Why is Mark Romanek ashamed of the movie Static?

In 1985 Mark Romanek (director of such videos as Nine Inch Nail's "Closer" and Fiona Apple's "Criminal") made an independent film named Static. He did not direct another feature until 2002's One Hour Photo. I remember, in the DVD commentary, him referring to it as his first movie (even though it wasn't). Even the Wikipedia page about him barely mentions it. In the section Feature Films, it begins:

In 2002, Romanek wrote and directed his second full-length feature movie, One Hour Photo, with Robin Williams in the lead role as a department store photo processor who becomes obsessed with a family through their snapshots.

It fails to even begin with his first film. Does anyone know (from an interview or other source) why he dislikes or is embarrassed by Static? I personally liked it a lot and do not understand why he seeks to dismiss it. From an A.V. Club interview:

Never Let Me Go is only Mark Romanek’s second feature (not counting Static, his 1985 debut, which he himself has removed from his résumé)...

Does anyone know why?

directors static

Best Answer

Very quickly after posting this question, I found an interview where he discusses this.

If you didn't see Static at the time (and let's face it, not many people did), the film's almost impossible to watch today. I bought a NTSC video copy from ebay several years ago for a small fortune because I'm a completist and was intrigued to see for myself what Romanek was evidently embarrassed about. What I discovered was a film very much of its time. Static is intriguingly quirky and delightfully odd and features a terrific soundtrack from the likes of OMD and Japan, but, more importantly, it's really rather good. And so, when I spoke to Romanek recently, I mentioned to him how much I liked Static and asked why he decided to disown it.

"It’s nice that you think that," he said. "For me it seemed premature. Like I had an opportunity to make a film before I felt I had much to say or knew what I was really doing as a filmmaker, so I just find it this sort of embarrassing bit of juvenilia. I find it is embarrassing, but I know that some people connected with it and I don’t mean to discount that fact. I just wish it would go away…"

That's probably all that needs to be said.

(I will add that if I were him, I'd be more ashamed of the appropriation in the video for NIN's "Closer".

These images seem to be inspired by the art of Joel-Peter Witkin, as well as Francis Bacon and George Tooker. The video is also very heavily inspired by the animated short film Street of Crocodiles, with much of the video being a live-action recreation of the sets and scenes from that film.

At least Static was an original screenplay written by him and Keith Gordon.)