On the Road

Director Miles Swain Tells Aaron Krach About the Long, Strange Trip He Took to Bring the Story of Two Friends to the Screen

The Trip "is a romance," says director Miles Swain. "Not an AIDS movie."

It looks like an AIDS movie, talks like an AIDS movie, and walks like an AIDS movie…but writer/director Swain is only twenty-nine. He lives in L.A. We’ll just let him amuse himself a little bit longer because someday, I’m sure, he’ll realize it’s not only okay for The Trip to be an AIDS movie–but a very good thing that his charming little film is an AIDS movie. He’ll be proud, someday.

"When I was in film school," Swain says, "somebody told me this true story about two friends going from Mexico to Texas. One of the guys had AIDS–it was [the] early eighties–and they wouldn’t let the guy on the plane. He died in the car and the best friend had to bury him by the side of the road, go home without him, and call the parents to come and get the body."

The powerful tale crawled under Swain’s skin and he sat down to "write a short story" about it. The story quickly took on a life of its own as Swain fell in love with his characters. "I went backwards from the climax to create them," he says. "Then I showed it to my professors and they liked it."

The Trip is a romantic love story between two very different gay people over a thirty-year span–from the sixties through the eighties. Tommy (Steve Braun) is a gay activist, outspoken; he might audition for a production of Hair. Alan (Larry Sullivan) is in need of a prescription of Valium. He’s so tightly wound and closeted that he’s living with a ditzy girlfriend and writing a book about the "homosexual condition."

As in all good romantic comedies, Tommy and Alan fall in love but have a million reasons to not enjoy it. Alan can’t get out of the mistakes he made while so deeply closeted, and Tommy can’t outrun the tragedies gay life has in store for him. Interspersed among the scenes are documentary sequences of the high- and low-lights of the gay rights movement: Harvey Milk’s rise and fall, Anita Bryant, Gay Liberation, and AIDS.

Swain was born after many of these pivotal gay moments in Vancouver, Washington, and grew up in Portland, Oregon. His family was poor and Swain dropped out of high school to work and help out. When he was twenty-two, Swain entered a talent contest. He acted out a scene–and won–and kept acting and winning until he was the last man standing. The grand prize was a trip to Los Angeles and a deal with an agent.

Fast forward to L.A. in the early nineties.

"A friend of mine named Peter Paige [now of Queer As Folk fame] and I were talking about the struggles of being an actor," Swain remembers, "and he said, ‘You should do a short.’ I thought, great. I like that. So we sat down and the two of us wrote a small screenplay called Monsters. Peter was in it and so was I, but the director sort of messed the whole project up. She took this project and ran away with it…literally.

"So I said, ‘Screw this, I’m going to go to film school and learn to make movies, write parts for myself and pull this off.’ I went to L.A. Film School, which has a ten-month filmmaking program. You go in and during the first month you do everything. Then you pick a concentration and an elective. Mine was directing and producing….While I was in school I kept making shorts, but I learned that I needed to stop acting and focus on the directing." Hearing about the story of the two friends and their trip made this focus even sharper.

That story would form the foundation for The Trip. After years together–and years apart–Larry and Alan come to a sort of détente in their relationship that many gay audience members will likely recognize. Then, in 1984, Tommy calls on Alan to come to Mexico where he is ill of an undefined disease. Alan shows up for his friend and they face Tommy’s mortality together.

On the eve of The Trip’s nationwide release, Swain is understandably excited. "People on the East Coast really love the film," Trip says. "Maybe because East Coast audiences have taste. Their reaction has been more positive, more enthusiastic."

But what about the hometown crowd, the L.A. audiences that should be reveling in Swain’s sweet and sexy portrayal of gay life in Southern California? "Los Angeles doesn’t compare," Swain says. "San Francisco audiences are good…they’re full of activists who were there during the events in the film, so they get it."

Aaron Krach can be reached at aaron@aaronkrach.com

The Culture of AIDS July 2003