Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder





I find myself driving a van at seven in the morning transporting crew and equipment up to horse country in West Chester (New York).  Thom has once again sweet-talked me into helping out even after I told him I don’t DO early.  On the drive up I realized that this is the twenty-seventh day of the thirty day shoot.  There are only three more production days left and the whole thing will be over.  I’m not sure I’m ready for that. A kind of melancholy takes over me knowing that the fun-filled days will soon come to an end.  And then I think about real crew people and how they feel when a project is over.  My guess is that they usually (hopefully) hop from one project to another and treat it like a job.  Sometimes the jobs are good and fun and at other times a challenge with conflicting personalities and high tension.  I remember reading in a movie magazine, Moviemaker, I think, that Ang Lee goes into a light depression after each project.  And most definitely after making The Hulk.  He has directed such diverse films as Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, Sense and Sensibility, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain for which he won the academy for Best Director.  So I wonder how our director feels about this project transitioning from production to post. I’ll come back to this question in a bit.  We arrive at a friend of a friend’s farm.  It’s not a working farm but a horse farm and Whit has donned his usual black wool suit, top coat and hat.  I ask him if he’s ready to saddle up.

“Sure.  I’ve been riding since I was eight years old.” He says.  I’m a bit stunned.

“You give the impression of a slacker or a surfer.” I say.

“Yeah, I know. I don’t do either.  I’d like to surf.  But the Atlantic is too cold for me.” He adds.  Man up, I’m thinking to myself. But, alas, I have a little padding so the cold doesn’t quite affect me.

“I can tell you think I have robin’s eggs for a change purse.” He says smiling and he gives me his charming ‘stink eye’.  John, the owner of the horse walks this beautiful equine specimen out into the sunlight.  I am told she is a racking horse.  For those people interested in horses a racking horse has a very comfortable singlefoot gate.  They are like riding a Cadillac.  These horses along with their superior version, the Tennessee Walking horse, were bread for the masters on the large plantations down South before the Civil War when cotton was king.  Being in the saddle for eight to twelve hours a day surveying your business can make a body sore!  Most people who take a horse back ride usually get on a quarter horse or a mixed breed of that nature and their gate is very bumpy and extremely uncomfortable.  John tells me her name is ‘Shadow’ and she is an inky velvet black in the sunlight.  Whit mounts and takes her to the far end of the pasture along the treeline.  At the turn around he gives her a click and gentle kick and she is off so fast she’s a blur.  He rides by at a full gallop so fast that I feel like Jack the Ripper has hijacked Sea Biscuit.  Then as I am about to turn and follow I watch as Whit gets Shadow to jump the fence and run up the road.  Okay, I have to admit he has cohones.  Thom tells me the original shot was with a car mount but since the owner did not want tire tracks in his field we had to settle for sticks.  Unfortunate, as riding along side Whit on horseback with the camera would have been incredibly dramatic.  The road had too many anachronisms.

Meanwhile back at the set the art department has dressed the bedroom as Richard’s studio and the lovely Sandra DeLuca reappears in her Victorian finery as Sophie.  She has  become one of Catherine’s ‘playthings’.  Interested in Richard and particularly a portrait by him she has arrived for a sitting that could very well turn into a laying.  The chemistry between the two actors is electric and they play off of each other with great aplomb.  As Richard and Sophie are about to take the sitting to the next level the bell rings.  It is Mrs. Hopkins, Victoria’s head Governess.  She has arrived with a note---the very thing Richard has been waiting and pining for.  Suddenly he shuffles Sophie out with only a few words of consolation.  Thus begins his daylong ride to the English countryside.  As the crew sets up the dolly for the next shot I take advantage of the downtown and see if I can snag the director for a few minutes.

“Only three days left.  How do you feel?” I ask.

“I’m ready to be able to relax, that’s for sure.”  She replies. “But…I know on the last film I did, that after I recovered from the exhausting shooting schedule there is a definite post-partum feeling.”

“I’m already feeling it and I’m just a spectator.” I reply. “So how do you deal with it?”

“You know, I’m not sure.  I think that the older I get the more I have to ease myself from one transition to another.” She explains.

“That sounds mentally healthy.” I say.

“Well it was trial and error for me because on my last film I finished shooting and I was so excited about putting it together that I immediately began the editing process.  I foolishly thought that if I kept busy I wouldn’t feel the sadness that comes when something is over.” She says.

“Sounds pre-meditated to me---like you had an antidote.” I add.

“Naw, I think it exacerbated the emotions, the let down.” She says. “Because as an indie filmmaker you have to wear several hats.  And so sitting in a dark room by myself for days on end watching the footage and cutting it into something made me yearn for the social, physical activity of production. I fervently missed everyone so much---I missed the process.” She says.

“Yeah, but you still had access to those people, right?  They were your friends as well as collaborators.” I say.

“Sure.  I could get any one of them on the phone or have lunch but it’s not the same.  You’re deeply involved in a creative atmosphere---and I say that not to diminish the importance and gratitude I have for the people in my life.  But having lunch is different than creating something together.” She explains. “It’s greater than the sum of the individuals.”

“Point taken.” I reply.

“I was at a party not long ago and I had the opportunity to meet and chat with another director.  It was such an epiphany for me.  I thought I was just super sensitive or even unbalanced because of the rough emotions I went through after the first feature.  But this director, another woman by the way, experienced the exact thing I had experienced and so I didn’t feel alone or ashamed or inadequate as a person anymore.” She adds.

“That’s great.” I say and I’m sure my face betrayed my bewilderment.

“It’s very similar to a break up.  It really is.  My last film took six months to shoot.  I was emotionally involved for six months with all the actors and the creatives and it was such a rush---so much fun and hard work, too.  We met a lot of people and made a lot of new friends along the way.  Then when principal photography was over everything feels like it grinds to a halt.  You don’t see anyone anymore because you are busy in post trying to deliver a finished product in a timely way to pay the people back. Everyone else has scattered to other projects. So here you are watching all the memories of that wonderful six months in time. It’s like looking at old photographs of past boyfriends or ex-husbands or babies that have grown up.  You forget about the pain or the disagreements or the extreme physical fatigue and something in the human brain makes one yearn for something intangible and fleeting.”

“But it isn’t intangible. It’s fixed in the finished film.” I reply.

“True.” She says.  “And that is what makes it all worth while when you can see and share what you’ve accomplished together with the ones you love.”

“I guess what they say is true.  Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”  I add.

“Living proof.” She says and she is off to work on the scene.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday, April 8, 2010

The Color of Money





Over the few days off from the Londinium film I promised to take Justin to Coney Island.  Our last hurrah before school starts.  It was a perfectly pleasant day until we were walking out of the park and the kid decided he wanted to ride the Cyclone.  The Cyclone is the most hair-raising ride I have ever been on in my life. The Cyclone rollercoaster is one of the last and oldest wooden coasters in the world, built in 1927 with such stomach turning spins that it is the high water mark for almost every other coaster built. The probability of being ejected from the ride by the thin steel bar is quite high and promotes the forming of phobias far and wide. I try to tell Justin he is not old enough to ride the killing machine.  As a matter of fact I would not let him ride it until he turns 21 for fear of maiming and paralysis. He plops himself down right there on the pavement and proceeds to have an old-fashioned tantrum.  I threaten him by saying, “If you don’t stop with the hissy fit then there will be no cartoons for a looooong time.”  Now, I am not and have never been a proponent of spanking but the kid pushed enough buttons on my anger elevator that I was one red curly hair from corporal punishment.  Even in drunken belligerence I have enough sense to resist fisticuffs.  Exhausted and deeply pissed-off I requested the wife to tend to the offspring for the rest of the night while I tied one on.  I knew the next day would be light.  The schedule was filled with pick-up shots and small scenes with Whit in the artist’s studio.  Most of the scenes are of Richard in the process of painting.  Montage sequences with jib and dolly shots beautifully orchestrated as the paintings of Victoria come to life.  Since the scenes were incredibly technical I felt like I could show up towards the end of the day.  Thom said that in between set-ups the director has to step in and don her painter’s hat to work the painting(s) a bit more to show progress.  There were several canvases in various states of completion to speed up the process but it sounded a little tedious to me without an official duty so I opted for rest.

During Richard’s time the Salon, that is the official art exhibition of the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, was the place to be as an artist of any worth.  Today the new painters are filmmakers and the new Salon is Cannes and Sundance, Toronto and Berlin.  I ask Whit what he thinks about it all.

“I’m an actor playing a painter and so my take on it is that films can be like moving paintings.  I mean, I watch Terence Malick’s work and it is definitely the ilk of the great masters of art.  Days of Heaven is a masterpiece of filmmaking.” He says.

“I agree.  It’s one of my favorite films of all time.” I reply. “What do you think of the films that go unnoticed that might be just as good as Days of Heaven but are not seen because the juries or curators can’t or won’t program them?” I ask.

“It’s a real shame.  People need to see cinema as art.  And art as cinema.  I don’t have a lot of experience with film festivals and I don’t want to grossly generalize because I believe there are still truly indie fests out there wanting to feed their audiences with exceptional material.” He replies.

“But…” I say.

“But we all know that Independent films are in competition with studio films.  What better way to eliminate your competition than buying up all the boutique distributors and making them adhere to Disney or Paramount rules and tastes.” He says.  “It becomes generic especially in hard times.  No one wants to take a risk on something different and it shows with the movies the studios are churning out now.”

“That only partially answers my question.” I say.  He thinks for a minute.

“When Sundance started it was exciting and it made an unknown filmmaker’s career---“

“Steven Soderbergh, Sex, Lies and Videotape!” I excitedly interject.

“Sure. It made unknown actors bankable talent.” Whit continues.

“Andy McDowell and James Spader!” I yell. 

“It was great and Redford had the vision and passion to give artists a chance.” He says. 

“Then something went really wrong---” I say.

“Yeah! I mean Sundance became a corporation---it became the very thing it was reacting against.  The studios used the festival to introduce their art films that weren’t really art because they were financed by the same machine that backs the studios and the publicists and the ad agencies and the big name talent.” Whit says. “I do want to clarify that just because big money is behind a project does not mean it is not art.  It can certainly be artistic and visionary.  I mean, I enjoy Tim Burton’s stuff.  I just feel that where there is big money there are too many cooks, i.e. producers interfering with the health of an artistic creation…and the director’s control.” Whit adds.  Well stated and I am duly impressed.  The guy can think and verbalize.

“Do you think Sundance should just come out and be a market like Berlin’s (EFM) and MIPCOM at Cannes?” I ask.

“I think that is exactly what it is and because it started as a festival with vision it has lost its luster because it has become more about buying and selling.  Don’t call a dog a cat or a goat a horse, ya know?”

“I agree.  I think Sundance is really trying to retrace its steps and recover its original mission, though.” I say.

“Yeah?  I hope you’re right.  What came out of Park City this year that was not studio backed---and I mean international studios as well.  Channel4 and the BBC and Canal+ are studios so they don’t count.” He says. 

“The Runaways.” I answer meekly and I know I am dead wrong.

“They produced Brokeback Mountain and Into the Wild.  Both Oscar contenders so they don’t count.” He says.  How does he know all this shit AND memorize lines.

“I think that Redford and his advisors and backers are really honing in on issues that they feel deeply about.  I mean, they’re producing shows about going green and how people like you and I can be custodians of the earth rather than consumers.  I think he has a program specifically to introduce native peoples and their talents to a larger audience and to enhance their visibility and opportunity.” Whit says.

“Yes, I’ve seen the show.” I respond.

“It takes money to change the habits of a generation or even generations living in a throw-away world.  We can’t do that anymore.  We have to have a conscience about what we use, what we eat, what we grow, what we wear, where and how we live and to live by what we honestly need and not feed the monster of what we ‘want’.  Instant gratification is a luxury that we cannot afford any longer.” So sayeth the reverend Whit.

“I think we got off point.” I say.

“Not really.  We’re all connected.” He says. Okay…I hear that phrased tossed around a lot these days.  Philosophically I get it.

“If you think about it storytelling is as old as humanity.  What we really want as an audience---what I want as an actor is to be taken out of myself.  The trick is how to tell a good story sans the bells and whistles.  Capitalism is great.  Don’t get me wrong.  It is the great motivating factor for invention and innovation.  Less is more.  Subtlety.  We have to pare down to the basics to get to the heart of what we’re trying to say.  Cinema and by that I mean computers, iphones, ipads, you tube, digital theatres and digital streaming are the campfire that illuminates the storytellers who enthrall an audience with ideas and emotions.” He says succinctly.

I’ll drink to that!