Chel White on ‘Dirt’
Chel White made the short film ‘Dirt’ inspired by the segment of ‘The Dictator, Part 1’ that begins at 28 minutes. On 2001 February 16 he appeared on ‘Oregon Art Beat’ to talk about his work, which included the making of ‘Dirt’: https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-26eaed5ab1c
White: ‘I was really into “The Twilight Zone” as a kid, and I think there's a little bit of that in this piece, although - and actually, that was one of the things that attracted me to this Joe Frank story and his voice, his monologue, was that it had this kind of Rod Serling quality to it, and, yeah, I've always loved “The Twilight Zone.”
‘In fact, I found out after I went to - I went to Antioch College in Ohio, and I found out after I got there that Rod Serling had been a student there, and had taught there in the '60s.
‘So, anyway.’
Host: ‘But what is this about?’
White: ‘Well, I call “Dirt” my obsessive ecological parable. That's really what - you know, in a nutshell, that's what it is to me. It's a surreal black comedy on one level, but I think on a deeper level, it's very much about - well, it is kind of a fairy tale for the 21st century in a way, too, because it's very much about ecology and self-sufficiency to me, and that's what I get from this story.
For a long time, I felt like I wanted to make a film about dirt, and it just was this sort of - I don't know, very - I don't know, a subconscious level thing, you know, that dirt is a great - has a lot of potential for great metaphors. And then, when I came across this story by Joe Frank from one of his radio shows, it just seemed like this was perfect, so I got in touch with him, and he was very, very generous and let me use the story for this short film. And he ended up liking it quite a bit, which was really nice.’
Posted Dec 10, 2025, 2:58 AM UTC