Matthew Hollis is a fine art and commercial photographer working in Chicago. His portraits are shadowy and experimental, depicting our darkest imaginations and desires. He’s also a seasoned watcher, having worked in home video and movie theater establishments throughout the Midwest including Facets Multimedia and the Landmark Theaters on Clark Street in Chicago. In this interview Hollis talks about what got him into movies and what fuels his ongoing obsession with cinema.

RW: What got you into movies originally?

Hollis:  My siblings are much older than I am, and the only thing that we could find that we had in common were movies. My sister started taking my twin brother and me to the theater when we were seven or eight on a regular basis.

RW: How much older were they?

Hollis: The closest sibling to us is 14 years older, then 16 years older, and my oldest brother was 17 or 18 years older. By the time I was born they were on their way out of the house. My sister used to take us to see cartoons and made us watch musicals when they came on television. We watched a whole bunch of musicals when we were kids. And then when my brother and I got to be 15 or 16, my second-oldest brother lived 35 minutes away, every Sunday was his day off and he would come get us and we’d go see a movie. And we did that for years! Pretty much my whole childhood, at least five or six years.

RW: Newer movies or second-run?

Hollis: Little bit of both. We went to go see Vertigo with him when I was 17. We'd go see action movies and he would also take us to go see some foreign films sometimes. I saw Fellini films with him, Bertolucci films. Kurosawa. We also saw Predator and Terminator and all that stuff. And then when VHS came in—that's how old I am—first thing we ever watched was the Bruce Lee movie Enter the Dragon. And then we rented Purple Rain and just went on down the list. That was back in the day when we couldn't afford to buy a VHS tape.

RW: They were like 80 bucks!

Hollis: Yeah. And then they weren't selling them like they did later on. They'd sell you the machine for $400, and then you couldn't buy the tapes, you could only rent them. And that was a long time ago. It just became an obsession.

RW: And how did that obsession grow?

Hollis: While I was in Ohio during college, I used to work at the one video store they have there, Late Night Video. It'd be open until midnight. Did that for four years. Then when I was in Chicago, I got a job working at Facets and eventually managing their rentals department.

RW: Did you work at Facets when you were still in grad school?

Hollis: Yes. I had started my second year at grad school. I took some filmmaking classes at SAIC, but I didn't like it. I don't like the making of films. I just like watching them.

RW: I'm the same way. But it seems like for you, movies influence the way you shoot and the look your photos have . . .

Hollis: Oh yeah, heavily.

RW: What attracted you to working at Facets and what kept you there for as long as you were there?

Hollis: Movies, movies, movies! That's all that matters. I was obsessed and those days there was no Netflix, no Hulu, no downloading. You had to get them somewhere and this way I'd get them for free and Facets had so many films I had never seen before or were hard to find. I couldn't pass that up.

RW: Can you describe the clientele of renters at a place like Facets?

Hollis: I mean, they're not all appropriate stories . . . do you want the inappropriate stories too? It was a combination of people. It was people who knew nothing about movies, and then people who probably knew too much about movies. Trying to help people find what they want is sometimes the most difficult, because they think they know but that's not really what they want. They tell me the title of a movie, and they think it's this, this, or this, but I’m saying No, none of these are it . . . You have to educate them on the spot. There used to be a guy who called for years, and he only wanted movies with male frontal nudity in them. For years he called and asked the same questions over and over. We didn’t have an adult section, just art-house type films. So eventually you just run out of movies. But he didn't understand why we would run out of suggestions and get frustrated. There are only so many movies where you can find that kind of nudity that isn’t an adult film! But it's all over the place at Facets: younger, older, teachers . . . Joan Cusack came in a few times under her code name. Scorsese called once, I talked to him.

RW: Since you left Facets (in 2009), how do you primarily get your movies? Do you ever go to the theater, or do you watch stuff mostly at home?

Hollis: I don't go to the theater at all anymore. We went for my birthday in February. That was the last time since my birthday the year before. We don't go to the movies at all because of Netflix, Hulu, and downloads. That's where we get all our movies.

RW: Do you even know what the theater situation is like in Chicago now? Are you trying to keep up with what's still open?

Hollis: I try to look at them but I usually don't go. I don’t like spending time in the theater anymore. I don't like crowds. I might go see the new Avengers movie or that type of thing but I don't find the experience of going to the theater a good one, because there's too many people in that room. Too many people with too many different feelings about what they're watching, and they either laugh, or don't laugh, or scream, or something that takes me out of the moment.

RW: Has what you seek out to watch changed over the years?

Hollis: No, it's always all over the place. Foreign films, American action, comedy, whatever—I don't care long as it looks entertaining.

RW: What are some of your favorite types to watch?

Hollis:  Science fiction is always my favorite because anything is possible in a science fiction movie. Guy walks into a bar and gets shot by a laser. You don't know what's gonna fuckin' happen! It’s always exciting.

RW: And you even have film quotes tattooed on your arms! What do they say?

Hollis: There’s one from Woody Allen’s Manhattan. It says, "Nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind. Everything really valuable has to enter you through a different opening." The other one is a line from Henry and June, it’s an Anaïs Nin quote: It says that “Abnormal pleasures kill the taste for normal ones.”

RW: Were you the one who brought the Henry and June soundtrack to work? That soundtrack changed my life.

Hollis: Yes!

RW: Looking back, are there any particular movie watching experiences that changed some aspect of your life, or ways of thinking? I know that’s a broad question . . .

Hollis:  I remember watching two movies that changed my whole perception of film. One was Predator. We didn't need to know anything about that movie to go see it because it had Arnold Schwarzenegger. It started out like it was a classic military shoot 'em up, and then it turned into this alien thing, which I'd never ever seen before. Tarantino did it later in that George Clooney movie he wrote where everyone turned into vampires . . .

RW: From Dusk till Dawn?

Hollis: Yes! In Predator I’d never seen a film turning from one kind movie into a different movie before, which was great. And then of course, Die Hard was my other experience, because I'd never seen a bad guy that had levels to him.

RW: Who was the bad guy in that one?

Hollis:  Alan Rickman. He was layered and smart. He was great! Both of those movies changed my perception. Movies weren't just black and white things that you could predict any more. Watching those made me realize that a good movie was one that surprised you.

RW:  Is it still the rule that if you start watching a movie you have to finish it?

Hollis: Absolutely. Yeah. Not even the next day, it has to be done that day.

RW:  So you have to stay up . . .

Hollis: Yeah, no matter how long it takes.

RW: That's cool!

Hollis: It’s crazy is what it is. If I start a movie that I've seen before then that doesn't matter. But if it's a new movie, it has to be finished. Even if I take a break, if I have to make dinner, I'll take maybe a half hour, hour, and do something else, but then I go back to it.

RW: Even if you don't like it?

Hollis: Even if I don't like it, I still have to finish it. I will fast forward through it, I'm not ashamed to do that. And skip past the obvious nothings. Because you never know, but I have to get to the end. I need to find out the conclusion of all things. I'm often disappointed, I’ll just watch random movies on Hulu or Netflix sometimes. Just turn 'em on. In the first 20 minutes you know what kind of movie it is, but I have to get to the end. I hope for the best, but I've often been disappointed.

RW: How deep are you into science fiction?

Hollis: I'm deeper than you'll ever know. I don't want to say how deep, because it's weird. Deep, deep, deep.

RW: Is it specifically space movies?

Hollis: No, not specifically space. Like I said, science fiction can be anything, which makes it more difficult to predict. I love that.

RW: What are some of your favorites versus say the best?

Hollis:  That's a bold statement. You have to say Star Wars and Blade Runner are the best. I remember Blade Runner blowing my mind.

RW: Did you see the new one?

Hollis: No. I'm afraid of it.

RW:  It's alright.

Hollis:  I'm sure it's fine. Harrison Ford has a 90% success rate. I’m also thinking about Alien, that’s one of the best and a favorite. The first Alien movie with Sigourney Weaver, which I was surprised by because it ended with the lone strong female being the last one to survive. No way did I think it would be her and that was an awesome, amazing, creepy, scary film. The first time I’d ever seen science fiction and horror mixed together.

RW: What are some of your personal favorites or ones that you think are under-celebrated?

Hollis: Don't ask me that question. I'm embarrassed . . . Tremors. Have you watched Tremors?

RW: Oh hell yeah.

Hollis: Love it. It surprisingly has a tremendous amount of themes, and one of them being to make a plan, right? Which is what most horror films lack. The characters never make a plan, they just react. People have commented on this over and over again. In Tremors, these guys are country bumpkins, but they know how to make a plan and prepare. The whole movie is a surprise. You never really experience underground horrors. Things where you couldn't walk on the ground safely.

RW: From within the earth.

Hollis: That was a fear that we normally don’t tap into, what’s going on beneath us when we’re just walking around. I also really like Conan the Barbarian and that kind of sci-fi genre.

RW: Where science fiction meets the old Roman sword and sandal-y sort of thing.

Hollis: Yeah. Swords, witches, and Arnold Schwarzenegger! He was brand new to acting and did a solid job for that one, and it also had James Earl Jones in it and we all know James Earl Jones can act. Holy crap can he act! And the music was amazing. The pinnacle of that sword and sandal type scenario with witches, warlocks, and swords. Those movies are the best.

RW: Can you think of movies that you've seen the most times?

Hollis: Tremors, Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, definitely Raiders of the Lost Ark. I saw the Aliens movie 23 times in the movie theater.

RW: Jesus.

Hollis:  Because you can go in the afternoon for three bucks. I can answer pretty much any question about it and of course I worked in a video store, so I could watch movies there. I would watch Tremors and Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory pretty frequently. My brothers and I used to quiz each other on the second Aliens movie. “How many of the soldiers can you mention?” “What was the middle name of the little girl in the movie?” “When she found the award, what was the award for?” “What was the name of the guy who originally got the alien creature in his stomach?” It’s Marucheck, John Jay. When she found her in that little hole, it was her second great citizenship award that she found. Liked to be called Newt, but Rebecca Holden was her proper name. ‘Nobody calls me Rebecca anymore, except for my brother!’ I can do that all day!

RW: (Laughing) You’re just walking around, talking Aliens to yourself all day . . .

Hollis: You have to burn this tape.

Matthew Hollis’s work can be found at http://theobsessiveeye.com/