Film Show 065: Karen Sperling
An interview with the American filmmaker about R. D. Laing, managing the first all-women film crew, and her two overlooked psychodrama masterpieces, 'Make a Face' (1971) and 'The Waiting Room' (1973)
Karen Sperling
Karen Sperling (b. 1945) is an American filmmaker who was born in LA but spent part of her life in New York City as a writer and filmmaker. She’s a part of the Warner family—she’s the granddaughter of Harry Warner, the niece of Jack Warner, and the daughter of Milton Sperling—but her two films are highly original, independent works that eschew Hollywood filmmaking conventions. In 1969, she began shooting her first feature film Make a Face (1971), a hallucinatory fever dream of a psychodrama that stars herself in the lead role of Nina, an artist who experiences dissociations. The character’s blurring of reality and dream states is a result of Sperling’s interest in the psychiatrist R. D. Laing, a fact that would become even clearer with her second feature film The Waiting Room (1973), an oneiric depiction of a woman contemplating a marriage proposal. Notably, The Waiting Room featured the first all-women film crew.
While Make a Face premiered at various international film festivals, The Waiting Room only had press and industry screenings before going undistributed. In the five decades since both films’ creation, these works have been revived through the work of Michael Metzger, the Curator for Cinema and Media Arts at the Block Museum of Art, with additional help by Ben Creech, the projectionist and technician at the same venue. Make a Face’s original 35mm prints and negatives were lost and discarded, while the only existing copy of The Waiting Room is on U-matic tape transfers. Digital transfers were made of the former on an extant 16mm reduction print, while the latter was made with the U-matic tape. Karen Sperling’s Make a Face (1971) plays this Friday at the Block Museum. Sperling will be in attendance for a post-screening Q&A. Joshua Minsoo Kim spoke with Sperling via Zoom on May 12th, 2026 to discuss her childhood, the “interesting men” in her life, and the creation of her two films.
Joshua Minsoo Kim: You were born in LA. What are some of the earliest memories you have? If you were to paint a portrait of your childhood, what comes to mind?
Karen Sperling: Okay, so since I’m 81 years old (laughter), I was in LA before there were any buildings over three stories. The 405 was a two-lane highway out to the Valley, which is where my grandfather had a horse ranch. That was the Valley: horse ranches. I knew LA, and we did live in Bel Air, but it was just in the mountains. It was not the Bel Air with, you know, the mansions. I went to University Elementary School [now known as UCLA Lab School], which was for a diverse community. I wasn’t raised as a Hollywood person. My parents were very politically conscious, and so was grandpa. And a lot of my friends were not the kids of Hollywood, which was a good beginning.
What sort of things do you remember doing as a child? Were there specific interests you had?
I was always isolated. The house was isolated, and I was the middle child. So, I was the one who always volunteered for everything. I took care of the littler ones, and my older sister ignored me. I was always the one carrying baggage, I remember, when we would travel. My brother is 9 years younger than me, so I liked being the babysitter and singing to him. That was my trajectory. There were four of us—three sisters and then the brother came later.
Can you talk to me about any early interests you had in the arts?
First of all, my mom was an artist—she was painting in the garage. My dad [Milton Sperling] was a writer. I would always stand at the door when he had conferences in his library at the house, and I’d listen to him talk to the other writers. I would check out everything he was reading, so when I was 11 and 12 and 13, I was reading Sartre and things that were not for young minds (laughs). I thought, “Well, he’s reading it, I might want to know what he’s interested in.” I was always interested in what he was doing—I worked for him at the studio when I was 16.
I was a dancer, and that was my first love. When I was 18 and graduated from high school, I went to the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and told the head there that I thought patients would be interested in expressing their feelings through movement and art. So I invented dance therapy at the time, and that was just because I was a teenager and said, “This is how I express myself.” The nurses didn’t like me much because they thought the movement would turn into something sexualized. You see some of this dance therapy in my second film, The Waiting Room (1973). Some of that was about my experience. Dancing was my first love, but I was always writing, too.
Can you tell me a little bit about the dancing that you did? Was this ballet or more contemporary dance?
It was contemporary, modern dance. I made it up as I went along (laughs).
Did you take actual classes?
We did at school, yeah. I was a terpsichorean—I was the head terpsichorean. I also tried cheerleading, but I’m not good at following directions (laughter). That’s why I love modern dance. So I did cheerleading, and my boyfriend was the quarterback. I was always separate—I went away for school in the ninth grade. I went to Sedona for a year, and when I came back and went into Beverly High, I was more mature than most people—I didn’t care what I wore, I didn’t care to be in a clique, I reached out to the more odd people to be my pals. And a boyfriend… I always had a boyfriend.
How were these people odd?
They had difficulties fitting in. I was more attracted to someone interesting than someone who was trying to conform. Like, one of my dear old friends who I still have, she’s in Sedona, is an artist. Her mom was divorced and they lived in an apartment. And in those days, that was pretty cheap. That was Sharon, and we really got along. I just didn’t go into the cliques, and I just stayed with my boyfriend or was dancing.
You also said you liked to write. Was your writing as free as the sort of dancing that you did?
Well, by the time I got into Brandeis, I made up most of my courses. I had a literature teacher who let me make up my own courses. The freedom I had there was really important, and I had a lot. I lived on campus, too. I dated a professor (laughs). The head of the psychology department.
So you dated a psychology professor?
Yes.
How did that go?
Well, I was 20 and he was 42. We were going to get married, actually, when I graduated, but I ran away to New York.
Do you think you would’ve married him if you hadn’t run away?
I don’t think so. I had been engaged before that, too (laughs). It was when I was 18—I was engaged to a Broadway producer. He was a Westinghouse producer, and he produced Dark Shadows. Michael. In that time period, from when I was between 13 and 30, I had a lot of different interesting men in my life.
You mentioned that you started working for your father when you were 16. Obviously your father was an important producer. Were there things you learned from that time and being around these other people in the film industry?
You know, I wasn’t interested in making films—I loved writing. And then I guess I was interested. I was going to be a “good son,” but I moved to New York and I made independent films, which didn’t make me a good son at all because I had nothing to do with Hollywood. And my style… I think I chose film as my way of expressing how I saw life—I chose this experiential way of film. I was influenced by R. D. Laing. He wrote a book called The Politics of Experience (1967), and the bottom line was that dreams, fantasy, and reality are all equal. I wanted to depict life in that way, where you don’t need to know which is which and you just get to know the person. I dove deep into that, committing myself—my body and my mind and my art—to that vision.
Film seemed to be the form to take, and I have no idea what I was thinking (laughter). It was like total innocence and commitment. I was working with another writer when I did the first film, Make a Face (1971). He started to direct the film, but I didn’t like how it was coming out, and I didn’t like the way he behaved. I ended up being in the film because I didn’t like how he treated women. We were auditioning actresses and I didn’t like how he talked to them, so I said, “I’m not going to put another person through that, I’ll do it.” He was removed from the film when we started shooting. I ended up with my editor, Barbara Connell, who redesigned the whole film and helped realize the vision I had, which was this experiential vision.
You know, I haven’t seen these films in almost 50 years, and I didn’t want to see them! (laughter). And it’s because of Michael [Metzger, curator at the Block Museum who is responsible for reviving these films] that I’m looking at them again. I’m going, “Oh, why did she shoot that?” [Editor’s note: Karen Sperling is referring to herself in the third person]. I was very schizophrenic making both of these films. I’m only now just starting to appreciate them, and the responses I’m getting now from people of all different ages, of how they’re identifying with these characters… I’ve learned now that the more you go into one character, the more universal the experience becomes. This one young man last year, when we screened Waiting Room, said, “I don’t know what this film is about. I want people to see it. And I know I want to know more about who I am.” That hit my heart. If somebody says, “I want to know more about myself from this experience,” that’s my thing. But I have to say, I’ve been a little sad because I’ve been finding that women are having the same concerns we had 55 years ago: the same confusion, the same difficulties.
You mentioned earlier that between the ages of 13 and 30 that you had all these men in your life. I’m curious if you could talk to me a little about how these experiences informed your films.
My first, longest relationship was with a Hungarian refugee when I was 13. He was 18. He came out of the revolution in ’56 with a bullet hole in his back. He was a lovely man. And then I was with the Broadway producer, and then the professor, and then there were a few others. When I was making movies, I ended up with some interesting people. I always wanted to have a relationship—that was really important to me—and then I got married when I was 30, we divorced, and then I was engaged again, and then I haven’t been in a relationship for like 30 years. I guess I did my share. God stepped in and said, “You’re done, girl.” (laughter). And actually, it’s given me a lot of freedom. I worked with an ashram, taking care of people with AIDS. I played in a street band. I did energy medicine. I went all over the place and had a great time. But sorry, you asked me another question.
With Make a Face, for example, were you thinking of particular experiences with men that you wanted to explore or convey? And I’m also thinking about your dad because the film begins with a phone call with this dad pestering your character about the building you’re living in.
That was just part of the story that we wrote when I was working with the writer. As The New York Times called it, we were creating a kind of Mabuse film, a psychological suspense film, where you have this conflict with money and land and the free spirit of an artist and then someone checking in on her. There’s this character who just shows up randomly in her apartment and there’s this kind of sexual tension. And then the boyfriend—he was actually my boyfriend. I really had to take that film apart and put it back together so I could express something visually.
I was shocked by some of the techniques used. I love the use of the radio, how it’s just constantly playing and providing a parallel sort of narration.
I always had the radio on.
So it was informed by real life?
Yeah. I needed that constant connection so that I didn’t lose myself. And even still when I get up, because I’m a vivid dreamer, I get up in the morning and go, “I have to see what’s happening, I have to get back to the world. There’s got to be something worse going on out there than what’s going on here.” And unfortunately, there is (laughter). So I love that it’s a musical soundtrack to our lives. And whatever is going on out there is affecting us, whether we know about it or not. I didn’t sit down and say, “I want this radio on because…,” but when I think about why that was a choice, I realized that choice was made because that’s who we are. We’re a singular character, all of us. And it’s the sound of the world and what’s going on in the culture, what’s going on in the wars, what’s going on in the planet. It’s all connected.
You played harpsichord for Make a Face. And you said that you were in a band yourself, later on. I’m curious if you could talk to me a little about your relationship with music.
My dad was a classical pianist. He played at Carnegie Hall at 7 years old in a Lord Fauntleroy suit. So we had classical music all the time in our home. Every night, dad would come home—if he wasn’t on location—and play classical music. He was friends with Stravinsky, Piatigorsky, Heifetz. Music was in my life, my whole life. I got a harpsichord and, I confess, the guy who wrote the music was a boyfriend (laughter). Tony. Anyways, he wrote music. So I just messed around with anything I could contribute. And I think that the harpsichord has an eerie sound to it.
You mentioned earlier that you’re schizophrenic.
I think the schizophrenic part was how I was a writer, producer, director, and actor. Every time I had to play these roles, or some of them together, I had to be “her.” I remember looking on the screen, watching me on the screen, and I didn’t say, “Oh, I’m doing this,” but “Oh, she’s doing this” or “she needs to do that.” It was kind of a functional thing.
So you’re not talking about any sort of diagnosis, correct?
No, it was a playful, functional version of how to identify with what needed to happen. Also, when I looked at the performances [in both films], I thought, why is she both here and sort of not here? I realized that it’s because when you’re in a dream, you’re kind of both there and not there. You’re an observer.
Yeah, you definitely have a blank expression, which I think allows anyone viewing it to sort of—
Step in?
Yeah. The film becomes participatory in that way.
I was also influenced by Rudolf Steiner and the Waldorf school system. When you play in Waldorf, the dolls have no faces. Everything is made of cloth, and when the kids go outside to play, there are no swings—there are only trees. You constantly have to create from who you are. I did a whole series of interactive children’s books and they were based on that idea. I had the kids read the story, create the character, complete the pictures, and write their own story in the book. So I think what you’re saying is right in terms of this facelessness, or a non-emoting.
There’s also the actual puppets and dolls in Make a Face. Where did those come from?
The guy who started with me was an artist, so a lot of the art was his art.
You mentioned these influences that are unrelated to film, but I’m wondering if there were specific filmmakers you were inspired by. What were you watching at the time?
That’s a good question, and I’ve thought about it. I know I went to movies in New York City. You had stuff like Antonioni and Blow-Up (1966) and this whole idea of “What’s real? What’s not real?” You know, for my second feature I was shooting on Wards Island and I had 38 or so women on the crew, and I think I had 30 people coming in for the funeral scene. My dad took me to dinner the night before and said, “Who are your mentors? How do you know what you’re doing?” “Well, I’m a woman… it’s hard.” I knew about Maya Deren, but there weren’t that many women. Though, I did learn about some women who made films before me later on. I was not the sort of person who felt they had to go out and see every movie, and I didn’t go to [film] school. I didn’t blame him for asking me, though—he knew his stuff. The next day, he came to the set and watched me. When he left he said, “You know what you’re doing.”
That was good, but my parents did not get the films. They did not support them. My mother stopped speaking to me every time I made something. She was a wonderful human being and did amazing things and was a wonderful artist, but she was really scared for me. I read her diaries later. She wrote, “I’m worried that she’s exposing too much of herself.” But what else does an artist do? My stepfather and mother were socially conscious people. They supported the Dan Ellsberg trial during my first feature, and I remember going to the apartment in LA where they were staying—it was near the courtroom—and she said, “Who do you think you are? What are you doing?” I said, “I don’t know, I’m just doing what I believe in.” “I’ll never speak to you again.” She didn’t speak to me for a year, and then I met her in a bakery in New York and we reconnected.
For my next film, she was involved again, and Jane Fonda was at the house. I said, “Would you introduce me to her? I’m filming with an all-women crew.” “Go and introduce yourself.” I did not get any support. And I say this not because they were bad people, but believe me, when I look at these films now, at my age and as a mother, it’s like, “What was she thinking?! She’s naked! What are these movies?” [Editor’s note: the “she” here is Karen.] It’s taken 50 years for people to go, “Wow, these films are really interesting.” My dad would say, “Why don’t you… tell a story?” I eventually wrote for other screenplays, optioning books. These were real screenplays; I didn’t go back to my “experiential” films after that.
Somebody who read about me came up to me and said, “I heard you were gonna make three movies. Where’s the third movie?” I wrote a memoir after the second film, and that was the third movie. So the first movie is about how she’s single and confused and in fear, the second is about how she wants to have this relationship, and the memoir is about her getting married. So I did complete my trilogy. Again, my mom read that and called me up and she’d never speak to me again. So that dashed me on some levels. Of course, my first feature did go to international film festivals—New Line Cinema opened it in New York at Carnegie Hall, and I did have a PR person—but the second one just took a dive. It hardly got screened. I went to Carnegie Hall to sit with the audience for Make a Face, and I went to the ladies’ room and I heard someone say, “She’s a Warner? Why didn’t she make a western?” (laughter).
I was reading some of the old reviews and stories about Make a Face and of course everyone mentions that you’re the granddaughter of Harry Warner and the niece of Jack Warner. Did you dislike that you were always associated with these people because of how it would color the way that audiences would approach your work?
I was barreling through all that at the time. And my uncle [Mervyn LeRoy] also made The Wizard of Oz (1939). A lot of times, I had respectful interviews that were about what I was creating, but there were others where people just trashed me as an heiress. Like, there’s all these actors and directors who make millions of dollars on a movie and go, “I can’t make what I believe in.” Use your own money! I thought, this is my art, this is what I’m committed to, and I just did what I needed. I never really took the mantle of being a Warner until the past few years—I’ve been going to the studio and talking with the staff and mentoring some of the filmmakers, and it’s so wonderful. They still love the family, and I’ve learned more about my dad and what he gave up. He offered to take Darryl Zanuck’s job and go to war.
One book I optioned was a fantasy sci-fi and my father came and consulted me on it. I threw the book in the fire after he left because he said, “You can’t make a fantasy sci-fi!” This was coming from a guy who owned Brave New World (1932), Dune (1965), and the Edgar Cayce story. There was this stuff I must’ve sucked in from the air, that was in my genes. My grandfather was socially conscious—he refused to do business with Germany even though everyone else did. He said movies should entertain, educate, and enlighten. And my father was brilliant—he taught the PLATO Society and he surrounded himself with people like Groucho Marx and Milton Berle and they all loved him! He was a great storyteller. I was around all this. Yes, we had actors and directors and political activists, but I was always on the periphery of all this until recently. It’s only now becoming a heartfelt part of who I am. In those days, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, New York was a long ways away. I was an independent.
Do you feel like you were working in opposition to a Hollywood style of filmmaking?
No, I wasn’t intentionally doing that. I don’t know what happened to me… I just took this on. I wasn’t thinking, I wasn’t prepared, I just knew I had something I needed to share that I thought was valuable filmically, psychologically. Dreams are like film, and I lived so much in my dream life, and I had the independence to also write and create what I believed in. For some reason, I didn’t think about doing it in a business-like manner. I spent years trying to raise funds; it’s not like I didn’t try going to banks and producers. But I wasn’t getting anywhere, so I thought, I’ll just do it myself.
You mentioned earlier that you knew about Maya Deren. Were you familiar with other experimental filmmakers from the time? The Film-Makers’ Cooperative was already around then.
I didn’t belong to any of that. I wasn’t really part of any arts community in New York. I mean, I went to Max’s Kansas City and I collected some contemporary artists’ work—I was friends with Larry Bell, Louise Nevelson, and those kinds of artists—but I was very insulated and isolated. I didn’t have a big social life, I didn’t party down, I didn’t join anything. In my free time, I usually hung out in my apartment (laughs). I had some friends who were interesting but, you know, I wasn’t into The Beatles. I mean, I dated Frank Zappa.
You dated Frank Zappa?!
When I made my [first] film, I was on What’s My Line? and Frank was the mystery guest while I was Miss X. We met, he had just done 200 Motels (1971), and we were both going to be at the London Film Festival. We had gotten together in New York, he showed me 200 Motels, I showed him that I had albums by Stravinsky, and he was a very serious musician. We went to London together, and then we went to Switzerland. I was there during the burning of the Montreaux Jazz Festival. He got thrown off the stage. We traveled together for four years, off and on.
Do you feel like there’s anything about him that rubbed off on you and your approach to making films?
No. I had already made Make a Face and was already starting to make The Waiting Room. And actually, when I was making The Waiting Room, I dated Peter Watkins.
Peter Watkins?!
He invented docudrama! That was another person I had been involved with. Peter and these other guys I dated didn’t really influence me. Frank and Peter saw the movies. Peter came when I was shooting The Waiting Room and said, “Hey, let’s go to dinner!” “Excuse me, you’re a director. You know how it goes—I don’t have time for dinner!” (laughter). The War Game (1966) was the anti-war movie. Parliament refused to show it in England. He was banished from England, and that was just his style. I really enjoyed Peter, he was an interesting guy. And the other guy was Billy Friedkin.
What the heck!
I don’t kiss and tell, but I do share some of this now because, well, all of them are dead—Peter and Billy both died last year or so. Billy was a big fan of Make a Face. He got The New York Times to do a review—he encouraged [Enid Nemy] to see the movie. He didn’t tell her to like it, though. And I did have a PR firm, so there was that. But I got slammed. They were saying this was a film nobody was going to see. The same happened with my children’s books—nobody published them, so I gave out 20,000 books to kids myself. And now 55 years later, people are saying that my films are good! I’m so happy for Michael because that poor guy has been working on this for two years (laughter). And there are people like you who like the film. And the guy at Criterion and Janus said he hadn’t seen films like these before.
Do you remember what the response was like at the festivals?
I remember at the London Film Festival, they were asking questions to the directors and, you know, I look like the character. I remember a woman getting up and saying, “Is she gonna be alright?” And I said, “I love you. You can’t tell I’m right here and fine? You left reality behind.” Just like the guy who said he wanted to learn more about himself, I love when people lose everything and embrace it all.
I wanted to ask about the split screen in Make a Face. How did you accomplish that?
We were working on Steenbecks with wounded film—just cut and paste, cut and paste. Barbara actually died a year later in a car accident. I would’ve worked with her again. She and I found ways to juxtapose the film, and we split it because it was this whole visual theory where you’re fantasizing while you’re talking to somebody, where you’re living out a dream and remembering that while you’re here on Earth. Visions come back to you while you’re walking down the street. We’re having these split-personality experiences all the time but we never acknowledge them.
Had you seen Bergman’s Persona (1966) by this point?
I’m sure I had. I think I had seen that and Blow-Up, but I went so far out… I wasn’t a storyteller, I was more of an “experiential expressionist.” Where my grandpa said films should “entertain, educate, and enlighten,” I was “explore, express, and expand.” It was about psychology, it was about metaphysics—that’s what interested me. Since my dad said I should tell a story, when I was writing my children’s books—I had three children under 3 at the time—I was sleeping under my desk, and finally one day I said, “Once upon a time.” And then within three weeks, all these characters came to my head and I had written 24 stories. And it was simply because I said “once upon a time.” But of course, these stories are for children, and these are about people becoming who they want to be; these were stories, again, about transformation.
Of course your interest in psychology comes into play with The Waiting Room as it’s set inside a psychiatric facility. Were there specific questions you had or things you were trying to explore in making that film? Was there anything you learned in having made it?
Eh, I just wanted to get married (laughter). And I finally ended up getting married. I met the guy on Christmas and we got married in January. It took one month! I was 30. We went to lunch and then we went to dinner and he said, “You know, I haven’t kissed you yet but I’m going to marry you.” He was a great guy. But with the film, I don’t think I learned anything. I just wanted to get married! I don’t remember having the film be my way of processing anything because I was already on that trajectory.
I do know that it was important to me that I hired women. I was the only executive in the business who would hire women. There were two camerawomen, and one had done pornography. She knew how to light a red leather couch, but that was about it. So I knew what I wanted for lighting—I wanted a lot of bounce light and mysterious light. I wanted women because I felt a responsibility to help women, but I also wanted a sterile environment. A set is kind of hot, and I wanted it to be deadened or quieter and not have that interaction between males and females. The film was about this woman trying to find this male, so the decision to have an all-female crew had a creative purpose as well.
Some younger women in their 40s were really identifying with the film [at last year’s screening] and they asked, “Did you write the dialogue? That’s the dialogue in my head.” I went into my boxes and I found out that I did write the dialogue—it was all there. I was amazed. It was all written down. I also found the original shooting script. I broke everything down: scenes, dialogue, props, characters. I knew what I was shooting, and I put it together!
What was it like working with an all-women crew?
Oh, it was a mess. I had Nancy Schreiber, who was a really capable gaffer. She’s my friend now. And then there was Celeste Gainey, who was new. Nancy came to me and said, “Shirley MacLaine wants to take five people for a documentary in China, and I’m going!” “But we’re in the middle of shooting!” I wanted to kill Shirley, but I couldn’t tell Nancy not to go! (laughter). So she left in the middle of that film. I also had [co-producer] Nancy Littlefield. She was the only one in the union, and she didn’t know how to talk to women—she only knew how to talk to honchos!
And then I had Wendy Appel, who was one of the first people who used video. She used to teach at USC. She documented us making the film because it was the first film with an all-women crew, but I threw it all out. I threw out the 35mm too. I’m an idiot! But nobody was interested in this film! At the end of everything, she interviewed me and she took me down—she did the Warner thing. “Who do you think you are?” And then I fired her. I met her like 10 years ago. She called me up and said, “I can’t believe what you did, I so admired you.” I never told her how she made me feel. So, people didn’t know how to talk with each other, how to behave with each other, but it all came together—we did it. Roberta Findlay was a fabulous hand-held camera person—she still makes movies. Doro Bachrach, my production manager, was fabulous. She made Dirty Dancing (1987). [Dolly grip] Alexis Krasilovsky had never pushed a dolly. The union offered to train her. So I just led the tribe and everyone did the best they could—it was new for everybody.
Did you give specific acting directions to the cast?
I guided what I wanted the conversations to be. And I guess I did end up writing all the conversations. But they look and feel spontaneous. And it was my sister’s story—her husband did kill himself.
Both of your films involve projected images and television screens that create these different perspectives. How did you approach those scenes?
The critics who have seen the films are gobsmacked by that. There’s the one scene in The Waiting Room where the couple’s talking and then we pull back and then the doctor and nurse are talking, and then we pull back again. One of the unfortunate things about The Waiting Room, and I’m gonna work with Michael on this when I get to Chicago, is that she’s almost always there, but it’s dark and you can’t see it. When you pull back to the nurse and the doctor, and then pull back to the TV screen, she’s there watching all three iterations. I don’t know how I thought of that scene, honestly. What was I thinking? But it was this commitment to these layers of reality. There’s a scene on a stage, too. That’s a psychological reality check. It’s just scenes of a family, but they’re on a stage, and it’s like how people remember things like a movie scene. The other thing is that, when I watched The Waiting Room and you get to the end, there’s this moment of, “I get it.” I was watching it and going, I can’t believe I’m sitting through this, but at the end it just all makes sense somehow—she’s in charge. And really, I’m taking the film apart with you right now.
Are there things you learned from Make a Face that shaped the way you approached The Waiting Room?
I just… did it. I did everything! I fed the crew, I put up the posters around town, I did the grunt work. When we went to the set for The Waiting Room, I would bring breakfast for everybody. Again, I just went at it. I just did my job.
Earlier you mentioned the importance of R. D. Laing. Do you mind speaking more on that and how his ideas influenced your work?
It was about this open-hearted approach to people. I want to know all about you before I judge you.
Is there anything else you’d like to say about these works after watching them again after all these years?
I definitely believe that I had a clear, experiential philosophy that I wanted to depict visually. I wanted to share an individual so deeply that people could come to know themselves. Now, I finally know I succeeded. And I’m learning more things when I get asked questions.
There’s a question I end all my interviews with and I wanted to ask it to you. Do you mind sharing one thing you love about yourself?
Oh that’s funny, when I teach people I always ask people to share what they appreciate about themselves, and now I have to answer this (laughter). I appreciate that I am here to share and learn. If I open up, it gives permission to others to open up, too.
Karen Sperling’s Make a Face (1971) plays this Friday at the Block Museum of Art.
Thank you for reading the 65th issue of Film Show. Open up…
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