A: HEAD, B: BODY Directed By Jim Fields

Indie Express: Tell us about your film?

Jim: “A: Head, B: Body”—The title refers to one of the ways Dr. Robert White, the subject of this documentary, explains his notorious 1961 experiment. As he puts it, “we took the ‘A’ head of the monkey and sewed it onto the ‘B’ body of the host animal.” So this is the story of a scientist who, through a series of strange twists and turns, shocked the world when he proved head transplants could and possibly SHOULD be carried out on humans.  As a result of the publicity, Dr. White found himself caught up with fringe science in the Soviet Union and with violent threats from animal rights protesters.

IE: How did you come up with the idea for the film?

J: In 1994 I saw an obituary in the New York Times that caught my eye. There was a picture of scientist of some sort posing next to a dog with two heads. It was the strangest thing. As I read, it told this whole story of a Dr. Demhikov, a Soviet doctor who had performed all manner of strange animal experiments. I kept the article and stashed it away in my desk drawer and thought that maybe I’d do a film about this someday.  Then, in 2007 I found the forgotten clipping in my desk. Again, the arresting image of the two headed dog and the smiling scientist beside it intrigued me. I realized I had a research resource now which I didn’t have back in ’94---Google. So I dug around a bit and came across the name of one of Demhikov’s American counterparts, Dr. Robert White out of Cleveland. I cold-called him thinking he might give me some leads on people to contact about Demhikov. After one conversation with him, I realize the film I need to do is about Dr. White and not about this other doctor, remarkable as he was. Here I had the only known person to have carried out a real head transplant. Plus, Dr. White was interesting, bright and just a little bit eccentric. So I flew out to Cleveland for a few days with my DP, the aptly named, Mike Decay. We spent a few days with Dr. White and his family. When he unexpectedly showed us the original lab we were blown away. There was even an actual human brain in a jar there. It was amazing. You see the scene in the movie as we saw. I had my camera on at the time. I merely cut out the shrieks from me and Mike of “oh my God!”

IE: How did you assemble your production team?

J: The crew was me and Mike Decay. That’s it. He was a friend of a filmmaker friend, Ronnie Raygun. All these dudes worked in porn at some point and had these weird noms-du-porn. Mike was really interested in this sort of thing and to prove it he had sleeves of tattoos of his horror film heroes and icons. Amazing tattoos. Before we showed up I explained to Dr. White, this nice Midwestern octogenarian that Mike, the camera guy, is incredibly nice and bright but he’s covered with these kinds of spooky tattoos. I didn’t want him to be shocked by us weirdos from New York. He wasn’t. He loved the tattoos and liked Mike. My wife, joked, however, that we’d return from Cleveland with our heads transferred to each other’s bodies. I thought… that’s one way to get all those great tattoos without the hours upon hours of needles.

IE: How did you find your cast? 

J: I kind of explained that above. Dr. White was going to be merely a source of info for another film. But he was so interesting and his story was so solid I decided to do something on him.

IE: How long did the film take?  (From conception to final edit)

J: Technically? I mean… I first read about Demhikov’s death in 1994. Worked on a few other films and came back to it in 2007. It took four days to shoot. Took a couple of months to edit and animate. So, it only took about three months to shoot and post-produce. But it took 13 years to get myself to actually pull it off.

IE: Tell us a little about your process of directing (writing) this film.

J: Honestly, I jumped the gun on it because Dr. White, at the time, was already 82 years old. I bought a couple of plane tickets to Cleveland which was really dumb because just as I was planning to go, we suddenly had to move and all manner of things got in the way. So I had to bag the trip and eat the airplane fare until a few months later. So, it was approached impulsively. I didn’t have a clear idea of how this was going to come together but I knew, from extensive conversations with Dr. White, and from other research, that the story and the main character would be worth the chance.

Typically I do a huge amount of research so I can let the subject know I know what I’m talking about. I don’t want to come across as a know-it-all but merely as somebody who can understand the details and translated them for a general audience. But the process was more or less a series of surprises…which is how I like it. We had no idea the original lab with the original equipment still existed. I mean, one day Dr. White says, “you want to see something interesting?” And then, as you see in the film, we’re following him down some dark corner of a massive hospital complex. He unlocks the door and we walk in this room and there’s the brain in the jar and all the vintage equipment. If we had art directed a set, it wouldn’t have been as incredible as this. We were blown away. He then asked us if we’d be interested in yet something else. Of course. So he gave me an unmarked DVD. I later played it back at the hotel in Cleveland. Much to our shock and excitement it was 16mm footage taken in this very lab of all his experiments. This was graphic animal-experiment footage from 1962. A lot of it. Some of the less bloody stuff appears in the film.

IE: What was the most difficult part of the shoot for you?

J: Honestly, taking time out from my freelance work and spending money while I was still heavily in debt from a feature I made a couple of years before was a hardship. But that’s the nature of the game. Other than that, things went smoothly because Dr. White and his family were welcoming and very sincere people. We spent some amount of time with a few of Dr. White’s adult children (he has 10!). So, all in all, it was a strange story and somewhat strange people meeting each other; us with our New York-ness and tattoos and them with their midwester-ness and their oddball “Fargo”-esque personalities. We all really got along.

IE: Any particular moments from filming that stand out for you?

J: On the third day, Dr. White was obviously exhausted from hours-long interviewing. He was finishing talking about how people have accused him of being a Dr. Frankenstein and of being irresponsible, etc. So after a pause I asked him, “Do you think maybe you really could be a mad scientist?” This nice, mild mannered if not a bit eccentric 82 year old suddenly seemed to shake a bit but with a sly smile scolded me, “how can you accuse me…me.. who has given you all this time and energy over these past few days… you accuse me of being a mad scientist!?” Now, I should have put that in the film but, unfortunately, I lost my nerve as he was going on and all too quickly I apologized profusely and ruined the moment…the filmic moment, though I smoothed things over on a personal level.  I felt so indebted to Dr. White and his family at this point that I couldn’t bear the hurt feelings. I really should have just let him go on.

IE: Tell us about the film’s festival experience so far?

J: This is the premiere of the film. The first screening is not until Thursday night, June 26th.

IE: What are you most looking forward to at the festival?

J: I’m looking forward to seeing films and meeting people. I’m also interested in experiencing the audience reaction to this film. I’ve shown in it only to a few people and I know it’s been controversial for them. I’m wondering if general audiences will be disturbed by the content. I really don’t know what to expect and I’m a bit nervous about it.

IE: What has been your most interesting Q&A so far?  What was your favorite question?  How was the dialogue afterwards?

J: Haven’t had one yet.

IE: What films or filmmakers inspire you?

J: This list is way too long an eclectic for here.

IE: What made you decide to become a filmmaker?

J: Probably some early childhood infection that never cleared up.

 IE: What is next for you? 

J: I’ve started another short doc about the sweepstakes business and some of the crazy players in it. There’s some other stuff in the works but who knows?

IE: What is next for the film?

J: I just try to keep a lot of irons in the fire and, I hope, one or two, take.

IE: If asked to give one piece of advice to a new filmmaker making their first short film… What would it be?

J: Don’t take my advice.

IE: What question would you like to be asked about your film? 

J: Something unpleasant, slightly insulting and hostile.

IE: What is the Answer to that question?

J: I might just stand there stuttering with a glazed look on my face. Not all that compelling, is it?