CU professor's film 'Quantum Cowboys' offers trippy, existential ride through the desert

Dec. 1—"Quantum Cowboys" — the latest film by CU Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies Geoff Marslett — takes viewers on a freewheeling and mind-expanding trip through the Arizona desert.

The fever-dream-meets-spaghetti-western features over 10 different animation styles and live-action scenes, on digital and 16mm film, resulting in a quick-changing expedition of vibrant visuals.

While the feature delivers shoot-outs, whiskey around campfires and jaunts on horseback through cactus-laden terrain, it also serves up themes of time travel, cosmic wonder, a mysterious portal-like arch and the often faulty concept of memory.

It mainly centers around drifter buddies Frank (Kiowa Gordon) and Bruno (John Way) and their inter-dimensional journey across dusty open spaces to right a wrong, but a gaggle of memorable characters surface as well.

The star-studded cast includes David Arquette, Gary Farmer, Lily Gladstone and is the final film performance for the late Anna Karina, a renowned Danish-French actress and a pioneer of New Wave cinema. Alex Cox, director of biographical punk film "Sid and Nancy," plays an unlikely priest.

Making her acting debut in "Quantum Cowboys" is musical artist Neko Case. The crimson-haired songstress pops up as a woman hanging items on a trippy clothesline in a scene that is jumpy and grainy. She belts out an a cappella number while stringing up laundry among a subtle soundscape of birdsongs and rhythmic hymns of cicadas.

The "Hold On, Hold On" singer disperses wisdom throughout her short time on screen. From her, we get nuggets like "Life is just a long series of eliminations you don't want" and "Planning just insults the future."

Tinged with plenty of psychedelic elements, nods to Led Zeppelin and philosophical ponderance, the film — based on an original story by Marslett and Howe Gelb, who crafted the film's score — may just have one reflecting on their own reality long after the credits roll.

Heady — and at times hypnotic — "Quantum Cowboys" is a trippy thinking-person's flick.

Marslett even makes appearances in the picture himself, both in animation form and live action. He's one of a trio of crew members who are filming a movie within the movie.

More elements of breaking the fourth wall can be found with appearances of Broadway star Patrick Page as Memory. He seems to be talking directly to the viewers, giving sage commentary always in the presence of his orange cat that sometimes appears rather glitchy.

Given the animation and layered concepts, "Quantum Cowboys" sometimes parallels the vibe of "Waking Life" or "A Scanner Darkly." At times, it's existential elements bring to mind 2004's "I Heart Huckabees."

Neon pastel skies, canopies of bright stars, illustrated tumbleweeds and even video footage of seagulls in flight near ocean waves make for a visually stimulating and stirring movie — wrought with originality that's never afraid to get too bizarre.

As part of CU's International Film Series, "Quantum Cowboys" will screen at Muenzinger Auditorium on Monday at 7:30 p.m., and Marslett will be in attendance to answer any questions that arise after viewing. Tickets, available at the door the day of the show, are $7-$9. A $1 discount will be given to anyone with a bike helmet.

We caught up with Marslett to find out more about his latest work, what he hopes viewers take away and what silver screen gems he gleaned inspiration from for his perplexing tale of time warping.

Kalene McCort: Love the eclectic vibe of this unique production. What inspired you to want to bring this story to the screen?

Geoff Marslett: I think the ideas have been in my head for a very long time. I dabbled in physics before filmmaking, and a lot of the film's ideas come from that. I love multiverse films, but mostly in Hollywood fare we get multiverse mainly to just make anything possible. I wanted to present a more old-school version of many-worlds theory.

The idea that there is potential energy for any possibility, but when those possibilities interact, they can extinguish each other until there is only one left. And I wanted to show this by following one single through-story, but moving the audience into different universes to watch that one story — hence the changing format of the film, each visual style representing a different character or different instance of character's point of view.

So that was the eclectic part, but it was also important to us to relook at iconic ways that art defines history. In this case we chose the Western, because the Western in movies is both completely iconic and completely redefined through fiction. The hope is that someone watches this film and has the joy of rethinking what they think they already know from an infinite possible list of other points of view.

KM: What are you hoping viewers take away?

GM: I hope viewers enjoy the relationship between Frank (Kiowa Gordon), Linde (Lily Gladstone) and Bruno (John Way). To me, their friendship is still the emotional core of the film. So I hope people fall in love with those characters, and maybe Colfax and Depew too.

From there I'm OK if people are a little confused about the physics and specific beats in the film — in fact, I kind of hope they are a little confused. The film is designed like a puzzle, it is all intentional and does fit together, but it will take a few viewings to really figure out. That's the type of film I like watching, and I hope that's the type of film I made — something a viewer would like to see a second time as much as the first. It raises the questions on the first trip through and then starts answering them upon revisit.

So hopefully they will be thinking about how we use art to express our own personal experience in life and how that parallels the many-worlds theory, and how contrary ideas can both be true and contradictory at the same time, and how maybe time isn't what we think it is ... but I would also definitely settle for the audience just laughing a bit, enjoying the music and wanting more of the characters.

KM: I'm a fan of Neko Case, so it's awesome to see her in this role. What was the most rewarding aspect of working with this cast to shape this story?

GM: Honestly, as a maker, this was a dream project. I was able to work with several of my cinematic heroes. Gary Farmer, Alex Cox and Anna Karina are three of the reasons I make the films I make. At 15 years old I watched their work and it changed me. It made me love indie cinema. So to have these same people in a film that Howe (Gelb) and I wrote is magical for me in a way I can't even express. They are forces of nature.

Then I was able to work with several newer, younger actors, Kiowa Gordon, Lily Gladstone and John Way. They are some of the best performers of their generation and made every scene better than the film I imagined in my head. I got to add friends like Frank Mosley, Trieste Kelly Dunn, Antonio Jeffries, Jesse Lee Pcheco, Devon Wycoff and Howe Gelb, who all deserve to be household names themselves. It was my first time to work with both Patrick Page and David Arquette, and I was blown away by their immense talent and versatility.

And yes, music was such a major part of the film, right from conception. Howe (Gelb) and I wanted to show "what music really sounded like in the west." Which of course we knew was also impossible, and probably sounded more like Sonic Youth on untuned banjos, but regardless, we knew it was important.

So gathering musician-actors who could pull off the sounds we needed was another great adventure. We put Howe (Gelb) on the screen and since we are already close, that was a no-brainer, but being able to enlist John Doe, Xixa, and Neko Case was pretty amazing again for me. These are the musicians I have been listening to for years, and now they helped me bring this vision to life. It was particularly exciting to work with Neko (Case) since this was her first acting experience, too.

KM: I know that the original soundtrack has also received some praise. How important was it to have a score that complemented and elevated the film to another level?

GM: Incredibly important. The songs were inherently part of the script. The lyrics are part of the film, the dissonance in scenes like "Johns Bar" are part of the story. The character of Blacky is essentially Schrodinger's cowboy in this film. So the music needed to be a driver of the story, as well as something to listen to and complement the images and performances.

It was obviously a big ask, but Howe Gelb really delivered. He wrote an incredible collection of songs, and the entire group of musicians who worked off and on for almost two years creating the music made the only soundtrack that could have worked with this film. A shoutout to Neko (Case) and John (Doe.) Their amazing contributions were not recorded in a studio later on, they did those performances live while acting in the scenes. You don't see that very often.

KM: As a creative, what are some films that you consider to be favorites and why?

GM: This is always such a hard question, and my answer is probably different every time I answer it. But I would say the film I always wish I had made is David Byrne's "True Stories."

Films that definitely influenced me making this one include "Dead Man," "Pow Wow Highway," "Persepolis," "Straight To Hell," "Surviving Desire," "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," the animated "Lord of The Rings," "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly," "Lost Highway," "Badlands," "Alphaville" and so many more — but also music, literature, paintings.

I think regardless of format, I love films that strive to be wholly new. I am less interested in seeing people perfect a concept — or filmmaking style — than I am interested in seeing someone try something outside of their comfort zone, to try something no one else has tried. That kind of experimenting makes me think, it excites me. To me, indie film is about not having to make the best version of something, but to make something no one else is even trying to make. That's what I love as a maker, and that's what I love as a consumer.