purchased Dogma from the Weinsteins and is releasing it in November.

Peter Chuomo : What was the initial inspiration for the script of Dogma?

Kevin Smith : I think it came from a lot of places, and one was of course my having been raised and still being a practicing Catholic. The other was comic books, which I think shows in the movie. There's no discussion of comic books like there was in the other movies, and there's no comic books in evidence, but the movie plays like a graphic novel and also some of the stronger comedic works of faith that people like Geoge Carlin and Sam Kinison have done in their routines.

PC : You Wrote it around the time of Clerks. Has it been revised since then?

KS : Yeah, oh absolutely. Every year I went through another draft of the flick.

PC : What do you do in the revision process? Do you work on structure, dialogue, both?

KS : Usually I start with very large drafts and whittle them down to more manageable, shootable drafts. In the case of Dogma from the first draft to the third some of the story changed a bit. In the first draft Bethany was a stripper, and I think the third draft is where she started working at a clinic. And that was about, I think, the biggest change. Everything else pretty much stayed the same. But it was just whittling it down or kinda sharpening points of view. Over the course of five years I think I became a better writer, so I just polished that dialogue a lot more.

PC : You shot other films while revising this script. Did you want to spend more time developing as a writer before shooting Dogma?

KS : Not so much develop as a writer as develop as a filmmaker. It was a daunting little flick to face as your second film, and I didn't want to pooch it because it was something really important to me. I didn't want to get out there and fall victim to the sophomore jinx simply by virtue of the fact that I wasn't mature enough to handle the material either as a writer or especially as a director. So I just kinda put it on the back burner until I felt we were ready, and after Chasing Amy I thought we had reached that point. Because Chasing Amy was a movie that did a little bit of what Dogma does, which is blend or balance the dramatic and comedic, but Dogma has far greater or more chasm-like tonal shifts. You'll be laughing at something one second, and suddenly it turns dead serious or weighty.

PC :Dogma also seems more complex in terms of genre. There are elements of comedy, adventure, road film, and then the whole religious epic or quest. How do you go about combining all of these genres into something that is uniquely your own?

KS : Carefully. The flick will never play as kind of actiony-adventurey as most of the Speilberg catalog or something like that. But there is a little hint of it in there. And it's not as fall-down funny as, say, some of the Farrelly brothers' stuff, but it definitely has its strong comedic moments as well. For me it was interesting finding the blend, and I think Pulp Fiction helped a lot. Seeing Pulp Fiction back in 1994 at Cannes was an eye-opener 'cause I thought that movie blended a lot of different styles and tone shifts quite well. And that kind of bolstered my confidence.

PC : Your use of pop culture references seems essential in your work. You mentioned Pulp Fiction-obviously it is essential in Tarantino's work as well. Now it seems alike everyone is doing it. It is clever and fun, but is there a deeper purpose in pop culture references?

KS : I just think, good or bad, our generation, generations that follow us, even some that precede us, have these cultural touchstones that pop up in conversation privately or among your friends, and why not reflect that in movies. It's not taking it to the more obvious degree like the self consciousness of the Scream flicks, of commenting on horror movies while being in a horror movie. It is kind of the awareness of pop culture and how little we wind up actually talking about except the movies we've seen, the TV shows we've seen, because we all share that in common. You come from any differnent walk of life, and you've probably seen the same films or watch the same TV Programs.

PC : How do you make the decisions in the cutting room? It must be a tough balance getting rid of certain things and not breaking a certain flow or trying to maintain a flow.

KS : Yeah, particularly with a script like Dogma because it's intricately balanced and the dialogue is so much exposition. I'm one of those guys who tells you about things rather than shows you, which is a horrible thing to do because it's a visual medium, but it's the only wait I know how to work. So Sometimes it is kinda difficult. But through the course of Dogma we found it easier and easier to just go in there and line-trim. We just kept looking for lines and stuff that's a little pretentious or self-serving.

PC : If I had a major criticism of the third draft, I thought there was a problem along the lines of what you were just saying-having characters talk instead of just doing. There are so many supporting characters, and every time one comes in they have to explain their whole back story, usually what they were in heaven and why they're on Earth. It felt like it slowed things up a bit.

KS : Yeah, believe me, it did. But we found ways to get in there and excise stuff so that people weren't going on too much about themselves while still moving the story forward. I'm a pretty harsh judge of the flick, and now when I watch the final cut it moves. It really doesn't seem to drag. At Cannes the last thing that kinda held on as one of these draggy sequences was the Azrael scene in the bar.

PC : That scene I thought especially slowed things up. When we're getting to the end and it seems like things should be speeding up, you're introducing this new villain (although we've seen him a little bit before) explaining his whole story.

KS : That's definitely changed from the third draft. He's in the flick a lot more throughout the beginning and middle so it's not like he suddenly pops up in that third act. There was a lot of tying up loose ends involved, and then there was a big old speech that he gave, and the speech hit the floor as well after Cannes. At this point you want to get to the church. You want to get to the end as soon as possible.

PC : I guess it's tough because you like certain scenes, but you have to think of the overall film and how they fit in.

KS : Exactly. You have to think about an audience sitting there for two hours and digesting all this stuff.

PC : As the writer and director, do you make changes as you shoot, or do you pretty much lock yourself in to the script and try to stick to that when you're shooting?

KS : I'm really anal-retentive about using the script as the Bible. I'm not real big on ad-libbing or improvisation, so most of that stuff stays intact. Periodically words will get shifted around, or you're in a moment. There's a moment with Chris Rock. It was his last day and his last take. There was a line that I was never really fond of, where Bethany says, "Christ? You knew Christ?" and Rufus says, "Knew him? I saw him naked."

PC : That's in the third draft.

KS : Right. I was never really wild about that line, and while we were there it was Chris's last take. I was like, "Throw something else out there." It was the one golden opportunity I gave to somebody to actually ad-lib, and Chris came up with this line that was phenomenal and will end up staying in the flick, where she goes, "Christ? You knew Christ?" and he goes, "Knew him? Nigger owes me twelve bucks."

PC : Were parts written with certain actors in mind?

KS : Some were, some weren't. I rewrote Linda Fiorentino's part when Linda became the character because in the earlier drafts I think Bethany is like twenty-six. When I sat down with Linda to talk about the script and I kinda fell in love with her as the choice for Bethany, I became convinced that it was a better move to have somebody who is older play the character. This person had been though more in her life and seen some shit and had some wear and tear rather than some twenty-six-year-old who sounded more like she was whining than anything else.

PC : This film seems like a departure in the sense that you are working with more actors that you haven't worked with before. Did you change your style?

KS : After you sit down with them and after you know they're going to be in it, you go through and give it another once-over on those characters just to inflect a little better for the actors who are going to be playing them or maybe tailor some of the dialogue to their delivery.

PC : The controversy surrounding Dogma as I understand it is that there is this conservative Catholic organization called the Catholic League that is talking about protesting the film. Is there anything else to the controversy, and how do you feel about it?

KS : It's pretty much that one organization, and it's disconcerting. You just wish they had waited to see the film before they'd jumped on it so hard. It may not have been their cup of tea because it's chock-a-block full of harsh language or what-not, but at the same time they would have at least seen that it's not a blasphemous flick. It's not slapping the face of organized religion or spitting in the face of Catholic Church. It's actually pro-faith. And at times actually pro-Catholic, and while it doesn't play like a recruiting film for the Vatican, it actually does a pretty good job, an admirable job I think, of upholding or maintaining some of the tenets of the faith and doesn't mock them. So its kinda disconcerting to have a group, particularly one guy, the guy in charge of the group, Bill Donahue, attacking the movie, and also knowing that it wasn't really about us or the movie, it was more about attacking Disney. He's tried to do it before, and this movie was just the easiest way for him to do it this year. It kind of makes you a little sad or disappointed 'cause I knew going in that I was doing something positive. You can accuse me of being tacky or raunchy, but you can't really accuse me of being anti-faith or anti-religion or anti-Catholic or anti-God when the movie upholds so much of that.

PC : I thought the Cardinal Glick character was a satire of liberalism in the Church-his touchy-feely "Catholicism--- Wow!" campaign involving liberal silliness like taking away the crucifix and replacing it with a Jesus who gives the thumbs-up sign. That joke might be something conservatives would enjoy.

KS : Absolutely. You would think so, but forget it. You have to have a sense of humor and most of the conservatives don't, especially when it comes to religion.

PC : Since you were raised a Catholic, and are a practicing Catholic, obviously this is a personal film. Why did you choose an epic form for a personal story?

KS : If you're going to talk about religion, you better make it damn entertaining because most people will tune out. It's one of those things that people don't like to be talked to about or want to be entertained by. And I didn't want to make this flick where I was on a soapbox for a couple of hours going, "These are the things I believe." If you're going to do stuff like that or stuff that can be construed as that, you at least want it to be entertaining. Kind of that spoonful of sugar approach. Couch it in some humor, and maybe at the end of the day they'll pick up on the message after they're done laughing, or maybe they won't, but at least you haven't bored them to death. I think that was the best medium to do it in, to do it as a kind of comedic film, or to do it in that epic form, because at least even if the humor is not your cup of tea, there's a kind of story to it. Ticking clock. Got all elements of a good movie conventions in it while still not being like a typical movie.

PC : With all of the Catholic terminology in the film, it seems like it's a film that Catholics especially would hook into a way that maybe others wouldn't.

KS : Yeah, there was definitely a kind of fear at some point. Like, "Wow, is this movie too inside? Are you not going to be able to appreciate this if you're not a Catholic?" But I think this stuff is broad enough, and the Catholic techno-jargon, as it were, isn't really off-putting. It all pretty much gets explained so we don't leave anyone in the dark. I've been kind of a Jesus freak my whole life. And being raised Catholic helps out a lot with a lot of the concepts. We joke about it, but it's treated kind of reverently because these are concepts and precepts I grew up with, and they do mean something to me. Even as old as you get and sometimes things fall by the wayside-where you're like, "A plenary indulgence, really? Where did God ever say He was offering anybody a plenary indulgence?" - you still kind of embrace it or go, "Yeah. That was a big part of growing up."

PC : What do you hope audiences take away from this film.?

KS : Chiefly, I hope they're entertained. And hopefully they'll laugh a lot. But it would be nice if people walked out thinking about their faith or whatever that maybe or their degree of spirituality. The movie is chiefly for people who have let their faith fall by the wayside or dropped out of it for whatever reason. Whether you've got issues with the Church or not, it's not like you have an issue with God. You have an issue with an institution that speaks on God's behalf but doesn't necessarily have the right in every instance. Just the idea that if you have a grievance with the Church or disagree with Church policy, it doesn't have to be a stumbling block between your relationship with God or with Christ. So often people kind of drop out of Church 'cause they're disenchanted with the priest or with the Church's stance on whatever politics of the day, whether it's abortion or homosexuality or things like that. People fall out of their faith because they disagree with the Church's stance on it. And it's just that. It's the Church's stance on it. It's not Gods/ We won't know God's mind on any subject until we die. So why blame God for something that some guy is putting forward and saying, "This is what we all have to believe"? It's a manmade institution, and it's just as fallible as the rest of us.