It's a mark of Harlan Ellison's personality that even at age 74, he still gets referred to as an enfant terrible. The phrase crops up over and over in reviews of Erik Nelson's Dreams With Sharp Teeth, a new biopic that examines Ellison's life story, from his days as a bullied kid in Painesville, Ohio to his early literary success and vast collection of writing awards to his current life in L.A., as an irascible curmudgeon still endlessly furious at the stupidity of the world. In the film, interviewees including Robin Williams, Neil Gaiman, comics writer Peter David, and The Village Voice's Carol Cooper attempt to describe his notoriously prickly personality while communicating their respect for his talent and intelligence.
In this first half of an extensive two-part interview, Ellison reacts to the film, how it portrays him, and how it reflects or doesn't reflect his self-image. On Monday, the second half of the interview delves into Ellison's thoughts on his legacy, how his personality has overshadowed his work, and the best and worst encounters he's ever had with strangers.
The A.V. Club: What was your reaction to the film when you first saw it? Was it what you expected?
Harlan Ellison: This is the most frequently asked question since the film was made: "How do you react to the film?" It is a complex answer. [Laughs.] When you to talk to someone about whom a movie has been made, they always sound like a basketball player being asked, "Why didn't you win?" "Well, we have to bring our game, and we have to shoot better, and we have to pivot better." I was not aware of the film for a long while. It was… Erik Nelson had started being interested in me, if that's the proper term, about 20 years ago. And he would show up at signings or at public appearances or lectures or whatever, and he always had either a cameraman with him, or something like that. And I was unaware of him as a serious filmmaker with credentials. I always thought this was just another, for want of a better term, fanboy, with some little obsessive home project, or a maybe a college student who was gonna do it for an audiovisual class. So I was not cognizant of the fact that a documentary was being made, and I'm not even sure Erik thought that he was going to be doing that when he started. But as the years went by and he became a familiar face to me, he would show up and I would say, "Hi, Erik," and he would have a cameraman with him. And he would always very politely ask, "Do you mind if we shoot some footage while you're signing, or while you're talking?" Or, "Could I ask you a couple of questions?" And I said, "Fine." It was no strain. But it was also very ingenuous, because I didn't know there was anything serious being done. So I was not on. Am I beginning to make any sense here?
AVC: So was there no point at which—
HE: Well, wait, wait, wait. Let me proceed. Because I'll answer the next question that I know you're gonna ask. At some point, Erik started coming over to the house. His studio, Creative Differences, is in the San Fernando Valley. And I became aware that he was a serious filmmaker. He'd made hundreds of hours of documentaries for The History Channel and for various other serious channels. And then I saw his credit [as producer] on Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man, and I thought, "Whoa, this guy is serious." And at that point, Erik confided in me that in fact, he was doing a film. He had figured that there was enough material and that I was interesting enough for him to do it. And I kind of laughed, because I thought, "Well, the most that will ever happen with this is, at best, he may be able to sell it for a documentary on the Wannabe Channel or something."
And so I still tolerated it, and it didn't cross the horizon of my attention, really. Well, finally, about a year ago, maybe a little more, Erik came around and he said, "Listen, it's about time you knew, we've put together a film. We've put together this documentary. And we'd like to have some of your old tapes that we can cut in." And I said, "Fine." So I gave him a whole batch of stuff. I gave him a couple hundred hours worth of interviews with Tom Snyder, and doing Bill Maher, and on and on and on, all the way back. And when [Dreams With Sharp Teeth] finally got made, it was an epiphany. The trope I've been using, since I've been asked this question so many times—I'm like one of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, sitting on the beach of the Lost island, watching the tide come in and go out without realizing that there's a continent building up behind me.
Which is to say that I've been busy living my life, and I always have. And the film is very specific about me constantly saying, "I am responsible for myself. I am exactly who I eventually wanted myself to be, I guess, without consciously knowing what I wanted me to be." And when I look at the film, it's like an out-of-body experience. It puts me in mind of the scene in Tom Sawyer where Tom and Huck are supposedly drowned, and they sneak back into the loft of the church during the funeral for their drowned bodies, and they hear everybody saying all these wonderful things about them. And I get that same feeling, that it's not so much me as it is this funny weird old guy, Harlan Ellison. And I watch the movie and I laugh, 'cause it's a funny film, and I say, "That's a funny guy! I'd love to have lunch with him sometime." And then at some point, everybody starts applauding, and I stand up, and there's the connection made. But there's a great innocence of childhood or nature that I've managed to sustain in relation to this film, and the more kudos it gets, the more accolades it gets, the more important it seems to be—I mean, here we were playing Lincoln Center, for God's sake—the more I have to keep in check my feelings about it, because I know who I am, and I know I'm essentially a silly goop.
This is my self-image, and I've got examples of it all around the house. I love Jiminy Cricket. Jiminy Cricket is one of my great role models, 'cause he represents conscience, loyalty, courage, friendship, all the things that I think are valuable traits in people. And Zorro! In fact, they did a little sculpture of Jiminy Cricket as Zorro. And Zorro, when I was very, very, very young—and I mean before I was in my teens, so I've gotta have been about 9 or 10 years old. We lived in Painesville, Ohio, and my dad would send my mother to Florida on the train, for her health, you know, "You can get away for a couple of weeks." And my mom and I would travel on the train down to Miami Beach. Well, it was during World War II. And I became friends with the soldiers who were running the obstacle course on the beach. I would jump the stiles and crawl under and climb the rope, and they took me on as their funny little mascot. And one of them one day said to me, "You know, tonight they're showing a movie in the park. If you can come, come." And I said, "Ooh, yeah. I'd love that."
And my mother, of course, put her foot down and said, "You are not going any such place. You are going to bed." She was going out to play mahjongg, or whatever the hell it was. And she put me to bed in the hotel. And I, of course, was fully dressed under the covers. And we were on the third or fourth floor of the hotel. And there was a palm tree that was bent, and if I stood on the edge of the window, on the sill, I could jump and grab onto the tree. And I did. And I slid down three stories and ran off into the park, where they had hung a sheet between two palm trees. And there must have been 200 or 300 airmen and soldiers sitting there, and I saw, for the first time, Tyrone Power in The Mark Of Zorro. Now here I am, sitting among heroes, all these young men going off to war. And I was a big buff of airplane spotting, you know, I had all the cards with the silhouettes on them. And here I am, sitting in this magical venue, and watching someone use their skills for good—with great power comes great responsibility. And it made an enormous impression on me. And The Mark Of Zorro became another one of my touchstones.
All my life, I have tried to help people. I don't talk about it much, 'cause that kind of thing only leads to people sending you letters saying, [Adopts nasal voice.] "I understand that you will help out people in distress. I need money to raise marigolds." So I don't want that. I don't want mooches. But I perform six miracles before breakfast every day. And it's part of my responsibility as a member of the species, I guess. Which sounds so fucking pompous and noble when you put it into words—particularly when you put it into print, so I urge you to be careful about it—you sound like a goddamn fool. And it makes me nervous when I sound like a goddamn fool. I don't mind being a goddamn fool. [Laughs.] I just don't like sounding like a goddamn fool.
AVC: Do you think the disassociation between your self-image and the man you see in the film is because the film portrays you inaccurately in any way, or is it just like hearing a recording of your own voice, where it never sounds right to you?
HE: No, the film is dead on. [Laughs.] When the film was in one of its final stages of editing—it was originally something like 116 minutes, and Erik took it down to 96—Erik said to me, "Are there any things that bother you?" I had just corrected the punctuation and the accuracy of the Chyrons. I went over them all, because they had made a number of miniscule, niggling mistakes, you know, dropping a comma or adding an apostrophe. So he said, "Is there anything missing from the film? Is there anything you want? Is there anything you'd like?" And he was punctilious; Erik as a filmmaker is absolutely sedulous. For instance, my story "Repent, Harlequin! Said The Ticktockman"—academics had told me that it was one of the 10 most reprinted stories in the English language, and I had always patted myself on the back about this and blustered about this, bloviating asshole that I am, from the lecture platform. And I had said it on camera, and Erik had it as one of the Chyrons, but he could not find the documentation of that. So I assume it's true, I'd like to assume it's true, I'm not gonna say it isn't true, but he could not find—he was like a fact-checker for The New Yorker—he just absolutely made sure that everything was dead real and verifiable.
So he came to me and he said, "Is there anything missing, or is there anything you'd like to change, or is there anything misrepresented?" And I said there were only two things that bothered me. One of them was that there were not enough women speaking in it, because at least half my friends are women, and I said, "There are not enough people of color." At one point in the film, Erik was filming while a bunch of friends and I were having dinner with my wife Susan at an Argentinean restaurant that's one of my favorites. And I'm sitting there stuffing my gob with black sausage and skirt steak, and the writer Steven Barnes, who is Afro-American, and his wife Tananarive Due, who is also at the table, they don't actually say anything. So I was troubled by that, and I was troubled by the scarcity of women.
And almost like a plum falling from a tree, the Village Voice cultural critic Carol Cooper, who way back in the day was one of my students at a writer's workshop—Carol had been following my career. She heard about this and volunteered to do an interview, without his even asking. So Erik sent a crew to New York, and Carol now becomes a major linchpin [of the film]. So apart from those two things, I said, "The only other thing that troubles me is that everyone is praising me." I mean, they all manage to say that I'm a pain in the ass, which is absolutely true. [Laughs.] They all say, "Oh, he's a wonderful guy, but oh, God, he's like a cold you can't get rid of." And I'll go along with that. If they think it's hard for them to be my friends, think how hard it is for me to be me! But I said, "You know, you've got all these people saying good things about me, and that doesn't seem balanced. You really oughta go and talk to some of my enemies." I said, "There are people out there that just fuckin' hate me! Most of them for some picayune irrational thing, but they hate me, and they have been lifelong enemies, and would be happy to see me planted, so they could piss on my grave." And Erik looked at me and he said, "Well, we don't really need to go find any of your enemies, Harlan, because you're your own worst enemy."
And the film definitely shows that. It is warts-and-all. I mean, it opens with my voiceover saying, "All right, are you done filming? Turn that fucking thing off me." And I go on from there. It's a very representational film. There is no glossing. It is not an apologia. I think it's a very accurate portrait.
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