"Memphis" Star Willis Earl Beal Waxes Poetic on Life, the Blues, and Everything

Experimental blues musician Willis Earl Beal talks his lyrical, existential, and occasionally bizarre new film, Memphis.

None

 "Everything I do is a part of this construct of identity and nothingness that I have formulated in my brain," explains experimental folk singer Willis Earl Beal. I've just asked him why he chose to wear a Venetian-style ballroom mask—a common affectation of his—to our interview. "It’s probably what you’d call megalomania, maybe, but I don’t think so..." he pauses. "But it's got a connection to that."

Answers like that are common when speaking with Beal. He oscillates between metaphorical abstraction and razor sharp clarity, between free-association and incisive takes on art and human perception. It's fitting that Tim Sutton's new film Memphis (opening today in New York, and September 12 in L.A.), which both stars Beal and features his music, has a similar quality. The film is an near-plotless Southern Gothic meditation about an existentially lost blues musician who walks the streets of a decaying city. At some points, Beal interacts with residents of Memphis, including a love interest. Usually, however, he just wanders through the forest and the neighborhoods deep in thought.

While the film may not be something for everyone, it's an almost too-perfect vehicle for a guy like Beal, whose compositions often feels similarly stuck out of time, or part of an alternate reality. Beal's music is woven throughout, both taken from his album Nobody Knows as well as piano compositions he created while filming. Asked what he thinks about the movie, Beal says he isn't sure that you can experience it like a regular film at all. "You go and watch it and it’s just like this flicker in your brain," says Beal. "While you’re there, it’s just like being in reality. Sometimes you’re paying attention and sometimes you aren’t. It’s not a film to sit and watch and wait to see what happens. Because nothing happens." 

Read on as Beal waxes poetically on the making of the film, his fraught relationship with Sutton, and why he doesn't see himself as a blues musician. 

How you were first contacted for the role? 

Somebody contacted me and said, “Do you want to be in this movie, this is what it’s about.” I said, “I’m in” immediately. They showed me a clip from Pavilion where a girl was holding this sparkler. For some inexplicable reason, that sold me. 

1.

The movie feels so much like you’re playing yourself, but obviously it’s a fictional story. Did it feel like, to you, that you were playing a character? 

Well, I always feel like I’m playing a character. I feel like I walk through my life as a bad actor. I’m not trying to be vague or anything—I just don’t feel like a real human being. Even when I’m not wearing a mask, I just feel like I’m not really communicating, nothing comes out of my mouth, and I can’t hear anybody else. Being in a film, playing a character that’s very similar to myself, was really normal. It was like, oh there’s the camera again. Because I’m always imagining that there’s a camera on me anyway. I don’t know what it feels like to act.  



I just don’t feel like a real human being.


How much of the film was actually on the page and how much of it was what you decided to say the day of filming? 

It was all on the page, but it was also simultaneously what I decided to say that day. Where you could move around in that space and it was all inside this construct. I know that’s kind of dancing around, but it’s the truth—he wrote a script like that. We were all non-actors. It was just us being ourselves in the context of a certain situation. People who like it, I think that’s the reason why. There are no performances in the film—there’s just people. 

When you saw the original script did you already feel like you had an intimate connection with the character? 

I saw a way in which I could exist in the shoes of the character, but I knew immediately that I could not play this character. So, what I decided to do, was that I wouldn’t play the character. And I think I made that decision a long time ago. More often than not you can’t do anything except play yourself. 

Was Tim Sutton immediately receptive to that take? Or did he have other preconceived ideas in mind? 

He had some preconceived ideas, which disagreed about. We even argued. But the thing that cause the fallout—are you aware that there was a fallout? 

2.

Not exactly, but I had heard there was some friction.

There was a fallout and it almost didn’t work out. And the reason that it almost didn’t work out was that I felt like everything was a bit too intimate. I got to a point where I was just sort of, how would you say it? I felt like I was exploiting myself. I felt like these people from New York were in search of authenticity and here I am, this pretentious artist trying to project something, when I should really just be working on these issues in real life. It just almost didn’t work out. We clashed when I felt that things were too real. A lot of stuff didn’t make it to the camera. It wasn’t because of something he wanted me to do that was out of character—it was being in character that was the problem. I don’t think they had a full idea of the person that I actually was in real life when they hired me. 

How do you feel about the film now, with some distance behind you? 

We became a family and this is one of those unique, once in a life time experiences where no mater what the film does it’s inside us. I’m extremely proud of it. It’s a cinematic representation of every experience I ever had. It’s a microcosm of my whole life. 



the reason that it almost didn’t work out was that I felt like everything was a bit too intimate.


There’s such an intimacy to the way you interact with the other characters in the film. What was your relationship like with them off-camera? 

With Devonte [Hull], the boy who I play cards with, nobody talked to him. I tried to talk to him in in a conventional way, but he’s one of these types of kids where you can’t be like “hey, so what do you like?” You just sort of exist in your space and maybe he’ll come over and investigate you. And with the woman, Constance [Brantley], I think she really dug me. That was cool. Our chemistry manifested itself on screen. We didn’t have an intimate relationship or anything, we just liked each other. It’s very easy to work with people you like. 

3.

How time had you spent in Memphis before filming the movie? 

Almost none whatsoever. I used to have some family members that lived there. The reason why I was able to be in this film about Memphis was that I’m never really at a home in any environment that I’m in. I think this film is about somebody who is essentially out of place, so was okay that I’m not from Memphis or had any real connection to it. 

What impression did the city leave on you after filming there? 

Can’t really say. Memphis is a kind of place that is out of time. It’s been left behind and it will never really catch up. In many way, Memphis is a place that doesn’t really exist anymore. You go to Memphis and it’s just not there. Beale Street is there, but it isn’t. You hear blue in the distance, but it’s a very flaccid representation of what used to be. Everything is a shadow of Memphis; nothing is real. The only thing that remains really, truly full is nature. Nature is on the outskirts and it’s moving in on Memphis. 

Do you see the music you make as connected to part of the lineage and history of American blues? 

No. I don’t have any connection to that whatsoever. People go into Memphis thinking it’s a movie about a blues musician. I am not a blues musician and neither is the character. The character happened to sing some blues songs. The context of film makes people think and understand that this character has sang some blues songs. But to me it’s about a character who used blues music to connect to something else. It was never about that. Really, it’s more about the static than the music. It’s the energy. All that stuff is dead because it’s dead. It’s supposed to be dead. I don’t know what else to say, I guess I just don’t have any reverence for it. 

4.

Your music is a huge part of the movie. How did you make the choices for what music was appropriate for the film? 

I didn’t make any choices. I didn’t score the film in a conventional way. In other words, I didn’t look at the film and score it. I was living my life. I was playing the piano the whole time—not that I’m particularly proficient at it—I just like keys and I like sounds a lot, a whole lot. All the tidbits of piano you hear in the film is me playing piano on my own private time. They took the tape and edited it and they put it where they wanted to put it. And they put "Too Dry to Cry" in this film, which I was not happy about because I didn’t want this film and that to be connected. And there’s also a slice of “Everything Unwinds.” “Too Dry to Cry” is kind of episodic—it builds—and I think that’s why they used it. It’s very compartmentalized and episodic. 



 In many ways, it’s the film that doesn’t exist. 


The whole experience was very ephemeral for me. I have a hard time actually remembering what exactly happened. There’s one song, however, from my new record Experiments in Time that I recorded using that very piano. It's called "Now Is Gone." It’s got this tape his and the birds are chirping. I recorded it early in the morning before the sun came up. It’s about the non locality of time. Every millisecond. That’s how I feel about this film. In many ways, it’s the film that doesn’t exist. 

5.

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

What was your reaction seeing the final cut for the first time?  

None at all, because I experienced it. It was a little weird. You see time chopped up. I never considered the possibility that things could go in that particular way. I was just reliving all the individual cuts. I walked away not knowing how I felt. I was like well, I’m sure it was good film. But it wasn’t there; it was just me. 

Nathan Reese is a News Editor at Complex. He tweets here

Latest in Pop Culture