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LEATHERFACE
SPEAKS
6/10
(short)
full title Leatherface
Speaks - An Informal Interview with Gunnar Hansen
UK
2001 : Jim MORAN : 21 mins
Entertaining, informative mini-documentary in which Hansen recalls the
filming of Tobe Hooper's 1974 Texas Chain Saw Massacre in which
he obtained a degree of screen immortality as the hapless Leatherface.
During the talking-head interview (conducted at Bradford's NMPFT by an
off-camera, often barely-audible Tony Earnshaw in 2000) Hansen - now
a softly-spoken, bearded, bearish, only slightly scary-looking cross
between Michael McDonald and Bruce McGill - ends a long-running controversy
by confirming that Hooper's name is pronounced "Toby" (Ed Gein's
is "geen", by the way), and talks intelligently and articulately
about:
- His own
engagement with the genre - "every horror
movie I ever saw scared the bejesus out of me"
- How he
was hired - "[Hooper said] 'We knew we
wanted you because you filled the door"
- The character
he played - "severely retarded
and quite demented"
- The special
challenges posed by the role - "he
has no lines - no face to act with"
· His
anonymity - "I
love the fact that no-one knows who I am"
· Fans'
expectations - "Many people assume that I'm stupid and brutish and
dangerous,
· and
they're either relieved or disappointed when they meet me."
Although an illuminating 20 minutes (which doesn't show any signs of
being edited to a significant degree), the interview could profitably
be bulked up by the judicious use of clips - the stills we see don't
really capture the essence of this famously gruelling semi-classic. Nevertheless, Leatherface
Speaks would make a fine featurette addition to any DVD edition of
Hooper's film, and stands as a valuable little curio on its own right.
The most amusing moment of which comes when "noises off" disrupt
Hansen's train of thought - "Please, I'm a star," he joshes,
shooting a brief but blood-chilling glare at the unseen, offending party.
Did I say only slightly scary-looking..?
[seen on
video, Sunderland, September 2004]
to
order a copy of Leatherface Speaks e-mail a.earnshaw@nmsi.ac.uk
by Neil
Young
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