Aaron Zeghers on John Paizs

I was interviewed about John Paizs, the subject of my forthcoming book John Paizs’s Crime Wave (U of Toronto P, 2014), by Aaron Zeghers at Cineflyer. Zeghers reports that Paizs has taken a “vow of silence” — I have been talking to Paizs to complete this book, so I don’t know about any of that, but it’s always great to see some discussion of Paizs and Crime Wave. Zeghers sneak-previews a bit of my book in there:

While some may assume that Paizs’ decision to “pull the plug” was born purely from the commercial failure of Crime Wave, Jonathan Ball expresses a different opinion in his upcoming book John Paizs’ Crime Wave.

“We might view this form of ‘early retirement’ from personal filmmaking as not just a commercial but an artistic choice. Certainly, it seems in keeping with Paizs’ decision to reshoot the ending of Crime Wave rather than let it proceed on the festival circuit with a flawed ending despite positive reviews and reactions. This line of thinking refuses to cast Paizs in the victim’s role — sufferer of bad luck and bad business deals — and lets us view his 1980s work as the culmination of a significant oeuvre rather than an arbitrary end-stop to career cut short,” writes Ball via email.