tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13191768888533170092024-03-12T17:13:07.754-07:00Danny PearyDanny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.comBlogger347125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-26874007901777566982019-12-19T14:28:00.000-08:002019-12-19T14:31:21.524-08:00<div class="container" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2c2f34; font-family: BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", "Open Sans", sans-serif; list-style: none; margin: 0px auto; outline: none; padding: 0px 15px; width: 1007px;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Danny Peary Talks To "Mother Director" Krisof Bilsen</span></span></h1>
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(from Dan's Papers Online 11/22/19) in Festivals</div>
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Danny Peary Talks to ‘Mother’ Documentary Director Kristof Bilsen</h1>
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The Belgian filmmaker discusses Thailand's Alzheimer’s caregivers at the Doc NYC festival.</h2>
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<span class="meta-author meta-item" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><a class="author-name" href="https://www.danspapers.com/author/oliverp/" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;" title="Oliver Peterson">Danny Peary</a></span> <a class="author-email-link" href="mailto:oliver@danspapers.com" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;" target="_blank"><span aria-hidden="true" class="fa fa-envelope" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: "fontawesome"; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"></span> <span class="screen-reader-text" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); height: 1px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute !important; width: 1px;"></span></a><span class="date meta-item" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; list-style: none; margin: 0px 12px 0px 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"> <span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">November 22, 2019</span></span><br />
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I love documentary film festivals because I can count on visiting exotic places and meeting remarkable people with unique stories. I’ve been attending for years, and as Hank Snow used to sing, “I’ve Been Everywhere, Man.” Or so I thought. Belgian director Kristof’s Bilsen’s tender, deeply moving second feature, <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Mother</em>, which played to an appreciative audience at the recent <a href="https://www.docnyc.net/" rel="noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088ff; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;" target="_blank">Doc NYC</a>, is set at a curious place I never thought existed: a facility in Baan Kamlangchay, Thailand, at which Thai caregivers look after Europeans afflicted with <a href="https://www.danspapers.com/2015/10/b-smith-dan-gasby-honored-with-alzheimers-association-champions-award/" rel="noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088ff; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;" target="_blank">Alzheimer’s</a>. And there is one special woman working there.</div>
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Surely among our truest heroes are the devoted caregivers who take care of our loved ones with dementia—I am forever thankful to Joy, Lino, and Susaye!—and 35-year-old Pomm (Chutimon Sonsirichai) is someone anyone who sees this film would trust with family members. Cheers to Bilson (who lost his own mother to dementia a few months ago) for spending several years making a film about a woman other filmmakers would likely pass over. He recognized that Pomm is a star, in many ways. Her story—she makes a small amount of money caring for the aged Elisabeth and new patient Maya (who has early-onset Alzheimer’s) at the expense of rarely seeing and caring for her own three children—resonates, because it is about so many things: culture, economics, hardship, guilt, memories lost, parting, history, generations, generosity, connection, heartbreak, sacrifice, and love. And being a mother.</div>
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There were 300 films at this year’s Doc NYC, but <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Mother </em>stood out.</div>
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Watch the trailer below, or at <a href="https://www.motherdocumentary.com/" rel="noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088ff; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;" target="_blank">motherdocumentary.com</a>.</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" data-done="Loaded" data-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1-e1A2vvch8" frameborder="0" height="421" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1-e1A2vvch8" style="border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px;" width="770"></iframe></div>
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I had the following conversation with the personable Kristof Bilsen during Doc NYC, at the Good Stuff Diner on 14<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11.25px; line-height: 0; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">th</span> Street in Manhattan.</div>
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<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_428832" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; list-style: none; margin: 0px auto 1.75em; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; width: 640px;"><img alt="" bilsen="" class="size-full wp-image-428832" data-done="Loaded" data-src="https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDirectorKristofBilsen.jpg" data-srcset="https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDirectorKristofBilsen.jpg 640w, https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDirectorKristofBilsen-300x213.jpg 300w, https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDirectorKristofBilsen-600x427.jpg 600w" director="" height="455" kristof="" mother="" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" src="https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDirectorKristofBilsen.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDirectorKristofBilsen.jpg 640w, https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDirectorKristofBilsen-300x213.jpg 300w, https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDirectorKristofBilsen-600x427.jpg 600w" style="border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; list-style: none; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px;" width="640" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #686868; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.61538; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 5px 0px 0px;">“Mother” director Kristof Bilsen, Photo: Danny Peary</figcaption></figure><br />
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Danny Peary:</span> You make observational documentaries.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Kristof Bilsen:</span> Yes. I come out of a tradition taught at the National Film and Television School in the UK, where I got my Masters in documentary direction. I was in a program started by Colin Young, who was called back to his native England in the early seventies after being at UCLA. Back then there would be public broadcasts in which a well-dressed man with a privileged background looks into the camera as he explains the suffering of the working class and in the background there is a working-class woman, for example. They had to shift the paradigm, so that the working-class woman got to speak for herself.</div>
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I was trained in that kind of direct, observational filmmaking, where you have an underlying argument and a strong social awareness and do a lot of embedded research on the ground within the reality you want to film. The preference was the gray areas, not the black or white. The head of my department was Dick Fontaine, who did a lot of films for Granada Television’s <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">World in Action</em>, and I learned a great deal. I started there in 2009 and graduated in 2011.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> Were <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Elephant’s Dream</em>, which was filmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Mother</em>, which takes place in Thailand, the type of films you wanted to make back then?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> Yes. <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Elephant’s Dream </em>came out of my graduation film <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">White Elephant</em>, which is set at the Central Post Office in the DR Congo, which wasn’t working anymore. My 2014 documentary feature is set in the Central Post Office, the railway station next to it, and the fire station barracks.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> To avoid the Western Gaze, do you always have rules in your head that you adhere to while making your observational docs?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> There are too many films set in Congo and Thailand and other far-flung places where there is a Western Gaze and I think it’s important to shift that perspective. We need to listen to people from other continents on an equal level, not on an NGO level. I feel strongly about that and am sensitive to it. Each film is different. <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Elephant’s Dream </em>is a very aesthetic film. We were eager to find a way to dignify our characters who are subject to a painful reality of stasis. The conditions for doing their job at the post office don’t exist anymore. The post office is crumbling and they aren’t provided the materials they need.</div>
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We emphasized the stillness, the moments of reflection, and showed that in the most respectful, distinguished way, without a Western Gaze. That invited thought-through camerawork which would dignify our protagonists. Whereas <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Mother </em>is quite a dramatic story and there was no need for such control—we had to go along with the main character, Pomm, and follow her cues. I even asked her to film herself for parts of the film, which made her integral to the filmmaking process .</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> The documentarian Joshua Openheimer [<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">The Act of Killing</em>] said <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Elephant’s Dream</em> “gently hints at the great historical tragedy.” I think that applies to <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Mother </em>as well, which too is about a person who nobody knows and will never make headlines, but whose life in many ways defines our harsh world.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> I love micro-stories that tell you so much about the world. Little stories that become big, big stories. In regard to <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Elephant’s </em>Dream: Almost all the attention goes to “the heart of darkness,” east of Congo, where there are the rebels, rapes and other crimes, but public sector work in Kinshasa in Congo tells you much more about the country and the irony of postcolonial violence of power. The little story tells a bigger story. The same with Pomm’s story in <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Mother</em>.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> One of the reasons I was touched watching <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Mother</em> is that it was obvious that you cared about the characters and their difficult situations.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> I couldn’t have done it otherwise. I’m married to my films for three or four years. I can’t do anything else. They become a major part of my life. I cared so much about <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Mother</em> because I was struggling with the decisions relating to my own mother with dementia, but even with <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Elephant’s Dream </em>I had burning questions I needed to answer. A film chooses me to tackle a particular dilemma. It would be pretentious of me to say that I was interested in something so I decided to make a movie about it. It doesn’t work for me like that. It’s a bit of a curse the way a film dawns on me.</div>
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Werner Herzog said something like, “Films are uninvited guests and you have to politely sit them at the table and give them food and drink until they go.” It feels like that. I have no choice but to go off for a few years. While it might sound depressing to some, it’s actually an honor to make these films.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> As happened with <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Elephant’s Dream, y</em>ou made a short that led to <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Mother</em>. How did it come about that you decided to make a short about an Alzheimer’s facility in Thailand?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> I did research online when my mother was suffering with dementia, and there was a lot of reporting about this place in Baan Kamlangchay in Thailand. It was started by Martin Woodtli, Pomm’s Swiss employer, because he lost his own mother to Alzheimer’s. His father tried to care for her but exhausted himself, so the only option then was to take her to a nursing home.</div>
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Martin was a psychotherapist for <a href="https://www.danspapers.com/2019/05/dr-rajeev-fernando-chiraj-sri-lanka/" rel="noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088ff; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;" target="_blank">Doctors Without Borders</a> in Thailand and decided to bring his mother there to see if that was a better option. Because the holistic approach to healthcare works in Thailand. It worked out well. And word got out among friends and friends of friends who were desperate with the same problem of not knowing what to do with their loved ones with Alzheimer’s. So he began the center, for 14 patients, providing them with around-the-clock care.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> Has this place become so well known in Switzerland that Maya’s family would think it is the best option for care of her?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> They read about it and saw newscasts about it. And they, like others, considered the economics of sending a loved one there, which I—not to ignore it—don’t find nearly as interesting as other aspects of the center. They had tried to take care of Maya themselves and her husband Walti, who couldn’t afford to retire, exhausted himself. So they brought in a caretaker to live in their house but that gave away their privacy. So they sent Maya to a care center, but that did havoc to their schedules as every minute of every day had to be planned. Maya is in her fifties so this would go on for years. So this facility in Thailand was the best option.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> We see in the film that Maya has three loving, grown daughters. Did any of them live at home with Maya and Walti?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> They had moved out, so they weren’t there to take care of her when Walti was working. One daughter lived with a partner. Another lived on her own. And the third one lived in London.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> Was seeing your short how Maya’s family first knew of the facility?</div>
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<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_428827" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; list-style: none; margin: 0px auto 1.75em; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; width: 973px;"><img alt="Maya and Joyce Gloor in 'Mother' documentary" class="size-full wp-image-428827" data-done="Loaded" data-src="https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocMayaJoyceGloor.jpg" data-srcset="https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocMayaJoyceGloor.jpg 973w, https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocMayaJoyceGloor-300x158.jpg 300w, https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocMayaJoyceGloor-768x405.jpg 768w, https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocMayaJoyceGloor-600x316.jpg 600w" height="513" sizes="(max-width: 973px) 100vw, 973px" src="https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocMayaJoyceGloor.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocMayaJoyceGloor.jpg 973w, https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocMayaJoyceGloor-300x158.jpg 300w, https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocMayaJoyceGloor-768x405.jpg 768w, https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocMayaJoyceGloor-600x316.jpg 600w" style="border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; list-style: none; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px;" width="973" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #686868; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.61538; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 5px 0px 0px;">Maya and Joyce Gloor, Courtesy Limerick Films</figcaption></figure><br />
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> No. They saw a newscast about Elisabeth, Pomm’s other patient in the film, years back, when she was still able to speak. Elisabeth was from Switzerland, too. They did see my short later. After I showed it to them, they agreed to let me film Maya<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> How did you know about them?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> I had already met Pomm when she was taking care of Elisabeth at the facility. I was filming them. But I thought it would be ideal for a narrative arc if I could follow a patient in Europe and then in Thailand. Martin told me that I’d never find a family who would allow it because that family would be stigmatized and lose friends who’d accuse them of having no morality for sending a loved one so far away for care. <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">How dare you! How inhumane are you? </em>It’s so much more complex and messy than that. But later Martin told me that there was a family, Maya’s family, that was open to meeting me.</div>
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There were ethics involved and doubts, so to present my reasons for wanting to film Maya and assure the family that I wouldn’t be shooting embarrassing or problematic stuff, I went to Switzerland to meet them. So we met and I showed them my short, which was really a portrait of a place, and I told them the story of my own mother. They had already committed to sending Maya to the facility, and now they were convinced to let me follow that story.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> Pomm is one of about 45 caregivers there. She was the best character for my film. Martin assigns caretakers who are the best match for the patients’ situation, to get the ideal set-up. Pomm has a certain energy and she speaks English, which is important for the patient who needs verbal cues. So she was a good match for Maya.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> Was it set up so that when Maya arrived at the facility that your protagonist, Pomm, would be one of the three caretakers who would be assigned to her, doing eight-hour shifts?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> When making the film, were you aware of the parallel between Maya no longer recognizing her family members and Pomm’s kids not immediately connecting to her when she visits after not seeing them for a while?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> That grew on me. I wanted to find and shoot a new patient coming from Switzerland to Thailand, but I never imagined it would be another mother with three kids. Maya is older than Pomm but not by that much. The mirroring of my protagonist with her patient was unexpected. That’s what makes the film tick, right?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> Essentially, <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Mother </em>is about <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">two</em> mothers leaving behind three children they can no longer take care of. In Pomm’s case it is for financial reasons and in Maya’s case it is for a health reason. Yet it’s not called <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Mothers</em>. I wonder if a distributer asked you to call it something like <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Mothers </em>or <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Caring</em>. What is your argument for <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Mother</em> as the title?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> We actually had discussions with distributors about the title. I wanted to call it <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Mother</em> and nothing else. The whole team was quite set on that name. In the Anglo-Saxon language, <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">mother </em>is one of the most beautiful words. The film is all about motherhood.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> Because of your own mother’s situation, you initially were going to make a film about Alzheimer’s before deciding to make it instead about Pomm. When did you decide on your title?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> We decided to make the film about Pomm quite soon, but we didn’t choose the title until the editing. I’ve learned to postpone choosing a title until I see almost the full film and it all falls into place. I don’t like to baptize it too early.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> Could it be called <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Family</em>?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> No. Pomm calls her patient, Elisabeth, “Mommy.” She says that she could tell Elisabeth everything because she’d later forget it. To me, Alzheimer’s patients have kind of a monk quality. The motherhood aspect shifts, and at times the patient becomes the caregiver. It’s not so black and white.</div>
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<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_428828" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; list-style: none; margin: 0px auto 1.75em; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; width: 972px;"><img alt="Elisabeth and Pomm in 'Mother'" class="size-full wp-image-428828" data-done="Loaded" data-src="https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocElisabethPomm.jpg" data-srcset="https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocElisabethPomm.jpg 972w, https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocElisabethPomm-300x158.jpg 300w, https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocElisabethPomm-768x405.jpg 768w, https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocElisabethPomm-600x317.jpg 600w" height="513" sizes="(max-width: 972px) 100vw, 972px" src="https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocElisabethPomm.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocElisabethPomm.jpg 972w, https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocElisabethPomm-300x158.jpg 300w, https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocElisabethPomm-768x405.jpg 768w, https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocElisabethPomm-600x317.jpg 600w" style="border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; list-style: none; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px;" width="972" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #686868; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.61538; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 5px 0px 0px;">Elisabeth and Pomm, Courtesy Limerick Films</figcaption></figure><br />
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> In an interview I read online, you said, “Films must be honest about tragedy.” Is your documentary a tragedy?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> I wanted my film to be about a single mother and the story to be told mainly from her perspective, and as I don’t portray Pomm as a victim, I don’t think it’s a tragedy. She shows agency and urgency to the decisions she needs to make, and she lets us participate as an audience in a messy, complex reality, but that doesn’t make it a tragedy.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> If someone insisted that she is a victim because her sorry situation, working miles from where her kids are, doesn’t seem to have a remedy, would you argue that she isn’t?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> We don’t think, “Oh, poor woman!” She is charismatic and stands up for herself and questions things and negotiates with her employer Martin at the facility. She is subject to a lack of opportunities and there is a discrepancy between what the families of Elisabeth and Maya can offer them and what Pomm can offer her own mother and three children; and she considers her patients fortunate because their families can provide them with the wonderful care that she doubts she’ll be able to afford if she gets dementia at their ages. I wanted to show that Pomm was aware of a certain inequality but doesn’t let that keep her down. She’s incredibly self-aware.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> Her situation seems unfixable, but I don’t see Pomm as a victim because when watching the film I looked to her to lift my spirits. You have a scene of a Christmas party being thrown by the facility, and Maya’s family is visiting her. Pomm takes the microphone and serves as an emcee. She’s cheerful and completely comfortable with public speaking.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> She’s really extraordinary. She’s a dramatic character on all levels. The amazing thing is that we didn’t have to force anything in the editing. Pomm can sit in her own reality and reflect on it. That’s a talent not many people have<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">. </span><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Mother</em> is Pomm telling the story. As I said, I gave her a camera and she filmed her own story as well, almost like a co-director.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> Did you plan from the start to have her film herself?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> No. Initially, I thought giving her the camera was a good way to keep track of her story while we were away getting financing. She happened to be so skillful in how she used the camera. It was amazing. She really mastered the shots.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> What do you think she wanted to give you with her film diary?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> We agreed on the story we were telling together. My perspective had to do with my struggles with my own mother and providing her with the best of care option. I wondered if I could ever offer this luxury to her when she had dementia. We wanted to represent Pomm’s point of view and the complexity of this global inequality. And there was the notion of single motherhood. What does it entail? What does it look like? We also had long conversations and from that we were able to include bits of an internal monologue in addition to her video extracts.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> When Pomm was filming herself, I imagine she learned a lot about who she is. What do you think was the biggest thing that she learned?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> That it’s okay to show her vulnerability and that as she juggles all the complexities in her life that it’s okay to ask for help. Maybe it will become more bearable and less burdensome.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> Do you think she came to realize even more than before how complex her life is?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> For sure.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> At one time Pomm says about her own mother, “I didn’t take good care of my mother.” I thought that is twisted because Pomm’s mother should take care of her, not the other way around.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> That happened with my parents. The roles start shifting at some point in your life. It’s a brutal, shocking thing when you realize that the tables are turning and there is a shift in dependency.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> Pomm feels guilty doesn’t want to be a burden on her mother, but does her mother think of Pomm as a burden?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> What do you think?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> I don’t think Pomm’s mother thinks about that topic, regarding either her relationship with Pomm or her taking care of Pomm’s two older children, Miriam and Moses. She just does what the situation requires her to do.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> I agree. There is a generational thing as well. Pomm says that when she sees her mother after being away for a while, she can’t hug her because of the culture. I find that slightly off. I compare it to this area in Belgium where there are mainly farmers and I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that there are a lot of suicides. They work the land but being social and intimacy within families isn’t something they are familiar with.</div>
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<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_428830" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; list-style: none; margin: 0px auto 1.75em; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; width: 973px;"><img alt="Pomm and daughter Miriam in 'Mother' documentary" class="size-full wp-image-428830" data-done="Loaded" data-src="https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocPommeMiriam.jpg" data-srcset="https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocPommeMiriam.jpg 973w, https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocPommeMiriam-300x158.jpg 300w, https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocPommeMiriam-768x405.jpg 768w, https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocPommeMiriam-600x316.jpg 600w" height="513" sizes="(max-width: 973px) 100vw, 973px" src="https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocPommeMiriam.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocPommeMiriam.jpg 973w, https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocPommeMiriam-300x158.jpg 300w, https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocPommeMiriam-768x405.jpg 768w, https://cdn.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MotherDocPommeMiriam-600x316.jpg 600w" style="border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; list-style: none; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px;" width="973" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #686868; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.61538; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 5px 0px 0px;">Pomm and daughter Miriam, Courtesy Limerick Films</figcaption></figure><br />
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> Pomm does hug her kids, particularly the youngest Nadia.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> She hugs her children. But with the older ones, Moses and Miriam, there is an awkwardness and a distance between them.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> Because she sees them infrequently as they grow up. Miriam and Moses live with Pomm’s mother and Nadia lives with Pomm’s ex-partner. One of the most memorable moments in your movie is when we see film of Pomm and her kids when they were younger at the beach, and there is a closeness and comfort level we don’t see in the present. Perhaps they lived together then. What I’m thinking when I see Pomm now interact with her kids is that at she needs to re-connect to them before it’s too late.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> It’s quite tragic that she must raise her kids as she does, talking to them on FaceTime but seeing them only once a month. It’s insane. Going back to your tragedy question, what we’re seeing is that Pomm really doesn’t want poverty or the lack of opportunity to happen again to the next generation in her family, her children. I think one of the reasons she agreed to make the film with us is that she wants it to be a tribute to her children. The film will survive time and trauma and so many things that she can bring back to her children. <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">This is where I work. This is my life.</em></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> Early in the movie, Pomm saying, “My marriage has failed.” Later on, she laments that she hasn’t be able to improve the lives of her kids and mother. Does she consider herself a failure?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> No, I don’t think so. She definitely considers the exhaustion of her life, but one day she might feel differently. Is it draining? Of course, it is. Even at sad moments, she has such strength and can reflect on her life.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> She is amazing in her job taking care of Elisabeth and then Maya and she is able to send money home. Is she proud of herself?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> I think it shows. Otherwise she could not have carried on making this movie with three guys for three years and be that consistent. There’s a self-respect and a healthy pride.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> You keep your camera close to both Elisabeth and Maya when they seem, to me anyway, to want to say something but have lost their vocabulary.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> It’s a mystery to me still. It might be their experiencing stress, but it might really be us projecting a lot of emotions on them. It’s not clear to me and I dare to leave that open to be honest.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> I got teary when you juxtapose scenes of the unresponsive Maya being kissed by her grown daughters with old footage of the happy Maya kissing her young daughters. Did you have an emotional response when editing that part?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> There were collaborative forces at work. Walti told me that the family had some old VHS tapes of the family but “there is nothing interesting on there.” He asked if I wanted to look at them. I said that I’d digitize the tapes for him and see if there was anything useful. So we found that as we fell into the material. Praise to everyone on my team for feeling and caring, including the brilliant, sensitive editor Maarten Janssens.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> I really like the early scenes with Pomm and Elisabeth because there is an intimacy between them and caretaker and patient are benefiting from each other. Pomm feels so close to her that she even climbs into bed with her.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> That was filmed by Pomm.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> She knew exactly where to put the camera without going to film school! A question asked to every good documentarian: For what <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">you</em> shot, how were you able to get such intimacy?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> Time, time, time, time. That’s basically what I need to be able to make this type of film. I really embed myself in the realities of the characters. Surely you know that the “fly-on-the-wall” concept is such nonsense. You are interacting with your characters and injecting yourself into the story. Physically, you don’t see us inside the frame but we are part of what you see. You can’t be just a silent observer. You are participants.</div>
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Shooting intimate scenes is a bit like dancing with the characters. You get so close to them because you’re dancing with them. You’re part of their aura in a way. It’s almost like intuition—the sound guy, the cameraman, and I will look at each other and know what to do. I shot part of the film and other parts were shot by a talented young DOP named Marco Milovanović; my sound recorder, Xan Márquez Caneda, was my co-writer; and there was Noi, our lovely Thai translator/“fixer.” That was our small team.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> Would you have to go to Martin in the morning and tell him what your team planned for that day?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> In the beginning, yes. But once he knew how we worked, he gave us more freedom. Considering the sensitive subject matter, it was important that we were trusted.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> I read where you said, “During the first interview that I did with Pomm, she talked about Elisabeth as if she was her mother or her grandmother. Suddenly, it showed dependency. Pomm was depending on her patient, Elisabeth, because it compensated for the care she couldn’t give her own children.” Would Pomm agree with you?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> Yes. These types of films can be like therapy. There is a transition going on. She came to realize this through the process of making the film. You kind of feel it in the scene at the school bus stop when Pomm tells Miriam to unblock her on the phone. Her daughter smiles and says Pomm is just wanting to complain about her more. But Pomm is saying: <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">It’s called parenting</em>. We see they are finding each other a bit more.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> That’s your point: the more time they spend together, the more they will connect. The shame is that Pomm has to travel back to her facility the next day.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> True, but Pomm is expressing herself more to her daughter each time. She is willing to show her vulnerability and when they both do that they will feel closer.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> Did you like when Pomm, who is in her mid-thirties, visits her mother and lies down next to her on the stoop like she’s a kid again?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> Yes! Because she can’t hug her. The way she is lying in the fetal position, we see an embryo and a fetus. The mother doesn’t go, <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Come here, sweetie</em>, and comfort her; she just sits there not able to cope with a fragile dependent Pomm next to her.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> When Maya becomes the new patient she cares for, Pomm says they were destined to be together. Does she see her whole life as preordained?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> Not really. She’s a Christian. I think what she’s talking about has do with Maya being given such a kind patient. With Elisabeth and then Maya, Pomm thinks that at least on the work part of her life, she has a safe haven that makes the rest of her life more bearable.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> I think an important line in your movie is: “Parting is very painful.”</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> Yeah, <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">letting go</em>. It’s not only parting physically from children, but also the parting of certain ideas and concepts. If you are mindful and are able to accept complexity and messiness and sadness, then you deal with it in a healthier way and can ask, “What is a family exactly?” and “What is motherhood exactly?” You are allowed the flexibility of thought with advanced humanity. I got a lot of strength from that.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> Parting also is about loss. In the press notes, you talk about how your mother had your families “collective memories” of your childhood in her head. So parting includes forgetfulness, the loss of memory. In your film, I think it also applies to Pomm’s kids. They certainly don’t have Alzheimer’s or any cognitive issues, yet simply by not seeing their mother very much as they grow up, they naturally forget about the good times they had with her.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> We assume that people will be remembered for what they did, what we read in their obituaries. It’s a personality description. You look at Elisabeth and Maya as they are now, without language. We miss who they were but it’s important to accept and cherish who they are here and now—maybe that is a key to acceptance.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> You establish what a difficult life Pomm has in the present. And later in the film you reveal another hardship she deals with. You have Pomm talk about her father. She claims he’s her role model and she got all her kindness and generosity from him, and, by the way, he had deep depression and shot himself in the head so the family could collect his insurance. Whoa. She recalls she cried when it happened and how Elisabeth helped her through it, but now she talks about it matter-of-factly. And the other thing we should now think about is that Pomm’s mother was surely shaken by her husband’s death, though that’s not part of her conversation with her daughter. Are they just shrugging off what happened?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> It’s fascinating how they deal with it. They have coping strategies. And they have to focus on the new generation. I learned from the respected child psychiatrist Peter Adriaenssens in Belgium that we have to realize that there’s only a certain amount you can do in one generation as an individual. He talks about the links to the previous generation and the next generation. Instead of us doing all the work—although we think we have to—we have to leave some parts of it to the next generation.</div>
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Pomm, her children, and her mother are all part of a continuum that’s getting through a generational trauma. Is it stoicism? No. Pomm is actually showing that there’s so much she can do and she’ll try to connect the dots. She is very aware that the film is a testament to her children, who will have to do their homework to continue what their mother started.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> Are you still in touch with Pomm?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> Yes, we talk. She’s still struggling but doing okay. After having made the film, she is better able to negotiate with her boss, her colleagues, and her children, for that matter. She is more adept at communication.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> Your executive producer is Kirsten Johnson, who is a big name in the documentary world as the director of <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Cameraperson </em>and the cinematographer on <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Pray the Devil Back to Hell</em>, <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Fahrenheit 9/11, Citizenfour</em>, <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">The Invisible War</em>, and about 35 other features. When did she come onto the project?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> After we’d done about 60% to 70% of the edit. I felt I needed someone to support and mentor me. I always like when I have someone with a second pair of eyes looking at my film. I am a huge fan of <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Cameraperson. </em>It’s very humbling to see someone who has such a successful career showing bits and bobs of her uncertainty about life. And she intertwined those snippets with her story of her mother with Alzheimer’s. So I wanted to talk to her.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> How can people see your film until you get a distributor?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> I am taking it to festivals and we are also working on impact screenings, collaborating with caregiving organizations here and internationally. We are already doing that in Belgium. Distributing independent films is not easy.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> The plight of the documentarian is to spend several years on a film that will be difficult to exhibit.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> Yes, in addition to time, you need stamina. Because it’s very difficult to finance these types of films and find places to screen them. It’s becoming tougher and tougher to get these films out there. I hear the same from colleagues. It’s a harder world out there.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> Could you have made <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Mother</em> before <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Elephant’s Dream</em>?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> No. It’s a progression. Now my second feature is finished and out in the world. And I’ll be a father in February, with a daughter, my first child. I live in Belgium and now think of family and fatherhood. I am in the right place.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> What do you want people to take away from your film?</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> Kindness and generosity and allowing that life is messy—that’s a huge one—and for vulnerability to flourish.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DP:</span> Which is what Pomm represents.</div>
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<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">KB:</span> Exactly.</div>
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<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Learn more at:</em><a href="https://www.motherdocumentary.com/" rel="noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088ff; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;" target="_blank"><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">motherdocumentary.com.</em></a></div>
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<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Danny Peary has published 25 books on film and sports, including </em><span class="s1" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Cult Movies<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">, </em></span><span class="s1" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Jackie Robinson in Quotes<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">, and his newest publication</em> </span><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">with Hana Ali, </em><a href="https://www.danspapers.com/2018/06/book-review-ali-on-ali-hana-ali-danny-peary/" rel="noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #006dcc; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;" target="_blank">Ali on Ali: Why He Said What He Said When He Said It</a><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">, about the origins of her father’s most famous quotes (Workman Publishing).</em></div>
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<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.danspapers.com/tag/danny-peary/" rel="noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088ff; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;" target="_blank">READ MORE ‘DANNY PEARY TALKS TO’ INTERVIEWS</a></em></div>
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Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-9010374231825913902018-01-29T12:41:00.001-08:002018-01-29T12:41:40.645-08:00Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Two Cheers for Hollywood’ Author Joseph McBrideBook for Sale<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #074889; font-family: Conv_Gotham-Bold; font-size: 25px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: center;">Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Two Cheers for Hollywood’ Author Joseph McBride</span><br />
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(from DansPapers.com 11/21/17)<br />
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"TWO CHEERS FOR HOLLYWOOD: JOSEPH MCBRIDE ON MOVIES," BACKGROUND PHOTO: FERNANDO GREGORY MILAN/123RF</div>
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<span class="date published time" style="font-weight: 700;" title="2017-12-21T07:00:53+00:00">DECEMBER 21, 2017</span> BY DANNY PEARY</div>
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If you are looking for perfect holiday or birthday gift for the movie fan in your life, even yourself, I have the perfect recommendation. <em>Two Cheers for Hollywood: Joseph McBride on Movies</em> is an extraordinary, 64-chapter anthology that contains five-decades of provocative, witty essays and insightful, one-of-a-kind interviews with the biggest directors, screenwriters and actors of all-time by, arguably, our foremost critic and historian. (He also cowrote the cult classic <em>Rock ‘n’ Roll High School</em>, received Emmy nominations for scripting AFI Life Achievement Award specials, and acted in Orson Welles’s legendary unfinished film <em>The Other Side of the Wind</em>.)</div>
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Joseph McBride’s credentials are too vast to list here, but you can find them on his bio on his self-published book’s website: <a href="http://twocheersforhollywood.net/about-the-author/" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;">twocheersforhollywood.net/about-the-author/</a></div>
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That profile doesn’t mention that he is a favorite of filmmakers (Guillermo del Toro recently voiced his admiration) and other film critics/historians, including myself. I have been reading Joseph McBride since we were classmates at the University of Wisconsin in the 1960s, when I was getting too many B minuses on my papers in film class and he was already publishing books. He was certainly one of my earliest inspirations. Joe and I began conversing passionately about movies 50 years ago, so it was with pleasure and ease last week that I had the following conversation with him about his 18th book.</div>
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<img alt="Joseph McBride with Orson Welles, 1978" class=" wp-image-261583" height="382" sizes="(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/joemcbridebookorsonwellesWEB.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/joemcbridebookorsonwellesWEB.jpg 700w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/joemcbridebookorsonwellesWEB-300x208.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/joemcbridebookorsonwellesWEB-320x222.jpg 320w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/joemcbridebookorsonwellesWEB-673x467.jpg 673w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Joseph McBride with Orson Welles, 1978, Photo: Gary Graver</div>
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<strong>Danny Peary:</strong> <em>Two Cheers for Hollywood</em> follows your memoir from 2015, <em>The Broken Places</em>. As I read this collection of articles you wrote over five decades, all with a personal slant, I thought that it is in effect a second memoir. When assembling it, did you feel the same thing?</div>
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<strong>Joseph McBride:</strong> Yes, indeed. As I’ve grown older, I’ve shifted, as many writers do, into a retrospective/memoir vein to some extent. My 2013 book <em>Into the Nightmare: My Search for the Killers of President John F. Kennedy and Officer J. D. Tippit</em> is also partly a memoir, as is my 2006 book <em>What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career. </em>Going farther back to 1999, <em>The Book of Movie Lists</em> is a memoir of my moviegoing experiences and tastes. But all of a writer’s books are personal. My biographies of Frank Capra, John Ford and <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2017/12/new-trailer-spielbergs-ready-player-one/" rel="noopener" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Steven Spielberg</a> are as revealing of my personal views and feelings as anything else I’ve written.</div>
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In <em>Two Cheers for Hollywood, </em>I had the pleasure of revisiting and reassessing my shorter writings on film over the past 50 years. It amazed me when I realized I’ve been at it that long! It truly seems like yesterday when I began. Each article, essay or interview has an introduction telling stories about how it was written, amusing and revealing incidents that took place around it, and retrospective views I have on the subject matter now. It was a lively and stimulating experience to put it all together. And I added five newly written pieces, including a career study of the blacklisted writer John Sanford and a monograph on the <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2013/05/coen-bros-inside-llewyn-davis-trailer-released/" rel="noopener" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Coen Bros</a>.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> An anthology of your writings is long overdue. When did you start thinking about putting it together?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> Probably about 25 years ago. I experimented with different ways of doing it. I came up with some lists of articles to run in it and some means of arranging them. Acting on a friend’s suggestion, I tried centering the pieces on the auteur theory and how my views on that have evolved. It was interesting but seemed forced and to leave out too much. It also is hard to sell publishers on a personal anthology, so I decided to self-publish it, as I have done with <em>Into the Nightmare </em>and<em> The Broken Places </em>since that option recently became more viable. It gives me complete freedom to put together these highly personal projects the way I want. And the fulfillment house, Vervante, does a great job in printing on demand and shipping the books, which are ordered by readers via Amazon.</div>
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I recommend self-publishing to authors with quirky or difficult projects. But for my forthcoming book <em>How Did Lubitsch Do It?,</em> a critical study of the great German American director Ernst Lubitsch coming out next June, I went with Columbia University Press. One of my main motivations in writing that book is to make Lubitsch a household name again, and going with a regular publisher ensures more review attention and sales in bookstores. Much of the mainstream media still won’t review self-published books, though they will have to evolve on that. In the meantime authors rely on alternative media sites online and elsewhere and on enlightened publications such as yours.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> It is a massive volume, almost 700 pages, but did it take so long for you to tackle it because you knew you would have to leave out hundreds of quality articles?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> It actually took about a year to put <em>Two Cheers</em> together and supervise it through publication (with Maggie Hurley again as my ace designer). The longer part of the job was how I mulled over the structure and contents. I had spent a fair amount of time assembling a box of Xeroxes of all my magazine articles when I donated more of my papers to the Wisconsin Historical Society and sent them the original issues in 2008, so I had had a chance to sort through and re-read those, and I had them for easy reference when I was assembling <em>Two Cheers.</em> I had my choices digitized for editing and took it from there; it was a pleasurable task to revisit my past and reconsider it in the present.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In the introduction, you write about having four parallel careers: “academic film scholarship and teaching; popular journalism in both mass market and trade publications; critical analysis and biography; and practical experience in the industry as a screenwriter and producer.” For many years I thought you were primarily a film critic/historian, but over time I’ve come to see you being foremost a journalist, even an investigator at times, as with your <em>Into the Nightmare.</em> I haven’t seen you teach in a classroom, but I have seen you lecture, and even there I detected a journalistic, reporter’s pursuit of truth. So I’d think that if you weren’t a skilled journalist, you couldn’t have been successful pursuing your other three careers.</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> You’re right, and when I was interviewed in 2013 for a short online film profile as a faculty member at San Francisco State University, the filmmaker, Silvia Turchin, asked me for a self-description. I said, “If I had to define myself, I’d call myself an investigative reporter.” I surprised myself by saying that, but that’s how I’ve always conducted my career. As I’ve written in my memoirs, I had a repressive childhood being brainwashed as a Catholic schoolchild and was brainwashed by schools and the media about history and other subjects as well, so my passion has always been to find out things, to know how the world actually works. A 2011 documentary film about my career by Hart Perez is called <em>Behind the Curtain: Joseph McBride on Writing Film History. </em>I supplied the title, because I’ve always gone behind the curtain since I became a professional journalist in 1960, and my film journalism, as in <em>Two Cheers,</em> goes behind the curtain of that often obfuscated and mythologized industry.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You quote Samuel Fuller at various times in your book, and I wonder if you felt connected to him because he was a newspaperman like your Dad, Raymond McBride, and you always have been a reporter at heart? There’s a rawness to his ripped-from-the-headlines-of-scandal-sheets movies that I sense you could relate to when you were at a typewriter and trying to beat a deadline.</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> Sam and I hit it off immediately. Old newspaper guys recognize each other and feel an affinity. I felt the same way when I met Penn Jones Jr., the crusading editor of the small-town <em>Midlothian</em> (Texas) <em>Mirror, </em>one of the first and most tenacious researchers of the assassination of President Kennedy. Sam and Penn were both feisty, no-nonsense guys who always were after scoops and were relentless truth-tellers. That’s how I’ve tried to be as well, and they were inspirational. I spent a lot of time with Sam over the years. He helped me with my screenwriting, and we started doing an interview book on his life, <em>The Typewriter, the Rifle, and the Movie Camera,</em> but I was awfully busy making a living, and I couldn’t keep him on track. I think we were up to around 1930 when we stopped. He spent three hours one night talking about meeting and despising Charles Lindbergh. Great stuff, and I have 18 hours of Fuller on tape, but . . .</div>
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Penn Jones was a mentor of mine in Dallas in helping me understand the assassination, which I began researching seriously in 1982. As I write in the introduction to <em>Two Cheers,</em> the assassination has been my main interest in life since I heard the news a few minutes after it happened. Actually I was interested in it <em>before</em> it happened. In October 1961 I wrote a short story for my freshman English class at Marquette University High School about the subject, called “The Plot Against a Country.” It may be the first literary treatment of the assassination, but it’s laughably bad, although prescient. I wrote it because I had become concerned about Kennedy’s vulnerability while working as a volunteer on his 1960 presidential primary campaign in Wisconsin, and I was already a student of the Lincoln assassination, so I knew such events usually are the result of plots.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Why is your book title not <em>Three Cheers for Hollywood</em>?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> I borrowed the idea for my title from E. M. Forster, who wrote a book of essays called <em>Two Cheers for Democracy.</em> To paraphrase what he wrote, “We may still contrive to raise three cheers for Hollywood, although at present she only deserves two.” Actually, I thought I was being generous.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You write in your intro: “We have to face the fact that we no longer live in an age of cinephilia. I would not be honest if I did not admit that makes me terribly sad.” I find that at a time when so many old films are available but new generations of film fans—and filmmakers—don’t bother to seek them out, my frustration runs neck and neck with my sadness.</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2015/08/cineast-movie-previews-grandma-some-kind-of-beautiful-shes-funny-that-way/" rel="noopener" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Peter Bogdanovich</a>, who inspired me as a young writer and interviewer on film, has said it’s only films that are called “old”—people don’t speak of “old symphonies” or “old novels.” It is dismaying to find that many young people don’t even consider watching films that were made as recently as three or four years ago. It used to be five, and now the window keeps shrinking. I was surprised when I started teaching film full time in 2002 and realized students hadn’t seen <em>Annie Hall, </em>which I naively thought everybody had seen, but I’m not surprised by that kind of response anymore. This goes along with a general ignorance of history.</div>
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It’s even more shocking how little young people know about world and American history; a survey a few years ago showed that a majority of American high school students think we were fighting the Russians in World War II and that Germany was our ally. Few know anything about what we used to be taught as “Civics.” Many don’t know what the three branches of our government are. That level of ignorance is dangerous. I believe this comes from a general collapse of our public education system that began with the so-called “tax revolt” of the 1970s. That was an excuse for a deliberate dumbing-down of the populace. Right-wingers want to keep the populace ignorant so they can to lie to them and put an ignoramus such as <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2017/03/lie-vs-lie-how-to-stop-donald-trump-from-making-things-up/" rel="noopener" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Trump</a> in power as a figurehead for their schemes.</div>
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I am afraid this is irreversible, though I try to teach history and literature through film to my students at San Francisco State (one called out during a Film and Society class, “I didn’t know this was a <em>history </em>class!”). I tell prospective filmmakers that your general education courses are the most important, because if all you know about are cameras and sound equipment, what are you going to make films about? This is a major reason why most films today are so bad. My introduction to <em>Two Cheers </em>is deeply pessimistic, although we can’t envision the future of what used to be called “film.” We just know that film as we knew it is over, though film history remains to be studied, even if much of it is lost.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In the Introduction, you write that while you still love it, you no longer consider John Ford’s <em>The Searchers</em> your favorite film. It is still in my top five, somedays even number one, just like it was when you and I were becoming film fanatics in the fifties and sixties. I have found, surprisingly, that while some films have dated and I don’t have patience with some of my childhood favorites, my taste for significant films hasn’t really changed since we were in college, which is surprising because I now have a decades-older person’s perspective. What about you?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> I find that films seem to change as I do, though it’s mostly my perspective that has changed, and my life experience that makes them seem different or puts them in a new light. Some films I didn’t find interesting then, I find compelling now. But we do tend to revel in the films we loved as young people—in our case, in that Golden Age of cinephilia in the 1960s. I think I wore out <em>The Searchers </em>by seeing it too often, as I did to some extent with <em>The Quiet Man </em>and<em> Citizen Kane.</em> Also, <em>The Searchers</em> is literally not the same film we came to love in our youth. The yellow layer of the three-strip Technicolor has collapsed.</div>
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As you get older, films themselves do sometimes change. But over the years I began to be troubled by the inconsistencies and conflicts and incoherencies in <em>The Searchers, </em>great as it is in most ways. Those problems help make it so fascinating and are reflections of its honesty but also of Ford’s limitations. He was going beyond what he had done before but couldn’t go all the way with its implications (the same problem affects his later <em>Cheyenne Autumn, </em>as I discuss in my audio commentary on that film). The treatment of Marty’s Indian wife “Look” in <em>The Searchers, </em>for example, is deeply troubling. One of the best pieces of film criticism I have read is Peter Lehman’s essay on what he calls the missing shot in the Look sequence, the one that should have shown her crashing down as Marty kicks her off the hill; including that would have made it quite a different film.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> If you loved or disliked an old-time director back in the sixties, are you likely to feel the same about them?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> Usually. I love Ford and Orson Welles and Jean Renoir as much as ever. I am less interested in Luis Buñuel now, though, since I’ve largely worked through my old hangups about Catholicism. He is still great, of course, and he inspired me in my anticlerical rebellion period, but I no longer feel the need to revisit his work as often. I’ve grown more interested in some directors I didn’t know as well back then because of the vagaries of distribution or because of my youth. Yasujiro Ozu is now one of my favorites, as is Ernst Lubitsch, partly because I’ve now managed to see all their films. It was hard to see their work in the sixties. Ozu, with his concentration on the deterioration of family and society and on old age, means more to me than he would have when I was young.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When asking that question, I remembered that John Huston had a rebirth and made great films in the 1970s, like <em>Fat City</em>, <em>Wise Blood</em>, and especially <em>The Man Who Would Be King</em>, long after his heyday and a few years after Andrew Sarris placed him in his “Less Than Meets the Eye” category in <em>The American Cinema</em>, so everyone’s impression of him might have changed for the better.</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> He’s one of those good directors whose output nevertheless is very uneven. Welles almost never compromised as a director but often did so as an actor. Huston would compromise as a director by doing crummy projects to keep commercially viable so he could make his occasional masterpieces or highly personal projects. When he is most engaged, he is a splendid filmmaker, and he has an unusually wide range. I write in <em>Two Cheers</em> about how Huston is the best filmmaker at adapting works of literature into cinematic form, and how he adapted such an amazing diversity of great writers, some of whose work was thought impossible to film, such as James Joyce, <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2017/06/catching-moby-dick-5-venues-150-readers-2-days-and-i-show-up-for-the-last-paragraph/" rel="noopener" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Herman Melville</a> and Flannery O’Connor.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You were an early bloomer. Do you think you already had almost reached your pinnacle as a film critic and historian when you were in college? Or do you think you weren’t yet ready to do most of the critical and biographical writing and teaching you’d do years later?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> As I found while putting together <em>Two Cheers,</em> most of my early work for film magazines from 1967 onward is fairly polished and professional, since I did begin unusually young, partly because my parents were journalists and helped me along the path. My mother, Marian McBride, helped me get my first article sold to <em>Young Catholic Messenger </em>in 1960 for $40. It was on the great Milwaukee Braves pitcher Warren Spahn and his son Greg, a Little League teammate of mine. After that I was confident I could keep selling articles, a feeling that sustained me even though other articles I wrote on baseball failed to sell for years after that. I started writing my book <em>High and Inside: An A-to-Z Guide to the Language of Baseball </em>in 1963, but it was not published until 1980. I began writing my critical study <em>Orson Welles</em> in 1966; it was published by the British Film Institute in its Cinema One series in 1972.</div>
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Only when I started writing about film did I became successful at the craft of writing. My work has deepened over the years due to my greater life experience and knowledge base as an autodidact; that’s one reason my books have gotten longer! I also learned a lot from being a film reviewer and reporter for <em>Daily Variety </em>and <em>Variety</em> off and on from 1974 through 1992. Before going to work for <em>Daily Variety</em> in Hollywood, I had a hazy idea of how films were actually made. My 18 years as a screenwriter, though they were the worst years of my life other than my childhood, also helped me understand the business more deeply. I couldn’t have written my three major biographies without that knowledge of how things actually work in Hollywood. And through my film journalism and screenwriting I was able to make many contacts that paid off when I was writing biographies.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In the sixties we were among the many who were staunch believers in auteurism and championed strong directors at the expense of screenwriters and producers. Among the few screenwriters we really cared about were those who were blacklisted, as well as a few screenwriters who collaborated frequently with our favorite directors. In your book, you say how much you enjoyed years later interviewing and writing articles about writers, and you have several chapters about them in your book. Did you have an awakening at some time when you discovered that writers were the unsung heroes of Hollywood?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> It took me a while, though I began writing screenplays in 1966, teaching myself by doing it. I was influenced at the start by <em>Citizen Kane, </em>whose great screenplay by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles was my model. I found a copy at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin (as it was then called) and spent a month typing an exact copy since I couldn’t afford to Xerox it. That helped me internalize the script, and I had a 16mm print of the film I ran endlessly. I kept writing scripts and made six short films in Madison, but my goal was to use screenwriting as an end to become a director. I have turned down some opportunities to direct films, so I guess I knew I wasn’t really suited for that profession. I became more conscious of how important screenwriters are when I worked with directors who took credit for my ideas or ripped off my work. And I became friendly with some veteran screenwriters, including blacklisted screenwriters I admired, such as Abraham Polonsky and John Sanford.</div>
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Their example, and studying the history of Hollywood more carefully, made me realize that Irving Thalberg was right when he (allegedly) said, “Screenwriters are the most important people in the business, but we must never let them find that out.” Some of the essays I have most enjoyed writing that appear in <em>Two Cheers</em> are career profiles of screenwriters I wrote for the Writers Guild of America magazine <em>Written By.</em> My biography <em>Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success </em>points out that Robert Riskin (especially) and other screenwriters were as much the authors of Capra’s work as Capra was. There’s a lot about screenwriters in my biographies of directors, which critically examine the auteur theory.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Of course, before he became a director, Jean-Luc Godard was among first proponents of the auteur theory, along with François Truffaut at <em>Cahiers du Cinema</em>. I laughed when you recalled Godard’s visit to the University of Wisconsin in 1970 to show <em>See You at Mao</em>, because that was the first celebrity I ever sat around with and it probably was your first time—unless you’d already interviewed John Ford for your book on him—and it wasn’t the best experience! Maybe you tried to interview him when you were alone with him, because I didn’t remember that you were one of the five or six film people who sat at a table in the Rathskeller at the Memorial Union with our idol, and I’m sure you don’t remember I was there either because we were all a bit freaked out. Maybe we sat with him at different times with the same result! You remember a little verbal exchange with him. I remember almost nothing being said to him by us “brilliant” movie experts, because we were all so intimidated. A few years ago I mentioned this gathering to Anna Karina and she laughed because it was so like him—she was sure that though Godard came across as aloof and, as you recall, “surly,” and “obnoxious and intractable,” he too was too <em>shy</em> to talk about his movies. I know John Ford wasn’t the easiest of interviews, but did you ever have a similar encounter in Hollywood?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> The first movie celebrity I met was not Ford or Godard but Joe E. Brown. It was shortly after his memorable turn in the 1959 Billy Wilder film <em>Some Like It Hot,</em> and he came to our neighborhood in Wauwatosa to visit some friends. We kids went to the house and waited for him. He got out of a car and walked past us, scowling. I should have realized right then and there that I should not go into the movie business. (My brother Pat recalls Brown turning around at the doorway and giving us his trademark grin and a wave, but I don’t remember that.) But, yes, Godard was the rudest director I ever met. I think it’s overly generous to call him shy. He barely would talk to me when I did my article on his Madison visit that ran in <em>Sight and Sound. </em>When I wrote a reflection on that experience and his work for <em>Two Cheers, </em>I watched <em>See You at Mao</em> again and realized that it is the worst film I have ever seen except for <em>Pearl Harbor; </em>those two abysmal stinkers are closely followed by <em>Eraserhead. </em>Godard made John Ford seem like a pussycat.</div>
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I don’t remember you and those others being at the table in the Rathskeller; I am sure I would. When I tried to interview Godard, the other people at the table were Jean-Pierre Gorin, my friend Ellen Whitman, a <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2016/06/hamptons-celebrity-real-estate-sandy-gallin-sells-jason-williams-rents-and-more/" rel="noopener" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Grove Press</a> publicist, and a photographer. Did I have similarly difficult encounters in Hollywood? Usually not, because people tend to be convivial when they want publicity. A few people wouldn’t talk. And there were some awkward encounters, but none jumps out as much as my attempt to interview astronaut Buzz Aldrin while I was a reporter with the Riverside <em>Press-Enterprise</em> before joining <em>Daily Variety.</em> I had an interview scheduled with Aldrin at a mall where he was signing a new book. I arrived, but he wouldn’t talk to me for some reason, which made the publicist upset. Aldrin has always been a crank. That was why NASA chose Neil Armstrong to walk on the Moon before him. I encountered some uncooperative people while doing my biographies, but most of the hundreds of people I approached for interviews on those books were helpful. I estimate I have interviewed about 15,000 people in my career as a journalist and historian.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You quote writer-director Paul Schrader saying “People talk about the ‘Golden Age’ of Hollywood in the late ’60s and early ’70s. It wasn’t that the films were better or the filmmakers were better, it was the audiences that were better. It was a time of social stress, and audiences turned to artists for answers.” Do you agree with Schrader—and me—that the audiences in the sixties and early seventies were the best ever in the sense that they cared about themes as well as stars, and were into discovering <em>art</em>? I don’t necessarily believe that the films of the sixties were the best—though they revolutionized the medium—but I think all of us were so lucky because not only were there exciting new American and foreign directors, but also most of the great American and foreign directors of past decades were still making films. We could see <em>new</em> films by Welles, Ford, Hawks, Hitchcock, Fellini, Kurosawa, Siegel, Fuller, Antonioni, Bergman, Wilder, Capra, on and on—and old films to discover—Keaton, the Marx Brothers, <em>It’s a Wonderful Life</em>, <em>The Searchers</em>—were resurfacing. All genres, all countries. That’s how I felt when we were in Madison during that time. And I still think it was the greatest decade for becoming a movie fan.</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> I still think the greatest era in Hollywood was the late silent period, when the art form reached its zenith. Mary Pickford said it would have been more logical for silent films to grow out of sound films rather than the other way around. <em>Sunrise </em>in 1927 was the pinnacle of the silent era. For a year when I was writing my Capra book and living in the San Bernardino Mountains, I would drive to lunch every day at Lake Arrowhead, where F. W. Murnau shot much of that masterpiece. The 1930s and forties were when many of my favorite films were made, and I saw a lot of great work while growing up in the fifties. I remember watching a lot of garbage in the sixties and seventies, partly because I had to review so many films, and at <em>Daily Variety</em> during that time I was mostly relegated to B movies, many of which were dogs, tawdry horror or revenge pix and the like.</div>
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So it’s like Melvyn Douglas once said about the 1930s, that he was flabbergasted when he heard young film buffs call it a golden age, although he and other actors remembered those years as a constant struggle to escape mediocre projects. I felt much that same sense of surprise when I began hearing people talking about the early-to-mid 1970s as Hollywood’s last golden age. Still, in one eight-month period in 1974, we had <em>The Conversation</em>,<em> Chinatown</em>, and <em>The Godfather Part II</em>, and we almost took it for granted that masterpieces would come along regularly. I didn’t think much of the audiences then, however, because too many good films were neglected (I am thinking especially of Polonsky’s 1969 radical Western <em>Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here</em>, which I discuss with Abe and an uncomprehending audience in <em>Two Cheers),</em> and pretentious junk such as <em>Easy Rider </em>and <em>The Graduate </em>was celebrated. Too many of our would-be radical colleagues from that era became stockbrokers, and one even became a studio executive.</div>
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On the other hand, Errol Morris came out of our “Madison film mafia,” and he’s one of the great modern directors. He was a member of the Wisconsin Film Society, which I ran, but he was more interested in history, philosophy and Ed Gein (we bonded over our mutual obsession with that Wisconsin grave robber, the model for Norman Bates in <em>Psycho). </em>So I hold up Errol to students as an example of how just studying film is not the way to become a great filmmaker. But it’s true that a climate of cinephilia flourished in that turbulent social period of our youth. A time of unrest tends to lead to some great art. I remember 1968 being the worst year in American history since the Civil War. But the studios were collapsing then, and along with some horrendous dreck, we had some fresh and innovative films until the blockbuster syndrome and the Reagan era pretty much put an end to that.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When you were at Wisconsin, did you already plan to head for Hollywood?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> My editor at <em>The Wisconsin State Journal </em>used to say I was the only reporter he knew who would walk around with a copy of <em>Variety</em> under his arm. I had Hollywood in mind from the time I first saw <em>Citizen Kane</em> in one of our three University of Wisconsin film classes in 1966 and was determined to make films and write about them. It took me until 1973 to make the move west, though, and I had to suffer through a year in godforsaken Riverside before I found the job on <em>Daily Variety. </em>I was driving back and forth from Riverside to Los Angeles many nights for film events and getting back home at two or three in the morning while stumbling in to work in a daze at 8 a.m.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You write, “During my first week in Hollywood, in August 1970, I interviewed John Ford and Jean Renoir and met Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich. By the end of the week I was acting in the first day of shooting of Welles’s film <em>The Other Side of the Wind</em>.” Were you thinking that your first week in Hollywood could have been a movie?</div>
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<img alt="John Ford" class=" wp-image-261584" height="502" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/joemcbridejohnfordWEB-374x502-custom.jpg" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="374" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
John Ford, Photo: Joseph McBride</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> That never occurred to me. But I have often told that amazing story. I am in the upcoming documentary on <em>The Other Side of the Wind</em>, tentatively titled <em>They’ll Love Me When I Am Dead</em>, which is planned to premiere at Cannes in May with <em>Other Wind</em> itself, knock wood. I spent six years acting for Welles in that legendary feature, from the first day of shooting to the last. It and <em>Variety </em>were my film school.</div>
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I went to Hollywood that week in 1970 to interview Ford for the critical study Michael Wilmington was writing about him, which was not published until 1974. In <em>Two Cheers</em> I run virtually the entire unedited transcript of that wacky interview for the first time, and I realized that despite his intransigence, Ford gave me some good material. He actually announced his retirement in the course of the interview on August 19; much later I confirmed through studying his papers that it actually was the last day of his career, when he finally gave up after failing to get an Italian spaghetti Western financed with the help of his good friend Woody Strode. No wonder Ford was in a bad mood when I came to ask him about his classic movies. Later that Wednesday I interviewed Renoir, so I met my three favorite directors in one week. Alfred Hitchcock also agreed to be interviewed, but the hotel didn’t give me his message until too late. On the Friday, I met Welles for lunch and a three-hour chat, and on Sunday I was acting in his film and helping write my own dialogue. By Monday morning, August 24, I was back home in Madison and discovered that during the night radicals had blown up the Army Mathematics Research Center, an event I later worked into the ending of my script for <em>Rock ’n’ Roll High School.</em></div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I would ask you with tongue in cheek about what happened the <em>second</em> week, but you write, “I naively thought every week in Hollywood would be like this. Little did I know that week was the pinnacle.” That whirlwind of a first week was like winning a lottery ticket, but just from your book it’s apparent that you had many more high points in Hollywood, mingling with our movie idols, that I for one envy. When you wrote for <em>Variety</em> from 1974 to 1977 and 1980–81, you write that you were “able to visit studio sets and locations and watch many films being shot,” and “had the access to interview almost everyone who interested me in the business.” When you went home afterward, did you pinch yourself and say, “I just hung out with Orson Welles or John Wayne,” or were you always nonchalant about rubbing shoulders with our movie heroes?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> When I went back to <em>Daily Variety </em>in 1989–92, I realized the business had drastically changed. The corporations had taken over, and they made it difficult to get filmmakers on the phone or go on sets. So I had been covering Hollywood during the last times when that was regularly possible. I made a point of seeking out and interviewing everyone I could whose work I admired. I was never too jaded to be unexcited about meeting them, talking with them, and watching them at work. But that was a time when the true legends—even silent-movie people—were still around.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Talk about how movies changed during the time you worked at <em>Variety.</em> Was it a subtle change or very obvious?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> I could see a sharp decline from the freer and more open atmosphere of the mid-1970s until the <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2017/12/shelter-island-toy-photographer-last-jedi/" rel="noopener" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank"><em>Star Wars </em></a>era began in 1977. When I saw the first Hollywood screening of that film, I was so depressed, I thought, “It’s over.” I could tell that cardboard juvenilia would be taking over, and as the Reagan era approached, the kinds of stories I wanted to tell were not welcome, such as a fun idea I had for a biopic of Fidel Castro; a <em>Battle of Algiers</em>-influenced film about the Bay of Pigs invasion; and a black comedy about nuclear war that tried to out-<em>Strangelove </em>Kubrick. Imagine the horror with which those pitches were greeted in Hollywood offices. The best script I ever wrote, the autobiographical story <em>The Broken Places,</em>which was my <em>400 Blows,</em> received a lot of praise but no takers, because it had a grim ending and Hollywood, unlike Europe, is not interested in personal stories. (I eventually turned it into a memoir, the form it should always have had.)</div>
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But I stubbornly persisted, with increasing frustration except for the five AFI Life Achievement Award specials I worked on, until I retired from screenwriting in 1984. I waited until I won the WGA award and received another WGA nomination and an Emmy nomination and was vested for a (modest) pension, so I was more or less going out on top. That and leaving the Catholic Church were the two hardest and most important decisions I ever made in my life, and both were literally life-saving.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When you were working on the script for Allan Arkush’s anarchic <em>Rock ‘n’ Roll High School</em>, were you thinking about how the political climate was changing in the country and in Hollywood?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> Yes, and I knew we were squeaking in under the wire before Reagan got into office. I deliberately turned what started out as a frivolous teenage comedy into an anarchic political satire. Was it you who wrote, Danny, that it’s the only mainstream American film in which an important cultural institution is destroyed and no one is punished? I originally called the school Ronald Reagan High School and had a statue of him blown up, but Roger Corman vetoed that because he was a neighbor of Reagan’s in the Pacific Palisades. So I changed it to Vince Lombardi High School, after the Green Bay Packers’ football coach (I had sold hot dogs at Packers games in Milwaukee to help put myself through high school), and we blew up the school at the end. When Corman did the awful sequel, <em>Rock ’n’ Roll High School Forever,</em> in 1991, they called the school Ronald Reagan High School, because he had left office and it was safe to mock him. As Kurt Vonnegut would say, “So it goes.”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You end your Intro with these five words: “Yes, I love movies, but . . .” I’d like you to expand on that . . .</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> I feel I was betrayed by the movies, as I was by the Catholic Church, my parents, my schooling, and our government. It’s hard not to continue loving the movies I once loved, though, as well as some occasional new ones. My feelings about the medium today are highly ambivalent. I feel in a sense I went into the wrong profession. But my interests have always been broad, and I’ve incorporated them into my work. My biographies of directors range widely into sociopolitical subjects, and I recently have been branching out into books on other subjects besides movies. So I can’t regret the choices I made as a youth (once you make them, it’s almost impossible to turn back), but what happened to the art form I loved—it’s been trashed and turned largely into moronic fodder for the adolescent male audience—makes me beyond sad.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> It’s brave of you to begin a 700-page book with the “article I’m most proud of” instead of making it your final chapter. Why is it that you are <em>that</em> proud of your tribute to blacklisted screenwriter, Michael Wilson?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> It was only some time after writing my Capra biography that I realized that Michael Wilson is the true hero of that book, the man Capra should have been but failed to be. Capra informed on Wilson after he worked on <em>It’s a Wonderful Life </em>and the film version Capra didn’t make of Jessamyn West’s book <em>The Friendly Persuasion </em>(William Wyler later made the film version, <em>Friendly Persuasion, </em>and did not credit the blacklisted Wilson). Because Wilson was so valiant in standing up and speaking out for the First Amendment, I was honored to pay tribute to him in <em>Written By. </em>I am proud of that essay because I convey his greatness as a man and as a writer with revealing research, including an interview with his widow, Zelma, an architect who was blacklisted from her profession.</div>
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<img alt="McBride with Frank Capra, 1985" class=" wp-image-261582" height="393" sizes="(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/joemcbridecapraWEB.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/joemcbridecapraWEB.jpg 700w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/joemcbridecapraWEB-300x214.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/joemcbridecapraWEB-311x222.jpg 311w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/joemcbridecapraWEB-654x467.jpg 654w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
McBride with Frank Capra, 1985, Photo: Columbia Pictures</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> This may be a silly question, but do you think that most screenwriters who worked with famous directors expected much attention and fan recognition for their contributions?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> No, they knew they were the lowest of the low in Hollywood, unfortunately. But the money was good if you were under contract in the old days. Occasionally a good film resulted, even if you were rewritten by others. But it was and is a miserable profession. Too many writers became cynical as a result. I admire the writers who took it seriously and tried to do good work nonetheless.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I think most of the screenwriters you spoke to leaned to the left politically, but were you uncomfortable with directors and actors who leaned far to the right? Did you ever argue politics with them or did you settle into a neutral reporter mode?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> I might have done more, but when you interview someone you’re there more to listen than to argue, which can be counterproductive. To give one example, when I did <em>Into the Nightmare,</em> I interviewed a retired Dallas police detective named Morris Brumley, who had been a boyhood friend of J. D. Tippit. As we talked in a diner with my tape recorder in front of us, Brumley began telling me how he had been a member of the <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2014/09/the-kkk-wants-you-ku-klux-klan-seeks-membership-in-hampton-bays/" rel="noopener" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Ku Klux Klan</a> and even showed me his Knights of the Ku Klux Klan membership card. He claimed he had “infiltrated” the KKK for the police, but he boasted about committing violence. I finally had to say something, so I asked if he had tried to arrest his fellow Klansmen, and that more or less stopped him from telling me much more, unfortunately. I wish I had challenged Howard Hawks more about his politics during the seven years I was doing our interview book <em>Hawks on Hawks. </em>But I tried, and not much resulted. My biographies have a great deal about politics in them, especially the Capra book. I became more political as I went along.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Were directors taken aback if you asked them about themes or ideas or had they experienced such interviews throughout their careers? Were most appreciative of the new interest in cinema in the sixties and seventies and the curiosity about the films they’d made years before?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> I found I had an affinity with older directors partly because they were also marginalized. They were outsiders like I was as an aspiring screenwriter who was also a film historian, looking from the outside in as much as from the inside out. I felt closer to older directors than I did to ones of my own generation. And the older directors were grateful to talk with someone who actually knew their work. I think they were depressed at how little most people knew of what they had done. “What have you done for us lately?” unfortunately is a common attitude in Hollywood. But I and other cinephiles were coming along who actually were familiar with their films, and they were thrilled. I am thinking, for example, of Hawks and Stevens.</div>
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To quote Lina Lamont in <em>Singin’ in the Rain</em>, it meant that “all our hard work ain’t been in vain for nothin’.” Some directors were familiar with the interviewing process, but some hadn’t been interviewed much back in the day, so it was newer for them to have to think and talk about the themes in their work. I also tried to interview directors who were contemporary but were being neglected, as Richard Lester was when I interviewed him at a time when he had fallen out of favor. The interviewing process back then was an important part of reclaiming film history and understanding the work of directors and screenwriters and others.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You write about how difficult your interview with your favorite director John Ford was in 1970. You call him “dour and unruly.” It was one of your first interviews with a director, so do you think if you got to do it again knowing what to expect from him, you could have had an easier time? Did you feel that if you didn’t ask a question the second he stopped answering your previous question that the interview would be over?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> I was flummoxed by Ford and didn’t entirely understand why he was so difficult, though I should have anticipated it. But I became more stubborn as we continued, and I kept hammering away. Mike Wilmington later observed that I had rankled Ford by probing into sensitive areas, which was true. I later learned to be more delicate in my probing.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I love when you ask Ford about John Wayne not wanting to be in a film about Custer!</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> He joked, “Oh, that’s a lot of crap. I don’t think he’s ever heard of Custer. Where’d you get that from, Bogdanovich?” That’s like the time Bogdanovich said he was thinking of getting the Duke a book for his birthday, and Ford said, “He’s <em>got</em> a book.”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Were you frustrated that Ford didn’t want to talk about individual movies, including <em>The Searchers</em>, which he recalled mostly because it made money?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> Sure. It was especially frustrating that he wouldn’t say much about <em>Fort Apache, </em>the film that made me fall in love with his work in 1967. Although I was baffled by his refusal to discuss his work, I later realized I admire him for it. Directors today all give 100 interviews telling you what to think about their new films, but Ford refused to play that game. He respected the audience enough to make us want to think for ourselves.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When he told you that he didn’t want to talk about his films because everyone asked him the same questions you were asking, did you believe him?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> Yes, indeed. It was one of the times he seemed to be giving me a straight answer.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> It is hard not to feel your disappointment in the character of Frank Capra, one of your biographical subjects—“my debunking biography.” You exposed his secret informing during the blacklist era but you are quick to say, “I am still an admirer of Capra’s films. Indeed, now that I understand him more thoroughly, I can understand and appreciate his films more, while identifying their flaws and contradictions more precisely.” Talk about this and how we so often have put aside our own views to appreciate films made by filmmakers who we totally disagree with politically.</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> That’s a big subject, especially right now in the wake of Harvey Weinstein. You could write a book about it. I will just say I believe one can, in almost all cases, appreciate a work of art even if the maker is a jerk or even a criminal. If we don’t do so, there would be little art left to appreciate, since most artists are troubled people. And we shouldn’t just watch or read works that echo our political views, any more than we should just read news stories that do so. That said, I drew the line for a long time at watching John Landis films because of the deaths of the three actors in the <em>Twilight Zone</em> crash—one of the causes of my terminal disgust with Hollywood—but I finally paroled him after he had served 25 years in my movie jail and because I wanted to see his movie on Don Rickles.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When at <em>Variety</em>, you were lucky enough to go on the set for <em>Family Plot</em>. Do you now think, “Wow, I got to watch Alfred Hitchcock direct!”? I think the big news is that you saw improvisation! As you write, “I caught him in the act.”</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> Yes, I stood next to him and his cameraman as Hitchcock excitedly improvised a sequence that he originally had planned to shoot more simply. I wrote down every word he said. Bill Krohn told me that inspired him to write his excellent book <em>Hitchcock at Work.</em> Bill studied Hitchcock’s papers at the Academy library and found that contrary to his myth, he storyboarded action and special effects sequences but not dialogue sequences. Like most directors, Hitchcock would decide on the blocking and the shots for dialogue sequences while he was on the set with the actors.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> What director over the years was most impressive on a set? Who was surprisingly dull and noncreative? Did you ever see François Truffaut direct?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> I wish I had seen Truffaut direct, although I would often see him when he came to Hollywood, and one of the interviews I did with him (along with Todd McCarthy) is in <em>Two Cheers, </em>on <em>Small Change. </em>Truffaut told me if he had known I had a daughter, he would have cast her in <em>Small Change.</em> I was disappointed to watch George Cukor direct, though I greatly admire him, because he spoke so quietly to his actresses on his last film, <em>Rich and Famous, </em>as was his discreet habit. I could not hear anything except him telling them to “Speed it up, ladies,” one of his favorite directions. Cukor was a marvelous interview subject, though—bright, witty, insightful, and profane. Every director works differently, and often moviemaking can be dull to watch, especially when the lighting is being set up. I spent five hours standing on the set of <em>The Blues Brothers,</em> and nothing happened, no one even showed up. They were probably snorting coke in their trailers. So I left without doing a story.</div>
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Who was most exciting to watch? Billy Wilder, one of my heroes, was fascinating and entertaining when I watched him shoot <em>The Front Page; </em>I cover that day in close detail in <em>Two Cheers.</em> And Orson Welles. He was always trying something new, making up brilliant ideas as he went along, and he regaled the cast with funny stories and songs even while he drove the young crew really hard. It was a constant circus and drama and schooling to watch Welles at work.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You introduce your interview with Richard Lester in London in 1973 by saying glowingly that he was “perhaps the most forthcoming, introspective, and charming director I interviewed.” You also write: “Today our interview seems tinged with a melancholy I barely sensed at the time.” I felt the same way reading it. First thought: Perhaps more directors would reveal their sadness, disappointment, frustrations and insecurities if they too were introspective. Second thought: It is almost heartbreaking that he didn’t understand the impact of his films on his appreciative fans—he didn’t even realize the enduring greatness and tremendous cultural significance of <em>A Hard Day’s Night</em>. I am also a fan of <em>The Knack</em>, <em>How I Won the War</em>, <em>Petulia</em>, the underrated <em>The Three Musketeers</em>, <em>Superman II</em>, <em>Juggernaut</em>, <em>Robin and Marian</em>, and parts of <em>Help!. </em>Yet, he tells you that his debut movie, <em>The Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film </em>is “the only film that I can say I don’t feel too embarrassed by.” What are your thoughts about how he underestimated his career? Did he have guilt for trying to make popular movies? And what do you think is his legacy?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> I miss Richard Lester. I sent him a copy of <em>Two Cheers for Hollywood,</em> and he told me although he had given most of his papers to the British Film Institute, he had kept a copy of the issue of <em>Sight and Sound</em> in which our interview appeared in 1973. I was touched by that. Yes, I found him extremely self-critical, perhaps dismayingly so, but he is such a serious and modest man, which I found appealing. He never seemed satisfied with his work—few directors actually are—and he retired for a number of personal reasons, including the death of one of his favorite actors, Roy Kinnear, as a result of a stunt in a film they made together. I wish Lester were still making films. We need him around, with his blend of zany comedy and biting social satire. <em>The Bed Sitting Room</em> is an amazing film that holds up well today as a surreal comedy about a post-nuclear world, but it hurt his career at the time. I interviewed him in the wake of that, when he was having to change to more mainstream fare<em>.</em> His work from <em>The Three Musketeers </em>onward is uneven, but has some high points, such as the lovely, autumnal <em>Robin and Marian.</em></div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Why do you say that among modern directors, Truffaut and Steven Spielberg were the ones “for whom I feel the closest emotional affinity”?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> There are many themes and obsessions in their lives and work I share. Truffaut was a school dropout who spent time in a mental institution; Spielberg escaped suburbia and had family troubles. Truffaut was fascinated with obsessive love stories; Spielberg is obsessed with dysfunctional families and the search for father figures. I could go on and on. They share some similar stylistic approaches as well, including lyricism and a tendency to cut to close shots unexpectedly for an emotional frisson.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Do you ever think about the types of films Truffaut would have made in the 33 years since he died at the age of 52?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> I have been heartbroken since that day. I saved his last film to watch for years because I figured when I finally watched it, he really would be dead. But I felt he died in what would usually be the “middle period” of an artist’s career, often a less creative time than the early or late years. <em>The Green Room </em>(1978) was a powerful exception—but it alarmed me with its morbidity, which made me sense that something was wrong with his health before Jeanne Moreau told me in the spring of 1984 that he was dying and that “He looks like an Auschwitz victim.” If he had survived, he no doubt would have gone on to make profound films in his later years, as he had made in his youth.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> <em>The 400 Blows </em>still is beloved, more so I think than <em>Jules and Jim</em>, but do you sense as I do that Truffaut isn’t as admired as he once was—we revered him—and young fans don’t seek out his films as much as they should? Was he someone, like Preston Sturges and Hal Ashby, perhaps, who made great films that fit perfectly into an era—the right time—and then died as film changed?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> So many great directors are ignored now. It’s part of our job to re-introduce them to new audiences. I enjoy doing that with my students at San Francisco State. Most are stunned to see classic films they didn’t know—such as Lubitsch or Ozu films—and to realize how good they are and how directly they speak to people today.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I really appreciate your (<span class="s1">and Patrick McGilligan’s) </span>interview with George Stevens because it includes interesting nuggets that make me want to see his films again, all together. That should make you happy because you lament that “Few American directors’ work has suffered such an eclipse of reputation as that of the late George Stevens.”</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> <em>Sight & Sound</em>’s generally good review of <em>Two Cheers</em> mocks me for writing that Stevens is “the most underrated American director today.” I am convinced I am right, so I don’t mind the knock. I like his early comedies, but I don’t share the kneejerk conventional wisdom today that he declined after he came back from the World War II with PTSD and depression and made more solemn fare (which was celebrated in its time, a drawback to his acceptance today). I think <em>A Place in the Sun </em>and <em>Shane </em>are masterpieces. For a Ford aficionado to say <em>Shane </em>is the greatest Western ever made seems heretical, but that’s my belief, since it is deliberately and perfectly archetypal. I admired <em>The Diary of Anne Frank</em> when I was 12 but was afraid to see it again until recently because I feared it would be so lugubrious and claustrophobic. To my relief it is still gripping, and of course it <em>is</em>claustrophobic, but I found that part of its personal quality was that Stevens, who had filmed the war and the concentration camps, managed to combine the Holocaust with a genre he had worked in so memorably before the war, the romantic comedy. I tried for a while to raise interest in a biography of Stevens but found no takers. I liked him very much as a man as well as a filmmaker. He was humane, sensitive, warm and hearty in his humor.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Another director who has lost a bit of his luster since the 1960s is George Cukor, so I really liked your tribute to him and long interview (<span class="s1">with Todd McCarthy) </span>with him in your book that focuses on his later work. I’d like you to discuss something you wrote about Cukor: “With his non-doctrinaire, instinctively feminist sensibility, Cukor usually filmed from the viewpoint of his female protagonist.” I fear that back in the sixties and seventies we were all guilty of stating that Cukor had so many complex, interesting female leads because he was gay, when the truth was that he was a male who had a feminist sensibility. The subject of one of your chapters, James Whale, was also gay, but, with an exception or two like <em>Show Boat</em>, was much more interested in his male characters.</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> Gay directors can’t be characterized homogenously any more than straight directors can. Whale’s work deals more explicitly with outsiders, often by employing the horror genre; Cukor’s has more range, and he always pointed out that the men in his movies are important too, as indeed they are. Cukor and Whale were very different in their approach to their work and their lives. Whale’s career evidently suffered because he was more defiantly “out,” while Cukor was discreet even though his homosexuality was an open secret in Hollywood. Whale was a more stubbornly independent man who didn’t rebound as well as Cukor from setbacks with the studios, so he retired early while Cukor soldiered on. My favorite moment with Cukor was when I was asking him, during an interview at the Beverly Hills Hotel Polo Lounge, what it felt like to be fired from a movie. He put his hand on my arm and said to his publicist, “Notice with what finesse he avoids mentioning the title <em>Gone With the Wind” </em>(actually I was thinking of another movie). Cukor is a great director, and I found him a lovable man, but I never quite got a handle on how to analyze his work. It’s frustrating, but maybe some day I will figure out how.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Talk about your relationship with John Huston.</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> I came to know Huston fairly well—though he was an enigmatic man—by co-writing <em>The American Film Institute Salute to John Huston</em> (for which I and my writing partner George Stevens Jr. won Writers Guild of America awards), interviewing him, and acting with him in Welles’s <em>The Other Side of the Wind, </em>all of which deepened my interest in Huston’s work. I passed on an offer to write a Huston biography, though, partly because I wasn’t interested enough but mostly because it was pitched as an authorized biography with his children having veto power, and I don’t write those because they would take away your independence.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When Huston and Welles got together, who would do most of the talking?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> I wasn’t privy to their discussions much on the set of <em>The Other Side of the Wind, </em>since they tended to talk more in private. Welles was voluble, while Huston tended to be more introspective. I sat next to him for a couple of hours once while waiting to shoot, and he hardly said anything, just puffed on his cigar. One of my favorite moments, though, was when Huston’s director character, Jake Hannaford, entered the party with a blonde teenaged companion in tow and gave her a lecherous look. I could tell it was too much. I wondered how Welles would handle this with a crowd watching, since Huston was his peer. Welles thought for a moment and said, “John, do you know who you remind me of in this scene? Your father.” Huston beamed, as he did whenever his father, the great actor Walter Huston, was mentioned. He said, “Oh, really Orson? Why?” Welles said, “Because he had that kindly, paternal air—but nobody ever had a higher score.” They both roared with laughter, and Huston did the scene again with a sly little smile that gave an ironic tone with “that kindly, paternal air.”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did you ever think of teaching a course on Huston? You could explore the question you ask: “Who is John Huston?”</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> It’s high time for me to teach a course on Huston. His work is so rich and diverse. I’m surprised I haven’t gotten around to it yet. But I teach his films in my beginning screenwriting class—I show <em>The Man Who Would Be King </em>and<em> The Dead</em>after having the students read the great stories by Kipling and Joyce that they are based on, and it helps illuminate the process of adaptation. As I write in an essay in <em>Two Cheers,</em> and mentioned to you before, I believe Huston is the filmmaker who does the best literary adaptations, often of works considered virtually impossible to film, and yet he makes the stories his own while channeling their authors.</div>
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I use adaptation as the basis for my course, since it gives the students a good story to work with while they are learning the screenwriting craft. I center my 2012 book <em>Writing in Pictures: Screenwriting Made (Mostly) Painless </em>on that topic. I also show Huston’s great World War II documentary <em>Let There Be Light </em>to my screenwriting students, since I have them write scripts based on short stories about PTSD. I helped liberate <em>Let There Be Light </em>from being banned by the U.S. government and write about that saga and the making of the film in <em>Two Cheers.</em></div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> We all like to champion unfairly neglected films by directors who made many masterpieces. For instance, you rave about Elia Kazan’s <em>Wild River</em>. I’m sure you have found many of us who agree with you. But I’m not sure how many people have told you, “At last, someone else who thinks Billy Wilder’s <em>Kiss Me, Stupid </em>is ‘glorious!’”</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> I just discovered that Truffaut liked it very much! I have found several other “deviated preverts” (to quote the twisted line from <em>Dr. Strangelove)</em> who admire the Wilder film as well. I write in <em>Two Cheers</em> that <em>Kiss Me, Stupid </em>“was so far ahead of its time in satirizing American sexual hypocrisy.” I adore the characters, who are deeply human and moving in their foolishness, and am entranced by how the outrageous situation is filmed with such visual elegance and verbal wit. Joan Didion was the film’s only critical champion at the time. She wrote that Wilder “is not a funnyman but a moralist, a recorder of human venality. . . . The Wilder world is one seen at dawn through a hangover, a world of cheap double entendre and stale smoke and drinks in which the ice has melted: the true country of despair.” After reading that piece, which was published in <em>Vogue,</em> Wilder wrote her a note: “I read your piece in the beauty parlor while sitting under the hair dryer, and it sure did the old pornographer’s heart good. Cheers, Billy Wilder.”</div>
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<img alt="McBride with Truffaut, Fuller and McCarthy, 1975" class=" wp-image-261586" height="505" sizes="(max-width: 525px) 100vw, 525px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/joemcbridedtruffautfullermccarthyWEB.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/joemcbridedtruffautfullermccarthyWEB.jpg 728w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/joemcbridedtruffautfullermccarthyWEB-300x288.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/joemcbridedtruffautfullermccarthyWEB-231x222.jpg 231w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/joemcbridedtruffautfullermccarthyWEB-486x467.jpg 486w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="525" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
McBride with Truffaut, Fuller and McCarthy, 1975 (from Two Cheers for Hollywood)</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I believe you and I have similar tastes, so I was surprised by your hostility toward one of my favorites, <em>Rebel Without a Cause</em>, even lumping it with <em>Easy Rider </em>because its hero’s naiveté “is somehow a sign of moral superiority over the cynics and cretins who make up the rest of the cast.” I would have thought you as a kid could have related to Dean’s misunderstood, frustrated, isolated teenager who has trouble at home and at school, and appreciated that this was the one film about teenagers in the fifties that completely sides with them rather than adults. I find it the most emotional of all movies of that era and that it never takes the moral high ground. And there were certainly more cretins in Westerns, even before Peckinpah and Leone. I can see how Sam Fuller wouldn’t like <em>Rebel </em>because he didn’t care about teenagers, but not you!</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> I don’t like sentimental films about teenage life, and Nicholas Ray was always sentimental to a fault about outsiders. Our film-buff cronies back in the day worshipped him for that and because he was destroying himself, which I don’t think is romantic, either. I prefer more hard-edged, painful stories about teenage years, which are horrendous for many people and were in my case. I also don’t like how Ray makes the parents seem like buffoons; it detracts from the seriousness of the story. My book <em>The Broken Places </em>is in many ways an antithesis to <em>Rebel Without a Cause. </em>And in <em>Rock ’n’ Roll High School</em>—a comedy, unlike <em>Rebel</em>—I followed Sam Arkoff’s advice for teenage movies—not to show the parents. A gaggle of parents appear only briefly on the lawn of the school during the record-burning, and Kate’s mother is heard on the phone (wonderfully played as clueless by New World story editor Frances Doel), and that’s it.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> How close did you get with all the young filmmakers who worked with Roger Corman and then made films on their own?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> I remain friends with Joe Dante, who directed parts of <em>Rock ’n’ Roll High School </em>and gets joint story credit with Arkush. I think Joe is the most brilliant of that group. He’s somewhat underrated today and has to scramble to cobble projects together. It’s a sign of how decadent the industry is that it can’t give Dante more work and doesn’t fully recognize his great talent.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> What was it that made you such an admirer of Steven Spielberg from the start?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> When I saw his 1972 TV movie <em>Something Evil,</em> I was immediately aware of his great visual imagination. I already had read of him in <em>Variety </em>and knew how unusually young he was; Hollywood was still dominated by old timers then. I had thought of calling Spielberg for an interview when I went to Hollywood in 1971 to do more shooting on <em>The Other Side of the Wind,</em> but I didn’t get time. I began thinking of writing a Spielberg biography in 1982, because he was grossly underrated and maligned by most critics and authors, but I thought he was still too young for a biography. I finally decided to do it once he decided to make <em>Schindler’s List,</em> a decisive step in his creative and personal evolution, even though he had made “serious, adult” films from the beginning of his career, such as the “Par for the Course” episode of <em>The Psychiatrist</em>,<em> Duel</em>, and <em>The Sugarland Express.</em> And some of his amateur films dealt with serious subjects. Billy Wilder said that Spielberg was a great director when he was 10.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> At the beginning, would you have predicted he’d make historical films such as <em>Schindler</em><em>’</em><em>s List</em>, <em>The Color Purple</em>,<a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2014/12/amistad-cinques-slave-rebelion-arrives-in-montauk/" rel="noopener" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank"><em> Amistad</em></a>,<em> Saving Private Ryan</em> and <em><a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2012/12/spielbergs-lincoln-dominant-among-golden-globe-nominees/" rel="noopener" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Lincoln</a></em>?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> I still wonder to some extent where he gets that impulse from, other than from his lifelong interest in World War II (which could be seen in his amateur films) and the Holocaust (he spent his first years in a Jewish neighborhood in Cincinnati with many survivors, and some of his family were killed in the Shoah). What surprises me about his great interest in history is that he was not a good student; he is dyslexic. He has people helping him with research and usually has good screenwriters. Not all his historical films are equally accurate, but generally he places a high value on accuracy. And he has a way of bringing history to life in vivid and complex ways for a popular audience, as John Ford did. The scene of Lee surrendering to Grant in <em>Lincoln</em> is filmed shot-for-shot the way Ford would have done it. One reason I admire Spielberg is that he has used his success in positive ways and not let it throw him, as happened to Frank Capra. And Spielberg wisely alternates his more dramatic work with his so-called “entertainments,” as Graham Greene used to do.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You wrote that Spielberg wanted popular success at the beginning of his career “partly because of his deep-seated personal need for social acceptance.” Could it be that he also wanted validation as someone like his idol Alfred Hitchcock, whom he called “The Master,” could make good films that made money? And could it be said that he made more serious films later in his career because he had a deep-seated personal need for <em>critical</em> acceptance?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> Well, as I said, he made “serious, adult” films early on. But you are right that he has always had a need for acceptance. I don’t agree with his detractors who claim he is driven mostly by greed. Other than wanting commercial success to ensure him creative independence, which is laudable, Spielberg is not driven by money. The more he was denied acclaim by reviewers and his peers, the more he wanted it. He wept when he won the directing Oscar for <em>Schindler’s List. </em>I wish he hadn’t done that, because it’s only an Oscar, but I understand why, particularly after the way he was harshly snubbed by the Academy for making <em>The Color Purple; </em>he is always especially attacked when he makes films about black people.</div>
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In his later years he is more driven by pure creative passion than by a need for more acclaim, though the need for acceptance will continue to be part of what drives him. His outsider status as a youth was and is a major motivating force in his life. Being persecuted by anti-Semites was part of that, and some of the tropes used against him by his detractors (such as the claims that he is greedy, “manipulative,” vulgar, a propagandist, a bad influence on children, etc.) are familiar anti-Semitic smears. I discuss this in the third edition of my Spielberg biography and examine there and in<em> Two Cheers </em>why some people still hate him so much.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> What filmmakers besides Spielberg have come along since the seventies who have excited you the way the great filmmakers from the twenties to the sixties once did?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> The Coen Bros. are great filmmakers, our closest contemporary equivalents to Billy Wilder, though they have a way to go before they can rival him. I have long felt they are misunderstood and underrated, for a variety of reasons, including their unpredictability and the remarkably diversity of their work. So I wrote my monograph on them for <em>Two Cheers, </em>after watching all their films again in a two-week period, deliberately out of order, so I could reevaluate them in fresh ways.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I’d think they would be hard to write about because almost every film goes in a new direction and there has to be a new evaluation, and what you wrote is already dated. And, as you write, they never explain their works.</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> It’s good sometimes to analyze an artist or artists in mid-career, as I have also done with Spielberg. You hope to be surprised by their future development. I am sure the Coens will continue to evolve in ways we haven’t expected. That is a sign of true artists.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I find it interesting that different people have different favorite Coen Bros. films, and think some of their films are minor that others think are masterpieces. For instance: My favorite Coen Bros. film is <em>Miller’</em><em>s Crossing </em>and you call it “pretentious.” (You also call it “grim,” but I’m not sure that is criticism.)</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> My views on some of their films changed when I re-saw them. I liked <em>Miller’s Crossing</em> when I first saw it, but now find it dismal in every way, as I do <em>The Hudsucker Proxy. </em>I don’t like <em>Intolerable Cruelty </em>as much as I once did. But I like <em>Fargo</em> a lot more than I did at first, when I didn’t appreciate their mockery of Midwesterners, until I found that my relatives in Wisconsin love the film because it captures their way of speaking and cultural ethos so perfectly. The Coens are from Minnesota, after all. <em>Fargo</em> is perhaps their most seamless mixture of comedy and violence, and it has the most endearing performance in their work, Frances McDormand’s complex and humane portrayal of the pregnant police chief. <em>The Big Lebowsk</em>i is also wonderful, as is Jeff Bridges in it. The film of theirs I found hardest to come to terms with is <em>A Serious Man, </em>though it’s fascinating in its existential bleakness; my reactions to it oscillate to some extent. <em>Burn After Reading,</em> which was neglected by reviewers, seems better every time, as does <em><a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2013/12/cineast-movie-previews-out-of-the-furnace-expecting-inside-llewyn-davis/" rel="noopener" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Inside Llewyn Davis</a>.</em>I think it’s a sign of the Coens’ artistry and originality that our views of their work evolve as they do. Maybe I will revisit that monograph in a few years to see how my views have changed again.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I tell people that to fully appreciate the Coen Bros. they should take note that their films take place in an alternate—often a <em>movie</em>—universe. Would you tell them that?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> Sure, because they are postmodernists with an advanced taste for parody. I usually don’t like postmodernism, but they practice it in such a skillful and witty way, visually and verbally, that I am enthralled by their style.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Do you think the cult status of <em>The Big Lebowski </em>is partly because it’s a Coen Bros. film, or don’t fans care who made it? And why do you think it’s such a phenomenon?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> It’s a stoner Bible. And it’s simply a great film. I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t like it. It’s a tribute to Raymond Chandler in an ingenious modern way. The Coens have tried to alert people that they are more influenced by writers than by filmmakers. The other writers they mention as role models are Flannery O’Connor and Dashiell Hammett.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Talk about the contrast between Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne on the set of <em>The Shootist</em>. Did you feel you were watching film history on that set? Is it more special in retrospect because that was Wayne’s last film?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> One young crew member told me, “There’s so much respect generated around here, the crew is just walking on eggs.” Wayne was much more extroverted than Stewart, who sat quietly in his chair (partly because of his deafness) while Wayne made jokes with the crew. Yes, there was a sense of things ending. The scene I watched them shoot for two days was the one in which the doctor played by Stewart tells the gunfighter played by Wayne that he is dying of cancer. It was one of my great experiences to watch my two favorite actors work together. They mostly conferred on timing and technical points like the consummate pros they were. Director Don Siegel had his clashes with Wayne, but he would say, “Action, please.” Siegel told me, “I’ve directed a lot of stars—even before I was a director, I had Bogart, Cagney, and all the rest when I was doing montage scenes at Warner Bros.—but for the first time in my life I’m conscious of working with a legend. I can’t help feeling a bit in awe of the man, but at the same time I can’t let it throw me, because you’ve got to be able to have disagreements.” Siegel added kiddingly, “He eats directors for breakfast, but when he eats me he’ll get indigestion.”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Wayne told you that it would have been impossible for him to play himself onscreen, which his detractors always said he did. Were you surprised he thought about such criticism or was it so prevalent that he couldn’t ignore it?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> He seemed surprisingly sensitive to criticism. When I asked if John Ford did some second-unit work on <em>Hondo</em>, a film Wayne’s company produced and John Farrow directed, Wayne said, “Jesus Christ, don’t you people ever give me credit for <em>anything?” </em>I understand his feelings, because Wayne has been so mistreated by most critics and many film historians, whose lack of understanding of what constitutes good film acting causes them to dismiss him for allegedly just “playing himself.” As Wayne thoughtfully told me, “It is quite obvious it can’t be done. If you are yourself, you’ll be the dullest son of a bitch in the world onscreen. You have to act yourself, you have to project something—a personality. Perhaps I have projected something closer to my personality than other actors have. I have very few tricks. Oh, I’ll stop in the middle of a sentence so they’ll keep looking at me, and I don’t stop at the end, so they don’t look away, but that’s about the only trick I have.”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> John Wayne is, along with Stewart, my favorite actor of the sound era, so I understand why you call him your favorite actor. But is it hard to explain to others, especially those who don’t like Westerns?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> It’s a struggle because of the misunderstanding about the nature of film acting I just mentioned and because too many people let Wayne’s reprehensible politics affect their judgment of his work. I am tired of arguing about his talent, which should be self-evident, but I wrote an appreciation of him that’s in <em>Two Cheers</em> in which I grapple with most of these questions, so I will refer people to that! But if people don’t like Westerns, that’s another issue—of lamentable myopia.</div>
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<img alt="McBride and Grady Sutton in Rock 'n' Roll High School" class=" wp-image-261585" height="374" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/joemcbridegradyrockinWEB.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/joemcbridegradyrockinWEB.jpg 600w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/joemcbridegradyrockinWEB-300x225.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/joemcbridegradyrockinWEB-297x222.jpg 297w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="500" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
McBride and Grady Sutton in “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School,” Photo: New World Pictures, 1979</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> It’s interesting that the word Jimmy Stewart used most when describing his screen image was “vulnerable.” It makes sense but I never thought of that word—I think he equated “being vulnerable” with when his strong, good guys “went dark.” What do you think?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> Vulnerability stems from anxiety and vice versa, and many of Stewart’s roles are filled with both, even before he went to war. I worked with him several times and often talked with him but never managed to understand him very well, since he was so reticent and inarticulate, even though he went to Princeton. When I would ask about his experiences as a bomber pilot in World War II, he couldn’t or wouldn’t talk about them. Capra told me that on <em>It’s a Wonderful Life</em> Stewart said he wanted to quit acting because it wasn’t a “decent” job for a man. So Capra asked Lionel Barrymore to give him a pep talk. Barrymore said, “Do you think it’s more decent to drop bombs on people?” Capra said that was “pretty rough” but that it did the job. Stewart admitted to me that he came back a somewhat different man, and his postwar career in films for Anthony Mann, Hitchcock, Ford, and others contains many brave and disturbing roles in which Stewart shows great vulnerability.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You interviewed Peter O’Toole at the time he was “a bit frantically overpraising his newest film, Richard Rush’s <em>The Stunt Man</em>,” and describe him as “such a magnificent ruin.” Would you have liked to have interviewed him when he starred in <em>Lawrence of Arabia </em>instead or, looking back, was 1981 the ideal time?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> I borrowed that “magnificent ruin” phrase from what Orson Welles said to me about Edmond O’Brien when we were doing <em>The Other Side of the Wind, </em>to kindly explain why he was taking away some dialogue I was having trouble understanding and giving it to Eddie, who did it wonderfully. Any time would have been a great time to interview Peter O’Toole, the modern actor I like most. He was so witty and smart and incandescent. He gave me a marvelous interview while laid up with a cold in his bed in the Beverly Hills Hotel, imitating Garbo in her death scene in <em>Camille. </em>I am glad we had such a rapport, because I was a fan of his from the earliest days of his film career, especially in <em>What’s New, Pussycat?</em>, a film that helped shape me as a young man.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did you ever interview your favorite actress, Jean Arthur?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> I was fortunate to spend a lot of time with her in the 1980s at her home in Carmel, thanks to an introduction by Frank Capra. I was one of only a handful of people she would see in her later years, and we had a lot of fun talking. <em>Life </em>magazine once wrote that she was so reclusive she made Garbo look like a party girl. She told me some revealing things, such as when I asked why she left Hollywood. She said that when she was under contract to Columbia in 1945, the female stars’ dressing rooms were in a row, with a dark hallway connecting them. There was a secret entrance, and studio chief Harry Cohn would come in there and attack the actresses. Jean decided to kill Harry Cohn. She thought she could shoot him in the hallway and get away with it. But she told me that instead she walked the backlot for three hours and decided to quit the business instead. She left Columbia for the theater and made only two more films, <em>A Foreign Affair </em>for Billy Wilder and <em>Shane</em> for George Stevens, plus her short-lived TV series. <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2017/11/bad-mad-men-women-rules-regs-needed/" rel="noopener" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Sexual harassment</a> and assault in Hollywood did not begin with Harvey Weinstein; it’s always been an odious part of the movie business.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You write that your 1970 interview “with the much-maligned African American comic actor Stepin Fetchit is one of the most influential pieces I’ve published, which pleases me because he was so mistreated by Hollywood and by film historians.” Tell me about the importance of your interview then—and now.</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> Not only was Stepin Fetchit a major cultural figure who managed to become the only male star in 1930s Hollywood—he told me Hollywood was “more segregated than Georgia under the skin,” which unfortunately is still true today—but he was a brilliant comedian whose work can be viewed as subversive of racial stereotyping. You have to be as hip as John Ford to get what Stepin Fetchit is doing. Most people can’t see the artist behind the mask. But watch him in Ford’s<em> Judge Priest </em>and <em>The Sun Shines Bright</em> to see trenchant commentary on Jim Crow. I interviewed Stepin Fetchit in the basement of a strip joint in Madison. He was at the lowest rung of show business, unfairly ridiculed and despised, and I wanted to give him his voice again. I am pleased that the interview we did (“Stepin Fetchit Talks Back”) has been influential on two sympathetic biographies of the man.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I love Stepin Fetchit, so I’m pleased you defend his controversial screen portrayals for all of us fans by saying “that his art consisted precisely in mocking and caricaturing the white man’s vision of the black: his sly contortions, his surly and exaggerated subservience, can now be seen as a secret weapon in the long racial struggle.” I would think this gut-feeling argument of yours is very difficult to defend, and that’s why you added a line: “But whatever one makes of Stepin Fetchit’s work, he was one of the few nonwhites to achieve status in American films, and he deserves to be remembered.”</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> In fact, as I reveal in <em>Two Cheers, </em>those eloquent words of introduction to the interview were written by the late Albert Johnson, not me. He was a respected film critic and festival organizer. I was grateful to <em>Film Quarterly, </em>a leftist journal, for running that interview with such a controversial figure, but they wanted an African American writer to validate the subject, so they asked Mr. Johnson, which was OK with me. He didn’t take credit for the introduction at the time, but I wanted to give him credit in retrospect in my collection. I love his words about Stepin Fetchit. I don’t think they are difficult to defend: they sum up the essence of his art.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I’m glad he opened up to you and spoke about his relationships with the most militant black athletes ever, Jack Johnson and Muhammad Ali.</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> Yes, Stepin Fetchit was very proud of his association with those two great men. By the way, Ken Burns told me he thinks his best movie is <em>Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson</em> (2004), and I agree. It’s an astounding documentary, both for its acute social commentary and because you can see some of Johnson’s most important fights in almost real time. Ali also knew what it was like to be an outcast, so he took on Stepin Fetchit as an adviser to learn from him about Jack Johnson’s unique blend of grace and power in the ring—and perhaps something about how he was such a free man outside the ring.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> He was glad to become a millionaire but do you think he had any guilt? Did he have pride that he figured out a way to take studio money and become rich?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> His hubris was to bask in his wealth and have Chinese servants in 1930s Hollywood. That pride in his achievements was understandable, but it helped lead to his fall. And he lost some favor with the Hollywood studios at the height of his fame when he started commendably resisting doing some demeaning scenes and went on suspension. After the war he became victim to what we would now call “political correctness,” and Ford was one of the few people who would hire him. As Andrew Sarris wrote of that instance of blacklisting, for postwar liberals it was “better that Fetchit be permanently unemployed than that he serve as a reminder of a shameful blind spot on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. But for Ford, Mr. Fetchit was an old friend and a familiar face, and he had to make a living like everyone else.”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Who do you want to interview for <em>Two More Cheers for Hollywood</em>?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> I am not interviewing many people these days, alas. But these days I’m mostly interviewed myself! That feels strange, but I guess it’s the way life works.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Have you thought of writing a screenplay about your Oswald-Tippit book?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> I call myself a recovering screenwriter and am happy to be out of that racket. If I get a good idea for a film now, as I occasionally do, I suppress it.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> There has been so much film scholarship over the decades, with millions of articles and thousands of books about films, directors, stars, producers, writers and everyone else. But are there still huge gaps in film history?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> Vast gaps remain to be filled. I always have liked Andrew Sarris’s phrase “a subject for further research.” That’s what film history is. We are filling in some of those gaps, such as the history of women directors. I taught a course on women directors and found that Ida Lupino is a truly great director. But there’s not a worthy book on her yet. Too much of film history is lost or forgotten, but much can still be reclaimed through diligent research and rediscovery.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Now you are filling in one gap with a critical study of another great director whose work hasn’t fully been appreciated. So <em>Two Cheers for Hollywood</em> is published and we barely have enough time to read it when you publish <em>How Did Lubitsch Do It?</em>, a critical study of Ernst Lubitsch. How do you answer the question in the title?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> <em>How Did Lubitsch Do It? </em>is a detailed and I hope rich and entertaining study of his career in both Germany and the United States. Most of the books about him deal with his work in one or the other country, and this is the first in-depth study of his entire career and the evolution of his way of working. You can’t fully understand Lubitsch’s greatness as a director of comedy and drama without knowing how he developed from his early days as a knockabout comedian to a leading director of comedies, dramas, and spectacles in Berlin into a master of sophisticated comedies in Hollywood, such as <em>The Marriage Circle</em>,<em> Trouble in Paradise</em>,<em> Ninotchka </em>and the black comedy <em>To Be Or Not To Be</em>. He invented the romantic comedy and helped pioneer the musical. In his prime he was a household name like Chaplin or Hitchcock.</div>
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Lubitsch’s unique style relied on obliqueness and indirection and respected the intelligence of the audience to put together the innuendoes. His films are about the way men and women should treat each other, so beneath the surface frivolity he is a profound moralist but one who is against conventional notions of morality. I uncovered many forgotten interviews with Lubitsch and articles by him that illuminate his way of working. He is somewhat neglected today, although he has passionately devoted fans here and there, so I am trying to bring him back to the prominence he deserves. I wrote the book partly so I could get to see the movies, which involved three research trips to Europe. Writing about Lubitsch was about the most fun one can have writing a film book!</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> How can movie fans purchase both books?</div>
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<strong>JM:</strong> Amazon is the source for ordering <em>Two Cheers for Hollywood. </em>Columbia University Press will publish <em>How Did Lubitsch Do It?</em> in June 2018. Enjoy! And thanks much for this wide-ranging interview, my old friend.</div>
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<em>Get more info and photos from </em>Two Cheers for Hollywood: Joseph McBride on Movies<em> at <a href="http://twocheersforhollywood.net/" rel="noopener" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">twocheersforhollywood.net</a>. Order your copy of the book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Two-Cheers-Hollywood-Joseph-McBride/dp/1946208191" rel="noopener" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">here</a>.</em></div>
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<em>Danny Peary has published 25 books on film and sports, including </em><span class="s1">Cult Movies</span><em> and </em><span class="s1">Jackie Robinson in Quotes</span><em>.</em></div>
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Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-4623007300566371632018-01-29T12:38:00.001-08:002018-01-29T12:38:56.702-08:00Edna’s Kin Brings Family Music to Sag HarborMusic Performance<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #074889; font-family: Conv_Gotham-Bold; font-size: 25px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: center;">Edna’s Kin Brings Family Music to Sag Harbor</span><br />
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(from Dan's Papers/DansPapers.com<br />
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<span class="date published time" style="font-weight: 700;" title="2017-11-08T06:00:33+00:00">NOVEMBER 8, 2017</span> BY DANNY PEARY</div>
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Of the many characters in Robert Altman’s Nashville, one that stands out for me is a minor player, a musician who turns up Zelig-like in band after band, all over town. The East End has its own ubiquitous musician, guitarist-pianist, singer-songwriter Dan Koontz of Sag Harbor. Koontz heads a few bands and is a sideman for others, recently playing three gigs with three groups in one day. And every Sunday morning, you can catch him playing organ at the Christ Episcopal Church, which, incidentally, is where his family band, <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2013/10/sag-harbor-band-and-youtube-superstars-ednas-kin-release-a-new-video/" rel="noopener" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Edna’s Kin</a>, will be having its annual concert at 2 p.m. on Sunday November 12.</div>
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<strong>Danny Peary:</strong> You studied classical piano and composition at a music conservatory, yet here you are on the East End playing rock, country, funk, and New Orleans music.</div>
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<strong>Dan Koontz:</strong> My father taught me to play guitar when I was about five. He was a member of the Folk Music Society of Northern New Jersey and sometimes I’d join him on stage to play my grandmother’s half-guitar and sing something like “The Cat Came Back.” He later taught me “Old Dan Tucker” and Lead Belly’s “Black Girl.” I’d sit at home strumming my guitar and listening to Dad’s records all day long—Mississippi John Hurt, Doc Watson, the Beatles. As a teenager I got an electric guitar and, after my older brother Andrew switched from classical violin to bass guitar, we played a lot of rock ’n’ roll, sometimes at parties. I was always interested in folk music and rock, but I also took piano lessons and went to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. I got paid for the first time playing in rock bands, but I thought I’d become an academic composer and teach at a university. The further in the rearview mirror that gets, the less I think it would have been a good path for me. Because for a couple of years now, I’ve been enjoying being in various bands playing all types of music.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Which bands?</div>
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<strong>DK:</strong> The Hoodoo Loungers plays New Orleans-style music. I also play keyboards doing rock with the Lynn Blue Band and Suzy on the Rocks. I’ve played with Nancy Atlas. The Rum Hill Rockers features the Hammond organ on Booker T. and the MGs, “Hush” by Deep Purple, Traffic, some Santana. The Complete Unknowns is a Dylan cover band. I’ve played with Joe Lauro’s handpicked ensembles–“The Last Waltz” at Bay Street Theater, “Sgt. Pepper’s” at the <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2017/10/patchogue-theater-halloween-richard-lewis-fall/" rel="noopener" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Patchogue Theatre</a>. About once a year, I perform with my own unnamed band and do my own songs.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Who is in Edna’s Kin?</div>
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<strong>DK:</strong> Andrew, me, and our father, Warren. The family band started about 10 years ago when my wife Stacy suggested we do a concert, not knowing we’d played together only a few times. She just knew my father played guitar—though he’d switch to bass about five years ago—Andrew played fiddle and bass, and I played guitar and piano, though with this band I stick to guitar.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> What will you play on November 12?</div>
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<strong>DK:</strong> Probably Hank Williams, Merle Travis’s version of “I Am a Pilgrim,” a couple of country gospel songs, bluegrass–Flatt & Scruggs, Bill Monroe, and a bluegrass version of a Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man.” Also the Coasters, and songs I wrote—country slash blues.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> What comes across in your always clever, and often witty, lyrics is that you understand what a rock ’n’ roll song is and what a country music song is.</div>
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<strong>DK:</strong> I do have a sense of craft when it comes to writing those songs. My family dynamic when I was growing up was that we’d clown around with each other, and I’ve always wondered if that’s what set me up to be confined to writing songs that are witty and urbane rather than heart-felt and sincere. What I hope elevates these songs is my adherence to form.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> What can people expect at your concert?</div>
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<strong>DK:</strong> To have fun. Edna’s Kin is a cheerful band. We joke around and have guest performers join us and people can sing along. If you like music, you’ll feel like you’re at a party.</div>
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<em>Edna’s Kin plays on Sunday, November 12 at 2 p.m. at Christ Episcopal Church (CEC), 4 East Union Street, Sag Harbor. All tickets at the door $15. Profits benefit the CEC Pipe Organ Restoration Fund.</em></div>
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Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-54449498562949743032018-01-29T12:35:00.000-08:002018-01-29T12:35:17.975-08:00Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Intent to Destroy’ Director Joe BerlingerPlaying in Theaters<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #074889; font-family: Conv_Gotham-Bold; font-size: 25px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: center;">Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Intent to Destroy’ Director Joe Berlinger</span><br />
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(from DansPapers.com 11/8/17)<br />
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SCENE FROM JOE BERLINGER'S "INTENT TO DESTROY"</div>
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<span class="date published time" style="font-weight: 700;" title="2017-11-08T15:02:41+00:00">NOVEMBER 8, 2017</span> BY DANNY PEARY</div>
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I strongly recommend the ambitious and powerfully enlightening new documentary by Joe Berlinger (<em>Paradise Lost </em>and two sequels<em>; Crude; Metallica: Some Kind of Monster</em>). <em>Intent to Destroy: Death, Denial & Depiction</em> opens in Manhattan at the Village East Cinema on 12<sup>th</sup> Street and 2<sup>nd</sup> Avenue on Friday, November 10. I rated it among the best films—documentary or narrative—at the last <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2017/07/danny-peary-talks-here-alone-film-star-lucy-walters/" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;">Tribeca Film Festival</a>and it was selected Best Documentary at Doc LA.</div>
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From the synopsis in the film’s Press Notes: “Pulling back the curtain on mass murder censorship in Hollywood due to U.S. government pressure to appease a strategic ally, <em>Intent to Destroy </em>embeds with a historic feature production [<em>The Promise</em>, starring Christian Bale and Oscar Isaac] as a springboard to explore the violent history of the Armenian Genocide and the legacy of Turkish suppression and denial over the past century…in the hope of inspiring a collective sense of international justice and humanity.”</div>
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The trailer:</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/K6e-4KMkriE" width="560"></iframe></div>
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In April, I was one of four journalists who participated in a roundtable with Berlinger about his impressive work.</div>
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<img alt=""Intent to Destroy" director Joe Berlinger" class=" wp-image-260450" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/IntenttodestroyBerlingerphotoDP.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/IntenttodestroyBerlingerphotoDP.jpg 640w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/IntenttodestroyBerlingerphotoDP-300x214.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/IntenttodestroyBerlingerphotoDP-312x222.jpg 312w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
“Intent to Destroy” director Joe Berlinger, Photo: Danny Peary</div>
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<strong>Danny Peary:</strong> Terry George’s <em>The Promise</em> was released earlier this year, so do you want viewers to see it as an introduction to your film?</div>
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<strong>Joe Berlinger:</strong> It’s great that <em>The Promise</em> is out there and raising attention about Armenian Genocide of 1915 and starting the dialogue going, but we always thought of <em>Intent to Destroy</em> as standing on its own. Obviously the two films are related but you don’t have to have seen <em>The Promise </em>to understand what you need to get out of <em>Intent to Destroy</em>. Really the design was to have them be independent of each other.</div>
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<strong>Journalist 2:</strong> Did your film, which contains on-set footage about the making of <em>The Promise</em>, impact that film?</div>
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<strong>JB:</strong> My role of documenting <em>The Promise</em> had zero impact on <em>The Promise</em>. My job as a documentarian was to come in and observe what is happening not to change the outcome of what they’re doing. I had no role on <em>The Promise</em> I was not there to tell them what to do or have any influence other than to observe.</div>
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<strong>J2:</strong> How did that film impact your creative process in telling your story?</div>
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<strong>JB:</strong> How the making of <em>The Promise </em>affected my approach goes to the heart of what my film is about. The producer of <em>The Promise</em>, Eric Esrailian, is not a film person but is in charge of Kirk Kerkorian’s foundation. Several years ago I was introduced to Eric by a mutual friend, another documentary producer, Chip Rosenbloom. Eric was a fan of my films and wanted to make a film about the Armenian Genocide.</div>
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Because <em>The Promise</em> was very much under wraps, a very secret production flying under the radar, Eric didn’t tell me it was being made. All he told me was he’s representing a foundation and wants to do a documentary about the Armenian Genocide. It was a subject I knew something about but after several conversations I wasn’t interested in making a film about it because I’m a present-tense, cinéma vérité filmmaker, not a historical filmmaker. So the idea of doing a talking-heads, archive-driven film wasn’t that appealing to me. It wasn’t my style of filmmaking and I knew several documentaries on the genocide existed already. I didn’t think I had anything to add to the conversation.</div>
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So I basically passed on the opportunity. But we stayed in touch and I learned that <em>The Promise</em> was being made and he started to reveal information to me about a big-budget independent movie being made with Hollywood people. That’s when a lightbulb went on for me and I said to Eric, “Look, if you want me to do a documentary about the Armenian Genocide get me into bed with this film you’re making. Because I think the eye candy of being behind the scenes of a big Hollywood movie would make the film accessible to a 21<sup>st</sup> century audience. Even though it’s a historical subject, this will give the film a present-tense narrative arc.</div>
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More importantly, going behind the scenes will allow me to add to the conversation.” I knew that it was historic that <em>The Promise</em> was being made because the history in Hollywood is that anytime a film on this subject is attempted the Turkish government calls the State Department and the State Department twists the arm of the Hollywood studio to drop the movie. So, it’s just one of those things in Hollywood that you don’t make a movie about the Armenian genocide, which I find really morally problematic. It’d be like pulling Steven Spielberg aside and saying, “Hey, don’t make <em>Schindler’s List</em> because we don’t want to offend the Germans.”</div>
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I felt the behind-the-scenes-of-<em>The-Promise</em> structure would allow me to tell not just the history of the genocide, but also the history of the denial, the mechanism of denial, and the aftermath of denial. That no one had ever made a film about that so I thought that would allow me to add to the conversation. Also, I’m fascinated by how you depict atrocity on screen. That’s why <em>Intent to Destroy</em> is divided into three chapters: Death, Denial & Depiction.</div>
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<img alt="Cattle car in "Intent to Destroy"" class=" wp-image-260452" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/intenttodestroy-cattlecar.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/intenttodestroy-cattlecar.jpg 700w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/intenttodestroy-cattlecar-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/intenttodestroy-cattlecar-150x100.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/intenttodestroy-cattlecar-334x222.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Cattle car in “Intent to Destroy”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Which is the subtitle of your movie.</div>
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<strong>JB:</strong> Right. Death: I’m going to give you an overview on how people were killed. Denial: I’m going to give you the definitive history of how this story in particular has been repressed and of the aftermath and effect of denial. Because as smarter people than I have said, the final stage of genocide is Denial. There are lessons today for that in this fake-news, alternative-facts universe, where <em>Time</em> magazine’s cover story is about the death of truth. Depiction: I’m going to be able to show in a documentary some things a narrative film can’t. Like with the massacre scene that Terry Jones portrays in <em>The Promise</em>. Every victim on screen is clothed because you can’t show what they really looked like and get a PG rating. But a documentary can. How do you deal with those kinds of storytelling issues? For me the film works on many levels and by embedding with <em>The Promise</em> I could really elevate the behind-the-scenes genre to tell an important historical story that gets into a lot of very weighty issues. I tried to make a film that’s not just about history but has real relevance for today and issues that we’re facing.</div>
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<strong>Journalist 3:</strong> History is often written by the winning country.</div>
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<strong>JB:</strong> And the Turkish education system doesn’t teach about the Armenian Genocide.</div>
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<strong>J3:</strong> How should children in Turkey be taught about it?</div>
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<strong>JB:</strong> That’s a tough issue.. How do we affect the victor’s educational system? By making films and getting the word out. I’m not sure we have the ability to affect what goes on in the Turkish educational system other than by the court of world public opinion and by standing up for what’s right. That’s why I find it so morally repugnant that the United States refuses to acknowledge the Armenian genocide just because we want to use Turkey for air force bases.</div>
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I think something as weighty and immoral as a genocide and its accountability should be political capital. I think only a greater emphasis on truth in the worldwide community will force countries to deal with their legacies as best as they can, including the United States. We still don’t appropriately deal with the genocide of the Native Americans in our own country. But, as you see in the film, when the genocide was happening there were 150 articles about it in <em>The</em> <em>New York Times</em>, and through the Near East Relief Effort, the largest relief effort that had ever been mounted, Americans were sending tons of money to help the Armenians.</div>
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Today, most Americans don’t know that positive chapter in American history because of our government’s policy. So to change the educational system of a country that doesn’t teach about its atrocities starts with the world community standing up for what’s right and truthful. In this instance, I find U.S. complicity in covering up the genocide to be really troubling. Other countries, like Israel, don’t recognize the genocide.</div>
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I think a country born out of the ashes of the Holocaust has a special moral responsibility to recognize genocide where it happens, but they’ve traded standing up for what’s morally correct for a relationship with Turkey and I think that’s particularly problematic. Especially since Israel and America like to hold themselves up as models for human rights around the world.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In your film, you show that after the assassination of the activist journalist Hrant Dink in 2007, because he spoke about the denial of Armenian Genocide, there was a large protest in Turkey. So there was the seed of democracy before the recent crackdown by <em>Erdoğan. </em>Is there still any kind of movement of people who recognize there was a genocide?</div>
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<strong>JB:</strong> There’s a growing contingent of Turkish people who recognize it and who advocate for change. It’s not an easy opinion to have because it’s against the law in Turkey to talk what happened in 1915 as genocide. In this current regime with Erdogan’s widened powers and Turkey having the most journalists jailed of any country, I think it’s going to be challenging to have protests.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Has there ever been a film like yours before? Has somebody ever done a mixed documentary that details the making of a film and uses footage from that film to fill in gaps in history?</div>
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<strong>JB:</strong> There have been great making-of-movies documentaries like <em>Burden of Dreams</em>, about the making of <em>Fitzcarraldo</em>, and <em>Heart of Darkness</em> about the making of <em>Apocalypse Now.</em> But I think I’ve pushed the genre in a considerable way. Actually, the behind-the-scenes story–the inside story about how that film was made–isn’t that relevant in my film. <em>Burden of Dreams</em> is all about the relationship between the director Werner Herzog and star Klaus Kinski and the extent to which making that film was just this arduous journey. But I am using the making of <em>The Promise</em> as a structural device to tell the history of the genocide and the history of denial and to pose questions about how one can portray atrocity on the screen.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> <em>The Promise </em>is a narrative with a true story as the background. And I say your film is unique in that you have taken that historical fiction, <em>The Promise</em>, and made it real again, taking the true story back by jettisoning the fiction—and making it a documentary. That’s really interesting.</div>
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<strong>JB:</strong> Exactly. I would like to think I pushed the envelope on this behind-the-scenes genre.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In a Q&A in the film’s press notes you say, “I hope to create a dialogue to help bring closure to this painful chapter in history.” Is <em>closure</em> the right word? Can the Armenians ever have closure? And do they want to have closure? I don’t think you mean to say that once there’s no more denial everyone can move on.</div>
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<strong>JB:</strong> I was talking about closure to the <em>debate </em>about whether it really happened. I’ve done a ton of criminal justice stuff and closure is not about “Okay, I feel better” for victims of crime. Closure is a funny concept, but closure is about accountability. People want to know a crime has been solved and that the perpetrator is in prison. It’s not about having emotional closure because the pain will never go away. The pain for the Armenian people will never go away. The pain is exacerbated and amplified by the lack of acknowledgement. So, the closure is about the debate. It happened, the debate is over. As I said before, the final stage of genocide is denial so unless that’s pushed back and people have acknowledgment on the crime that has happened they can never have closure on that issue. As to the pain of losing family members, there’s never closure.</div>
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<strong>J3:</strong> You asked questions in your film of historians on the Turkish side, who argue that there was no genocide. Was it a challenge you faced to have more of a balance?</div>
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<strong>JB:</strong> Being balanced doesn’t mean you can’t have an opinion. My film is very clear on where I stand on the issue of whether or not there was a genocide. But I do believe that I should have balance. And this is where I differ from many of the people who are involved in this movement. They’ll probably read this and go, “Joe, why’d you say that?” I don’t believe that everyone who thinks the genocide was not a genocide has just been bought off or is morally deficient. I think that some people truly believe this opinion. It demonstrates how successful the Turkish campaign has been to discredit the genocide.</div>
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But I do believe there are people who genuinely believe there was not a genocide. My approach is that I treat everyone with humanity and respect. I don’t believe I throw any of those people under the bus or make them feel bad for having articulated their opinions, I let them have their say and I let the viewer deicide. I have faith in the viewer. I show both sides. My point of view is in the film and the truth rises to the top and that’s what I hope the viewer will gravitate to. The best example of that is the original <em>Paradise Lost</em>. I didn’t tell you exactly what to think, I presented all sides and I trusted the audience to come to their own conclusion, which I think is a different approach than taken by many advocacy filmmakers who are afraid to put in the opposing point of view. Probably 20 percent of people who saw the original <em>Paradise Lost</em> walked out of the theater thinking we’d made a film about guilty teenagers. That’s unfortunate because that was not my point of view, but that’s the price you pay when you are balanced. Certain films lecture to you and bang a point of view over your head. That’s a very passive experience where you’re being persuaded to agree with the filmmaker’s opinion.</div>
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I prefer to treat the audience like a jury. I’m not afraid to tell you my point of view, but here’s an opposing point of view and you in the audience will make the decision. And when you come to your own conclusion, as opposed to being lectured to, it’s a much more emotionally engaging experience. For <em>Paradise Lost</em>, the 80 percent who realized the accused boys were innocent came to that conclusion themselves instead of from me telling them that, and when you come to that conclusion yourself, it’s much more impassioned, and that’s what produced tens of thousands of people around the world banding together.</div>
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The three <em>Paradise Lost</em> films are given a lot of credit for getting these guys out of prison but it was the combination of the films and tens of thousands of people banding together saying, “We’ve got to do something about that.” And you evoke that response only by giving your audience the intelligence they deserve to come to their own conclusion. When interviewing the people who represent the opinion that the Armenian Genocide didn’t happen, I felt I had to treat them with respect and give them the dignity of expressing their beliefs.</div>
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So, I fully expect some people to watch <em>Intent to Destroy</em> and say, “Well, there’s still a debate, I’m not sure there was a genocide.” That’s the price you pay for treating an audience with respect. But hopefully most people will come away from it feeling like this is an injustice that needs to be made right.</div>
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<img alt=""Intent to Destroy" movie poster" class=" wp-image-260449" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/intent_to_destroyposter2.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/intent_to_destroyposter2.jpg 500w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/intent_to_destroyposter2-202x300.jpg 202w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/intent_to_destroyposter2-149x222.jpg 149w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/intent_to_destroyposter2-314x467.jpg 314w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/intent_to_destroyposter2-300x446.jpg 300w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="375" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
“Intent to Destroy” movie poster</div>
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<strong>J3:</strong> As an artist how do you protect your works?</div>
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<strong>JB:</strong> Luckily, I’ve never been in a position where my films are not shown.</div>
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<strong>J3:</strong> But you had problems with Chevron with your film <em>Crude</em>.</div>
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<strong>JB:</strong> Chevron wasn’t trying to stop me from showing <em>Crude</em>. Chevron wanted access to footage from it because it is about the lawsuit against them by the Ecuadorian Amazon Indigenous people–they were suing Chevron for oil pollution damage. I was making a film about that underlying lawsuit and they subpoenaed my footage to help their defense against the lawsuit that I was making a film about. I as an artist felt I had an obligation to my profession and to my subject to fight that subpoena. I ultimately lost and had to turn my footage over, but my film is still in release. I guess as an artist the answer to your question is: <em>Crude</em> cost 1.2 million dollars to make and the lawsuit cost me 1.3 million dollars to defend my footage–fortunately, I had support to help me pay for that. I’ve taken on corrupt prosecutors in <em>Paradise Lost</em>, I’ve taken on morally ambiguous decisions by the Department of Justice in <em>Whitey: United States v James J. Bulger</em>, and I’ve taken on this project. I don’t shrink from controversy. If you’re going to tackle controversial subjects you have to be prepared to put up a fight.</div>
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<strong>J2:</strong> You’ve covered a wide variety of subjects. You’ve also done both feature films and long form and digital and Netflix. For up and coming filmmakers, what advice do you have in term of how do you decide if a particular story should be a long film or short film?</div>
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<strong>JB:</strong> We could do a seminar on that. Whether something should be for long form or short form is all about good characters and good storytelling. It’s so basic but a lot of young filmmakers decide to make a film about a subject as opposed to finding a character with a story or situation that reflects on some universal theme. That’s what I always look for. I find everything is never what it appears to be. That’s the link between all of my films so I don’t think they’re so far afield. From the start, it’s been: the truth is never what it appears to be not, life is much more complex than black and white. And I’ve loved to blow up stereotypes. It might be the smelly old farm brothers in <em>Brother’s Keeper </em>who you think you don’t want to spend time with but by the end of the film you’ve come to love. In <em>Paradise Lost, </em>we see that if a guy dresses in black and listens to heavy metal music, he must be a killer. That’s a stereotype. My thing is to turn conventional wisdom on its head. I think if you figure out what you want to express and you find a good character and a story that allows you to get emotionally engaged with your subject but is importantly a window into a much larger world, the length of the film will figure itself out.</div>
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<strong>J2:</strong> Looking at the burying of history in <em>Intent to Destroy</em> and the events in the world today, including in America with its race issues and persecution of the LGBT community, what do you think is happening right now that in 20, 50, or 100 years folks will look back on and wonder why nobody did anything about it?</div>
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<strong>JB:</strong> These are very perilous times with rising nationalism, growing xenophobia, growing protectionist policies. That Donald trump is our president says a lot. There’s going to be a lot to look back on and say: “Why didn’t we take stronger action?” That’s why I think <em>Intent to Destroy</em>, even though it’s a historical subject, has relevance because it expresses a need for people to accept historical responsibility and own up to the truth. We’re living in times when people are so overwhelmed with a multiplicity of opinions that they are are paralyzed with inaction. I think we’re going to regret that in the future.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Take note that on Saturday November 11 at 6:45 p.m. at the IFC Center, with Joe Berlinger present, Doc NYC will present the first two parts of the director’s Sundance Channel’s docuseries, <em>Cold-Blooded: The Clutter Family Murders. </em>Also worth seeking out at the country’s top documentary festival are Barbara Kopple’s <em>A Murder in Mansfield</em>; Asud Faruqi and Geeta Gandbhir’s<em> Armed with Faith</em>; Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s <em>One of </em>Us; Sonja Sohn’s <em>Baltimore Rising</em>; Laura Poitras’s <em>Risk; </em>Sam Pollard’s <em>Maynard</em>; Julia Bacha’s <em>Naila and the Uprising</em>; Mariam Shaar’s <em>Sky & Ground; </em>and Errol Morris’s <em>Wormwood</em>.</div>
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<em>Danny Peary has published 25 books on film and sports, including </em><span class="s1">Cult Movies</span><em> and </em><span class="s1">Jackie Robinson in Quotes</span><em>.</em></div>
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Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-43507376188173409262018-01-29T12:32:00.000-08:002018-01-29T12:32:00.799-08:00Danny Peary Talks to… ‘Tom of Finland’ Director and CastPlaying in Theaters<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #074889; font-family: Conv_Gotham-Bold; font-size: 25px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: center;">Danny Peary Talks to… ‘Tom of Finland’ Director and Cast</span><br />
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(from DansPapers.com 10/12/17)<br />
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SCENE FROM "TOM OF FINLAND"</div>
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<span class="date published time" style="font-weight: 700;" title="2017-10-12T14:29:34+00:00">OCTOBER 12, 2017</span> BY DANNY PEARY</div>
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Surely since the beginning of the sexual revolution in America in the 1970s, almost every adult has come across the bold, ultra-masculine, ground-breaking homoerotic fetish art of Finnish illustrator Touko Laaksonen (1920-1991), better known as Tom of Finland. But unless you’ve taken a tour of the Tom of Finland House in the Echo Park section of Los Angeles or attended recent exhibitions of his work in Berlin, it’s unlikely that you know his entire story.</div>
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There’s no better way to learn about this iconic LGBT pioneer than to see Finnish director Dome Karukosi’s faithful, heartfelt, and splendidly acted <em>Tom of Finland</em>. The film opens this Friday in New York at the Quad on West 13<sup>th</sup> Street, and next Friday in L.A., Berkeley and San Francisco, before having a multi-city release. Also, this Sunday it will play at the in Huntington. It is Finland’s official submission to the Oscars in 2018.</div>
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The synopsis: “Touko Laaksonen (Pekka Strang), a decorated officer returns home to live with his sister Kaija (Jessica Grabowsky) after a harrowing and heroic experience serving his country in World War II. But life in Finland during peacetime proves equally distressing. He finds postwar Helsinki rampant with homophobic persecution….Touko finds refuge in his liberating art: homoerotic drawings of muscular men, free of inhibitions. But it is only when an American [Seumas Sargent as Doug] sees them, has them published, and invites Touko to visit the West Coast that his life early takes a turn. Finally able to walk free and proud in Los Angeles, Touko dives head first into the sexual revolution, becoming an icon and a rallying point.”</div>
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Karukosi’s Director’s Statement: “This is the story of a man ahead of his time, bravely standing up against a world virulently against his right to be who he was—a homosexual man with homosexual fantasies. Story shows how literally one person can create change in the world even with something as simple as an artist’s tools….Touko Laaksonen truly lived an incredible life worth sharing with the world.”</div>
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The trailer:</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TKFA4WrPlfo" width="560"></iframe></div>
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In April, during the Tribeca Film Festival, I was able to have the following conversation about <em>Tom of Finland </em>with Dome Karukosi (a rising star who is slated to direct a biopic of J.R.R. Tolkien), and his enthusiastic cast members, Pekka Strang, Jessica Grabowsky and Seumas Sargent.</div>
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<img alt="Seumas Sargent, Pekka Strang, Dome Karukoski and Jessica Grabowsky of "Tom of Finland"" class=" wp-image-259485" height="366" sizes="(max-width: 549px) 100vw, 549px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/tomoffinlandgroupphoto.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/tomoffinlandgroupphoto.jpg 700w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/tomoffinlandgroupphoto-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/tomoffinlandgroupphoto-150x100.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/tomoffinlandgroupphoto-334x222.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="549" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Seumas Sargent, Pekka Strang, Dome Karukoski and Jessica Grabowsky of “Tom of Finland,” Photo: Danny Peary</div>
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<strong>Danny Peary:</strong> I was looking at Wikipedia this morning and was actually surprised that Touko Laaksonen—Tom of Finland—was listed among the famous people who are from Finland. Did you always know about him?</div>
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<strong>Dome Karukoski:</strong> When I was a boy, from 12 to 14, someone in our “gang” found or stole one of his comic books from somewhere. And we were giggling, thinking someone from America had visited Finland and been inspired by something here and had taken “Tom of Finland” as his alias. We didn’t really know he was Finnish until his death a couple of years later, in 1991. Even after, in the nineties, there was a silent period about him because it was still illegal to promote gay material in Finland.</div>
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<strong>Pekka Strang:</strong> Until 1999.</div>
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<strong>DK:</strong> Yes. Homosexuality was decriminalized in 1971 but it was considered a sickness until 1981, and the law against the promotion of gay material—the same law they have in Russia now—lasted until 1999. So Tom of Finland’s art couldn’t be made visible until then. In the new millennium we could see his material slowly popping up in Finland.</div>
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<strong>PS:</strong> There are actually two parts to him: the Tom of Finland brand and the artist behind the images. I never knew anything about the artist. I think that’s the case with most people in Finland—they know only the brand. We’re starting to be proud of the brand but we’re still asking, “Who was the artist behind it?” That’s what this movie is about.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When you say “brand,” is that mostly fashion and homoerotic products?</div>
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<strong>PS:</strong> All kinds of things, even coffee.</div>
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<strong>Jessica Grabowsky:</strong> The stamps were a huge thing. I was working in Sweden when they were issued, and people were asking me, “Can you get me those stamps, please?” That was one of the first things with the Tom of Holland brand.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> That was in 2014 and I think that was the first time there was erotic imagery on stamps.</div>
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<strong>PS:</strong> It wasn’t the most hardcore, of course.</div>
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<strong>DK:</strong> However, there was an image of a man’s ass, so there was the funny idea of you licking a man’s ass when you put that stamp on an envelope. So there was a double entendre! That stamp was bought all over the world, in over 150 countries. It was probably the stamp that sold out quickest in Finnish postal history. They did a test of its popularity by sending seven packages of Tom of Finland stamps into Russia. Five arrived and what happened to the other two is still a mystery.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Pekka, did Dome tell you about Touka, or did you have time to do research?</div>
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<strong>PS:</strong> When I was called for casting, I started to read about him and learned about him being in the war. And I met a few of his friends. The problem was that Tom died in 1991 so those people were quite old and knew him just in the seventies and eighties. So we didn’t have first-hand material from the forties, fifties and sixties. Still, meeting his friends was helpful in my making an interpretation of who he was.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did the people you talked to think of him as someone they loved or someone who was strange or something else?</div>
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<strong>PS:</strong> It was like this: He was funny, he was really nice, he was a beloved uncle, he was good at work, he was a good soldier. He was successful at everything he did. What I was told by Durk Dehner of the Tom of Finland Foundation in Los Angeles was: “You must understand that Tom was a Nordic god.” I said, “Okay.”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> It’s interesting that Tom of Finland’s road to fame started in California, when Doug, Seumas’s character, started promoting his art and getting it published, and it became huge in the homosexual community there, particularly in Los Angeles and San Francisco.</div>
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<strong>DK:</strong> We had to keep the film tight and not have too many characters, so we combined a few and altered their names. The character of Doug is actually the combination of two real people. The young Doug is taken from one person and the older Doug is taken from Durk Dehner.</div>
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<strong>Seumas Sargent:</strong> And I play Doug. It was a late casting process for me.</div>
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<strong>JG:</strong> It was like two days before!</div>
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<strong>SS:</strong> Right, so I didn’t really have time to do research, and it was a little disarming knowing I was going to be playing a living person who I wanted to give respect. I had the pleasure of meeting the real Doug—Durk—at our premiere in Helsinki. I turned around and we recognized each other. I said, “I hope I did you justice,” and he gave me a big hug. That was quite rewarding.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I am curious about Durk Dehner’s foundation, which is located in the two-story house where Tom lived and worked in Echo Park in L.A, beginning in the seventies. Does it have a large amount of Tom of Finland material in addition to the illustrations?</div>
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<strong>DK:</strong> From the time we started doing research for this film in 2011, the foundation provided us with the most help in formulating his character and all the characters around him. Once we secured the licensing rights to the art in 2015, we started our collaboration with the foundation and it opened its archives to us. Over the years, it had collected all of Tom’s letters, the photographs he took, and the photographs taken of him. Having never met him in person, it was important for us to learn about him from stories and anecdotes we came across, from the people who knew him. That really generated the character in the film.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did he write an autobiography or are there good biographies about him?</div>
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<strong>DK:</strong> There are a couple of books about him and a couple that he was involved in, based on interviews. And also there is a documentary in which he is interviewed, but that was in 1991 so it was the older version of Tom. As Petta said, the difficulty we had was finding the 20 and 30-year-old Tom, and we found that in the letters and the subjects he was interested in photographing. There is an interesting history. Tom was ill for a long time and he was afraid that if his art remained in Finland, it would be destroyed. So he started smuggling his work—all that is in Tom House in Echo Park—out of the country during his visits to Los Angeles. He didn’t trust his family or his sister to preserve it. In the film, Tom and Kaija have a love/hate relationship and she was upset by his art.</div>
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<img alt="Pekka Strang as "Tom of Finland"" class=" wp-image-259487" height="366" sizes="(max-width: 549px) 100vw, 549px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/TomofFinlandFilmStill.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/TomofFinlandFilmStill.jpg 700w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/TomofFinlandFilmStill-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/TomofFinlandFilmStill-150x100.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/TomofFinlandFilmStill-334x222.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="549" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Pekka Strang in Tom of Finland</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> So he really cared about his legacy.</div>
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<strong>DK:</strong> As most artists do.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Jessica, what is Kaija’s role in the movie, her function in the script?</div>
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<strong>JG:</strong> Maybe her role is to mirror the thoughts of that time, to show that even someone who loves Tom doesn’t appreciate his art.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> To me she also represents good, regular people who still can’t move over to his side.</div>
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<strong>JG:</strong> You have to put her in context of a time when his homoerotic art was illegal in Finland.</div>
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<strong>PS:</strong> Also, she represents the silence regarding such art and other things that weren’t talked about in Finland. Just like <em>don’t ask, don’t tell</em>.</div>
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<strong>SS:</strong> There’s acknowledgment and denial and more acknowledgment and denial, and so much built-up tension in the relationship between Tom and Kaija.</div>
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<strong>JG:</strong> I don’t think it’s just denial. It’s also protection because Tom is her brother and she loves him a great deal. She wants what is best for him and thinks he’s safer if he doesn’t exhibit that kind of art.</div>
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<strong>DK:</strong> Again, in Finland, homosexuality was considered a sickness then, so people like Kaija assumed Tom and other homosexuals could heal and become heterosexual. I was always touched by the story of Kaija. There are all these pictures of her with Tom and Veli [his lover played by Lauri Tilkanen] when they traveled in Germany and became like a threesome. Then Kaija denied Tom’s art. Two times. Once when he was living, when she told him that he wasn’t allowed to use their name Laaksonen or have exhibitions in Finland—Durk was actually present at that meeting. And when Durk called Kaija in 2006 to congratulate her because her brother’s art had been accepted by MOMA—and she said, “What are they thinking?”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> There is a scene in the movie in which Tom says that it is not a matter of being cured. Do you think Touko realized on his own when he was a teenager that homosexuality was not a sickness?</div>
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<strong>PS:</strong> He was actually younger. He was 10 years old when he started looking at lumberjacks and bus drivers. I don’t think he thought he was doing anything wrong. He never had that crisis with himself. But of course, he understood society so he lived a double life to protect his family from scandal. That’s at least what I learned.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I’d think that he was in the minority among gay men at that time in thinking that there was no cure and that it was okay.</div>
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<strong>PS:</strong> I can’t claim with certainty that I’m correct, but I believe it’s a true picture of his philosophy in life. If you look at his illustrations, you see men who are proud and happy and enjoying each other. He couldn’t not acknowledge being gay and do those drawings. He drew them at night and they were his fantasies and his utopia.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Dome, there is such structure to this film—and Tom’s life—that my guess is that when you were working with your scriptwriter, Aleksi Bardy, you were you setting up the story as Section 1, Section 2, Section 3, etc.?</div>
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<strong>DK:</strong> We did, thank you for noticing. We divided it into five segments. We were trying to find time spans of about five years each, but we couldn’t because his transformation as a character and his transformation as an artist and his influence happened during each of <em>four </em>decades. So we had to have all four decades in the film. So we divided the film into five sections that we felt were important emotionally to Tom and started building the script from that. We came up with the segments based on listening to him in his interviews. The war, the first section, was obviously important. You see the influence of uniforms on his art. Everything that happened during the war stayed with him until the end of his life, and I think he experienced several “wars,” including the AIDS war. I say that because it must have felt to him like he was again waging war against an enemy and young men were dying around him.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> The section of the film that takes place after World War II is extremely tense. You film both Tom’s smuggling of his art by train into Germany and his homosexual hookups—with people meeting clandestinely and the vigilante police looking to arrest them—almost as if you were making an espionage movie. Was that your intention?</div>
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<strong>DK:</strong> I believe that he felt that time in his life was like that. He was smuggling his art on trains and he had to photograph it so it was small enough to fit into a small envelope and look like a letter. A big envelope would arouse suspicion. He had to think up ways of doing things without being arrested and his actions inspired the thriller element in the movie. I could have done a whole movie about that alone.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> If viewers just saw that scene where he is being interrogated, they’d think he was possibly a spy, as he was accused of being by German authorities, rather than an artist trying to smuggle his own homoerotic art. Because according to the laws, they were both serious crimes.</div>
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<strong>DK:</strong> It was a different era and there were laws in place against homosexuality dating back to the Nazis. He was actually interrogated for three days about being a spy. It was Berlin, Cold War, Tom was trying to acquire a passport.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Seumas, do you think Doug is totally altruistic about promoting Tom’s art, or is he also thinking about making money?</div>
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<strong>SS:</strong> I think he has a completely altruistic standpoint. He loves the art and is fascinated by the idea of these leaked publications. He becomes pen pals with Tom and a pivotal moment is when he brings the art into California. In the film’s portrayal of the gay guys at the pool with Doug, you see how free we can actually be in this setting as opposed to the dark undercurrent of suspicion and threat the pervades the first part of the film that Tom is in. Doug takes this whole trip from publisher to publisher to get Tom’s art published so it can be seen, to the point where he comes to Z in the alphabet. He wouldn’t do that if it was just about making money. So I would say, yeah, he’s completely altruistic.</div>
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<strong>DK:</strong> Durk, the real-life person, has committed his life to Tom’s art. As in the film, he wrote Tom and invited him to come to California and he arranged the first exhibitions in New York and San Francisco. After that he became Tom’s partner and manager and later on the head of the Tom of Finland Foundation. So he dedicated his whole life to Tom and his art. Tom, of course, is his biggest inspiration.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> How much of what you have in the film was true about the art being published by the last house Doug came to and it being a small Jewish house?</div>
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<strong>DK:</strong> At a time even liberals in L.A. were accusing Tom of promoting the sex that was causing the AIDS epidemic, Moishe was saying, “Of course, I’ll publish him, no problem.” All the crazy things in the film with Moishe, his daughter Hava, and even the bunny that is smuggled into the hospital and escapes and causes chaos really happened!</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Tom of Finland’s art is always super-masculine, with huge, muscular bodies and leather, so was he ever criticized by gays who didn’t see themselves as that way?</div>
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<strong>DK:</strong> For a time, Tom was not cool with everyone. You often hear heterosexuals stupidly ask, “What do gays think?” as if all gays are of one type. Tom’s depicting hyper-masculinity was liberating for many gays. They thought, “Yes, I can be like that.” For instance, a high school quarterback might tell himself, “I can’t be gay because all gays are feminine,” but Tom’s art told him, “I am allowed to be gay and be the way I am. I can put my leather jacket on and move to Los Angeles.” Of course, it caused a counter-response during that time. Now I think the LGBT community sees his art as a good thing.</div>
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<strong>JG:</strong> I think at first there was criticism because gays felt pressure to look like the men in Tom’s art and wear black leather.</div>
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<strong>SS:</strong> If those people who are aware of Tom only for being a slightly pornographic artist actually saw his real artwork with uber-masculine superhero figures, they’d realize that it’s a stand-alone, exceptional genre of art. It isn’t just semi-pornographic images in a magazine that you flip through, but something that is truly substantial and remarkable. The stamps, the coffee—the artwork is fascinating and not just because it’s sexual and risqué. When I saw the original art for the first time is was when it really hit me what I was doing and what the movie is about. That art is outstandingly good.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Pekka, what do you admire most about Tom?</div>
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<strong>PS:</strong> His courage. He was 21 when he was fighting in the war and seeing people die around him, and after that experience his focus on life is different from our own today. He realized after that, that life can end at any point and there is no reason to be afraid anymore.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Jessica, Kaija is peripheral to Tom’s story and it could be told with Kaija being just a minor player because we never see her life outside of her relationship with him. But it’s your strong performance that makes her a major character. Were you ever afraid that she would get lost in the movie?</div>
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<strong>JG:</strong> I didn’t think about that. I was afraid that she’d be kind of black-and-white and just be the bitch that everyone would hate. That was my main focus.</div>
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<strong>DK:</strong> I will confirm that we were so focused on building Tom’s character that Kaija was a black-and-white character in the script. What you see in the film is very much different because Jessica came along and we started talking about and rebuilding the character. It is very much due to her that her character has such substance.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> What is the importance of <em>Tom of Finland</em> coming out now, in 2017?</div>
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<strong>PS:</strong> I know they’d been planning it for years and were supposed to shoot it earlier when I wasn’t involved, so I’m happy it took so long. The world has changed a lot. There is the rise of conservative and nationalistic movements, so it’s really important to tell our history so we never go back to that time. With all respect to the United States, there are some bad things happening here also. So I’m hopeful that we can bring some humanity to the world. The most positive reaction by the LGBT community in Finland to the movie is the realization that this is probably our first movie in which the lead character is gay but it isn’t an issue. I’ve read several columns about how we have a gay lead character and audiences don’t question his sexuality.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> That’s because he doesn’t.</div>
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<strong>PS:</strong> He doesn’t. We tried to focus on that.</div>
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<strong>SS:</strong> This movie is a gift. I told Dome that as an actor you don’t often engage to this extent with the work that you do. There are wonderful moments, but they’re often fleeting. This is a project all of us are so wholeheartedly invested in because it has clout, it has weight, it is so significant. So being part of this movie and being with it at Tribeca, apropos the times we are living in, is a gift.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> And what about getting Touko’s name out there?</div>
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<strong>DK:</strong> I think he’d be really proud. He would accept any way of getting his art out there. Any coffee, any stamp, any movie. He wouldn’t want to be in the spotlight and stand in front of people talking into a microphone—the rumor is that they had to drug him to get him to do that because he was so nervous—but he’d be very happy to get his art out there at this time in history. Without shame. Without fear. And as a way to fight oppression.</div>
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<em>Danny Peary has published 25 books on film and sports, including </em><span class="s1">Cult Movies</span><em> and </em><span class="s1">Jackie Robinson in Quotes</span><em>.</em></div>
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Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-15121488830282220742018-01-29T12:27:00.001-08:002018-01-29T12:27:37.035-08:00Danny Peary Talks To… ‘The Misogynists’ Writer-Director Onur TukelPlaying in Theaters<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Conv_Gotham-Bold; font-size: 25px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: center;">Danny Peary Talks To… ‘The Misogynists’ Writer-Director Onur Tukel</span><br />
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(from DansPapers.com 10/5/17)<br />
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DYLAN BAKER AND JAMIE BLOCK AS CAMERON AND BAXTER.</div>
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<span class="date published time" style="font-weight: 700;" title="2017-10-05T10:43:14+00:00">OCTOBER 5, 2017</span> BY DANNY PEARY</div>
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It is becoming an increasingly frequent ritual for me to champion one of the independent cinema’s most idiosyncratic, passionate, and hilarious filmmakers, Onur Tukel. Not only has the 45-year-old Turkish American writer, director and sometimes actor been prolific, but he also he has been punctual, churning out difficult films with shocking regularity: the slightly mad and very chatty philosophical comedy/drama <em>Richard’s Wedding </em>in 2012; the gruesome comic vampire film, <em>Summer of Blood</em> in 2014; the delightful black comedy <em>Applesauce </em>in 2016; and the wild and controversial futuristic satire/revenge tale, <em>Catfight</em>, in which Anne Heche and Sandra Oh engage in three knockdown, no-punches-pulled physical encounters, in early 2017. He has other projects ready for release, but the good news is that he was so incensed by Donald Trump’s victory last November that he has squeezed in another film in this calendar year, just in time for the Hamptons International Film Festival. <em>The Misogynists</em>.</div>
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This scathing, decadent satire that showcases an array of amusing characters, brilliant and daring performances, and sizzling dialogue may be his best film yet and even corral him a mainstream audience for the first time, despite some XXX-language. The synopsis from the press notes: <em>Cameron (Dylan Baker) is a lonely businessman and Trump supporter who has recently separated from his wife of 35 years. Now living on his own in a hotel room, he celebrates Election Night with his sad-sack protégé Baxter (Jamie Block), who is experiencing marital woes of his own. As the night progresses, the two men find their beliefs, motivations and identities challenged. </em>And since all Tukel’s films are about characters who are experiencing escalated downward spirals, with situations going from bad to abominable, be prepared to fasten your seat belts, as Margo Channing would say, because it’s going to be a bumpy night. Last week I had this conversation with Tukel about his new movie and the political views that inspired it, and as always he wasn’t at a loss for words. I was, as when I last interviewed Tukel, amazed how he can digress from a topic and go off on a seemingly unrelated tangent yet somehow circle back and tie in what he’s been saying to what we were first talking about. You’ll see! Like me, he is excited that <em>The Misogynists </em>has been chosen for this weekend’s film festival, and that he will no longer be a secret.</div>
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<img alt="Onur Tukel" class="wp-image-259050" height="413" sizes="(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/misogynistsonurphoto.jpeg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/misogynistsonurphoto.jpeg 640w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/misogynistsonurphoto-300x225.jpeg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/misogynistsonurphoto-296x222.jpeg 296w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/misogynistsonurphoto-623x467.jpeg 623w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Onur Tukel. Photo: Danny Peary</div>
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<strong>Danny Peary:</strong> When we talked just prior to the release of <em>Catfight</em>, you told me you were soon going to make this film. Was it already written and ready to shoot?</div>
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<strong>Onur Tukel:</strong> When we talked in March of 2017, I think I was on the fifth or sixth draft of the script. I did nine drafts total.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did you start writing <em>The Misogynists</em> on election night?</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> I started writing it the next day. I copyrighted the first draft of the script on November 17th, 2016, less than 10 days after the election, and then I spent seven months rewriting the movie before we shot it this spring.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> What was your frame of mind when Trump won? Did you know you’d have to make a movie about it?</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> Well, I was shocked. And then, you know, I was angry. And I had the same smug reaction as a lot of liberals: “How could these idiots vote for Trump?” But then, my anger turned toward the liberals who didn’t go out and vote for Hillary Clinton. This is what fueled my writing. It became very therapeutic. I also found a defense mechanism to deal with the defeat. I thought back to how I felt when George W. Bush got re-elected in 2004. I was really devastated that night. And I kept thinking about how collectively insane the country was during that time, which I refer to as the “Decade of Defeat” in America. And when Trump won, I told myself, “Things may seem crazy now, but are they as crazy as they were then?” The answer was “No.” I told myself, “Trump hasn’t started a war. And until he does, I’m going to give him a chance.” But EVERYTHING annoyed me after the election. I remember walking near Columbus Circle a few days later and there was a parade of protestors screeching some vapid platitudes through a megaphone. It was shrill and annoying. In the wake of a contentious year, during which the election has oozed itself into every pore of the culture, we were right back where we started on November the 9th! For a while in my twenties, I trained to be a boxer. And I remember hitting that fucking punching bag, just unleashing my rage, it felt so good. And man, writing this script kind of felt the same way. I just unleashed my anger onto the page. It’s kept me relatively sane.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> From what I understood, the film was going to be about two Trump supporters in a hotel room on election night. But was it ever going to be just two characters?</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> No, it was always designed with various characters venturing in and out of the room.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Talk about the collection of people who populate your film.</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> You have Cameron, a middle-aged man with a great salary. He’s been married for over 35 years but has recently separated from his wife. There’s Baxter, his obsequious protégé, who’s keeping him company on election night. Baxter’s wife, Alice, is at home, trying her best not to lose her mind at the thought of Donald Trump being President—she thinks the sky is falling. An ex-colleague at work, Grant, stops by to imbibe with Cameron and Baxter. He and Alice are the liberal voices of the film. There’s Francis and Don, an interracial couple staying in the hotel room next door, annoyed that Cameron is making too much noise for them to sleep. There’s Miguel, the Mexican who delivers room service and is surprisingly indifferent about the election results. And the sex workers, Sasha and Amber, who have their own mini-adventure before meeting Baxter and Cameron, including getting into an existential argument with a Muslim cab driver. The movie is very much about how divisive the year 2016 was. I think that’s one of the reasons election night was so traumatizing for some. It was an exhausting year. Many people were just ready for the vitriol to end. Trump’s election was devastating because he was so contentious. We all just wanted to stop hearing about him. Anti-anxiety medication sales must be through the roof. Luckily for me, writing is therapy. So, I was able to purge a lot of my frustrations through the script. The great thing about a hotel room set is that I got to focus more on philosophy and less on story.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I kind of pictured you making this film with you and someone noone ever heard of as the leads. When did Dylan Baker come into the picture—and though he played a small part in <em>Catfight</em>, were you startled that he would agree to play the lead without your making his character, Cameron, less vulgar?</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> I had planned on casting an unknown as Cameron but that didn’t work out. He got cold feet and dropped out of the production. So we pushed production back two weeks and I offered Dylan the role, thinking he wouldn’t want to do it. But he read it and embraced every word. He learned all of his lines in about a week. It’s hard to believe. I could tell you that we workshopped the script like a play, then we spent six months in rehearsals and explored and analyzed every syllable. It certainly feels like we spent that kind of time on it but it’s just not the case. The production came together very quickly. Dylan dived into this character with an energy that was so inspiring. He’s so funny and warm, and his character is so cynical and at times, disgusting; and he also had to sympathize with his character, who is in great pain. But this is what great actors do. They embrace characters that are so different from their personalities. Dylan’s performance is as devastating as it is electrifying and we were all in awe watching him work.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> The dialogue is so sharp that I would guess you sat down at the computer and it just poured out of your mind as you typed. Right or wrong?</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> I’ve always been really self-deprecating. I love myself. I hate myself. One day, I beat myself up for being a talented hack. Another day, I’m bragging to my girlfriend about what a genius I am. Self-importance is really destructive, so it’s nice to have a self-aware, pseudo-irony to the whole thing. Art is important. But anyone can do it. And it’s also fleeting and inconsequential. And if you do it when you’re anxious or angry, like I do, it can be very therapeutic. So, yes, this thing poured out of me very quickly. Most of my first drafts are written quickly but this one came even faster because I wasn’t so focused on story. It was more about a feeling. What was the general mood of the country that night? It was like a bomb going off! People were shocked. People compared it to 9/11. And culturally the climate hasn’t changed much. Uncertainty is everywhere. Uneasiness. Anxiety. But, you know, that’s the American way. A culture of capitalism demands an anxious populace, so it can be easily exploited. At least, that’s how I see it. The hospitals want you to think you’re sick. The news channels want you to think everyone’s going to drown in the hurricane. We live in a diseased culture. Binge-watching is the new cure-all for all the dread. We’re living in <em>Brave New World.</em> I’m looking forward to working on the next script. Every day, there’s something new to be angry or anxious about. It’s a great time to be a filmmaker. There’s so much to say about this overwhelming nothingness. That said, I rewrote the fuck out of the initial script for <em>The Misogynists. </em>As I said, nine drafts in seven months. Again, therapy.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Talk about the title. By calling your film <em>The Misogynists</em>, you are highlighting one aspect of a great many Trump voters, but pushing into the background equally bad ones, some political.</div>
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<img alt="Trump supporters Cameron (Dylan Baker) and Baxter (Jamie Block) celebrate the macho new president." class="wp-image-259051" height="297" sizes="(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Misogyniststwosome.jpeg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Misogyniststwosome.jpeg 1200w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Misogyniststwosome-300x162.jpeg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Misogyniststwosome-768x415.jpeg 768w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Misogyniststwosome-1024x553.jpeg 1024w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Misogyniststwosome-334x180.jpeg 334w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Misogyniststwosome-700x378.jpeg 700w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Trump supporters Cameron (Dylan Baker) and Baxter (Jamie Block) celebrate the macho new president.</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> Well, the title isn’t just reserved for misogynistic Trump voters. It also fits the mother who tells her daughter she can’t be president. It’s also for the sex worker who complains of sexism while selling her body to the highest bidder. And look, who was more of a misogynist–George W. Bush or Bill Clinton? Locker room talk works both ways. And I have been part of many conversations between men that are insanely misogynistic. In college, if one of my friends had sex with a woman, I wanted to hear all the details. Is this worse than shooting a porno film? Is it worse than grabbing a woman without her permission? Of course not. It’s a conversation. It’s freedom of speech. There are terrible people who voted for Trump and terrible people who voted for Hillary and terrible people who didn’t vote at all. I don’t think a majority of voters picked Trump because they hated women. They just hated Hillary, and it’s unfortunate because she was clearly more qualified for the job. But I had a feeling Trump was going to win after hearing the final question of the second debate. He sounded like a human being instead of a politician. I think there’s a way to reach Trump if liberals would just show him a little compassion. He’s all alone and he’s terrified. If you coddle his ego, he can be manipulated. If everybody on Twitter just sent him a nice tweet, instead of a hateful one, he would glow. If you launch a nuclear bomb, he’s going to launch one back. Maybe win him over with love. Now, I’m methodically adopting this attitude for a couple of reasons. I have to have compassion for my main character. He’s my creation, I have to stand up for him. But he’s also incredibly negative and I have to be better than he is. So as I talk about this movie on the festival circuit, I want to shy away from negativity, which means NOT criticizing Trump or his supporters. Look around at what we’ve become. Trump says something hateful and it’s like firing a cannon on a snowy mountaintop. An avalanche of hateful tweets comes from the left. This causes Trump to load another cannonball. Back and forth. Back and forth. I’ve made the decision to empathize with those I disagree with. I want to find some common ground with those I disagree with. It actually takes a lot of bravery to do that.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Obviously, Cameron is a blatant misogynist but—and you just mentioned a few candidates–what other character qualifies so that the word is plural in the title? Baxter is afraid of women but I can’t tell if he despises them.</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> Again, The Misogynists could be Cameron, Baxter, the sex workers, the mother, even the outspoken liberal who defends Hillary yet voted for Bernie. We’re all misogynists because we participate in a consumer culture that sexualizes and exploits women. We’re all misogynists because we watch mass media news channels that NEVER feature thoughtful authors like Naomi Klein or Christopher Hedges. The network news stations never encourage reading. NEVER! They never encourage consumers to be independent thinkers. Most everything on television is geared toward making you feel ugly or fat or unworthy or broken. And by the end of this movie, when the language is at its most vulgar, you can argue that our male characters still, AREN’T misogynists. They are merely describing what they’re going to do to the sex workers. How is this misogynistic? If being a sex worker is form of feminism, then being a literal sex object is a feminist act. Language is just another form of sex play. When men talk about “fucking prostitutes,” I would argue that the words can’t be misogynistic. These words have no power. The body as “sex object,” contradicts this notion that misogyny can exist in language. It can’t. Not in the context of the movie. I’m looking forward to the festivals Q&As with this movie. I’m think there are going to be some very interesting discussions.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Cameron says two reasons for Trump’s victory were that people think he will bring stability (in a bad way) to America and that he recognized people are tribal. Almost a year after election night, could you list many more reasons?</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> I think Donald Trump’s behavior is moving conservatives to the left. On the other side, I think PC culture and safe spaces are moving liberals to the right. Maybe I’m old, maybe too set in my ways, but harsh language doesn’t offend me. And the idea of forcing people to be “less offensive” is nauseating to me. I don’t like being told what to say. And having freedom of speech is hands down the greatest right we have as Americans. And this works both ways. If Donald Trump wants to call someone a “son-of-a-bitch,” well, it doesn’t bother me. Is it racist? It could be? Is he racist? Sure, he could be. But you know what? Son-of-a-bitch” ain’t the N-word, no matter how you slice it. You can rationalize anything you want. We live in nation of bullshit and faux outrage. I think about Turkey, where journalists and professors are locked up for criticizing their politicians. Now, they have something to complain about. But they can’t! Lebron James can call Trump a bum in America and that’s a beautiful thing. Trump has every right to fire back. Is it sad? Yes, it is. Donald Trump’s behavior isn’t appropriate for a President. He’s acting like a petulant child. And you know what, so are the masses. We live in a diseased culture. And the American empire is on its last legs, just as Morris Berman predicted.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> At first I assumed Cameron was thrilled with Trump’s victories because of his vicious policies but after he exclaims how he and others are free to not be PC anymore, I started to see a larger reason. Do you think he’s so pleased with the election because he despises people and thinks they are getting the monster they deserve?</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> It’s all there in his dialogue. Cameron is a believer in Darwinism. That’s why he proudly owns a gun. He doesn’t see the value of compassion in a world of anarchy. He believes there will be chaos in the streets very soon. People will be looting supermarkets. The one with the gun gets the loaf of bread. When he talks briefly about Vietnam, he’s pointing out a bleak time in American history. A Democrat got us into the war. Republicans kept us there. This is the world we live in. When he talks about the American Indian, it’s as if they don’t even exist. They’ve been literally wiped off the map. He’s a realist. America was built on principles of absolute selfishness. Having a leader like Donald Trump was inevitable, because he is the product of a diseased culture. Every man for himself. Might makes right. It’s the American way. We are not a nation of Christians, despite what people claim. Jesus wouldn’t have wiped out the Indians. Jesus wouldn’t be on twitter saying hurtful things. Jesus would have compassion for Trump. He would match his hate with love.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I was reminded of <em>Platoon</em>, in which Charlie Sheen is pulled in one direction by the moral Willem Dafoe and the other by macho Tom Berenger in a fight for his soul. Here Baxter feels safer with Cameron than at home with his very moral, politically liberal wife, Alice. Is that how you see it?</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> I like that comparison. I think there’s a nobility to being in the middle, trying to hear out and understand both sides. Obama was like that. Bill Clinton was like that. But there’s a cowardice there, too, because you’re not really taking a stand. You know, Baxter is actually responsible. He has a family, he takes care of them. He wants to do the right thing, to put his family first, but he’s also tempted to be selfish. But there’s the contradiction. Putting your family first IS a form of selfishness. The family becomes an extension of you.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Is it Baxter’s weakness that makes him want to hang out with Cameron?</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> He hangs out with Cameron for several reasons. He wants to please his boss and he wants to avoid his wife. Hanging out with “the boys” is a beautiful thing. I’m a stubborn, out-spoken, flawed, often out-of-touch and sometimes self-aware human being. I like drinking with men. Locker room talk IS a real thing. And if you have a sense of humor about it, it’s harmless. There’s a childish superiority to it. AS Cameron says, “Women do it, too. They have their book clubs, their “Margarita Wednesdays.” The world is governed by secret meetings and clandestine conversations. Those who speak in secret aren’t evil. It’s the spies who are evil.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> And is it Baxter’s weakness that makes Cameron want to hang out with him?</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> Cameron’s just lonely and afraid. If it’s not Baxter, it’s Grant. If it’s not Grant, it’s Sasha. When Miguel delivers the food, he’s quick to invite him to have a drink, some blow, a slice of pizza. Cameron, in a lot of ways, is a man of the people.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did you choose the name Baxter for the harmless but ineffectual character because it fits the definition of a Baxter?</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> Hmmm, you know what? I never thought about that. Didn’t Michael Showalter direct and star in a movie called <em>The Baxter</em>? I don’t even know what that word means. What’s a Baxter? I’ll look it up. I did write the role for the musician Jamie Block, who does a brilliant job in this. And I guess he just looks liked a Baxter to me.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> One of Cameron’s verbal targets is Hollywood. I know you hate Hollywood elitism and phoniness so was he speaking words you might say?</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> Hollywood is NOT a liberal place. It’s conservative. I could launch into a long-winded monologue about how I really feel about the Hollywood one-percenters and celebrities and the creative choices they make, but my publicist would never approve. Still, if I had a chance to direct a bloated, 50-million dollar film, I’d leap at the chance. If I could afford a mansion in the Hollywood Hills, I’d probably buy one. But being ignored, broke, and angry keeps me prolific.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In the great Joseph McCarthy-era western, <em>Johnny Guitar</em>, every character represents something politically. What about in this film? Is Cameron meant to be Trump-like and that hotel room is like the Oval Office, with an array of people coming and going?</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> It could be. Cameron, like Trump, is very isolated. He wants Trump to build a wall around America. He doesn’t want Syrian refugees in the country. He looks down at the streets from his hotel room and imagines chaos and anarchy. He’s totally paranoid. In a lot of ways, he’s a prisoner. He talks about freedom but he’s not free at all. By the end, you see who he really is. He’s afraid. He’s lonely. He’s a small child. All his bombast was just an act. Outside the hotel room is the rest of America, terrified at what he might do next. I’m over-explaining things, which is supposedly a big no-no for a director. “Never explain.” But that’s also the point of the movie. Who’s to say what you should and shouldn’t do as a director. I can do whatever I want. It’s my movie. And Cameron says something similar early in the film. “I can say what I want, I can do what I want,” as he bounces up and down on the bed like a child. We’ve put a child in the Oval House. But outside of the Oval Office, the behavior is just as obnoxious.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Cameron may be a 100% jerk but I don’t think any of your characters are without flaws, except perhaps the hotel manager who is in just one scene. In my opinion the worst person of all is the cheeriest and perhaps the most likable, the room service worker, Miguel, who brings Cameron and Baxter food and stays to snort lines of cocaine. He is of Mexican heritage and thinks having a female president would be cool but like many students didn’t bother to vote. And he’s on academic scholarship!</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Miguel, Cameron and Baxter do a shot of tequila. Cameron has just made a speech about white people being superior to blacks, Jews, Asians, Mexicans and Arabs. He goes on to talk about tribalism and the societal acceptance of genocide. My co-editor Martin, who was assembling the footage during the shoot, hadn’t cracked a smile for the first five days of production. When he started synching Miguel’s footage, it was the first time I saw him laugh. He said the subject matter was so insanely dark that he couldn’t help but laugh at it. When I wrote this, I was really reaching for the darkest shit I could find. It actually reminded me of the paintings I created for a movie called <em>Septien</em>, several years ago. I occasionally act in indie films and I play a disturbed painter in that movie. I really am an artist, and the director, Michael Tully, wanted me to paint the most deranged things I could think of. It was very easy for me, almost cathartic. And writing for Cameron was cathartic as well. With Miguel, I wanted to resist making him obvious, which would have meant having him be anti-Trump and anti-wall and pro-immigration. Instead, I just made him aloof, and that seemed to be the right way to go. I think a lot of people have Miguel’s attitude, which is why they didn’t vote.</div>
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<img alt="Sex workers Sasha (Ivana Milecevik) and Amber (Trieste Kelly Dunn) discuss Trump's victory and going to see Cameron and Baxter" class="wp-image-259052" height="309" sizes="(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/MisognynistsAmber.jpeg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/MisognynistsAmber.jpeg 1200w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/MisognynistsAmber-300x169.jpeg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/MisognynistsAmber-768x432.jpeg 768w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/MisognynistsAmber-1024x576.jpeg 1024w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/MisognynistsAmber-334x188.jpeg 334w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/MisognynistsAmber-700x394.jpeg 700w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Sex workers Sasha (Ivana Milecevik) and Amber (Trieste Kelly Dunn) discuss Trump’s victory and going to see Cameron and Baxter</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I picture a Netflix series with Sasha and Amber! Great characters, a comedy team. It’s interesting that you introduce them late in the film and then give them so much time, breaking conventions. Did you write their scenes together, before they come to the hotel, as you wrote the script chronologically, or at the end?</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> I’d love to do a movie with these characters every year. We could see how their opinions change with each year that Trump is in office. Regarding these two sex workers, I was having a lot of trouble with the first three or four drafts of the script. It wasn’t until I decided to give Amber and Sasha their own act outside of the hotel room that everything really clicked for me. In the initial drafts, Sasha and Amber show up at the hotel room and the four characters continue talking politics. We never see Sasha and Amber on their own. We discover that Sasha comes from a rich family in Serbia and hates Bill Clinton and thus, hates Hillary and blah-blah-blah–it was more of the same stuff that we get in the first act. I had a reading with the initial cast and I realized that the third act needed to be less about politics and more about Baxter betraying his wife. By the fifth draft, I found that I had a really interesting structure for the script. Act one is Cameron and Baxter in the hotel room, drinking and talking politics. Act two is Amber and Sasha on their way to the hotel room, talking about sex work and their own role in creating Trump. Act three is broken up into two parts—Cameron, Baxter, Amber, and Sasha partying together; and Cameron all alone, hitting rock bottom. I always wanted the movie to feel bigger than a hotel room with energetic performances and the multiple characters venturing in and out of the room. Zoe White’s cinematography really opens it up. But this diversion with Sasha and Amber is a bold structural move. It feels innovative. By the end, there are probably ten locations throughout the movie–the hotel room, the hallways, the elevator, the lobby, the bar, the rooftop and the various streets of New York. But when Amber and Sasha enter the picture, I think it’s really going to throw audiences for a loop. Suddenly, the point-of-view changes and it’s like we’re in a completely different movie.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Trieste Kelly Dunn, who is terrific as Amber, has played a lead for you before. Did she have to explain to Ivana Milecevik, who had just a minor, straight part in <em>Catfight</em>, or anyone else about how you work and that a bit of insane humor is to be expected?</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> I worked with Trieste on <em>Applesauce </em>so we get each other. We’ve both got connections in North Carolina, so our senses of humor are very similar. I met her one day in a Laundromat in Greenpoint and I fell in love with her instantly. She’s one of my favorite people and she might be my favorite actor working today. She’s the perfect mix of sophisticated and goofy. Trieste and Ivana are good friends. They worked on a popular TV show called <em>Banshee</em> for four years or so, so they were excited about reuniting on screen. They have such incredible chemistry in this. Ivana has an incredible sense of humor, too, and they’re really funny without ever winking at the camera. I hope I get to make many movies with these two. They’re so brilliant.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> How much of this film is about hypocrisy?</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> You could fan out the pages of the script like a deck of cards and say, “Pick a page, any page” and you’d find hypocrisy. Cameron brags about Trump being a truthful President yet admits that he’s lied his ass off. You’ve got the self-righteous African American who stands up to Cameron but calls him racial epithets behind his back. You’ve got the liberal blowhard who defends Hillary yet voted for Jill Stein. There’s the sex workers who talk about female empowerment as they head to a hotel room to satisfy the libidos of a couple of rich men. A Muslim cab driver tries to lecture Amber and Sasha on how to behave while forcing his wife to cover her head. Baxter talks of being responsible while doing coke with his boss in a hotel room. Then there are the contradictions of language in the movie. We all want to be free. We all celebrate our freedom of speech. But the left tries to police what we can and cannot say. A lot of Cameron’s vitriol is a reaction to PC culture. That’s one of the reasons he adores Trump. Trump has no problem hurting feelings. He says what he wants.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When we see all the pain Cameron keeps inside because his wife Julia rejected him, do you want us viewers to feel empathy?</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> When Cameron delivers the monologue about the last time he and his wife made love, it’s supposed to give us a glimpse of his humanity. I don’t think it’s enough to make us feel empathy toward him, but it would be nice if that were the case. No one has a lot of compassion for Trump at the moment and it’s really unfortunate. I’m trying to open my heart to the guy. He’s a human being and like it or not, he’s our President. And any liberal who claims he’s “Not my president” needs to check themselves. That’s a fucking smug attitude. He most certainly is our President. We own him. And it’s our responsibility to make sure he doesn’t do anything catastrophic. I can tell you this much, barraging him with hateful insults on Twitter isn’t noble or patriotic. It’s the equivalent of bullying an outcast at school. Sooner or later, that outcast is going to get fed up and go on a killing spree.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Where did you get the idea of the TV in the hotel room turning itself on and running backwards?</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> That wasn’t in the original script but when we found the hotel room and Estee Braverman, the production designer, started transforming the space, I knew that something would have to be playing on the TV. I didn’t want to see this big black rectangle in the middle of our shots. Philosophically, the idea was a no-brainer. I’m sick of screens. They’re everywhere and they’ve taken over our lives. So the idea of a sentient television screen that pops on and off on its own, distracting the characters, mesmerizing the characters, felt like the right thing to do. It’s another example of the diseased culture we live in. Everyone’s complaining about how horrible Trump is. Everyone’s screaming about the environment and human rights. But they’re not so upset that they can’t binge-watch twenty hours of television a week. Most moral outrage is reactionary and insincere.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You tend to get nervous about audience reactions to your films since they tend to go over all kinds of boundaries. Did you feel with this film that everything was falling into place and that the shoot was easier than expected?</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> The shoot wasn’t easy because we shot at night, from 6pm to 6am. And the budget and schedule were super tight. But everything fell into place because I was surrounded by an amazing cast and crew. Because the subject matter is so closely connected to what’s happening in the world, it feels strangely ahead-of-its-time. This might be the kind of movie you see made years <em>after</em> Trump leaves office. That’s why I’m excited about getting it out there early.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Talk about working with Dylan Baker, especially your early conversations. Were you thrilled that he was willing to be as brave as you?</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> Dylan Baker starred in <em>Happiness</em>. If you’ve seen it and his performance, you’ll know that he’s one of the bravest actors working today. But he’s also one of the most underrated. And he owns this movie! He’s on fire from the first frame to the last. He made everyone better. He inspired all of us. His performance has nothing to do with bravery, its artistry. This is the kind of performance you expect from a great actor.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> So you got a prestigious Broadway veteran to be in your film. And <em>The Misogynists</em> will be playing at the prestigious Hamptons International Film Festival. As a “madman of the cinema,” are you shocked and delighted that it has come to this?</div>
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<strong>OT:</strong> I’ve been making indie movies for 20 years now. I moved to New York on Halloween in 2010. I never dreamed I’d be making New York films with the elite of New York, yet here I am, seven years later, and this is the best thing I’ve ever made. Delighted? No question. Shocked? No. This is the kind of movie that is supposed to play at great film festivals. It’s brave and beautifully made. And Dylan Baker’s performance is <em>a tour de force</em>. The rest of the cast and crew are artists. I’m really proud of what we’ve made.</div>
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<em>Danny Peary has published 25 books on film and sports, including </em><span class="s1">Cult Movies</span><em> and </em><span class="s1">Jackie Robinson in Quotes</span><em>.</em></div>
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Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-9609115299110460122018-01-29T12:24:00.000-08:002018-01-29T12:24:12.141-08:00Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Seven Lovers’ Director Keith BoyntonPlaying in Theaters<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #074889; font-family: Conv_Gotham-Bold; font-size: 25px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: center;">Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Seven Lovers’ Director Keith Boynton</span><br />
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(from DansPapers.com<br />
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<img alt="Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Seven Lovers’ Director Keith Boynton" class="ds_link" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/SevenLoversSceneMain.jpg" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; height: auto; max-width: 100%; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; width: 450px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: center;"></span><br />
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LAURA AND IAN IN KEITH BOYNTON'S "SEVEN LOVERS," NOW STREAMING</div>
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<span class="date published time" style="font-weight: 700;" title="2017-09-21T12:33:28+00:00">SEPTEMBER 21, 2017</span> BY DANNY PEARY</div>
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A couple of years ago I spent a fun afternoon doing a set visit—at a restaurant in Little Italy—on the last day of shooting for Keith Boynton’s independent feature <em>Seven Lovers</em>.</div>
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From the press notes’ synopsis: “Laura is young librarian/former singer trying to navigate the endless complexities of love, lust, and dating in contemporary New York. In a fractured kaleidoscope of genre and emotion, we watch seven of Laura’s romances play out in a series of interwoven vignettes—with each of her lovers laying claim to a very specific cinematic style.”</div>
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I was hoping this one-of-a-kind film by the son of famous illustrator Sandra Boynton and the late Jaime McEwan, the legendary Olympic slalom canoeist, would have a quick release. I was eager for audiences to see the long-awaited new feature by the innovative writer-director, and the first starring role by Erin Darke, who’d made a big splash in the small role of a naughty librarian in <em>Kill Your Darlings</em>. Unfortunately, like many independent films, after playing in festivals it took a while before it became widely available. Now, finally, it can be seen on Amazon, iTunes and other outlets.</div>
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The trailer:</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/htL2wEiIp5w" width="560"></iframe></div>
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<em>Seven Lovers</em> is an incredibly ambitious endeavor for Boynton. His seven different “styles” include animation, POV and sketches of Darke’s Laura. He even wrote the music. And Darke, who is rarely not on screen and is often the only person in the frame, had the opportunity to showcase her remarkable versatility by playing Laura in seven different ways without losing sight of who she is at the core. She proved to be as adept at doing screwball comedy as intense drama.</div>
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Just as the director and actress faced challenges making their film, viewers will be challenged to determine how Boynton utilizes various styles to express themes; figure out the identities of the Laura’s seven lovers (one is always behind a camera, one we never see, one is animated); and put Laura’s fractured two-year story into chronological order so they can understand her rocky journey from heartbreak to happiness. It may take more than one viewing!</div>
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This week, Keith Boynton and I had the following conversation.</div>
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<img alt="Keith Boynton" class=" wp-image-258505" sizes="(max-width: 699px) 100vw, 699px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/KeithBoynton.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/KeithBoynton.jpg 699w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/KeithBoynton-285x300.jpg 285w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/KeithBoynton-211x222.jpg 211w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/KeithBoynton-444x467.jpg 444w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/KeithBoynton-300x315.jpg 300w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="500" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Keith Boynton, Photo: <span class="s1">Beverly Hall</span></div>
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<strong>Danny Peary:</strong> I became a fan of your filmmaking from watching your clever shorts, including those you made in record time. You made them available online but they were definitely festival worthy. At the time you were making them, were you thinking of them as stepping stones to making feature films?</div>
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<strong>Keith Boynton:</strong> Yes and no. Technically, I had already made a few features at that point, but they were extremely amateurish—more like learning experiences than polished works that were ready for an audience. When I did the “12 Films in 12 Weeks” project you are referring to, I think I was eager to do my learning on a smaller scale, with lower stakes. That was also a great way to meet new people and build up a body of work. <em>Chasing Home </em>was the feature that grew out of that process. It was made only a year later, with a lot of the same people, and on a similarly rigid timetable–we had only four weeks to write, shoot, and edit the whole movie. Kind of insane, but it worked!</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I thought <em>Chasing Home</em> was too low-key to be commercial, but I was very impressed by it. It came across that the director was self-assured. Did it get any distribution or recognition?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> Well, thanks! I’m really proud of that movie. It played at a couple of festivals, and was well received there, but it didn’t have much of a life beyond that. People can watch it on Vimeo, if they’re interested! I think anyone with siblings will find it especially resonant.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Before and between making movies, you were writing plays, from serious dramas to farces. When writing them—and acting in them—did you always think that you would like to film them?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> Never! People have occasionally told me that a particular play would make a good movie (or vice versa), but for me each piece exists firmly in the medium it was imagined for, and it’s very hard for me to see it taking any other form.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> After <em>Chasing Home</em>, you made a lot of music videos. I really like the one you did for an Alison Krauss song and the one with indie favorite Jess Weixler. Were you just biding your time between films or were you learning the craft?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> The music-video thing basically came about by accident. I was casually acquainted with the members of the indie folk-rock band the Spring Standards, and they needed a video, and the stars aligned. When I realized it was something I enjoyed and could do well, I started hounding my friends in the group Darlingside about doing a video with them, and after that people started approaching me with projects. This all came at a really good time, because I was in the midst of getting my MFA at Columbia, and didn’t really have time to work on a feature. Music videos were the perfect outlet. I should mention that my dear friend Mike Lavoie was heavily involved in all of the above-mentioned projects; <em>12 Films in 12 Weeks</em>, <em>Chasing Home</em>, and the music videos were all things that we undertook together, as a kind of dynamic duo. Mike also plays the gay bartender in <em>Seven Lovers</em>, so even though he didn’t produce that movie, he’s a part of it, too.</div>
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<img alt="On the set: Keith Boynton standing in the shadows, Erin Darke in the spotlight for a tense 1930ish black-and-white sequence" class=" wp-image-258499" sizes="(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/SevenLoversset.jpeg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/SevenLoversset.jpeg 550w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/SevenLoversset-300x225.jpeg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/SevenLoversset-296x222.jpeg 296w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="499" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
On the set: Keith Boynton standing in the shadows, Erin Darke in the spotlight for a tense 1930-ish black-and-white sequence, Photo: Danny Peary</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Do you still make music videos?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> I do! I just completed one for my mother Sandra Boynton’s new children’s album, <em>Hog Wild</em>, and I’m in talks with Darlingside to do an animated video for their upcoming album.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Could you have written and directed <em>Seven Lovers</em>, an ambitious and risky film, without having had the experience of making an earlier feature?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> Maybe, but it would have been terrible. It took me a long, long time to develop a feel for what makes a movie work: how a scene is built out of shots, how a story is built out of scenes. I made my first movie in 2003, and I wouldn’t show it to anyone now for all the tea in China.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> If I concluded that you came up with the idea of filming <em>Seven Lovers</em> in seven different styles—a different one for each of Laura’s lovers—because you thought you’d never get the chance to make seven films in different genres, would I be totally wrong?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> “Totally wrong” seems a little harsh—but the truth is, I’ve always assumed I would make all kinds of films, in all kinds of different genres, in the course of a long and prosperous career. Maybe that’s naïve, or arrogant, or both, but it’s kind of a nice assumption to operate under. It remains to be seen how it will all pan out!</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Were you tempted to add words to your title so that viewers would understand there was intention behind your changing styles throughout the film—and that there is a different style for each lover—and you weren’t just a schizophrenic amateur? So the title might be something like <em>Seven Lovers, Seven Styles</em> and viewers would know from the beginning what you were trying to do and you would not risk confusing them?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> No, I have a lot of faith in the audience. Part of the fun of the film is that it unspools gradually; at first it seems kind of scattered, then you start to track the individual stories, and eventually you build up a picture of the larger story they all add up to. It’s a bit like a puzzle that assembles itself as you go.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Talk about the audition process in finding someone to play Laura. Why did you choose Erin Darke?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> She made the choice pretty easy. We had a bunch of wonderful actresses come in and read for Laura, and we reached out to some big names as well, but it soon became obvious that Erin embodied the soul of the character—and had the versatility needed to depict Laura in seven (well, six) different styles. Anne Bogart describes working with a great actor as similar to driving a top-notch racecar; you push the pedal, and it just <em>goes</em>. I guess it’s a weird analogy, but it makes sense to me.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Erin told me when I visited your set that when you first discussed Laura she wanted to talk to you about the differences in Laura in the seven scenarios, which made sense to me because I find it hard to believe that the sophisticated nightclub singer who has a romance with Dan is the same person as the screwy librarian who is tongue-tied and does pratfalls around the handsome Brit Ian. But you wanted to talk to her about the <em>similarities</em> in the character in all the scenarios because Erin would infuse herself into whoever she was playing.</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> It was a pretty hilarious moment when we realized we were approaching that question from completely opposite angles. I think in part, it just came down to the difference between a director’s mindset and an actor’s; I’m trying to make sure I bring each of the seven styles into vivid, specific life, and she’s trying to make sure her character has a consistent psychology. In the end, though, she was right, and I was wrong. The stylistic stuff is obvious, especially for an actress as gifted as Erin; Laura’s inner life is less immediately apparent—and ultimately more important.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Were you looking for an actress who understood Laura from reading the script or an actress who could take an unformed character and give her full-body life?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> Both, and I think the same could be said of any character. No character, no matter how well-written, is alive on the page the same way they’re alive when an actor is steps in and starts inhabiting them. A great actor gives you what you wrote, but exponentially more vibrant and nuanced. It’s one of the joys of my job.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Men in the film call Laura “baffling,” and “a mystery.” Did you fully understand Laura or had you written a character who you wanted to be a mystery even to you?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> I felt like I understood her, but I’m not sure I could ever have explained her. In some ways, it’s like real life; the people we know best are often the people we’re least able to describe or define. Knowing someone is a <em>feeling</em>, not a formula. Laura makes sense to me intuitively—but don’t ask me why.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In your film, Laura is said to be a “million people” to different people. Yet she calls herself “a quick study,” which she is certainly not because she is so unpredictable. Is your film in part about the positive growth of a woman who underestimates herself in significant ways?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> Well, anyone who’s at all empathetic has the experience of adapting to different people and their different needs. That’s not a bad thing—in fact, it kind of makes relationships possible—but there is the risk that you lose yourself in the process. I think Laura knows who she is on a fundamental level, but sometimes she needs reminding—which I suspect is true of most of us.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I think some men are turned on by her looks, her deep feelings, her—again—mystery—her quirkiness, even her craziness. What is her allure to you?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> Her vulnerability and her idealism. I think there’s something inspiring about a person who can take a few punches and bounce back up still smiling, still open, still curious and basically optimistic. Laura goes through the wringer in the course of this movie, but she doesn’t let herself become cynical, and I think that’s a pretty major victory in itself.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Do you think it is essential for viewers to fall in love with Laura?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> I think it’s possible to enjoy the movie without loving Laura—and some people have described having that experience—but I’d much prefer to have people love her, because I love her, and I think the film is richer that way.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> How essential was it for Erin to fully trust you?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> I’m not sure she did! Erin’s much too intelligent to have complete trust in a stranger, which I was at the beginning of this project. I’d say it was essential for her to give me the benefit of the doubt, which she did. Hopefully she doesn’t regret it!</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Well, she told me that she did trust you! From your viewpoint, how difficult was her performance? I know your film was rushed so I am amazed that she even was able to memorize all those lines and deliver them flawlessly to a director who loves long takes.</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> I don’t know how difficult it was for Erin, because she’s a genius. I know she worked really hard, and I know she made my job 10 times easier by always being prepared and brilliant. I think it would have been possible to make the movie with another actress, but it’s not something I’d be eager to attempt.</div>
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<img alt="Laura (Erin Darke) sings" class="size-full wp-image-258500" sizes="(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/SevenLoversLaurasings.jpeg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/SevenLoversLaurasings.jpeg 550w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/SevenLoversLaurasings-300x169.jpeg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/SevenLoversLaurasings-334x188.jpeg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Laura (Erin Darke) sings</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> As Laura in the black and white thirties-musical sequences with Dan, Erin has to sing and dance. Was that part of her audition?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> It was not! We basically just asked her if she could sing and dance, and she said “kind of,” and that was good enough for us. It helped that Max von Essen, who plays Dan, is a Broadway star and a consummate song-and-dance man. Erin was especially nervous about the singing, but in the end she did it beautifully—with a few tweaks in post-production, of course.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When you saw <em>La La Land</em>, were you thinking how your dance sequence in the gazebo came first?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> I was slightly disheartened when I saw the poster with Emma Stone and <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2013/07/ryan-gosling-was-in-the-hamptons-over-july-4-weekend/" rel="noopener" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Ryan Gosling</a> dancing, actually, because it was so clear they were drawing on the same ultra-romantic Golden Age musicals that inspired the Dan segments in <em>Seven Lovers</em>. At the end of the day, though, they’re very different movies, and I think there’s room in the world for both of them—which I’m sure Damien Chazelle will be very relieved to hear.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Was that your favorite sequence to film?</div>
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<img alt="Laura and Brian in "Seven Lovers"" class=" wp-image-258510" sizes="(max-width: 924px) 100vw, 924px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/LauraandBrianinSevenLovers.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/LauraandBrianinSevenLovers.jpg 924w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/LauraandBrianinSevenLovers-300x152.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/LauraandBrianinSevenLovers-768x388.jpg 768w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/LauraandBrianinSevenLovers-334x169.jpg 334w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/LauraandBrianinSevenLovers-700x354.jpg 700w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Laura and Brian in “Seven Lovers”</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> It was pretty magical. Dusk falling in Central Park, the rain letting up just in time to let us shoot, the lights of the city coming on across the water … it was definitely a highlight. It was also our first day back after a family crisis took me away from the set, and that made it all the more special, and kind of healing.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> The music in your movie is quite evocative. Were the lyrics to the songs written specifically for Laura?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> They were! I wrote the lyrics for each song as I reached its place in the story, and I tried to make them encapsulate Laura’s dilemma at that moment. Since Laura’s various love stories move in parallel with each other—first meeting, first kiss, first argument, and so on—the songs are able to speak pretty specifically to where she is emotionally at a given moment in all seven stories.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> There is a long scene in which an uncomfortable Laura strips for her lover Karl as he films her and they have an awkward conversation. Was that a hard scene for you to film?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> To a degree. I’m pretty uncomfortable with stuff like that—but, once again, Erin made it easy. She was a total pro about the whole thing, and very ready to laugh at the awkwardness of it all—which really, really helped.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> If Laura had met Karl before she had her heart broken, would she have recognized him for being a stalker and not be seduced by his attention to her, and his calling her “fascinating”?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> I think so, yeah. I think Karl happens to meet her at a very vulnerable moment, and, consciously or not, he exploits that. One of the joys of writing the script was gradually discovering those connections—how each relationship leads into the next one. It’s not very explicit in the completed film, but it’s there if you look closely enough.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Laura has two meet-cute moments, with handsome Brit Ian (Peter Mark Kendall) in the library and awkward blind date Brian (Fran Kranz) on the street. She meets them around the same time, so were you worried that viewers might come to favor the wrong lover of the two for Laura to end up with? I confess I might have picked the other guy for her. Or even the sketch artist Dominic, the character you voice but we never see, who probably knows her best.</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> Well, I want people to be at least a little conflicted. There’s certainly more than one suitor who seems like a credible option, and maybe there’s more than one Laura could be happy with. Dominic seems like a really good guy, but the fact that we never see his face doesn’t bode well for him. People like faces.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Does Laura realize she is going through a process of pushing her bad romances aside and finding true love? Or could she end up alone and be happy?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> I think when you come to grips with all your past traumas and disappointments, there’s always the hope that you’re clearing the deck for something wonderful and new. Could Laura be happy alone? Probably, yeah. But isn’t it more fun to be happy with someone else?</div>
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<img alt="Seven Lovers poster" class=" wp-image-258509" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/SevenLoversPoster-425x566-custom.jpg" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="425" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Seven Lovers movie poster</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Could Laura have had a healthy relationship two years before?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> Yes, but I’m not sure she would have fully appreciated it. When you know how easily things can go wrong, I think it means more when they finally go right.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Laura really seems to like eating! What’s that all about?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> It wasn’t conscious, but I think I drew this detail from my youngest sister Darcy, who has a lot in common with Laura, including being delightful and exuberant and kind of a goofball. The eating thing is also reminiscent of <em>Gilmore Girls</em>, which—perhaps not coincidentally—is one of Darcy’s favorite shows.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Talk about your inspiration for the long-take diner scenes with Laura and Brian.</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> People like Robert Altman and Woody Allen—people who let the camera roll and let the actors talk. In the case of <em>Seven Lovers</em>, those scenes weren’t improvised, but they do have kind of an improvised flavor. There’s also a great long two-shot in <em>Keeping the Faith </em>[2000, directed by <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2016/09/edward-norton-to-receive-hiff-career-achievement-award/" rel="noopener" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Edward Norton</a>], which you might not notice because it feels so organic. That’s the challenge with any long take, whether it’s moving or static: can we make this feel so natural that people don’t even realize how long the shot is? If the average audience member thinks “Wow, they haven’t cut in a while,” you’re definitely in trouble.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When Laura looks at herself in the mirror, what does she see?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> Hope, I think. Wary, wounded hope.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Without giving away the end, if she looked at herself in the mirror again then, what would she see?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> Hopefully contentment. Self-acceptance. Wouldn’t that be nice?</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Could you have put your footage together in chronological order, or is it essential for us to learn about her past at appropriate times?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> I think the cross-cutting is important, because it helps us feel like the story is moving forward, even though each relationship is kind of a self-contained story in itself. It also gives us a lot of things to guess about: Which of these stories comes first? Which comes last? How does each relationship set the stage for the next? I think that element of mystery is part of what keeps us engaged.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Erin told me that she hated filming to end because it was such a fun set. Were you having fun, too, or was the film so ambitious that you couldn’t relax?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> It’s a testament to my producer, Mélisa Breiner-Sanders, that I was able to enjoy myself most of the time. She did a phenomenal job of looking after the logistics of production, so that I could focus on telling the story. There were certainly some stressful moments, but for the most part I had a ball. And I’m glad to hear Erin did too!</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> How can people see <em>Seven Lovers</em>?</div>
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<strong>KB:</strong> People can just close their eyes and try to picture it as vividly as they can ….Or they can see it on Amazon! iTunes! Comcast! Google Play! Vudu! And probably others I’m forgetting!</div>
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<em>Danny Peary has published 25 books on film and sports, including </em><span class="s1">Cult Movies</span><em> and </em><span class="s1">Jackie Robinson in Quotes</span><em>.</em></div>
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Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-36081600110128049082018-01-29T12:21:00.000-08:002018-01-29T12:21:44.223-08:00Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Here Alone’ Star Lucy WaltersPlaying on Netlfix Reprint<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #074889; font-family: Conv_Gotham-Bold; font-size: 25px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: center;">Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Here Alone’ Star Lucy Walters</span><br />
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(from DansPapers.com<br />
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<img alt="Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Here Alone’ Star Lucy Walters" class="ds_link" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/LucyWaltersinHereAlone.jpg" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; height: auto; max-width: 100%; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; width: 450px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: center;"></span><br />
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LUCY WALTERS IN "HERE ALONE," PHOTO: MANHATTAN PRODUCTIONS</div>
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<span class="date published time" style="font-weight: 700;" title="2017-07-21T14:35:10+00:00">JULY 21, 2017</span> BY DANNY PEARY</div>
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A guilty pleasure I’ve had since I was a little kid has been to watch low-budget horror films, including those I’ve never heard of. So I have had a field day with Netflix (and Amazon), watching wide and ever-changing selection of indie horror films that played two days in Peoria or went straight to video.</div>
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I pride myself at picking the right horror films to gamble my time on, by dissecting the creepy title, contemplating the premise (and deciding whether I can stomach still another found-footage film with imbecile characters or a post-apocalyptic quarantine film with imbecile characters), and checking out the critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes (with the realization that I don’t agree with most critics views on this genre). However, I admit that my ability to choose horror films on Netflix that I won’t complain about in the morning has been dismal.</div>
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Are you having the same problem? If so, I can recommend one film that has recently appeared on Netflix. <em>Here Alone</em>. It’s actually the rare Netflix horror film I already know about because I saw it at the 2016 <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2017/05/danny-peary-talks-to-shadowman-director-producer-oren-jacoby/" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;">Tribeca Film Festival</a>. Perhaps the first zombie art film, it was my surprise find at the festival, an exciting, well-acted, cleverly-directed post-apocalyptic thriller that deftly balances action and thought-provoking subtlety. And the zombies are cool. I didn’t recognize the name of the lead, Lucy Walters–I didn’t know she was the young woman who makes sensual eye contact with Michael Fassbender in the subway in <em>Shame</em> and I hadn’t watched <em>Power</em>, her series on Starz (from which she has since been be killed off). Walters (who of late has been in TV series <em>Get Shorty</em>, <em>Falling Water</em>, and <em>Z: The Beginning of Everything</em>) is a terrific lead in a grueling role, a real discovery, and I thought I alone had made the great discovery of the festival’s sleeper. But <em>Here Alone</em> would win the TFF Audience Award!</div>
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The synopsis from the press notes: “Deep in New York’s upstate wilderness, Ann (Walters), a young woman in her late 20s, struggles to survive after a mysterious epidemic decimates society. On the constant brink of starvation, Ann leads an isolated and regimented life. Haunted by memories of her past [her husband Jason (Shane West) was killed by those infected with the rage virus and she killed their baby when it was infected], she battles the current blood thirsty threat that lurks just outside of the forest’s borders, those that the epidemic infected….[A] chance encounter brings Olivia (Gina Piersanti), a teenage girl, and her injured stepfather, Chris (Adam David Thompson), into Ann’s life and regimen of survival….While Ann and Chris grow close, Olivia becomes bitter…”</div>
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The trailer:</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OCS5aD8vdko" width="640"></iframe></div>
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When I did this interview with the charming Lucy Walters soon after the festival, I thought <em>Here Alone </em>had a good chance for wide distribution. Because it virtually disappeared, I am pleased that at least it is now streaming on Netflix. Take a look!</div>
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<img alt=""Here Alone" star Lucy Walters" class=" wp-image-253204" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/HereAloneLucyWalters.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/HereAloneLucyWalters.jpg 600w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/HereAloneLucyWalters-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/HereAloneLucyWalters-150x100.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/HereAloneLucyWalters-334x222.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="549" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
“Here Alone” star Lucy Walters, Photo: Danny Peary</div>
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<strong>Danny Peary</strong>: For the lead in <em>Here Alone </em>did you audition?</div>
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<strong>Lucy Walters:</strong> No, I was not asked to.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I read that the director, Rod Blackhurst, tweeted you.</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> That’s right. I have no idea why he thought of me. He might have seen what I’d done, but there are a lot of other actors as well. My guess is that the producer Noah Lang had a hand in it. That’s a very good question and I’m not sure I want to know the answer. These things are so serendipitous. My reps were not excited about it at first. But I knew some of Rod’s friends so he was vetted to some degree and then I Skyped with him and was really taken with him. Then I thought, “Why not? Let’s just do it.”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Had you seen Rod’s short, <em>Alone Time</em>, about a young woman from the city who camps alone out in the wilderness?</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> I just watched it recently. He talked about it as being the genesis of <em>Here Alone</em>. It was also filmed upstate.</div>
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<strong>DP</strong>: I know he also met Gina Piersanti, who plays Olivia, by tweeting her. But were you the first cast?</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> I think so. I’m not sure when they first spoke to Gina but I know they didn’t think the shooting dates would work for her. Eventually they did work out.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I saw this movie by default–nothing else was playing at that time in the morning, at the Tribeca Film Festival, and was really surprised by how good it is.</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> I think we were all surprised by it. Even when you read the script, you don’t know what it’s going to be. I’ve read great scripts that were executed poorly and mediocre scripts that were turned into good movies. You just don’t know because a movie is a huge machine with so many parts. Even with a great director and great editor, you just don’t know.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You probably took this film partly because it was a lead role for you, but if you were already a big star and this script came to you, do you think you would have wanted to do it?</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> So much of it is the people you’ll work with. Who do you want to go into a foxhole with? If you trust the people you will work with, the other stuff is irrelevant. I was hungry to take a part like Ann after being immersed for three years in <em>Power</em>. And I love playing Holly. I had normally been cast as the sweet girl and Holly is certainly not that. She’s trouble. She is so different from Ann. You’d think that an extreme, midnight zombie movie shouldn’t be realistic, but Ann felt way more aligned with who I actually am than Holly. She is not a woman who leads her sexuality, she is not a woman who engages in quippy banter. She just is just s survivor. She just does what it takes to survive. You know, I live my life with a furrowed brow just trying to get through it. So I related to that and her. There’s nothing cute or sexy or anything. She is just taking life very seriously. It’s different circumstances but I take life way too seriously and just getting food some days feels like enough. It’s New York City, and if you get food and do the laundry in a day it’s like whew! It’s Ann’s grit that I responded to.</div>
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<img alt="Lucy Walters and Shane West in "Here Alone"" class=" wp-image-253200" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/HereAlonegunscene.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/HereAlonegunscene.jpg 700w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/HereAlonegunscene-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/HereAlonegunscene-150x100.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/HereAlonegunscene-334x222.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Lucy Walters and Shane West in “Here Alone,” Photo: Manhattan Productions</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> What did you and Rod talk about in terms of this character? Did he want you to understand her more than he did?</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> Because this was a small film, Rod was doing everything. So there wasn’t a lot of time for us to get into who these people are. We did a little bit. We Skyped and had some conversations. He gave me a lot of information on what the disease was like that created the zombies. He really wanted this to seem real. But where Anne is emotionally, he let me figure a lot out for myself. I was in a weird place, I was coming straight from another film. That was all-night shoots, and you start to lose your mind when you don’t sleep for two weeks. So I was deeply depleted when we started this film. Also I was in the middle of my own breakup. So I still was not sleeping during the time we made <em>Here Alone</em>. Which was crazy because filming it was so exhausting. Needless to say, I had done work to figure out where she was but at the end of the day it didn’t matter because I was in my own weird state and that informed her. I had mapped it out, but it was enough to be wrestling with what I was wrestling with because it showed through. That’s why I like this type of storytelling. It doesn’t have to be so demonstrative.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Are you glad it was done with flashbacks, showing Ann, her husband and baby flee the city because of the epidemic and try to survive in the wilderness. rather than chronologically?</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> Maybe it did help. We shot in the dead of winter in the hopes that there would be snow. I wonder if it was hard for the audience members to tell what are flashbacks but for me the actor, it was nice because the flashbacks didn’t contaminate each other. I think it would have been fine no matter what we did.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did Rod see himself as any of the characters, including Ann? He did grow up in the Adirondacks.</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> He never talked about that. Then again, he didn’t write he screenplay, David Ebeltoft did. None of them talked about it. But Rod is an outdoors guy.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Gina Piersanti’s Olivia and Adam David Thompson’s Chris don’t show up until midway through the movie, but were they on the set the whole time?</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> When I first came, it was just me. I had a long road trip with the director to where we filmed in Corning, New York. While he and the crew were in pre-production, I learned how to shoot a gun. Gina and Adam came probably four or five days after I had been there by myself. Which was probably good because it was Ann’s world that they were entering. Gina’s great and I loved working with her. Adam, too. is such a great guy. I’d known him previously and we were already friends.</div>
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<strong>DP</strong>: Between the time Ann’s husband is killed by zombies and she kills her baby and the arrival of Chris and his stepdaughter Olivia, does Ann talk to herself?</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> Not much. A little bit. She does some counting and a little bit of muttering.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Does she worry about her sanity?</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> Probably, but like I said, she’s not worried about her own health. She is in a pragmatic way, trying to get through the day, but she certainly isn’t trying to make this cushier for herself. She thinks she has to pay penance.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> We talked about <em>Alone Time</em>, which Rod Blackhurst and David Ebeltoft cowrote. They also have another unfilmed project with Elgin James called <em>North</em>. It’s about a parolee who rides a bike up the California coast to figure out what it means to be free. He has a goal and kind of least an abstract destination. But Ann doesn’t really have anything in her life.</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> She’s just made a prison for herself and I think a lot of her self-flagellating is because she’s not getting over her guilt from killing her sick baby.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Does she fear dying?</div>
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<strong>LW</strong>: No. I think in some ways the easy thing to do would be to just kill herself or just let it end. In some ways, her living through this is a form of punishment.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> She had been a nurse. Where does that fit in?</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> There’s a toughness to being a nurse and there’s a toughness to Ann. I remember reading the script and thinking, “Wouldn’t it be more interesting if she came from a cushier life?” We chose things like Ann’s underwear. She would have frilly, lacy bras. That made sense to me. This is a woman who isn’t in her world but Jason’s—this isn’t fun for her. She’s a person who likes sweet, fun things. She’d choose the frilly bra not the practical bra. That’s a key for me, that this woman trying to survive in the wilderness isn’t who Ann is, although she proves to be tough enough to survive. There’s a toughness to someone who can be a nurse, and that I’m so impressed by. She can’t be squeamish, she has to get things done.</div>
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<img alt="Adam David Thomspon in "Here Alone"" class=" wp-image-253206" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/AdamDavidThomsponHereAlone.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/AdamDavidThomsponHereAlone.jpg 700w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/AdamDavidThomsponHereAlone-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/AdamDavidThomsponHereAlone-150x100.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/AdamDavidThomsponHereAlone-334x222.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="549" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Adam David Thomspon in “Here Alone,” Manhattan Productions</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> She also proves to be nurturing to the injured Chris and tries be almost motherly with Olivia.</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> Ann clearly is nurturing and she’s a caregiver but not in a gooey way.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Ann and Chris are drawn to each other, but they don’t seem to see what we see, that Olivia is attracted to her step-father and is jealous.</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> Yeah, I guess they do drop the ball by not picking up on that. But I guess Ann might be taking on a more motherly role with her….actually I don’t know what’s going to happen between Ann and Olivia moving forward.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> The synopsis in the press notes concludes: “As an uneasy tension grows, their lives are threatened when the protective forest is breached by the infected. Under attack, Ann is forced to confront her past.” That’s not right is it?</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> Hmm. No. She’s always confronting her past, it’s 24-hour guilt.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In the flashbacks, she seems to love her husband Jason, but not a lot. I think he annoys her. Is that true?</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> They wanted the script to show that their relationship was not great. Jason’s proposal was not great. This was not a great love to begin with and now they’ve become roommates. They’re trying to do the right thing by being with each other. They have a baby.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I wonder if her guilt is only in regard to the baby and not about her husband, who got killed by zombies when she insisted he go out at night in search of food.</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> I’m sure she has guilt about both of them. As much as she resented him, it sure was nice to have a teammate.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> All of a sudden she gets a new family when Chris and Olivia arrive. Is that how you see it?</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> Certainly not at first. It takes a little while for her to judge their intentions.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Not long. I think she is pretty welcoming.</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> I guess you’re right. That first scene when she saves him, she does not have to do that, but that’s her nature.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Was it ever mentioned on the set that you were making something different from<em> The Walking Dead</em>?</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> They tried to never talk about it because they were trying to do their own thing. I actually haven’t seen that show!</div>
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<img alt=""Here Alone" movie poster" class=" wp-image-253201" sizes="(max-width: 475px) 100vw, 475px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/HereAloneMoviePoster.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/HereAloneMoviePoster.jpg 475w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/HereAloneMoviePoster-198x300.jpg 198w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/HereAloneMoviePoster-146x222.jpg 146w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/HereAloneMoviePoster-308x467.jpg 308w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/HereAloneMoviePoster-300x455.jpg 300w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="375" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
“Here Alone” movie poster, Manhattan Productions</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Ann flees a deserted house with some food she took and some fast-moving zombies give chase. Did you realize how it was being filmed, how the zombies behind you would be blurry and sort of shadowy?</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> No. I remember wondering and hoping for the best. I didn’t want it to be a B-horror film but without the budget to do special effects, I just wondered about the quality.. I remember trusting them and choosing to believe that it was going to work.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> It’s not a zombie movie, really. It’s a survival movie.</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> I agree. Going back to my subway scenes in <em>Shame</em>, I think the most powerful things are those that were not spelled out for us. So our imaginations are what make it interesting, our imaginations projecting onto what is happening—with no dialogue in our scene at the beginning of <em>Shame</em>, or what these zombies actually look like if we could see them clearly. Somehow when you actually see them toward the end of the movie, the fear dissipates a little.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Was the nudity hard to do?</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> Here’s the deal, I was scared of nudity for a very long time. Film is permanent. It is out there and there are just so many icky sites. <span style="color: #333333;">So much for having to be a shape shifter, because once it’s out there, there’s no reason for putting on your push up bra anymore. </span>There it is. In a weird way, nudity is kind of liberating. It took me a long time to get there. After <em>Power</em>, this was a piece of cake. That has a lot of nudity and it’s all sexualized and was very scary to do. In <em>Here Alone</em>, the nudity isn’t sexualized. It’s realism. It’s not trying to be a hot body. That’s a scary thing to do, to never feel like you’re enough. And this one was just realism. The nudity is just in service of the role. There were moments that I was clear that I didn’t want the nudity to be all gratuitous and if it wasn’t necessary, I really didn’t want it to be in there. I didn’t want to throw a big stink, but I had to trust that if Rod told me it wasn’t gratuitous then it wasn’t. It’s a tricky thing, but I’m trying to become more European about saying, “f__k it.” Besides being very cold, I’m getting way more comfortable with it.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I thought when Ann washes off the mud from her nude body that it was a brave scene for you. There’s a metaphor. She can never clean off the guilt. And what this woman has to go through when she is caked in mud. Was that part of what you were thinking?</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> Yeah, and I sort of like the idea of going all the way. There’s nothing more vulnerable than that. There’s no skimping. You’ve got to get raw and filthy. You had to go all the way for this film and I like that.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Well, all other actors can complain about what they’ve gone through in movies, but you can always say, “I did this!”</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> Right!</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> If this movie was made by a lousy director, it could have been a lousy movie.</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> It’s about trust. And sometimes I have to take a leap of trust because I didn’t really know him, but there’s something to Rod that I did respond to.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Where does <em>Here Alone</em> fit into your career?</div>
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<strong>LW:</strong> I’ve always wanted to do independent films and I want to do bigger and more substantial roles. I’d like to think that this will open the door to make that more possible. I have a lot of pride in this movie.</div>
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<em>Danny Peary has published 25 books on film and sports, including </em><span class="s1">Cult Movies</span><em> and </em><span class="s1">Jackie Robinson in Quotes</span><em>.</em></div>
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Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-36783422117557745302018-01-29T12:18:00.000-08:002018-01-29T12:18:35.901-08:00Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Get on Up’ Star Nelsan Ellis – A TributeTribute Reprint<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #074889; font-family: Conv_Gotham-Bold; font-size: 25px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: center;">Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Get on Up’ Star Nelsan Ellis – A Tribute</span><br />
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(from DansPapers.com 7/11/17)<br />
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<img alt="Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Get on Up’ Star Nelsan Ellis – A Tribute" class="ds_link" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/NelsanEllisTribeca2016LittleBoxes-McMullan.jpg" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; height: auto; max-width: 100%; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; width: 450px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: center;"></span><br />
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NELSAN ELLIS AT THE 2016 TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL, PHOTO: ©PATRICKMCMULLAN.COM</div>
<div class="post-251819 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-blog-du-jour tag-true-blood tag-interview tag-hbo tag-actor tag-get-on-up tag-james-brown tag-danny-peary-talk-to tag-danny-peary tag-nelsan-ellis tag-elementary tag-bobby-byrd tag-lafayette entry" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: center;">
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<span class="date published time" style="font-weight: 700;" title="2017-07-11T13:02:07+00:00">JULY 11, 2017</span> BY DANNY PEARY</div>
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<div class="at-above-post addthis_tool" data-url="http://www.danspapers.com/2017/07/danny-peary-get-on-up-nelsan-ellis-tribute-interview/">
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Like everyone else, I was shocked by the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/07/11/nelsan-ellis-died-from-alcohol-withdrawal-family-hopes-his-death-will-be-a-cautionary-tale/?utm_term=.0234e6a116d6" rel="noopener" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">recent death</a> of Nelsan Ellis at the tender age of 39. I became a fan, as many of you did, watching him for years play gay short-order cook Lafayette, one of the good guys, on HBO’s <em>True Blood</em>. He would show his versatility in the movie <em>Little Boxes</em>, opposite Melanie Lynskey, and the CBS series, <em>Elementary, </em>on which he had a major arc this last season—ending with his character’s surprising death.</div>
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I got to interview Ellis just once, for about five minutes on camera, in Nachez, Mississippi, while on the set of the James Brown biopic, <em>Get on Up </em>(<em>see trailer at bottom of post</em>). In the film, which today plays frequently on cable and VOD, he played the legendary soul/R&B/funk musician Bobby Byrd, founder of the Flames and “discoverer” of James Brown, his best friend. I found Nelsan Ellis to be a thoughtful, sweet man, as calm in person as in his performances. Here is that brief interview as my way of paying tribute.</div>
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<img alt="Nelsan Ellis as Lafayette in HBO's "True Blood"" class=" wp-image-251821" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/NelsanEllisTrueBlood-HBO.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/NelsanEllisTrueBlood-HBO.jpg 700w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/NelsanEllisTrueBlood-HBO-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/NelsanEllisTrueBlood-HBO-150x100.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/NelsanEllisTrueBlood-HBO-334x222.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Nelsan Ellis as Lafayette in HBO’s “True Blood,” Photo: HBO</div>
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<strong>Danny Peary:</strong> Everybody involved with <em>Get on Up</em> wants the new generation to see James Brown. You want that to happen but I’m sure you also want recognition for Bobby Byrd.</div>
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<strong>Nelson Ellis:</strong> Absolutely, absolutely. I think that Bobby Byrd has a powerful story in regards to James Brown. I hope that people glean from this movie how James Brown became James Brown because there was a Bobby Byrd, and Bobby Byrd was Bobby Byrd because there was a James Brown.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> It is a shame that Bobby Byrd did not get into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame at the same time as James Brown, and not until several years after he died.</div>
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<strong>NE:</strong> It was in 2012 that he died and he deserved to be in there way earlier than that, certainly when he was alive.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did you know much about Bobby Byrd before playing him?</div>
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<strong>NE:</strong> Not at all.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Which is a shame, because we should know, right?</div>
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<strong>NE:</strong> It is. I didn’t know there was a Bobby Byrd. I knew there was a James Brown and I knew he had a band, but I had no idea who Bobby Byrd was. Then during my research I was like, “Oh, I feel ashamed of myself.”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I’ve seen videos of James Brown and Bobby Byrd performing together and James Brown is being James Brown and doing all kinds of spins and whatever, and Bobby Byrd is just singing normally. But when you watch them together do you see Bobby Byrd as a talent unto himself?</div>
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<strong>NE:</strong> I see the big thing about Bobby Byrd is that he’s a supporter. Everything he’s doing is in support of James Brown. But yes, he was a talent unto himself. He was a frontman for the Gospel Starlighters before James Brown ever came along. He’s the one who started the Flames. He was a talent, he had a hit record, he could sing. To my ear he and James sounded kind of alike.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Would James Brown have had the same career he had if not for Bobby Byrd?</div>
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<strong>NE:</strong> Absolutely not. Well, no one can ever say something like that.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Well, <em>you</em> can.</div>
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<strong>NE:</strong> Bobby Byrd is actually credited for discovering James Brown. It was Bobby Byrd who gave James Brown his first opportunity to be in a group, the Gospel Starlighters, and from there they took off.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Bobby Byrd got him out of jail.</div>
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<strong>NE:</strong> He got him out of jail. He came and stayed with his family. I think that there are notable steps that Bobby Byrd was responsible for in James Brown’s life.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In the movie, what is the trajectory of the relationship between the two men?</div>
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<strong>NE:</strong> As in any relationship that falls apart, you have your good times and then you have your bad times and sometimes it doesn’t work out. So you’ll see good and bad times, and maybe it doesn’t work out, and maybe it does.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I don’t know if you would use the word <em>loyal</em> in regard to both of them in their relationship, but Bobby Byrd was the only Famous Flame who stuck with James Brown, all through the years while everybody else sort of faded away. Did James Brown feel the same towards Bobby Byrd? And was James Brown as protective of Bobby Byrd as Bobby Byrd was of James Brown?</div>
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<strong>NE:</strong> I would say that Bobby Byrd was definitely loyal to James Brown. But he was in a different position than James Brown, so I don’t know if James Brown could feel the same.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> A different position?</div>
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<strong>NE:</strong> Bobby Byrd wasn’t the frontman—James Brown was. James Brown always stayed in touch with Bobby Byrd despite whatever falling outs they had, so while he couldn’t be as loyal, he was committed to their relationship—if that means anything.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You’re from Alabama and Bobby Byrd was from Georgia, so do you think you had an automatic connection to him because of that?</div>
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<strong>NE:</strong> I did. He grew up in the South, and came from a strong Christian family. I grew up in the South and came from a strong Christian family. So I automatically knew 50 percent of who this man was. The other 50 percent I had to figure out.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> What kind of satisfaction, gratification do you have being in this movie?</div>
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<strong>NE:</strong> I get to play a person who hasn’t been given the credit that he deserves. I’m the one who get to play that dude and ultimately the responsibility falls on me. I feel privileged to play Bobby Byrd.</div>
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<em>Danny Peary has published 25 books on film and sports, including </em><span class="s1">Cult Movies</span><em> and </em><span class="s1">Jackie Robinson in Quotes</span><em>.</em></div>
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Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-49010881527139111142018-01-29T12:14:00.000-08:002018-01-29T12:14:13.613-08:00Danny Peary Talks To… ‘One Mississippi’ Star John RothmanPlaying on Amazon<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Conv_Gotham-Bold; font-size: 25px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: center;">Danny Peary Talks To… ‘One Mississippi’ Star John Rothman</span><br />
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(from DansPapers.com 6/22/17)<br />
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JOHN ROTHMAN AS BILL IN "ONE MISSISSIPPI," PHOTO: AMAZON PRIME VIDEO</div>
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<span class="date published time" style="font-weight: 700;" title="2017-06-22T16:38:10+00:00">JUNE 22, 2017</span> BY DANNY PEARY</div>
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I have been extremely appreciative of character actors since I first saw the films of great directors like Howard Hawks, Frank Capra, Preston Sturges, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles, as well as classic Hollywood musicals. Just out of the spotlight, those <span class="s1">versatile, familiar </span>actors and actresses provided each film with personality, humor or menace; voiced opinions, rules, threats, moral codes and concern; and established and embodied the worlds that the leads ventured through. If a film, be it a comedy or western or melodrama, had splendid supporting players, then it had a huge advantage over its competition. Fortunately, future generations of filmmakers tried to emulate their idols and populate their own films with skilled supporting players.</div>
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One of my favorites has long been John Rothman, and if you look him up on <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0745232/" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">IMDB.com</a>, you’ll recognize his face and be astonished to find that since 1980 he has 126 movie and television credits, and that’s not including his multiple appearances on several television series. And not including all the theater he has done. I’ve wanted to interview the New York-based Rothman for years, and almost did it when he played one of the ill-fated passengers in <em>United 93</em>. But since I didn’t have the mettle to see Paul Greengrass’s intense 2006 9/11 film until 2007, I had no choice but to wait for the ideal time to come along before approaching Rothman.</div>
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That time is now. The Baltimore native has left an indelible mark on major films for decades, but I think it’s safe to say that in the last couple of years his career has reached new heights. He has been everywhere: He was part of a brilliant cast when the Actors Company Theatre did a revival last fall of Oliver Goldsmith’s <em>She Stoops to Conquer </em>on Theatre Row; in an elaborate, widely-seen commercial for Optimum Online, he made a distinct impression as the diplomatic president who brings together two siblings that can’t agree on which TV shows to watch; in Laurie Simmons’ offbeat <em>My Art</em>, which played at the <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2017/06/danny-peary-talks-to-paris-can-wait-director-eleanor-coppola-and-star-diane-lane/" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Tribeca Film Festival</a>, he had one of his best and biggest movie roles as a lawyer who is succumbs to the acting bug, and played it to perfection. Also, there have been guest roles on TV shows and more plays. But surely the most exciting development is that he got the role of his career, playing Bill, the stepfather of deadpan comedian Tig Notaro, in her must-see semi-autobiographical Amazon series, <em>One Mississippi</em>. He’s not only a regular, but one of its stars. Impeccable casting!</div>
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<span class="s1">The premise of <i>One Mississippi </i>is that “Tig” (the show’s fictional version of Notaro), having survived a devastating intestinal disease and a double mastectomy, loses her mother Caroline in a freak accident, breaks up with her girlfriend in L.A., and has her witty radio commentary show canceled there. Much of this story might be familiar from Tig’s famous stand-up set at Largo in L.A.., but it is only the jumping off point for <i>One Mississippi</i>. In the series first season “Tig” returns to Mississippi to live in the house where she grew up with her totally uptight stepfather Bill and underachieving brother Remy. </span>Tig was a heroine in need of a “heel”—more accurately, an antagonist who is unable to convey his kind feelings—and Rothman, having time to create and develop Bill under her auspices, has come up with an individual unlike any I’ve ever seen on television or anywhere else. I can’t imagine anyone else in the part.</div>
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The Season 1 trailer:</div>
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In the pilot, Bill seemed like a quick study, but during the six-episode first season, he kept confusing us by revealing different aspects of his personality. In fact, I was so fascinated by his unusual behavior that I keep trying to figure him out—and I can’t wait to see where his character goes in Season 2, tentatively scheduled for the fall. I believe Notaro deserves many statues come Emmy time for the bold and very funny <em>One Mississippi</em>, and I hope John Rothman gets the same kind of recognition for his vital contribution to the show. It would be a tribute to all the talented character actors out there who are waiting for their dream roles to come along. I told him this when I finally sat down with him recently, over breakfast at the Washington Square Diner in Greenwich Village.</div>
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<img alt=""One Mississippi" star John Rothman" class="size-full wp-image-250258" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/OneMississippiJohnRothman-DP.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/OneMississippiJohnRothman-DP.jpg 640w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/OneMississippiJohnRothman-DP-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/OneMississippiJohnRothman-DP-150x100.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/OneMississippiJohnRothman-DP-334x222.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
“One Mississippi” star John Rothman, Photo: Danny Peary</div>
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<strong>Danny Peary:</strong> After four decades as an actor, are you suddenly being recognized on the street more because of <em>One Mississippi</em>?</div>
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<strong>John Rothman:</strong> I just walked here down Waverly Place and a doorman or porter at the Washington Square Hotel jumped out and said, “How are you doing? What are you doing next?” I said, “Well, I just wrapped the second season of <em>One Mississippi</em>.” He said, “Oh, then I’m going to tell everybody to watch it on Amazon.” Obviously people have seen the show, but you don’t get an immediate audience response about it as you would in the theater, so I really enjoy being recognized because of it.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Before this show, were you recognized mostly for particular movie roles in your past, or a recent movie, or your entire body or work?</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> I have been acting for a long time, so being recognized happens fairly frequently, especially in New York, but I don’t completely know the answer to that. I can say that when I’ve been a guest on a TV show like <em>Law and Order </em>or <em>Elementary</em>, suddenly people recognize me all over the place. Also, I have more than 100 credits for movies and television, and because of cable they’re on all time, even the little indie movies. I had almost completely forgotten about a movie in 1987 directed by Frank Perry, <em>Hello, Again</em>, with Shelley Long. But fans remember it.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> By the time you made your first movie, Woody Allen’s <em>Stardust Memories</em>, you were already 30. Did you try to get into movies earlier or were you thinking of being a theater actor?</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> I was actually thinking of becoming a theater <em>director</em>. I had done some acting at Wesleyan as an undergrad and then graduated from Yale Drama School in 1975. But frankly, the first year I came to New York I was intimidated and wasn’t sure I really wanted to be an actor. I took a directing workshop with Nikos Psacharopolous at Circle in the Square, which was very exciting. I directed a production of <em>Streetcar Named Desire</em> and produced Christopher Durang’s first commercial production, <em>Titanic</em>, with Sigourney Weaver. They were both classmates of mine at Yale. I also commissioned him to write <em>Das Lusitania Songspiel</em>, which went on to become a signature piece for them. Then in the summer of 1976, I was an assistant director at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. I also worked on Nikos’s production of <em>The Three Sisters </em>there, running lines with <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2015/08/blythe-danner-to-attend-westhampton-beach-screening-of-new-film/" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Blythe Danner</a>. That’s when I was thinking of becoming a director. <span class="s1">But then I realized that wasn’t my passion and decided I really wanted to be an actor</span>. So I came back to New York and focused on acting. I got a job to support myself, as a weekend desk clerk at the Chelsea Hotel. That was the era of Sid Vicious, Joey Ramone and Viva. Meanwhile I was taking any role that came my way. I did a play at Ensemble Studio Theatre on West 52<sup>nd</sup> Street. A great agent, Jeff Hunter, saw the play and took me out to the Russian Tea Room and said he wanted to represent me.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> What were your acting ambitions then—to be a leading man or a character actor?</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> I was sort of wanting to be a leading man, but I recognized that I was a character actor. In fact, Bobby Lewis, my teacher at Yale, actually said, “You’re a character actor.” Today I’m delighted to call myself a character actor, but at the time I thought there was something dismissive about calling me that. Anyway, I was working at the Chelsea when a guy came in named Dan Mason. He ran the Van Dam Theatre downtown and told me that Michael Murphy was directing <em>Rat’s Nest </em>there, and had lost one of his actors. So I took the very funny part of a liquor salesman at a dive bar. Woody Allen came to see it because he and Michael were best friends. When I met Woody for <em>Stardust Memories</em>, we talked about his having seen the play.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did Woody Allen offer you a part after seeing the play?</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> Yes, and it turned out to be a fabulous job. I was wanted for 24 weeks, the whole picture and reshoots, playing the boyfriend of Jessica Harper. I knew Jessica from when we did theater at Wesleyan, and now she is my sister-in-law, having married my brother [film executive, Tom Rothman]. When we were shooting, Woody and Jessica were <span class="s1">good friends and sometimes </span> went to Elaine’s for lunch <span class="s2">when we were shooting at Filmways on 126th Street</span>, and she would tell me to come along. Then I did <em>Zelig</em> and <em>The Purple Rose of Cairo</em> with him.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> And <em>Radio Days</em>, from which your part got cut.</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> That was hard. People were telling me that I was part of his company and would be with him forever. So I thought I’d arrived. I believed it when I got <span class="s1">my scenes in advance </span>for <em>Radio Days</em> and he’d written a very funny part for me, a radio actor. But he cut that part <span class="s1">and gave me another very funny part as a pretentious a</span><span class="s2">ctor </span><span class="s1">in a company doing Chekov on the radio. </span>That part was cut too, except for one scene in which his radio play is interrupted by the announcement that the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor. So there was not much of me left in the movie. <em>Radio Days </em>was my last film with Woody, but in 1996, I was in one of his plays, <em>Death Defying Acts,</em> off-Broadway, playing opposite Valerie Harper in his “Central Park West” segment. A couple years ago, I understudied seven roles in Woody Allen, Elaine May and Ethan Cohen’s <em>Relatively Speaking</em>, <span class="s1">directed by John Turturro, </span>actually going on in five of them; and for a week I took over for Richard Libertini as the drunk rabbi in Woody’s play, <em>Honeymoon Hotel</em>. My motto as an actor is “It is never too late,” so I really hope to do another movie with Woody someday. (I hope he is reading this!)</div>
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The 80s was a very exciting time for me. New York wasn’t the film mecca it is today, but I was doing a couple of major films each year here, and back in the day they paid good residuals. Juliet Taylor, who did Woody’s casting, also cast me in movies by Mike Nichols and Paul Mazursky, as well as <em>Big</em>. Karen Rea cast me in <em>Ghostbusters. </em>I also did Alan Pakula’s <em>Sophie’s Choice</em> with Meryl Streep, another friend from Yale Drama School. So I had a pretty nice career going.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In the 90s, you were in such films as Anthony Minghella’s <em>Mr Wonderful</em> and <em>Copycat </em>with Sigourney Weaver, in which you had a substantial part, but you also did several TV movies, most notably <em>Gettysburg</em>, and made many appearances in regular series and mini-series. You were even in your only other series prior to <em>One Mississippi</em>, <em>Birdland</em> with Brian Dennehy.</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> It wasn’t until the mid-90s, when there were few feature films made in New York, that I’d have to go out to L.A. to work, and like everybody else, try to get a TV pilot. On my first foray in Hollywood, I had a ticket to come back to New York but during that two-week window I went to network at ABC and I got that series. I had fun playing someone who ran a hospital and working with Brian and all the great character actors who were brought in. It was a highly anticipated mid-season replacement beautifully produced by the legendary Walter Parks and Laurie MacDonald. The great screenwriter Scott Frank wrote the pilot but then, for whatever reason, he was no longer in the writers’ room and the scripts suffered. It was a very expensive series so it was pulled after only seven episodes. That was my only regular role in a series prior to <em>One Mississippi</em>, but I also had a recurring role in which I was in every episode of a terrific show called <em>Feds</em> with John Slattery, Dylan Baker and Blair Brown. It was shot in New York and dealt with white-collar crime, and unfortunately it was the rare Dick Wolf series that <span class="s1">was short-lived.</span></div>
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<img alt="John Rothman and Tig Notaro in "One Mississippi"" class="size-full wp-image-250270" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/BillandTiginOneMississippi.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/BillandTiginOneMississippi.jpg 700w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/BillandTiginOneMississippi-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/BillandTiginOneMississippi-150x100.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/BillandTiginOneMississippi-334x222.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
John Rothman and Tig Notaro in “One Mississippi,” Photo: Amazon Prime Video</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Since 2000, you have appeared in a number of significant films, including <em>The Devil Wears Prada</em>, <em>The Day the Earth Stood Still</em>, <em>I Heart Huckabees</em>, <em>United 93</em>, <em>Reservation Road</em> and <em>Welcome to Mooseport</em>, as well as many popular TV series. Did your ambitions change?</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> No. I always just wanted to get better at acting, whether it’s being in plays, television shows or movies. Acting always interested me. I love good acting and like to promote and encourage it. After Yale Drama School, I studied with Michael Howard and Austin Pendleton, and I’ve continued to study acting and work on the craft ever since. I’m a lifetime member of the Actors Studio and am involved in The Actor’s Center Workshop Company, where for 20 years I have had the tremendous opportunity to work with great master teachers like Ron Van Lieu, who is the former head of at acting at Yale and NYU and is now at Columbia.</div>
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<strong>DP: </strong>What is an ideal year for you as an actor?</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> A decent role in a feature film, a couple of episodes in a television series, a couple of commercials, and a play or two. That’s what I normally have done almost every year, before also doing <em>One Mississippi </em>to stream on Amazon. Almost every actor that I know has had long periods when they can’t get work, <span class="s1">but I’ve been extremely lucky and worked consistently</span>. <span class="s1">I’ve actually never had a long time when I’ve been out of work and had to question what the hell I was doing.</span></div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> As a New York actor, I know you appeared in a few soap operas going back to the early 80s, but did you ever desire to become a regular?</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> No, absolutely not. I admired many of the New York actors who did soaps in the day and theater at night, but it could be a trap for some. I wanted to have time to do movies and other things. I am grateful for having been in soap operas, but I found them incredibly difficult to do because I’d be coming into a long story that I didn’t really know and the dialogue I’d be given was usually very expositional. The longest job I had was every couple of weeks one summer: I’d play a brain surgeon on <em>As the World Turns</em>, or whatever soap it was, and he’d have to explain to whoever came to see to him about the memory loss of the main character. It paid well, but it was so boring. It is a unique subculture, but the few soaps that remain tape in Los Angeles. I was in <em>Guiding Light</em> in 2007 and 2009, when they were suddenly shooting with digital cameras. They stopped having rehearsals and it was a bare bones operation. It was the end of an era.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> For most films, do you have to audition or do directors or casting agents give you parts based on your past work?</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> It’s a combination. I don’t mind getting a good audition when I get the script in advance, think about how I’m going to do it and meet the director. What helps me psychologically at auditions is that I always think I’m going to get the part. I don’t think about the odds or who I’m up against, I always assume the miracle will happen. It’s a constant hustle.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> One really good recent movie role you got was in Laurie Simmons’ <em>My Art</em>, which played at the Tribeca Film Festival. I really like that unusual movie and think you’re terrific as one of her artist character’s suitors. We don’t like your character, a successful lawyer, when they go out on a date. But he surprises us and we get to like him when he agrees to act in her recreations of classic movie scenes.</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> You think he’s a jerk, but he falls in love with acting. I have to say that my father was a trial lawyer who wanted to be an actor and helped found Center Stage in Baltimore. There’s a wonderful scene, in which my character talks to her other suitor, played by Robert Clohessy—after they do the <em>Jules and Jim </em>running scene with Laurie—and asks himself why he didn’t always act because it’s so great. I was totally channeling my father.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> How did you hear that Tig Notaro was going to do a semi-autobiographical series that was going to stream on Amazon?</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> It was one of those things that make you believe in higher powers! A week before I heard about the show, I was sick at home looking for something to watch on television. I chose to watch a documentary on Netflix about her called <em>Tig</em>. There is actually another documentary about her that I also saw. In <em>Knock Knock, It’s Tig Notaro</em>, she goes around the country doing stand-up in people’s living rooms, basements and backyards. I had done an audition to play Desdemona’s father, Brabanzio, in <em>Othello </em>in Washington, D.C. Afterward, I was sure I got the part. My agent called me on a Friday afternoon and said, “Sorry, he’s hiring an English actor that he’s worked with umpteen times before.” So I hung up the phone feeling really disgusted. Then the phone rang and it was Bryan Walsh, a savvy young agent I didn’t know from my agency’s office in L.A. He asked me, “Do you know who Tig Notaro is?” I said, “It’s funny you should ask. I do know because I just watched two documentaries about her.”</div>
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<span class="s1">He said, “Well, she is going to have a television series on Amazon and I got you an audition, that is, they would like you to self-tape an audition. He emailed me the script and the sides. There were five or six scenes with Bill and a description of him being a totally repressed guy who had “a temperament between room temperature and sleet.” Frankly, I thought I was completely wrong for this, being kind of an emotional guy. But my wife reminded me, “You’re an actor.” She meant I’d have to figure out how to tap into that part of myself. I got the script on a Friday and went to the Tape Room on Monday. I wanted it to look good, so I went to a professional studio.” An actress I knew, Kellie Overbey was working there and having her do the scenes with me was very helpful.</span></div>
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A couple of weeks went by and then I got a call saying, “Tig loved the tape and wants to meet you.” At the time <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2017/04/louis-c-k-explains-his-love-of-naps-on-the-tonight-show-starring-jimmy-fallon/" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Louis C.K.</a> was going to direct [as well as be one of the executive producers], so I went to Pig Newton Inc., his production company in New York, to meet Tig and do the scenes with her. <span class="s1">Tig’s wife, Stephanie Allynne [who plays Kate the sound engineer at the radio station “Tig” is attracted to in Season 1]</span><span class="s2"> and the casting director Gayle Keller were also there. </span>My son, Noah, who is a manager, advised me very strongly to go in character. Tig’s real stepfather, Ric, appears briefly in her documentary, so I got glasses to match his, and was in character, playing him with a temperament between room temperature and sleet. I did all the scenes with Tig and at one point I apologized for needing to look at the script, and she said, “You don’t need the lines, you <em>are</em> Bill.” So when I left, I believed she was going to want me for the role. Yet I was competing for a part many actors wanted—and Tig told me they’d seen hundreds of actors, including some I knew—and Louis, Amazon Studios and FX Studios had to sign off on me. Fortunately Amazon is known for giving the creators of their shows their way, and Tig wanted me. Pretty soon after, I was told I got the role by my agents. When Louis dropped out as director two weeks before we started shooting the pilot—and Nicole Holofcener stepped in, which was fantastic—I was already cast.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Were you thinking you had to do the show in <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2017/04/big-easy-five-days-in-new-orleans-the-land-of-satchmo-the-french-quarter/" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">New Orleans</a>?</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> Yes. The pilot was done there, and the other shows were done in L.A. and Galveston, Texas because Gulf Coast Galveston and Mississippi are very similar. None of the scenes in the first season took place in New Orleans. For Season 2, however, in May we shot in Pass Christian, where the real Tig grew up—Bill, “Tig” and Remy are supposed to live in the fictional Bay St. Lucille, Mississippi—and in New Orleans, <span class="s1">where </span><span class="s2">some of the story takes place</span>.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> After the pilot was shot, were there already scripts for the other five episodes of Season 1?</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> No. The pilot was completed in September, if I remember correctly, and the pickup was not until November or December. There was a long break. They hadn’t written the first season, just the pilot and an outline for the rest of the shows. They went back into the writers’ room again in January. Meanwhile Trevor Nunn asked me to be in <em>Pericles</em>,<em> </em>but the Theatre for a New Audience wouldn’t let me do it unless it got a letter from Amazon saying I wouldn’t be needed for the show until after the play’s final performance. Louis’ chief producing partner, Blair Breard, whom I love, actually went to Amazon and got a letter saying we wouldn’t go into production until after March 26. So I was able to do the play while they were writing the rest of the scripts. My wife and I read the scripts for Season 1 on the plane out to L.A. where there would be a table reading for Amazon and FX, before we started the season. They were some of the best scripts I ever read, and we were both weeping at the end.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Well, at the end of Episode 6 Bill says nice things to Tig on the phone after she gets a cancer-free diagnosis, and she is so touched that she puts his name in her phone as a contact person. I got misty-eyed.</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> Me too. I read that in the script, but because Bill is in Mississippi and “Tig” is in California in that scene, I didn’t actually see her put his name in until I watched the series.</div>
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<strong>DP: </strong><span class="s1">Tig and Diablo Cody were credited with co-creating show, but Tig had a number of women writing with her in Season 1.</span></div>
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<strong>JR: </strong><span class="s1">This</span><span class="s2"> season there were six writers working on <em>One Mississippi</em></span><span class="s3">. </span>Tig said, in an interview I did with her for <em>Vulture</em>, that people encouraged her to write the whole thing herself. She said she is glad that she didn’t. Having a writers’ room gives her the distance she needs. Kate Robin is our showrunner. She was the head writer on <em>Six Feet Under </em>and has written scripts for <em><a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2017/02/the-affair-season-3-review-more-malaise-in-montauk/" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">The Affair</a>. </em>She is <span class="s1">such a good writer</span>, and Tig and Stephanie are a really good writing team. <span class="s1">The </span><span class="s1">other wonderful</span><span class="s3"> </span><span class="s1">writers this season are Cara DiPaolo, Zoe Jarman and Rebecca Walker.</span><span class="s4"> </span><span class="s5">Tig </span><span class="s5">has said that the pilot was about 80 percent from her real life and by the time we get to the sixth </span><span class="s5">episode it was only about 30 percent. In Season 2, I think we’ve created a world that is now only </span><span class="s5">loosely </span><span class="s2"> </span><span class="s5">based on ” the facts.” The world of <i>One Mississippi</i> is expanding. </span></div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> An almost rhetorical question: Do you think <em>One Mississippi</em> has always been a catharsis for Tig?</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> Yes. There are a lot of difficult themes in Season 1, so it must have been hard for her. But Tig and Stephanie have adorable twins now and she seems like a very fulfilled and happy person. I think she’s really loving doing this.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When you went back to shoot the full first season, did you still feel you had to stay in character?</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> At first I wanted everyone to believe I was this guy who wasn’t social, but at a certain point I didn’t feel I had to do that anymore. So I could be myself.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did you still feel you weren’t at all like Bill?</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> I was doing a SAG Foundation Q&A, and telling the story about how I got the part and my reaction, and one of my best friends, <span class="s1">the actor Philip Casnoff, </span>was there and he said, “You know, I don’t think it’s true. I know you very well, and <span class="s1">in many ways you are just like Bill.” </span><span class="s2">I think he isn’t wrong and I have discovered aspects of my personality I didn’t know I possessed.</span></div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I find Bill so fascinating because there’s no one quite like him and I’m constantly trying to figure him out.</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> People have told me, “He doesn’t exist in television.” There’s a line in one of the episodes: “He’s not normal.” Why can’t he do this or that? Because he’s not normal. I love that and it’s great finding the ways that he’s not normal.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> We grow fond of him because we see his genuine affection for “Tig.”</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> Right. But I think it’s really part of my job as an actor to defend my character and his actions. I think Bill’s highly defensible. I’m fine with <span class="s1">the parts of him that aren’t normal because that makes him so interesting. </span>Playing him, it helps to be a father and remember how <span class="s1">I wanted my children to follow the rules I had laid down for them and the frustration I felt when they didn’t.</span></div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In the pilot, the fictional Bill makes the strong point that “Tig” isn’t his blood relative. In the final episode, Bill tells her, “You’re like a daughter to me.” So it’s a 100 percent reversal. But looking back, do you think that in the pilot Bill already thought of her as his daughter but was unable to tell her that?</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> Yeah. <span class="s1">But there is a reason they’re estranged as they are, which comes up obliquely during Season 1. In Episode 5, directed by the brilliant Ken Kwapis, Bill tells her to get over the past because the man who molested her when she was a girl has been dead for 30 years. He tells her she has to let go of it. “It’s the past.”</span></div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Bill has a strong responsibility regarding his family, so this was his great failure.</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> Right. There’s a scene in Episode 5, when Bill and “Tig” have a confrontation. He tells her defensively, “Caroline and I didn’t know. How could we have known?” What happened after they did find out? Just think about one thing in regard to Bill’s character. “Tig” has come back to Mississippi to live with him. If she didn’t have a caring relationship with him, she wouldn’t do that.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Even as we grow fonder of Bill, we continue to think there is something odd about him. I think you could go back to his youth for some answers as to why he is like he is.</div>
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<span class="s1"><strong>JR: </strong>I said part of my job is to defend my character. It is also to create his back story. His </span><span class="s1">biography is my secret. I did some research into compulsive disorders, what they’re about </span><span class="s1">and where they come from. It has really helped me understand Bill. I think the compulsions </span><span class="s1">he has are the result of anxiety, his cover and his way of handling the world. He tries to make </span><span class="s1">his world ordered, clean and perfect because there’s something really scary in his world he </span><span class="s1">doesn’t want to face, even if he perhaps doesn’t know what it is.</span></div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I read in an interview that you use Bill’s glasses as a mask, but I think you really get into your character by having a straight posture. There is a stiffness to how you stand and move.</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> When I said I had to do work in order to be Bill, I had to change my physicality and come up with that body language. It has evolved. Tig did an amazing <em>Moth Radio Hour</em> in which she talks about Ric and says she thought of him as R2-D2, except that R2-D2 had a heart and he didn’t. So when Bill is walking and talking, I am thinking of a robot—although I don’t want it to be too much. I also had this image of him being a good soldier, and his trying to get through his grief of losing his wife by soldiering on. So there was a military bearing that I added. Things happen the second season that allow him to relax a bit—he has a love affair—but I didn’t want to lose how I played him before because that’s who he is. Even if he “loosens up” a bit, he doesn’t change his body language.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> “Tig” has visions of Caroline that are onscreen. Does Bill have such visions offscreen?</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> There’s a moving moment when Bill lies in bed and longingly puts his hand on <span class="s1">his late wife’s pillow</span>, but no he doesn’t have visions of her. He doesn’t want to. He’s pushing that away. Part of how he deals with his grief is to not go there. That’s why he tells “Tig” and Remy to get all the furniture out of the house. He wants to get rid of everything that reminds him of her.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> A lot of times, we look into Bill’s face and we see what we think is frustration but if we look closer we can detect a bit of anguish. Is he feeling hurt or pain?</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> Both. I admire Tig enormously and think she has a killer sense of the truth as well as an absolute killer sense of humor. (My god, the woman is so funny—witty actually. I really think she is a comic genius.) From moment to moment, she is in touch with what’s going on, and what she’s feeling and what other characters are feeling. I find that I am in character most of the time when I’m with her and we’re going to do a scene. There’s a discomfort there. And though I’d like to be closer to her, that is so helpful to me in playing Bill. In their relationship, Bill can easily be hurt. For example, when he invites her to dinner and she doesn’t show up, I totally identified with that and found it very hurtful. And even if he accepted Caroline having an affair, I think there’s a lot of hurt in there. Yet, he’s managed to be an extremely successful businessman and a pillar in his community. He has his own world, and he’s figured out a strategy that allows him to get up every day and do his thing. But he can’t allow himself to think about it too much. He has to put one foot in front of the other and make sure all the ducks are in a row.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Another word I want to ask you about in regard to Bill is “lonely.”</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> He’s incredibly lonely. That is actually a theme in the second season, when women realize there is this well-off, eligible guy and come after him. He’s lonely but he has his world, and does he have room to let anyone else in other than “Tig” and Remy?</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Does “Tig” recognize his loneliness?</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> Not really, because she has her own things going on. She knows who he is and has expectations. Sometimes he foils her expectations and really surprises her, but typically, it’s just, “This is just Bill being Bill, don’t pay any attention to him.”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> We see that Bill really cares about “Tig,” that he loves her, although he can’t express it. That’s his redeeming quality.</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> And he loves Remy. Bill and “Tig” have that fight I mentioned in which he pushes her to stop thinking about the past. The next time they speak, on the phone, he says he has to apologize. But all he can apologize for is wrongly accusing her of opening the door and letting his cat run away. That’s extraordinary writing.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> It’s as if he’s saying “I want to apologize about the cat” and then in parenthesis, “and everything else.”</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> Exactly.</div>
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<img alt="John Rothman in "One Mississippi"" class="size-full wp-image-250264" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/BillOneMississippi-3-Amazon.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/BillOneMississippi-3-Amazon.jpg 700w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/BillOneMississippi-3-Amazon-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/BillOneMississippi-3-Amazon-150x100.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/BillOneMississippi-3-Amazon-334x222.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
John Rothman in “One Mississippi,” Photo: Amazon Prime Video</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Because Bill is unable to physically express affection for “Tig,” was it hard doing her fantasy scene at the end of Season 1 in which she returns to live in the house and he gives her a big hug?</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> No, that was really great. It was the last scene in the sixth episode and it was also the last scene we shot in Season 1. I’ll tell you something funny. I wear a shirt and the costume designer wanted it to be a softer shirt in the fantasy scene. I was fine with that. And Tig said, “No. You can’t be in that shirt, because he would never wear it under any circumstances.” She was so precise in what she wanted. In one scene, Bill was supposed to say something like, “Are you finished?” or “Are you done?” and Tig said, “Bill would never say ‘done.’”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did you think your character changed or revealed himself more as Season 1 progressed?</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> Yes. <span class="s1">For the upcoming season, I got the scripts in advance and read everything multiple times. There were times I’d question Bill saying something in the script and suggest an alternative. Ninety-nine percent of the time we would go back to what the writers wrote. Tig and the writers were almost always right about the smallest things. The degree of refinement and polish in the scripts is extraordinary.</span></div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> How could you play Bill wrongly?</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> By relaxing. And being myself. The directors are a key for me. <span class="s1">They all seemed to have had a sense of who Bill is, and if I wasn’t doing Bill, they reminded me to get back on track. Bill has a friend this season played by a fabulous actress, Sheryl Lee Ralph of <i>Dreamgirls </i>on Broadway. She was heaven to work with. Our English director, Minkie Spiro was just amazing directing us. She had directed many episodes of <i>Downton Abbey</i>—and I told her I thought there was a whole lot of Carson, the stern butler, in Bill. She’d say to me, “You’re Bill, but I want you to remember to up the Carson.”</span></div>
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<strong>DP: </strong><span class="s1">Do you think that Bill and Caroline had a platonic relationship?</span></div>
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<strong>JR: </strong><span class="s1">No. Bill is alive in there, I just have to remember that this is <i>his</i> story, not mine. It is hard to find Bill sometimes, especially in the heat of passion. Bill doesn’t react in the normal way. Bill is something else</span><span class="s2">.</span></div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Although Bill is not normal, as you say, and doesn’t always say or do the best thing, he truly loves “Tig” and wants to protect her—maybe because he didn’t when she was young.</div>
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<strong>JR:</strong> Absolutely. I just can’t wait till people watch their relationship in Season 2 because it goes in fascinating directions. I’ve managed to maintain his degree of complexity and internal conflict in the second season. I was given fabulous opportunities.</div>
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<em>Danny Peary has published 25 books on film and sports, including </em><span class="s1">Cult Movies</span><em> and </em><span class="s1">Jackie Robinson in Quotes</span><em>.</em></div>
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Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-49795344763535104832018-01-29T12:08:00.000-08:002018-01-29T12:08:52.578-08:00Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Paris Can Wait’ Director Eleanor Coppola and Star Diane LanePlaying in Theaters<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #074889; font-family: Conv_Gotham-Bold; font-size: 25px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: center;">Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Paris Can Wait’ Director Eleanor Coppola and Star Diane Lane</span><br />
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(from DansPapers.com/Dan's Papers<br />
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<img alt="Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Paris Can Wait’ Director Eleanor Coppola and Star Diane Lane" class="ds_link" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/DianeLane-ParisCanWait2.jpg" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; height: auto; max-width: 100%; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; width: 450px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: center;"></span><br />
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DIANE LANE AS ANNE LOCKWOOD, PHOTO: ROGER ARPAJOU, COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES CLASSICS</div>
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<span class="date published time" style="font-weight: 700;" title="2017-06-08T12:41:44+00:00">JUNE 8, 2017</span> BY DANNY PEARY</div>
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While the latest <em>Pirates of the Caribbean </em>sequel battles <em>Wonder Woman </em>at the box office, moviegoers looking for something much different can find comfort with writer/director/producer Eleanor Coppola’s elegant art film <em>Paris Can Wait</em>, now playing at the <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/danstube/classic-united-artists-east-hampton-cinemas-policy-trailer/" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">UA East Hampton Cinema 6</a>.</div>
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The narrative film directorial debut by the 81-year-old Coppola—the award-winning documentary <em>Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse</em>—features a smart, lovely performance by Diane Lane (<em>Under the Tuscan Sun</em>), the go-to actress for playing troubled or unsettled Americans who redefine themselves while in Europe. Lane (who years ago made four movies with Eleanor’s husband Francis Ford Coppola) plays Anne, who, as the press notes state, “is at a crossroads in her life.” Married for years to a loving but inattentive movie producer (Hamptonite <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2017/05/alec-baldwin-to-star-in-the-boss-baby-2/" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Alec Baldwin</a> as Michael), she finds herself taking a car trip from Cannes to Paris with his charming, flirtatious French business associate (Arnaud Viard as Jacques). “What should be a seven-hour drive turns into a journey of discovery involving mouthwatering meals, spectacular wines, and picturesque sights.”</div>
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The trailer:</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HTrT6QSqnGs" width="640"></iframe></div>
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Coppola and Lane gave this exclusive interview to <em>Dan’s Papers</em> when <em>Paris Can Wait </em>played at the recent Tribeca Film Festival.</div>
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<strong>Danny Peary:</strong> Diane, even now in <em>Paris Can Wait, </em>but particularly in your older films like <em>Lady Beware</em>, you have reminded me of my favorite all-time actress, Natalie Wood. Have other people drawn that comparison?</div>
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<strong>Diane Lane:</strong> Yes, that has been said to me. Although not for a while, because people in our profession don’t often hark back to Natalie Wood. But I really see it in my mother. She looks like she could be Natalie Wood’s sister.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> The “Log Line” in the press notes for <em>Paris Can Wait</em> describes Anne as “a devoted American wife with a workaholic inattentive [movie producer] husband (Alec Baldwin).” I question the word “devoted.” I see Anne as someone who had two huge moments in her life, both relating to babies, and for the other parts of her life, including her marriage, she seems to just go with the flow without real devotion there. Do you two think she’s devoted?</div>
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<strong>DL:</strong> (laughing) They didn’t clear it with us to assign that adjective. I apologize for the log line. I think you’re right. It might be the wrong choice of endless, alternative adjectives. What would you put in its place?</div>
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<strong>Eleanor Coppola</strong><strong>:</strong> (laughing) I don’t know who wrote that line.</div>
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<img alt="Alec Baldwin and Diane Lane in "Paris Can Wait"" class="size-full wp-image-249795" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/AlecBaldwinDianeLane-ParisCanWait.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/AlecBaldwinDianeLane-ParisCanWait.jpg 700w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/AlecBaldwinDianeLane-ParisCanWait-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/AlecBaldwinDianeLane-ParisCanWait-150x100.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/AlecBaldwinDianeLane-ParisCanWait-334x222.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Alec Baldwin and Diane Lane in “Paris Can Wait,”<br />Photo: Eric Caro, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In the interview with Eleanor that is included in the press notes, she identifies Anne as an Every Woman. But I don’t agree with that either! I see her as being full of surprises—she is a pro-quality amateur photographer, she knows how to fix a broken fan belt in Jacques’ car in a creative way, and she knows more about the last French church they go to than he, the expert on everything in France, does. So, Eleanor, do you see her as an Every Woman? Or in your eyes, are you saying every woman special?</div>
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<strong>EC:</strong> There is a routine in married life. It’s not good, it’s not bad. I didn’t want her husband, Michael, to be a monstrous guy, so that we’d think, “Of course, she’s going to run off with the French man.” She does love her husband, and he loves her, but they’re caught in that routine where they are just too busy to pay attention to each other. She also has been occupied by the fact that her daughter is leaving home. Now she’s at this moment when she doesn’t know exactly what her next step in life is, and she’s kind of turning to her husband. Hopefully, he’ll step in and encourage her and help her move forward, but he’s not doing that because he’s too distracted. So she sets off with this Frenchman expecting that they’ll arrive in Paris seven hours later and she’ll be back with her husband in their routine. But Jacques takes her out of the expected and on this journey where she finally has time to literally smell the roses she loves so much. He <em>sees </em>her and makes her feel that someone is paying attention to her.</div>
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<strong>DL:</strong> So she can see herself suddenly. Because maybe she’s been living for too long through the eyes of others. When Jacques sees her as something special, she thinks, “Maybe I’ll wake up and I can be a photographer. Maybe I won’t have to have a husband who is the only one doing important things.”</div>
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<img alt=""Paris Can Wait" Writer/Director Eleanor Coppola" class="size-full wp-image-249797" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/EleanorCoppola-ParisCanWait.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/EleanorCoppola-ParisCanWait.jpg 700w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/EleanorCoppola-ParisCanWait-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/EleanorCoppola-ParisCanWait-150x100.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/EleanorCoppola-ParisCanWait-334x222.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Writer/Director Eleanor Coppola<br />Photo: Eric Caro, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> How does Anne respond to all the compliments from Jacques? Are compliments something she expects when she’s alone with any man because of her looks, so she just brushes them off?</div>
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<strong>DL:</strong> Jacques is her husband’s business partner, so there is a propriety regarding that, as well as a cultural thing, so she sees there is a frame around their getting to know each other that is imposed on them. It’s not two strangers meeting on a train or the death of a marriage and a blooming of a romance. It’s none of that. She’s not across the channel, but is dealing with every little wave that you have to swim—you don’t look up and you’re not counting the waves, but you’re wondering how far you are from the shore and whether you’re swimming in the right direction. She wants to keep going and not question herself. But Jacques makes her question herself.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> How different would this trip be if she weren’t married to Michael?</div>
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<strong>EC:</strong> I guess I haven’t thought about it because the story I wanted to tell was of a woman who is married and it’s not a bad marriage. If it were a bad marriage, it would be a simple decision to run out the door. Her husband is flawed, the Frenchman is flawed. She finally realizes that in the next step of her life, she’s in charge and she is the one who has to make the choices on how she’s going to go forward.</div>
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<strong>DL:</strong> It’s true about the “empty nest” that it will require a sense of acknowledgment. There is a loss, there is grieving, there is the feeling of being outgrown and your child no longer needing you. You feel like chaff. It’s healthy and appropriate for them to be independent because you do give part of yourself that you would give only to children. Being a parent is the luckiest job in the world and is the most precious job in the world. Parents who get to spend time with their kids know this. But after they leave home, you have to adapt to a new life, and it takes a while.</div>
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<strong>EC:</strong> Diane recently had that experience herself, her daughter going off to college, so I felt she’d bring that to her character.</div>
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<img alt="Diane Lane and Arnaud Viard as Jacques Clement in "Paris Can Wait"" class="size-full wp-image-249794" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ParisCanWait.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ParisCanWait.jpg 700w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ParisCanWait-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ParisCanWait-150x100.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ParisCanWait-334x222.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Diane Lane and Arnaud Viard as Jacques Clement in “Paris Can Wait,”<br />Photo: Roger Arpajou, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I remember that day myself.</div>
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<strong>DL:</strong> It’s tough, right? They try to warn you, they try to tell you, but you can’t prepare for it.</div>
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<strong>EC:</strong> The marriage changes. Because so much of your relationship has been experienced through the lens the children. When they’re gone, you have to reignite your relationship.</div>
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<strong>DL:</strong> And redefine it.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> While Anne is traveling with Jacques, Michael keeps telling her by phone that they have to go on vacations together. Is she thinking that she wants to do that with him?</div>
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<strong>DL:</strong> She is the one asking for a vacation with him. He’s saying, “This will be it: you can come to work with me in this beautiful location.” She’s thinking, “I want your attention, I don’t care what the backdrop is.” She doesn’t say that as a quote in the movie, but this is clear to me having watched the movie. Because sometimes I’m serving each moment and then I see the film in its completion and have an “ah-ha” moment about the arc of the story. While making the movie, some of it, but not all of it, is for me to know. But seeing it as a member of the audience is different from me living each moment. When I watched it for the first time, I thought, “It’s quite plaintiff. I hear her clearly expecting something from her husband. And eventually he’s saying, “You know what? You’re right. Let’s go away together!”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Will he be willing to do that <em>ever</em>?</div>
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<strong>DL:</strong> Well, that’s for the audience to decide.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I’d think that you, Eleanor, would know best, because you’re married to a filmmaker who probably spends as much time as Michael talking on the phone about his projects.</div>
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<strong>EC:</strong> I think it’s a common, universal situation. The man is very devoted to his career, whatever that may be, but there are points in the woman’s life when she has to step away and decide what she has to do in regard to her own career.</div>
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<img alt=""Paris Can Wait" poster" class="size-full wp-image-249791" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ParisCanWaitPoster.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ParisCanWaitPoster.jpg 600w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ParisCanWaitPoster-209x300.jpg 209w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ParisCanWaitPoster-154x222.jpg 154w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ParisCanWaitPoster-325x467.jpg 325w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ParisCanWaitPoster-300x432.jpg 300w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="375" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When you did the real trip with a French male friend that inspired this movie, did you, like Anne, take a lot of photos?</div>
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<strong>EC:</strong> That’s a little something I always did, take photos with all details. Making a fiction film, I could just put in anything that appealed to me. I had the freedom to have the character take photos and go to a textile museum. Who goes to a textile museum in a movie? Maybe in a documentary, but certainly not in a fiction film.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I know you don’t consider yourself a total movie person, but I’m sure movie lovers are thankful to you for having Anne tour the Lumière Museum in Lyon.</div>
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<strong>EC:</strong> That’s great. I hope people will discover some things about France that they didn’t know. I got to add all those things that interested me, and that helped build this particular character.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> What did it say to you about her that there would be these magnificent panoramic views and she’d be taking pictures of minuscule things?</div>
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<strong>DL:</strong> I related to it because I, too—maybe like <em>Rain Man</em> or something!—like angles, like how things work together, I like the contrast of textures, I like the play of light, I like almost expressionist photography, if there is such a thing. So it made total sense to me that she would take photos of things that catch her eye. It’s so personal. I do paintings from my photographs sometimes, because they take me to a place or memory and remind me they were taken at moments when I was feeling appreciative of something. That she’s not taking cliché photographs of the postcard views says a couple of things about her. She’s been around, she’s seen a few things, she could buy a postcard but there’s something really personal about what’s speaking to her directly. It’s almost as if images are waving to her directly and she open to them.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I’m sure people will pair this film with <em>Under the Tuscan Sun. </em>But would Anne, on the spur of the moment, buy a villa in France?</div>
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<strong>DL:</strong> They’re totally different. In <em>Under the Tuscan Sun</em>, my character’s life was just shattered by the reality of an unexpected divorce, so she’s reinventing herself, and with whatever money she has leftover she decides to put her flag on the moon, as it is, in a foreign country. That’s a very different setup than with this other broad abroad, who is somebody else’s wife taking a car ride to an intended destination that turns out to be something very different.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did you notice the parallels between <em>Paris Can Wait</em> and your wonderful debut film <em>A Little Romance</em>? In that film, your young girl meets a suave French boy [played by Thelonious Bernard], a Paris expert, and with a genial con man [played Laurence Olivier] travel to Venice. To me the boy and the con man combine into Jacques.</div>
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<strong>DL:</strong> I definitely see a Francophile thread linking both films!</div>
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<img alt="Diane Lane as Anne Lockwood" class="size-full wp-image-249796" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/DianeLane-ParisCanWait.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/DianeLane-ParisCanWait.jpg 700w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/DianeLane-ParisCanWait-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/DianeLane-ParisCanWait-150x100.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/DianeLane-ParisCanWait-334x222.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Diane Lane as Anne Lockwood, Photo: Roger Arpajou, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Eleanor, do you want viewers to decide whether they want Anne and Jacques to have a romance or do you want viewers to want her to push him away the whole movie?</div>
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<strong>EC:</strong> I want the audience to go back and forth. I didn’t want it to be spelled out for viewers in a clichéd way. At times, he’s very appealing and she might be leaning in that direction, but then he’ll do something that makes her see him as a charlatan, or whatever, and she’ll say, “No, no, no.” It’s going back and forth. He’s wooing her but then he does something that makes it seem impossible for him to appeal to her, but then he woos her some more. It’s clear that it’s not her life’s solution to go off with the Frenchman. She has to move forward in her life.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Will she ever tell Michael what Jacques told her, that Michael gave the Rolex that Anne gave him to a young woman and lied to Anne that he lost it?</div>
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<strong>EC:</strong> I like that the audience will wonder about that. I don’t want to say.</div>
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<strong>DL:</strong> Hmm. Well, she’s empowered with the truth, and the truth always sets her free—but in what direction? She might say, “Well, okay, now I get to be this grandiose, forgiving person who understands the choice he made and why the secret was kept from me.” Or will she weaponized the situation? Information is power, so once you have that information, does it become weaponized or not? That’s a choice you have to make. I love this film in the same way I do <em>Unfaithful</em> because it allows you to ask yourself, “What if it were me? With what do I identify in this?” I also think about if it were reversed and it was somebody’s husband in the car with the woman. Would he just fall into the sack with her because he’s a man and we have lower expectations of him and boundaries? It would be very interesting. Everything is a litmus test in a way. I love the question: <em>What would you do?</em> Because on different days, you’d feel different ways.</div>
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<em>Danny Peary has published 25 books on film and sports, including </em><span class="s1">Cult Movies</span><em> and </em><span class="s1">Jackie Robinson in Quotes</span><em>.</em></div>
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Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-57300365985016443582018-01-29T12:05:00.002-08:002018-01-29T12:05:42.998-08:00Danny Peary Talks To… ‘The Drowning’ Director Bette GordonPlaying in Theaters<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #074889; font-family: Conv_Gotham-Bold; font-size: 25px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: center;">Danny Peary Talks To… ‘The Drowning’ Director Bette Gordon</span><br />
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(from DansPapers.com<br />
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<img alt="Danny Peary Talks To… ‘The Drowning’ Director Bette Gordon" class="ds_link" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/JuliaStilesJoshCharlesinTheDrowning.jpg" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; height: auto; max-width: 100%; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; width: 450px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: center;"></span><br />
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JULIA STILES AND JOSH CHARLES IN "THE DROWNING"</div>
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<span class="date published time" style="font-weight: 700;" title="2017-05-08T15:34:04+00:00">MAY 8, 2017</span> BY DANNY PEARY</div>
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In 2009, I was excited about the theatrical release <em>Handsome Harry</em> because it was director Bette Gordon’s first film since <em>Luminous Motion </em>back in 2000. Moreover, it was only her second feature since her striking debut, <em>Variety</em>, burst onto the scene in 1984 and solidified her role, after a series of acclaimed shorts, as a pioneer of American independent cinema and New York City’s “No Wave Cinema” underground movement. I hoped all film fans took notice.</div>
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Well, it has taken another eight years for Gordon, a revered directing professor at Columbia University School of Arts, to make her fourth film, <em>The Drowning,</em> which opens at the IFC Center on Wednesday, with Q&As after the 6:10 p.m. and 8:25 p.m. screenings (and on future nights as well), and I am alerting all local film fans to attend so it gets an extended run.</div>
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<span style="color: red;">RELATED: <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2017/05/danny-peary-talks-to-take-me-actor-director-pat-healy/" style="border: none; color: red; outline: none;" target="_blank">Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Take Me’ Actor & Director Pat Healy</a></span></div>
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Gordon’s works typically explore sexuality, violence and secrets about the past, and feature characters who are driven by dark impulses that neither she nor we can fully grasp, and <em>The Drowning </em>is no exception. In this tense, disturbing psychological thriller, she once again offers us a bold and tricky film puzzle that is intentionally missing a few pieces she insists we search for.</div>
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The synopsis from <em>The Drowning</em> press notes:</div>
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“<em>The Drowning</em> tells the story of Tom Seymour (Josh Charles), a child psychologist who is haunted by a situation 12 years earlier when his expert witness testimony sent Danny, a young boy, to prison for a chilling murder. When the boy, now a young man (Avan Jogia), reappears in Tom’s life, Tom is drawn into a potentially destructive, soul-searching reinvestigation of the case that threatens his marriage to Lauren (Julia Stiles), his practice and, ultimately, his life.” <em>Watch the trailer below and read on.</em></div>
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Full disclosure about what makes this piece personal for me: Although Bette Gordon and I didn’t meet until around 1980, we both attended the University of Wisconsin in the late 1960s and early 1970s and become family-close friends for the next 40 years with another student who loved movies, Karyn Kay. We would all eventually live in New York City, with Karyn becoming a teacher at LaGuardia HS, a screenwriter (<em>Call Me</em>), and a single mother to a nice boy we watched grow up. As with everyone else who knew and loved Karyn, we were devastated when, in a headline-making story in April 2012, she was beaten to death by her increasingly troubled teenage son. He has been in prisons and mental facilities ever since, and his case—his future, his treatment—continues to be revisited in the court system. And we are still trying to figure out how this tragedy happened. I mention all this because Bette Gordon dedicated her new film to Karyn Kay, and <em>The Drowning</em>itself poses the very questions we still want answered about why our dear friend is no longer with us. I spoke to the influential director last week at the Malibu Diner in New York City.</div>
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<img alt=""The Drowning" Director Bette Gordon" class=" wp-image-247895" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/BetteGordon-DannyPeary.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/BetteGordon-DannyPeary.jpg 600w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/BetteGordon-DannyPeary-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/BetteGordon-DannyPeary-150x100.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/BetteGordon-DannyPeary-334x222.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="549" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
“The Drowning” Director Bette Gordon, Photo: Danny Peary</div>
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<strong>Danny Peary:</strong> It was very powerful for me to see that your film is dedicated to someone who was so close to both of us, Karyn Kay.</div>
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<strong>Bette Gordon:</strong> Of course, you too have an insider’s knowledge about Karyn. There are so few of us who can talk to each other about what happened to her, being killed by her son, someone we both knew was troubled but not to that extreme. That’s why I made this film in a way, not that it’s gotten me any closer to being able to deal with such a tragic loss. I’m still so conflicted all the time about how to deal with her son, and that’s a problem. (He was at an institution in Minnesota, where he was evaluated for a year or two, and now has been released back to New York and is being held by a state mental facility.)</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When it happened, were you thinking that your next film, whatever it was, was going to be dedicated to Karyn, or did you actually start planning to make a film that relates to her death?</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> Like all of us, I was so devastated that I wasn’t thinking about movies. I was in a weird state of mind, going a bit crazy, and wasn’t looking for a project. My friend Renée Shafransky, who was with <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2011/12/by-the-book-with-joan-baum-4/" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Spalding Gray</a> in the days we ran the Collective for Living Cinema, had known Karyn and saw I was struggling after her death, so about a month later she gave me a novel to read. She said, “You must read Pat Barker’s <em>Border Crossing</em>.” Pat Barker is an incredible, really well-known British writer whose <em>Regeneration Trilogy </em>about World War I veterans suffering from PTSD won the Man Booker Prize [and whose <em>Union Street </em>was adapted into the Robert De Niro/Jane Fonda movie, <em>Stanley & Iris</em>]. <em>Border Crossing </em>was written in 2001 and is the story of a young man, Danny, who is charismatic and attracts people to him but has been accused of murdering a woman in cold blood when he was 11. After I finished the book, I said, “Oh, my god, this is asking those philosophical questions that I wasn’t able to formulate yet about why this boy I knew killed his mother.” So I found Pat Barker’s agent and got a couple of people together to help me option the book. I then gave it to Jamin O’Brien, who had produced <em>Handsome Harry</em> with me, and it became our journey to adapt it. So, in answer to your question, it was one event that led to another.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You changed the title from her book.</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> I didn’t want anyone to assume the movie is about what’s going on in Texas and Mexico with immigration. I liked the word “border” because it can mean different things. A physical border? A psychological border? It can relate to ownership and identity. So it’s a fascinating word to me and I hated taking it out of the title. Fortunately, the word “drowning” has a lot of significance, too. There are so many different ways to drown that have nothing to do with water. The characters in the book and my film could drown in their own air, for instance. I want viewers to <em>feel</em>things and be uncomfortable, so putting the word “drowning” in the title helps do that. The book is different, and I took some liberties other than with the title change, but Pat Barker has seen the movie and loves it, and I am thrilled about that.”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When working on the script by Stephen Molton and Frank Pugliese, were you trying to create a scenario that might help you, cathartically, deal with what happened to Karyn?</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> At first probably not. The book became more important and what I really wanted to do was make a great psychological thriller, a genre that you and I, growing up when we did, were taken with. That genre offers so much possibility because it lets you think about what is going on beneath the surface and what are the darker elements of life. With noir, thrillers and B-melodramas, there is just something attractively edgy going on. My first film, <em>Variety</em>, was a thriller, too, but it was a much quieter, pensive one. For <em>The Drowning</em> I really wanted to embrace the form and tell a dramatic story about characters who have moral ambiguity. Everything I’ve ever made is about moral ambiguity; and all my characters have had moral ambiguity. Like Jamey Sheridan’s title character in <em>Handsome Harry</em>, they carry secrets and it is interesting to me in terms of craft how to control that information and let it out a little at a time. I had fun on <em>The Drowning</em> creating suspense as I told a story about complex characters.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> One thing I find interesting about your films, most obviously in <em>The Drowning</em>and <em>Handsome Harry</em>—and I admit it is because you’re a <em>female</em> director—is that you are really interested in <em>male</em> characters, boys and adults.</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> I know! It’s interesting that I’ve felt that to understand the position of women in culture—including what we are up against in terms of living and in representation—and be able to paint them in their fullest capacity, I started to think about men. That really happened in <em>Handsome Harry</em> but even before that, <em>Luminous Motion </em>is the story of a boy and his two fathers. I feel that masculinity hasn’t been dissected in the same way that the feminist movement pushed us to examine the position of women. What about men? When I was making <em>Handsome Harry</em>, I read <em>Stiffed</em> by Susan Faludi, and that set the world in motion for me. I think there was a change in “masculinity” around the end of the Vietnam War. Before then men were considered the bearers of “victory.” It’s almost as if Trump supporters are trying to find <em>that</em>moment in history. However, at the end of that war, with our perceived failure, I think there was a shift in masculinity, and that interested me because there was also a shift in women, and the women’s movement grew and became much stronger. A film I really love is William Wyler’s <em>The Best Years of Our Lives </em>[1946], which deals with loss and what is underneath the male psyche that we women sometimes don’t see. In my deep search into masculinity, I can learn more about myself and about sexuality and gender. It’s a revelation sometimes, so I’m drawn to it even now. I haven’t finished with it.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> And was male “heroism” redefined as well back then?</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> Yes.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I ask because in the first scene of your movie, Tom does something heroic, jumping into deep water to save the drowning young man who is attempting suicide—who turns out to be his long-ago patient, Danny. But after that, even though he can hold his own in a fistfight, we see the chinks in his armor.</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> Right, we see the vulnerability under his tough exterior. I go deeper into that. I wanted to look at a guy who is a pro at what he does. Tom is a skilled, professional therapist, who buys into the institutional system he works in and when he gives court testimony, there are results because he’s an expert. Tom’s a guy who helps other people understand their nature, but I always wonder about psychiatrists and psychologists who have the ability to see beneath the surface of other people. What about <em>them</em>? What about Tom? That is interesting to me. Tom also is someone who has a mission when he is working on something, and in regard to Danny it is to either verify the truth or deny the truth about whether he was right when giving expert-witness testimony. But his mission is compromised by his own past. His own past, going back to his childhood, offers a look into a deeper element of his own soul and to children in general. Don’t children have this unbridled ability to hurt each other or someone and to do things because they don’t have the Superego part of their personalities? That kind of violence in children relates to Karyn’s son and is also what Pat Barker was really interested in. She was thinking about the case of two 10-year-old boys killing an even younger kid, James Bolter, that made headlines in Britain and worldwide. We eventually let kids like them who have committed terrible crimes out of prison although we don’t know if redemption is a real thing.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Danny is accused of killing someone when he was a kid. He went off to prison. We learn that young Tom almost killed another kid and he would have gone to prison if his father didn’t save that boy from drowning. That’s Tom’s link to Danny.</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> That’s totally right. If not for Tom’s father he would have been like Danny, a kid in jail on a murder charge. When Tom helped put the young Danny away, he looked at him and saw something that couldn’t be put into words. There was something behind the young Danny’s eyes that scared him. Maybe he recognized something in himself. He made the decision to help put Danny away, and thought he was finished with the case, but just like with <em>Handsome Harry</em>, his past comes back. It’s fascinating that the things we do in life are not just over and done but keep resurfacing in all kinds of ways.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In your discussions with Josh Charles, did he reveal whether he liked Tom?</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> We never talked about that specifically. So I’m not sure if he liked Tom, but I know he understood him. As an actor Josh could relate to Tom because they’re both internal people. I wanted Josh to play Tom because as an actor he wrestles with “internal life.” As a person, too. There are other actors who struggle with internal life, but Josh has the rare ability to let us see that. Josh lets us in. The big moments with him are silent moments, without dialogue. I love that Josh absorbs things and then turns it around in his head. In order to define who Tom is, considering he doesn’t show much, Josh and I had some deep discussions about Tom’s actions and words, trying to figure out what he does and doesn’t believe and what he wants in life. Josh knew that Tom needs to believe in something but is having doubts. Doubt is something we all live with every second of our lives.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When you met Avan, did you agree on whether Danny was guilty of murder as a kid?</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> We knew the book, so we knew if he did it.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> If Avan knew Danny was innocent then he of course could play it so Danny feels Tom did him wrong. But if Avan knew Danny was guilty, could he have played the role thinking Danny believes he is innocent?</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> I visited Karyn’s son one time after his arrest, at Bellevue before he was sent to Rikers Island. His father, Karyn’s ex, asked me to come and it was really scary. He was the boy we knew but very messed up. And one of the first things he said to me, and it was weird—and it is something Danny says in my film—was, “I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me.” That really spooked me. That is the narrative of his lawyer, that it was his medication that took him over and he killed during a blackout. That’s also a bit of the theme in the Pat Barker book.</div>
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<img alt="Haunting scene from "The Drowning"" class=" wp-image-247907" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/TheDrowning-1.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/TheDrowning-1.jpg 700w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/TheDrowning-1-300x124.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/TheDrowning-1-334x138.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="669" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Haunting scene from “The Drowning”</div>
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<strong>SPOILER ALERT</strong></div>
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So just as it was with Karyn’s son, Danny knows he did it but he says he didn’t and we don’t know if he believes he’s telling the truth. What does Danny mean when he says it wasn’t him who killed that woman?</div>
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<strong>END SPOILER ALERT</strong></div>
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The first half of the film is the same as the book. Tom jumps into the water and saves Danny from suicide. And Danny tells him that he was innocent of the murder and wants his help to prove it. In the first half of the film, as in the book, Danny comes across as wrongly accused and Tom appears to be stubborn about insisting he was guilty. Tom has to rid himself of the guilt he feels because he might have made the wrong decision about the boy because of something that happened in his own past. Tom is haunted by his own misdeed as a boy, and has his own demons because he almost committed murder. When reading the book, I was absolutely rooting for Tom to see the mistake he made and try to help Danny—not even to find the real killer but to just give a retraction that will bring Danny some peace. Maybe all Danny really wants is for Tom to say, “I believe you.” As one of my writers said, “It’s like Humpty Dumpty. If you fall, can the pieces be put back together again?”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Soon we begin to think that Danny wants more than for Tom to admit his mistake with him.</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> Danny makes very clear choices. He has been released from prison and now has an assumed name, so he could live a very quiet life, but he sets out to find Tom again. In working with Avan Jogia, who plays Danny, I needed to play something out. I said to him, “We need to find moments when Danny is being honest and other moments when he’s not being honest.” We worked on those moments of Danny being sincere. For us to buy what Danny says, we have to see his vulnerability and we have to root for him. First we’re rooting for Tom and saying, “You probably made a mistake with your testimony years ago, so why don’t you fix it?” But then we’re not sure if we’re rooting for him. We might instead be rooting for Danny because we think he’s sincerely looking for help. We think he’s a victim and we root for him even if we start to believe he might have done the murder he denies doing. We may say, “He did this really bad thing, but we are drawn him.” So in the first half of the book and film, we’re complicit. Avan had such a great skill playing a 22-year-old who is both a child and a man. Danny was a hard role to cast because he couldn’t be too boyish and still be a threat to Tom’s masculinity. We didn’t have the budget to do auditions so we looked at past things done by the actors we considered for Danny. Avan was on a TV series called <em>Twisted</em>, in which he played a character not unlike Danny. From that he has a huge following with young people. He’s a smart, very political, interesting guy. He’s from Vancouver, with an English mother and Indian father. He was great to work with.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In their therapy sessions, Tom tries to find out about Danny, but what’s interesting is that Danny is trying to dig deep into Tom. It’s a two-way thing.</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> That’s right. That was by intention. I worked very closely with the writers, reading the book over and over, dissecting it line for line and word for word. I’ve always used the Jekyll and Hyde idea with characters, and in this there is an element of Tom in Danny and an element of Danny in Tom, and there’s this wrestling to overtake and control the other. Tom is pure thought, someone who always has explanations, while Danny is pure emotion. So they’re set for battle.</div>
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<img alt="Avan Jogia as Danny in "The Drowning"" class="size-full wp-image-247988" sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/AvanJogiainTheDrowning.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/AvanJogiainTheDrowning.jpg 480w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/AvanJogiainTheDrowning-300x176.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/AvanJogiainTheDrowning-334x196.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="480" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Avan Jogia in “The Drowning”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> What are their motives when dealing with each other?</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> Tom wants from Danny a breakthrough. I think Danny wants to force Tom to reveal himself to himself. He wants Tom to look deeper into his own makeup and see that he has a similar darkness as Danny, as all of us do. Danny maybe wants Tom to help him. Danny maybe also wants to punish Tom for his betrayal. He reminds him that when he was a kid Tom offered him a helping hand and told him everything was going to be okay—which is what we do as adults with children—but then he spoke against Danny in court, testifying that he knew the difference between right and wrong. Danny maybe wants Tom to retract that testimony so he can feel vindicated. Danny maybe wants revenge. Danny surely is showing Tom how easy it is to step across a border. Danny is saying to Tom that he shouldn’t think he is on the other side of a line between them in the sand, a border. The boundaries between them are seen differently from where they each are standing.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Would Danny know about Tom having almost killed someone years before?</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> That’s the question. Late in the movie, Tom asks Danny, “Did I tell you that story before?” Danny doesn’t answer. So, what does Danny know and how does he use what he knows to manipulate Tom? He’s a great manipulator. Also he knows who other people want him to be and he has the ability to make them believe he is that. That ability to change his identities to suit Tom, Lauren and his parole officer Angela, is the great skill of a con artist. He’s like Tom Ripley in Patricia Highsmith novels.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I think Danny tries to make Tom feel like he’s a father figure to him, and that he isn’t doing a very good job being that.</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> Ultimately, it’s the battle between a 44-year-old man and a 22-year-old man, father-son, who have similar elements. Danny even manipulates a battle between Tom and his real father. Tom protects Danny to the very end, unlike his real father would do, which gives the manipulative Danny satisfaction.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> If Danny sees that Tom protects him against his brutal father, why won’t he leave him be?</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> He’s not done. Danny doesn’t want protection. He wants to make the point that they are the same, on the same side of the border. Tom thinks Danny killed someone as a kid, he knows he almost killed someone himself. We ask: Under what circumstances will someone cross over the line? We viewers like to take information and make moral judgments about other people, but we wouldn’t be so fascinated if we didn’t see something of ourselves in them, even something evil. What is our attraction to evil? We can’t stop watching something scary, dark and twisted. Psychological thrillers push us to look deeper into ourselves, even if it means discovering a similar darkness is present there. Under certain circumstances I think everyone is capable of pushing someone down the stairs, pushing someone into deep water, something that can be construed as an evil act. Does one act make that person evil?</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> There’s a lot of gray in these characters, certainly in Danny. In <em>We Have to Talk About Kevin </em>[2011], I think the boy who murders his family and classmates is an evil person. I’m not sure about Danny, even if he did kill an elderly woman years before. We detect something good.</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> In history there was the Third Reich, so you have to believe there is pure evil. In <em>Chinatown </em>[1974], John Huston’s character says it’s amazing how imaginative evil can be—evil can take so many shapes and forms.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> A couple of times when Danny’s at Tom’s house, Danny throws tantrums and starts smashing things. We wonder if they are fake tantrums for Tom’s benefit because later on you show Danny alone and contemplating his next move and he is completely calm.</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> Not that I’ve met many of them, but some sociopaths and psychopaths are the calmest people in the world. It is likely Danny’s tantrums are for show, but they also tell Tom and us that he’s capable of violence and is wrestling with something himself.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When I was watching your movie, I was thinking of <em>Cape Fear</em> because here too the scary guy is able to maneuver his way into the family.</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> And he’s not going away. There’s just no way out. <em>Cape Fear </em>is interesting because Gregory Peck’s character represents the Law, as an institution. And as we know, institutions are not always capable of protecting the people they’re supposed to protect. When there is no violence perpetrated you can’t even get a restraining order. So the kind-hearted Gregory Peck has to take the law into his own hands. Tom, too, works with the law, and when Danny attacks him he feels Danny is attacking the Law, the entire institution. As good as his psychiatric training is, what is he to do? The first mistake Tom makes is letting Danny into his house. He crosses a border then. You never let your patients into your house. But his humanity kicks in because he knows how much Danny has suffered.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Tom and Danny are morally ambiguous and certainly multidimensional, but what about Tom’s wife Lauren, played by Julia Stiles?</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> In a more conventional psychological thriller, she’d be seen more as a victim. I think we worked really hard to allow her to be independent of that. She has her own secrets and she has ambition and her secret weapon is that she wants Tom but she doesn’t need him. That’s what Julia and I worked on together. I love that in a way Lauren comes across as the strongest character. It’s the same in <em>Variety</em>, with the young woman who sells tickets at the porno theater. She’s strong and actually controls more of the narrative than the people who might have been controlling her.</div>
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<img alt="Josh Charles in "The Drowning"" class=" wp-image-247906" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/JoshCharlesinTheDrowning.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/JoshCharlesinTheDrowning.jpg 700w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/JoshCharlesinTheDrowning-300x125.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/JoshCharlesinTheDrowning-334x139.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="669" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Josh Charles in “The Drowning”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Angela is Danny’s parole officer. She seems increasingly worried, not because Danny is acting increasingly agitated and may harm her—which is what I first thought was her concern—but because she thinks Danny isn’t being treated well. What is her role in the movie?</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> She also is a representative of a system that is in place to help people. She finds herself being drawn in by Danny’s charisma. This is a way for us to see that even a professional like Angela is buying into the idea that Danny needs help. She goes too far in caring about him; she crosses her own line. Tom visits the headmaster of the juvenile delinquent home where Danny had lived, and a woman on the staff says, “Danny has the ability to take people in. He’s a dark hole.” Angela finds herself attracted to him and Tom tries to call her out on it, reminding her that Danny is a parolee. Tom also is being drawn in by Danny, but he’s the character who resists Danny the longest. He holds back, and that’s because somewhere inside himself Tom knows the truth about Danny.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You have mentioned that you use water symbolically in your films. This film is titled <em>The Drowning</em> and there are a couple of important scenes that take place in water. But is there a metaphor we’re supposed to recognize?</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> Not really, although water has a sexual connotation and we call this an “erotic thriller.” I think water in this film is another boundary. What I love are surfaces because I can never stay on the surface myself in anything I make. I don’t accept face value but need to go to the other side of the mirror. Like Harold Pinter said in his Nobel laureate speech, we can’t simply rest on surfaces and need to go deeper, and I’m always looking for ways to go deeper in film and in life. Nothing is what it seems to be.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You are a visual director who pays extraordinary attention to what’s in your frame. Talk about working with Radium Cheung as your cinematographer to get the mood you wanted. He is famous for shooting <em>Tangerine</em> on a cellphone.</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> That put him on the map. We worked well together. We met a lot of times and showed each other examples of what we loved visually. And on all of our scouts, we’d have a camera and shoot, shoot, shoot, and then look at all the pictures to try to find the angles we’d use. That was so much fun. Both Radium and I are colorists, and we were both cinematographers, and he’s a still photographer, so he knew what I was looking for within the frame. We wanted to use de-saturated color. We weren’t shooting in winter, but I wanted a wintery look. Not full color, with only a few touches of red, and mostly blue. I told him I wanted the film to be claustrophobic. So there is always somebody else in the main person’s frame. I told him I wanted him to use a long lens and do the opposite of what he did in <em>Tangerine</em>, where he had all these wide-angle vistas shooting with an iPhone camera. I asked him to always give me the backs of other people’s heads because I often prefer backs and shoulders to faces. That makes what you don’t see more intriguing. And I pushed Radium to shoot really tight and to always be shooting through things, like the handle of a coffee cup that is in the foreground and a little out of focus. So you feel barriers as you do in the films of Fassbinder and Michael Mann, particularly <em>The Insider</em>. My biggest thing was to have the “ghost of Danny” in every shot. Even when Danny isn’t in the frame, his ghost is there. He haunts the movie.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Tom lives in an enormous house and you often show people using the staircase.</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> We wanted to make that house a character much like Roman Polanski made the apartment in <em>Rosemary’s Baby</em>. It has its own character, having nooks and crannies and warmth but for when Lauren leaves for the city. And there’s water behind it. It’s a great house and a great find for us in Yonkers.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I love your head-on shot of Pennsylvania Station, which reminded me of your great shots of the old Variety Theatre in your first feature.</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> The book takes place in Newcastle, England and I wanted to shoot in New London, Connecticut, which has the best old train station ever, right on the water. But it was too expensive to take the whole cast and crew there. Fortunately, the train station in Yonkers is the exact replica of that, including the waiting room. So we used that one and said it was New London.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did you move away from the book with your ending?</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> The book has a different, beautiful ending. I shot that ending, pleased that it matched all my other ambiguous endings. But a lot of people said, “You’re going to take us through this whole journey and then leave us with a big question?” Finally, I decided to keep the dialogue between Tom and Danny in the final sequence but shoot a new ending that is conclusive. Or seems to be. Still, I left room for ambiguity. Endings are really difficult for me!</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I’m sure people have asked you if making this film helped you deal with what happened to your best friend.</div>
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<strong>BG:</strong> And I don’t know the answer to that question. I don’t think it helped me get answers to my questions, but there are no answers to them. The unknowability of what makes someone do something like this is what we have to live with. We want everything to be spelled out, and we look for answers in therapy to explain behavior, but so much behavior can’t be explained. Things aren’t so simple.</div>
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<em>Danny Peary has published 25 books on film and sports, including </em><span class="s1">Cult Movies</span><em> and </em><span class="s1">Jackie Robinson in Quotes</span><em>.</em></div>
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Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-17089202657447483882018-01-29T12:02:00.000-08:002018-01-29T12:02:39.437-08:00Danny Peary Talks To… ‘The Lovers’ Star Debra WingerPlaying in Theaters<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #074889; font-family: Conv_Gotham-Bold; font-size: 25px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: center;">Danny Peary Talks To… ‘The Lovers’ Star Debra Winger</span><br />
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(from SonyInternational and DansPapers.com 6/2/17)<br />
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<img alt="Danny Peary Talks To… ‘The Lovers’ Star Debra Winger" class="ds_link" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/DebraWingerTheLovers.jpg" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; height: auto; max-width: 100%; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; width: 450px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: center;"></span><br />
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DEBRA WINGER AND TRACY LETTS IN "THE LOVERS," PHOTO: ©A24</div>
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<span class="date published time" style="font-weight: 700;" title="2017-06-02T12:15:16+00:00">JUNE 2, 2017</span> BY DANNY PEARY</div>
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<div class="at-above-post addthis_tool" data-url="http://www.danspapers.com/2017/06/danny-peary-talks-to-the-lovers-star-debra-winger/">
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In the early 1980s, I did a number of celebrity interviews in New York City for Philadelphia’s venerable evening newspaper, <em>The</em> <em>Bulletin</em>. In late January 1982, I was excited to have an interview scheduled with one of my favorite actresses, megastar Debra Winger, about her new film <em>Cannery Row. </em>But a day before the interview, wouldn’t you know it, the 135-year-old paper folded. The fates were not kind. It would take another 35 years before I finally got my interview with Debra Winger.</div>
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The extremely personable actress said, “I love that story” when I told it to her last month when we met, fittingly, in New York City to talk about her new film. <i>The Lovers</i> is playing around the country, including at the UA East Hampton Cinema. And it’s a big deal because the actress who won our hearts in <em>Urban Cowboy</em> and went on to receive Oscar nominations for Best Actress for <em>An Officer and a Gentleman</em>, <em>Terms of Endearment</em> and <em>Shadowlands</em> is starring in her first motion picture in 15 years. She’s playing opposite the super-talented Tracy Letts in Azazel Jacobs’ offbeat film about a middle-aged married couple, Mary and Michael, who suddenly are physically attracted to each other again and begin to cheat on their respective lovers, Robert (Aiden Gillen) and Lucy (Melora Walters).</div>
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Winger’s return the screen is a welcome homecoming. Many of us worried that when she deliberately stepped away from Hollywood, it was permanent. There was even a movie about it!</div>
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<strong>Danny Peary:</strong> When Rosanna Arquette interviewed you for her 2002 documentary, did you know its title would be <em>Searching for Debra Winger</em>?</div>
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<strong>Debra Winger:</strong> It wasn’t titled that. I did the interview because Rosanna had been very kind when my husband Arliss Howard and I made <em>Big Bad Love</em>, which he directed and I produced, and we both starred in. Rosanna was in it, and believe me, the conditions were tough over a 32-day shoot and she was a real trooper. So she told me, “Oh, I’m making this little documentary about women in Hollywood called <em>State of the Art</em>, so can I interview you?” I said, “I don’t like to do that kind of thing but you were really kind to us, so I’ll do it.” So that’s how that happened. Two months after we talked, she called and said, “I never intended it to be called <em>Searching for Debra Winger</em>, but I figured I wouldn’t get a lot of other actresses to speak to me if I didn’t call it that.” It was very nice of her to call me because my name is public domain and she didn’t have to ask for permission. Arliss assured me—famous last words—“Who’s going to see it?” It turned out to be a huge hit. It is a subject that, for whatever reason, fascinates people.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You say in the documentary that you hadn’t chosen to never make movies again and that you hadn’t permanently retired, but did being in that film influence you to eventually return to acting?</div>
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<strong>DW:</strong> No. I never saw the finished film because I didn’t want to answer questions about what I said in it. <em>Big Bad Love</em> already had awakened me to the fact that I love making movies, that I love the feeling of collaborating with others in that way. I keep waiting for a certain age of entertainment journalists—present company excepted—to phase out so I don’t have to answer the same question over and over, “Why did you retire?” You got it right that I never really retired, I just didn’t get the “game,” I was never someone who liked celebrity.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Surely some people asked that question because they missed you. Movies missed you.</div>
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<strong>DW:</strong> That touches me. I know what you mean, and separate from myself, I missed me too and the possibility for me to exist in films. Although it looks very modern, I do think <em>The Lovers</em> rekindles something, energetically, that I felt when making films in the past. That’s what enthused me about being in it. When I pop my head up like a groundhog every seven years or so, in each thing I do, however small—<em>Rachel Getting Married</em>, <em>In Treatment</em> [on HBO]—I do try to infuse that thing that lit me up years ago. I hope that in the future there will be a sector of movies like this where I can do my thing.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I read that before its writer-director, Azazel Jacobs, even had a project in mind for you, it was <em>you</em> who approached him, writing him about his previous movie?</div>
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<strong>DW:</strong> Yes, I thought <em>Terri</em> was a lovely movie. There was something in that movie that really moved me. I knew he is the son of radical lefty [experimental filmmakers and artists] Ken and Flo Jacobs, and when I met him I found him very interesting. Azazel wears a safety pin in his ear, he is a big fan of The Clash, that kind of thing. He sort of busted me on my expectations. Yes, it was <em>Terri </em>that I responded to, but it was the contrast between the film and the filmmaker that made me feel enthusiastic about working with him.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> What did you two talk about before and during the making of the film? You are known for being demanding with your roles because you care so much about getting them right, so were you on the same wavelength?</div>
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<strong>DW:</strong> Oh, gosh, we talked about so much. We talked about Mary and Michael’s relationship and the type of people they would seek out for affairs. We went through the script and I read it out loud to him. It was great. We became very, very close. About being on the same wavelength—<em>he</em> was making the whole movie. I spoke to him about everything but he was the one who decided where to put the camera and made all the other choices. It wasn’t a collaboration in regard to the filmmaking.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When people ask me if <em>The Lovers</em> is a comedy, I say, “Not exactly.” What do you say?</div>
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<strong>DW:</strong> One critic who “got it” compared <em>The Lovers</em> to films by Eric Rohmer [a revered French “New Wave” director of elegant, intelligent and chat-filled seriocomedies], and it does have a similar tone. But when asked, I say it’s a mystery. It’s a mystery to me why we have to categorize films, but we do, so I’ll say I think it’s a mystery because it’s about love. Every film about love is a mystery, and <em>The Lovers</em> is a lovely investigation into love. We can be so free in other parts of our lives, but when it comes to love, this unbelievable, magical thing we have with another human—a connection that totally enlivens us and helps us see ourselves—<em>what the hell are we doing?</em> We have love but then we have this institution called marriage. I’ve been married 25 years and, of course, it has wonderful aspects, but it’s a death-like institution that doesn’t make it easy to grow and change. It’s constructed to keep things the same. It’s constructed, out of innocence, to make a family and keep everybody safe. But to keep love alive in there is difficult.</div>
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<img alt=""The Lovers" poster art" class="size-full wp-image-249534" sizes="(max-width: 315px) 100vw, 315px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/TheLoversPosterArt.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/TheLoversPosterArt.jpg 315w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/TheLoversPosterArt-202x300.jpg 202w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/TheLoversPosterArt-150x222.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/TheLoversPosterArt-300x445.jpg 300w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="315" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Photo: ©A24</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> It’s jarring that Mary’s first line in the film is, “Hey, I love you,” and then we see she’s not saying it her husband but to her lover.</div>
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<strong>DW:</strong> I love the way Azazel opens the film where we don’t know who Michael or Mary are expressing their love to. We don’t know if we are seeing two permanent couples rather than a married couple with their lovers.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In the early scenes in the movie, before Mary and Michael start having sex again and cheating on their lovers, we see them having difficulty after years of marriage even to look at each other, stand or sit close to one another, or talk about anything more personal than purchasing toothpaste. When playing those scenes, were you thinking your character is in pain because she sees the relationship has really gone downhill?</div>
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<strong>DW:</strong> I think at that point in the movie, Mary’s in a primal, animal mode. She has all of her senses, and physically she’s feeling a bit of discomfort. You know, the feeling of walking on egg shells around someone you know so well, and all the time your mind is going, “God, I can’t believe I’m doing this” or “He knows I’m not really mad,” or whatever it is we go through. It’s almost childlike what we do in marriage.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> According to their grown son, they had been unhappily married for years by the time they have affairs with Robert and Lucy. Have they had earlier affairs?</div>
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<strong>DW:</strong> He did. I think it’s clear that it’s not the first time for him because of their son’s reaction to what’s going on. I think Mary might have gotten tired at some point and just said, “Let me see what I can find.” I think the feeling Azazel expressed in there, without overstating it, is that Michael was a serial philanderer.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Viewers may wonder if she used to be more suspicious of him, because she doesn’t pay much attention to what he’s doing outside the house anymore.</div>
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<strong>DW:</strong> Right. You have to think about all the years that have passed. She once paid attention and it was hurtful, but she was raising a kid and when he was little that required all her attention and energy. She wouldn’t have had time to watch Michael or have an affair herself. Now he’s at college. I approached it as if Robert is Mary’s first affair. Sometimes, and I don’t know if this sounds sexist, but in my experience the female spirit is the one who usually upsets the applecart. For the most part, men don’t want things to change too much, but his wife walks in and says, “That shirt looks like s**t on you.” Or whatever. My instinct in playing this was: The minute Mary started changing, the whole thing blew up. Before that, she was going through life, accepting things.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> How long do you think they were a good couple, until their son was born?</div>
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<strong>DW:</strong> I’d say about a dozen years. I didn’t feel that their relationship had been so bad for so long. I felt that what happened to their marriage was a gentle falling asleep. Because what they had is still so close to the surface that it doesn’t take much to stimulate it. They didn’t look at each other anymore, they stayed away from each other, but it’s not that they are fighting. Maybe there had been fights over his affairs but I didn’t see these people as violent or malicious. I would say that’s the most salient point.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> They also don’t seem to feel too guilty.</div>
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<strong>DW:</strong> They were just yearning to find that lost feeling that lights them up, and they found it with other people. But I do think they both feel bad about it. They are feeling a bit sheepish since neither of them is proud of what they’re doing. They never intend to hurt the other. Mary doesn’t say, “I’m going to have an affair and throw it in his face.” It’s not like Sissy riding the mechanical bull in front of Bud [John Travolta] in “Urban Cowboy”—a slice of Americana that holds up—which was in his face, and was about jealousy.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Do you think if they were not having affairs they would suddenly become attracted to each other, or have their libidos been awakened by their affairs?</div>
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<strong>DW:</strong> That’s a good question. It’s hard to say. Is that spark between them that once lit them up still the same as it once was? In the middle of the film, when they sit on the bed together after he gets out of the shower and she’s getting ready for work, is a moment of agelessness. They’re in the bodies they’re in. She’s older and tired and he’s not looking the same as he did when he was young, but, though we didn’t know them years ago, we read in their eyes that they see each other like on the day they met.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> They have passionate sex, very probably, for the first time in years. When reading the script, did you think that would instead be the moment when they finally get the nerve to confess to each other that they want to leave them for their lovers?</div>
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<strong>DW:</strong> No, I never thought that was a confession scene. Even when reading the script for the very first time I never thought that was coming. They’re a couple who—and a case in point is the phone conversation they have about ordering duck at Chinese restaurants—speak to each other in code. Most couples eventually do that. They don’t really need to talk.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Viewers begin to sense that they are really seeing each other again for the first time and remembering their connection. So it looks like they may change their minds about breaking up. Without giving away the ending, were you surprised by what happens?</div>
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<strong>DW:</strong> I felt it was always fluid. I dealt with it as, “You know what? We don’t know until we get on the ice.” I thought maybe Azazel would feel differently, but I just dealt with it as I do life, which is, “We don’t know what’s going to happen.”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did you notice how often Mary and Michael say “I’m sorry” and “I apologize” to each other and friends, often adding “I’ll make it up to you?”</div>
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<strong>DW:</strong> I didn’t. Wow. That’s really interesting. To each other, what they are likely saying is empty and doesn’t mean anything. They aren’t really sorry, and they’re not going to make it up to them. In regard to apologizing for breaking appointments and lunch dates with others, those words are perfect. They say so much about living a lie. You’re always letting someone down.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Although Mary and Michael have drifted apart, do you agree that viewers might want them to come together again because they’re each better than the people they’re having affairs with?</div>
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<strong>DW:</strong> I don’t think it’s a qualitative thing. I don’t judge them that way. There’s so much water under the bridge in their relationship. Who knows what we were like when we were at the age they fell in love. Feistier? Angrier? Who knows? Whatever fueled you in the beginning sort of dissipates.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In such films as <em>Urban Cowboy</em>, <em>An Officer and a Gentleman</em> and <em>Terms of Endearment</em>, your characters come across as feisty fighters who always stay true to who they are and their values, and men always have to come around to their sides. We rooted for those young women. Do we similarly root of Mary?</div>
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<strong>DW:</strong> What I loved about Azazel’s script is that he was nimble enough so that viewers are constantly changing their allegiances. You start out saying, “Well, Mary is a bad person because she’s having and affair. And Michael’s a bad person because he’s lying.” You kind of get to the point where Robert and Lucy are the wronged people because Mary and Michael aren’t being fair to them. Because of what they have been promised, Robert is planning a life with Mary and Lucy is planning a life with Michael. But your view of the characters may change later in the film. I liked that Azazel kept us shifting who we rooted for. I always love my characters so much, whatever they’ve done. If we could only do that in life, and really love ourselves in a pure way, it would make us so much stronger out in the world. Somehow I am able to do it with my characters so easily, with my whole self. That’s what you’re responding to, and the question is: “Who do we root for and why do we root for them?” Bad guy, good guy—it doesn’t matter. The one with the most open heart is who we root for.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Was it important for you, at your age, to be sexual on the screen?</div>
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<strong>DW:</strong> It was. I told Azazel, “I’m giving you a yes to this film, and I’m telling you we shoot <em>anything</em> and I trust that you’ll cut in a manner that is <em>right</em>.” And he did. We shot the sex for two days. We shot everything, so he could have cut it in many different ways. Including sex was very important to me. We’re not glorifying the sex, we’re not exploiting it, we’re just showing it’s part of life. Why don’t we ever get to see carnal love between two older people? It’s like we just tucked that away. The point was to show connection at any age. In <em>The Sheltering Sky </em>there is that painful moment when my character feels the urge to make love to her husband but they cannot connect, and it’s a really painful idea of sex. In my earlier films and <em>The Lovers</em>, sex is an aspect of connection. I think that anything that I’ve done has been about connection and I haven’t done any gratuitous sex since [my 1976 debut film] <em>Slumber Party ‘57</em>—and I learned my lesson early on. Maybe other actors and actresses don’t talk about sex scenes in regard to connection and communication between characters, because they are so shocking to do. It’s very hard to feel comfortable when doing them, but luckily on this set, between Tracy, Az and I there was a lot of trust. It wasn’t an issue. Tracy and I said to Az, “Here’s what we did, use it if it helps you tell the story.” That’s what it came down to.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In an interview in a national magazine recently, you talked about how when you go to the grocery store, young cashiers don’t know who you are and you’re fine with that. But are you appreciative of people like me who were your fans 20 and 30 years ago and are still are fans?</div>
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<strong>DW:</strong> Yes. I love talking to people who love film and what I do for a living. And I think I’m pretty good at taking a compliment. It’s just that celebrity is a whole other thing that has very little to do with film. It’s weird and scary, and the people who love that thread I never could connect to.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Does <em>The Lovers</em> make you want to make more films?</div>
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<strong>DW:</strong> That’s an easy answer. Yes! So if I get offered another role like this and get to collaborate—and get a few more days to shoot it because I’m not getting any younger and could possibly make more than my cab fare home—this is the kind of experience I crave.</div>
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<em>The Lovers</em> is playing at <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/danstube/classic-united-artists-east-hampton-cinemas-policy-trailer/" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">United Artists East Hampton Cinema</a> Saturday at 4:20 p.m. and 9:55 p.m. and Sunday at 4:20 p.m.</div>
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<em>Danny Peary has published 25 books on film and sports, including </em><span class="s1">Cult Movies</span><em> and </em><span class="s1">Jackie Robinson in Quotes</span><em>.</em></div>
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Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-56812287397259919262018-01-29T11:59:00.000-08:002018-01-29T11:59:08.159-08:00Danny Peary Talks To… The Creative Team Behind ‘A Suitable Girl’Playing at Film Festivals<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #074889; font-family: Conv_Gotham-Bold; font-size: 25px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: center;">Danny Peary Talks To… The Creative Team Behind ‘A Suitable Girl’</span><br />
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(from DansPapers.com<br />
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<img alt="Danny Peary Talks To… The Creative Team Behind ‘A Suitable Girl’" class="ds_link" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ASuitableGirlStill.jpg" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; height: auto; max-width: 100%; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; width: 450px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: center;"></span><br />
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A SCENE FROM "A SUITABLE GIRL"</div>
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<span class="date published time" style="font-weight: 700;" title="2017-06-05T08:30:36+00:00">JUNE 5, 2017</span> BY DANNY PEARY</div>
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One of the delights of the recent <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2017/05/danny-peary-talks-to-shadowman-director-producer-oren-jacoby/" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Tribeca Film Festival</a> was <em>A Suitable Girl</em>, for which Sarita Khurana and Smrita Mundhra, who met while getting MFAs in Film at the Columbia University School of Arts, captured the <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2015/03/grey-gardens-filmmaker-albert-maysles-dies-at-88/" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Albert Maysles</a> New Documentary Director Award.</div>
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The jury commented, “For the top prize we chose a film that helped us to rethink the dynamics of love through a moving portrayal of a cultural tradition, with incredible access, heartfelt scenes and its strong vérité style.” The good news is that you can see it on YouTube.</div>
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The brief synopsis:</div>
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“<em>A Suitable Girl</em> follows three young women (Dipti, Ritu, and Amrita) in India struggling to maintain their identities and follow their dreams amid intense pressure to get married….Career aspirations become secondary to the pursuit of a husband, and the women struggle with the prospect of leaving their homes and families to become part of another. Documenting the arranged marriage and matchmaking process in vérité over four years, the film examines the women’s complex relationships with the institution of marriage and the many nuanced ways society molds them into traditional roles and makes it nearly impossible to escape.”</div>
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The London-born Khuran, who lives in Brooklyn, and Mundhra, who lives in L.A., say in their directors’ statement, “In making a film about the intimate lives and dreams of young women, we wanted our creative team to reflect that. We’re incredibly proud to say that our core team, from the directors and producers to our editor, composer, cinematographers and graphics arts, is nearly 100% women of color.”</div>
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Here’s a clip:</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-GjixZpfJ3s" width="640"></iframe></div>
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During the festival I had the pleasure of speaking to Khurana, Mundhra, and their L.A.-based editor-producer Jennifer Tiexiera.</div>
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<img alt="A Suitable Girl creative team: Sarita Khurana, Smrita Mundhra, Jennifer Tiexiera" class="size-full wp-image-249495" sizes="(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ASuitableGirlCreativeTeam-DP.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ASuitableGirlCreativeTeam-DP.jpg 630w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ASuitableGirlCreativeTeam-DP-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ASuitableGirlCreativeTeam-DP-150x100.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ASuitableGirlCreativeTeam-DP-334x222.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Sarita Khurana, Smrita Mundhra, Jennifer Tiexiera, Photo: Danny Peary</div>
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<strong>Danny Peary:</strong> Sarita and Smrita, when you two were at Columbia were you looking to make a film together?</div>
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<strong>Sarita Khurana:</strong> We worked on a couple of short films together in grad school. We went to Sundance in 2010 and saw <em>Peepli (Live)</em>, the first Indian film to ever play there. And we started talking about also working in India and movies we wanted to make there. We absolutely wanted to make a film together and arranged marriage in India was subject matter that we really bonded over.</div>
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<strong>Smrita Mundhra:</strong> This whole process started seven years ago. We’d commiserated a lot about the pressures we felt from our own families to get marry and settle down. This is a big looming thing for Indian women in particular; you start to feel pressure to marry at a certain age from your families. For our generation, the hints to marry start dropping when you’re in your early twenties and escalate as you approach 30. And the world explodes if you turn 30 and haven’t gotten married! So this project started because we wanted to approach that subject cinematically.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Where did you begin?</div>
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<strong>SM:</strong> I have a family friend who is a professional matchmaker in Mumbai. Her name is Seema and she is the mother of Ritu, one of the three young women we follow in the film. She is of our mothers’ generation. I asked her to tell me from her prospective about what that world is like and how things are changing in India with respect to the way people are thinking about the idea of arranged marriages. That initial conversation was absolutely fascinating and it became a film for us when she told us of how Ritu was returning from studying in the U.K. and she was having anxiety herself about getting her 24-year-old daughter married. From there it was like, “Okay, this is where we start. It was a perfect set up.” So with that little seed, Sarita and I went to India in the fall of 2010 and started filming with Seema and her family. We also filmed matchmaking events and weddings and interviewed lots of other young people about their feelings on marriage and arranged marriage. And through that process we found our other two subjects, Dipti and Amrita.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Jennifer, when did you come in on the project as producer and editor?</div>
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<strong>Jennifer Tiexiera:</strong> Early on, actually. A mutual friend introduced us. Originally the film was going to be about marriage brokers and but in our first conversation we said, “Well, there are also these girls.” I said, “If you’re making <em>that</em> film, sign me up.” That’s when it turned into a film in which Sarita and Smriti followed the girls for four and a half years, shooting 80 to 100 hours of film, as they navigated the process of engagement and marriage.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> What was the appeal for you?</div>
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<strong>JT:</strong> As a westerner, India number one. Also there were all my preconceived notions about arranged marriage. Even though it seemed like a whole other world, there was much that I found relatable. If you’re Catholic or come from an overbearing family situation, it’s relatable.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> As far as I can tell, all three girls come from urban middle-class families and have fairly permissive parents. Since strict parents might not allow you to film anything, is that what you were going for?</div>
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<strong>SK:</strong> We couldn’t make a film about all of India. But very intentionally we wanted to focus on the urban middle-class, with families based in the cities of Mumbai and Delhi. The families and girls chose us as much as we chose them, in terms of allowing us to continually film them. When we did the initial interviews of young people, we’d ask, “What do you think of marriage? What do you think of arranged marriage? Are you in the process? Are you looking for a husband? What kind of family do you have?”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Were you looking for three subjects?</div>
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<strong>SK:</strong> Pretty much. A lot of young people really opened up to us and told us their experiences and gave us their opinions. Inevitably, it would come up in conversation: “Oh, my family is going to go to this event,” or “We’re going to write up an matrimonial ad for me,” or “We’re going to meet this guy.” We’d say, “Oh, that sounds great. Can we come over and talk to your parents?” We wanted to take the next step with them. It’s such an intimate process that while a lot of people were happy to give us that initial interview, moving forward was difficult for them. The conversation would end when wanted to move forward with them. But the three characters we have in the film were very open with us. It wasn’t like, “Oh, we’re going to film with you for the next <em>several</em> years.” It was one step at a time. We wanted to understand what was going on in their lives and then take the journey with them.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Often documentary filmmakers start out by filming five subjects and then get it down to three. Was that the case with you or was it always just Dipti, Ritu, and Amrita?</div>
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<strong>SM:</strong> We pretty much did just three. We did the initial interviews but we didn’t pursue anyone else in earnest. They were the only three girls we filmed over a long period of time. We found them in our first shoot and they each had a story they wanted to tell in some way. They understood what we were doing and what the documentary was about, and they wanted to talk. Seema, the matchmaker, also wanted to talk, about how her business was changing with the new generation. She wanted to come across as the authority on the subject. As we were talking to her about that she revealed a layer deeper and spoke about her daughter. Ritu. Seema was feeling stress and pressure herself from her mother-in-law and people in her own community about finding a man for Ritu. She really wanted to explore that with us. Dipti and her parents were in a different place. She was on the cusp of turning thirty and was having no luck finding a man. She and her parents were so supportive and loving to one another but felt they were failing each other. They have a strong family unit, but to us coming in and going through the process with them, was like counseling them in a way. They revealed things to us that they maybe wouldn’t say to each other. Amrita was already engaged when we first met her. So we knew she was going to get married. Initially she was like, “Look, everyone thinks I’m crazy for doing this. I’m <em>not </em>crazy for doing this, for marrying this guy and leaving my job and moving to a small town. I’m going to be able to do this on my own terms. Just watch!” As we filmed with her, we saw that rosy picture break apart a bit, as did her resilience in trying to stay true to herself and her expectations.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> With Amrita, I’m sure you wanted to shake her and say, “Go back to work if you want to be happy!” But did you allow yourself to have a rooting interest with all these young women and did you have to remind yourself that you can’t give them advice?</div>
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<strong>JT:</strong> It’s a huge testament to Sarita and Smriti that in the field and back here, when the three of us were editing the picture, that they were able to constantly make the decision to not judge the choices of their subjects. It could have gone the other way, because especially in the United States we have so many preconceived notions of what arranged marriage is. I think the movie worked because they refrained from shaking Amrita or the other girls.</div>
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<strong>SK:</strong> But we did have honest conversations with them. Amrita moved to a rural area and moved in with her groom’s very conservative family, and we were the only people she felt she could talk to. We said, “Look, Amrita, you thought when you came to his village that you were going to work and have a full life. Is this how you thought it was going to be?” We had intimate conversations with Dipti, too, and asked her, “Why don’t you think you’re getting married? What does it mean to you to turn 30 and not be married? What if you don’t get married?”</div>
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<strong>SM:</strong> But there was never a situation when we told them, “What you’re doing is crazy.”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When you were talking to the three girls, could you sincerely say that you knew what they were thinking and you could relate to them?</div>
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<strong>SK:</strong> The pressure they feel is not very different from the pressure that Smriti and I grew up with in our families. There is an expectation, not just from your immediate family, but all your relatives that you’ll get married. It’s interesting that I could be 40 and still be considered “a girl” if I’m not married. It’s the expectation of their daughter’s marriage that provides safety and security for any parent. So I grew up with that. We both had experiences of being set up in the Indian community.</div>
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<strong>SM:</strong> Just prior to filming this documentary, I went through an encapsulated version of this. I had broken up with a boyfriend and was feeling very vulnerable, edging toward that abyss of being 30, and my mother—who was very supportive of my breaking up with this guy although he kind of met the checklist criteria for marriage—said, “Okay, now that’s done, we’re going to find the person you’re going to marry.” After that, there was a year of matrimonial newspaper ads and online profiles to set up dates for me. Your family and the community are involved in finding someone for you. It didn’t work out for me, but I really learned that the arranged-marriage process is not that bad. Because you can reject people—as happens in our film in India, too. Young people do have a say in this process. In the West, there is a tendency for you and your spouse to find everything in your marriage between the two of you. In India, a marriage is the coming together of two families and building a community around that marriage. Ultimately that community and family is going to support you throughout your life and support your marriage. Though I have feelings about arranged marriage, it made sense to me why people opt into it, including young people. Because wanting to belong to a community is really powerful.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> As a viewer, I found myself rooting for Dipti to get married, wishing Amrita had chosen her career over marriage because she doesn’t seem fulfilled, and hoping Ritu doesn’t give up her career to marry as Amrita did.</div>
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<strong>SM:</strong> I think that speaks directly to what we were trying to do with this film, which was to really show the complexity of marriage. It’s not fairytale with a happy ending—though it can be—but just because you’re unhappy or conflicted about your situation doesn’t mean you should just leave. We wanted to show people that these marriages aren’t, as they believe, always forced on the women and they aren’t always in oppressive situations, and we also wanted to stay away from the fantasy and pomp and circumstance of the Big Fat Indian Wedding and the idea that happiness begins at marriage. We were trying to find those layers of complexity within the three stories. Of course we were all rooting for Dipti to find someone because that’s what she wanted. She’s a very sweet girl and we were so happy that she found such a wonderful match and that they are insanely happy to this day. With Ritu, we understood why she made the decision she did. With Amrita, while we might have done things differently from her, we learned to understand why she stuck it out and the small gains she made in her situation. Really we wanted to just observe and ask questions and try not to judge other people’s lives.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I see that all three young women want to marry to please their parents, but my guess is that they would have married on their own.</div>
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<strong>SK:</strong> It’s expected that everyone gets married in India in a much more intense way than even here. The society also demands that women should marry by a certain age. That’s how the society is built. Even without the family pressure, the expectation of marriage is always there. There isn’t the societal structure in place to support unmarried people in the same way that is here. Ritu is a good example of this. She wanted to pursue a career and didn’t want to get married right away, but she realized that to actually pursue that career she needed to get married. She wouldn’t have an acceptable social status if she didn’t marry.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Then will the married Amrita be able to go back to work some day because of her social status?</div>
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<strong>SK:</strong> Probably not, not outside the family business.</div>
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<strong>JV:</strong> What makes their stories inherently relatable is that we have that pressure here to marry, too. It’s not as extreme as in India, but there wasn’t day that went by when I wasn’t married when I wasn’t asked when I would get married. Now that I’m married, I’m always asked why I don’t have kids. So that constant pressure from outside is the connection western audiences will have with these Indian women.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You interview little boys in the film and they want their sister Dipti to get married.</div>
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<strong>SM:</strong> Yeah, they already know what is expected. While we made a conscious decision when both filming and editing to not cast judgment on the process or value of arranged marriage in Indian society, one of the things we were conscious of was the internalized sense of patriarchy and sexism that exists not just in India but in many societies. The scene where those little kids say their birthday wishes are for Dipti to marry says that. Even when you’re a little kid, boys or girls, you’re raised with this notion that you get married at a certain time, you have kids at a certain time, and…</div>
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<strong>SK: </strong>…that’s your worth.</div>
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<strong>SM:</strong> Yes, but it’s also how you fit into society. It’s difficult to find a place within society where you belong if you don’t fall into that family structure. I think that’s something a lot of people deal with in different ways in different cultures and something we really tried to tease out through these particular stories.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Can you picture a conversation between the three girls?</div>
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<strong>SM</strong>: They’ve never actually met. I’m trying to picture it.</div>
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<strong>SK:</strong> I can see Ritu and Amrita talking because they’re both educated and from a higher class than Dipti.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> And the mothers?</div>
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<strong>SM:</strong> That would be tough. Maybe Ritu’s mother and Amrita’s mother could talk because they’re from similar communities. Their families are similar. Dipti’s family is from a totally different community and socio-economic class. They’re lower middle class. I don’t think their paths would ever cross other than their coming together in our film.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Jennifer, the film is structured so that you always go in order from Dipti’s story to Ritu’s story to Amrita’s story and back to Dipti’s story. But at the end, when there are two weddings, you mix their stories. Was there a lot of discussion about doing that?</div>
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<strong>JV:</strong> You have three different people with almost four years of an arc, and all had to represent part of a bigger story. Once I felt I had established who they were and their paths, I let it go at the end. It was more about the arcs of their journeys versus being so meticulous. Viewers already had been invested in the paths of these characters so I gave them credit for being able to accept that it is not so rigid at the end.</div>
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<strong>SK:</strong> We did try having both Dipti’s wedding and Ritu’s wedding be intact, with one coming after the other, and it felt really repetitious, with too much celebration.</div>
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<strong>SM:</strong> There was something more powerful juxtaposing them against each other. Even though these are supposedly the biggest moments of these girls’ lives, they have such different emotions.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> And you got the money shots of their faces and eyes at exactly the right moments.</div>
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<strong>All:</strong> Thank you!</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> What’s it like being at the Tribeca Film Festival, especially after going to school in New York?</div>
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<strong>SK:</strong> So fantastic. Having it premiere in New York is like a homecoming. This is where the idea originated.</div>
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<strong>SM:</strong> The audience is here, the support is here. You are really nervous when you jump onto a project and people say to you, “Oh, but it’s about India and there are subtitles.” Your heart sinks. There is a stigma and you realize your film might not have an easy path to audiences. So to have a festival like Tribeca stand behind you, you think your film may have a chance to get the attention we think it deserves.</div>
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<em>Danny Peary has published 25 books on film and sports, including </em><span class="s1">Cult Movies</span><em> and </em><span class="s1">Jackie Robinson in Quotes</span><em>.</em></div>
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Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-78376587301881609542018-01-29T11:55:00.000-08:002018-01-29T11:55:00.590-08:00Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Shadowman’ Director-Producer Oren JacobyPlaying in Theaters<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #074889; font-family: Conv_Gotham-Bold; font-size: 25px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: center;">Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Shadowman’ Director-Producer Oren Jacoby</span><br />
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(from DansPapers.com<br />
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ARTIST RICHARD HAMBLETON IN "SHADOWMAN," PHOTO: STORYVILLE FILMS</div>
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<span class="date published time" style="font-weight: 700;" title="2017-05-24T13:15:59+00:00">MAY 24, 2017</span> BY DANNY PEARY</div>
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I’ve always appreciated the rare films (docs and narratives) about artists (painters, musicians, writers) that reveal what’s going on in their heads as they engage in their unique processes. That’s why I found <em>Shadowman </em>to be one of the most compelling documentaries at the recent <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2017/04/mariska-hargitay-fights-rape-for-real-in-i-am-evidence-doc/" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Tribeca Film Festival</a>. Acclaimed stage and screen director Oren Jacoby (<em>My Italian Secret</em> played at 2014’s <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2014/10/22nd-hamptons-international-film-festival-kicks-off-this-weekend/" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Hamptons International Film Festival</a>) somehow gets us to understand legendary street artist Richard Hambleton, one of the most enigmatic artists of all.</div>
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From Jacoby’s director’s statement:</div>
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“<em>Shadowman</em> is a film about the creative life of a brilliant painter who is, at heart, a loner, someone who struggles with addiction and pushes people away, but never stops making art. Sometimes the experience of following Richard with a camera gave me a sense of what it must have been like to see Van Gogh in his fateful, final years as he was consumed by madness, addiction, and his last burst of artistic passion.”</div>
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Jacoby started filming Hambleton in 2009, when he was being unearthed by two young art dealers and was about to mount an extraordinary comeback thanks to a series of one-man shows in New York City sponsored by Giorgio Amani. He writes that he expected to “skip over Richard’s ‘lost years.’ But then my team discovered home movies shot twenty years ago by artist and photographer Clayton Patterson that show Richard in the junkie house where he was living with a prostitute and several other people—and in the midst of squalor, painting. Eventually, we found even earlier footage from 1981 of Richard—at night—surreptitiously painting the first of the shadows on the walls of lower Manhattan, and creating his first celebrated work on canvas.” The images are as astonishing as they sound.</div>
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The <em>Shadowman</em> trailer:</div>
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I had the following conversation with Oren Jacoby about his exceptional documentary and its subject at his publicists’ New York office during the Tribeca Film Festival.</div>
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<img alt=""Shadowman" director-producer Oren Jacoby" class="size-full wp-image-248844" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/ShadowmanDirectorOrenJacobybyDannyPeary.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/ShadowmanDirectorOrenJacobybyDannyPeary.jpg 600w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/ShadowmanDirectorOrenJacobybyDannyPeary-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/ShadowmanDirectorOrenJacobybyDannyPeary-150x100.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/ShadowmanDirectorOrenJacobybyDannyPeary-334x222.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
“Shadowman” director-producer Oren Jacoby, Photo: Danny Peary</div>
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<strong>Danny Peary:</strong> When you originally decided to film Richard Hambleton, a somewhat reclusive artist, what was your intention?</div>
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<strong>Oren Jacoby:</strong> To show the art. I saw the art. I was given a little preview of the interest surrounding his doing a jumpstart for his career. My friend Hank O’Neal [one of <em>Shadowman</em>’s three co-producers] had photographed Richard’s street art back in the 80s and had reconnected with him. Over a couple of days, they were showing some of Richard’s paintings and Hank’s photographs in a rented warehouse in Tribeca. I saw the work and was blown away. Hank said, “Maybe you could do a movie.” I said, “I love this art, so let’s try.” So I got a camera and got my colleague Elgin Smith [<em>Shadoman’s </em>associate producer] and he came down, and together we did all kinds of shots, just the empty space with the art. There was a freight cart there that we used as a dolly to do some moves on the paintings—there was a contraption that changed light bulbs at the top of the warehouse that we used for crane shots. I just fell in love with the stuff. I’m not usually like that with contemporary art, but it just spoke to me. Also it reminded me of when I saw Richard’s street art back in the 80s.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> New York City circa 1980 is such a part of your film. Were you there at the time?</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> Yes. I was born and grew up in New York City and went to Friends Seminary. I left to go to Brown, returned for a few years, went to grad school at Yale, and then I came back and pretty much have lived here ever since. Maybe I’m just an old geezer romanticizing about my youth, but back then this city was a place where young people and artists could afford to come and to find themselves. They could succeed or they could fail and just knock around with other artists to stimulate them. So much of it has been monetized that whatever people are searching for today is different from what we were searching for back then. I’m sure there are some kids who are searching for what Richard did, but Manhattan is certainly a harder place to do that now. When I came back to the city after college and saw Richard’s giant shadow paintings, I was crashing with some friends who had a loft on Broadway and White Street. Remember that Tribeca back then was like a wasteland. It was desolate, but you’d walk along and see some sign of life, like a lit building that looked like a library but would be a bar. Then you’d run into those shadows and they were the first things like that we’d ever experienced.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I also remember his murder series with fake police outlines on the street of dead bodies, but can’t remember if he was doing that here or just in other parts of the country.</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> That was here, too. He said he did them in 1979, but he must have still been doing them in 1980 and ’81 because that’s when I could have seen them here. The shadows and the murder series made a profound impact on me back then. Just as his new paintings touched me in a special way in 2009, so when Hank asked me if I wanted to meet Richard, I said, “Sure.”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> So you met him almost 30 years later. Did he say for you to go-ahead and make a film about him?</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> He didn’t. I just started filming. There was a lot going on his studio because he was getting ready for the new shows. I came in and filmed him and he was receptive, welcoming us in. I didn’t want to put him on the spot by asking, “Can I make a movie about you?” So we didn’t make anything official. I just wanted to build our relationship and he let us be there with our cameras. It really took several years before I felt there was enough of a relationship where I was able to say, “Richard, can you sign a release, can we do this film?”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In your director’s statement in the press notes, you say, “A few months after I began, Richard retreated to his studio, locked me out and refused to see me…[f]or the next three years.”</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> More or less, that’s a good summary.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> It’s interesting that after he shut you out for three years, he called you after being evicted for not paying his rent—but he was still sneaking into that studio through the side ally—and you resumed making the film that day.</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> Well, he responded to my call. I had kept calling him and banging on his door from time to time. But there were times when out of the blue I’d hear from him.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Back when he was doing his street art, should we have known his name if we were paying attention to the art scene?</div>
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<img alt="Richard Hambleton's art in "Shadowman"" class="size-full wp-image-248843" sizes="(max-width: 830px) 100vw, 830px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shadowmanstillofRichardHambletonart.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shadowmanstillofRichardHambletonart.jpg 830w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shadowmanstillofRichardHambletonart-300x169.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shadowmanstillofRichardHambletonart-768x432.jpg 768w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shadowmanstillofRichardHambletonart-334x188.jpg 334w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shadowmanstillofRichardHambletonart-700x394.jpg 700w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Richard Hambleton’s art in “Shadowman,” Photo: Storyville Films</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> As you see in the film, he was actually very well known. The <em>Herald-Tribune</em> did a big write-up on him, there were amazing photographs of him in <em>Life </em>magazine. his paintings were selling for more than <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2017/03/see-michael-holmans-confessions-of-a-subculturalist-at-southampton-arts-center/" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Jean-Michel Basquiat</a>’s and Keith Haring’s, even when they were all getting gallery shows and weren’t street artists anymore.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Is he okay when people still compare him to Haring and Basquiat?</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> He’s not thinking about what people are saying about him. I really believe that. He may have at one time but he’s beyond that. He references Basquiat in the film at a very low moment when the impact of his bad health is getting to him. He refers to him when he’s thinking of the deprivations he’s been through himself. He’s aware that the three of them will always share that time and place, but his work is very different from that of Basquiat and Haring.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> It has been said that Hambleton is the one artist who can’t be forged.</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> Yes! Because his brush stroke is so individualistic—so expressive and unusual.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When asked if he considers himself a <em>graffiti</em> artist, Hambleton says he could be called that, but he considers himself instead “a public artist.” What do you think he means by that?</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> I think “graffiti” refers to a specific origin and integrity—the New York graffiti artists were mostly African American and Hispanic kids who were in Harlem and the South Bronx, and it exploded around the world. Keith Haring was taught how to use an aerosol spray can by LA2 [Angel Ortiz], whom we interviewed for the film. He collaborated with Haring on most of his paintings. So Haring was connected to graffiti in a different way. And Basquiat, who was not from the projects but was a middle-class kid, began doing exactly what the graffiti kids did. He started by signing his street tag name, SAMO. And then he started to expand to words, but it was like graffiti. Richard was coming with the skill set of a trained artist, with that amazing, gestural power of expressiveness with his brush strokes and referencing others’ work. You saw graffiti as an expression of these artists—and sometimes it was beautiful and sometimes it was just vandalism, but part of its attraction was that it was illegal and in forbidden places, and that’s what Richard borrowed. But he then took it a step further. He had us engage with it not as something that was done as graffiti, someone leaving his mark, but as an emotional experience before you understood what it was. That’s with the shadows and crime scenes.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did he think of himself then and later, including painting the wall black at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, as being subversive?</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> I can’t speak for him, but clearly there was a subversive element in what he was doing. What you mentioned is an example, the early stuff he did in New York was not legal and he was chased by cops many times. There’s a story in the film about how he was beaten up by cops on one occasion.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> What was his fascination with the “Marlboro Man?” I think there was something subversive about that art.</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> He understood the power of advertising and manipulation through advertising. He saw that there was this American hero mythology that was being used by a company that was selling a product that would kill people. He was engaged by things that had a push and a pull, which forced you into two opposite directions. This was about being pushed and pulled toward life and death. About another body of art that he’s doing now, he tells people who ask what it’s about that “it’s about life and it’s about death, it’s about beauty and it’s about ugliness.” I think all of his art is about those antithetical pulls. He realized that cigarettes and the heroic cowboy had potential for him to explore and pull people into thinking about something.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> He speaks of all his art as realism, which I find odd, especially because of the ultra-bright colors he uses.</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> Is it realism? Realism is not the same as naturalism. It isn’t an exact photographic record of something. He’s painting about the <em>real</em> world. He’s painting about violence and the darkness of the urban experience that there was when he did his shadows and crime scenes. The waves and landscapes he does now are not necessarily true landscapes but abstractions inspired, as he says, by emotions. He feels love and they’re expressions of love. The paintings all have women’s names. Some he knows, some he doesn’t know. He jokes about it, so it’s hard to tell.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> If you asked him what he considers his “peak years,” what do you think he’d say?</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> I think all artists are on journeys and don’t think in terms of peaks and valleys. That’s for the critics to do. I think he’s still producing astonishing work. I saw a piece that he did last week and I was stunned. He has done pieces in the 80s and recently that are not as good, but he’s still capable of doing tremendous work.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In your movie, you show him on public access television from just a few years ago and I was surprised at how coherent and comprehensive he is about his work. I had thought he wouldn’t even try to explain it.</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> Richard is very articulate. If he’s reluctant to talk it could be partly because of the drugs or partly because he’s not motivated. When he’s motivated to speak, he’s a sophisticated speaker who knows about art history and is very aware of the painters he’s quoting and their stuff he’s either borrowing or having fun with, so it’s not like he’s some diamond in the rough.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Do you feel that before he dies, he is trying to do as much work as he can?</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> Definitely. He’s always trying to work as much as he can. It’s almost like a compulsion.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> That’s the word I thought of while watching him paint in your movie. It’s almost like a disorder and he’d paint even if he were blind.</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> He says in the film that, “It’s conceptual. These ideas are exploding in my head and I have to get them out.”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Is this a film where you confirm who Richard Hambleton is in your mind, or did you make it in order to search for who he is?</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> Filmmakers are witnesses, unreliable witnesses. We are spectators with a point of view. I connect with Richard’s work and life on a number of levels—as a New Yorker, as someone who loves art, as someone who empathizes with his battles. My job is to present that all in ways where people can make an emotional connection and come away knowing a little more about some part of the human experience.</div>
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<img alt=""Shadowman" poster" class="size-full wp-image-248845" sizes="(max-width: 674px) 100vw, 674px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/ShadowmanPoster.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/ShadowmanPoster.jpg 674w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/ShadowmanPoster-202x300.jpg 202w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/ShadowmanPoster-150x222.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/ShadowmanPoster-315x467.jpg 315w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/ShadowmanPoster-300x445.jpg 300w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="375" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
“Shadowman” poster, Courtesy Storyville Films</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Is Richard comfortable with the rich people who buy his art at exorbitant prices at galleries?</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> There are certainly collectors who have established relationships with Richard and have stayed with him for decades. I doubt that they see each other all the time but their relationships are maintained. One of the climaxes of the film is his big final Armani one-man show at a fancy gallery on Park Avenue and 57<sup>th</sup> Street. His former girlfriend, Mette Madson, an artist herself, says that while it was exciting for Richard to see his work reaching all these people, there was a disconnect because he was aware that this art was entering the lives of people who were so radically different from him and had a lifestyle he was not part of. It’s also in the film how we are growing into two different countries—people who can afford to buy Richard’s work and people who can’t afford to.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In your film, we see that Richard Hambleton loves the art he is creating today, so I wonder how he felt those years ago doing temporary art.</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> When <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2013/11/banksy-one-world-trade-center-mayor-bloomberg-ronald-mcdonald/" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Banksy</a> was in New York in 2013, we were kind of following him around so that we could show the parallels between him and Richard. On 79<sup>th</sup> Street near Broadway, Banksy did a painting and the owner of that building put a piece of plexiglass installed over it. That painting is kind of a Banksy shadow, a kid with a club bonking a fire hydrant—and there’s a Richard from the 80s that is exactly like that, so what Banksy did is almost an homage.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Richard Hambleton was born in Canada and did some traveling before settling down in New York. Do you think at this time in life he could paint anywhere else but New York?</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> I think painters paint, and wherever he’d be he’d be painting. One time during the filming he expressed that his dream was to make enough money from the Amani shows that he could buy a hotel in the Caribbean and live there.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did that surprise you?</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> A little bit, but I’d seen pictures of Richard on the beach during his world travels back in the 1980s. All New Yorkers dream of going away for a while and being in the sun.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Typically in documentaries about artists with drug problems, there will be postscripts that state when they died. But there’s no such postscript in your movie.</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> It’s a miracle. Many people have counted Richard out but he keeps coming back. When we found out that <em>Shadowman</em> was going to play at Tribeca Film Festival, I tried to track down Richard. He wasn’t answering my calls. I ran into someone who knew him and he said, “Oh, Richard has only a few weeks left to live. I don’t know if he’ll make it to the festival.” But word of my finishing the film and that it would be in the festival seems to have been an amazing stimulus to Richard. He’s been painting like crazy, he’s got a pop-up show that he and a friend organized for one night during the festival, and there are several other shows in town that are going to happen. Also he had done another installation at the festival hub on Varick Street, where he’s done some fabulous art. They are some outdoor/indoor pieces that would normally be street works but Tribeca didn’t have space for him to do that legally. So he’s been energized by this. It’s fabulous.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> How is it having <em>Shadowman</em>’s world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival?</div>
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<strong>OJ:</strong> Tribeca has been a wonderful kind of home for me during the course of my career. I have had a few films that played here, and one [<em>Sister Rose’s Passion</em>] in 2004 won a [Best Documentary Short Film] prize here, and I’m sure that was a factor in its being nominated for an Oscar. Then Tribeca commissioned a couple of films from me, and those were wonderful experiences. I hadn’t done a narrative film in a long time, and Tribeca commissioned me to do a short comedy, which was really fun. And I’ve been on a jury one year. So it’s really great to be back with a film because it has been a dozen or so years since I’ve been here. There’s not a more perfect place for this film to show because it’s about a character who I first encountered in Tribeca.</div>
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<em>Danny Peary has published 25 books on film and sports, including </em><span class="s1">Cult Movies</span><em> and </em><span class="s1">Jackie Robinson in Quotes</span><em>.</em></div>
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<br />Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-13224664325847982092018-01-29T11:50:00.000-08:002018-01-29T11:50:32.717-08:00Danny Peary Talks to… ‘King of Peking’ Writer-Director Sam VoutasPlaying in Film Festivals<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #074889; font-family: Conv_Gotham-Bold; font-size: 25px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: center;">Danny Peary Talks to… ‘King of Peking’ Writer-Director Sam Voutas</span><br />
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(from DansPapers.com 5/20/17)<br />
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"KING OF PEKING," PEKING PICTURES, SEESAW ENTERTAINMENT</div>
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<span class="date published time" style="font-weight: 700;" title="2017-05-20T09:30:33+00:00">MAY 20, 2017</span> BY DANNY PEARY</div>
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As someone who was obsessed with movies by the age of five, I am a sucker for films about boys who are introduced to movies at an early age, such as <em>Cinema Paradiso </em>and <em>Hugo</em>. Now comes Sam Voutas’s <em>King of Peking</em>, a Chinese-language film that had its world premiere in April at the Tribeca Film Festival, which I covered for <em>FilmInk </em>(Aus) and DansPapers.com.</div>
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The synopsis from the <em>King of Peking</em> press notes:</div>
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“Big Wong (Zhao Jun) and his young son Little Wong (Wang Naixun) are part of a fading tradition [in China]: traveling film projectionists screening Hollywood movies for villagers who otherwise don’t have access to films. When video home entertainment enters the market in ‘90s Beijing, Big Wong ropes his son into starting their own pirate movie company, <em>King of </em>Peking…. Business soon booms, but in the maelstrom of making money, Big Wong realizes that he might lose something more precious than custody: his son’s trust. And Little Wong learns that sometimes parents make bad choices for very good reasons. <em>King of Peking</em> is a comedic drama that explores father and son relationships, morality, and what it means to be an example for others.”</div>
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The festival trailer:</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zOJjWigYI7g" width="640"></iframe></div>
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During the festival, I was able to have the following conversation with the Australian writer-director about his engaging new movie.</div>
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<img alt=""King of Peking" writer-director Sam Voutas" class="size-full wp-image-248560" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/SamVoutaskingofpekingphoto-DP.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/SamVoutaskingofpekingphoto-DP.jpg 600w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/SamVoutaskingofpekingphoto-DP-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/SamVoutaskingofpekingphoto-DP-150x100.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/SamVoutaskingofpekingphoto-DP-334x222.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
“King of Peking” writer-director Sam Voutas, Photo: Danny Peary</div>
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<strong>Danny Peary:</strong> <em>King of Peking</em> is having its world premiere here at the Tribeca Film Festival. It was made in China and is in Chinese. Yet you are Australian.</div>
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<strong>Sam Voutas:</strong> I was born in Canberra in 1979, but Melbourne is my home. I went to public schools there for a few years and attended Victorian College of the Arts. I got my degree in 2001. In fact, I read <em>FilmInk</em> when it was just starting out! Right now I’m sort of all over the place: I live in Los Angeles and do most of my work in China, but most of my family is in Melbourne so whenever I get the chance to go back to Australia, that’s where I always go. Every two years, I go back for Christmas. Now that <em>this film</em> is on the festival circuit I hope we can take it back there.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> What is your China connection?</div>
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<strong>SV:</strong> I first went to China on a trip with my parents in 1981, and I still have the photographs. The first time I lived there was 1986, when my mum was in the Australian embassy in Beijing. She left the embassy and then my dad started working in the administration at a small college. So I went to school in China for the majority of my childhood. I also spent most of my twenties in China. So overall I lived there for 18 years.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Are you known in China, in the film community?</div>
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<strong>SV:</strong> I’m not very famous, but some people do know me, mostly for <em>Red Light Revolution</em>. I worked on some larger films as an actor, like <em>City of Life and Death</em>, which was a big production there. The acting has always been a means for me to make my passion projects such as <em>King of Peking</em>.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You don’t act in <em>King of Peking</em>.</div>
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<strong>SV:</strong> I don’t act in it, I’m just writer-director. I don’t make an Alfred Hitchcock-like cameo. Zhao Jun, the actor who plays Big Wong, also starred in <em>Red Light Revolution.</em></div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Were you inspired to make <em>King of Peking</em> by your childhood in China?</div>
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<strong>SV:</strong> The college where my father worked was located in a rural area about an hour-and-a-half’s drive Beijing and on weekends about once a month, a traveling projectionist would come to town. I got to experience that firsthand in the early nineties. I was about 12 and there would be these screenings on a badminton court. People would hang up a sheet and they’d play old Burt Reynolds movies. That’s how I saw <em>Smokey and the Bandit</em>, dubbed into Chinese.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Was it the same projectionist every time that people waited for, as it is with the lead character in your movie?</div>
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<strong>SV:</strong> I just remember sitting on the stools and watching whatever film they showed. In those days I didn’t have plans to become a filmmaker, so I wasn’t paying attention to every detail, but was just a young movie fan.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Could you understand Chinese?</div>
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<strong>SV:</strong> I was learning the language and could pretty much understand the dubbed films. I speak Chinese now.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When watching your film I was thinking of a great scene in Preston Sturges’s <em>Sullivan Travels </em>[1942] when hardened prisoners laugh so hard at a silly cartoon because it’s their only escape from their misery. Because I could see the appeal of Hollywood action films to this rural population in China, over some drama like <em>Citizen Kane</em>.</div>
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<strong>SV:</strong> Especially because the sound quality was so bad. All they had were these horrible old speakers so you wanted as little dialogue as possible in order to convey a story.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Where did you get the idea of a projectionist teaming with his young son in the film piracy business?</div>
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<strong>SV:</strong> That came mostly from the fact that I was becoming a father when I was writing the screenplay. The concept of fatherhood was very much on my mind. I had already written the first draft of a script that didn’t have a child in it, just the projectionist and his buddy—two old classmates who decided to do it together. I wasn’t happy with it and showed it to a few people who were very close to me and it became more obvious it wasn’t working. So I changed it by merging that with what I was thinking about becoming a first-time dad and needing to take on responsibilities.</div>
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[<strong>Note:</strong> In Sam Voutas’s ‘Director’s Statement’ in the film’s press notes he says, “Coming to terms with impending fatherhood, I realized that from now on I’d need to try and set a good example for my daughter. I needed to shift my life from ‘what can I get away with’ to whether I’m actually a good role model for her. Sure, I might fail in my efforts, but at least I had to give it a go. And so, with memories from my childhood in the back of my head, I started writing this story about parents and piracy….This is an exploration of how the paths we choose as adults can affect our kids, and how sometimes it’s not just the child who has to grow up.”]</div>
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<img alt=""King of Peking" poster art" class="size-full wp-image-248562" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/KingofPekingposter.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/KingofPekingposter.jpg 512w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/KingofPekingposter-150x150.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/KingofPekingposter-300x300.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/KingofPekingposter-222x222.jpg 222w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/KingofPekingposter-467x467.jpg 467w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/KingofPekingposter-120x120.jpg 120w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="512" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
“King of Peking” poster art</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Big Wong is an irresponsible father but part of his appeal is that he has a genuine love of movies. And he does provide entertainment.</div>
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<strong>SV:</strong> That’s right. He’s a traveling showman, really. He harks back to what there was the West, traveling showman who would bring entertainment to the locals in the towns he passed through. He’s almost in a way, and I hadn’t thought of this before, he takes the mold of what he used to do in a traditional sense by going from neighborhood to neighborhood and starts bringing entertainment to people the city.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I could tell that you, like Big Wong, are a real film buff, because you have him mention John Ford and Akira Kurosawa.</div>
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<strong>SV:</strong> I put those in there because when I was studying at the Victorian College of the Arts, those were the two filmmakers whose work was shown. In the movie—it’s not a joke—the way Big Wong is teaching the locals about these masters is through his bootlegged versions. So the locals are getting their education about the masters of cinema from the guy selling bootlegged films on the corner.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> It is important, I think, that this is the education he’s giving Little Wong. This is what he’s capable of teaching his son.</div>
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<strong>SV:</strong> When he makes the decision to bootleg movies showing at the cinema, he doesn’t even think about the repercussions this could have on his kid. It doesn’t enter his mind because he’s thinking, “How do I make it to the next paycheck?|” But kids are easily influenced and it’s like father like son, and slowly over the course of the movie, Little Wong starts picking up Dad’s bad habits.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Little Wong is cleverer and actually is capable of doing more than Big Wong. He can run their illegal enterprise.</div>
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<strong>SV:</strong> Yeah, he’s a very capable boy and that’s why when Big Wong starts running the bootlegging business, having Little Wong as his son is so important. Little Wong is a great salesman.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> The Wongs live in the basement of a theater, which they get to through a trap door on the stage. Was that your concept?</div>
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<strong>SV:</strong> Yes, it seemed like a beautiful, surreal idea that the projectionist would have to live in the cinema. I’ll tell you part of the inspiration for that. When we were shooting in this old massive cinema, a projectionist was actually living there. Here was this guy doing the same thing our lead character does. He didn’t have a washing machine so he was washing his clothes by hand and hang them up to dry in front of the screen. That was really interesting!</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> A memorable character in your movie is the martinet head of ushers, who lines up all those under his employ as if he were a drill sergeant with his troops. Is there any basis of reality for such a character?</div>
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<strong>SV:</strong> Yes, but that doesn’t just happens in theaters but in barber shops and any other workplaces with a number of people. It’s commonplace in China for employees to line up, to recite things or to even dance or do their morning exercises.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Big Wong’s ex-wife is by no means perfect and I was thinking their son is better off with his father. Do you want that reaction?</div>
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<strong>SV:</strong> She’s not a perfect mother and she’s even gone back on her word. Before the movie starts, she and Big Wong had an agreement that he will get custody of the child, but now she has a change of heart and has a big-time lawyer put pressure on Big Wong. Still, in my opinion the best thing for Little Wong is to live with her. The choices his father has made have been irresponsible and bad things have happened to the boy as a result, so I understand why he’d want to leave his father. I think this film is about how a father who comes to the realization that sometimes it is best to let go. If you want to hold on to something too much, you start making the wrong choices because you aren’t thinking rationally.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In the press notes, you say, “With the arrival of digital discs, which brought pirated movies into most homes in China, the traveling projectionists disappeared. I always wondered what happened to them.” At one point, Big Wong goes along with his son’s idea to go into the “fun park” business. Were you commenting on how projected films were becoming passé and newer forms of entertainment were taking over?</div>
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<strong>SV:</strong> That wasn’t my intention. It was more about the son having a daydream he was passionate about at the time, which would pass as many daydreams do, and the father, for the first time, goes along with it and entertain his child. So it becomes less “You’ve got to watch the movies I want to watch” and more “What interests you?”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did Wang Naixun understand the movie, or did you need to explain a lot to him?</div>
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<strong>SV:</strong> I think he understood a great deal. He’s a very natural actor. Unlike the rest of the cast and the crew, he actually understands English and has been very good at the Q&As here at the festival with me. The audiences love him.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> How is it for you being at this festival?</div>
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<strong>SV:</strong> It’s just an honor being here. As an independent filmmaker it’s all about premiering my film at a festival such as this and getting an audience of people who are really hungry to watch movies. There really is a keen love of cinema in New York City that goes back generations. I can’t think of a better place to debut <em>King of Peking</em>.</div>
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<em>Danny Peary has published 25 books on film and sports, including </em><span class="s1">Cult Movies</span><em> and </em><span class="s1">Jackie Robinson in Quotes</span><em>.</em></div>
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Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-19467778198455153592018-01-29T11:46:00.000-08:002018-01-29T11:46:28.360-08:00Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Son of Sofia’ Writer-Director Elina PsykouPlaying in Film Festivals<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Conv_Gotham-Bold; font-size: 25px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: center;">Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Son of Sofia’ Writer-Director Elina Psykou</span><br />
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(from DansPapers.com 6/28/17)<br />
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MISHA THE BOY AND MISHA THE BEAR, PHOTO: STILL FROM 'SON OF SOFIA'</div>
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<span class="date published time" style="font-weight: 700;" title="2017-06-28T06:00:18+00:00">JUNE 28, 2017</span> BY DANNY PEARY</div>
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Still resonating more than two months after its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival is Elina Psykou’s<em> Son of Sofia</em>.</div>
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The second feature by the innovative Greek writer-director, it is, according to its press notes, “a dark, yet tender coming-of-age fairytale that strikes a masterful balance between realism and dreams, much like its young lead. The story revolves around 11-year-old Misha (Viktor Khomut), who flies from Russia to Athens in the summer of 2004, when Greece is living the Olympic dream, to join his mother, Sofia (Valery Tscheplanowa), after having spent a long time apart. What he doesn’t know is that there is a new father waiting for him there (Thannassis Papageorgiou as Mr. Nikos).”</div>
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The <em>Son of Sofia</em> trailer:</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MjGGKSpeM3Y" width="640"></iframe></div>
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I interviewed Psykou on the first day of the festival. A week later, her film captured TFF’s prestigious award for Best International Narrative Feature. The jury justified its selection: “When we were watching these movies we were looking for something we hadn’t seen before. We unanimously agree that one film challenged us to see in a new way, and we were seduced by the surprising humanity of its difficult characters. The direction was assured, and its tone unique, and we look forward to seeing Elina Psykou’s next work.”</div>
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Here is the conversation I had with the personable director when she was in New York in April—except for the final question and answer that we did by email last week.</div>
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<img alt="'Son of Sofia' writer-director Elina Psykou" class=" wp-image-250789" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/SonofSofiaElinaPsykouphoto-DP.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/SonofSofiaElinaPsykouphoto-DP.jpg 600w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/SonofSofiaElinaPsykouphoto-DP-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/SonofSofiaElinaPsykouphoto-DP-150x100.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/SonofSofiaElinaPsykouphoto-DP-334x222.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="549" /><br />
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‘Son of Sofia’ writer-director Elina Psykou, Photo: Danny Peary</div>
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<strong>Danny Peary:</strong> Are you part of what is called “The Greek Weird Wave?”</div>
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<strong>Elina Psykou:</strong> I am part of the Greek film community. I have a lot of close friends who are also directors in Greece, and that’s important because we support each other.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Two years ago at Tribeca I interviewed Alexis Alexiou for his film <em>00:45</em>. His film was completely different from yours, but I’m curious if you know him.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> He’s one of my best friends. We were together this Easter at a house in the countryside. Last year at the Astor Cinema in the center of Athens. Alexis, another young filmmaker Yiannis Veslemes, theoretician of cinema Afroditi Nikolaidou and I did a retrospective of Greek movies from the 60s, 70s and 80s. The whole project was organized by the Union of Greek Directors and Producers, ESPEK. It was called “Lost Highway and Greek Cinema,” and we’re going to continue it next year.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Alexiou says he was influenced by American films as well as spaghetti westerns. What about you?</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> I am more influenced by European cinema. I prefer arthouse cinema to big studio films. [DP: Psykou told <em>Women and Hollywood</em>: “I have a few favorite women-directed films. I still remember the screening of Lucrecia Martel’s first film, <em>The Swamp</em>, at the Thessaloniki Film Festival in 2001. I would’ve liked to have made Jessica Hausner’s <em>Lourdes. </em>I admire how Andrea Arnold managed to make <em>Wuthering Heights</em>, a period film, in such a modern way, as did American director Sofia Coppola with <em>Marie Antoinette</em>. And Tonia Marketaki made one of the best Greek films, <em>John the Violent</em>, in an era when Greek cinema wasn’t recognized or supported at all.”]</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did you always want to be a filmmaker?</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> I wanted to be a director from the time I was 14 or 15 years old, I watched films on television and then I started going alone to the cinema to see movies, without parents or friends. I was fascinated by this world, by the actors and themes of the films. But in Greece parents want their kids to go to the university and study. At that time they didn’t teach film at universities in Greece, there were only private film schools so it wasn’t a real possibility for me to study to be a film director. So I studied sociology at Panteion University in Athens, and then went to Paris and did post-graduate work at EHESS [The School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences], studying cultural history and thinking about a career. I dropped out because I was studying theory when I wanted to do <em>practice</em> of some kind. My first love was the cinema, so I returned to Athens and finally studied film. I told my parents that I wanted to follow my dreams and become a director. That’s what I did. I studied directing and worked as an assistant director on movies and some television shows. So I was getting real jobs in cinema. Times had changed, and now there are a lot more of us female directors in Greece.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Your first movie, <em>The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas</em>, is about a television personality who stages his own kidnapping to boost ratings. In <em>Son of Sofia</em>, Sofia’s new, older husband, Mr. Nikos, became famous in Greece starring in a children’s TV show. Unlike many film directors, you seem to love television.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> It’s an inspiration for me. I have always been fascinated by the people who work in television and the actors who become famous but try to maintain their private lives. It is very human. Maybe it’s because of my background in sociology, which is about society and its structure. In my opinion, television has a great role in the structure of society and the education of the people. People watch TV from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to bed, listening to propaganda. It has an ideological role in society. It creates a mentality among the population. For example, with crisis in Greece—which is a sociological crisis as well as an economic crisis—television has a very important role.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I like the way you have people watching television in <em>Son of Sofia</em>. They line up in a single row, a couch and outside chairs, with everyone facing the set. The lights in the room are shut off so all attention is focused on what they’re watching.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> I think TV is the same everywhere. Unfortunately, there is too much rubbish on Greek television. There are soap operas on TV, but there aren’t a lot of movies now. When you ask why there aren’t more serious programs, you’re told this is what the audience wants. It’s not true. I don’t feel negatively about television, I just think it could be better. I think it gives us a great opportunity that we need to explore.</div>
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<img alt="Still from 'Son of Sofia'" class=" wp-image-250793" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/SonofSofiaStillBear.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/SonofSofiaStillBear.jpg 700w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/SonofSofiaStillBear-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/SonofSofiaStillBear-150x100.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/SonofSofiaStillBear-334x222.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="549" /><br />
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Still from ‘Son of Sofia’</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In the first scene of <em>Son of Sofia</em>, 11-year-old Misha arrives from Russia and is greeted by his mother, Sofia, at the airport in Athens after two years apart. Did you shoot that scene first so there would be a natural awkwardness between two actors who didn’t know each other well yet?</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> Believe it or not, that was the last scene we shot. I didn’t intend that, but it was because of our financing. Because of money, we were obliged to shoot the film in two parts. Also: One month before we began filming, during the summer of 2015, we had in Greece the enforcement of capital controls. The airport scene cost a lot of money to shoot, so we postponed it until the end.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When I was watching that airport scene, in which they don’t say anything but obviously are feeling all kinds of emotions, I was sure you did a lot of thinking about how things would play out.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> That’s true. A lot of people have asked me, “Why is Misha like that? Why doesn’t he smile and run into her arms? Doesn’t he love his mother?” It was something I decided after thinking a lot about it. I didn’t want to reveal too much about their relationship right away. Of course there is love, but I saw these two people as strangers after not having been with each other for two years. Their meeting is awkward because they can’t express their feelings with words or their bodies.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did you ever write that scene differently?</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> No. From the first moment I thought of that scene, it was that way. I talked a lot to the boy who plays Misha, Victor Khomut, and the actress who plays Sofia, Valery Tscheplanowa, who is from Latvia but lives in Germany, to assure them this was the right way for them to behave in this scene. Valery wanted to be more emotional and happier, but I insisted. I didn’t know if it was good or bad for them to be that way, but I thought it was right.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did you think about also shooting it the other way, just in case?</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> You know, I’m not the kind of director who likes to shoot a lot of back-up. All those takes would drive me mad during the editing!</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> What do you think the relationship between Sofia and Misha was years before in Russia?</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> Hmm. Sofia is a good person, but she has a hard time expressing her feelings. I think she was like that in Russia, too. After the death of her husband and Misha’s father, Sofia and Misha became closer, but over the years she became more closed off. She wasn’t happy because of who she is and because of their situation.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did she become more closed off because she lost what ability she had to express herself, or because she needed to find work to support them both—even if it meant becoming Mr. Nikos’s housekeeper and caretaker in Greece—or because she felt upset for her son who had lost his father?</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> In Greece, too, she can’t express herself and at the same time she doesn’t know what is good or bad for her to do for her son. She’s unsure about what to do, she doesn’t know how to do things. She’s lost. She has lied to her son about her situation in Mr. Nikos’s house, not admitting she is married to him and shares his bed, and now she cannot run away from this fake living situation. So she builds a wall of lies.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> There are a few moments when Sofia seems to make an attempt to connect to Misha—when they lie in bed together, when she talks to him outside his door—but there is no full conversation in which she explains her life to him and what their life is now that she is married to Mr. Nikos.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> Those are steps she takes.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> So when she eventually says to herself, “I’m sorry,” is she sorry for being a bad mother?</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> She is sorry for not telling the truth and not expressing herself earlier on. The only thing Misha really wants from her is to say, “I love you,” and when she finally expresses her sorrow to herself, she understands this. She did all these things for her son, but she forgot to ask him what he really wanted. She assumed he wanted those things, but she never asked.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> This seems personal to you.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> That was the main status of my relationship with my own parents, and I think that’s the main status of parents with kids in general. My case isn’t special. I am also a parent, with a seven-year-old son, and I think about how I am as a mother. Most parents want what’s best for their kids and do everything they can for their benefit, but they forget to really communicate with their kids and keep them close to them as equals and to ask them what they really want. Sofia has really good intentions but she doesn’t communicate them to Misha.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> One thing she doesn’t communicate to Misha is that Mr. Nikos, though 62 and stern, is actually an okay human being and could be an okay father. She never makes that clear and it doesn’t work out.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> Exactly.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In your first film, the protagonist spends time alone while pretending to be kidnapped. In this film, the boy is left alone much of the time, including when he runs away. The theme of isolation seems important to you.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> You’re right. It has to do with my own experience. When I was kid I felt very isolated. I was a very closed-off, shy kid. My parents were divorced, and though they had the best intentions regarding me, I had another point of view of what was best for me. Because I wasn’t asked for my point of view, I felt isolated.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In both films isolation is destructive.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> The protagonist in my first film and Misha in this film are isolated but in different ways. Antonis Paraskevas chooses isolation for himself. Misha doesn’t choose it, but he experiences it. And explores it.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I think you explore it more than Misha does.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> Isolation is something that really moves me and interests me so I try to explore it in my movies.</div>
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<img alt="Mr. Nikos, Sofia, and Misha watch television" class=" wp-image-250804" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/SonofSofiaoncouch.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 830px) 100vw, 830px" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/SonofSofiaoncouch.jpg 830w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/SonofSofiaoncouch-300x169.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/SonofSofiaoncouch-768x432.jpg 768w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/SonofSofiaoncouch-334x188.jpg 334w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/SonofSofiaoncouch-700x394.jpg 700w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="549" /><br />
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Mr. Nikos, Sofia, and Misha watch television, Photo: Dionysi</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Consciously?</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> It doesn’t happen consciously that I or a character “explores” isolation. I don’t wake up in the morning and say, “Okay, I will explore isolation in my films.” It is something that afterward I understand that I did. I think about the plot and the characters as I write the script, and afterward I think about the themes and discover that “isolation” is deep inside it. It just happens.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You made a conscious decision to not have other young kids in your script, so that Misha would have companions his age and not feel so isolated.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> Yes, I wanted Misha to be a boy in an adult world. It was very important for me to have him be like a fish out of water. So we have a kid among adults, a Russian kid among Greek people; Mr. Nikos speaks to him in a language he doesn’t understand. It was a very conscious decision by me to have two opposite worlds.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Do you think Mr. Nikos would love any boy who is the son of Sofia and now his son? Or does he fall in love with Misha?</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> Any boy. He’s old and without kids. He feels he’s close to death and has no male heir. He wants to teach a boy whatever he has learned in his own life, to pass along all his experiences. It has nothing to do with Misha. It would be the same with any kid. He falls in love with his new son, but he doesn’t even look at Misha. It’s only what Misha means to him. Misha’s like a symbol.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When writing Mr. Nikos, you could have made him much more villainous, but held back. We expect him to become worse and worse toward Misha, but he doesn’t.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> At the beginning, Misha doesn’t like Mr. Nikos, but as the film progresses, he begins to like him. I didn’t want Mr. Nikos to be a cliché character. I wanted him to have those bad and good aspects, to have there be balance</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> A great moment in your movie is when Misha locks himself in his room after learning of the marriage and Sofia is knocking on his door and telling Misha to open it; at the same time Mr. Nikos is yelling at Sofia to speak Greek not Russian—and she turns around and shouts at him to shut up and he sheepishly sits down. I think that scene is pivotal to the movie.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> It is the most important moment in the movie for the three of them. For Misha, because he knows the truth now; for Sofia because she’s obliged to tell the truth about her and Mr. Nikos being married; and for Mr. Nikos because he didn’t know Misha was unaware of the marriage. It’s the scene that changes the balance in the family from then on. For the audience, I’d like that to be an emotional scene and to make it feel close to the three characters. For me, the most important thing about this film is that there is no black and there is no white, no bad and no good. It all depends on your point of view, and we see that the three of them have different points of view.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Surely an important part of that scene is that it reveals to us Sofia is not under Mr. Nikos’s thumb and that she doesn’t sleep with him because she has to. He is not a dictator and she is able to stand up to him.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> That’s what I wanted to show. Things are not as they seemed to be.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> For me, that scene ties into how you are as a writer. You never tell us how things are, you instead reveal things over time and in various ways.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> I don’t want to give the audience food on a plate that is already cooked. I don’t know how the audience feels about that, but that’s what I prefer to do as a director. I want to build things during the movie not have them already built.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> It’s daring on your part because you risk confusing the audience.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> I risk confusing the audience because it’s more difficult to concentrate and to think. If the audience puts in the time and effort, at the end they’ll be satisfied. That the explanations come step by step is more interesting for me as a director.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> And, as I mentioned, as a <em>writer</em>.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> As a writer-director, I’m never sure what has to do with writing and what has to do with directing, because when I write a scene I have in mind how I will direct it.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I’ve seen your film written up in various places, including the press notes, as a “coming-of-age” story. I don’t think it is that exactly, because I think Misha’s coming-of-age is distorted, his new trajectory takes him elsewhere.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> Yeah. It is not a normal coming-of-age that he experiences. It is tough, it is dark, it stops violently from moving ahead. Misha becomes an adult, but who knows what will follow.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> But he’s a really young boy, so don’t we want him to remain a child?</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> Sofia would like that. All kids would like to be kids forever. But he becomes an adult sooner than other kids his age.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I’m still not sure he has gone from kid to adult.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> Well, let’s say, “He grew up.”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Of course, he is attached to a teddy bear. Is the teddy bear in the film from Misha’s childhood?</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> It’s his mother’s teddy bear, from her childhood.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I’m sure you’ve seen <em>Citizen Kane</em>…</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> Of course, with “Rosebud.”</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> My interpretation isn’t, as most critics and film historians insist, that the sled represents an idealized childhood that Charles Foster Kane remembers fondly—because he had a lonely childhood with a brutish father—but is instead the only thing he remembers owning before he got rich and could buy anything he wanted.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> Yes, the teddy bear is the only thing he has from his mother. His mother had that teddy bear when she was Misha’s age so the teddy bear is what connects Misha to his mother when she was a kid. All parents were kids at one time.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Another film that I thought may have influenced this film is <em>Pan’s Labyrinth</em>, about a lonely, isolated girl who is at odds with her strict new stepfather.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> A big influence on me was Ingmar Bergman’s <em>Fanny and Alexander</em>. We see the film through the eyes of a young boy, and there’s a stepfather in that film, too.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> When Misha runs around with the mischievous older gang that reminded me of <em>Oliver Twist</em>.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> I didn’t think of Dickens specifically, but I always keep in mind children’s books and fairytales.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I read that you never gave Victor Khomut a script.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> That’s right, he never saw the whole script, but I read him lines from every scene so he understood the story. I was very lucky that he’s a very clever boy so that I didn’t have to explain much to him. At the same time, he is a quiet boy, so at the beginning I wasn’t sure if he understood anything. Soon I realized he understood everything. He didn’t ask questions, it was just, “Okay, that’s fine.” It was his first film and it was a fun experience for him. Being in a movie was like playing a game for him.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> So you didn’t argue with him at all?</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> No. I did a lot with Valery. We had a good relationship, but it was very difficult, with many arguments. Sofia was a hard role for her to play. She has no kids, so it was hard for her to know how Sofia feels about being a mother. Also she is a theater actress in Germany but had been in only a few movies and had small parts. Without there being continuity, it was too hard for her to do Sofia’s emotional changes from one scene we shot to the next we shot, because the second might take place before the first in the script. Also, coming from the theater, she didn’t know how to prepare for scenes when there were so many crew members milling about, often talking or making noise with their equipment. She couldn’t concentrate as much as she wanted. She also wanted to understand all the things I had in my mind and wanted to meet my mother and wanted to watch family videos. She wanted to know exactly what I was like as a kid and what my family was like. Sometimes it was too hard to explain why she had to play her character in a certain way. That was difficult. But I’m very happy because she’s a beautiful actress and I think she is really great in the role.</div>
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<img alt="Son of Sofia poster" class=" wp-image-250787" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/son-of-sofia-poster.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/son-of-sofia-poster.jpg 700w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/son-of-sofia-poster-210x300.jpg 210w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/son-of-sofia-poster-155x222.jpg 155w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/son-of-sofia-poster-327x467.jpg 327w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/son-of-sofia-poster-300x429.jpg 300w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="425" /><br />
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‘Son of Sofia’ poster</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Talk about the music in your movie.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> I didn’t have an original score. I didn’t have one in my first feature either. I prefer to have songs. I found all the songs during the writing of the script. It was part of my research.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You have directed only two films, but your style is very strong. It’s very professional yet very personal. For one thing, you have your frame in balance, with characters and props in place.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> The frame is very important for me. It is very important to me how everything—the décor and the actors—is situated within the frame. But at the same time, I’m not so strict and want my actors to feel free!</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I am sure you had a great experience at the Tribeca Film Festival.</div>
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<strong>EP:</strong> It was exciting to have my world premiere in Tribeca, but at the same time I was very nervous because I am a filmmaker from Europe and the United States is very different country. I had never been to New York before and I didn’t feel it was familiar to me, and I wasn’t sure how my film would be perceived. So it was even more exciting to win the award for Best International Narrative Feature. It was a great surprise!</div>
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<em>Danny Peary has published 25 books on film and sports, including </em><span class="s1">Cult Movies</span><em> and </em><span class="s1">Jackie Robinson in Quotes</span><em>.</em></div>
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Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-72668526676753694652018-01-29T11:42:00.000-08:002018-01-29T11:42:37.299-08:00Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Take Me’ Actor & Director Pat HealyPlaying in Theaters<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Conv_Gotham-Bold; font-size: 25px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: center;">Danny Peary Talks To… ‘Take Me’ Actor & Director Pat Healy</span><br />
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(from danspapers.com May 3, 2017)<br />
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PAT HEALY IN "TAKE ME," PHOTO: ELIZABETH KITCHENS</div>
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<span class="date published time" style="font-weight: 700;" title="2017-05-03T13:50:30+00:00">MAY 3, 2017</span> BY DANNY PEARY</div>
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<strong>Pat Healy’s Take on His Bizarre Black Comedy “Take Me”</strong></div>
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So you weren’t in the audiences that cheered Pat Healy’s <em>Take Me</em> at the recent <a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2017/04/mariska-hargitay-fights-rape-for-real-in-i-am-evidence-doc/" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Tribeca Film Festival</a>? No worries. This wild and witty—and a bit insane—black comedy is opening theatrically this Friday, May 5 in NYC (at the Village East) and L.A. (at the Laemmle Monica). The film is also streaming now on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/take-me/id1223848040#" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">iTunes</a> and VOD.</div>
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The synopsis from the <em>Take Me </em>press notes:</div>
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“Ray Moody (Pat Healy) is a fledgling entrepreneur, trying to get his company off the ground in Los Angeles. His business: the niche Kidnap Solutions, LLC, specializing in abductions that provide alternative therapy for his clients. When a mysterious call contracts him for a weekend kidnapping with a handsome payday at the end, Ray jumps at the opportunity. But the job, and his target—business consultant Anna St. Blair (Taylor Schilling)—may not be all that they seem.” <em>Watch the trailer below and read on.</em></div>
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This combination of film noir and screwball comedy, in which abductor and abductee engage in a supercharged and very emotional and physical <em>pas de deux</em>, is the directorial debut of one of my favorite cult actors, Pat Healy, who in this film proudly wears the ugliest wig in film history. I was eager to speak to him about his new film, that hairpiece and his long and fascinating career, including playing the sinister villain in <em>Compliance</em>, a portrayal that still gives me chills. We found time to have this conversation over lunch at a diner in Tribeca during the festival.</div>
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<img alt="Pat Healy in Tribeca" class=" wp-image-247686" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/PatHealyPhotobyDannyPearyLARGE.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/PatHealyPhotobyDannyPearyLARGE.jpg 640w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/PatHealyPhotobyDannyPearyLARGE-300x225.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/PatHealyPhotobyDannyPearyLARGE-296x222.jpg 296w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/PatHealyPhotobyDannyPearyLARGE-623x467.jpg 623w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="549" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Pat Healy in Tribeca, Photo: Danny Peary</div>
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<strong>Danny Peary:</strong> After acting in forty films and many TV shows you’ve finally directed your first feature film. Go back to the beginning of your career. You are from Chicago. Did you go to L.A. with the intention of acting or directing?</div>
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<strong>Pat Healy:</strong> I went as an actor but from the beginning it was my goal to direct. I was acting in Chicago, working at Steppenwolf Theatre, and doing whatever movies, TV or commercials came through town. My agency had an office in L.A., so I was able to go there in 1998, and immediately started auditioning and got roles soon after. Within three months of being there, I was cast in an independent film that got into Sundance that year. Then I worked pretty regularly guest-starring on TV shows, and getting little parts in movies like <em>Magnolia</em>.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You have a cult following from a number of later pictures in which you had bigger parts, so it’s surprising to me that you’ve said fans recognize you most from <em>Magnolia</em>, which came out 18 years ago<em>.</em></div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> People do know me from <em>Cheap Thrills</em>, <em>Ghost World</em>, <em>The Innkeepers</em>, <em>Compliance, </em>and <em>The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford</em>, but <em>Magnolia </em>is really the one people ask me about most. Because everyone remembers the scene in which Julianne Moore comes into a pharmacy to get medicine for both herself and her husband who has cancer and I’m the pharmacist who gives her a hard time and she has a tirade. Like with <em>Ghost World</em>, in which I had a small part, I was only on the set for two days. I guess Paul Thomas Anderson did it the way Robert Altman did it, which was to have a rehearsal day in which everyone sat around a table for 12 hours and we all had a scene with Julianne. There was Philip Seymour Hoffman, Michael Murphy and all these other actors, and Paul made me feel I was as important as everyone else, so I felt appreciated and gave it everything. That was a really remarkable experience for a young actor. I was doing a few commercials at the time and got an offer to be the spokesperson for something, but I stopped because I had just done <em>Magnolia</em> and I didn’t want to be associated from then on for pitching something on TV.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> How long were you in L.A. before you wrote, direct and starred in your short, <em>Mullitt</em>?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> Two years. It premiered at Sundance in 2001. Michael Shannon and Henry Gibson were also in it. I did two shorts actually, but the other I didn’t get very far on. Someone said, “Great, what do you want to do next? Where’s your script?” The trouble was that I didn’t know how to write. It took me five years just to write the short I got nowhere with. Working on something for five years is what taught me how to write, because I had no natural skill for it. Then I wrote a script in two weeks for a feature called <em>Snow Ponies</em>, which is a western that is getting made now, 11 years later. Then there were 10 years of writing microbudget movies, rather than writing scripts for me to direct that someone was going to finance.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You continued to rack up credits in movies and on TV. Were you getting typecast from the beginning?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> I was being cast as psychos or jerks. Creeps. I felt I had an affinity for comedy but I was being cast in dramas. From a really early age, I loved Mel Brooks and Woody Allen and anyone who had anything to do with <em>SCTV</em> and <em>Saturday Night Live</em>.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I was surprised to read that you did stand-up.</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> Yeah, I did that from 2002 to 2004. I did fine at it, but mostly I did sketch comedy with friends. For a time I wasn’t working and was depressed, and doing comedy live was what brought me back from my professional and personal wilderness. We started doing it at the Steve Allen Theater in Los Feliz, at the Center for Inquiry building. There was a big bust of Steve Allen in the theater, which was recently torn down. Then a group of guys asked me to do a weekly sketch show in the basement of a Ramada Inn in Los Feliz, which also got torn down. I started doing stand-up as part of that show. I mostly talked about pop culture.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Were you biding your time until something came along?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> I didn’t think of it that way, but I hadn’t done a play since I’d left Chicago. Doing comedy gave me my confidence back because I’d lost it from not performing in front of audiences. Then I started working more than I ever had in my life. Within a year I made <em>Great World of Sound </em>[2007].</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Was that a big film for you?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> Yes, it was my first lead and the first time I worked with director Craig Zobel. I had been friends with its producer David Gordon Green for a long time and he introduced me to Craig and he cast me. That was a big break, and while doing that I got cast by Werner Herzog in <em>Rescue Dawn</em>. It wasn’t a big part but I got to spend three weeks in Thailand with Herzog and Christian Bale. I took a film studies class in high school when I was 16 and saw <em>Stroszek</em>, and I’d never seen anything like it, and it is one of my favorite movies until this day. I’d seen many more of his films in the interim. So I was excited.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did you flashback to when Herzog and Klaus Kinski were close to killing each other when making <em>Aguirre, the Wrath of God</em>?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> It’s a strange thing being in the orbit of someone like that. It’s like being in a love relationship and then you step out of it and think, “Why was I ever in something so insane?” He asked me to jump into the open door of a helicopter as it took off. I hadn’t done any training or practiced it, and I’d never even been in a helicopter, but I just did it. It wasn’t till later that I realized that was a little crazy. He was also the one who clapped the board and the one who wiped the sweat off our heads, so he was in there with us and would never have us do anything he wouldn’t do himself. He was lovely, and it was a remarkable experience. And from there, I got cast as Wilbur Ford in <em>The Assassination of Jesse James </em>with Brad Pitt.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In your catalogue, that film sticks out as being different from anything else.</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> If you were to talk about a cult movie that certainly is one now. A lot of my movies that now have cults received mixed reviews when they were released and did little business. <em>Magnolia</em>, <em>Ghost World, The Assassination of Jesse James</em> are the ones I usually cite as being people’s favorites of films I’ve been in.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You are also in a number of other cult films, most notably <em>Cheap Thrills—</em>in which your lowlife character and his friend compete by doing increasingly gruesome things for money—and Ti West’s <em>The Innkeepers</em>, but my favorite role of yours is the villain in <em>Compliance</em>.</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> Oh, yeah…That’s a great one. That’s the most difficult role I’ve ever done.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I would have thought people would recognize you most from that film. If it were a true “horror movie,” that’s certainly the film you’d be identified with.</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> It’s considered by some people to be a horror movie.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> It was part of a little run you had making films that reached your fans—<em>The Innkeepers</em> and <em>Compliance </em>in 2012, and <em>Cheap Thrills</em> in 2014.</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> That was a great period for me. I shot <em>The Innkeepers </em>and <em>Compliance </em>a year apart but they came out almost at the same time. We shot <em>Cheap Thrills </em>when <em>Compliance </em>came out. They weren’t going to cast me in it because they wanted someone whose face they could put on a video box. There was a two-month period where the director Evan Katz—who has since become a very good friend—was fighting for me. But they didn’t want me. Then <em>Compliance</em> came out at the Sunshine Theater in New York and it did really well. It got great reviews and I got great reviews, so I got cast in <em>Cheap Thrills</em>.</div>
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<img alt=""Take Me" poster art" class="aligncenter wp-image-247666" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/TakeMeposter.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/TakeMeposter.jpg 700w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/TakeMeposter-300x173.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/TakeMeposter-334x193.jpg 334w" style="display: block; height: auto; margin: 25px auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="549" /></div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did you audition for <em>Compliance</em>?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> No. Because I’d already worked with Craig Zobel.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Your fake policeman, “Officer Daniels,” is alone in his scenes as he talks on the phone to the people at a fast food restaurant, manipulating them into questioning and testing a pretty young waitress in sexual ways to supposedly determine if she did indeed steal from a customer, as he implies. Did you ever see any of the other cast members?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> Yes. Craig thought at first that he’d keep me from them. But as a friend and good human being he realized that would be too cruel. We were on a soundstage in Bushwick—they were upstairs and I was downstairs and one of the reasons it worked so well was because we were actually on the phone with each other the whole time. But sometimes the phone wouldn’t work, so I’d have to go upstairs and say my lines to them off-camera. I’d be looking at them and would actually feel sick to my stomach. That character was hard on me. I was getting divorced at the time, which I guess was good for the movie, but there was no catharsis for me. I’m not a villain in <em>Cheap Thrills </em>but do villainous things and I could blast it out. Not with this. This guy was so coiled up and it was so internal. The movie is great and I’ve seen it a couple of times, but it’s not easy for me to revisit it for personal reasons.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I guess you had to ask yourself, “How am I able to play such a character?”</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> I am aware of a darkness inside of me, something from an early age, depression and things like that which have always been with me. Internally that stuff was going on with me but Craig wasn’t conscious of it. Here was this banal guy who was making a sandwich while giving vile instructions over the phone. He thought of himself as a guy making a huge practical joke. He wouldn’t have guts to do the same thing face-to-face. In the actual case the film was based on, the guy made the call from a payphone in front of a grocery store and the call was four hours long without anyone there questioning what he was doing.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Did you and Craig discuss your character?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> Not a lot. It came along quickly and I had to jump into it. Craig did send me an entire season of the show <em>Cops</em> because he wanted me to know the rhythm of how the police talk—like how they call everyone “Sir” and “Ma’am” in the most condescending way possible. Otherwise I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for the role. So it was very important that we had done <em>Great World of Sound</em>, which integrated real people who thought they were actually auditioning for us. I had certain skills and had just come off of that stretch where I was doing improv and sketch comedy, and he knew this role would require some of that. We had shorthand with each other while I was talking to the other characters on the phone. I’d do some improv to get certain reactions from them.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I think that’s the film prior to <em>Take Me </em>in which you really have the opportunity to be creative. But in all your work, even when confronting carnivorous pumpkins in <em>Tales of Halloween</em>, you really give your all. You have always been a responsible actor no matter what the role.</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> Well, I have to be. I’m not going to say I haven’t done sh_tty movies or spent a lot of time on crime procedurals that I’d never watch. I paid my dues on those and learned a lot. Those are actually harder because you get the script and go in to act without prep, never having time to develop a fully realized character. Sometimes you are handed a script and have to do a five-page monologue, and that’s a real challenge. But it does pay the bills, which means a lot. It’s a training ground for being in front of the camera but it also keeps you afloat.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You’ve done scores of movies and television. For how many of those TV shows do you get still get residuals?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> Most of them. The CBS crime shows, of which I’ve done a half dozen—<em>CSI, NCSI</em>, <em>Cold Case—</em>are always playing somewhere in the world. And those are big checks. I wouldn’t make a great living, especially in L.A., but if I wanted to live off my residuals, I could.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> And how many of your movies are in the black?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> It’s hard to tell. For instance, I’ve never seen a dime from <em>Cheap Thrills </em>and I have to believe that made money. It’s been out three or four years.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Were you looking for a film to direct by the time you made <em>Cheap Thrills</em>?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> I was front and center in that, I thought, and invested a lot of my own money to hire a publicist for the first time, and to travel around the country to promote it. It did work for me. I had the reputation for doing indie and horror movies and knew a lot of people, and was getting offers for the first time that didn’t require auditions. That was great because I was 40 and broke, but they were little indie things that didn’t excite me and nothing that paid really well. Then one day I was lying in a pool of fake blood on the floor of a Mexican supermarket at six on a Saturday morning, and I had to show up for another indie film at noon, which I wasn’t looking forward to. I was doing all this just to pay the bills, but it was burning me out. I had a “What am I doing with my life?” moment and told my agent that I was going to follow his advice and just stay home for a while and wait for the right thing to come along.</div>
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This was November and I had already agreed to do one more job in December, a short film called <em>Breaker Breaker</em> with a bunch of graduates from Brown who were all in their early twenties. The director was Eric Bogosian’s son, Jack Nicholson’s daughter was the production designer and costume designer, the writer was a guy from Brown, and this 23-year-old named Mike Makowsky was the producer. I did it and Mike and I became friends. Then he wrote a script and asked me to read it. I rolled my eyes because I get too many scripts that way, but since I liked him a lot I agreed to read it. But it sat in my email box for a couple of months. Meanwhile, he met with a couple of interested producers who sounded a bit shady, so I went into protective mode and read it. He never said, “I wrote this for you.” I was floored by it. I loved it. I immediately knew I wanted to act in it.</div>
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Then I talked in an excited way about it with Evan Katz and he said, “It sounds like <em>you</em> should direct it.” It had never occurred to me to direct something I hadn’t written. But as soon as Evan said that, I said, “You’re right.” I told Mike, “I want to direct this, too.” Mike said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” So how could I convince him? I emailed Jay Duplass and gave him the short version, saying I’d like to direct a script I liked. He asked me to send him the script and he passed it along to Mel Eslyn, who the Duplass brothers had recently hired to produce films for them. I met with her the next day and she said yes. I offered to not direct, or to not act in it, but they thought I should do both.</div>
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<img alt="Pat Healy and Taylor Schilling in "Take Me"" class=" wp-image-247687" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Pat-HealyandTaylorSchillinginTakeMebyElizabeth-Kitchens.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Pat-HealyandTaylorSchillinginTakeMebyElizabeth-Kitchens.jpg 700w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Pat-HealyandTaylorSchillinginTakeMebyElizabeth-Kitchens-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Pat-HealyandTaylorSchillinginTakeMebyElizabeth-Kitchens-150x100.jpg 150w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Pat-HealyandTaylorSchillinginTakeMebyElizabeth-Kitchens-334x222.jpg 334w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="549" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Pat Healy and Taylor Schilling in “Take Me,” Photo: Elizabeth Kitchens</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In her interview in the press notes, Taylor Schilling says she was attracted to the project because she was a fan of Mark and Jay Duplass.</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> Yes. They had done <em>The Overnight </em>with Taylor. I was actually worried that we wouldn’t get a good actress to star in it, but they had a list of really good actresses they could contact. Taylor was on the list. I was surprised how many actresses wanted to do it. I had choices and would have been lucky to have had any of them. But Taylor was my first choice. The reason I wanted to cast her is that this film has a screwball comedy element and I thought Taylor had a wonderful Carol Lombard quality—she is a beautiful, glamorous star who is funny and can play “nuts.” She also has chops as a trained actress. She certainly does interesting things on <em><a href="http://www.danspapers.com/2014/06/orange-is-the-new-black-premiere-features-downtown-riverhead/" style="border: none; color: #226688; outline: none;" target="_blank">Orange Is the New Black</a></em>, but I had never seen her do anything as multifaceted as this character, and I thought she deserved an opportunity to prove herself in this way. And she said yes. I didn’t see any need to audition her. I don’t like auditioning so I didn’t see a need to make anyone else do it.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> She was an inspired casting choice.</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> Taylor proved to be the perfect person to play the part because there’s an unpredictable quality to her. That actually surprised me.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I think Taylor works so well in your film and in <em>Orange Is the New Black</em> and other roles [because] she has mischievous eyes. You think she’s the victim, but her eyes indicate she’s in control and enjoying what’s going on.</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> Absolutely. There is a lot in the eyes. There is actually one eye that does a little thing.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Were Ray Moody and Anna St. Blair the original name choices for the two main characters?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> No. The character’s name was Craig but I’d played a Craig in <em>Cheap Thrills </em>so I didn’t think it was a good idea. Taylor’s character was always Anna but her original last name didn’t clear the legal department because it was a saint name. But we could name her St. Blair because there is no saint named Blair.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Was it your intention to make a screwball-noir hybrid?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> Yeah. I don’t know if I said that, but I was looking at all these seventies and eighties noir films for the cinematography, and thirties screwball comedies, and thinking of films which had the tone I liked: <em>King of Comedy</em>, which is my favorite movie, and <em>After Hours</em>, both by Martin Scorsese. They are comedies that are as chilling as they are funny.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> <em>King of Comedy </em>is also an abduction film. And <em>After Hours </em>is about a guy hooking up with the wrong, slightly bonkers but alluring woman.</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> Yes, being dragged down the rabbit hole. That’s typical of noir and screwball comedy. One ends tragically and the other ends with a kiss or wedding. Some film scholars do call them sister genres and I do see where they are related. Both genres feature a man who despite his best efforts only makes things worse for himself and everyone around him.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> It’s always a man who thinks he’s smarter than he really is.</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> Right. That is key to <em>Take Me.</em></div>
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<img alt="Pat Healy and Taylor Schilling in "Take Me"" class=" wp-image-247660" sizes="(max-width: 834px) 100vw, 834px" src="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/PatHealyandTaylorSchillinginTakeMe.jpg" srcset="http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/PatHealyandTaylorSchillinginTakeMe.jpg 834w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/PatHealyandTaylorSchillinginTakeMe-300x168.jpg 300w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/PatHealyandTaylorSchillinginTakeMe-768x430.jpg 768w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/PatHealyandTaylorSchillinginTakeMe-334x187.jpg 334w, http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/PatHealyandTaylorSchillinginTakeMe-700x392.jpg 700w" style="height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="550" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="clear: both; font-family: helvetica; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px !important; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">
Pat Healy and Taylor Schilling in “Take Me,” Photo Nathan M. Miller</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> We know immediately that Ray isn’t so smart by his choice of toupee.</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> I’ve always been fascinated by people who wear toupees. I was going to wear a wig because I pictured my character as having funny hair. I don’t have enough upstairs to work with so I was going to wear a wig that I was going to pass off as his hair. Then I got on the phone with Taylor for the first time, and Mark Duplass. She was going to wear a wig herself because she was coming off a season on <em>Orange Is the New Black</em> and her hair was all fried. She wanted to have long blond hair. Mark said, “This is a movie about ‘actors,’ people performing and role playing. What if you make the wigs part of that, where it’s the characters who wear wigs not just you two actors?” So Mike and I wrote wigs into the script for both of us. For Taylor’s character a wig wasn’t right, but I kept the wig for my character. I found a $30 wig. What was interesting is that when we started screening the film, a lot of people had a problem with the movie because they just assumed we had no hair budget. They were taken out of the movie. So we put in some references so you know that we know he has a bad wig.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> You didn’t give yourself a writing credit, but how much had to be rewritten from Mike Makowsky’s original script?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> I did everything <em>with</em> him. I gave him notes with suggestions coming also from Mel, Mark, and Taylor, and he worked on the script for about four months. And then I took it and did mostly cosmetic things, like adding the wig and bringing things around more to my sensibility and punching up some of the humor. I don’t think Mike saw it as a comedy as much as I did. But there was always humor implicit in the situations.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Was the very funny first scene, in which Ray tries to get a loan for his odd business from the bank teller, in the original script?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> Yes. I did add the one line at the end, when Ray comes back after being rejected by her and asks her for parking validation. That was a line from another script I wrote many years ago. I always thought it was funny when someone gives a big speech, says, “Screw you” after being turned away, and then has to come back and ask for a favor.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Was Ray someone you could relate to?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> I talked before about my hardscrabble life in L.A., and though Ray isn’t an actor by profession, what he goes through to make a living is very analogous to my own life at one time. He’s too old to be playing around anymore and he’s pretending to be something that he’s not, and he needs to have his ass handed to him or he won’t survive. That’s where Anna comes in. She is sort of the manifestation of all of his problems, and a catalyst to his getting rid of them.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> In noir, the man lets fate play out even though he senses there is doom ahead. He won’t stop it though he should try.</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> It’s because of the allure of the sex.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> And he’s intrigued by this sexual female who is a little off kilter.</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> Right, and that confuses him. You want to know what’s going on, so you move in closer. You should be running away but you’re curious. You think you can solve the puzzle. Without giving too much away, what I like about this story, in regard to how it consistently subverts expectations in both noir and screwball comedy, is that it even subverts the romantic aspect by not giving you what you think you want. There is no sexual tension between Ray and Anna. I think back to screwball comedies. Some people refer to screwball comedies as “sex comedies without the sex” because of they couldn’t do sex because of the Hays Code. Fighting became a substitute for sex. In <em>Nothing Sacred</em>, there’s a fistfight between Carole Lombard and Fredric March. The sizzling punch-counterpunch dialogue takes the place of the sexual tension in that 1937 film and in <em>Take Me</em>.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Does Ray at all enjoy the challenge that Anna is to him?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> I don’t think he does. Speaking from the experience of being a former man-child—and perhaps still being a little bit of one—we don’t like the challenge, although it may be good for us. I like being challenged now, but I was forced into adulthood kicking and screaming. I’m much happier now.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Is there any way that Ray Moody represents an older version of Earl Lippy in <em>Mullitt</em>?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> Yes! I said that to someone else recently. Earl Lippy, Ray Moody, Pat Healy. They are all related. I think Mike had me figured out when he created Ray, whether it was self-conscious or not. From talking to me so much and seeing my body of work, he just knew.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I believe that Earl could have reformed by now, but Ray is about the best he can hope to become, the ceiling for his improvement.</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> A man-child who doesn’t want adult responsibilities. Bad hair. The jacket. Playacting. A toxic masculinity. He watches old movies and all his ideas of what a man should be come from false notions about movie characters.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> What was his childhood like with his sister, who now looks down on his line of work?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> I think they role played as kids in an innocent way. Then they got older and he never stopped. She went off and got married and had kids, and he’s still doing it.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> At one point, Ray calls Anna a pro. Do you think she’s hired someone to abduct her before?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> I doubt anyone other than Ray does this service, so I can’t imagine her doing this exact thing. I imagine her doing other roleplaying things in immersive theater. But this scenario of Ray’s is unique. It’s like a made-up job.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Why do you think Anna wants Ray to abduct her not when she’s on vacation from work but when she has to give a speech that night and everybody will look for her when she doesn’t show up?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> It’s all about keeping it real. He’s a bad actor; she’s a really good one. It’s as if Scott Baio and Meryl Streep were cast opposite each other, and the humor comes from Ray and Anna not knowing they’re in different movies with different scripts. It becomes very confusing for Ray. He has always been the dominant male in his scenarios and the abducted customers have played their roles in the script he has given them. But now Anna has switched the script on him and he doesn’t know what to do. He’s not quick on his feet; he can’t improvise. He’s not good at it unless the other person goes along with it. And Anna doesn’t.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> At one point, Anna says she’s divorced, although I’m not sure if that’s true.</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> I’m not sure either.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> But would it be surprising if she goes home and she has a husband and two kids?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> It could very well be that way. The office where Ray sees her may not really be where she works. Where she says she lives may be fake, too. She may be using a fake name. In fact St. Blair is a fake name.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> I’m sure you’ve seen movies where a man or a woman sits alone at a hotel bar and a stranger comes up to them and they exchange sexy dialogue and there is a seduction and exchange of room keys—and it turns out they are a married couple trying to sex-up their relationship. We could interpret this movie that way, saying Ray and Anna often play this abduction game and pretend not to know each other.</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> Sure. There are a million ways to interpret this. I like that one. These people do that to some degree, they need this.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> We get to know Ray but we’re never sure about Anna. We think she hired Ray to abduct her but when she denies it we wonder if she’s telling the truth and Ray abducted the wrong person. What do you want viewers to think?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> I don’t want anyone to know anything for sure. The premise is a guy is hired by a woman to kidnap her for fun or therapeutic reasons, and she turns out to be the client from hell and it all goes wrong. From there, it’s anyone’s game in regard to what’s going on. I love movies that you want to see twice, and I hope this is that kind of movie. I want people to enjoy it the first time they see it, although they might not understand it all, and to see it again to make more sense of it.</div>
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<strong>SPOILER ALERT</strong></div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> How satisfied do you think Anna is at the end of their time together?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> My interpretation is that she thinks he did a great job. It was a fantastic experience for her and it was completely unpredictable but he managed to roll with the punches. She thinks he played his part well all the way through, and was the perfect dance partner. She has no idea that she has crushed him, but the irony is that she does get him to be real with himself for the first time. He now can be real and stop acting. The last thing he does is allow himself to cry in front of another man.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> So it’s a positive experience for him too?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> I think so. It was a negative experience for him that’s going to lead to positive things.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> As in <em>After Hours</em>, the guy experiences his ultimate nightmare and by all accounts should be dead, but the next morning the sun comes up and he has escaped the worst possible ending and is fine.</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> Both characters are forever changed. In <em>After Hours, </em>characters actually die. But I didn’t want to make a movie that’s a bummer.</div>
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<strong>END SPOILER ALERT</strong></div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> What’s it like being at Tribeca Film Festival?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> I’ve been to Sundance and to most of the US film festivals, but I’ve never been here before. I’m just really pleased. I have great respect and admiration for the festival. I’m really excited to be premiering my film in New York City in a 500-seat theater. I could never imagine it.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> Where does this film fit into your career?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> I think this was the next step in my career. It came into my life at exactly the right time and it didn’t kill me. It’s taking a lot of things I’ve done—the everyman who gets beaten up by life, literally and figuratively, and has to move on without knowing what lies ahead—but now it’s more hopeful. Until now I’ve wanted to quit every few years. This represents where I am today.</div>
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<strong>DP:</strong> As a film buff, how does it feel to be making movies and be part of film history?</div>
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<strong>PH:</strong> I go back to August, when I was cutting <em>Take Me</em>. I was invited to Alamo Draft House in Winchester, Virginia, a small town about 40 miles from Washington, D.C. They wanted to show a bunch of my movies and there I was sitting there and watching my life’s work back-to-back. It really hit me. And now there’s this.</div>
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<em>Danny Peary has published 25 books on film and sports, including </em><span class="s1">Cult Movies</span><em> and </em><span class="s1">Jackie Robinson in Quotes</span><em>.</em></div>
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Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-41268427023174885752017-04-04T23:04:00.000-07:002017-04-04T23:04:21.439-07:00Hortsmann and Harvie’s “Bodyslam” Finally AvailablePlaying on iTunes<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Hortsmann and Harvie’s “Bodyslam” Finally Available</span><br />
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(from Sag Harbor Express Online 3/24/17)<br />
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In May of 2015, I posted an interview here with John Paul Hortsmann and Ryan Harvie, the directors of the uplifting, sweet-spirited wrestling documentary, <em>Bodyslam: Revenge of the Banana</em>. It had just made a splash at the Tribeca Film Festival and I wrote that it fit my category Movies That Should Play in Sag Harbor. It never played in Sag Harbor or off the festival circuit. Until now. The directors have just alerted me that “Morgan Spurlock came on board as Executive Producer and <em>Bodyslam</em> is being released by Virgil Films. On March 28, it will be available for purchase in stores and playing on iTunes.</div>
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As I wrote in the introduction to the interview: “The directors found their story and its intriguing cast of social misfits at the Re-bar, a gay-friendly club on Howell Street, where once a month this intrepid and talented troupe of performers with outlandish monikers and wild costumes put on a raucous show that mixes wild, over-the-top wrestling with burlesque, parody, soap opera, and even political satire–if you want to see “Senator John McCain” manhandled by Ronald McFondle, this is where to go! In the documentary, Ronald McFondle, played by Josh Black, and Eddie Van Glam, played by Bill Bates, are the two Seattle Semi-Pro Wrestlers the directors focus on, in and out of costume. The other main figure is Paul Richards, who wrestles as The Banana, until he is exiled for not making an effort to become part of the very tight SSP wrestling family–becoming instead an outcast among outcasts. A woman scorned is nothing compared to a Banana out for revenge, and the spiteful Paul cleverly uses the law to shut down the SSP. And the movie moves from the ring to the Capitol. I saw <em>Bodyslam</em> at the TFF out of curiosity and it turned out to be a nice surprise, not at all what I expected and one of my favorite documentaries at the festival. Going in, I figured I’d cheer the wrestling onscreen, but I ended up sincerely rooting for the fascinating underdog characters in the movie in regard to their personal problems and for the SSP to come back from extinction. Also, I was thankful to the directors for bringing an entirely new subculture to the screen. Who knew?”</div>
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I was delighted to have this conversation with Horstman, Harvie, Black, and Bates. (The wrestlers even let me try on their championship belt!) I am pleased to share it again.</div>
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<img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-62228" height="240" sizes="(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px" src="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Bodyslam-group.jpg" srcset="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Bodyslam-group.jpg 320w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Bodyslam-group-300x225.jpg 300w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Bodyslam-group-180x135.jpg 180w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Bodyslam-group-150x113.jpg 150w" style="border: none !important; height: auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: middle;" width="320" /><div style="line-height: 18px;">
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(Left to right) John Paul Horstmann, Josh Black/Ronald McFondle, Bill Bates/Eddie Van Glam and Ryan Harvie.</div>
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Danny Peary: Ryan and John, in your Directors Statement, you say that for your film to work it “had to be funny as hell.” For me, it’s the poignancy of your film that comes across more than the hilarity. There is humor but it comes from your characters, who are funny but are just as often serious. So I’m wondering if you still tell people <em>first</em> thing that this is a funny movie.</div>
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John Paul Horstmann: That Directors Statement was written a while ago, before we realized <em>Bodyslam</em> would turn out to be a much more serious film than we expected it be. It really surprised us that once we started cutting the scenes together, we kept finding these poignant moments and we exploded them and we explored them and found more heart than in the jokes. So you hit on something. I always think that in humor there’s a lot of pain and consequence, and I really like the juxtaposition of the two.</div>
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Ryan Harvie: Yeah, I think this movie is funny-serious. It’s about family, and family is always funny.</div>
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DP: Tell me about the tone of the movie. How did you structure it so you always keep it bit humorous even when the characters are talking about sad things?</div>
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JPH: We used humor as a hook, and we placed all the interesting stuff underneath it.</div>
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Paul, The Banana (in background) and Lucas, The Second Banana.</div>
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RH: No one wants to be depressed for eighty minutes, so we structured the film so that there is always something else going on when it’s too serious. For example, when Paul is telling a sad story, you’re seeing on the screen the wrestling he watched as a child and there’s a feeling of nostalgia and happiness. So while you’re getting some sad information and learning about all these people, you’re not depressed for the whole movie.</div>
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JPH: You get inside the person, then you understand him, then you develop great empathy, and then you feel a lot better than you would if he were just to look into the camera and deliver a long speech about how he was once abused or something else like that.</div>
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DP: Ryan, I read that the origin of your documentary is that you were told about the wrestling show in Seattle by a college friend who wrestles in it as the Second Banana. Where were you at the time?</div>
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RH: I was in Los Angeles and my friend Lucas and I met up for drinks when he came down from Seattle for a video game conference. He started telling me about this wrestling show he was in, saying “I dress like a banana and other guys dress in zany costumes and there’s all this crazy stuff.” And I was enthralled. It seemed amazing so I told John Paul about it and we both became obsessed with the idea. So we went up to Seattle, where we’d never been, and started shooting, and from watching the wrestling show, meeting these guys, and seeing their dynamics behind the stage, we realized, “There’s something here, something beyond these wrestling characters.”</div>
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DP: Bill, or Eddie Van Glam, when you guys found out that Ryan and John were making a movie about you, did you say, “Why are they doing this?” Or were you saying, “This is a really good idea!”?</div>
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Bill Bates: When they first approached us, we didn’t quite know what to make of it. They were saying, “We want to tell your story.” And we were like, “Cool, if that happens, great! If anything we’ll have footage of our shows.”</div>
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DP: At the beginning, was the idea for you to tell your stories or just for them to see the show you put on?</div>
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Josh Black: I think at first they came to the show just to check it out. They’d heard about our shows and what we do, and they just wanted to see it for themselves and get a feel for it and see what we were about. The story kind of evolved after the fact.</div>
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DP: Do these shows take place at a gay club?</div>
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JB: They take place at the Re-bar, and in the ‘80s and ‘90s, it was very much a gay club. They still have gay dance nights and house nights, and they have the Dina Martina Drag Show, and a lot of theater.</div>
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DP: Are any of the performers in the drag shows also wrestlers?</div>
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JB: No, I don’t think any of the drag people have ever wrestled, but Ronald McFondle does a lot of drag shows. McFondle’s “mother” is Jackie Hell, who is a local drag queen, and she has come out to the ring with me a couple of times to be McFondle’s manager.</div>
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DP: How many SSP wrestlers are there?</div>
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BB: Right now it’s about 22 guys.</div>
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DP: Who writes the scripts for the shows?</div>
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JB: It’s not one person who writes all the scripts. Everyone gets to tell their own little stories, and one person—which was me for a long time—must oversee those stories and make sure everything fits. It’s a three-ring circus, and you want comedy and violence and physicality, and technical wrestling. Also you need to make sure everyone’s doing their own things, but you want to make sure you’re not doing the same things all night long.</div>
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DP: Are the storylines like soap operas, as they are in the WWE?</div>
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JB: The most ridiculous soap operas ever.</div>
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DP: Does the audience care who wins?</div>
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JB: I’ve been champion a few times but I lose a lot, too. The audience understands we’re telling stories that last six months to a year, so match by match they’re not too much concerned with who wins, because they know we’re telling this story. When it comes to the final match of the feud between characters, then you have them invested in the outcome.</div>
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BB: We have season finales…</div>
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JB: We have shows once a month. People come back, they come early and grab front-row seats and load up on beer cans.</div>
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DP: Which they used to throw at the wrestlers.</div>
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BB: A lot of people bring their friends, and once they’ve seen it, they tell their friends. This past Saturday we were standing room only.</div>
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DP: Did you guys have a mission statement when you started out?</div>
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JB: Not really. We started in 2003, with us wrestling for fun between girls at burlesque shows. It all grew so organically. And then all of a sudden we’re selling out the Re-bar every month.</div>
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DP: Are you becoming better wrestlers as the years go by?</div>
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JB: Yeah. Well, when we started we didn’t have a lot of physicality, and it was really goofy and theatrical. There was a lot of rolling around and slap-fights, like The Three Stooges. We now have a ring, and we’re a lot of closer to actual wrestlers than when we started.</div>
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DP: Are you curious about how you’d do in the ring with professionals?</div>
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JB: I’ve done some indie stuff, some more traditional wrestling. It’s not an aspiration for me to wrestle professionally for a living, but it’s a fun thing to do once in a while.</div>
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DP: I grew up watching wrestling. Did you guys?</div>
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JB: When I was a kid, wrestling was on Saturday mornings, and my grandpa and I would fight about it all the time, because he was an NWA guy who loved Ric Flair and I loved “Macho Man” Randy Savage, who was in the WWF. He hated the pageantry and he still thought it was real and believed NWA was more raw and realer. All that WWF stuff he couldn’t stand–he thought the wrestlers were clowns–so we argued about it all day long.</div>
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DP: Did you know wrestling was fake as a kid?</div>
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JB: My mom was at the screening the other night, and she told me that when I was 8, I used to just scream at her when she told me it was fake. I didn’t believe it for a second. By the time I was a teen I obviously knew.</div>
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DP: What about you, Bill? You’re not a huge guy but growing up did you have aspirations to be a wrestler?</div>
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BB: I originally did. I found out about wrestling when I was 9 years old, I saw a magazine with Papa Shango on the cover, and it was so amazing because it was like a real live-action comic book and there were these over-the-top characters, and they were real–I could touch them physically if I went to the show. So I fell in love with the theatrics of it and the storylines, and then as I got older I appreciated the athleticism and the drama that it provided. I remember being a junior in high school, and thinking, “You know, I could actually pursue this. If I go to the gym and start eating right and look into it, I could actually do it.” My family did everything in their power to make sure I <em>didn’t</em> do it. My mother died when I was 22 and I had lost my family by then so I just dove straight into work because that’s all I had and I had only me to take care of. Then when I was 25, a friend said, “Hey, there’s this wrestling show I heard about. I’m not a wrestling fan but I know you are so do you want to go?” “Yeah! If there’s live wrestling in Seattle, I want to experience this!”</div>
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DP: Ryan, after you met the SSP wrestlers, did you think that 100% of these men had troubled lives before they found this home and makeshift family?</div>
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RH: Some guys did and some guys didn’t.</div>
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DP: I am not asking insultingly, but was anyone completely together?</div>
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RH: The Second Banana had a troubled history, and so did some other guys, but the way the organization is, with its open-door policy that lets everyone in, if you’re looking for a family, then you have found the place to have it.</div>
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JPH: A lot of the guys say they don’t have anybody else, except for the other wrestlers.</div>
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JB: A lot of the wrestlers are people like me. I didn’t have a horrible past, I just wanted to get out of North Dakota because it was too small for me. All my family is back there and when I moved out here I was all by myself. A lot of us are just transplants from the Midwest who didn’t have anyone in Seattle. And we found each other.</div>
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DP: Ryan, do you see the bonding theme, the brotherhood among the wrestlers, as being the main thrust of your film?</div>
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RH: It comes across in their shows and hopefully in our footage that they love each other beyond anything else, and that I think is a really beautiful thing.</div>
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DP: The wrestlers in the movie have become a family, but do any still have strong connections to their own families?</div>
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BB: My dad is my best friend, I love my father, but there’s no way in hell I’m moving to Atlanta. He finally came to a show and he saw what I built and what I have with these guys. My dad’s actually in the movie, in the front row at a show. He had a blast, and he “got it”—finally when he saw the show and he met everybody, he was like, “OK, I’m not going to ask you to move to Atlanta, because I get it.” Because he knows I love him with all my heart.</div>
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DP: Was he impressed by how athletic you are?</div>
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BB: Yes and no, because I had always tried my hand at various sports. I just didn’t really keep to one sport to see how good I could be. I was like, “I tried it, so it’s time to move on.” But I always loved wrestling, so for him to see me wrestle for the first time was very special. He he finally got to see me live my dream.</div>
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DP: In the Directors’ Statement, you say, “Basically this film is about truth in even the most ridiculous moments.” Please elaborate.</div>
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JPH: As we also say in our statement, there is beauty even in the most ugly or ridiculous moments and the most banal situations can have deeply interesting subtexts. Even though we may chuckle at our characters’ eccentricities, we can also identify with their situations.</div>
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RH: The truth always comes through. When someone totally believes in what they are doing, whether it’s jumping off a ladder or rubbing clown paint on themselves, that is who they are and it’s their true self that shines through in this film. What I found is that these characters live such interesting lives and are so compelling that you can identify with their situations and feelings even if you don’t dress up like a clown and bodyslam people. There are universal concepts that everyone experiences.</div>
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DP: The story takes a really weird turn when Paul, the original Banana, is let go and gets his revenge by alerting the authorities about minor code infractions at the wrestling shows. The result is your show is shut down and the wrestling stops. Josh, after testifying before a surprisingly sympathetic legislative panel, is SSP wrestling functioning in the same way as before at the Re-bar?</div>
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JB: Well, if we don’t charge for admission or require a cover charge, we are allowed to do the show. So right now we’re doing that and basically paying out of pocket. But I’m working with the Department of Licensing, and we’re co-authoring a bill to change the laws that need to be changed, hopefully by 2016.</div>
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DP: You have always been billed as semi-pros, so were you getting paid before the shutdown?</div>
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JB: Before we were shut down we had a cover charge. Mainly it would be to pay the bar tab for all of us to drink after the show, and to promote the show with handbills and posters. Also it paid for making costumes.</div>
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RH: You guys didn’t take a salary. You put your money back into it.</div>
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JB: None of us ever walked away with cash. We do a lot of charity stuff, too.</div>
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BB: Donations to homeless shelters. If we have anything extra.</div>
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DP: Let’s talk about Paul, The Banana. He was a really quiet guy yet John Paul and Ryan you were able to befriend him enough so that he was honest with you in the film.</div>
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RH: We had to earn his trust. He opened up as a villain just not so emotionally.</div>
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JPH: It took almost two years before he opened up. One day, he was on the steps of his house, where you see him in the film, and he just randomly started talking.</div>
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DP: Was most of that interview in which he spoke about mother filmed in one day?</div>
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JPH: We were interviewing him for a whole day, asking about his house, and then he came out onto the steps, and we turned the camera around.</div>
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RH: He’d been rebuilding the house by himself, and we said, “Just show us what you’ve been doing,” and <em>then</em> he started talking about how his mother died on the front porch that he was repairing. It was like a valve opened up and we were very happy he felt comfortable and honest with us.</div>
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DP: When watching the movie, Josh, were you hearing Paul’s story for the first time?</div>
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JB: Yeah. I had no idea about his past and his mother and all that. He really never said anything much to us except for hello and yes and no, and often he just nodded his head. He never opened up to us. He tried to hang out with us but he’d come to the bar and stand awkwardly to the side. We tried to pull conversation out of him, but he just never opened up with us. I think it’s because he didn’t like that we drink and whatever. So when trying to get him to open up to us when we were all at a bar, we had no idea that drinking bothered him so much. And that was probably a big barrier to him getting closer to us.</div>
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BB: It really felt like he was always passing judgment on us.</div>
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JB: I’m the type who if I’m busting your balls is saying, “I like you.” But I think he took a lot of the in-jest, busting balls things I said as Josh being an asshole.</div>
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BB: I wasn’t the nicest guy back in the day, either.</div>
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DP: Ryan, if the wrestlers admit that they blew it with this guy, what do you think Paul’s reaction would be if they asked him to return to the show?</div>
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RH: I actually don’t know what Paul would say. I think he would love to wrestle again, but the thing I’ve learned about wrestling is that it’s about trust, and when that trust is broken, it’s hard to rebuild that back. He would have to rebuild that trust.</div>
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BB: Wrestling is about trusting your opponent to protect you and about protecting each other. And without that trust, you don’t know if someone is going to get hurt…</div>
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DP: Is the anger you have toward Paul too much ever to overcome?</div>
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JB: I haven’t seen him since he walked out of that last show, but on a personal level I’d love to shake his hand and bury the hatchet. I don’t want to hold hate and grudges. As far as being back in the show, what stands in the way is the trust issue and not knowing if someone could be hurt. I don’t think I could ever let him back in to perform, but I’d love to be OK with him.</div>
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BB: If he ever wanted to come to a show– like Josh, I’d love to just bury the hatchet, shake hands, and apologize for anything I ever said to him.</div>
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DP: Would you want an apology from him, too?</div>
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BB: Yeah, I think he definitely owes us one, too.</div>
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DP: If you watch westerns or war movies, it’s usually about an outsider coming in and eventually learning how to conform to the group. The rare exception is when the group conforms to the guy. Looking back, did you give Paul what he needed, or was he a hopeless case?</div>
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JB: We gave him a million opportunities to talk to us, he just doesn’t talk. Communication is key in any relationship but there was no communication with him. He thought I was bullshitting about taking the banana suit off him. I loved what he was doing as a heel, and with his wrestling, but it just didn’t work with that Banana suit on. If we just gave him cheap shades, a vest, and the blazer, he could have acted the way he wanted to as the Banana and he would have been an awesome heel. But the character of the Banana wasn’t supposed to be a heel. Paul wouldn’t listen to us about this, so we had to tell him to leave.</div>
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RH: For me, this movie is all about family, and a guy who’s looking for a family, Paul, who finds a family and doesn’t know what to do once he has that family.</div>
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DP: So he blows his opportunity and loses his family. Poor guy.</div>
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Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-30271362028015675662017-03-22T12:36:00.001-07:002017-03-22T12:36:25.629-07:00Onur Tukel Pushes Sandra Oh and Anne Heche into a “Catfight”Playing in Theaters<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Onur Tukel Pushes Sandra Oh and Anne Heche into a “Catfight”</span><br />
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(from Sag Harbor Express Online 3/3/17)<br />
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Sandra Oh and Anne Heche filming the first fight, in a stairwell.</div>
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<strong>By Danny Peary</strong></div>
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If you happen to spot a bearded and slightly mad man handing out cards this week near the Cinema Village on 12<span style="font-size: 9px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">th</span> Street off University in Manhattan or the Spectacle Theater, at 124 S. 3<span style="font-size: 9px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">rd</span> Street in Brooklyn, please don’t cross to the other side of the street but take one and engage in conversation. That imposing yet gentle soul is actually one of New York’s finest independent filmmakers, having written and directed <em>Richard’s Wedding</em>, <em>Summer of Blood</em>, and <em>Applesauce</em>, my choice of best narrative film at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival–all slightly demented and hilariously written and performed low-budget comedies that deal, mostly, with betrayal between friends, grudges, revenge, selfishness, the fickleness of relationships, interchangeable characters, failure, self-hatred, and characters on downward spirals. All were personal films for Onur Tukel, in which he reveals what he thinks are his worst traits. None made money but they deservedly earned Tukel a following, me included. And so now he’s out on the streets, as Spike Lee was for <em>Do the Right Thing</em>, to alert people that his new film, <em>Catfight</em>, will be opening at those two theaters and eight others around the country, <em>and</em> be available on VOD, this Friday, March 3. For the first time, Tukel has lured name actors to star in his film and I can say that the perfectly cast Sandra Oh and Anne Heche give courageous, nothing-held-back performances. In the near future, as a new war rages in the Middle East, Oh plays Veronica Salt, a slightly alcoholic wife (of a war profiteer who has had enough of her) and mother (of a sweet, artistic teenage boy who loves her) and Heche is Ashley, a struggling, self-important artist who is about to have a baby with her lover, Lisa (Alicia Silverstone). The two angry women come across each other at Veronica’s husband’s party, at which Ashley is helping a caterer friend, and they still hold grudges against each other from something that happened years before when they were college friends. And they fight. If you’ve seen the trailer, you know they really go at:</div>
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Not once, but three times in the film. The fights are only some of the film highlights—some may say <em>delights</em>—only some of many WTF moments. On Monday I finally got to sit down with the cool, amiable, and charming Onur Tukel. As we munched on Cuban sandwiches at a restaurant on Bowery, we had this freewheeling conversation.</div>
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Onur Tukel. Danny Peary photo.</div>
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Danny Peary: What’s your background?</div>
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Onur Tukel: I was born and raised in a small town in North Carolina called Taylorsville, which is about an hour from Charlotte. Everybody but my immediate family still lives in Turkey. I was born in 1972, and was the youngest of three children, which I think is why I never want to be told what to do. In 1990, I went to UNC, in Chapel Hill, about two and a half hours from Taylorsville. I was a radio-television major. That’s when I discovered Woody Allen, and the low-budget films of Whit Stillman and Richard Linklater. After graduating, I moved to Wilmington and made some independent films. One was so bad that it crippled my confidence and I lost my nerve to make more films for awhile. I moved to Durham and worked in public television for about seven years. I lost my job and moved to Charlotte and was hired as a graphic designer. I could work from home, so I decided, at 38, to move to New York before it was too late. I had visited New York quite a bit and felt connected to it and always wanted to make movies there. I have always loved the magic, energy, chaos, and the structure of the city. And that it’s a melting pot with people from all over the world with different philosophies on everything. I’ve now been here about six and a half years, of which the first four years felt like I was at the university again. In the seven years I wasn’t making films, I was trying to write and illustrate children’s books. I was sending them off to publishers and getting rejected by everyone. Then the week before I moved to New York, a publisher in Terrytown called to let me know they wanted to publish one of my books. So the first couple of years I was here, I worked on a couple of movies and two children’s books. That was cool.</div>
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DP: Are you a full-time director now?</div>
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OT: No, no. I did graphic design for one company for several years. I’m still doing graphic design and freelance projects when I can. I love graphic design but it would be nice to do full-time film work and that is all I’m doing for the next few months.</div>
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Sandra Oh as Veronica.</div>
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DP: I’m surprised you’re not in <em>Catfight</em> because you’ve acted for other directors, including Alex Karpovsky in <em>Red Flag</em>, and starred in your own films, <em>Summer of Blood </em>and <em>Applesauce</em>.</div>
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OT: When I was making films in North Carolina it was more about aesthetics than acting. I didn’t understand acting. I learned about acting when I was in <em>Red Flag</em> and <em>Richard’s Wedding</em>. I’d watch my performance and the performances of the other actors and see that I was the weak link. It was heartbreaking and embarrassing but it made me understand what good acting is. I learned so much from Alex Karpovsky and I’m decent in <em>Red Flag</em>. And I’m good in <em>Applesauce</em> because I was doing an extension of my own personality. I’m aware I’m not an actor, I’m a performer of myself. If you’re not self-conscious in front of a camera, you can give a good performance. I wouldn’t be able to cry because that’s a skill, but anger is easy for me because I have a lot of anger. I just play what’s natural to me.</div>
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DP: You mentioned discovering Woody Allen when you were in college. Your movies are nothing like his—though one can draw some comparisons between your comedy of ill manners, <em>Applesauce</em>, and a couple of his films about troubled marriages–yet people still link you to him. Maybe it’s because of your self-deprecating humor and New York sensibility.</div>
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OT: We share the same anxieties, too. Woody Allen is my idol. This is a man who has made a dozen brilliant films. My favorite film of his is <em>Deconstructing Harry</em>. There’s this angry, angry side of him in that movie. He used all these vile, disgusting words and I think his anger was directed at Mia Farrow. There’s also that duality that in my films: I love and hate myself equally. People say I need therapy. It’s true but I’m in denial.</div>
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DP: You have made comedy horror films so I’m guessing you are a fan of <em>An American Werewolf in London</em>.</div>
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OT: Oh, man, that’s a big influence on me. I was watching it in middle school and I could just picture me and my friends walking on the moors in England. Being young, being silly, and then being ripped apart by the wolf. I like mixing genres and in that film the horror and the comedy mix so beautifully. It’s not necessarily the craft behind a movie that I respond to, it’s the heart behind, the energy, the attitude, and I like a little rock ‘n’ roll, a little grittiness, a little imperfection. John Landis also directed <em>National Lampoon’s Animal House</em>, which I also loved. Most of my influences were the horror films and action films I watched in the 1980s starring Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. I lived for their films. In terms of tone, which I’ve never been good with, I think of <em>Rocky III</em>, a great film from the eighties that has, like <em>Catfight</em>, three fights and is at times goofy and silly, sweet and endearing, and full of tragedy and despair. It’s a roller coaster ride of emotions. The tone is all over the place, which is why a lot of people don’t like it, but I like the unpredictability that comes with that.</div>
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DP: What’s the genesis of <em>Catfight?</em></div>
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OT: Devoe Yates, who is the musical supervisor on <em>Catfight</em>, and I came up with the idea of making a movie with that title. We were talking about a great eighties movie called <em>Three O’Clock High </em>that ends with a showdown between two teenagers. We thought it would be cool if we did that with women. I am really drawn to two distinct, antipodal personalities going at it. It’s one of the things I love the most. In my own personality I have two conflicting sides. I have a generous, giving side and think about other people. Also I have a selfish asshole side and thinks the world is shit and wants it to explode.</div>
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Anne Heche and Alicia Silverstone.</div>
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DP: But in <em>Catfight</em>, Veronica and Ashley are both selfish assholes.</div>
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OT: Yes. I tried not make either of them the hero. But in the original script, the two women were different from the ones Sandra Oh and Anne Heche would play. The two women pitted against each other were in their twenties, worked at an advertising agency, and were sleeping with the same guy. They w3re in a love triangle. I wrote a couple of drafts of the script and gave it to MPI, a really wonderful media group out of Chicago that specializes in genre and action films. MPI had bought <em>Summer of Blood</em> and read my scripts for <em>Applesauce</em> and <em>Catfight</em> and gave me enough money to make both movies. <em>Applesauce </em>didn’t make any money but they liked it and loved my script for <em>Catfight</em> and wanted to make it. I re-read my script that I’d written a year and a half before and didn’t connect with it at all. I didn’t want to make a movie about women in their twenties anymore. MPI was fine about my doing a rewrite, assuming I’d just tweak the script to make it even better. At the time, I never thought I could get name actors because of the low budget. But then I read that Maggie Gyllenhaal had been passed over for the role of a mistress of a man played by an actor in his fifties because she was 38. Who cares what her age is? She’s beautiful. Any guy with a libido would want to have her as mistress. A light went off in my head. It was a shame that women in their late thirties and forties were being passed over for leads in movies but it presented an opportunity for me, a low-budget director who had never worked with a “star” before. My new goal was to write a good script about two women in their forties and try to find two really good name actresses that age who might be willing to do something on a much smaller scale than they were used to because they liked the script and wanted to do good work.</div>
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DP: <em>Catfight</em> is just about two women who are pitted against each other, but you made sure to include political content in your script, which is why it can be called a satire.</div>
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OT: To me, <em>Catfight </em>represents the anger and bitterness that I still feel from the war in Iraq. The politics crept in because I’d been thinking about it since the war in Iraq. That was the time I was most angry, when I lost friends and argued with family members. I read a wonderful book a few years ago by Naomi Klein called <em>The Shock Doctrine </em>that talks about disaster capitalism and not trusting capitalism when it’s built around misery. So when I was doing the rewrite I was thinking about disaster capitalism during war. To me, Veronica, the wife of a war profiteer, represents money and consumption and capitalizing on destruction. I’m not anti-capitalism because as a filmmaker I’m trying to make money, but I’m against making money off other people’s misery, like the despicable people who have capitalized off the war in Iraq. There is so much money to be made by the defense industry and huge corporations.</div>
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DP: Were you upset specifically about the preemptive strike or the aftermath?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
OT: The preemptive strike, the insouciance of the American public, the collective shrug saying “That’s okay.” The “fart machine” in the movie, which appears behind the right-wing television host when he talks about the current war, represents the collective shrug of the masses. I thought people, including smug liberals, were culpable in the acceptance of it all.</div>
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DP: Was MPI happy with your new script written for older actresses?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
OT: They weren’t happy. For the original script with the young women, they were going to give me way more money than I’d ever had to make a movie. But this new script was angry, political, and had women in their forties. So they now offered me an insanely low budget. I was so passionate about the script that I said, “That’s great, I’ll take anything.” MPI had treated me well in the past, never interfering with anything I did, so I didn’t look elsewhere. However, my new goal was to get big actors to be in the movie so MPI would give me additional money. MPI gave me a little start-up money and I hired two geniuses, a casting director, Stephanie Holbrook, and a producer, Gigi Graff, and they got the script into the hands of the right agents and just by sheer magic and luck, Sandra Oh and Anne Heche read the script, loved it, and said they wanted to do it.</div>
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DP: Did you feel that you had to have two names?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
OT: I could have had one. I was lucky to get two. When Anne saw Sandra Oh had already agreed to be in it, she said she was definitely in, too. They both wanted to play Veronica. Sandra got that part because she was cast first. If Anne had agreed to do the movie first, she would have been cast as Veronica and I’m not sure Sandra would have wanted to play Ashley. So it worked out beautifully. Then I met with Alicia Silverstone and of course she wanted to play Veronica, too. But I asked her if she’d play the supporting role of Ashley’s lover, Lisa. She asked me who was playing Ashley. I said Anne Heche and she agreed. But she told me, “It’s a small role and I want more on the page. She’s not there, she’s a flat character.” So I went off to write a stronger part for her. I can’t believe I got these three women.</div>
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DP: Did the actresses know you and your films?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
OT: No, they never heard of my work. Although they loved the script, they wondered who I was and the tone I wanted <em>Catfight</em> to have. We showed them <em>Applesauce </em>so they could decide if I was a good enough director to work with. My question was, “If the quality of <em>Catfight</em> is the same as <em>Applesauce</em>, are you onboard?” And there was a resounding yes. Fortunately, they loved <em>Applesauce</em>—the energy, the madness, the naturalistic performances. So we were off and running.</div>
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DP: You shot your film at a lightening pace, so did you have time to speak to your actresses about their characters?</div>
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OT: Sandra and I Skyped when she was in L.A., and we’d go through the script line by line. She was so respectful, treating me as if I were Paul Schrader. If she wanted to change something, I’d say go ahead because even if I didn’t understand what she wanted I trusted that it was important to her. I never have known how to write for women. Sandra and Anne’s styles couldn’t have been more different. Sandra came in with a script where every line had been dissected. Anne is a very instinctual actress so she came in and figured it out. Anne said that if she and Sandra went on a road trip together, Sandra would have a map with every turn highlighted and Anne would just follow the sun or use a compass—and they’d both reach their destination at the same time. We had no time for rehearsal but we would talk about things if need be. It’s always the case that I want my actors to know their characters better than I do. That is due to both my laziness and that I always want to give my actors freedom to be artists. All I demand from my actors is that when they come to the set they should know their dialogue so we don’t waste any time. It’s very mechanical for me. Both actresses would challenge me. Especially Sandra. She taught me so much as a director. She loved the script, but I don’t know how she saw me as a director. I could sense she was annoyed at times. Sometimes I’d give a direction that wasn’t the best and I could tell they didn’t think it was the best idea. A bad director can get in the way of a good performance. They knew what they were doing. On most scenes we’d do just three or four takes but if the actresses wanted to go again I would. I never said no. I told them that <em>Catfight</em> would depend on the performances, and I was so open the whole time to everything. All my films are collaborative, but this was insanely so. The whole time it was about respecting them. I knew my place. They were excited that I always film with two cameras because it preserves the energy of the actors. When you have one camera and it’s on one of two people in the scene, sometimes only she is giving 100% while the one off camera is waiting for when the camera is on her. Because acting is so draining. I wanted to see them both at the same time, I didn’t want to miss anything Sandra or Anne or Alicia did.</div>
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DP: They gave you their A performances.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
OT: They pulled the best out of the crew, which was mostly women, and the women in the crew pulled the best out of them. Even though it was a small crew, everybody was so passionate and into it. We wanted to make something really good. A film like this is never made by one person and I’m beholden to how fucking great my crew was.</div>
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DP: Some directors keep actors who play antagonists away from each other between takes, but do you care about such things?</div>
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OT: Oh, no. Anne and Sandra are social butterflies. They were excited about working with each other and became as thick as thieves. They had such mutual respect, that you can sense as well as see. My sets are very social. I like people to have conversations. If it’s quiet, I can’t focus. I need the chaos. At times my actresses will ask that I tell everyone to be quiet so they can get into their head spaces before shooting. My job as a director is to make my actors as comfortable as possible so they’re not in their heads too much but in the moment. The only time I remember asking for quiet was the scene in the cabin late in the film. That scene is very heavy and we were not social while shooting it. It was very, very quiet and everyone got into a meditative, intense, dramatic mode.</div>
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DP: Were both actresses on the set the whole time?</div>
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OT: Actually, for just six days, filming three fight scenes and three face-to-face scenes. Anne’s last few days were at this cabin in upstate New York and her last scenes filming were literally the last scenes in the movie. The first scene that Sandra shot is the scene when they meet at the party, when Veronica asks Ashley to serve her a drink and they recognize each other from college. I’d shot all Alicia Silverstone’s scenes first and then we filmed the party scene on the third day. Sandra came in and we shot her close-ups with Anne, six pages of dialogue. No rehearsal, the two actresses had known each other for about fifteen minutes. Pretty intense, right? For that scene I did six takes and took chunks from two or three them.</div>
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DP: That’s a pivotal scene in the film because we learn that Veronica and Ashley have been holding a grudge since something happened in college between them. That’s what started their feud.</div>
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OT: We talked about the history between Veronica and Ashley, and what the catalyst was that set them off. I felt that I knew what happened but they didn’t want me to tell them and they didn’t want to discuss it. They felt it was better left unknown.</div>
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DP: Their response is interesting because I’d have thought they’d ask you if you forgot to include a line in their conversation that explained their split years before. I’m sure it had to do with Ashley being a lesbian and Veronica either pushing her away or making a call that got Ashley into trouble at school</div>
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OT: Right. We debated whether to put a line in, but they said no. Even though we don’t know, I think it’s a pretty clear assumption that, as you said, it is tied up to Ashley being a lesbian.</div>
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DP: Your movie characters are always stuck in the past.</div>
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OT: Interesting. I hadn’t thought about that, but if a character is holding a grudge they obviously are diseased by something they can’t get over from the past. Someone hurt her and she’s still lashing out because she can’t heal.</div>
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DP: One of your recurring themes, including in <em>Applesauce</em>, is revenge. Your characters never forget about what happened, no matter how many years have gone by.</div>
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OT: Revenge is a dirty, horrible thing but I’m a vengeful type of person. The way I rationalize it in my head is that it’s about delivering justice. I feel that if someone has wronged me they can wrong other people in the same way, so I have to put them in their place. I tell myself it’s not about trying to make myself feel better or make them feel bad, it’s about teaching them a lesson. It’s very satisfying to see people get what they deserve. But it’s just not the way it is in the real world. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld weren’t punished for the Iraq War. Now that Trump is president, it pisses me off that they are being treated like martyrs and heroes and I feel it’s my job to remind everyone what they did and what we went through because of them.</div>
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DP: In addition to revenge in <em>Catfight</em>, there is an escalation of the feud and things get worse and worse, just as in your previous films.</div>
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OT: Sure. General mayhem. I’m a mischief maker.</div>
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DP: Jennifer Prediger, one of your frequent cast members, told me that she hopes to make a film with you like <em>War of the Roses</em>, the prototype film about an escalation of violence between two everyday people who once got along. That’s man vs. woman. And Jennifer thought of that before you made <em>Catfight.</em></div>
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OT: Really? It would be terrific to make a film like that.</div>
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DP: At the beginning of <em>Catfight</em>, Ashley, the antiwar artist, seems to be sympathetic. Meanwhile, Veronica is anti-art, advising her son to give up his drawing and conform. That’s the worst thing to say. We don’t realize Ashley’s an awful person until we see her verbally attack her assistant Sally for no good reason. Are we supposed to like one woman over the other?</div>
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OT: I think that by the end you definitely like Veronica more. She has learned so much.</div>
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DP: But has she learned the key thing—not losing her temper around Ashley?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
OT: She lost her son, then she heals because she gets her son back when she finds videos made by him for her on her phone, and then Ashley causes her to lose him again.</div>
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DP: Denial is another constant theme in your movies. Your characters complain and always blame others for what’s wrong.</div>
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OT: Absolutely. In this movie, the tragic flaw of Veronica and Ashley is that they blame the other one for what’s wrong in their lives. They’re always pointing their fingers and never taking responsibility for their own actions. <strong>SPOILER ALERT: </strong>Peace is right in front of them at the end. They break bread. And they lose it because they still blame each other and no one is taking their own responsibility. Veronica should have backed up her video file! Ashley should have apologized instead of implying it was Veronica’s fault for not backing up her file. <strong>END SPOILER ALERT </strong>Do you think the last sequence was set up a little like a western, with Ashley walking down the trail to the country house where Veronica now lives with her aunt?</div>
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DP: If you put her on a horse, I’d have seen it.</div>
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OT: That was deliberate. My cinematographer, Zoe White, who designed all the shots, and I had time to really think about shot construction. Even the music has some tribal drumbeat. That’s one of my favorite scenes. It’s a showdown between Ashley and Veronica, and all that’s missing are the holsters and on their sides.</div>
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DP: As in other films, seemingly different people can be interchangeable. Here Veronica is hospitalized and loses everything while she’s in a two-year coma, then the same thing happens to Ashley—and they both end up with nothing. Another theme of yours is failure.</div>
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OT: That’s a huge theme. I don’t ever want that to go away. So many creative seeds come from failure.</div>
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DP: All your characters end up worse than when they started, as in your previous films.</div>
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OT: Is that true? Well, it’s the story of my life. At the end of the day, no matter how successful we are, we’re all going to lose—we’re all going to die. So we’re all losers. Comedy is a way for me to avoid thinking about death.</div>
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DP: Veronica and Ashley put each other in position to lose everything by beating each other into comas, but they don’t actually cause the other’s losses themselves. Each loses everything while in their respective comas, two years apart, but it’s not the other woman who causes that.</div>
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OT: Yes. It’s all very much about denial, thinking you’re being true in a world that’s very fake. They ruin their own lives, self-sabotage, but keep blaming each other for that. That’s another big thing for me in my personal life. One thing about their three fights is that each time you think they’re over they keep going. It’s like when Bush stood on the aircraft carrier with the giant Mission Accomplished banner behind him and then the war went haywire. In the first fight, Ashley chokes out Veronica and they’re both on the floor in the stairwell and we assume the fight’s over. If Veronica just says, “You win,” that would have been it. But she backhands Ashley and Ashley goes nuts and beats Veronica to a pulp, resulting in her spending the next two years in the hospital in a coma. In the second fight, if Ashley just stays down, Veronica won’t continue to mercilessly beat her to a pulp and put her in coma.</div>
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DP: Did the fights turn out as you expected?</div>
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OT: Much better. There were a couple of fights that we used for reference, one between Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy in <em>48 Hours</em> and another between Andrew McCarthy and Rob Lowe in <em>Class</em>. I love a good fist fight. The nobility of the fistfight is romantic to me: two people facing each other without there being collateral damage. I’ve been in a lot of fights. If someone says something that offends me, I can’t keep my mouth shut. I’m all for words and think we should have the power to express ourselves in any way we want. My mouth has gotten me into so much trouble, and it always has led to someone throwing the first punch at me. I never throw the first punch because that’s wrong and evil and cowardly. But once someone throws the first punch, all rules are off the table. Of course, I don’t want to kill anyone. I wanted Anne and Sandra to fight like men, without the hair pulling and slapping. I wanted long fights and it to be visceral. The impetus for the film was to see two great actresses give an emotional performance and a physical performance. Sandra and Anne delivered. We had two stunt doubles but they did a lot of the fighting themselves. I hoped it would work and it really did. For the final fight outdoors, it was winter but the days were warm, so we lucked out.</div>
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DP: I am guessing the stairwell wasn’t in the script, that you were looking for any space you could find for the first fight.</div>
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OT: That’s exactly right for all the fights. The first fight is intimate, in a cloistered space. It was supposed to take place in an elevator in a really high building. When Veronica’s husband tells her not to drink at the party, that was supposed to take place in an elevator going up. Then the metaphor was that in the elevator on the way down with Ashley she was going to crash in ways you couldn’t imagine. We just couldn’t find an elevator.</div>
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DP: It works in that they are fighting for their lives in the stairwell and behind the door people are partying.</div>
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OT: I hadn’t thought of that but it makes sense. The second fight takes place in a tire shop. The hammer and the wrench can represent military weapons, and there is the transportation industry and the oil industry. The third fight in the country represents man vs. nature, earth, birth. The third fight was supposed to be the bloodiest, but I’m glad Sandra and Anne didn’t want to do any more punching, but instead suggested doing heads in the dirt, thrashing around. I said, “Hell, yes!”</div>
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<strong>SPOILER ALERT:</strong></div>
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DP: It was a good idea because we don’t want either character to be killed. They are the only hope for each other. The need each other Ashley isn’t going back to the city.</div>
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OT: Then Veronica would take Ashley in, just as Aunt Charlie took in Veronica. They would have to work it out.</div>
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DP: Do you think Veronica and Ashley should be good friends?</div>
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OT: We shot another ending, in which they might remember they once loved each other. I won’t tell you what it is and I chose not to have it for my ending, but it will included on the DVD.</div>
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<strong>END SPOILER ALERT</strong></div>
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DP: I think viewers will be surprised that the fights are hardcore, without the humor found in say a Jackie Chan movie.</div>
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OT: There’s a lot more drama in <em>Catfight</em> than anything I’ve ever done. In reality, I can’t do anything but comedy. I don’t have enough confidence in myself and I haven’t experienced enough pain to make something dramatic. I’m a lucky, entitled person. But I was working toward it <em>Catfight</em>. Because it does deal with war and the loss of children. It needs some drama for the fights to mean something. Veronica and Ashley have to be in some kind of pain. The drama is to make the pain real. If I haven’t lost the audience after the first fight, or the second fight, then I’ve got them.</div>
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DP: Are Veronica and Ashley metaphors for nations that will always be in conflict?</div>
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OT: I think so. I also think each of the fights is metaphorical to a degree. Sandra has her own ideas about that. I’m not a big fan of style over a primal feeling, and this movie is all about being primal and reaching inside instead of trying to manipulate external forces. It’s a very internal film.</div>
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DP: You made <em>Catfight</em> before Donald Trump was elected but if he hadn’t been running for president last year would your film be different? Was he on your mind while making <em>Catfight</em>?</div>
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OT: The Iraq War was on my mind the whole time. We shot everything before Trump was elected. The only change we made from the script to the film was adding the scene in which Aunt Charlie says two of her trees are named Hillary and Donald. We had some extra time after filming at the cabin and I wanted to add something with Amy Hill because I like her so much. So I added in that bit of her naming her trees. <em>Catfight </em>is a metaphor for the new war in Iraq. I just didn’t see a woman president as the person who would start a war.</div>
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DP: But doesn’t the film disprove that? We always think that if a woman were in office then she’d be sensible and calm and not macho so she wouldn’t go to war with anybody. But you see these two women, Veronica and Ashley, who can’t control their aggressive, violent impulses.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
OT: <em>Catfight</em> is about female aggression but through my lens of the standard political foundations of patriarchy. A mellow president and a mellow administration start a war against a small, defenseless country and we never see it. All I was thinking about was America starting a new war and what kind of government had to be in place for that to happen. I thought Hillary would win but didn’t want to have a female president in my film who would start a war. It had to be a Republican male president. Do I think we’ll have a future war under Trump? Yes.</div>
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DP: I watched you online being interviewed with Anne Heche, Sandra Oh, and Alicia Silverstone and I was wondering what you were thinking as they were saying it is a feminist film but couldn’t really articulate why.</div>
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OT: I have the same problem explaining it. We’re talking about empathy here, feeling for the other person, and I think women, because they carry a baby for nine months, have a sacred connection to their children. I lost my dad and it was sad, but the thought of losing my mom cripples me. That would change me as a person. Any time I hear about young people dying, I think of the mother. The loss of children is why I thought I should use women, it had to be a profound loss and I can’t think of any loss more profound than a woman losing her child. While in comas, Veronica loses her son in battle, Ashley loses the chance to share a baby with Lisa.</div>
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DP: Almost all screen time is given to Sandra or Anne, or both, but you include a baby shower scene with just Alicia and actresses playing her friends. Her Lisa is a bit odd in that scene, complaining about each of the presents being dangerous to the baby.</div>
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OT: When Alicia asked me to expand her role, I read a few books on how to be a really responsible mother and I pitched the idea to her of having a self-reflective baby shower where we’d poke fun at Lisa’s helicopter parenting and how protective of a mother she is. And she got it and was excited to do that scene but said, “Onur, I don’t want her to come off as crazy.” But she does anyway. How could she not when she’s being so impossible?</div>
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DP: But if you read about her, you see Lisa is not that far from who Alicia Silverstone is.</div>
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OT: She is that fanatical about the environment. The truth of it is what makes it really funny. People really respond to it, and it’s one of my favorite scenes in the movie.</div>
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DP: Do you think <em>Catfight </em>will get you into the mainstream a little more and people in Hollywood will know who you are?</div>
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OT: I don’t care about Hollywood. It’s conservative and smug and they don’t give a shit about enlightening the culture. It’s about keeping people dumb and consuming. From the mass media news networks to Hollywood films, it’s about distraction and consumption and mind-numbing nothingness. I despise Hollywood. That’s probably self-sabotage. It would be great if someone came to me and asked me to make a film for $30 million. But that’s not realistic. And I wouldn’t trust anyone who comes to me. There are a lot of festivals that don’t want my films, a lot of people don’t like me. Hollywood doesn’t know anything about me and few managers and agents have come knocking on my door. Once they’ve had a conversation with me, they run the other way. I have always been a provocateur. It’s not that I want the attention, but what’s the point? And since I’m a low-budget filmmaker, the only chance my movies will be seen and have some impact culturally is if I to shake the nest a little bit. So if someone says not to do something, I always want to do it even more. I’ve always liked the misunderstood villain in movies, I like the bad guys. And I consider myself an outlaw. People say, “You’ll never be successful being that way.” For twenty years I’ve been making films and I’ve never made a dime off anything, but that has never stopped me and I feel lucky that I can make films and I’ll never stop whether I have success or not. However, I’m beginning to value myself as an artist and at least demand that I get paid. I do hope my films make money. I do hope people come out to see <em>Catfight</em>. Hurting investors who trusted me makes me feel bad. I was recently on a podcast and it didn’t go so well, so I hope I didn’t hurt the film, but we’ll see. I’m not good at the press thing because I’m a loose cannon and probably mentally unstable at times. So it makes me feel good that my actresses think enough about the film to be doing press for it.</div>
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DP: You’re a prolific writer, so I wonder how many unproduced scripts you have on your shelf. OT: I’ve been writing scripts since I was twenty-four, so I probably have about twenty-five.</div>
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I tend to write my first drafts pretty quickly, and I’m very focused for two or three months while I try to get the rewrites going, and then will do them in three or four days. I spend two or three months total time spread out about seven months writing a script. Then I will read it when I have some distance from it and may completely have forgotten I wrote it. In the last few years I’ve written four scripts that I want to make. They have different budgets. There are the $35,000 films, which, if I can never raise another dollar, I can find three or four friends with disposable income to contribute between $5,000 and $10,000. And there are movies that will cost three or four million dollars, my Holy Grail projects that I assume will never get funded. And there are middle projects what will cost $300,000 to $500,000.</div>
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DP: Are you already working on anything else?</div>
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OT: I’ve done one thing I can’t speak of yet. And in about a month and a half I’m going to do a one-location movie about two Trump supporters in a hotel room on the night of the election. It’s my favorite thing that I’ve ever written. I want to do movies that are completely outside of who I am as an insecure forty-four-year-old artist. The realistic plan will always be to get the best actors to work with. But there are no other plans other than to create new things. The most beautiful thing about humanity is a bunch of people coming together to tell a story. Film as an art form embraces that.</div>
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DP: How can people see <em>Catfight</em>?</div>
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OT: It will open on March 3 in about ten theaters, including Cinema Village in New York and the Spectacle Theater, a tiny theater at 124 S. 3<span style="font-size: 9px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">rd</span> Street in Williamsburg, and on VOD. And people can go to Itsacatfight.com and see the theaters where it will be playing.</div>
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<br />Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-43773992528157288182017-03-22T12:33:00.000-07:002017-03-22T12:33:01.850-07:00How Lloyd Kramer Spent His “Midsummer in Newtown”Playing in Theaters<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">How Lloyd Kramer Spent His “Midsummer in Newtown”</span><br />
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(from Sag Harbor Express Online 1/28/17)<br />
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<strong><img alt="" class="alignright wp-image-59698" height="553" sizes="(max-width: 373px) 100vw, 373px" src="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/midsummerinnewtownposter.jpeg" srcset="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/midsummerinnewtownposter.jpeg 509w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/midsummerinnewtownposter-202x300.jpeg 202w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/midsummerinnewtownposter-180x267.jpeg 180w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/midsummerinnewtownposter-360x534.jpeg 360w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/midsummerinnewtownposter-150x222.jpeg 150w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/midsummerinnewtownposter-337x500.jpeg 337w" style="border: 0px; float: right; height: auto; margin: 10px 0px 15px 15px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" width="373" />By Danny Peary</strong></div>
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<em>Midsummer in Newtown </em>fits my category Movies That Should Play in Sag Harbor. Of course, due to the mysterious fire that wiped out several businesses, there no longer is a movie theater in Sag Harbor*, so consider seeing Lloyd Kramer’s stirring documentary when it opens Friday at the Village East Cinema at 12<span style="font-size: 9px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">th</span> Street and Second Avenue in Manhattan. It opens next week in Los Angeles. If you live elsewhere, keep an eye out for when it plays in your town because you will be touched deeply by this tender film in which joy bests heartbreak. From the synopsis in the press notes: <em>When Newton, Connecticut was devastated by the loss of 20 first graders and six adults at the hands of a shooter at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the world looked on in horror unable to fathom such a tragedy. In [this] emotionally powerful and uplifting documentary, filmmaker Lloyd Kramer gains intimate access to three families who find hope in the transformative power of the arts. Anchoring the film is the story of two Sandy Hook Elementary School students, Tain and Sammy, who join an exuberant cast of Newtown children—bringing healing to their young lives and to their community by staging “A ROCKIN’ Midsummer Night’s Dream,” a freewheeling musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s beloved comedy.</em></div>
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I saw Kramer’s inspiring doc at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival, and couldn’t set up an interview with him at the time. Finally, in anticipation of its theatrical release, I recently spoke to the three-time DGA nominee over coffee and omelets at the Washington Square Diner in the West Village.</div>
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Danny Peary: According to the press notes, before <em>Midsummer in Newtown </em>was greenlit by Participant Media and Vulcan Production, and even before there was partial financing, Tom Yellin (<em>Cartel)</em>, one of your two producers, sent you to Newtown because the kids were about to audition for “A ROCKIN’ Midsummer Night’s Dream.”</div>
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Lloyd Kramer: Tom knew about the musical because of his friendship in New York City with its director, Michael Unger. We had no funding and that usually takes about a year, but rehearsals were beginning in about three weeks. So I went up there with someone who had a small camera with the intention of filming the auditions. This was at the end of May in 2014, seventeen or eighteen months after the tragedy there.</div>
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DP: Were you searching for a project at the time?</div>
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LK: In the world of documentary filmmaking, you’re always juggling a few things. I was developing something else but this came along and I was open to it. I thought it was a great story that kids in Newtown were putting on a show after what they’d been through, and the purpose Michael Unger had for directing it. I was told me that putting on a show could have a positive effect on kids in this town, but I wouldn’t be sure unless I was there seeing it happen.</div>
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Sammy (right) on opening night.</div>
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DP: How did you two feel driving into Newtown for the first time?</div>
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LK: We got sort of a chill when we passed the sign that said “Entering Newtown.” The auditions were done at the high school, but we happened to drive by Sandy Hook Elementary School. It’s by the firehouse where many of the kids fled that day and the driveway was blocked off. It was amazing how we could feel the aftermath.</div>
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DP: Perhaps your first reaction when seeing Newtown for the first time is reflected in the opening of your movie when we see the pretty blue sky and white clouds above Newtown. An outsider might imagine there always being gloomy dark skies above Newtown since the tragedy.</div>
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LK: Yeah. It’s like, <em>what could go wrong?</em> It’s a beautiful day yet what happened will always be in the ether.</div>
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DP: Did you feel like an intruder when you first arrived?</div>
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LK: Yes. To some extent I never got over that. I was always very conscious of what happened to the people in Newtown and always very respectful.</div>
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DP: How many kids were at the auditions?</div>
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LK: About 200. I wasn’t sure what we had here, just that I was taken with these great, precocious kids who really seemed to believe in what they were doing.</div>
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Tain Gregory and his family at the premiere of the film at the Tribeca Film Festival.</div>
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DP: Did you meet your two child protagonists, Tain Gregory and Sammy Vertucci, before you met their parents?</div>
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LK: All the young kids who auditioned had their mothers there. When I met Tain’s mother, Sophfronia, I said, “Wow, this is a great family.” Eventually, I met his father, too. I would also meet Sammy’s parents, Diane and Tom. Sammy was at the original audition but I don’t think we actually filmed her then because we were out in the hallway with our one camera talking to Tain. To be honest, of all the kids the first one I gravitated to was Tain, who was just nine years old and in third grade. I watched him recite “Jabberwocky” for his audition and then I talked to him afterwards and he was just a charmer. I’m sure he would have been cast anyway, but I kept lobbying for him, telling Michael, “Come on, this kid is great!”</div>
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DP: How long were you up there filming the auditions?</div>
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LK: We spent two days there. Tom said, “Let’s keep going,” so again on spec, I returned to Newtown the next weekend for the callbacks, and that’s when Tain and Sammy were cast. Then we did some scrambling to get some quick partial funding so we could film the rehearsals.</div>
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DP: Seeing how happy and excited and engaged Tain, Sammy and the other kids are at rehearsals—and how the troubled Sammy comes out of her shell—made me wish that every kid in Newtown could be in this show. I felt sorry for those who didn’t make the cut. Did you?</div>
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Jimmy and Nelba holding a poster of their daughter, Ana.</div>
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LK: Yes. But there were actually two productions that Michael Unger directed: “A ROCKIN’ Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “101 Dalmatians.” So there were a lot of kids involved and only a few were excluded. Some, of course, didn’t get speaking parts.</div>
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DP: Why did you choose to a rock musical adaptation of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” rather than “101 Dalmatians?”</div>
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LK: For a couple of reasons. We thought kids doing Shakespeare was an interesting challenge. Also there is something in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” at least on the surface, that is about restoration—it’s summer, not winter–even though, we make the point that Newtown can never really have full restoration. As Newtown’s historian says, it’s going to age out; there’s nothing that is going away.</div>
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DP: Did you stay in Newtown throughout filming?</div>
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LK: No, we went back and forth between there and New York City. We’d go for two or three days to Newtown and then spend a few days here before returning. We didn’t see every day of rehearsals, but we saw about half of them.</div>
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DP: What was your interaction with Michael Unger? You had separate projects and goals so surely you didn’t want to be in each other’s way.</div>
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LK: There was no problem at all. When I heard about this story I hadn’t met Michael, so I kept thinking about <em>Waiting for Guffman</em> and its director who just wanted a gig. But Michael is the real deal. He’d never say to us, “Stay away while I’m doing this.” He might tell us to move the camera so we wouldn’t interfere with the choreography but it would never be for reasons of privacy. I never tried to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes, including Michael’s, and I made sure he was okay with whatever we were doing. After I did an interview with a kid, he’d ask about it but never interfered. He didn’t necessarily know when we were asking the kids about The Day, as it is called.</div>
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DP: I read that your other producer, Braden Bergan, spent time in a town not far from Newtown. Were you advised by her or anyone else on what to expect and how to conduct yourself when approaching the kids?</div>
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LK: Ultimately, the parents guided us. Even as we were shooting the callbacks and rehearsals, we were meeting with them. We’d ask them what was permissible and good to ask their kids, not just on camera but during the course of a day. And I never interviewed a child without their parents being there.</div>
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DP: It is interesting hearing Tain recall being protective of his special-needs best friend Will during the attack on the school. In your experience with the kids, did you ever hear them talk to each other about that day?</div>
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LK: No, but they would talk to me about it. They’d think I wanted to know about a friend of theirs and they might tell me a story. We didn’t have permission to include those moments in the movie. Even for the people who are talked about, we also made sure we had permission to use the footage. Very often when we talked about The Day with a kid it would be near the end of the interview. I waited for the kids to reference something about it and that would lead to a discussion about it. How much we’d deal with The Day was a constant source of discussion in production and post-production. What is the correct balance? I had two hundred hours of interviews and we could have reconstructed every moment of The Day. We wanted to have the story of The Day in our film but we didn’t want to have too much and submerge the story we were most interested in. Michael was concerned too because he wanted to focus on the play, not The Day.</div>
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DP: You say in the press notes, “Without minimizing Michael Unger’s accomplishments, our job wasn’t to show a performance of the play. The play simply provides up with a context in which to tell the story of how Newtown is finding a future with positivity and strength after enduring such a terrible tragedy.”</div>
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LK: That helps explain how we present the play on opening night. We include moments from a number of scenes, but we don’t show it scene by scene. So if you want to know every plot twist and turn of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” you’re not going to get it from watching this movie. Believe me, early on we considered whether to show the whole production. But we realized that wasn’t what our story was. We wanted to show enough of what’s going on in the play that’s relative to the theme of what’s going on with these kids and this town and show how the arts can inspire people and bring them together for a common purpose. We also wanted to show how the arts can say something about the human condition. We wanted to get at the humanity and watch people do it together, through a collaboration. When I was first there, I was thinking that doing something like this musical was the perfect antidote to the worst that can happen, the worst of humanity. The worst of humanity is killing. The antidote is to be in this loving group and doing something positive that you can share with your community. The kids were being imbued with that.</div>
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DP: How was it interviewing their parents?</div>
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LK: I felt something when I was around the parents in Newtown, as I did with the kids. I was very careful around them. They’d had it with media, so especially at the beginning I was careful not to impose on them my curiosity about how the town was dealing with the tragedy. For good reason they were suspicious of me. To them, media is everybody who comes there with an interest in what happened on December 12, 2012—writers, people with cameras. The families there were lied to and intruded upon in ugly ways. I knew that in some quarters we were perceived negatively.</div>
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DP: Do you think the people in Newtown who went through that sad day at Sandy Hook feel they can never explain what they experienced to anyone but each other?</div>
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LK: Right, they can never tell an outsider. That was told to me by a lot of people. Especially by Jimmy Greene, who lost his six-year-old daughter Ana that day. He was very conscious of it. We heard so many stories about awkwardness, about people on the outside who mean well but say cringe-worthy things. Jimmy said, and it was seconded by other people, that this was a case where as an outsider you just show up. You don’t have to say anything, your presence is appreciated and is all that is wanted. You may ask someone a question on a subject they don’t want to talk about at that moment. I was not going to be a phony about it, I was there to do a job, but a lot of times I didn’t say much but listened. One of the things I learned is that everybody in Newtown has his or her own story and some didn’t want to tell me what they experienced because they felt they’d be upstaging other families and there would be too much self-interest. A lot of people up there have their own causes. Some like Jimmy’s wife Nelba are fighting for gun legislation, others work closely with various charities, and I learned that the parents of one girl who was killed that day have set up a foundation for brain research into the possible underpinnings of violence.</div>
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DP: When people opened up to you, I’m sure you felt fortunate, but did you also feel guilty?</div>
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LK: I guess it goes with the territory because you might feel you reeled them in. There was a famous debate in <em>The</em> <em>New Yorker</em> about what a good journalist is, and one of the writers making a case was Janet Malcolm, whose point was that nobody’s hands are clean. Since the days I was a reporter I’ve always been conscious of that.</div>
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DP: Before difficult interviews, did you have to give yourself pep talks?</div>
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LK: I always asked the parents if there were subject I should avoid. Braden was equally attentive, even more so, to the parents, making sure there were no red flags or if it was a bad time to speak to them. We were supersensitive to all that. It wasn’t hard asking about the play. But the question that lingered both with our interviews and subject matter was: “How do we talk about that day?”</div>
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DP: In the press notes, Braden Bergen says, “One of the things we talked about a lot was how to make sure the audience remembers what happened, without dwelling on it.” I’m sure your issue was how to find the right balance in your film.</div>
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LK: That’s true. And it goes back to what you were saying about feeling guilty asking tough questions that you needed to ask. We did have to ask about that terrible day because that’s what anchors our interest in the kids. We wanted to acknowledge that they endured this horror and that something is happening now—being in the play–that is helping them find a future with positivity and strength. Jimmy Greene says, “You can’t always choose what happens to you in this life, but you can choose how you respond.” You can respond in an angry way or a loving way. Sometimes it’s by having an event, sometimes it’s doing a play.<br />DP: It’s expressed in the movie that damaged people can at least try to find love and beauty after horror. In fact, that is the major theme of your movie.</div>
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LK: That is the theme. That’s why we wanted to have a gentle quality and mood. Jimmy says that the question he keeps in front of him is: how can he as a musician reflect love and beauty in the spirit of his little girl? For me, all roads in this doc lead to this moment. We’re all human beings and few of us don’t go through horrible situations at some time, but how we choose to react to it, how we deal with it, is what unites us.</div>
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DP: Jimmy uses the word “cope.” When you first started the movie did you, Tom, and Braden already have this find-love-and-beauty-in-tragedy theme in mind?</div>
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LK: No. It was originally just about the kids in Newtown being in a play. It came about simply because of what we paid attention to and how we framed things. We wanted to make sure there was a tenderness that came through, because that’s what we felt and what seemed appropriate. We didn’t really force a theme. We didn’t know what the theme was. It just seemed to be a good project, kids putting on a play. I wanted to let the chips fall where they may and let it speak to us. But what happened was that every day we were there the parents of the kids in the play would ask, “Have you talked to the families yet?” By “families” they meant the families who lost a child. At the time we’d talked to just one such family and they weren’t interested in participating.</div>
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DP: Once people began telling you to meet these families, did you start thinking that you did indeed need to include the parents of at least one child who didn’t survive?</div>
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LK: It occurred to me but I definitely didn’t want to force it. We thought we were going to keep this narrowly focused, but people there kept asking if we had talked to the families, so we met with a couple of them outside of production. They all had something to do with the arts. We were focusing on the kids in the play so I didn’t want it to seem like we were including the token family of a dead child.</div>
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DP: I read that it took a while before Jimmy and Nelba spoke to you.</div>
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LK: Braden had spent a lot of time with them when she was up there, and it took a while before they agreed to tell their story, both because of their lack of trust in outsiders and that they were hurting so badly. But it went quickly with me. They piggybacked on top of the other stuff we filmed, and the only reason we didn’t speak to them sooner is that we wanted to first finish up at the high school. We talked to Jimmy, who is a Grammy-nominated saxophone player, about his music and the arts, and to Nelba, who is a marriage and family therapist, about what she is doing in regard to a scholarship in Ana’s memory. And it was obvious we should include them in the movie.</div>
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DP: Nelba was the perfect subject for you because she is involved in so many things.</div>
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LK: She’s great. Her anger is so real. We went to their house a few times and Braden hung out with them a lot.</div>
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DP: Did you go into Ana’s room?</div>
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LK: It was interesting. We always stayed in the living room, but I asked them if we could go in her room. Finally they agreed, but the stipulation was that we couldn’t film in the house. I was curious about the reason and Nelba said, “Because I know how you are going to shoot her empty chair.” I don’t think I would have done that, but what really moved me was that every day at 4 o’clock she would look out the window because that’s the time her daughter came home from school.</div>
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DP: As an outsider, would you refrain from saying the words “I’m sorry for your loss” to them and other parents?</div>
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LK: That’s what you say when you first meet. You say it and there’s a voice in you telling you that you might be saying it just because you want something. But we really were sorry and Jimmy was sensitive enough to see that.</div>
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DP: What is it that people say that upsets the parents of the victims?</div>
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LK: All kinds of things. We’re all human so we say awkward things. The egregious one is: “So are you going to have more children?” They mean well. But even if you say words of consolation, it might not be what they want to deal with at that moment. It makes you feel better, but not them.</div>
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DP: Nelba is in the only person in your movie who brings up Adam Lanza. He’s probably a taboo subject for many people in the community, so did you ask her about him or prod her to mention him in connection to the work she is now doing with kids in schools?</div>
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LK: Never. Early on Braden and I decided, “One thing we are not going to be talking to anyone about is Adam Lanza.” Although we had first-person accounts, we deliberately just scratched the surface about the most horrifying aspects of what happened and we chose not to deal with the boy who killed those kids. Nelba brought him up on her own and she had the wherewithal to think: <em>How do we prevent the next Adam Lanza? Maybe somebody didn’t reach him at some point? Maybe there was no connection? </em>She has the impulse to think outside herself and ask how she can help it from happening again.</div>
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DP: Nelba visits school classrooms and brings up how some kids feel disconnected, as did Adam Lanza. That’s a theme of your movie because Sammy felt that way before being in the play and Tain keeps a strong connection with Will, who might otherwise have trouble finding friends.</div>
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LK: Isn’t it great how Tain and Will are with each other? I get almost teary now when I think of them having a play date. To Tain, it was just another day with his friend. He was just eight-years-old but, as you mentioned, on the day the kids were endangered he still thought to put his arms around Will to assure him it would be okay.</div>
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DP: In your movie, you show how being in the musical brings at least temporary escape and good cheer to these kids and their parents. As a viewer, I was thinking how you strategically placed the scenes of the auditions, rehearsals, and the opening night performance so that we too get a cheery break from the serious parts of your movie, when the adults speak of sad, troublesome things. Was this indeed deliberate on your part to make it easier on us?</div>
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LK: The answer is yes to a large extent because, number one…it’s the way life is. Also, if things are presented in a film or book as relentlessly sad, you run the risk of eliciting pity, as opposed to empathy. You can make something maudlin by milking sadness. It’s manipulative and produces sentimentality rather than authentic, earned emotion. The impulse to be positive and even cheerful, in the wake of trauma or tragedy, is such an exemplary quality. I’m always moved by that. It’s a quality we found with the kids, their parents, and, of course, Nelba and Jimmy.</div>
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DP: Were the kids, Sammy in particular, self-aware enough to know that being in this play may help them come out of their shells or deal with the tragedy?</div>
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LK: I think it began for them as just doing something that was fun. Things around the children were so heavy that adults were trying to find ways to guide them through. This was a case where they were identifying with kids and trying to make Newtown a community that wasn’t defined just by tragedy but was a place where there could be fun. Among the kids I found a real heightened self-awareness, but it probably was after the fact when they realized what the play did for them. Even Tain at the beginning was sort of excited about doing something but he was nervous and not 100% sure why he wanted to be in the play. He’s self-aware but I’m not sure he recognized he was healing by being in it.</div>
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DP: I doubt Sammy told you directly that she needed to be healed, but do you think she knew?</div>
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LK: Definitely. She used to be outgoing with her friends, played softball and was much more active. But she really closed down and her parents, Diane and Tom, were very concerned.</div>
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DP: Sammy didn’t get a speaking part, but obviously it was important for her just to be part of the production. She was cast as one of the fairy queen’s attendants but we can see that she thrived in that supporting role. It was meaningful to her and she made the best of it.</div>
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LK: We were up there every week and we could really see her bloom. Although she had an outward demeanor of someone trying to be confident and extroverted, she was really closed off and somewhat insecure. It affected her that her best friend lost her younger sister that day, and then her friend’s family moved away. She was lonely. Sammy by nature is gregarious, but she was prevented from being that way until she tried out for the play. She liked the idea of being in the play and making new friends. She came out of her shell without having to think too hard about it, and it gave me a lot of pleasure watching her make friends, who she has kept to this day.</div>
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DP: I think that image I mentioned of a sunny, pleasant sky conveys a spiritual aspect, that God hasn’t abandoned this town. And God is really important to the parents of Ana and Tain.</div>
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LK: I’m glad you recognized that. They are great embodiments of what faith can bring. How else can they get through their lives?</div>
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DP: Even we nonbelievers would say, “Thank God, they have God.”</div>
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LK: Exactly. I am always moved when I find people strengthened by their faith.” I often say to my wife, “I wish I had their faith.” Jimmy says, “We live by the Word. We didn’t expect this but maybe there will be an answer for me that I’ll get because I know Ana is in heaven waiting for us.” Tain’s mother lives by the Word, too, and Tain loves going with her to church.</div>
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DP: I found it interesting that when Michael and his composer talk about working with kids, they say kids can meet the same challenges adult actors can. So they don’t treat them as kids but as actors. You want these Newtown kids in particular to experience being kids, so by treating them the same as adult actors, isn’t it defeating the purpose?</div>
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LK: The composer works with a lot of kids and says that if you set the bar high for them, they feel really great when they reach it. I think it’s a nice gift how Michael talks about Shakespeare to the kids and makes it understandable for them. And he tells them what he’d tell an adult actor: “Be yourself. I cast you because you’re you.”</div>
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DP: After you’d been in Newtown for a while, would people wave to you?</div>
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LK: They didn’t know who we were. But there were a few times when we were filming exteriors in the town, we’d get a few looks. Remember this is a community that has even had to deal with “The Truthers,” a small number of people who insist the whole Newtown tragedy never happened. That was going on already when we were making the movie and was brought up by the parents. It affects people in Newtown far greater than the small number of conspiracy theorists, but we didn’t touch on it. There is good reason to address what’s going on but we decided not to give exposure to the extremists.</div>
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DP: Other than the two plays were there other things going on in Newtown that were designed to uplift the town and show it was coming back.</div>
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LK: The other events I noticed were connected to the church that Sophfronia and Tain go to. The annual parade that we show is important to the town. They say everyone in town is either in it or watching it. It’s tradition, so we could see that the people were defiantly showing up to maintain the link to times prior to the tragedy.</div>
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DP: Tell me about Opening Night.</div>
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LK: We had a number of cameras so I was making sure that they were placed correctly operating correctly. So that was a lot on my mind. I chose to be right in the wings and to see all that emotion and apprehension and then to walk out onto the stage and hear a huge wave applause was really moving. I also watched the end when they got an ovation and bowed.</div>
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DP: Did you feel the tension among the parents?</div>
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LK: Sophfronia says that she was nervous. She was. But I knew that even if Tain or Sammy tripped up, they’d get through it. I wasn’t worried but was nervous simply about their walking out on stage for the first time in their lives and seeing a sea of people.</div>
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DP: Editing your film must have been emotional for you.</div>
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LK: I could say that in some ways it was an easy to choose footage because we’d made the choice that the movie was about the kids and Jimmy and Nelba, and not about the events of The Day. That’s what we were conscious of in editing. The hardest thing about the editing is that we interviewed about sixty people but there turned out to be only five or six central characters. We could have gone off and had numerous storylines but we ended up with the storylines we had in the first cut. In the editing, we kept distilling it.</div>
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DP: When you did get teary-eyed in the editing room, was it from seeing sadness or seeing people move out their sadness and find at least temporary happiness?</div>
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LK: During the filming, I’d see footage each day. One scene that got to me is of Tain giving Will a tour backstage after the play, before joining everyone else in the hall. Even now I get emotional thinking about that. What a heart he has. It makes me feel good how Tain’s parents have raised him. They are wonderful people. They volunteer for things. Sophfronia, who graduated from Harvard, is a volunteer bus driver.</div>
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DP: In your film, Newtown comes across as racially diverse. The cast includes black kids, Tain’s mother Sophfronia Scott Gregory and Jimmy Greene are African American, and Nelba Márquez-Greene’s family emigrated from Puerto Rican. But this town of 27,000, is actually 95% white. Was it deliberate to make it make it seem otherwise?</div>
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LK: When I met Tain he came across to me like a Great American Kid. I liked the fact that he was biracial because that’s America. I wanted to make people feel included. I didn’t want it to be an issue. Nelba talks about how in Newtown kids who have been through trauma get help and attention, and it’s not like that everywhere.</div>
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DP: It’s two years later. What are your thoughts now?</div>
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LK: Here’s the thing: for the last seven months the movie has been on the festival circuit. So I’ve had a chance to go to other cities. I always question everything, so it was very heartening watching it with audiences. We got the same reaction in every city. After Tribeca we went to the Seattle Film Festival. They laughed in the same places, including the brief scene with the young twin girls who speak about Shakespeare, taking turns saying their sentences. I love digression yet we made sure we kept the balance.</div>
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DP: I think what audiences will appreciate is that they aren’t going to Newtown so you’re showing them what they want to see. And they come out of the theater feeling good.</div>
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LK: Again I go back to what Jimmy says about responding to something bad. The strength and wisdom of that. When you see Tain is going to be okay, you feel good. I knew a lot was going on with Tain when he cried after realizing he won’t be going to more rehearsals and the play is over. There is a lot of depth there.</div>
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DP: Are you keeping in touch with the kids?</div>
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LK: Yes, I’ve brought Tain and Sammy to a couple of the festivals. Tain did a Q&A in Boston and was so charming. And Sammy did one and was hilarious. In two years their voices have changed and their perspectives. They’re even more self-aware. Oh, and Sammy has become a baker.</div>
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DP: The movie is uplifting and reassuring but because of circumstances, you are prevented as a filmmaker from giving viewers a truly happy ending.</div>
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LK: True. The last image you see before you see the town again is of Nelba. Jimmy says his last line and the camera drifts to Nelba who is sitting next to him. Her face reveals everything viewers should know. It says that you’re looking at someone who is dealing with the tragedy that took her daughter’s life but who will always have a broken heart. I know she will.</div>
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*Yes, like many of you, I am still in shock and despair about losing our cherished Sag Harbor Cinema, the rare one-screen Art Deco movie palace that, along with the Bay Street Theater, made our small village the cultural center of the Hamptons, envied by the elite as the absolute king of the mountain. East Hampton and Southampton didn’t have what we had–now we don’t have it either. In truth, my wife and I might not have bought a house in Sag Harbor in the mid-1990s if not for my being seduced by the sight of a fabulous old-time theater standing proudly right in the middle of Main Street. Moreover, it was an arthouse that dared show independent and foreign films. Some people said Sag Harbor was a town with the great movie theater; I saw it as a movie theater with a town attached to it. I could see myself at home here.</div>
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Are you, like me, already missing its quirky aspects? There was the confusion inside the lobby, with nobody knowing which of the two lines were for people who had purchased tickets already or for those without tickets who wondered if the ticket booth would ever reopen. The ticket booth always opened too late, so people often found seats with the movie already playing. They barely had time to buy a bag of cold popcorn. I always wondered why there was a poster across from the ticket booth of an Irish boxing movie nobody ever saw or even heard of? Did it actually play there? And who installed the two urinals in the men’s room so close together that you and the other guy felt you were sharing? I think the Sag Harbor Cinema was the only theater where your view was blocked not only if someone sat directly in front of you but even two or even three <em>rows</em> in front of you. I never saw so much shifting of seats as each person sat down—it was like a pinball machine. I remember the time my elderly mother sat in an aisle seat and a gigantic man sat down in front of her, blocking her view. But she hopped up and cleverly moved to the aisle seat in front of him—only to have an even bigger giant plop down in front of her. And then there was the time a middle-aged man moving side to side down a row—not the aisle—banged into a seat that was down and, like a Buster Keaton, did a slapstick somersault and actually disappeared from view, ending up flat on his tummy on the sticky floor. I, sigh, miss such moments (though not the increase in admission price to $15 for everyone, Mr. Mallow). Most of all of course, I long for the wonderful theater itself and the exceptional, diverse selection of movies that played there and often nowhere else on Long Island, sometimes for two days and sometimes for months at a time. I’m sure you do, too. Surely, the empty space on our street reflects the empty feeling we all have now that something precious is missing. The glorious sign was rescued so I believe that is, forgive the pun, a hopeful <em>sign</em>. Our town needs to attach itself to our cinema again. So, all together now: Please rebuild!</div>
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Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-45677797547667468562017-03-22T12:30:00.000-07:002017-03-22T12:30:08.915-07:00Peter Sarsgaard on Playing Bobby Kennedy in “Jackie”Playing in Theaters<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Peter Sarsgaard on Playing Bobby Kennedy in “Jackie”</span><br />
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(from Sag Harbor Express Online 12/8/16)<br />
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<img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-58052" height="667" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" src="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackiecasket.jpeg" srcset="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackiecasket.jpeg 1000w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackiecasket-300x200.jpeg 300w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackiecasket-768x512.jpeg 768w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackiecasket-180x120.jpeg 180w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackiecasket-360x240.jpeg 360w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackiecasket-790x527.jpeg 790w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackiecasket-150x100.jpeg 150w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackiecasket-500x334.jpeg 500w" style="border: none !important; height: auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: middle;" width="1000" /><div style="line-height: 18px;">
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Peter Sarsgaard as “Bobby Kennedy” and Natalie Portman as “Jackie Kennedy” in JACKIE. Photo by Bruno Calvo. © 2016 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved</div>
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<strong>By Danny Peary</strong></div>
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Last week, I posted a roundtable interview I took part in with Natalie Portman about playing Jacqueline Kennedy in Chilean director Pablo Larraín’s striking biopic, <em>Jackie</em>, which opened at three theaters in New York City. The link:</div>
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<a href="http://sagharborexpress.com/natalie-portman-speaks-playing-jackie-jfks-assassination/" style="color: #0088cc; text-decoration: none;">http://sagharborexpress.com/natalie-portman-speaks-playing-jackie-jfks-assassination/</a></div>
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Portman is deservedly receiving a lot of Oscar buzz for her performance. Not receiving enough praise, however, is Peter Sarsgaard, who plays Robert Kennedy, the person Jackie best relates to following her husband’s assassination. Perhaps that’s because Portman looks like Jackie and Sarsgaard doesn’t look like her brother-in-law. (Similarly Paul Dano was lauded much more than the equally impressive John Cusack for <em>Love and Mercy </em>because he more resembled the young Brian Wilson.) Sarsgaard is at a disadvantage but I think he comes through admirably. Below is the roundtable I did with him just prior to the Portman interview. I note my questions.</div>
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Q: How did you get involved in <em>Jackie</em>?</div>
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Peter Sarsgaard: I’ve known Natalie Portman for a long time, so when they said that she was playing Jackie Kennedy, that was a large part of why I wanted to do the movie. I went, “Natalie’s playing the lead, Pablo Larraín’s directing it, and Darren Arnofsky’s producing it, and with Noah Oppenheim’s script, I think this will be something I should be in.” I would never ever want to be in one of those Kennedy biopics, but I knew this wasn’t going to be normal. I told my friends, “I think we’re making a post-traumatic-stress-syndrome thriller or a horror movie. I think we’re making a film that shows what’s in the mind of someone who has just gone through something similar to what soldiers in war might experience–like a head getting blown off of somebody they love right in front of their eyes.” Those were not normal circumstances that Jackie was prepared for, and even after watching the movie I’m not convinced that she did get it together and find a way to dealing with that. She put on a funeral for her husband that had an incredible effect on everyone, but it was a very odd thing to do.</div>
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Jackie (Natalie Portman) and Bobby (Peter Sarsgaard) in John Kennedy’s funeral procession.</div>
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Q: Natalie really captured the Jackie Kennedy we remember.</div>
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PS: When I first walked on the set and saw what she was doing, I said, “She’s got it.” She also looks right. At times, she looks almost like the most extraordinarily beautiful doll dressed up. It’s perfect.</div>
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Q : Was it strange to hear her replicating Jackie Kennedy’s voice?</div>
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PS: Not really, because they’re both from the East Coast. Natalie already had an accent.</div>
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It wasn’t like she was playing Molly Hatchet or someone like that. I was impressed with how good she was, but I knew she could do it.</div>
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Q: Did you know much about Robert Kennedy before playing him in the movie?</div>
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PS: I already admired him. I admired him and believed that would get in my way if I played him. I thought I was going to have to impersonate him in order to capture his public persona, and that’s not acting in my mind. But Pablo assured me he wasn’t concerned with my doing any of that. A lot of time in this movie I was trying to find a new way of doing what I normally do as an actor.</div>
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Q: How did you prepare for the role?</div>
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PS: I started out, at night before we were filming, by listening to a tape of his speeches that I’ve always loved, especially the one at Columbia University when the students asked him questions. Also there was the extemporaneous speech he gave after Martin Luther King was assassinated. His speechwriter was there, but he was thinking on his feet, and you can really sense what a strong mind he had. I got very excited about playing someone who was a really intelligent person, even if misguided at some points in his life and doing things he shouldn’t do for his family. He was a moral person who really knew the difference between good and bad and wanted to do good, although at times he did things that were perhaps unethical, especially before his brother died. For instance, in the fifties, he had worked with Joseph McCarthy. It wasn’t really his idea to work with him, but McCarthy was friendly with his father, Joseph Kennedy. I really got into researching all this. There was no stopping me. I also listened to a conversation Bobby had with John Kennedy on the telephone and heard the way they talked to each other. It was like code. Anyone else can’t understand what’s going on, but it’s the way two brothers talk to each other. I don’t get to talk that way in the film, because no one speaks to Bobby like that, but I understood their relative position with one another. The way I started to look at it was: upon his brother’s death, Bobby really came into his own. He stopped following someone else. What do you do when this person that you’ve been in service of for a large portion of your life dies? He’s dealing with that in the movie. He doesn’t even have time to deal with his own grief. In the limited amount of screen time that I had, I knew I had only a couple of pitches to swing at, so I wanted to establish that his mind was in every other place besides his own grief. He’s thinking, “Oh, my God. We’ve got to clear out the Oval Office. Also, Jackie’s freaking out, so I’ve got to make sure she talks to a priest.” After someone dies, sometimes you’re that person that doesn’t get to sit down on the sofa and weep. That’s what happened with Bobby.</div>
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DP: Was it awkward that Natalie looked like Jackie and you didn’t look like Bobby?</div>
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PS: I didn’t look in the mirror when I was playing Bobby because I knew I didn’t look like him. I didn’t worry about it that much, because I felt that if I spent a lot of time trying to look like him, it would have been “Peter’s trying really hard to look like Bobby Kennedy.” I did a couple of things. I did some stuff with my hair and wore false teeth for part of the movie to change the shape of my face a little. Sometimes when I’d be in the middle of a scene, the false teeth would get in the way, so I’d pop them out and then continue with the scene. Pablo didn’t even know that I was doing that. He actually said, “Oh, there’s a scene where you turn and I can see you adjust the teeth.” I was like, “I’m taking them out.” One reason I wore the teeth is that in many accounts it’s stated he was a bit self-conscious about his [prominent] teeth, Actually in so many pictures I would see of him, he was hiding them a bit. I wanted to feel like he did about his teeth.</div>
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Q: Was that the most challenging part of playing Bobby?</div>
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PS: Maybe, but I like having restrictions. For me, the more obstacles I can create, the better I’m going to be. I work for that. I’m not into doing stuff physically that declares itself. I thought the teeth would just give me a little something to work with.</div>
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DP: You played Bobby Kennedy in 1963 after John’s assassination, but were you thinking, he’s going to be assassinated, too, in another five years? Could you stop yourself from thinking that?</div>
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PS<strong>:</strong> I didn’t think it when I was doing the movie, but I think it when I watch it. I think it as a viewer. It’s difficult to play scenes in which your character expresses regret. Regret is a pretty passive, not very active thing to play, and I played a decent amount of regret in this movie. What activates it, I think, is my knowing that there isn’t a lot of time ahead. There’s going to be no time to attain any of his goals. It was a real challenge for me as an actor to have Bobby say, “We could have done this, we could have done that, we could have done this.”</div>
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DP<strong>:</strong> A scene that interested me was when Bobby laments what could have been prior to Johnson abruptly taking over the presidency. Johnson screwed up Vietnam, but he did pass the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and Voting Rights Act in 1965, and carry on John Kennedy’s domestic agenda. John Kennedy might not have been able to get those bills passed, right?</div>
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PS: Absolutely, absolutely, partly because Johnson appealed to some people that Kennedy was never going to appeal to. Johnson was a massive compromise for Vice President. He got that job because Kennedy was forced to take him to win the election. No one was every happy about him. I think Johnson was always on the other side. Bobby’s like, “Oh my God, now he’s in position to replace Kennedy, so why did we choose him for Vice President in 1960?” He wanted to protect the Oval Office from outsiders like Johnson, just as a lion protects its pride. <em>Circle the wagons around it, man.</em> Jackie was protecting President Kennedy’s legacy. I think Bobby saved his brother’s legacy. There was plenty on JFK that could have come out –which we know about now—but didn’t because of Bobby.</div>
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Q: It seems like even though dealing with his brother’s death, he’s trying to seize control of things.</div>
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PS: This is a guy who helped get his brother elected President. We all know that. Again, when his brother died, it became an opportunity to be his own man. I see it as just a guy who’s suddenly saying, “It’s just me now. There’s Teddy, but I am the one who can do it.” When I listen to him talk, I think Bobby could have been a great President. A great President takes the ordinary and elevates it into a metaphysical, spiritual lesson or a bigger, more thoughtful idea. If you go back and listen to some of those speeches, you can follow along on some of them only if you know the Greek philosophers he brings up, but most of the time he speaks in a very plain way about abstract ideas of being connected.</div>
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Q : As Bobby, you get to tell President Johnson to sit down.</div>
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PS: Oh, that was so gratifying, yeah. I would love to tell Johnson to sit down. I think I had the same attitude toward Johnson that my character does. I can’t imagine that Bobby would have said that to him in front of a bunch of people, but it’s in his mind almost.</div>
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DP: Bobby would say that. He was tough. He didn’t look tough but he was really tough.</div>
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PS: I know he was tough. Especially when he was young he was physically tough.</div>
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Q: Talk about working with Pablo Larraín.</div>
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PS: I was in the hands of someone who didn’t care about just playing nice. I’m happy that some of the stuff that we did didn’t make the cut, because he really, truly had us explore every possibility of what our characters might be feeling and the connections that might have been– even Bobby’s relationship with Jackie. We shot scenes where their connection went to an almost romantic place. Grief could bring them together and they could find themselves being really close to each other and suddenly thinking, “What are we doing?” Pablo deprives you of information. That’s what it is. I’d be like, “What’s going on? What’s the scene?” And he’d say, “Just get in there and do it.” I was working with a Chilean director who only has a distant idea of these events in 1963. What’s interesting is he comes from a political family. He knows that they were just human beings, so he was always just stressing, “All this stuff that I barely know about doesn’t matter, this shell of a mythology. But what’s actually going on here? What are the things that they wished they could say, but don’t say?” He was like, “Speak the unconscious mind.” A lot of the times he would say to me, “Tell Jackie that she’s losing her mind and you’re afraid of what’s going to happen to her.” I’d tell him, “I can’t say that!” He’s be like, “Say it. Because that’s what’s going on!” I said it. Often what I said isn’t in the movie. So he works in a very unconventional way. You had no idea of what exact story he was telling, because the action wasn’t accumulative. It wasn’t where one plus two equals three. It was just deeply rooted in a sense of the place and time and people and the grief they feel is both hallucinogenic and sad.</div>
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Q: Does this film give you any thoughts about what is going on nowadays politically?</div>
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PS: It reminds us that there have been times of tragedy in our history when the whole country came together, like 9/11. Following the assassination, there was total unity and you see everyone coming together. What needs to happen is for us all to come back together, but I don’t see any way other than a national tragedy for it to happen. There’s just such immense divide in our country that it takes a tragedy to bring unity, right?</div>
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Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-41891354705442724332017-03-22T12:27:00.002-07:002017-03-22T12:27:54.435-07:00Natalie Portman Speaks About Playing “Jackie” After JFK’s AssassinationPlaying in Theaters<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Natalie Portman Speaks About Playing “Jackie” After JFK’s Assassination</span><br />
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(from Sag Harbor Express Online 12/1/16)<br />
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<img alt="Natalie Portman in "Jackie." " class="size-full wp-image-57868" height="424" sizes="(max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px" src="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackieportmanasjackie.jpeg" srcset="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackieportmanasjackie.jpeg 752w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackieportmanasjackie-300x169.jpeg 300w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackieportmanasjackie-180x101.jpeg 180w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackieportmanasjackie-360x203.jpeg 360w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackieportmanasjackie-150x85.jpeg 150w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackieportmanasjackie-500x282.jpeg 500w" style="border: none !important; height: auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: middle;" width="752" /><div style="line-height: 18px;">
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Natalie Portman in “Jackie.”</div>
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<strong>By Danny Peary</strong></div>
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<img alt="jackiemovieposter" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-57866" height="300" sizes="(max-width: 201px) 100vw, 201px" src="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Jackiemovieposter-201x300.jpeg" srcset="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Jackiemovieposter-201x300.jpeg 201w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Jackiemovieposter-768x1144.jpeg 768w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Jackiemovieposter-688x1024.jpeg 688w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Jackiemovieposter-180x268.jpeg 180w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Jackiemovieposter-360x536.jpeg 360w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Jackiemovieposter-790x1176.jpeg 790w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Jackiemovieposter-150x223.jpeg 150w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Jackiemovieposter-336x500.jpeg 336w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Jackiemovieposter.jpeg 906w" style="border: 0px; float: left; height: auto; margin: 10px 15px 15px 0px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" width="201" /></div>
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<em>Jackie</em> fits my category Movies That Should Play in Sag Harbor. Meanwhile you can see Chilean director Pablo Larraín’s psychological portrait of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy—as channeled by Oscar-contender Natalie Portman–in New York City, where it opens Friday in three theaters. This comes after this unique biopic and its star received a lot of buzz at the Venice, Toronto, and New York Film Festivals. From the Press Notes: “Jacqueline Kennedy was just 34 when her husband was elected President of the United States. Elegant, stylish, and inscrutable, she instantly became a global icon, one of the most famous women in the world, her taste in fashion, décor and the arts widely admired. Then on November 22, 1963, while on a campaign trip to Dallas, John F. Kennedy is assassinated—Jackie’s pink suit is showered in her husband’s blood. As she boards Air Force One back to Washington, Jackie’s world—including her faith—is completely shattered. Traumatized and reeling with grief, over the course of the next week, she must confront the unimaginable, consoling her two young children, vacating the home she painstakingly restored, and planning her husband’s funeral. Jackie quickly realizes that the next seven days will determine how history will define her husband’s legacy—and how she herself will be remembered.” The trailer: <a href="https://www.google.com/#q=jackie+movie+trailer" style="color: #0088cc; text-decoration: none;">https://www.google.com/#q=jackie+movie+trailer</a> I took part in the following roundtable with Natalie Portman, whose admiration for Jackie O is palpable. I note my questions.</div>
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Q: To play Jacqueline Kennedy, did you feel you had to step up or did it come naturally to you?</div>
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Natalie Portman: It was not natural. I definitely had to step up to get into her shoes. It was an amazing challenge and opportunity to take her on because when people are iconic we see them as a thing, as a symbol, as a facade, and to really consider her as a human being is such a tremendous exercise and something we haven’t done with her. Largely because she really kept herself private. She gave a certain part of herself to the public and said “the rest is for me.” She was so careful about that–and she did such an amazing job doing it.</div>
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<img alt="Natalie Portman in "Jackie."" class="size-medium wp-image-57865" height="199" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" src="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackiefuneral-300x199.jpeg" srcset="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackiefuneral-300x199.jpeg 300w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackiefuneral-768x509.jpeg 768w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackiefuneral-1024x678.jpeg 1024w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackiefuneral-180x119.jpeg 180w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackiefuneral-360x239.jpeg 360w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackiefuneral-790x523.jpeg 790w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackiefuneral-1095x725.jpeg 1095w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackiefuneral-150x99.jpeg 150w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackiefuneral-500x331.jpeg 500w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/jackiefuneral.jpeg 1200w" style="border: none !important; height: auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: middle;" width="300" /><div style="line-height: 18px;">
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Natalie Portman in “Jackie.”</div>
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Q: From an artistic standpoint, how do you portray this historical person without slipping into caricature?</div>
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NP: It was super dangerous. I was really scared of it because mimicking has never been my thing. I never thought that was a talent of mine. First and foremost, you need the audience to buy that you are the person you are on screen and what made it such a challenge with Jackie is that she is so famous that people know her voice and how she talked and the way she moved. I was like, “I’m setting myself up for disaster but it’s kind of interesting because I’m an actor, not a surgeon, so if I fail nobody is going to die!” That’s what I had to tell myself: “No one is going to die!” When I started talking in her voice on set everybody was like, “Uh, oh.” But in the tapes that exist of her, that’s what it was, so you have to go with it. Luckily our director, Pablo Larraín, always brought it back to the emotion and inner feelings to it give it a nice balance and keep it from getting campy. It turned out to be really beautiful to experience.</div>
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Q: Did you have any trepidation that you’d compare yourself to other actresses who have played her?</div>
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NP: It was lucky I hadn’t seen any of the other portrayals. I did not seek them out because if there was something I liked that they did then I might have tried to copy it. I wanted to stay away from that. I hadn’t seen them so it wasn’t something I had in my head. But when I first got the script, I wondered, “Why do we need to tell this story that has already been told a lot?” However, when I read it and talked to Pablo about his approach I thought, “OK, this film tells the story in a completely different and unconventional way.”</div>
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Q: Did you look at a lot of footage of Jackie?</div>
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NP: I watched the televised White House tour obsessively as the beginning of my exploration with my incredible dialect coach, Tanya Blumstein. Because we were doing an exact replica I really wanted to get even the pauses, the hesitations, the breaths, the mess ups. I wanted all of that to be the same as she was on television. It was a two-hour special, so we could hear all the sounds she made and get her rhythm. We listened to that and that was the really formative thing for the accent I did.</div>
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Q: Did you look at <em>Grey Gardens</em>?</div>
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NP: I did watch <em>Grey Gardens</em> again, which helped give me permission to go a little eccentric. She was from a family that was wealthy but lost everything and there’s a certain tension that goes on with that. I also studied the interviews she did with Arthur Schlesinger [in early 1964 for an eight-part series for <em>Life </em>magazine]. They were really helpful. He was a friend, so even though it was an interview you get a sense of how she talked in private with someone she knew versus how she was in front of the public when on television.</div>
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Q: She was nervous.</div>
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NP: She was nervous and also tried to present a sort of coy, feminine demeanor. When it was private, she was different. She was super sharp. She knew every person that came in and out of Jack Kennedy’s life, all of the politicians and understood what they were talking about. She really paid attention to everything to the point that we were asking Pablo, “Is this really possible? Did she really say this in interviews without referring to notes?” Her brain was amazing. She was a real scholar of history, and that was actually a big connection between her and JFK. He had her translate books about Indochine from French to English, and they would sit and talk about geeky history trivia together. She was also super witty—she was sardonic and had that sharp tongue, which of course is not the image she projected when she doing those interviews.</div>
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DP: In the film I see her within her marriage as being a sad, lonely, dutiful woman who had no outlet for her intellect or much else. Did you see her that way?</div>
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NP: We’re seeing her at the saddest moment in her life, so I’m not necessarily sure that would characterize how she was in general. She is having an identity crisis. For a woman of that time, your identity is Mrs. Your Husband’s Last Name. She <em>is</em> Mrs. Kennedy. And when he’s killed, <em>Who are you?</em><em>What are you? </em>To have a crisis in faith and a crisis in identity, and to have to leave your home and mourn a person you loved very much, and stay strong for your children, and also make the country feel like it’s not going to be like World War III—that’s a lot to experience at once. It is an overwhelming moment for this woman that, hopefully, brings out her character. She has many aspects to her.</div>
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DP: I’m wondering if after years of being the wife of a senator and president, his death allows her to again be the dynamic woman she was before the marriage.</div>
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NP: In regard to her identity as a woman changing after the assassination, she would probably look back to <em>Who was I before I married?</em> She even says that to [White House Social Secretary] Nancy Tuckerman [Greta Gerwig], because she’s the character in the movie who knew her when they were in school together. It’s like, “Nancy, remind me of who I am, remind me who I was before I became this <em>thing</em>.” Her life prior to marrying JFK was really interesting. She was a journalist. She was catching photos on the street of fashionable girls, that sort of thing–it wasn’t as probing as the kind of journalism she was later on the other side of, but it definitely gave her a lot of insight. She and her sister Lee went on a trip to Europe when Jackie was 20 and Lee was around 18, and they made this book together for which Jackie drew all the pictures and Lee wrote all the stories. They sent it to their parents and published it when they were in their fifties. My parents gave me that book and it was an amazing gift. It’s beautiful and funny and gives great insight into two single girls traveling alone in Europe and how much the art and history influenced them. Jackie spoke French fluently. She spent a year in France and it’s well known she was influenced by French fashion and culture. As First Lady she was completely influenced by what she experienced in France. She saw how important it was to have all these objects in the White House that reflect our country’s identity, and art and history were a big part of that. She asked, “Why is Abraham Lincoln’s desk in a garage sale in the middle of nowhere?” So she tracked down all of these pieces of furniture and art and said this is our legacy and that we need objects to tell us who we are and what are values are. She also spearheaded the effort to preserve important historical buildings [including the Executive Office Building and those in Lafayette Square, a residential area across the street from the White House]. Also she helped create a commission for the arts in Washington and was the first to invite important artists to the White House and say that the artistic identity of this country is important. That came from her time in France as a student, when she really got that understanding of how much art is important to government. Pablo emphasized a lot her love of beauty. He always had me say: “I love beauty.” She was so aesthetic, she loved clothes and fabrics, and apparently she was always getting in trouble with Kennedy because she was spending a million dollars a year on clothes. He said <em>the American people are gonna lose their minds, you gotta chill out</em>. When someone who loves beauty that much has the ugliest thing in the world happen to them, how does that affect her?</div>
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Q: The film weighs in heavily on the Camelot era. Did you know much about that before taking on the role?</div>
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NP: I had always heard about the mythology and saw the <em>Life </em>magazine cover depicting that, but I never knew Jackie Kennedy came up with it. I thought someone else said they’re like America’s royals, Camelot. Also, when you hear the record she always plays, you’re like, “<em>That </em>Camelot?” I thought it was a reference to King Arthur’s kingdom, not the musical.</div>
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Q: Did you think about how her story would play out in this digital age?</div>
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NP: It’s interesting that she was so unknowingly ahead of her time. She wasn’t trying to be feminist. She was actually defining herself as her husband’s wife and guardian of his legacy and everything she was doing was out of her wifely duty in her mind. Yet at the same time she crafted her own narrative and was the agent and author of her own story, and that is what everyone is doing today. People are showing what they want to show on Instagram and she did that fifty years ago. <em>This is what you guys are going to think about me, here’s the story that will be remembered. </em>Her story is incredibly modern and intelligent and shows a real understanding of history. The story that lasts and gets told is the best story, not real fact. For instance, I was not really aware of the incitement that lead up to the assassination because that hasn’t been part of the story. Being from Israel I had heard so much about the Rabin assassination there. There had been posters and slogans about killing him and they were doing the same thing with Kennedy, which I was really not aware of. And we reference it in the movie when Jackie says to Ladybird Johnson early in the movie, “There were posters calling for him to be killed.” Of course, we heard disgusting rhetoric during this year’s election talking about those things. We can see how vile and repetitive these patterns of incitement are and the real tragedy that can ensue. There are probably a lot of parallels you can draw.</div>
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DP: I’ve never seen a character walk so much in and out of rooms, as Jackie does in this movie.</div>
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NP: The walking–that’s really interesting. We did do a lot of that. It’s part of one of the really interesting things that Pablo brought to his concept. We filmed on a stage in Paris. They actually built the White House in Paris, which is quite amazing. And almost every day, we filmed moving scenes. What happened was they would build up a room and then tear it down and build something else. And so before the rooms were torn down we did these moving scenes. Some of them were of her just walking through her house on her last day there, some of them were about her packing or directing packing. It was a beautiful and tragic and awful thing to consider that at the moment you lose someone you love very much you also have to leave your house. That’s a crazy thing.</div>
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DP: Did she walk the way you do in the film? Did you study that?</div>
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NP: We got to see her walking during the White House tour special. She was very formal and stiff, so I definitely went for that.</div>
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DP: In all the years I never was aware she suffered survivor’s guilt after her husband died as he did.</div>
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NP: Yeah. That’s from real sources. Clint Hill, the guard who was with them, wrote a biography about her and wrote about that.</div>
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DP: Another surprise was that she wanted to actually speak to Lee Harvey Oswald after his arrest.</div>
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NP: I feel like it is a natural instinct to say, “I want to meet the person who did this and maybe that can help you understand why.” Because what happened was so confusing and unimaginable it does make sense in that moment that she would want to talk to that person.</div>
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DP: We already knew a lot about Jackie and now this film gives a different perspective. What is the one thing you hope resonates with viewers?</div>
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NP: We still haven’t given Jackie her due if you consider how she went through something so tragic in service to the country, and then pulled herself together <em>again</em> in service to the country. That was just astonishing.</div>
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Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-16361587487967514632017-03-22T12:24:00.005-07:002017-03-22T12:24:58.218-07:00Robin Lung Restores History in "Finding Kukan"Playing in Theaters<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Robin Lung Restores History in "Finding Kukan"</span><br />
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(from Sag Harbor Express Online 11/17/16)<br />
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<img alt="Robin Lung. " class="size-full wp-image-57612" height="683" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" src="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/findingkukanrobinstill.jpeg" srcset="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/findingkukanrobinstill.jpeg 1024w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/findingkukanrobinstill-300x200.jpeg 300w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/findingkukanrobinstill-768x512.jpeg 768w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/findingkukanrobinstill-180x120.jpeg 180w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/findingkukanrobinstill-360x240.jpeg 360w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/findingkukanrobinstill-790x527.jpeg 790w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/findingkukanrobinstill-150x100.jpeg 150w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/findingkukanrobinstill-500x333.jpeg 500w" style="border: none !important; height: auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: middle;" width="1024" /><div style="line-height: 18px;">
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Robin Lung.</div>
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<strong>By Danny Peary</strong></div>
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<img alt="findingkukanposter" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-57611" height="300" sizes="(max-width: 202px) 100vw, 202px" src="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/findingkukanposter-202x300.jpeg" srcset="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/findingkukanposter-202x300.jpeg 202w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/findingkukanposter-180x267.jpeg 180w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/findingkukanposter-360x534.jpeg 360w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/findingkukanposter-150x222.jpeg 150w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/findingkukanposter-337x500.jpeg 337w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/findingkukanposter.jpeg 504w" style="border: 0px; float: left; height: auto; margin: 10px 15px 15px 0px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" width="202" /></div>
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<em>Finding Kukan </em>fits my category Movies That Should Play in Sag Harbor. Robin Lung’s feature debut just played to enthusiastic viewers at DOC NYC. It is always startling in a positive way when forgotten history—in this case both film and socio-political-cultural history—is unearthed, and that’s the case with this movie. Lung, an Hawaiian-born documentarian of Chinese descent, spent years following clues, solving mysteries, and ignoring obstacles to present us with the intriguing double story of <em>Kukan, </em>an important, long-lost Academy Award-winning documentary, and Li Ling-Ai (1908-2003), the force behind it who never got her due—or a much-deserved Oscar. From the film’s press notes: “Filmmaker Robin Lung investigates the case of Li Ling-Ai, the uncredited female producer of <em>Kukan </em>, and landmark color film [that won a special Oscar in 1942, the first year documentaries were honored by the Academy] that revealed the atrocities of World War II China to American Audiences…. Lung discovers a badly damaged film print of [the only Oscar-winning film that the Academy designated as lost] and pieces together the never before told inspirational tale of the two renegades behind the making of it—Li Ling-Ai and cameraman Rey Scott.” Ling-Ai was born in Hawaii but had family in China and sent Scott there to film Japanese aggression so that they could convince America to help her people). Scott received an Oscar, Ling-Ai’s contribution was ignored. From the press notes: “<em>Finding Kukan </em>uses rare and unseen archival footage to create an unforgettable portrait of a female filmmaking pioneer, and sheds light on the long history of racial and gender discrimination behind the camera.”</div>
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Lung, who graduated from Stanford and has a 16-year history of bringing untold minority and women’s stories to film and television, says in the press notes: “I started this film project as a way of bringing visibility to an inspirational Asian female, but I grew to realize that the missing faces of Asian women in popular culture only mirror much deeper and disturbing exclusions of their stories from our historical records. Li Ling-Ai’s story not only highlights the systemic racism and sexism that still exists in Hollywood, it provides an inspirational rallying cry to women and people of color to fight to change the system.” I spoke to the director early this week about her unique movie.</div>
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Li Ling-Ai.</div>
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Danny Peary: I don’t think there have been many Chinese American females who have made feature documentaries before you.</div>
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Robin Lung: One of my mentors is Frieda Lee Mock, and she was one of the first Asian American directors to win an Academy Award. She directed the [1944] documentary on Maya Lin [<a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi46O-6zavQAhUm44MKHdi9BRcQFggnMAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Ftitle%2Ftt0110480%2F&usg=AFQjCNGRjVyLvPsB1n8oWkyDF2xRSS0LhQ&sig2=euB7wJwfeyP9rY5NR1N86A" style="color: #0088cc; text-decoration: none;"><em>Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision</em></a>]. And there have been a few Chinese Americans who have been nominated. Jessica Yu [who won an Oscar in 1996 for the short <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breathing_Lessons:_The_Life_and_Work_of_Mark_O%27Brien" style="color: #0088cc; text-decoration: none;"><em>Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O’Brien</em></a>] is one of my idols. She makes great films. I’m following in the footsteps of a number of Chinese American women.</div>
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DP: Can you be considered a pioneer, too?</div>
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RL: I’m not a pioneer, but Li Ling-Ai was. I hope someday I will inspire a young filmmaker, too, as she has me.</div>
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DP: In the film, Li Ling-Ai says her mother said, “God gave you a mouth, it’s not just for eating.” Perhaps that was Ling-Ai’s mantra when she spoke about the hardships endured by the Chinese against the Japanese aggressors. Was that also your mantra while making this film about her for so many years?”</div>
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<img alt="Li Ling-Ai and Rey Scott. " class="size-medium wp-image-57613" height="300" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" src="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/FindingKukanstilltwosome-200x300.jpeg" srcset="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/FindingKukanstilltwosome-200x300.jpeg 200w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/FindingKukanstilltwosome.jpeg 682w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/FindingKukanstilltwosome-180x270.jpeg 180w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/FindingKukanstilltwosome-360x541.jpeg 360w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/FindingKukanstilltwosome-150x225.jpeg 150w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/FindingKukanstilltwosome-333x500.jpeg 333w" style="border: none !important; height: auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: middle;" width="200" /><div style="line-height: 18px;">
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Li Ling-Ai and Rey Scott.</div>
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RL: It was actually toward the end of my journey that I found Li Ling-Ai’s letters, in which she referred to her mother saying those words. She wrote a memoir called <em>Life Is For a Long Time, </em>which is about her parents’ trials and tribulations as physicians in Hawaii and how her mother always reminded her that life is for a long time. So when it felt my film was never going to be finished—as when a funding group would turn down my application and I realized it would take another six months for me to get more financing—I would say to myself, “Life is for a long time.” Another one of her mantras that was told to me by her good friend was “Head to tail, head to tail, you finish what you started.”</div>
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DP: Also: “Perseverance against all odds.” That phrase is mentioned in your movie in relation to her film’s title, and it definitely fits both what Li Ling-Ai went through in her life and what you went through making your film. I’d say it’s a theme of the movie, on and off screen.</div>
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RL: “Perseverance against all odds” is the <em>definition</em> of the word Kukan. If you watch my film all the way through you’ll see that my film’s title, <em>Finding Kukan</em>, has a double meaning.</div>
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DP: When interviewed in 1993, Li Ling-Ai also talked about reaching people with her message <em>one person at a time</em>. She had learned there was a need for patience, but when she was younger she was desperate to help the people in China who were suffering so much. Do you think it was hard for her to be patient?</div>
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RL: I think she said such things to herself because she was someone who wanted things done instantly. From what people tell me about her, she was dynamic and impatient with people who were slow to act or didn’t jump aboard her bandwagon.</div>
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DP: When she was a young woman in Hawaii she was writing plays but had trouble getting them produced. Later, when she lived in New York, she herself struggled financially. So struggle seems to have been her entire history.</div>
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RL: Yeah, her relatives told me that until her dying day in 2003 that she was trying to get her book about her parents made into a movie. Her book was published in 1972. If you remember, <em>Roots </em>had come out as a miniseries then, and she saw the need for a Chinese <em>Roots</em>. She gave her book to anyone who had any Hollywood connections. It was quite cinematic but of course it had Chinese main characters and would have required a Chinese cast.</div>
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DP: Go back to the beginning of your interest in embarking on this film. You had worked on projects for PBS about two strong women of Hawaii, Queen Lili’uokalani and Patsy Mink. Were you looking for another strong woman subject?</div>
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RL: I wanted very much to feature a Chinese woman hero from Hawaii. I was very in tune to the whole cultural appropriation of stories by others because the indigenous Hawaiian people have made a big deal about that. If it was our story, we wanted to tell it from our perspective. I thought, “I need to tell a Chinese story.” But there were no larger-than-life Chinese American characters who jumped into my head. I live with my husband in Hawaii, but at one time I lived in New York and was in book publishing at Random House, and my friend there gave me four vintage mystery novels that had been republished. They feature a female Chinese-American detective named Lily Wu, who solves crimes in New York and Hawaii. I totally fell in love with that character. The author of those books, Juanita Sheridan, had told her publisher that she based Lily Wu on some real-life friends of hers. So I did some research on Juanita Sheridan and found out that she lived in Hawaii in the 1930s. So I started searching for flamboyant, college-educated Chinese women of that time. In the Lily Wu novels, it was clear to me that the fictional characters were based on real-life people. For instance, there was a thinly disguised police chief based on the police chief in Hawaii; also and she had a really rich Doris Duke character. One character was a female physician who patches up Lily Wu and her cohort when they are beaten up by villains. She was Chinese and has a practice with her husband near Chinatown. I thought that was bizarre for there to be a Chinese female physician in that time period. So I searched to see if there really was anyone like that. That’s when I came across Li Ling-Ai’s mother who was a doctor who worked with her husband in Hawaii. I found that there was a memoir written about them by their daughter, Li Ling-Ai. I read the book and discovered that the daughter was a really colorful character who had made a movie, a documentary called <em>Kukan</em>. I thought, “Maybe she’s who Lily Wu was based on.” I needed to learn everything I could about Li Ling-Ai after that.</div>
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DP: At what point did you decide to not make your film about the parents but about her?</div>
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RL: I was totally in love with Li Ling-Ai, but I couldn’t find out very much about her and when I contacted the Academy of Arts and Sciences, I discovered that it was the only Oscar winning film that was missing. One of my mentors, Marlene Booth [an award-winning filmmaker and film instructor at the University of Hawaii], met with me and said, “You should keep the story of Li Ling-Ai on the back burner—don’t give up on your search for her–but now you have this wonderful source in this memoir. It’s so cinematic that you can make a documentary about this female physician and her husband. So I took her advice and started doing research for a documentary on Li Ling-Ai’s parents. Part of that was tracking down relatives to interview. They would tell me wonderful stories about Li Ling-A’s parents, but I always found myself saying, “I’m really interested in Li Ling-Ai. Can you tell me something about her?” More evidence came out and I was directed to her friend on the mainland who knew about the film. Eventually that led to my finding a copy of <em>Kukan</em> at the National Archives in Washington. As soon as I found that there was 30 minutes of the film there, I realized I could make a documentary about her and her movie, which was much more of a compelling story to me.</div>
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DP: You have talked about eureka “chicken skin moments” during your research, when you learned something that propelled the film forward.</div>
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RL: There were hundreds of those moments. Every time I found a picture, or a piece of evidence, or somebody still alive who actually knew Li Ling-Ai or Rey Scott, I would get so excited and jump and up and down in my living room. And if my husband wasn’t home, I’d have to tell my cat.</div>
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DP: You have said there wouldn’t have been a film if it weren’t for Mike Dover, who photographs gravestones.</div>
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RL: Mike Dover takes photographs of gravestones and he took the photograph of Rey Scott’s gravestone that led me to his family. I discovered where he was buried and found his obituary because of that. And I tracked down the relatives mentioned in his obituary. And that led to my finding the full copy of <em>Kukan</em> on VHS. The family also had a scrapbook that Rey Scott had assembled during the making and distribution of <em>Kukan</em>. All the articles in it were key sources of information; I couldn’t have found them anywhere else. That was a huge boon.</div>
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DP: Was there anything else you found that was indispensable?</div>
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RL: I found interview tapes that Li Ling-Ai did in 1993 for a Turner Broadcasting special about Robert Ripley, with whom she worked for nine years. When the DVDs arrived I started shaking. No one was in the house with me, so I watched them over and over again.</div>
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DP: How did you know that interview with Turner existed?</div>
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RL: Several of her great nieces shared their correspondence with Li Ling-Ai. She was a great letter writer and she mentioned in her writing that the Turner people were coming to interview her for a documentary on Robert Ripley. Fortunately, that Ripley documentary was out there, and I purchased a VHS of it on either on Amazon or eBay. In the documentary, I got to see Li Ling-Ai. It was for only about thirty seconds but it was a great little moment when she talks about Ripley and her experiences with him. I assumed there was more footage of that interview that wasn’t used. It took a long time but I tracked down the postproduction manager of that show. He graciously helped me find the raw footage in a salt mine in Kansas, where they have an archive because the natural air conditioning. Lucky for me because that interview was key to my research. .</div>
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DP: When you saw her at the age of 85, was she what you expected?</div>
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RL: That and more. In some ways it was hard to watch because the interviewer was trying to get information from her about Robert Ripley but she kept going off on long tangents, including talking about a film they knew nothing about. She also talked about going to the White House and screening the film. She spoke about meeting Eleanor Roosevelt. They’d let her talk and then try to get her back on topic. She’d be asked, “What did Ripley like to eat?” I’d yell, “No, ask her about Eleanor Roosevelt!” It was frustrating because she’d mention something very tantalizing but they wouldn’t let her tell the whole story.</div>
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DP: In addition to that interview, you also include her being the cohost of a live, nationwide <em>Ripley’s Believe It or Not!</em> TV show in 1949 [the year he died from a heart attack, resulting in and others taking over the hosting of the show]. That’s amazing.</div>
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RL: That was amazing. That was the early days of live national broadcast television. She was the first Asian American to host a national show. She loved the camera. I was fortunate enough to meet with the archivist at Ripley Entertainment in Orlando. They opened their archive to me so that’s how I found the tapes of the NBC show. The archivist, Edward Meyer, told me he was in the room when the Turner broadcasting people interviewed Li Ling-Ai in 1993. As an aside, he said, “We all thought she was nuts when she was talking about going to the White House and meeting Eleanor Roosevelt.” Yet what she said was true.</div>
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DP: When, in the film, you first called Mark Scott, the son of Rey Scott, he sounded suspicious of you. Did you sense that?</div>
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RL: Yes. I found the sons through Facebook. I plugged in all the names in the obituary, and three of the four sons came up. I contacted Mark Scott first, through Facebook. He knew what I was calling about but he didn’t really know who I was and was a little suspicious. Later on he told me that his father had been married a least a couple of times before he met their mother, and they didn’t know who the previous wives were. When Rey died, his sons found the scrapbook containing pictures of this young Chinese woman. So he thought I might be a long-lost half-sister. He was suspicious on a couple of levels. I assured him that I wasn’t related to Li Ling-Ai. Over time they all warmed to me. My movie couldn’t have been made without the cooperation of the Scott family. One great thing was that before I met her, Michelle Scott, Rey’s granddaughter who is an artist living in Atlanta, found photographs that he took and she was working on a multimedia art series based on his China photographs. She was desperate to know more about her grandfather and I was desperate to know more about Li Ling-Ai, so we sort of pooled forces and she went around collecting photographs to show me and I’d share what I found with her. Some of her art works incorporate photographs that I found in Li Ling-Ai’s family collection.</div>
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DP: Did the Scott family know who she was other than she was listed as Technical Adviser in the film’s credits?</div>
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RL: Not really. They had read a little about her in the scrapbooks but didn’t know her background.</div>
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DP: So there was no suspicion that Rey and Li Ling-Ai had secretly married or had a romantic relationship?</div>
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RL: The oldest brother said he remembers some gossip from his mother’s family that his father had been involved with a Chinese woman who lived in New York. That’s about it.</div>
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DP: During your exhaustive research over the years, you hoped to learn more and more about her, so was it frustrating that she didn’t write enough about herself in her book about her parents?</div>
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RL: It was. I became interested in her at the very beginning of the book when I read that she had worked on a film. So I kept reading hoping to find more information about her but it doesn’t include much about her as an adult. You get an idea of what it was like her to grow up in Hawaii with physicians as parents, but there is only one paragraph in the book that describes her experiences as an adult. In that paragraph I learned that she sent Rey Scott to China to film and record the story called <em>Kukan</em>.</div>
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DP: Have you decided whether she went to China herself with him?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
RL: I can’t say definitively. It is a little bit of a spoiler because my search for whether she went is part of the movie’s mystery.</div>
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DP: It’s still a mystery whatever you say because…</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
RL: …I didn’t find any evidence that she accompanied him—but that’s not saying she didn’t go.</div>
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DP: Do you think of <em>Kukan</em> as a propaganda film? There is the striking footage of Chongqing during bombings, but some bits looks a bit staged, like the soldiers marching. I’m not saying propaganda is bad. All the war documentaries the U.S. made were propaganda.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
RL: The scene with Chiang Kai-Shek and his wife was probably set up. Rey might have said, “Can you sit there? Can you do something natural?” But mostly Rey shot verité footage. It is arguable but I believe every documentary has a slant. They are all being made by human filmmakers so I don’t think any documentary is truly objective. In the editing room, filmmakers decide what they want to include and leave out. So I’ll say <em>Kukan</em> might be propaganda in the “China-is-great” sense. It definitely had a slant. Li Ling-Ai had a mission to show Americans the true China and show the people in a positive light, saying that they weren’t lying down in defeat to the Japanese and could stand on their own and become a democratic nation if they got help from another country. So it was very much on the Nationalist side led by Chiang Kai-Shek, rather than the communist side—although the Chinese army the narrator praises for doing great things was communist led.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: According to your movie, Li Ling-Ai worked for and was the poster child for United China Relief. My guess is that you admire her as much for being a political activist as a pioneer filmmaker.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
RL: You can see her as a flamboyant woman who loved the spotlight. That was true. But she always used that attention to benefit her cause. She was always about promoting China and Chinese Americans. She went on to teach Chinese cooking. She drove her own car across the country to give lectures about China. She had a mission. Having been raised in Hawaii, I think I would be classified as a pacifist, politically apathetic type. But she has inspired me to be more of an activist, especially in supporting women in film. I think her film and meeting survivors of the war in China has taught me to be more of a peace activist and get the message across about the dangers of going to war and how citizens are the ones who suffer when governments go to war.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: It was striking in your film when Li Ling-Ai’s nephew Andrew, who now lives in China, remembers the Japanese bombing Chinese cities and how “flesh was hanging on telephone poles and wires” and there was the “smell of blood.”</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
RL: Andrew is the son of Li Ling-Ai’s sister Betty Li, and interviewing him was difficult. His daughters told me that he never talked about the war to them. I had already spoken a lot to him on Skype, but there was a lot of joking then and on camera was the first time he opened up to me about experiences he had during the war. So it kind of shocked me to know that this jolly, positive-thinking man had witnessed all of that as a young boy.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: In the film, we see you present <em>Kukan </em>in China and they are so grateful to have for the first time a vision of the bombing of Chongqing that’s not from the perspective of Japanese pilots. So has the full movie been restored?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
RL: We have the full film on VHS. But the only good quality footage in 16mm is the 30 minutes at the National Archives.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: What is the importance of people seeing <em>Finding Kukan</em>? Is it to present a woman who was lost in history?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
RL: I think so, but I think my film and its importance have many layers. We had to focus this film on one person, Li Ling-Ai. The story of <em>Kukan </em>and Rey Scott would live because the Academy Award was attached to it, but I really felt that if I didn’t make this film, her story was going to be lost. That’s the number one thing in my film that I want audiences to know about–but there are much larger themes.</div>
</div>
Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1319176888853317009.post-37824047767693277102017-03-22T12:22:00.000-07:002017-03-22T12:22:10.609-07:00“National Bird,” Sonia Kennebeck’s Revelatory Exposé Flies HighPlaying in Theaters<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">“National Bird,” Sonia Kennebeck’s Revelatory Exposé Flies High</span><br />
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(from Sag Harbor Express Online 11/13/16)<br />
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<img alt="Afghan victims of a U.S. drone strike." class="size-large wp-image-57373" height="683" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" src="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nationalbirdvictims-1024x683.jpeg" srcset="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nationalbirdvictims-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nationalbirdvictims-300x200.jpeg 300w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nationalbirdvictims-768x512.jpeg 768w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nationalbirdvictims-180x120.jpeg 180w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nationalbirdvictims-360x240.jpeg 360w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nationalbirdvictims-790x527.jpeg 790w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nationalbirdvictims-1095x730.jpeg 1095w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nationalbirdvictims-150x100.jpeg 150w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nationalbirdvictims-500x333.jpeg 500w" style="border: none !important; height: auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: middle;" width="1024" /><div style="line-height: 18px;">
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Afghan victims of a U.S. drone strike.</div>
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<strong>By Danny Peary</strong></div>
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<img alt="nationalbirdposter" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-57376" height="300" sizes="(max-width: 212px) 100vw, 212px" src="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/NationalBirdposter-212x300.jpeg" srcset="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/NationalBirdposter-212x300.jpeg 212w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/NationalBirdposter-180x254.jpeg 180w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/NationalBirdposter-360x509.jpeg 360w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/NationalBirdposter-150x212.jpeg 150w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/NationalBirdposter-354x500.jpeg 354w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/NationalBirdposter.jpeg 566w" style="border: 0px; float: left; height: auto; margin: 10px 15px 15px 0px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" width="212" /></div>
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<em>National Bird </em>fits my category Movies That Should Play in Sag Harbor. Meanwhile, Sonia Kennebeck’s enlightening documentary about drone warfare whistleblowers premiered at the Cinema Village (12<span style="font-size: 9px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">th</span> Street off University) in Manhattan since Veterans Day and will expand this coming Friday, the 18<span style="font-size: 9px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">th</span>, to theaters in Los Angeles, San Francisco, the D.C. area, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, and other cities nationwide. Don’t miss it! If you are displeased with how our beloved out-going president monitored our controversial drone program, then I’m sure you’ll be even more concerned when a trigger-happy neophyte takes office January 20. The worry is not only about the collateral damage our strikes do overseas in the war against terrorism but also, as this film emphasizes, the mental anguish suffered by our military at home who are responsible for those long-distance strikes. Executive produced by Wim Wenders and Errol Morris, <em>National Bird</em> introduces us to three whistleblowers who once had top-secret clearance: Heather, a former Drone Imagery Analyst who was recruited by the Air Force when she was eighteen and participated in her first deadly drone strike when she was just twenty; Daniel, who was homeless when enlisted by the Airforce and became a Signals Intelligence Analyst who tracked down high-value targets for drone attacks in Afghanistan; and Lisa, a former Technical Sergeant on Drone Surveillance System whose computer skills led to her working on the Distributed Ground System (DGS), a weapons system that makes use of drones to collect vast amounts of data and track down targets. Today, all three suffer guilt, anxiety, and paranoia that the government will come after them for telling the public what they know. Please watch the trailer: <a href="https://www.google.com/#q=national+bird+trailer" style="color: #0088cc; text-decoration: none;">https://www.google.com/#q=national+bird+trailer</a> Kennebeck’s powerful documentary was well-received at the Tribeca Film Festival in April. That’s when I had the opportunity to speak to the talented and deeply committed director.</div>
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<img alt="Sonia Kennebeck" class="size-medium wp-image-57374" height="225" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" src="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nationalbirdsonia-300x225.jpeg" srcset="http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nationalbirdsonia-300x225.jpeg 300w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nationalbirdsonia-180x135.jpeg 180w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nationalbirdsonia-150x113.jpeg 150w, http://sagharborexpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nationalbirdsonia.jpeg 320w" style="border: none !important; height: auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: middle;" width="300" /><div style="line-height: 18px;">
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Sonia Kennebeck</div>
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Danny Peary: <em>National Bird</em> is certainly timely.</div>
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Sonia Kennebeck: I didn’t expect that there would be so much reporting about drones now. People are calling it a zeitgeist thing.</div>
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DP: You’re the rare American filmmaker from Malaysia.</div>
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SK: My mother is Malay-Chinese and my father is German. He grew up on a dairy farm in Germany and came to Malaysia as a foreign aid worker. My parents met and married in Malaysia and I was born there. My mother is one of 15 children, so I still have a lot of family in Malaysia. I came to Washington, D.C. on a one-year scholarship for undergrad studies and arrived just before 9/11. I have friends who survived the attacks in New York. After my scholarship year, I decided to stay in D.C. and pursue a Master’s degree in International Politics to understand more about terrorism and the wars that followed.</div>
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DP: I assume your father influenced you in terms of devoting your career to human rights issues.</div>
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SK: Very much so. I’ve been in investigative journalism for pretty much my whole career. The number of women, and particularly women of color, in this field is very low. There’s a fantastic organization founded by Stanley Nelson called Firelight Media, and it supports filmmakers of color. I’m a fellow and two other fellows have films here at Tribeca, one is Deborah Esquenazi, the director of <em>Southwest of Salem</em>, and the other is Cecilia Aldarondo, the director of <em>Memories of a Penitent Heart.</em> It’s a great support community. We meet often. Having experienced subtle racism and discrimination and people remarking about our ethnicity and where we’re from, there’s this personal connection we have to human rights and social issue stories. It’s so imperative to make films about our community because we have access. There’s no barrier, so I think it’s really important to support filmmakers from diverse communities.</div>
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DP: When did you start considering yourself a filmmaker?</div>
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SK: I earned my Master’s at American University in International Affairs, and International Politics was my concentration. I didn’t go to film school. Actually no one on my <em>National Bird </em>team went to film school. I worked full time while studying full time. I wouldn’t recommend that to anyone, but I had to pay for school. I actually worked as a freelance producer for ARD German public television in D.C.–and later for CNN in New York. I covered a lot of military stories on subjects such as PTSD, deserters, torture at Abu Ghraib; I interviewed Ethan McCord and did a story about Chelsea Manning and the <em>CollateralMurder</em> video. I started very early, over ten years ago, working with veterans and traumatized veterans. That’s how I made my contacts within the veterans’ community.</div>
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DP: Why did you decide to make a film about drones as your first <em>feature</em>?</div>
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SK: I come from television, so I’ve done shorter documentaries, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 60 minutes. I like the short-form documentary but I understood from the beginning that this subject matter is too large for a short. My goal when I set out was not to speak to experts or pundits but to speak to people who were directly impacted–people from within the military and people in targeted countries—and that is a big project in itself.</div>
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DP: When did the drone program actually start? Under Obama?</div>
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SK: It started, I believe, in the fall of 2001 or early 2002. There was an article in <em>The Atlantic</em> that covered the first drone strike. The first <em>reported</em> one at least. While Obama is certainly the president who has increased the use of combat drones, it goes way back. Now the government announced that they want to increase the drone program by fifty percent. It’s definitely going to be the weapon of the future, as well.</div>
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DP: You mentioned the secrecy around the drone program. We know it exists but not much more about it other than what we see on the news following a strike of consequence. Is what we do not know about drones the result of our government or military suppressing information? Or is it just that we’re naive about it because we’re too lazy to read about it?</div>
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SK: When I started the film three years ago, there was incredibly little information out. It was <em>deliberately</em> secret. As of three years ago, there had been only one single whistleblower who was speaking out. It has really progressed. And every time some whistleblower or some article comes out and brings out information, even if it’s quoting anonymous sources, there seems to be a pattern of the government reacting and releasing more information. The issue of drones is so strong now. And after <em>The Guardian</em> article at the end of 2013, the responses have been overwhelming. People are interested in PTSD in the drone program and want to encourage veterans to get help. The public wants to know what is being done.</div>
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DP: What would a whistleblower reveal?</div>
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SK: Inaccuracy is the main thing. That’s why the three protagonists in my film are speaking out. I’m so immersed in the issue that I assume that people know what drones are but in the feedback I got after screenings, I find that people are stunned by what’s in the film. Some told me they didn’t even know what drones are and others didn’t really understand how they work.</div>
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DP: People also don’t know that a drone strike in the Middle East or Asia can be initiated by pilots in Arizona.</div>
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SK: Or New Mexico or Nevada. They think everything takes place overseas. When I started my first conversations, even with broadcasters, three years ago, I didn’t realize that the general public, because the program is so secret, doesn’t know a lot about the drone program. I knew I’d have to explain a lot and it would have to have an educational component. I see the first part of the film as being educational and bringing transparency to the program. One of my favorite films is <em>Apocalypse Now</em>, which is set during the Vietnam War, and the connection I wanted to draw is that the type of warfare there is and technology used have changed but the moral and psychological injuries are the same.</div>
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DP: Was it your plan to make a movie with three whistleblowers?</div>
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SK: When I started the project, I wasn’t sure if it should be about drones or veteran suicide and these two issues kind of intersected for me. It wasn’t my plan to have three whistleblowers, but I was looking for people on the inside. I wanted a human story that the general audience could relate to.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: Jesselyn Radack is featured prominently in your film. As you say in your press notes, she’s the most prominent attorney for whistleblowers, the person who represented Edward Snowden, so I guessed she gave you access to Heather, Lisa, and Daniel.</div>
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SK: No. I met Heather first. A lot of people assume that I found Heather after she wrote the drone article in <em>The Guardian</em> that we talk about in the film, but I met her about three quarters of a year before it was published, when I was doing research. I always point out that I’m an investigative journalist because the research is the hardest part for a film like this. I was reading everything from articles that were out to congressional reports and declassified military investigations. I also was talking to activists and veterans I knew and was surfing on their websites. I came across a photograph of a woman holding up a sheet of paper that said something along the lines of “Not everything you hear about the drone program is true. I know what I’m talking about.” All you could see were her eyes because the rest of her face was covered. It was posted by an activist and he said he didn’t know who the woman was. I was really curious if the person holding up this sign was the same person who wrote that quote. Eventually I saw a Facebook photo of Heather and I recognized her eyes. So I contacted her and asked, “Is this you in this photo? Do you actually know about drones or were you just holding that up for someone else?” She said, “Yes, that’s me. I worked in a drone program.” I said, “Can we meet?”</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: And she trusted you over the phone? She seemed pretty suspicious.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: They all are. All three of my protagonists had top secret clearance and were told over and over again that they couldn’t reveal classified information–which they don’t do in the film. But there is an inherent fear in the program that you can’t even talk about material that isn’t classified, or tell anyone if something is bothering you. I met Heather and she said that she lost three fellow airmen to suicide. Later, when <em>The Guardian</em> article happened, I put her in touch with Jesselyn. The same with the other two.</div>
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DP: So you actually put all three of them in touch with Jesselyn, not the other way around?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: Yes. I have my own legal counsel for the project, an entertainment lawyer who specializes in First Amendment rights, but I wanted my protagonists to have their own legal representation.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: Did you know you’d have financial backing when you met Heather? That you were going to be able to make a movie?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: I started and self-funded, which has been difficult because I’m from a working-class background. In my immediate and extended family, I’m the only one in a creative profession. So I had to use my retirement savings. I told my idea to my Director of Photography, Torsten Lapp, with whom I’d worked for over ten years, and he thought it was really important. I wanted us to start filming with Heather as soon as possible because she had just left the military and I knew it was important to capture her <em>then</em>. The timing in the film is completely accurate. So the day she’s writing the article we filmed her and we filmed her the day it was published, when she goes to the bookstore and is crying and doubting herself. The timeline is real. I really think that in the film you see that she experiences a really strong change and progression and also a healing.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: You see it right at the end. Until then, she has been increasingly paranoid and all of a sudden someone who could dismiss her is instead kind and helpful to her. It’s great for her that someone understands what she is going through, that there are people who were in the drone program who are suffering from tremendous guilt and are even suicidal.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: That meant a lot. I think it’s going to be really encouraging for people in similar situations to her. She’s been contacted by fellow airmen and other veterans who have said they’re going through the same thing. We really hope that this film will encourage people to get help because people from the program are committing suicide. That’s the reason Heather participated in my movie.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: Do they commit suicide at a higher rate than people who have been in combat?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: I wish there were more numbers. I think the military should do studies on that because it’s important to know in order to help. People in combat go through tremendous trauma and have horrible psychological injuries. No one is saying that people in the drone program suffer more than those in combat, but my three protagonists say they can have PTSD as well, even if in a different way.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: Heather is a young, attractive woman, who you wouldn’t necessarily picture as someone in the drone program, but someone enjoying life. You wouldn’t expect Lisa and Daniel to be prime candidates either. Daniel in fact is a wild card.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: I noticed that they only recruit very smart people. Heather was recruited at eighteen and flew her first mission at twenty. She’s mature beyond her age because she’s had these experiences. She’s very reflective and I think she has in a way matured so quickly because she was in this position where she had to make this call. It was important to me to have her in the film. In movies you see military guys but many women are imagery analysts because that job requires you to pay attention to detail and be a very good multitasker. Heather was very good at her job. To make the call that a person on the ground is a terrorist and not a civilian and leads to their deaths carries so much responsibility, especially for a person who’s eighteen to twenty five. That’s what Heather struggles with–the doubt. You’re not informed who you killed or how many people you killed, or if you killed civilians or not. You live with this constant doubt and these images in your head.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: Lisa talks about thinking she’d be on the right side of his history when she was recruited. She became disappointed in her own country.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: Heather says something similar. She wanted to serve her country, which she thought would be like a big brother and help everyone out. All three went in with that kind of idealism. They were all patriots who wanted to do something good for their country. Terrorism is a real problem and they wanted to fight it. A reason I wanted to do this film is I was curious about how someone who wanted to go into this program would be so changed by it that they feel a need now to speak against it. What did they experience that made them change so much? Something on the inside doesn’t match up with the advertising of it.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: These three people you got to know really well were recruited and had all these high hopes of doing good at the time. Could you have connected with them at that point, before they had evolved into whistleblowers? Would they have been comfortable talking with you?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: I think I could have connected with them. I spent a lot of time with all three of them. It took a long time to build up trust just because the program is so secretive. This is not a good time for whistleblowers. I’ve been asked by a lot of investigative journalists, “How did you do that?” It’s been hard for even print journalists to interview whistleblowers. We took our time and the trust was from both sides. They had to trust me with their stories and I had to know they were serious about it. It’s a big investment to do a film and follow a person.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: For some films, directors will interview five people and get rid of two. You took a chance that Heather, Lisa, and Daniel would come through for you.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: Interviews bring up so much emotion and traumatize people and it’s often unexpected. I ask questions that family members may not even ask. And Torsten Lapp is very experienced shooting stories about trauma as well. Torsten’s main work has been on documentaries with traumatized people and he’s just so respectful and so sensitive. When I do an interview like that, I make sure the people that I interview have a support network and that they’re not by themselves after that.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: You make them feel comfortable and safe.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: That’s why it was important to me that they had their own lawyers. This was a do-not-publicize project.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: Did anyone in the government ever approach you?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: They never approached me. What I think they did was worse. They intimidated my protagonists.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: Because of the movie?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: We don’t know. That’s the thing about these espionage investigations. You don’t know. We don’t know if the investigation is still going on.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: Were Heather and Lisa worried about being tried under the Espionage Act as much as Daniel was?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: I think all of them were insecure and kind of concerned about backlash.</div>
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DP: Daniel in particular seems concerned about people coming after him.</div>
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SK: Heather as well. She and another whistleblower were approached by the Office for Special Investigations of the Air Force and the FBI as well. They contacted two of Jesselyn’s clients. At first they were told they were on some terrorist kill list and when Jesselyn contacted the OSI and the FBI and said, “What type of kill list?” They were told, “It’s not really a kill list. They’ve been showing up in some internet searches.” They were intimidating them, but Jesselyn knows who to ask and what questions to ask. Eventually they said that there was no threat, and Jesselyn came to the conclusion that this was a ruse to silence the whistleblowers. But it really scared people. It’s obvious they were intimidating Heather. It seemed to us that they were trying to interfere with the film.</div>
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DP: But you were never approached yourself?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: No. My lawyer said I should expect that, but they are more careful about approaching journalists. I have contacts. I know exactly who to call. I think I’m safe, but I’ve never been concerned about my safety. My main concern was about my protagonists. You can see in the film, for instance, that Lisa is a very private person so I wanted to make sure she could just live her life without fear of reprisals. That’s why I didn’t use the last names of the three protagonists in the credits, although of course Heather’s name is out there because she wrote the op-ed. I am so grateful that Wim Wenders and Errol Morris agreed to be executive producers after I showed them the film because their names give the film more legitimacy and that adds protection to my protagonists.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: Is Obama the villain of the film?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: Is that the impression you get?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: He’s kind of the face of the drone program.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: It is, in a way, his legacy. But I would never describe him as a villain. I don’t think a documentary should have a villain. We are recording history here. I’ve worked on a lot on controversial issues and I’ve seen that it’s never black and white. Reality is full of shades of gray.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: Why do you think Obama has been so in favor of drones?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: As Daniel says in the film, it’s such an easy type of warfare. By putting ground troops into a war, you get a lot more resistance from the public than by having people sit in complete safety somewhere in Nevada and fight a war overseas. At our Q&As, Lisa has been pointing out–and I think she’s quoting General Hayden [the former Director of the National Security Agency]–that you don’t lose political capital because you’re not putting your own forces in physical harm’s way in another country. The reason I included parts of Obama’s National Defense University drone speech is that I thought it was important to allow him to explain why he’s using drones and to really show his point of view. He does explain that they go after imminent threats and not to punish individuals.</div>
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DP: But, in the film, you don’t include people in the drone program who don’t see issues with it. I’m fine with that: if you don’t think there is merit to the opinion of the other side, maybe you shouldn’t include it.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: I don’t see it as the other side. For me as a journalist, it’s important to present all sides. I told my protagonists from the beginning, “I’m not an activist. I’m a journalist. I’m not putting my own voice in because I don’t want to tell the audience what to think.” I wanted to make a film that explains, educates, and brings transparency to the drone program and I want people to come out discussing it. The protagonists, like Daniel, say in the film that some people in the anti-drone community get it wrong. General McChrystal isn’t necessarily a proponent of drones but says they’re not moral or immoral, but they’re here to stay and need to be explained. They have been doing good stuff as well with drones–like search and rescue missions. I think it’s multi-layered. In the Air Force commercial we show there is a very clear celebration of the drone program and then we have Obama with his speeches explaining why he’s using drones. So, I wanted to show that there has been this public narrative, but the people we haven’t been hearing from are from the inside, the people who have worked in the program. My goal was to give them a voice. I think we are raising a lot of issues that have not been discussed yet, like the PTSD and need for help.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: To make it clear: Obama is not being mislead and knows exactly what’s happening in terms of collateral damage?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: That’s an interesting question. There’s a point in the film where Heather asks, “Do politicians know what’s going on in their own war?” My protagonists have wondered if all the information was really passed on to them, and whether the higher-ups really were fully aware of what was going on, especially after the politicians spoke. I think that transparency in this type of war is important. Why does this program have to be so secret? To me it doesn’t make any sense.</div>
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DP: I do like Obama except for two policies that seem anathema to how he comes across: his deporting so many undocumented immigrants and his drone policy. My gripe is that Obama wouldn’t order a drone strike inside America. If some terrorist runs into a building in America, there won’t be a drone attack that destroys that building just to kill him because many American civilians would be collateral damage. So, it’s demeaning to Afghans and Iraqis, whose citizens are allowed to be killed. That’s the hypocrisy of the program. We care to a certain degree about the loss of lives, but drone strikes are acceptable because no Americans are being killed. If you can’t do it here, you shouldn’t be able to do it there.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: I’ve actually never thought about it this way. Heather talks about how when you drop a bomb on a building, how do you really know who’s inside? In many of these countries, women don’t even leave the house. You may hover over a house for days and you may not see a woman leave the house but that doesn’t mean there is no one inside–because in some more conservative families, the women may not leave the house for days. So how do you really know who you’re killing and how many people you’re killing? Lisa’s soundbite is so good when she says, “Do we go down and ask [a potential target] for a driver’s license?” They’ve announced they’ve killed the person they’ve been looking for multiple times. How do you kill someone multiple times? That means the people killed were not the targeted people. There seems to be a lack of information and certainty.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: I read an article that says the Air Force contends that fewer than seventeen percent of drone pilots express cynicism about people having bad mental health after being in the program. And seventy percent of them had been in combat prior to becoming drone operators.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: If it’s around seventeen percent, I’d say that’s actually a very high number. Jesselyn says that the official statistics can’t be trusted. We have definitely seen in the past that the government has released numbers that have turned out to be false or underestimated. For instance, for a very long time the government claimed civilian casualties were in the single digits or low double digits, but now they’ve changed that.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: Is the military going to increase the drone program by fifty percent because it successful or because it hasn’t been successful?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: I would think that based on what you can read from politicians statements, that they do consider it a success, and that’s why they are expanding it. I think the question has been raised, especially by my protagonists, “are you really fighting terrorism if you have so much collateral damage?” There really is a lot of collateral damage. When I went to Afghanistan and I was researching strikes, it was not hard to find survivors. There are many strikes that go wrong and whole civilian families are being killed, so there are people who want to talk. I actually could have interviewed the survivors of five other, more recent strikes but I decided not to put them through the pain of talking about their trauma and not end up using it. I focused on this one strike because I had the transcript of the military investigation and the medical records. This strike is well documented. It’s hard to prove that people are who they say they are. How do you get paperwork in a war zone? In this case, I have medical records–anonymous of course but I can see by the age and the description of the person, who my interviewees are and the injuries they had. I wanted to make sure there was no room for criticism.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: That part of the film is uncomfortable to watch. How was it for you to film that?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: Difficult. Torsten had been to Afghanistan twice before, but it was my first time. Torsten did tremendous work in Afghanistan because the circumstances of filming were very, very hard. We went during the summer last year and there was one of the largest coordinated Taliban attacks in Kabul very close to us. It was over a hundred degrees. We couldn’t drink any water. And it was Ramadan. Getting to know the victims and survivors really impacted us. We spent time with them and learned about their backgrounds, their hopes and dreams prior to the attack, their situations now. The woman who is in the film with her children lost her husband, and not having a husband in rural Afghanistan means you can’t go out and work to provide for your family. At least not in the rural area where she lives. So she’s homeless with her family and goes between her father’s house and her sister’s house. Also, in a place like that, to lose a limb means so much more than in our society. It’s not only about surviving the strike.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: I bet you were struck by the line, “God took her from us.” It wasn’t, “America took her from us.”</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: Oh, yeah. It still does every time I watch it. It just shows how devoted and religious the people are. It also shows that they are so forgiving and so accepting. What was very touching for all of us–and Lisa as well–was that there was no hate or anger whatsoever. The sound bites that I use say, “This has happened to us but all we want is that you stop. It shouldn’t happen to other civilians.” There’s no hate or anger but a plea for peace. That’s not what some people would expect.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: Did you make up the dialogue between the drone operatives during the screwed-up operation you include in the film that killed many innocent people, or was it real?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: That was real. This particular strike, on February 21, 2010, was investigated by the military. General McChrystal ordered an investigation. A few years later, the ACLU and the <em>Los Angeles Times</em> did a Freedom of Information Act request and the whole file was released. It’s around two thousand pages long, and while some parts are redacted, there is still a lot of information, for example interviews with the responsible military personnel, with the victims, their medical records, and an eighty-page transcript of the drone crew radio traffic. That, to my knowledge, was the first and only time such a transcript has been released. I went through it and picked out essential parts and had actors read them verbatim. They are completely representative, taken from hours and hours of surveillance when the crew was completely trigger happy. In an interview with an officer, he said they had a <em>Top Gun</em> mentality and you can read that throughout the transcript. Some of the quotes I couldn’t use because they used unfamiliar military words and acronyms. One of them is SQUIRTERS, which means people running away when you have a hit. So they say many times, “I hope we at least get one of the SQUIRTERS.” To think they want to hunt down and kill someone who’s fleeing is very disturbing.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: The imagery we see on the screen is little dots moving around. The drone operatives have no way of determining the identities of those people.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: That whole scene is a reenactment based on the transcript and the investigation file that includes photographs, screenshots of the real drone footage, maps, and descriptions of the incident by operatives and survivors. We went through the whole file and recreated that and tried to bring clarity in a way that matches other aerial surveillance footage that we found, of which my protagonists have told me, “That’s what it looks like.” When you see <em>Eye in the Sky</em>, <em>The Bourne Identity</em>, or <em>Homeland</em>, the footage of people and activity on the ground are always so crystal clear, but my protagonists and all the drone whistleblowers I’ve spoken to all say that’s not how it looks. There seems to be a reduction of quality with bandwidth because there are so many drones in the sky.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
In the film, we have these surveillance videos that are framed by a black frame. We’re actually watching Heather and her family from the outside and it has a natural black frame because it’s dark outside and we are looking inside through a window. We scaled all the aerials to that one window. We are watching Heather while she is watching other people. Here’s the thing about civilians and voyeurism. Drones are not only about killing. There’s a whole system of collecting data. People see the unmanned plane but what about all this information that’s being sucked up and used? What about this intrusion on privacy? We are being watched.</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
DP: Have you had a good reaction to <em>National Bird </em>at the Tribeca Film Festival?</div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">
SK: Very much so. Heather is in school taking exams, but Lisa has been doing all the Q&A’s with me and she says it has been really amazing because a lot of people have been walking up to her and thanking her. Especially people who come from regions that have experienced our drone strikes. They have been thanking us for showing both sides. I asked Lisa yesterday, “Have you heard anything negative?” And she said, “Nothing.” People are definitely ready for this movie.</div>
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*** Premiering at Doc NYC on Tuesday November 15 at 5:30 at Cinepolis Chelsea at 260 West 23rd Street near 8<span style="font-size: 9px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">th</span> Avenue is Robin Lung’s illuminating “Finding Kukan.” It’s about a fascinating Chinese-American, Ling Ling-Li, a lost-in-history filmmaker who was the uncredited driving force behind the first documentary to win an Academy Award. Watch for my interview with the director who is determined to give the long-lost picture and this pioneer female filmmaker and political activist their due.</div>
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I want to remind you that Paul Verhoeven’s “Elle” is playing at the Lincoln Plaza and Angelika in Manhattan. My interview with star Isabelle Huppert: http://sagharborexpress.com/isabelle-huppert-latest-twisted-heroine-elle/</div>
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Danny Pearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13567290996135425654noreply@blogger.com1