“New Yorkers and Texans: the only two people you don’t have to ask where they’re from,” cracks the mono-monikered comic Reno in the documentary Rebel Without a Pause, a performance piece about the impact of September 11. The joke is an aside to the audience, but a sentiment not far from the thoughts of Rebel director Nancy Savoca (Dogfight), the New Yorker headed to Texas for the SXSW premiere of both Rebel Without a Pause and the feature Dirt, a story of immigrant culture in modern New York City and the emotional price of class distinction.
Savoca, the first-generation daughter of an Argentine mother and Italian father, knows that culture firsthand. She explored Italian culture in her films Household Saints (1993) and True Love (1989), which won the 1989 Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival, and dabbled in the Latin subculture with 1999’s The 24 Hour Woman. Amid last-minute adjustments of Dirt‘s subtitles, Savoca spoke with the Chronicle about the two films.
The Austin Chronicle: You’ve explored the Latino experience in NYC in The 24 Hour Woman and now in Dirt. How much of it is autobiography?
Nancy Savoca: My family came to the States in December ’58, a few months before I was born. They didn’t assimilate much, my mother never learned English, but when I got together with my cousins, we spoke Spanish and Italian. Because of my family, I could see through the eyes of an American and someone outside. Some of Household Saints has that, the Italian thing.
We were supposed to move back to Argentina twice, so I lived with one foot out the door, which is how my character lives in Dirt. She doesn’t totally commit to being here, which does a weird thing to you because you don’t know where home is.
In the suburbs of NYC, Latin American and Mexican immigrants are moving in. It used to be a city thing but now they’re in the suburbs. I was involved in teaching English to young mothers, and these women would talk to me about how they got here, in the backs of trucks sometimes. These are people living here without papers, people who don’t want their kids signed up for library cards or whatever because they think it’s connected to INS. It’s living in fear. Being here but not being wanted.
AC: Was this a project you went looking to make?
NS: [laughs] My agent wanted me to give Showtime an idea for a series, so I’d suggested a show about class in America. They weren’t interested in it as a series but said it was a cool, interesting idea and how about we do it as an independent film. Somehow, it all knit together.
AC: You’ve had excellent critical response to Rebel Without a Pause. It’s a pretty gutsy move, taking on September 11 as a comic monologue.
NS: I locked into Reno the minute I saw her work. She’s scary to some people because she doesn’t have boundaries. Even when her talk is political, there’s a basis of something incredibly human and pained. With Rebel Without a Pause, I’m amazed how many people are willing to go the distance with her.
AC: When she plays Celine Dion singing “God Bless America,” it catches you off guard because you think “oh, comedy schtick,” but Reno’s totally into it. I wept.
NS: The first time I saw her do that show, I said, “We’ve got to get this down,” because I wanted to make sure nobody forgot this piece. And it’s what you said: When the song came on, I started crying.
We went to see her before we shot it last year, one of the first times we’d been out for fun since September 11. Everyone was so drained, and no one wanted to do anything. I felt like someone had gagged me. There were so many things I wanted to say about that day, what this movie did was let me talk about it in a way that was smart and probing. Not “easy,” because we kept falling into the “easy” way of talking about it, which is the outrage and heroism. I totally agree, but we [as a people] got stuck in a circle that it’s the only way to think of it. How do you break out of that? Then I saw Reno — and that’s how we break out of it.
AC: So why hasn’t this been picked up by any of the cable channels? Too volatile?
NS: I think so. But it’s the only movie of mine that if it’s showing … I’ll watch. I don’t do it with any other movie. Every time I see it, I am healed a little more. It’s good medicine. 
This article appears in March 7 • 2003.