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April 24, 2014
Tribeca Film Festival: The Director and Cast Discuss "Young Bodies Heal Quickly"

Young_Bodies_Heal_Quickly_(Eleonore_Hendricks)The energy of legendary underground filmmakers like Stan Brakhage and Robert Downey Sr. thrives with new life in director Andrew T. Betzer’s “Young Bodies Heal Quickly”, in which two nameless brothers (Gabriel Croft plays the Older, Hale Lytle the Younger) set off on a road trip, sparked by their accidental killing of a young woman. With dreamlike, surrealistic sequences and visual references that remind one of anything from Terrence Malick to Jean Luc Godard, the film is a revelation and a masterful work by Betzer, who in the past had only directed short films.

Combining dark humor and naturalistic performances from the talented cast, “Young Bodies Heal Quickly” is one of the most unique films in competition at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival, a refreshing reminder that the essence of independent cinema is still alive in directors like Betzer. On the eve of the film’s premiere we talked to director and stars Croft and Lytle. We were also joined by Daniel P. Jones, who plays the boys’ stern father.

StageBuddy: Andrew, after watching the film I felt the need to see more of your other work, which has played in festivals and such, but can’t be found at all in home media. Why is it so hard to find your other film work?

Andrew T. Betzer: At one point or another, all of my films have been distributed but I’m so divorced from all of that…

SB: ...yet, you’ve had your work shown in all the major international film festivals.

AB: Yeah. They’ve played around a good bit. It was training ground or an introduction to finding a voice.

SB: Working in “Young Bodies Heal Quickly”, did you always stick to your screenplay or was there space for improvisation here and there?

Gabriel Croft: We stuck to the script but Andrew also liked to adlib a lot, he would just let the camera go and let people be people. A lot of that came through in the film. Like there’s this scene in the film where we’re discussing crabs and that was a real discussion.

AB: In “run and go” style filmmaking, you have to adjust your preconceived expectations to what the location dictates and there were many times where we had to shoot scenes in different places than what the screenplay said. Or we had two scenes for example, that I realized I could pack together into a single one. There were many moments of necessary improvisation. There were certain passages that were mandatory, but some others were we just found what worked best. We didn’t have time for rehearsal, it was very much, we all jumped into it.

SB: Going into the film there is no exposition, you don’t know where these characters are coming from, did the actors create backstories for their characters?

AB: In my casting I tried to pick people that I felt were right. I cast them for them, as opposed to their acting resume. I also tried to cast people who would spark and click when they got together, especially since we all just went ahead and jumped into the film together.

Hale Lytle: I didn’t create a story. I just went with the flow.

Andrew T. Betzer . Photo by Eleonore Hendricks
Director Andrew T. Betzer

SB: The film sometimes feels as if it’s purposefully trying to alienate audience members. As a director, were you trying to filter out people who would enjoy the film and those who wouldn’t be able to play along with it?

AB: (Laughs) Yeah, it seems to be a polarizing film...I guess I enjoy it when people bring the commitment to really try and figure it out, rather than just give up and get impatient just because things aren’t laid down for them clearly. I guess I expect people to bring patience and understanding and the people who don’t want to do that will get turned off.

SB: I loved the film’s texture and the look. Can you discuss why you chose to shoot in 16mm?

AB: It’s a bit of a dying art, we’re probably one of the last films shot on Fuji Color negative as well, rest its soul. I started film school at a time when we were cutting on flatbed editors, so I’m stuck on film. I like the mechanics, you have to give sort of a small leap of faith. I like to do a lot of different takes and try out things that people suggest on the spot, but it’s still by all means “shoot everything and hope something sticks”. I kind of like that leap of faith. I have a DP that really enjoys working with film as much as he can. To me it’s an easier way to move faster, because you never look back to see what you’ve done, you just keep moving.

SB: Can you also talk about the Vietnam reenactment sequence near the end of the film? For starters, are those for real?

GC: (Laughs) Oh, they’re for real!

It was weird, it kinda felt like we went in there like undercover, “hey we’re not filming anything, we’re doing a documentary on the Vietnam reenactment”. That’s more or less the attitude we had. People would ask “where are you from” and I’d be like “oh god what do I say?”. I tried to remain undercover but it was a lot of fun to shoot.

AB: Just tell them the truth, cause a lot of them were from the same place... People come from all over to do this stuff. It’s a good exercise!

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Written by: Jose Solis
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