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An Interview with Ruth Ozeki
Ruth Ozeki, the successful novelist of �All Over Creation� (2003) and �My
Year of Meats� (1998) may have never published a book if she had not first
become a filmmaker.
�In high school and college I was doing a lot of writing,� said Ozeki in
a recent phone interview from her home in British
Columbia, �but I had a hard time moving a story along
quickly through time. It was from
learning how to edit film that I learned how to make transitions work in
fiction.�
Both of her novels have the feel of a film with their many shifting
points of view, and Ozeki even admits that when she writes she feels like a
virtual camera moving into a location, panning around, choosing a frame, and
then starting to record.�
�Maybe because I�m half-Japanese and half-American, but I�ve never been
comfortable with a single point of view,� she said. �Most films have multiple points of
views, and it�s natural for me to do that in my writing.�
Ozeki was born and raised in New Haven,
Connecticut, by an American father and a
Japanese mother. She studied
English and Asian studies at Smith
College and after graduation she
traveled extensively throughout Asia and taught for a
while in the English department at
Kyoto
Sangyo
University in
Japan.
In 1985 she began her film career as an art director designing sets and
props for such low budget horror movies as �Robot Holocaust,� �Mutant Hunt,�
�Breeders� and �Necropolis.� The
VHS movies were made with the intention of sending them direct to video. �They were horrible,� laughs Ozeki. �They were even worse than any of the Ed
Wood directed films, but this work with film enabled me to switch to television
production work and then finally to documentary films.�
Ozeki has now made two documentaries �Body of Correspondence� (1994),
which was shown on PBS, and �Halving the Bones� (1995), which was screened at
the Sundance Film Festival.
�Halving the Bones tells the story of how I brought back my grandmother�s
remains from
Japan,� said
Ozeki. �It�s partly factual and
partly made up. It was a film that
brought my mother and me together.
Before this film I had been living away for quite a few years, but this
work forced us together where we really got to know each
other.�
�Halving the Bones� was screened last Friday at Page Hall at the
University at Albany�s downtown
campus. On Thursday Ruth Ozeki will
conduct a public reading at 8 p.m. at
the University at Albany�s uptown
campus in the Recital Hall in the Performing Arts Center. Earlier that day she will present an
informal seminar at 4:15 at the
Assembly Hall in the university�s
Campus
Center. Both talks are being presented by the
New York State Writers Institute.
�I�m currently working on a new novel about World War 11,� said Ozeki,
�but I�d like to make another film in the future. I love working with images and
sound. It�s so incredibly
sensuous. I can�t get that same
feeling on the page.�
She also admits that as a writer she can be more complex with her
ideas. �Complexity doesn�t work
well in a film,� said Ozeki. �In
film you need to grab your audience and only include what�s absolutely
essential.�
She wrote the screenplay for her first novel, but has no intention of
ever making either of her books into a film. �I�ll let someone else do that if they
want,� said Ozeki. �I like to make
films that are offbeat and that mix fiction and non-fiction. I really liked the inventiveness of
the movie �American Splendor.��
Ozeki also misses the collaboration of filmmaking. �It�s bloody lonely to be a writer,� she
said, �but when I�m making a film I�m always with people from pre-production all
the way to the completion of the film.�
Her novels have a recurring theme about the hypocracy found in modern
life. In her first book she writes
about the hypocracy in the meat industry, and in her second book it�s evident in
the agribusiness corporations. Both
books are also critical of the media conglomerates. �Again, probably because I�ve been
raised bi-culturally, I see a multiplicity of truths in the world,� said
Ozeki. �Everyone has their own
version of the truth. What�s true
of one character is not true of another.
What I get frustrated by is large companies determining what truths are
valid. I feel obligated as a writer
and filmmaker to poke holes in that belief, which is why I loved making so much
fun of them in my novels.�
Although she writes about such serious issues, her books are fun to read
and at times hilarious. �The humor
in my writing just naturally happens,� said Ozeki. �I tend to see the world as a comic
place. Things can be so difficult
in this world, and I can�t think of anything more important than having the
ability to laugh at its absurdities.�
A writer she finds herself continuing to go back and re-read is Kurt
Vonnegut. �I love his humor and his
underlying political stance,� said Ozeki.
�I also enjoy his shifting points of view. You never know what to expect in a
Vonnegut story.�
Her advice for a beginning filmmaker or writer is to just get out there
and start creating something.
�Don�t wait for the right time to come,� she said. �You don�t need permission to
write. If you want to be a
filmmaker get a super eight camera and start shooting something. That�s how you learn to be an
artist.�
Ruth Ozeki believes that becoming a writer or a filmmaker should be the
most frightening thing you�ll ever do. �To be a really creative artist
one has to dig deep and not be afraid to show the world who you really are. You have to make yourself vulnerable
because that�s when the really good stuff comes out.�
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