Liraz Liberti in “Beaufort” by Joseph Cedar
Winner of 4 Israeli Oscars, the Silver Berlin Bear for Best Director, and a highlight of both the Palm Springs International and The 17th Annual New York Jewish Film Festivals, Joseph Cedar’s Beaufort is a powerful, trenchant, beautifully shot war drama about the supposed last days of Israel’s presence in Lebanon.
The year is 2000, and after 18 demoralizing years, the only Israeli soldiers left in Lebanon are holed up in a mountain outpost called Beaufort. Finally, word has come that these young men are to return home, but in how many days or hours? And will anyone still have to die?
Cedar has noted: “What intrigued me most in the story of Beaufort is that it deals with how wars end. There is an abrupt, definitive moment in every war when the mission, or purpose, for which soldiers gave their lives until that moment, ceases to exist. With Beaufort this moment comes with a great horrific explosion, destroying one of the bloodiest mountains in the Middle East – an unforgettable, adrenaline-saturated moment, but also an image that crystallizes the inconceivable waste of human life.”
The following interview took place earlier this month at The Palm Springs Film Festival.
BJ: Your film is an antiwar film with numerous major awards under its belt. Do you hope Beaufort will break big in New York? Is that the dream?
JC: I think what’s nice about Kino [the American distributor] is that it’s a realistic and solid company. The folks there know whom they are. They pick films that they think they can distribute in an intelligent way–and breaking big is not necessarily their goal. It’s more allowing a film to meet its potential, even if that potential isn’t that big. It’s still knowing how to reach that sort of potential.
BJ: So what will its distribution be like?
JC: It’s opening in a few countries in the next couple of months, but hasn’t opened in any other country yet.
BJ: Were any international buyers sort of nervous about taking it? When you think about an Israeli film about the war in Lebanon, you might have second thoughts.
JC: The truth is I don’t know. It was sold to about 15 territories, and I guess they must think it has an audience; otherwise, they wouldn’t have bought it. But I don’t know what they’re thinking.
BJ: In Israel it broke all records?
JC: It did very well in Israel.
BJ: When I was spoke to [director] Eytan Fox, he noted that his The Bubble opened just as the recent war in Lebanon began, and that audiences weren’t ready for a pacifist film. Do you consider Beaufort a pacifist film or just a realistic rendering of what occurred?
JC: It’s hard to say. I think most people see in the film what they want to see in it. Any war film with integrity is going to be an antiwar film, but this one is not only antiwar, it’s anti-heroism. The hero in the film is a hero because he acknowledges his fears, not because he overcomes his fears. And that’s something that some Israelis understood in the film and liked it for that reason. And others either didn’t get that aspect or got it and didn’t like it for that reason. But people still went to see it because they were curious to know what all the fuss was about.
BJ: Now you did something that Hitchcock did in Psycho. You took a big star and then you killed him off. Was the audience shocked? What’s his name again?
JC: Ohad Knoller. He’s the lead in The Bubble. And in Yossi and Jagger.
BJ: Those familiar with his past roles, as most Israelis must be, were probably shocked at his death.
JC: But again, only for Israeli audiences, who assume when they see his face that he’ll stay at least for the first hour and a half of the film. It wasn’t a conscious decision. I cast him because he was the best actor for that role. But after we started screening the film, I understood that that was what was happening to Israeli audiences. That they were very surprised that he dies.
BJ: It makes his death for some reason more devastating.
JC: Yeah, it’s not only that he’s a star in Israel; he’s also a very sympathetic character. He’s someone that you like almost automatically. It’s kind of economical for me. It allows me to involve an audience in this person’s life without a lot of screen time.
BJ: Moving on, this is sort of the Kosher Golden Age of Movies. I mean for Israel.
JC: I’m not sure if my rabbi would call all the films coming out of Israel kosher.
BJ: You know, in America, everything Jewish is kosher.
JC: Yeah, it’s kosher like the Second Avenue Deli was kosher. Kosher-style. Not necessarily kosher-kosher.
BJ: You’re considered one of the golden boys of this new movement. Is there a reason that it is happening? Like for a while there were all these great films coming from Iran and South Korea. I’ve had Israelis tell me that they would not go see Israeli films until recently.
JC: The fact is there have been some really successful and great Israeli films in the last couple of years, but it is very hard to find a common thread that links these films. So it might just be a coincidence. I’m not sure it’s a movement in the sense that there’s something that you can define that links them all. I’m not sure there’s a New Wave in Israeli film.
If you take the films that came out of Israel this last year, they’re all very different from each other, but they have happened to do well. It might be a coincidence. It might be the beginning of something even better–or it might be the peak, and from here on it’s downhill. I don’t know.
BJ: How did Beaufort evolve?
JC: It started out as a newspaper article. And that turned into a book. And then came the movie. And then came a documentary. And altogether it turned into this big conglomerate around Beaufort.
BJ: Were you a soldier? Did you serve?
JC: I spent most of my army service in Lebanon between ’86 and ’89.
BJ: You seem so innocent. I can’t see you with a gun.
JC: Neither can I. (Laughs) It must have been someone else over there with a helmet and a gun.
BJ: With a film like Beaufort and the acclaim you’ve received, you have now moved into the pantheon of upcoming world directors to watch.
JC: Really! You think so?
BJ: Yes. Does this mean people are throwing projects at you? Will it be easier for you to get money for your next film?
JC: I think the sincere answer to that question is that . . . the opposite. It’s just makes it more difficult. Finding a project or writing a project that creates a commitment on my side–to spend a few years developing it and working on it– is difficult no matter what.
Doing that with expectations is even harder, and the more expectations you have, the more you feel you have something to lose, and that creates an anxiety that is not necessarily creative.
BJ: It would be much worse if you had directed a film no one had wanted to see.
JC: Right. Granted. Granted. It’s better dealing with high expectations than no expectations. It’s still extremely difficult to find a project that really creates that kind of commitment you really need, no matter what kinds of acclaim your previous films have gotten.
An Olympian Event–Ms. Dukakis Lets Loose on “Moonstruck” and More
by Brandon Judell
Olympia Dukakis, as you’ve never imagined her, was chatting away with fans in Manhattan’s Broadway Screening Room the other day: her straight blonde tresses hitting her shoulders, her dress slinky black, and her shoes opened-toed. The Oscar-winning actress was the very definition of svelte.
So how come the first image of Olympia to always appear in our heads is as Rose Castorini, Cher’s mom in “Moostruck” (1987)? And why isn’t she getting those slightly older siren parts? When I got her alone, I asked her that point blank.
“First of all,” Olympia purred forcefully, “everyone thinks I am older than I am because of what I look like mostly on the screen, and those are the parts
I get. So people ask, ‘Why do you take those parts?’ Why do I take those parts? They’re good parts. They pay me.”
As for that Oscar?
“To have your work acknowledged is always nice,” Olympia admits.”Interestingly enough, I didn’t feel that it was a reward for all my work. I actually . .. It was hard initially to understand its place in my life, and then it finally occurred to me that maybe good things happen for the same reason bad things
do. When something bad happens to you, you try to say what can I learn from this? What is this showing me about myself, my life, etc. ? I decided that I was
going to look at it that way and not think of it as a reward when there are a lot of actors who’ve done marvelous work for many years who haven’t got one.
I was lucky. A confluence of things happened, and I’m not taking away from the work that I did when the opportunity came. I did good work, but still there’s
a lot to be said for luck.”
And that good work in fine parts have often included pro-gay stances. She was the mother of a pre-op transsexual in Jeffrey (1995), and she herself became
everyone’s favorite post-op transsexual, Anna Madrigal, in the TV adaptations of “Tales of the City” (1993); “More Tales of the City” (1998); “Further Tales of the City” (2001); and next year she’s resuscitates the character yet again for “Babycakes”.
Olympia also raises money to combat AIDS with such organizations as Broadway Bares, and she’s always willing to speak out for gay rights.
“And I will continue to,” she avows. “Why? First of all I have a lot of friends that I’ve loved deeply and had wonderful times with, and a number of them
are gone. But I don’t know if that’s why . . .” she hesitates for a second. Regaining her momentum, she continues with: “I really care about people,
supporting people who are getting a lot of flack about being different. That really bothers me. I really feel that our intolerance of differences is a cancer here
in this country. Whether we can’t tolerate somebody’s skin, someone’s sexuality, someone’s religion, someone’s political point of view, that really troubles
me. So when I get an opportunity to do something about it, to lend my name to it or whatever, I do it.
“Listen! she adds. “I can’t say that it’s something I get up every day and think about. I don’t. Mostly I think about my work and my family. But I find
that on a very personal level, and on a political level, and a national or social or whatever-you-will level, this is one of the hardest things for us as a
country to dialogue about. The intolerance is staggering. Sometimes it’s really painful to observe and to hear about.”
Now in Thom Fitzgerald’s “The Event”, Olympia has given yet another pro-gay performance, one which is already eliciting an Oscar buzz according to the New York Times. As Lila, she plays a supportive New York mom whose gay son Matt (Don McKellar) has been living contentedly more or less with AIDS for over seven years. But when his drug cocktails stop working and his condition worsens, he decides to throw a suicide party for himself–and what a party it is!
Lila’s final bedroom scene with Matt is a five-hanky moment: honest, devastating and simultaneously uplifting. But this was a scene that was not unheard of
to Olympia before she read the screenplay.
“Oh, I knew people did that before the film,” Olympia admits. “In this particular part, it was really clear to me that this woman did not live with
contradictions about [helping him commit suicide]. It was real clear to her. She loved her son, and if this is what he wanted, that’s what he would do. She didn’t feel the need to demonstrate emotion; she just felt the need to do for her son. That’s what it seemed to me.
“You know the shoot was a difficult one,” Olympia continues. “This was the first film to shoot in lower Manhattan after 9/11. So people were fabulous.
People were very glad to see us.”
But what about the drag queens on the set? After playing Anna Madrigal for so long, did she offer them any hints?
“Oh, no! Are you kidding?” Olympia laughs. “Don’t you dare give them any advice. They know more about makeup and hair and creating beauty then I’ll ever
know. They’re amazing.”
As is Olympia, whose new book is entitled “Ask Me Again Tomorrow: A Life in Progress”. And since she was in such a good mood, she shared some items with us that were not in the text. For instance, “Moonstruck” is being made into a musical, and “by the way, Nicolas Cage didn’t have a happy time doing that film.”
But what about when she was in Lilith (1964), did she get it on with the lead? “No, I never had an affair with Warren Beatty,” she laughs. “My book is not
so much as a kiss and tell. It’s an effort to define myself.”
What about Richard Chamberlain when she guested on Dr. Kildare in 1962? “He didn’t make a pass at me, and I had no idea he was gay. It was my first
television show, and I was involved in doing it and trying to deal with that very mean man, Raymond Massey.”
As for fond memories of San Francisco? “Are you kidding?” she gushes. “I’m going back. I’m going back this spring to be in a play at ACT called The Mother. Gorki. It’s a remake of a play he wrote. I’m really excited.” So are we.
“Sophie Scholl: The Final Days” is the latest German film to connect with international audiences. Nominated for a Best-Foreign-Film-of-the-Year Oscar and winner of the Best Bavarian Film award, here is yet another of the recent slate of celluloid offerings contending that the individual can and should make a difference in a society where the enemy might be a Joseph McCarthy, a George W. Bush, a homophobic society, an occupation, misogyny, or the Nazis.
Sholl’s nemeses were the latter. During World War II, in Munich, she, her brother and their friends launched a secret organization, the White Rose, that distributed leaflets urging others to defy the fascist state Germany had become. On one such trek, at a university, Sophie and her brother were caught.
The film, as the title so clearly denotes, chronicles the tail-end of Sophie’s life, a young woman who, if you prescribe to the feature’s stand, valiantly stood up for justice, knowing all the time if she faltered in her convictions there would be a chance she could live.
The following is a brief chat with the film’s director Marc Rothemund and its star Julia Jentsch, which took place recently in New York.
BRANDON JUDELL: So everyone knows who Sophie Scholl is in Germany? This is, I believe, the third film on her. In America, she’s rather an unknown. But if she is famous in your country, when did that occur? During the war or decades after?
Sophie Scholl (Julia Jentsch) and her brother Hans (Fabian Hinrichs) stand trial.
MARC ROTHEMUND: It was decades after. Definitely. Because after the war, Germany was so destroyed. There were also other small resistance groups like the Red Chapel and Stauffenberg. It took until the sixties or seventies when [the public] really focused on all the resistance groups. [These squads were comprised of] more or less really quite normal, ordinary young people. Protestants. Catholics. They were young students, and what made them so famous was they were not military. Not political. Not religious resistance fighters. They were just standing [up and] fighting for human rights.
And in Germany, we have now 190 schools named after Sophie Scholl. The place in front of the original location where we shot the university [scenes] in the center of Munich is called Geschwister-Scholl-Platz. When the biggest German TV station asked its audience, “Who are the best Germans of all time?” Sophie Scholl was far ahead number one.
BJ: So what got the ball rolling for her? Was there a book published about Fraulein Scholl?
MR: For me, there was the motivation two-and-a-half years ago. That was the sixtieth death date of the members of the White Rose (her group). Yes, sixty years after the execution, there were some articles in the newspapers, and what I found out was that this young woman had spent four days in the Gestapo headquarters. I didn’t know it before because the other two movies are from ’81. Those directors didn’t have access to these documents that I found which had never been published before. Nobody knew about these documents. I was the first.
It was surprisingly easy to get these documents today [but it is surprising they existed at all]. Why? Because all the Gestapo headquarters destroyed their documents, but documents dealing with Sophie were sent from the Gestapo to the people’s court in Berlin so that the judge could prepare for the case. The Russians then conquered Berlin, and these papers were sent to Moscow. Eventually, the records were sent to East Berlin.
The East Berliner officials checked them out, reading about human rights . . . freedom of speech. Not very good for our communist system back then so they hid all these documents. In 1990, with the unification, all these documents went to the German archives, but the Germans were so busy with the East and West reuniting. It was such an emotional sensation when the Wall fell. The end of the Cold War. Officials were then interested in the Stasi documents of the secret police, of the East German police, that they were not curious enough about the documents of the World War. Now that means for 13 years these papers were lying somewhere in an archive, and I was the first who was interested in them.
If you read the previous works on her, she’s seen as a heroine, as a martyr. Everybody thought that Sophie and the other members of the White Rose were just arrested and then they got executed. No! Sophie spent 4 days in the Gestapo headquarters. You learn from the first page of the interrogation she’s lying. She’s fighting for her life. She’s lying. She says, “These are not my leaflets.” She’s not a heroine. She’s afraid of death. She’s fighting for her life like a normal young human being. She’s sitting opposite a Gestapo interrogation specialist, who believes her for 5 hours. Imagine this mental strength. It’s a matter of your life being at stake, and you lie.
Then she had to confess because her brother forgot he had a handwritten note of a friend on him. They arrested very fast the friend by comparing the handwriting. Then Sophie and her brother knew they had to confess because if they went on lying, they would put all the guilt on the others in White Rose. So they confessed their guilt. “It was only my brother and me,” and they then went on lying to save the lives of their friends.
We found a letter of Sophie’s cellmate that described her three nights in the cell. We found reports about the trial, about the execution. German execution reports. Just take a look at them and you get goose bumps.
And we found the last living sister of Sophie Scholl. She gave us an interview. We found the son of the Gestapo interrogation officer. We found other members of the White Rose. And I think maybe I’m the last director of a generation that can ask the eyewitnesses questions. They will die in a few years, and then there will be no more eyewitnesses of that time.
BJ: (Turning to Julia): Now that you’ve played a heroine, do you . . .
MR: No, Sophie’s not a heroine. That’s what we tried to show. That she’s a human being.
BJ: Well, yes. A special human being. Almost like Joan of Ark in a sense. Do people like you better since you’ve plated Sophie? Think you’re nicer. Are they mistaking you for Sophie? In real life, are you basically a rotten person?
JULIA JENTSCH: This is often what happens to an actor. When you do any kind of role, the audience thinks she must be like that. Or her private life is like the character’s. Of course, every time, you’re choosing a part, deciding, “Yes, I would really like to be in this movie,” you have to find something that is somehow connected to yourself. But this can be an idea or this can be some sentence in the screenplay. So many different things. You know, I’m not in any [political] party. I’m not active in a political way in something like that. Sometimes strange situations happened after this movie because then many people wrote letters to me or phoned me, asking that I be part of some special demonstration against something. Then, of course, you have to decide whether would I like to help now. I often have to say, “I’m not Sophie Scholl. I can’t do it because there is too much thinking that I am really this character.”
Three weeks after I’ve seen Hanu Abu-Assad’s “Paradise Now,” I still can’t shake its memory. How often can you say that about any film release, the bulk of which are so easily disposable.
Of course, “Paradise Now” has the subject matter: Palestinian suicide bombers. And then there’s the manner in which the subject is handled: with wit, tragedy, romance, suspense, political ambiguity, and even a dash of broad comedy.
(There’s also the added dilemma, at least for me, of being Jewish. I was sympathizing with the “heroes” who under the right circumstances would blow me up. Freud would know what to say here.)
That Abu-Assad’s latest offering is so masterful is no surprise to fans of his documentary “Ford Transit” and his narrative feature “Rana’s Wedding.” Both features explored facets of Palestinian society that we, as consumers of Good Morning America gloss, are seldom exposed to.
To find out more, the following chat took place at the Regency Hotel, where the director and his two lead actors, Kais Nashif and Ali Suliman, were modestly bathing in the acclaim their feature just received at the New York Film Festival.
NYTW: How did you prepare for this film?
HA: We read. We studied. There was a lot of research, but mainly being there [in Palestine]. I think it’s a unique atmosphere. It’s a strange, surreal place.
NYTW: The Israeli director Avi Mograbi was just here in the Big Apple. His films also rail against the policies of Israel. He said, after a screening of his “Happy Birthday, Mr. Mograbi,” that he didn’t expect any of one movie to change an audience’s mind unless the audience was composed of idiots. He insisted a film can’t do that. Yet when I saw your previous work, “Rana’s Wedding” and “Ford Transit,” I felt I was indeed transformed. And I have no doubt that “Paradise Now” will definitely modify the thinking of many folks, too.
Putting aside Mograbi’s judgment that I might be an idiot, what do you think the purpose of a movie is?
HA: Not to change. If you’re already open minded enough, you can adopt a new vision . . . or see the world from a different point of view. Movies in general are where you want to experience things that you don’t experience in reality, Movies are where you can go to a place that you can’t go otherwise. Or where you can go somewhere inside yourself that you can’t usually go, and a film allows you to experience this in your comfortable chair in the cinema.
So a film can show you how complex life can be. How complex the subject can be. If the film allows you to see this complexity, you could rejudge your own opinion. But it’s not my goal to change it.
My goal first is to fulfill my own curiosity. I want to know what this [my chosen subject] is about.
NYTW: In the film you depict the two suicide bombers as everyday Joes, not fanatics. Have you considered how audiences worldwide will react to this depiction?
HA: I was first of all surprised during my research that I found a lot of stories. Such human stories that I couldn’t believe. I couldn’t believe that these stories were happening.
For example, I was hearing tales from a lawyer, who was defending people who failed in their missions and now were in jail. One was about a boy and a girl sitting in a car, and they both had a belt [of bombs on them]. When the boy discovered that the girl was to do also a suicide mission with him, he said, “No, stop! I don’t want to do it with a girl.”
And she was angry with him: “Why? You are conservative man.”
He said, “No. No. No. I will kill for protection. A man can kill for protection. But when a woman starts to kill, this is the end of life. You have to create life.”
This is a real story; it happened in a car. The driver was there. They all had a discussion between them about the modern idea of liberation between man and woman.
She went, “We have the same responsibilities now. This is an old vision of life that a man has different responsibilities. We have the same responsibilities in defending our society, and I have the same right to do that.”
And the boy went, “No! It’s not about rights; it’s about life.” [Hany laughs.] And they were like fighting, and then the driver was saying, “Can you shut up?”
This is the sort of story I was getting from this lawyer. I was so surprised by this kind of humanity. I was so surprised how ignorant I was. How stupid I was to think that [the suicide bombers] are not human beings. Or that they are different from me and you. Actually, what I discovered was that everybody can become a suicide bomber if he would get into the same situation.
NYTW: The suicide bombings have been going on for a long time. Do you actually think these people are achieving anything other than ruthless slaughter?
HA: This is a military strategy. I think it will not solve the situation. First of all, you kill yourself with the other victims who are on the bus with you. The poor people, you know.
[Suicide bombing] ends up having the poor people from the Palestinian society killing themselves with the poor people of the other society. You are not killing the people responsible for the policies of [Israel]. Secondly, you will just let the other side misuse your actions in order to spread fear in their own society in order to continue the unjust behavior among [the Palestinians].
And the last thing, I would be against it even if I was be in favor of military action. I’m against it because you are losing the best soldiers on your side. Why? Because somebody who is willing to die for the cause, this is your best soldier. This the best what you have. For this reason, I think I’m against it. I will never be in favor of these kinds of actions. But again I’m speaking now from my own military experience. (Laughing, to show he is joking about his military experience.)
NYTW: This film is a masterpiece. In my eyes at least. I don’t know. Maybe if I see it again I might like it less. Do you see it as a great film? It seems to have the brazenness of a Jean Luc Godard film, the wit of a Mike Leigh film, and so forth. Are you being treated like a world master now? Is funding being thrown at you?
HA: First of all I don’t see it as a masterpiece. I think there are relative mistakes. But I will not talk about them now. You will have to discover them on your own. (He laughs.) No, it’s true. I think it’s a good movie. The most important thing where I think it succeeds is that it’s like a thriller. The thriller is an artificial genre because there is no suspense in real life in the West. But in real life in Palestine, there is suspense even if you go and want to buy some water.
As the holiday Succoth nears, the impoverished Hassidim, Moshe Bellanga (Shuli Rand) and his wife Mali (Michal Bat Sheva Rand), don’t have much to celebrate. The loving couple has no children. No food except cabbage to nosh on. And, as noted, no Geld, not even enough Shekels to purchase a lemon or the supplies to build a Succah.
What the couple does have in spades is faith, and in this delicious, lovingly comic look at ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel, that is more than enough. In Moshe and Mali’s world, God will reward those who are true to his teachings.
Written by Rand, himself a Hassid, and directed by Gidi Dar, “Ushpizin” is the first film ever made with the cooperation of ultra-orthodox Jews. One of the compromises the producers had to agree on was that the film would not be screened on Sabbath in Israel. That rule does apply to its American release.
The following is part of a small chat New York Theatre Wire had with the highly vocal, highly enthusiastic Mr. Gar.
GD: Do you know what’s happening with the release of “Ushpizin”?
BJ: What?
GD: We’re being released side by side in certain theaters with “Paradise Now.”
BJ: Where’s that happening?
GD: At the Lincoln Plaza and at the Sunshine, both of them.
BJ: That’s a coincidence. On the other side of this tape that I’m recording you on is an interview with the director of “Paradise Now.”
GD: That’s really funny.
BJ: I interviewed Hany Abu-Assad yesterday.
GD: In a way, you know our two movies have a very similar subject, although in a very different way . . . . (Interrupting himself, Dar picks up the book I’m carrying, Yosefa Lo****zky’s “Identity Politics on the Israeli Screen,” and checks the index.) She doesn’t have any of my films listed in here.
BJ: It might be an older book.
GD: No, there are films that came out after mine.
BJ: Well, everything is organized into categories. Your films might not fit into her devised sections. The first chapter is on Otto Preminger’s “Exodus.” How that film influenced Israeli cinema and shaped how the rest of the world looked at Israel.
GD: Are you recording now?
BJ: Yes. Do you want me not to?
GD: No, no problem. I just want to say about the two films that what’s interesting is that [Abu-Assad] is dealing with suicide bombers. I haven’t seen his film, which I heard was good. I don’t know if he’s dealing so much with fundamentalist people, although this whole issue of this kind of terrorism begins with fundamentalism. I’m also dealing with fundamentalism in a very different way, but because in my movie . . . The guys in my movie . . . You’ve seen the movie, right?
BJ: Yes.
DG: They’re fundamentalists. They’re extreme fundamentalists. But they’re not violent. But they are fierce, fierce, fierce believers and very strict believers. And this is like the number one issue in the 21st century. Especially for Americans today.
BJ: Fundamentalism?
DG: Fundamentalism in general. It’s an internal and external problem for the States. The frontline today of fighting Islam. Also, [the United States are] having internal problems between secular, liberal and fundamentalist religion. And [fundamentalism] is considered by liberals as a bad word. It’s sort of like a curse saying “fundamentalist.” It’s a bad word. That’s the enemy.
I feel what we’re trying to do in this movie is to cross a border for a second, and leave the conflicts aside, and just address the human side. And by this, saying it can’t be that billions and billions of people in the world are bad. Okay. Showing the world through their eyes is important.
BJ: Talking of fundamentalism, Lo****zky notes in her book that the ultra-Orthodox Israeli publication Ha’Modia “compared screening movies in airplanes to the gas chambers because both cause ‘spiritual mass extermination.'”
DG: (Laughs) That’s very funny.
BJ: How crazy are these folks to take this stance or is this just the opinion of one individual?
DG: [The Hasidim] are not allowed to go to movies. They don’t have TV at home. It’s absolutely dead. Okay, now the reason is the First Commandment. The First Commandment says thou shall not do pictures [of God]. Do not say my name in vain and all that. That’s about how you approach God. It says, “Don’t make pictures of me.” Meaning don’t make icons. Don’t pray to statues. Because at that time everyone prayed to physical images. You had a statue, which was a representative of a god, and you prayed to him.
That’s something Judaism goes all the way against. You can’t touch him in any way. So since you’re not allowed to do this, you are not allowed to anything near it. This ended up so if you take a picture of a Hassidic guy he puts his hat forwards so you won’t see his face. Which is a bit like the Indians that you might steal their souls. But actually it’s not really written anywhere.
So the rabbi who gave us permission to make this film was very, very brave. He said, “Do it!” He took the risk. “I’m for it. I think you’re right. I think this movie will do only good.” Especially when he understood my perspective, which was mostly psychological. When I told him I’m not coming in to shake this world. I just want to have a look. A good look. A positive look.” When I told him I wanted a psychological perspective, and I was like honest enough to tell him that, that made him trust me. And he went all the way with it.
And finally many saw this film. A big rabbi told Shuli, “This is like a Torah lesson.” He said something interesting: “I believe a religious director could not have done this movie because he would end up making propaganda because he couldn’t do it any other way. Because if you believe, then you have to convince everybody else.” It’s like writing a commandment. You can’t go against it.
But for me, of course, that’s not what I was trying to do. I was more into the questioning. But not questioning in the normal way. Questioning by the very fact that I take you through the script. You experience it. You don’t talk about it; you go through it.
DON ROOS CREATES A HAPPY ENDING
By Brandon Judell
Currently blond, gay and riding high, director/screenwriter Dan Roos’ latest offering, Happy Endings, a Robert Altman-esque-populated comedy, has caused The Boston Phoenix to note that “fans of big-screen romance will not want to miss the bedroom clinches of Maggie Gyllenhaal and Tom Arnold, this year’s most unlikely movie couple.” Slant adds that “Roos’s irony-free positivity about the human condition is touching and, at times, contagious.” While FilmBlather.com adds: “Happy Endings is genuinely clever and very funny.”
The reviewers of those venues also voiced some hesitations about Roos’s comic look at emotional survival amongst the self-involved in Los Angeles, but to hell with that. The cast, including Lisa Kudrow, Laura Dern, David Sutcliffe, and Jesse Bradford, are all top notch, and the screenplay is deliciously entertaining.
One, of course, shouldn’t expect less from Roos, whose track record includes teleplays for Hart to Hart and The Colbys, screenplays for Single White Female and Boys on the Side, plus the writing and direction of the viciously witty art-house hit, The Opposite of Sex.
The follow conversation with the upstate New York/Virginia-raised helmer took place at the Regency Hotel, while he was surrounded by two of his cast members, Bradford and Jason Ritter.
NYTW: “To birth or not to birth” is a repeating theme in this film. Sperms banks and abortions or giving up a child for adoption all play a part in Happy Endings. Were you planning from the beginning to comment on these matters?
DR: It never occurred to me that it would be controversial. I never thought of the film as pro-life or pro-choice. I just think like the Lisa Kudrow character, who says that “Everything is a much bigger decision than we think.”
The consequence of sex for straight people at least, the possibility of the bringing on of a new consciousness onto the planet, is a huge, huge consequence of a moment of pleasure. So this is a consequential decision. The decision to abort or have a child is a big one. [Add] the decision to have unsafe sex, and those are all big, big decisions. I don’t think they’re controversial. I just think everybody has an opinion about them, and they should. Everyone should have an opinion about things that are so important.
NYTW: Can you talk about the casting process?
DR: Yes. Gwyneth Paltrow was going to play the Maggie Gyllenhaal part, and she had to drop out for personal reasons. And then Jennifer Garner was going to play Maggie’s part, and she had to drop out for scheduling reasons. And so Maggie kind of rescued us. She hadn’t worked with me before, I hadn’t worked with her, and she said, “Yeah, sure I’ll do it.” So we really all owe the film to the fact that she said, “Yes!” It was about three weeks before we started shooting,
These guys (nodding to Jason Ritter and Jesse Bradford) I think I never met before. I didn’t even know of Jason. I knew of Jesse because as a gay man, you do rent Swimfan. I didn’t know Jason. As riveting as he is, I was waiting for a film with him in Speedos. But these guys came in and read for me. As soon as I heard both of them, we stopped looking for that part. I mean we had no more auditions for [the roles of] Nicky and Otis after these guys came in.
That’s great about auditioning. A lot of actors don’t like to, but sometimes . . . Wow! It really helps me when they do.
NYTW: You mentioned in the production notes that Gyllenhaal gave a different spin to the freewheeling, spirited character of Jude than you had anticipated.
DR: Jude was sort of like the Cristina Ricci character in The Opposite of Sex, kind of a smart-alecky troublemaker as I envisioned her. Maggie, however, insisted that right from the beginning that her character show different sides and complexities. In her relationship with Otis, she was not just smart-alecky, she was actually interested in whether he was gay or not. She was actually trying to answer that question for him. She added a lot more depth to Jude, and I was really grateful.
NYTW: As an openly gay director, when you see treatments of homosexuals in other films, do you say, “Oh, that was conceived by a straight director or a straight screenwriter.” Do you try to create a certain reality for your gay characters?
DR: Yeah. I do. You know if you’re a female writer, then you’re very interested in how female characters are portrayed, and if you’re Afro-American, you’re very concerned that it be an accurate portrayal [of blacks]. I don’t think I want to do a politically correct portrayal of gay characters, but I do want them to feel real. Feel like people that I have known or might know in my life. So, yeah, it’s important to me.
NYTW: Would you be willing to share the theme of Happy Endings?
DR: Oh, the theme of Happy Endings, really if I had to put it in a sentence, is that you can’t achieve any kind of happiness until you face things about yourself and accept the truth about who you are and what you’ve done.[Judell]
Happy Endings Supplies Jason Ritter with a Happy Beginning
By Brandon Judell
Jason Ritter (as Otis) and Maggie Gyllenhaal (as Jude) in “Happy Endings.” Photo credit: Eric Lee
Shyly holding court at Regency Hotel, the mop-headed Jason Ritter, 25, son of the late John Ritter, is doing his Three’s Company dad’s legacy proud. He’s currently starring along with Lisa Kudrow, Jesse Bradford, and Maggie Gyllenhaal in one of the best black comedies of the year, Don Roos’ Happy Endings. If you saw Roos’s 1998 rip-roaring farce The Opposite Sex, be prepared for more of the same.
Ritter, best known for continuing role as a car-accident victim on Joan of Arcadia, here plays Otis, a closeted, incompetent drummer with his own band. The rest of the group’s members only tolerate him because his dad (Tom Arnold) is a millionaire who keeps the gang well fed. As one guitar player notes: “Why do you think he’s a drummer? So he can stare at our asses the whole time.” When the band’s lead singer has an overdose, Otis quickly discovers Jude (Gyllenhaal), a sexy homeless conniver, at a karaoke bar and brings her home, where she immediately takes away his heterosexual virginity before seducing the boy’s pop.
This is only one thread of a multi-tale parable on the lunacy of trying to establish one’s identity in a crazed America. There’s also stepsibling copulation, lesbian motherhood, sex with a masseur, blackmail, and a film-school fanatic (Bradford) who has no morals when it comes to filming his documentary. Consider Happy Endings the lighter side of this year’s hit ensemble drama Crash.
Ritter, by the way, was a founding member of The Irreputable Theater Company back in 2001, a group started by the graduating class of the Atlantic Theater Acting School. Its last show was Boys’ Life back in 2004. As for his other credits, his resume boasts parts in MTV’s Undressed, Swimfan (2002), and Freddy vs. Jason (2003).
NYTW: You’re young sexy, sexy, and acting nonstop right now. Can you have any complaints about any aspect of life?
JR: It’s definitely great to be working as an actor. It’s a very scary career move to do something as risky and dangerous as this-and to be able to continue to work has been a dream come true.
NYTW: Working for an openly gay director, did you get much feedback about your portrayal? Did Mr. Roos ever say you’re being too gay or not gay enough?
JR: No, he felt comfortable with what was I bringing to the part, with what my interpretation of the character was. And you know I think it’s so easy to characterize people as gay or straight, but there’s a whole spectrum of different ways that homosexuality is manifested in people, and I think that for Otis, two things have to be believable. (A) that his father is still able to hold to hold onto the notion that Otis is straight without looking like a complete idiot, and (B) that the band members all go, “Obviously he’s gay!”
I was trying to marry those two aspects of Otis while being this guy who is very uncomfortable in his own skin but trying as hard as he can to fit into the heterosexual world. He’s just not feeling like it’s working out, yet he’s not really willing to jump into the other worlds. I think when Otis looks at Charley and Gil [an older, happily married gay couple], he feels a disconnect there, too. It’s not like Otis thinks he can just jump into that world and be accepted. I feel like he doesn’t know where he fits in. Otis knows he’s attracted to men, but he doesn’t feel comfortable at all with who he is until the end.
You could say Otis is a generally good person who means well. His big fault is that he’s not being very brave, and he’s not facing a lot of things about himself. You know you can internally be a good person and you can do bad things or morally questionable things out of fear or lack of self-confidence. As a human, you’re constantly faced with decisions to either overcome or submit to all the negative things that are coming your way. That’s being alive.
NYTW: What would your father think of your career?
JR: I think he would be proud. He saw the pilot presentation for Joan of Arcadia. That was the last thing he saw. He died fifteen days before the first episode actually aired. So he didn’t get to see the whole level of that I was on a TV show that was doing well for a while. But he did get to see a switch.
I mean the thing he’d seen before that was Freddy vs. Jason which was fun, but it wasn’t something as a father that he’d go, “Oh, you’re on the right track.” I think when he saw Joan of Arcadia, even just the 30-minute pilot presentation, he talked a lot about it with me. Like the week that he died. Right before this moment at the end, and he was really talking to me about it in a way that like he was excited by my performance. He was excited about what this would lead to. So I can’t imagine that he’d be anything but proud and happy for me now.[Judell]
Henry Rollins Rocks into Film Criticism
Henry’s Film Corner Photo by Alison Dyer.
By Brandon Judell
“Want a good body? Work at it. Want to be a success? Work at it. Want to be truly exceptional? Be a touch insane… You need a little bit of insanity to do great things.” -Henry Rollins
The tattooed, muscle-bound, cerebral rocker Henry Rollins is now banging his head against the film industry on the Independent Film Channel’s sedately named Henry’s Film Corner. That title is the only sedate aspect of this highly opinionated interview/review show.
But one shouldn’t expect less from the gent who became a controversial rock figurehead in 1981 with Black Flag. Then came the Rollins Band in ’86. His own publishing company, a Grammy-winning spoken-word CD, and numerous film parts add to his accomplishments. Yes, he was beaten to a pulp by Al Pacino in Heat, played Guard Henry in Lost Highway, and will next be seen in Feast. The plot: a group of patrons locked in an isolated diner must fight off flesh-eating monsters or else become part of the menu.
No wonder The Scotsman’s Fiona Shepherd in her review of Rollin’s one-man Glasgow performance noted that this former shift manager for a Georgetown University Hagen-Dazs ice cream shop “is a stoic presence but also a very humane character, vehement without being vicious, a cultural and intellectual sponge but also an introvert who cannot help but leak undercurrents of dissatisfaction with his lot . . . He’s for real.”
(In the following interview, if clarity hides its head at moments, make believe you’re reading a poem, such as The Wasteland. There is a point to it all.)
NYTW: What do you feel the purpose of film is? Movies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978) helped promote stupidity as a highly desirable trait, and hundreds of imitators followed. Fart jokes rule. But in movies of the 40s and 50s, there were highly desirable role models, youth that would get high grades and read a book now and then. Do you feel cinema helps shape society? Should it have that responsibility?
HR: I know that Animal House was a first-run theater movie when I was 14 or 15. It was one of those things that kind of gave me the guts to get through high school. I went to a fairly oppressive place, and just the spirit of Bluto and all those guys, I kinda went, “Man!” They just gave me such a shot in the arm because my school was like a bunch of military-type teachers telling me to shut up all the time. You see these guys, and you go, “YEAHHHHH! Stick it to the man.”
Did it make me go and shoot a horse or put a bed sheet on? No. Was it a great thing to see when I was young? Absolutely. I get asked that a lot. Can a song stop a war? Can a rock ‘n’ roller change a vote or an election? Obviously not. And if a protest song could stop anything, well, we’ve already had Bob Dylan and Bob Marley, and the wars got fought anyway. Obviously, The Song isn’t going to do it. I think movies can be somewhat influential. I think when we highlight the stupid, where we used to kind of highlight the more valorous, higher road maybe in the fifties . . . Well, America has changed.
You know Zappa said that we value the mediocre and we fear the excellent. An example: King Crimson draws this many people, but some silly pop rock band with all the silly get-ups, they sell 3 million records. There’s no platinum John Coltrane records, and if you’re going tell me that Britney Spears is better than john Coltrane, we’ll debate; you’ll lose. One of them lives in a small place in New Jersey, and the other one owns New Jersey. Who’s better?
So I think America has gotten increasingly mediocre with the breakdown, and everything from public school education to a media that seems up for grabs to . . . Well, in the last four years with our president, our legislation is for sale. I think with all of that comes mediocrity. Or you know the fat guy is funny now for being fat, and the gastrointestinal distress jokes are funny. I’ve never thought that stuff’s funny. Vulgarity and bathroom humor don’t move me. It repels me. When they get into the bathroom jokes, I’m like I really got to go. It does not rock me at all.
Henry Rollins Photo by Henry Diltz
BJ: You’re very political. You were just in Baghdad. Is your IFC show going to reflect your political viewpoints?
HR: Oh, yeah.
BJ: Will you also acknowledge that so many films seem to have no political content?
HR: Well, there’s a section in the show where I just get to mouth off, and I can take it back in to film. If you’re a B.S. artist like I am, you can get anything to back up into anything else. I learned it from David Lee Roth interviews. You just do it.
And so luckily, when we shot a recent episode, I talked about the 40th anniversary edition of Dr. Strangelove which is one of those films you should watch all the time anyway just for your general health.
It’s just so funny now, having been to Iraq, because people ask,” What was Iraq like?” I said it’s spring break meets Dr. Strangelove because it’s a bunch of young people . . . I’m 43, so soldiers are like kids to me in a way. On paper, I could be their dad if the guy’s 19. And the guys at the top, I met a lot of interesting people. But you meet a lot of people like 911/Saddam Hussein, it’s like oh, man! They’re giving you this whole speech: “Yup!! Yup! It’s purity of essence, man. It was just crazy that that guy has this much control. Oh, baby. I’m not making it to 50, and it won’t even be my fault. [Judell]
Just five years ago, Bahman Ghobadi, an Iranian Kurd, shook up world cinema with his emotionally startling “A Time for Drunken Horses.” Roger Ebert wrote at the time that this film about five fatherless children trying to survive on the Iran/Iraq border, “supplies faces to go with news stories about the Kurdish peoples of Iran, Iraq and Turkey, people whose lands to this day are protected against Saddam Hussein’s force by a no-fly zone enforced by the United States. Why Hussein or anyone else would feel threatened by these isolated and desperately poor people is an enigma, but the movie is not about politics. It is about survival.”
My, how a few years have changed the political landscape! Now it’s the United States who feels threatened.
Ghobadi, in his equally marvelous follow-up venture, Turtles Can Fly, tells the tale of a huge group of orphans living on the Irani/Iraqi border who survive by selling unexploded landmines to merchants. The elders of this town are meanwhile trying to get their one TV to work so they can know when George Bush will attack Iraq. The problem is no one can understand the newscasts that are being broadcast in English.
Ghobadi milks a lot of humor out this situation, while never selling short his cast, which includes numerous children who have lost body parts to the war. One of the leads in fact has no arms, yet he is doing his best to care for his sister and a tot who has some unsettling relationship to the two.
The following in an exclusive phone chat NYTW had with Mr. Ghobadi, who was in Iran at the time. (A translator was present.)
NYTW: You once said in an interview: “I’m not a political person and I don’t make political films.” Are those your sentiments still?
BG: I still have that opinion. I’m definitely not a political filmmaker, and I have no political agenda at all. I am telling the stories of my country. I can’t help it if those stories are steeped in politics. That’s the reality I’ve been living in. That’s the reality that these people have been living under. The lands are filled with mines. The markets are filled with ammunition and weapons. All you have to do is look at the children and you’d see the politics that have gone into shaping their lives. That’s just the reality of life here. So I don’t consider myself a political filmmaker at all.
NYTW: Because of what’s happening in Iraq and Iran and the rest of the world today, and because you’re making films about the people caught up in these events, are you not being slightly disingenuous to say you are not being political? Your film is definitely an antiwar film. In America, we’re not allowed to see the victims of the bombs, especially the wounded children, on our TV sets, and you are supplying those images. You must be aware that Turtles Can Fly is a highly political film.
BG: A filmmaker can have a political agenda and go and make a film that has that kind of opinion. I don’t think that my film has any opinion . . . has any political opinion. I feel like I’m showing the reality of the situation. And if you see politics in it, that’s an aspect of the reality there. But I did not purposely go out and make a film that’s antiwar or anti-America. That’s not my agenda at all. I just want to tell the story. I feel the stories of that region are inundated with issues regarding war, and with that comes politics and the manipulation that happens from the outside.
NYTW: You’ve said, “Ultimately cinema will not stay the way it is today. At the moment cinema is primarily a business matter. It’s show business.” Do you really feel film be transformed? And transformed into what? What is the purpose of movies?
BG: Do you mean my films?
NYTW: Let me find the article. Here it is. You were talking about the ignorance of the people with money, the producers and the big companies. Then you said: “The content of all those movies are empty. Their sex is empty. Their action is empty. Their passion is empty. Those who believe otherwise can not stand still.” Then you continue with: “At the moment cinema is primarily a business matter. It’s show business.” So what do you think film should be as opposed to what it is now?
BG: A filmmaker that gets established, he generally can get backing much easier than somebody who doesn’t have a name. I feel that the responsibility falls on the children of the filmmaker and his producers to challenge the filmmaker to make the best possible story and not to regress or to make something that is more mainstream. To be able to stay close to his roots that put him where he is in the first place.
I feel that an independent filmmaker has to work a lot harder to keep the viewers engaged, and that should be his primary goal. He has to expect less from and think more about the viewer, and push the envelope more, and challenge the viewers, and show the viewers something that they’re not necessarily going to see in a big budget film. Does that answer your question?
NYTW: Well, it answers a different question, but that is just as well.
BG: I feel that cinema is run by budgets much more so than it should be, but my point is that in order for cinema to evolve in a good way and to continue telling these stories, filmmakers must make a great effort.
My objective is to pursue a kind of cinema that challenges the filmmaker to make films with which the viewer is engaged. I feel that viewers today are far more sophisticated, and they’re not going to settle for just any story. If they go into a theater and they feel like they’re not getting their money’s worth, they’re going to walk out. I want that viewer. I want somebody who is going to watch my film critically and watch my film in a very engaged way. That’s something I’m working for. I don’t want a budget and all of that to change my filmmaking style . . . to have an adverse effect on what I do in the future.
NYTW: Now Turtles Can Fly appears to have been made under hazardous circumstances. The actors and you yourself could have been injured during the filming. Were there live landmines around where you were shooting? Were you worried about your own life ever? What has happened to the children since?
BG: There were two people responsible at all times for corralling the cast and crew to keep them out of areas known to have landmines. It was very, very dangerous for them. They had to be very conscious of where they were all the time in case something went off.
That was one aspect of it. The physical areas we were shooting in were dangerous, and then there were the politics behind it. That was also very tenuous for us because the Kurds are not thinking about making art or film or culture. They are thinking about politics. They are thinking about war. They are thinking about their own economy. Those are their primary states of mind. And so for me to go and say, “I want to make a film, and I want 8000 extras, and I want an American army unit to come . . . It was close to impossible. And I had to keep pushing to get everything done. This was also a very difficult aspect of the filmmaking.
NYTW: My final question is that George Bush appears next to getting ready to attack Iran. Are you afraid that the United States will do to Iran what it has done to Iraq?
BG: I’m not afraid. I find that funny actually. War is such a normal part of our daily lives unfortunately. When you say America wants to come and create another war, people laugh. They don’t take it seriously because their skin has thickened to threats of war. We’ve suffered so many years and generations of war, and the thought that more people will die, and more people will be maimed, this is the part of everyday existence. And so are we afraid? It’s not a matter of fear. If war were not happening, we’d think something is not right in the world.[Judell]
The centerpiece of Campbell Scott’s “Off the Map,” his second film as a solo director (he co-directed the gourmand hit “Big Night”), is the startling teen, Valentina De Angelis. In this, her feature debut, the audience gets to see life through the eyes of her precocious character, Bo Groden.
The year is 1974. The locale: an isolated ramshackle abode in Taos, New Mexico. Bo’s dad (Sam Elliott) is so depressed he doesn’t talk and barely moves. Her mom (Joan Allen), who raises her own vegetables, is doing her best to keep the household functioning. But then an IRS man arrives, the young befuddled William Gibbs (Jim True-Frost), to collect back taxes. Instead of cash, he garners a catharsis and a romantic obsession.
Meanwhile, the pigtailed Bo is spending all her time trying to obtain a credit card. Why? Well, that’s the surprise you’ll have to pay to see.
Beautifully shot with fine performances, “Off the Map” is certainly a fine career starter, especially for this former child model. In fact, she’s already won “The Young Star of Tomorrow” award at the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival.
To find out how this early acclaim is affecting her, NYTW sat down with Miss De Angelis recently at the Regency Hotel. Several years older since she made the picture, the young woman in front of me, now self-assured and sophisticatedly attired, seemed almost unrecognizable.
NYTW: You look much older now than you do in “Off the Map.” Did you play young then or are you dressing old now?
VD: Both. I’d say both. Actually when I filmed the movie, I had just turned 13. I was very young.
NYTW: When you appear like this, fully made up and in extremely stylish clothes, don’t your parents wish you were still the girl in the film?
VD: No-o-o-o-o! No. They know I’m growing up so they don’t really mind. (Giggles.)
NYTW: So you’re living in New York?
VD: Yes.
NYTW: And going to school here?
VD: Yes. On the Upper East Side. I love it.
NYTW: What was it like filming in a New Mexico desert?
VD: Well, it was definitely a change. I mean coming from being a city girl, which I’ve basically been all of my life, it really didn’t bother me. I liked being out there. It was gorgeous. The scenery was beautiful. It was definitely an experience. Really. New Mexico was fantastic.
NYTW: Did you ever see the film Thirteen?
VD: Yes. Actually I was really close to getting that role.
NYTW: Oh. Do you find it odd that the two characters who are the same age, yours in Off The Map and the lead in Thirteen, are leading such morally diverse lives? And is it hard for you in your everyday life to keep yourself balanced right now?
VD: Well, comparing the character in my movie to the character in Thirteen, they both definitely live two different lives. One lives out in the desert in the middle of nowhere with just her family. With nothing. She has absolutely nothing, and, you know, I think she’s very just like so down to earth and just so naïve because she’s not out there in the world. So she really doesn’t know anything as opposed to the character in Thirteen. She has things. She has a family. She has problems in her family. That’s what really makes her act the way she does. They’re very different characters. How would I balance both lifestyles, are you asking?
NYTW: Are you well adjusted?
VD: (Silence) Yeah, I could definitely balance both. Me, as opposed to the character that I played, are definitely two different people. Although there is a part of me that is kind of like that character.
NYTW: Did you get anything from playing the part?
VD: I would think so. Yeah, a little bit. I think it mainly just taught me a lot of basically family values and stuff like that. I think in the beginning I really didn’t appreciate my family as I do now. I really do. I appreciate my sisters and my whole family and . . .
NYTW: Since I’ve never been to New Mexico, I’m now quite sure about there being a New Mexican accent. Is there one? Did you have a dialect coach?
VD: I don’t think so. When I went out there, I really didn’t hear much of an accent. I think it kind of sounds more like a really light Texas-ish accent. Really like very vague. Something like that. There’s something but not much.
NYTW: Was it your first time you were down there?
VD: Yes.
NYTW: Did you get to see much besides the arid landscape you were shooting in?
VD: Yeah, actually I did. I got to see a lot of it. I found it amazing. Of course, a lot of New Mexico is all like desert and sage bushes and things like that, but it’s really pretty. The mountains are gorgeous.
NYTW: You’ve been a top model since age five?
VD: Since six or seven yeah! (Laughs)
NYTW: You got all those jobs because of your looks. Now you are getting acting parts because of your talent, looks, and personality. Do your parents ever have to tell you, “Your head’s getting too big”?
VD: Not at all. The thing is ever since I started with this, my mother’s always told me . . . constantly . . . every day . . .every minute of the day, you know: “You’re a great kid whatever, but stay as down to earth as possible.” She’s always telling me to stay down to earth. It really helped because I don’t let anything go to my head. I think nothing of it. It’s just a hobby of mine. It’s something that I feel passionate about, but I don’t really think of myself as an actress or anything like that.
NYTW: Book-wise, where are you? Years ago did you do the Nancy Drews?
VD: Right now, I really haven’t been reading much except for schoolbooks like Romeo and Juliet and all the classics. A Raisin in the Sun and all those. I enjoy those, you know, but I haven’t really had time to read anything by myself.
NYTW: When you read Romeo and Juliet, do you imagine: “Hey, I can do this?”
VD: Not really. Whenever I read a book, I always picture it as a movie in my head. Always. It’s always just playing as something. That’s how I think of books. But I never thought I can do this. I can play this. [Judell]
Hanif Kureishi, Body and Soul
In Hanif Kureishi’s latest novel, “The Body” (Scribner; $20.00), an aging playwright agrees to have his brain placed in a much younger, god-like man’s body. Then in his most recent screenplay for the critically acclaimed “The Mother,” a seventy-year-old widow has an affair with her daughter’s boyfriend.
As you might guess Britain’s one-time Wunderkind is now concerned with aging. Yes, although Kureishi’s only in his late forties, this hasn’t stopped this prolific author (e.g. “The Buddha of Suburbia;” “Sammy and Rosie Get Laid;” “Intimacy and Midnight All: A Novel and Stories”); screenwriter (e.g. “My Son the Fanatic;” “My Beautiful Launderette”), and director (e.g. “London Kills Me”) from looking ahead and imagining his future wrinkles.
The following conversation took place ubder dim lights several blocks from an old-age home, in mid-Manhattan at his film’s distributor’s headquarters.
BJ: You once said, “Most obsessions don’t come true.”
HK: Most obsessions are worthless. I mean you’re building the Eiffel Tower out of match sticks. But I would say all artists have that obsessive side to them. They go into their rooms, and they stay in their rooms, and they paint this face over and over and over again.
BJ: The characters in your screenplays, your novels, and short stories seldom get their time in the regular media: Indian immigrants, oversexed activists, gays running a laundrette.
HK: Yes.
BJ: And in “The Mother,” an older woman having an affair with a much younger man, her daughter’s boyfriend, is clearly not everyday fare. The idea, in fact, of a seventy-year-old woman being the centerpiece of a film would never enter a Hollywood studio’s head’s head. There was the recent Diane Keaton film, and then decades ago “The Whisperers.” One could see this subject matter being handled in a novel. Doesn’t it take some daring to try to make a film on this topic? After you wrote the screenplay, were you afraid the finances would never materialize?
HK: Yeah, you do. You say, “I want to write a film about a woman who’s seventy. How is this going to play in America?” But if you thought like that, you’d never do anything. I mean I think I want to write this story. I’m interested in this woman a lot. I’ll write it. If it doesn’t get made, it doesn’t get made. If it gets made, it will be good. Sometimes, it may be a disaster. You can’t not take that risk.
HK: This marvelous character at one point says, “I thought I’d never be touched again.” When you write a line like that, does it come from the outside? Are you looking at your character from a distance? Or do you become that character?
HK: Well, you are the artist telling the story. So you got to tell the story as an artist for it to work. On the other hand, you have to identify with the character because the audience has got to identify with the character as well. So you think, one day I’ll be an old bloat. One day I will be maybe eighty. People are going to look at me and they’re going to go, “He’s an old man.” Or I go to a school to pick up my kids, and I’m much older than the other parents there, the other families, because I didn’t have kids until I was forty. So you can see what it is to be that person. There I’m 49. I’m not 80. But again . . .
BJ: You’re a spring chicken compared to Michael Douglas.
HK: I am a spring chicken compared to Michael Douglas. But I don’t have his money. Nor do I have his wife.
BJ: But I’m sure you’re not complaining.
HK: (Laughs) No, I’m not complaining.
BJ: In America, you’re highly respected and in specific circles, you are idolized. But one would think in England, you’d be considered one of the top artistes? Is that true?
HK: I would say that I probably had my day. I had a big day when “My Beautiful Launderette” and “The Buddha of Suburbia” came out. Around that time I was considered to be someone who was on the rise. I have been superseded. Now they consider me to be distinguished which is the next step to being forgotten. I’m making less money now then I ever did. I see this as a natural cycle. I’m not complaining about it. This is what goes on. It’s fine. So it’s downwards all the way from now on.
BJ: You might yet still have an upswing. Look at America’s Edward Albee who has made his critical comeback.
HK: Yeah. Yeah.
BJ: And look at Thomas Hardy. He gave up writing novels because of the way his books were treated. Yet today the very same books are why he’s venerated. Do you even worry about how you’ll be thought of posthumously or are you just concerned about the here and now?
HK: Well, my main concern has been to be able to say the things I want to say.
BJ: By the way, how did “The Mother” do in England?
HK: It opened last year. It got good reviews. It did pretty well. It’s a matinee film. It did very well in afternoon but badly at night, because older people don’t go out at night. [Judell]
New York-raised, Yale graduate David Duchovny has long left The X-Files behind. He’s gone onto guest spots on other TV series (Sex and the City), leads in films (Connie and Carla), and now he has directed House of D. That’s short for the Women’s House of Dentention, a now long-gone landmark of the West Village.
Starring his wife Téa Leoni, plus Robin Williams, Zelda Williams (Robin’s daughter), and the major new talent Anton Yelchin, House of D is the at times moving story of a young boy (Yelchin) whose life is falling apart as quickly as he’s falling in love for the very first time.
NYTW sat down at the Regency Hotel with Mr. Duchovny to find out what lay behind his latest venture.
NYTW: Your spouse, Ms. Leoni, has noted that your mother regularly fed you Brussels sprouts exactly as the lead character’s mom does in House of D.
DD: (Laughs) Yes, I forgot about that.
NYTW: Are there other autobiographical elements in this picture?
DD: Well, it sounds like a cliché thing to say, but in anything I do, I’m going to try to put myself into it. Even if I’m acting, I got to find the things that I can relate to. So when I’m writing, I’m going to find the things that I relate to as well. But like in terms of straight autobiography, yeah, I forgot about the Brussels sprouts. And, yeah, I urinated on my mom’s cigarette butts [in the toilet]. And I had a delivery boy job, and Simone (Olga Sosnovska) was the owner of that store. She wasn’t as cute as she is in the movie. And I was on a scholarship to a private school, and I played stickball at school. And there was he House of D, which was like the original inspiration for the entire film.
Usually when you write, if you’re writing about a city that you don’t know, you go there and you do research. You walk the streets, and you look around, and you get inspired by real events and real places, but I didn’t have to do that because I was writing about a time and a place that I researched because I grew up in it. I think my research is basically autobiographical. But what happens in the movie, my life is not as dramatic as that. Those things didn’t happen to me.
And I wanted to make a film that was universal, which resonated with people.
I don’t think my own story does. I think I did a story about what it is to grow up. Not what it is for me to grow up.
NYTW: You’ve said, “I am frightened by the possibilities of my own lack of talent.” Are you over that?
DD: I’m nervous.
NYTW: Do you throw up before you go on the stage?
DD: No, but I’ll throw up before this premiere. I won’t sit through it.
I don’t know. It’s a struggle for me, to be honest with you. I seem to have that kind of a soul. It’s not good. It’s not like that drives me. “That’s what makes me work!” No, I hate it. I wish that it were different. But something happened at some point.
NYTW: Another time you said that having a child has helped you deal with your limitations. Children often look at their father as the man with no fear. Since your offspring looks at you that way, has that helped you direct?
DD: No, but I hope they don’t read that when they’re too young. (Chuckles) Then they’ll know their dad has fear. No, I think the only way that kids help you with any kind of professional endeavor is that you stop thinking that that’s everything. You can always go, (He let’s out a deep breath)”I was awful, but now I have kids. They’re more important.” Whereas before it was like: “It was awful. I’m awful. Everything’s awful. My career was awful. My work was awful.” Now there’s like a little something else. So I think that’s what it is more. I don’t want to say I have less fear of failure, but failing just doesn’t seem as horrific as it used to. [Judell]
