Interview: Alexander Poe on His Feature Debut ‘Ex-Girlfriends’

Alexander Poe debuted his feature, “Ex-Girlfriends” as writer, director and star. The Colorado native set his romantic indie dramedy in his current stomping ground of New York City. It’s got all the charm of a Woody Allen gem without the hyper-intellectual neuroticism. Poe stars as writer wading through a recent breakup as he tries to rekindle an ex-flame with the help of another ex-girlfriend turned bestie. It also stars Jennifer Carpenter (“Dexter,” “Quarantine”), Kristen Connolly (“Cabin in the Woods”), and a troupe of other indie up-and-comers. Here are a few questions I dished out to Poe after meeting at the 35th Starz Denver Film Festival. The film is now available on iTunes.

Your use of the writers’ critique group for the character you inhabit is like a meta-commentary on the life of a writer. Are you a writer above all; more than actor or director?

I think of myself primarily as a writer, maybe because it’s part of my family. My grandfather, James Poe, won an Oscar for writing “Around the World in 80 Days” and then there’s my old relation, Edgar Allan Poe looming in my ancestry, so I think that planted the notion of being a writer in my head. But overall I consider myself a filmmaker more than just a writer or director. The movies I like are usually very personal and specific in their voice and typically come from writer/directors like Herzog, Eric Rohmer or Almodovar or writer/actor/directors like John Cassavettes or Woody Allen. There’s no single way to make a film, it’s all about whatever that particular film calls for. I’ve acted in things I haven’t directed and directed things I haven’t acted in, but typically I’m always the one writing the script because that’s where I feel the creative vision is really defined.

Do writers sometimes “fail as human beings” in constant observation instead of engaging the core of their own character?

I think we all go through periods where we struggle to sort out our lives and deal with change and transitions in life. Writers don’t have a monopoly on passivity and indecision. We all sometimes get caught up in a narrative of what we feel our lives should be or what we need in order to be happy and then ultimately realize that maybe we made a wrong turn somewhere and need to try again. That is something that happens to just about everyone at some point and that’s what I wanted to make this story about, the fact that he’s a writer just allows me to dramatize that interior conflict in an external way.

You’ve done an endearing job of creating a character out of New York: who is the city to you?

New York is so many things. It reflects whatever you bring to it. It means something different to each person living there and that’s kind of what’s exciting about it, you have so many people from all walks of life all co-existing and struggling to get ahead and trying to find happiness or just sort it all out. That being said I think this story could have happened a lot of places. I shot in locations that were specific to me and my vision of New York, but really at the core I think this story is more about characters sorting out their lives and I think that could just as easily have happened in LA or Denver or just about anywhere. No matter where you are, you somehow find a way of running into someone you know as I’ve definitely learned being at the Denver Film Festival.

The character Laura (Kirsten Connolly), constantly paraphrases her relationship history with “it’s complicated.” Is this the comedy of a cliché, or is love really that complicated? Shouldn’t we have learned by now from cinema, literature and Hank Williams’ songs?

I think sorting out relationships is actually a really complicated thing. Ultimately what that really means is dealing with your relationship to yourself, who you want to be and how you’re going to live your life. There’s nothing easy about that. At that moment when you’re transitioning from one stage of life to another, whether you’re 16 or 30 or 60, I think there are always mistakes and trials and errors and struggle in both comic and dramatic ways. I find those moments really interesting to write about because we all have to face them. I was facing one of those moments in the writing and making of this film. Making my first feature was a big transition and one that really involved a lot of complicated sorting out of my life and my work. You have to dive into the complications if you’re going to untangle them.

At the Reel Social Club party, I admitted to having fantasized for the worst for the sake of experience. Have you ever dove into a relationship full well knowing it wasn’t going to end well?

Our actions always seem much clearer in retrospect than they do in the moment. You can look back and say ‘that relationship was never going to work’ but in actuality I don’t think anyone enters into something to see it fail. I think people don’t consciously do bad things, everyone always thinks they’re doing right, we’re just very good at creating justifications for ourselves sometimes. The struggle to see things and people clearly without imposing your own ideas about what you want them to be is what the film is all about. There have been relationships that have gone well and ones that haven’t. Sometimes the ones that aren’t ultimately the end all-be-all are the relationships that are the most valuable in teaching you about who you are even if they may sting for a while.

Even under the time constraints of a micro-budget, if you could’ve held immersive screenings for what was already a very dedicated cast & crew, what films would you watch with them?

I did actually watch a lot of films with my producer and cinematographer and talk about different influences and aesthetics when we were planning the film. Shooting days are expensive but you save money by getting your key team on the same page creatively ahead of time in pre-production. I think it’s less important to show films to actors because you want to find the truth in a performance that is unique to them without trying to achieve the external result of some other film. Likewise with your crew you want to be taking other films as origins of conversation instead of letting yourself drift into imitation without innovation. The cinematographer, Gregory Kershaw, and I really like this Norwegian film “Reprise” by Joachim Trier so that was a reference point we went back to a lot in our discussions even though that film has a much different style and tone than Ex-Girlfriends. The two of us along with the producer, Jennifer Gerber had all studied with the same film professors at Columbia University so we all had a common understanding of shots and how to visually approach storytelling. We looked at Woody Allen a little, mostly in thinking about how to sustain long takes. Eric Rohmer was one of the key influences along with Hong Sang-Soo. There’s a scene that takes a lot of influence from a scene in Antonioni’s “L’Eclisse.” Sometimes the things that influence you the most are not necessarily those that have the most surface similarities, you have to cast a wide net to catch some good ideas so you have to look at literature and photography and painting while also looking at other films.

Any thoughts or plans on filming something back home in Colorado?

It would be great to shoot something in Colorado; there are so many great locations. I guess I just need to find the right script.

“Ex-Girlfriends” was an official selection at Austin Film Festival and screened at SDFF as a special event sponsored by Poe’s Alma Mater, Colorado Academy. His short film, “The Break-Up Tour,” was also an official selection at SDFF. “Ex-Girlfriends” went on to win Best Feature at the Big Apple Film Festival and a theatrical run at Cinema Village in NYC.