When it comes right down to it, the Butler brothers don't pansy foot around any highfalutin notions. "We want to continue to hone our voice and create more layered and complicated work, and we hope this will evolve into us getting more and more," Brett Butler starts, "...groupies." It's a witty turn of phrase wholly expected from the screenwriter/actor whose work explicitly and often comically explores sex and the absurdity inherent in relationships between men and women. With bro Jason snuggled in place as producer, the pair share directing and editing duties, making for films that are painfully honest, highly intelligent and fittingly shocking. Here in an e-mail exchange, Brett talks about the foreplay of argument, why vocabulary is cool and what it's like to be an easily distracted, confused man boy.

SM: Here are some key words I'll throw out for you: betrayal, "falsely bloated ego" and clarity. Each of these three ideas come up at some either directly or thematically in the films. Why is it that you're both drawn to these concepts?

Well we're a couple hurt little insecure wanks who talk a lot of shit because we don't have the slightest idea what is going on in any chick’s mind. Then we figured maybe we wouldn't have too if we became filmmakers! These ideas come from our fascination with the many sides of people, especially in terms of what people show others in regards to sex, relationships and emotion. I think the three that you mention have very strong ties. If you've been betrayed or have a fear of betrayal you become very insecure, which a lot of our characters are. Because of those insecure feelings these people develop a fake ego to make up for it. You develop the super you, the one you think will get you liked and laid. You can see this in many of our characters, where they use bravado because they really have no idea how to talk to people of the opposite sex, so instead they learned how to talk about them and make themselves seem like they’ve got their shit together in front of their friends.

I think in making the films we hope to find more clarity when it comes to relationships, but we just seem to get more clouded. Confusions of an Unmarried Couple is really our reaction to going through a couple long-term relationships and being involved first hand in how derailed people can get in a relationship. All the right feelings are in place in terms of love for each other, but neither knows how to express it; so what manifests is these internal battles of figuring out what you're feeling becoming external arguments with your partner. You get so caught up in your own shit you actually forget there is another person there, and low and behold, they have feelings too. You even forget why you're doing it because the argument has been in your head for so long, there is no connection to reality anymore.

This problem has been urged and pushed along with the amount of media-blasting about image and how we should be living. One person can end up having three or four personalities depending on the settings; we are creating a generation of schizophrenics because of it! No one knows what they really want. They're waiting for the next ad, song, movie, magazine to tell them.

Yes, yes back to the question, we're drawn to these ideas, because we are easily distracted, confused man boys.

SM: Scampered, sundry, swagger, awry--these are normal words in your joint vocabulary, not just in the films but also in the special features. You both actually use words from the dictionary abyss. What is your relationship with words and how they are used?

I'm glad you bring that up…We've been knocked by critics who say that real people don't talk like our characters. First of all, how the fuck do you know how we talk with our friends, or how anybody talks out of your personal circle? Secondly, who the fuck cares? That's the beauty of art—it is done to figure out and say what often you can't in day-to-day reality. Yes, our films are meant to be down and dirty and dealing with real shit, but that doesn't mean it can't be stylized. We are big fans of Hal Hartley and his stylized dialogue. The filmmaker is creating a world and inviting you to come inhabit it; it is not necessarily your reality, but if it exists in the filmmaker’s mind that is a form of reality in itself.

With Bums we wanted a kind of music, a kind of beat to the dialogue, so that it becomes almost lyrical. I think again that this is a product of growing up in such a media-hyper world, where you're constantly watching and listening rather than doing. So it becomes you, and that's what we wanted with those characters. That's why there are so many pop culture references in it, including direct lines of lyrics from popular songs, because that is how people are communicating. I hear people constantly reacting to something asked of them that has do with their own reality with a quote from a TV show like Family Guy or something from the latest Will Ferrell movie. This form of communication has taken on an entire life of its own. People are carrying entire conversations on without their own words, and from that constant rat-a-tat dialogue we have been bred to be on our toes at all times.

When you're young, lazy and educated hanging out with your friends, you're there to laugh and have a good time. But, within that, the comments are fast and often very sharp, and I think everyone learns pretty quickly about comic timing; you miss the moment and your line becomes a dud, and not only that, now you're a target for the next line. So, if you don't want to be a constant target, you learn fast to be a quick draw on the banter battlefield.

Granted, while the intellectual airs of the films are overt, the level of down-home, dirty humor shouldn't be overlooked. In both films, there's a necessary shock value that derives out of an uncompromising standpoint in addressing sex, relationships and the misunderstandings that well in the spaces between. Is the shock value intentional on your side, or is it rather incidental?

I think it can be both. In Confusions of an Unmarried Couple we wanted to fully delve into the thoughts and feelings of two people who have been together a long time. We also wanted to exorcise some of our own demons when it comes to relationships. To do both those things there is no way to candy coat it. We wanted to make a film that people can watch and relate to things being said that maybe they haven't seen or heard in a movie before. I know as a film fan I love watching something that makes me go, “Fuck yeah, I know what they're talking about!” So, in trying to portray what we view as an honest version of a couple, there is going to be a lot of frank stuff going on, and all that down and dirty doggy-style humor becomes incidental in trying to be true to the story.

On the other side, did we think it may shock certain people? Fuck yeah! The style of humor is very reflective of our personal lives, where we talk very frank, and it is the norm, but if we see someone getting a little uncomfortable, we'll start upping the ante. You see someone getting squirmish because you're talking about sex, well how ‘bout sex with a dog?

SM: In both films, the fights almost work as foreplay. What do you see as the relationship between argument and sex?

Arguments are foreplay in these films there is no question. It is something that begins the first time you realize the opposite sex is there. What do you do as boy or girl in elementary school? You pinch, make fun of, laugh at, argue with the person you have a crush on. These characters are mostly fully-grown adults who haven't been able to mature past that primitive behavior. If you can't express how much you love someone, or how much you want to fuck them, it manifests itself in argument. You’re going back to the kindergarten well, but damn if it doesn't end up some great sex. All our characters are people trying to reconcile with adult feelings and emotions and not quite able to do so.

Why are they so unprepared, well that's a whole other movie.

SM: Now, I have to ask. With the feminist bend that both films purport to take--at least in the sense that the female protagonists have sexual bravado and freedom-- there's a fair share of lesbian hating and "slut" dubbing. What's going on there?

Well first, the term slut has got be one of the first words you learn to call a girl when you're a kid. You learn to call a girl that to be mean before you even know what the word means. So it goes back to the lack of maturity in these characters.

We wanted with Bums to show the girls as almost mythical in their power and almost diabolical in nature. There are four relationships in that film all different in nature: ending, starting strong, even with Jim and Heather where they are both in it for sex. And who is winning the various power struggles in all those relationships? It’s the women. That is why you can see Jill often shot to look like the devil, with tight close-ups and low angles, while you see Dave shot to look small and sweaty.

In Confusions, from the get-go, we wanted to really show Dan as someone who is so hurt by what has happened to him and so confused that even the extremely hot adolescent fantasy of two girls together doesn't phase him. I think through that we could prove the sincerity of Dan's emotions, which is pivotal in this film. The audience must believe he simultaneously loves Lisa and hates her; he wants to get back together with her and also wants to grab his shit and get far, far away. I think the lesbian hating is a bi-product of that, his lack of ability to truly grasp what he is feeling, his anger and pain starts to fire in all directions.

No matter what you have to be true to the characters when writing them regardless of what some people might deem offensive or not.

SM: In Bums, Lucy (Tammy Gerus) has, in a departure from the sexual banter, a moving monologue about her father and his love for both her, as his daughter, and her mother. Don's answer to her in the scene is, "That's cool," which is just about accurate to describe audience reaction. How did you go about crafting this particular dialogue?

You know, there is always that moment when you're getting to know someone where one or the other says something that is completely honest and from the heart, and you realize you can just be yourself, your real self with them. Not to say that the bravado is going to be completely wiped away, but there is now that notion that this can become something. That is what we really wanted to show here— these were two real people at the beginning of something. Don realized that.

I think often if people are just playing games you get into a one-upmanship when it comes to storytelling instead of listening, and I think that is why this scene has such potency. There is so much glib and flip reactionary speak in the other relationships.

SM: With Bums, you mentioned in the commentary the influence of Albert Brooks and the 1970s split screen. What other cinematic styles influenced you here and then throughout Confusions of an Unmarried Couple?

I'd say Woody Allen is a big influence. Now there's a guy who no matter where you’re at in a relationship, you can put on one of his films and realize that you're not alone in being really fucking confused about these things and laugh your ass off about it.

More recently we have really dug what Noah Baumbach is doing. Again it is very frank, very real, very dark and very funny. We are always fans of real and personal stories told with a smart sense of humor. I think our style is dictated by that. With Confusions we really downsized everything to get to the heart of it all, a real lo-fi style.

With the advent of YouTube and MySpace, audiences are becoming accustom to a more raw style of filmmaking where content outweighs budget, and with that lack of budget, you are forced to make more creative decisions. If you don't have every option in the world at your disposal, you are going to be forced to create. I think that is why you see someone like Lars Von Trier always creating rules for each film he makes: it forces you to be creative, it makes you be smart, and that makes for a better, more interesting film.

SM: Well, here's an overarching question: Why is it that you both make films? What inspires that compulsion in you both?

When you're creating, it is just something inside of you, because it is a shitload of work and there are always going to be assholes trying to bring you down. You just have to need to do it and film is it for us. It is what we were raised on, and it is impossible to master. No matter what you learn there are always new ways to use it and explore it, and the time of needing to hold up a bank to do it are gone. Cameras are like pens now, everybody has a chance to tell their story. It's a crazy time for film: it's no longer just for the ones with deep pockets; it's now street level; it's going to be fun to see what happens!

For more information, visit www.subprod.com.

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