Neither the director nor his producers could have predicted the success lying in wait like a deadly tiger ready to pounce its unsuspecting prey. "Really, all I wanted to do was make a film. It wasn't until halfway through shooting that we all started to feel it. We started to feel that we were working on a great film, one that would profoundly change everyone associated with it."

A script that takes six years to write is a labor of love, of persistance, of --eventually-- parenting. "When do Bottles Turn?" is of such vast scope and depth that many critics mention it in the same sentence as "Citizen Kane" and "Ghandi".

"The question hung in my mind for years before I began writing. What is it that makes someone want to reconcile, to rebuild lost relationships, to commune with that which might destroy from the inside?" The director/screenwriter huddled around a cup of cappuccino outside of his favorite bistro. Now and then someone recognized him and crept up for an autograph, "I can't tell you how much that film meant to me.. I ... I was in tears at the end." or "You film the truth. So powerful... so moving."

"I am just beginning to get used to this. I mean I expected it in a way, being a filmmaker. But people still come up to me and tell me their life stories. They want so much... All I can offer is my films, my work. It feels good to know I reach people that way."

He started filmmaking during adolescence. His gifts are apparent in those early, crude, rough and raw works. The first works were lightsource and camera. Cinema Verite at its most authentic. Composition, screenwriting, lighting-- he had to learn it all on his own. " There was a fight I wanted to do. I didnt have many friends I could use as actors so I developed an inexpensive method of negative printing. I could fight different versions of myself. I was still maturing as an artist. The script for an hour film was maybe four lines of dialogue, max. 'Time to fight' was the first line. I had two outfits. A black ninja suit and a white ninja suit. I liked the white one the most; in it I was the good ImpossiNinja. I wore the white hood with the black suit to become ImposterNinja, his evil nemesis. I would put on the full black suit, black hood and all, to become one of ImposterNinja's minions. The timing wasn't all that great. Sometimes I would get knocked unconscious before I would kick myself. Other times I would block a nonexistant punch or ImpossiNinja would end up figthing himself. After a few tries I worked things out."

Elements of those early works still find their way into his scenes. Jagged cuts, shoulder held cameras, special effects...

"Yeah, the pajamas in the bedroom scene where Cecilia finally confronts her unfaithful husband were an homage to the ImpossiNinja films. One of the fan sites figured that out. And if you pay attention, her husband, Richard, is wearing black sweatpants and sweatshirt. Theirs is psychological combat. Attack, rebuttal, a sort of feeling each other out stealthily.... like ninjas." He took a long sip of his cappuccino. "I bet you didn't notice that at first."

He took a job out of high school with Troma pictures. It wasn't the most challenging or rewarding work, but it got him into the entertainment industry.

"There's this scene where Toxic Avenger stabs a guy through the head with a mop handle. The red and grey goo that comes out and drips on the floor, that was my job. I pumped that stuff out with a football pump. I loved it. I was making real movies. I listened alot. Here is this director who knew the industry, knew the right people, knew what worked and what didn't. In those days it was amazing, I was so excited to be involved. The process meant everything to me. I had to learn as much as I could."

One of the most characteristic aspects of his work are his close ups. Audiences didn't grasp what he was doing at first, they were unnerved. The camera rests on Cecilias face for almost three minutes. In his debut film "Stream of Fields" he barely pushed one minute.

"You know that when Tchaikovsky's 'Rite of Spring' was first performed a riot broke out. I can't say there were any riots when people first saw 'Stream' but I know people argued. Convention had been shattered right there on the screen in front of them. Grasping the importance of the human face is essential to good film. What else shows more emotion? What else communicates better? Where do we look when we meet someone new? What do babies instinctually stare at?"

Another trademark technique that has served him well is the split screen. "When Do Bottles Turn?" takes this technique to a new level. One almost loses track of the number of screens.

"I immediately thought of Rubic's Revenge when I saw it on my Avid for the first time during editing. I had to use four additional 200 gig hard drives for thirty seconds of screen time. Spielberg said it reminded him of a Bee's eyes, all those facets." He took another sip of cappuccino and stared off into the street. "Steven has begun talking to me alot lately. We have this bond... I don't know if I can completely describe it. I feel it though. Maybe he does too."

He is working on patenting the process he developed to put 164 individual 30 second clips on a screen at once.. "My lawyer has some good points. I come up with stuff like that all the time, to me it's no big deal. I just make happen what I envision, whatever the costs. Who knows maybe an inspired young filmmaker can use something I developed to push cinema even farther than I have.."

When asked about the future of the new crop of directors he reminsces, remembering how hard it was to convince audiences and producers that his work needed to be seen.

"The new crop? I think so many of today's direcors are just hacks. They don't know enough about struggle. I remember when I was still wedging myself into the partially open door of this industry--one I love-- I would fight with audiences and producers. 'Vision like this must be seen, it must be heard' I would shout at them. Most of the time they shook their heads or shoveled me to the sidewalk. I'm here now though. Here I am. I had to go on stage after a showing once to keep people from leaving. They weren't ready for it, they hadn't matured enough....I lost my voice shouting at them to come back into the theater.... Come to think of it... I matured alot that night too."

The future for him is wide open. He still has tricks up his sleave.

"I can't go into too much detail about some of these projects. The first one is a docudrama about an avant garde filmmaker who sells out to become wealthy and famous. The guy he sells out to, he does it with a red pen by the way, the guy's name is De Ville. Part of it is going to be in black and white.. the other part in a sort of red cepiatone ... My big project, the fan sites gave it the codename 'Black Noir'... John Cage inspired it. The beginning is 17 minutes of silence with the theater lights out. The plot is... well.... " He chuckles to himself.. "rather dark."

When the curtain closes and the lights come back on what will be left is the wonderful, stirring, sublime memory of his work. I hope, as you the reader do as well, that he beckons us back to the quiet theater and dims the lights once more. The show must go on.