Auteur of the Scenester

Eric Tretbar has spent enough time hanging around movie sets to have developed a reliable taxonomy of film-crew types. "The camera guys always have the best coffee because they spend so much time standing around," Tretbar explains. "Wardrobe--they're the best dressed, of course. Actors are the ones dancing around in the middle of everything. That's genetic. Lighting guys--they're the muscle, so they're the strongest ones around. Sound people have the gossip on any film set. You have to remember: The mic is always on. So the sound guys sit there listening to everything and smiling."

And the director? Tretbar, who's shooting a scene for his latest film, The Horrible Flowers, at 7th St. Entry, doesn't fit the central-casting stereotype of the Napoleonic auteur barking orders through a megaphone. Consulting quietly with his crew while morning rush-hour traffic rattles outside, Tretbar looks more like a sensitive indie rocker, or perhaps a bookstore manager. He's a bit on the short side. His hair is longish, worn over the ears, '70s-style, with narrow muttonchops. His clothes are Rock Casual: glasses, red Adidas sneakers, brown cords, and a gray pocket T that stretches around his belly. He reminds one a bit of Philip Seymour Hoffman's Lester Bangs in Almost Famous--if only because Tretbar, like Bangs, is a penetrating observer of those drawn to rock 'n' roll's incandescent wick.

That comparison may not do Tretbar justice. In point of fact, Eric Tretbar is to indie-rockers as Kurosawa is to samurai. Tretbar's highly regarded first feature, The Usual, is about a naive Minnesota girl who's seduced by rock's siren song. His follow-up, the slow and lovely 1998 film Snow, follows two aging Minneapolis scenesters who are drawn together briefly by nostalgia. Snow is a veritable elegy for Minneapolis's legendary rock heyday. The two characters ramble through sleepy downtown coffeehouses, attend a raucous show at First Avenue, and even make love beneath a Zen Arcade poster. According to Tretbar, The Horrible Flowers, which completes a trilogy of sorts, will darken and complicate this oeuvre.

"Snow was kind of a lost-youth film," Tretbar explains. "Like: 'I'm grown-up--what am I going to do now?' The Horrible Flowers takes that further. It's about the struggle of [main character] Bettina--she's a garage-band leader--to let go of this past that's dead so that she can get everything she has ever wanted. She's looking around at her friends who have nice houses and jobs and money in the bank. And she's riding around in a leaky van with a bunch of juvenile delinquents."

Indeed, to judge by the action Tretbar is shooting at the Entry, indie rock--like indie filmmaking--is far from a glam thrill-ride. In this scene, a brawl breaks out during a Horrible Flowers show, and Bettina (played by Emily Cline) is assaulted by a rival. Tretbar and his crew began shooting at 4:00 a.m., an hour at which most rockers are nestled drunkenly in their beds. Everyone looks a little frazzled. The Entry smells strongly of clove cigarettes and sweat. The overhead lights feel like a midday July sun. In the corner by the bar, a girl with complicated hair is filling Summit bottles with water. "Get the background artists from the corral," one of Tretbar's production assistants says into a walkie-talkie. (Although everyone calls the extras "background artists," they're still herded around like cattle.)

When the extras have assembled on the dance floor, and the Horrible Flowers have taken their places, Tretbar hops lightly onto the stage to marshal his troops.

"You guys are super-psyched to see this band," he directs the actors. "You suffered through another band. Now you're ready to rock."

"So we're just going to be rockin' out to the show?" one of the background artists inquires.

"Yeah, but you know how it is. This is Minneapolis, so not a lot of theatrics. Kind of sway a little if you want."

"Like a Japanese crowd," someone chimes in helpfully.

Tretbar smiles at this.

If Tretbar is feeling pressure about The Horrible Flowers' prospects, he's not showing it. In fact, for a filmmaker on the make, he's remarkably philosophical about his career. Yet it may not be a stretch to see some autobiographical congruence between Tretbar and his main character, a musician whose dogged commitment to her craft has meant sacrificing any semblance of a stable life. "It's a story about the life of an artist," Tretbar acknowledges.

Make no mistake: Expectations are high. Ever since The Usual made the round of film festivals in 1992, observers have been predicting great things for Tretbar. "From my perspective, he's one of our more advanced filmmakers," says Jane Minton, executive director of IFP-MSP. "He's someone who stays true to his own vision--sometimes to his detriment. His first film had a really successful [run on the] festival circuit. I think on his sophomore effort, he experienced what a lot of filmmakers experience. Without a bigger budget and a larger cast, it's just not going to happen for you that way again."