Crispin Glover to show litany of media at IU Cinema

On Friday and Saturday, IU Cinema will welcome actor and filmmaker Crispin Glover as he presents two of his feature films and live dramatic narrations.

Glover will show the first two films from his “IT” trilogy, “It is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE” and “What is It?” The films and narrations begin at 7 p.m. each night.

Glover’s live narrations, known as “Crispin Hellion Glover’s Big Slide Show,” are broken into two parts and based off of the eight books Glover has written during the years.

Each book is based on 19th-century books he has reworked and combined with photographs and his original drawings, he said.

Glover said he always loved writing and drawing accidentally fell into bookmaking in the early 1980s.

“I was in an acting class, and down the block was an art gallery that had a bookstore upstairs,” he said. “In the bookstore, there was a book for sale that was an old binding taken from the 1800s, and someone had put their artwork inside the binding. I thought this was a good idea and set out to do the same thing.”

It’s all the work he did with writing and editing books that lead him naturally into filmmaking, Glover said.

“When I was editing my first feature film, there was a reminiscent quality to the way I worked with the books,” he said. “As I was expanding the film in to a feature from what was originally going to be a short, I was taking film material that I had shot for a different purpose originally and re-purposed it for a different idea, and I was writing and shooting and ultimately editing at the same time.”

Glover said he got the idea to start performing live narrations based off his books because he felt the best way to tell his stories was through visual representation. He began the first part of his live narration, “Crispin Hellion Glover’s Big Slide Show Part 1,” in 1992.

“The content of that show has not changed since I first started performing it,” Glover said. “But the performance of the show has become more dramatic as opposed to more of a reading. The books do not change but the performance of the show, of course, varies slightly from show to show based the audience’s energy and my energy.”

While Glover has acted roles in many major films, most notably as young George McFly in “Back to the Future,” Glover said he is currently focused on the filmmaking aspect of his career.

“My own filmmaking is what takes most of my energy now and is the most important thing to me,” he said. “In the last decade, I have been specifically funding my films with the money I make as an actor. So I almost think of the roles I am offered as acting assignments.”

Glover said he is currently working on the third film in the IT trilogy, “IT IS MINE.” He said he also plans on working on films outside the trilogy, and is not concerned with whether his films receive any sort of commercial backing.

“It seems plausible that my own filmmaking may coincidentally align to the interests of corporate distribution, and if that should happen and it makes a mathematical sense to sell to a distribution company, then I would do it,” he said. “If that does not happen and I continue to self distribute in the way I am, that would be OK as well. The most important aspect is to make my own films that I am passionate about.”

More information on Crispin Glover and his projects can be found at crispinglover.com.