November 29, 2007
“Depressing,” unsentimental or subversive (ie: made for adults)
movies don’t win many awards or many fans back here in the USA, as a couple of recent news stories reminded me.
Here, it seems, taboos, conflicts and anxieties are more conspicuous
by their absence on screen than by frank and courageous confrontation and
analysis.The philosophy seems to be that if the bad word referring to something
that no one wants to talk about is removed, so are all our worries about it.
Like abortion. As pointed out in articles in the “Guardian”
and the “Philadelphia Inquirer”,
except for the documentary “Lake of Fire, not a single film (almost all,
curiously, romantic comedies, almost all supposedly cutting edge “independent
movies”) about unwanted pregnancy released lately mentions the “a” word.
As Carrie Rickey sums it up
in the “Inquirer:”
“From ‘Knocked Up’ to ‘Waitress’ to ‘Juno,’ opening Dec. 14,
abortion is The Great Unmentionable, euphemized as ‘shmashmortion’ (‘Knocked Up”),
"we don't perform, uh’ (‘Waitress’), and ‘nipped it in the bud’ (‘Juno’),
comedies in which pregnancy is the situation. Abortion is likewise obliquely
referenced, if actually considered, in the drama ‘Bella,’ now in theaters.”
Real edgy filmmaking, there, guys.
Was the word "abortion" unmentioned in Juno?" A little voice tells me it might have been. Be that as it may, silence might not always be death, but it’s usually a victory for
tyranny. While the “a” word has been aborted in those films, the “C” word
has apparently been excommunicated
from Chris Weitz’s adaptation of the first volume in Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” children’s
fantasy trilogy, “The Golden Compass.” References to the soul-oppressing, ubiquitous
Magisterium, the established religious bureaucracy in the book's alternative universe which some have
compared to the Catholic Church (I find it more
akin to the general human tendency to intolerance, repression of the
imagination and institutionalized bullshit), have been trimmed from the film.
The reason? The usual. Right wing religious watchdog groups didn’t like what
they didn’t see, so they pressured the cowardly studios into bowlderizing the
film of anything of substance. Says the director, Chris Weitz: "I think
it's a shame that people are reacting to a movie they haven't seen by attacking
a book they haven't understood."
Well, I read the books, so before I actually get to see the movie
(it screens here tonight) and confuse my opinion with facts, here’s my two
cents worth. I suspect that like his failed satire about the Bush administration “American Dreamz” this
neutered film will continue to offend the wackos (who still won’t see it) and bore and
annoy anyone who: a) read the books; b) longs for genuinely independent
filmmaking; c) believes that entertainment should at times provoke debate and
disturb the complacent and entitled and not just lull the country to sleep.
That’s what politicians are for.
November 26, 2007
When asked what he was looking for in a winning movie, the Jury President Jiri Menzel (director of the
great, bittersweet 1968 Czech New Wave classic “Closely Watched Trains”) said “I
hope to find a nice film about people." Sorry, wrong
festival. As noted below, what you’ll find here is a lot of alcoholism, child
abuse, intractable depression, violence against women, dead cats, faux cynicism, genuine
cynicism, corrupt officials and overall despair.
Nonetheless, the jury selected a
winner and a runner-up. Taking the Golden Alexander and 37,000 euros for first
prize is “The Red Awn,” by Chinese director Cai Shangjun, about a man who returns home after a long
exile to find that his wife has died, his son is estranged and he’s been
officially declared dead. 
The Silver
Alexander and 22,000 euros for second place goes to Spiros Stathoulopoulos’s “PVC-1,” which is, to quote the festival program, “the
true story of an innocent woman’s struggle for survival after she is fitted
with a collar-bomb.” The International Film Critics Jury - aka FIPRESCI - whose niceness I can
vouch for from personal experience, picked
this one too. Both screened too late for me to see, but judging from the
descriptions they seem very nice indeed: round up the kids and see them for the
holidays.
I did see “Autumn Ball,"
which won a Best Director nod (but apparently includes no money) for Veiko Ounpuu. I
would have chosen it as the 
best of the 15 films I saw, a nice balance of
horror and mirth, despair and glee, with some truly uproarious and outrageous
black comic moments. Same goes for Balabanov’s “Cargo 200,” which was not among
the films in competition. But it would
have gotten my Silver Alexander if I had one to give.
November 24, 2007
As it turned out we did have
Thanksgiving dinner in Thessaloniki.
The festival organizers were thoughtful enough to throw one for the Americans
in town, and so I was fortunate enough to have Turkey
in an Italian restaurant in Greece
with Danny Glover, John Sayles (John Malkovich had already left), numerous
American critics. No cranberry sauce, though.
Speaking of turkeys, there
were a few screened here, but some outstanding films as well. The awards won’t
be announced for a couple of days and since I wasn’t on any jury this time
around I thought I’d present some prizes of my own:
Best/Worst Cop:
If by “worst” I was referring to
mere competence the detective in “Jar
City” would win hands
down. But I’m thinking more along the lines of “Bad Lieutenant,” in which case
the Icelandic film would still be in the running as it also features, Sgt.
Runar, a local yokel corrupt police chief renowned for corruption, rape, murder
and extortion and who resembles the “Dick Tracy” character B.O. Plenty.
Also a strong candidate is the
southern sheriff played by Stacy Keach of TV’s “Mike Hammer” fame in John Sayles's new film “Honeydripper.”
He’s a genial tyrant in a 1950s Alabama
backwater who picks up passing African Americans and puts them to work picking
cotton in a “Dukes of Hazard” rendition of postbellum slavery.
But the winner has to be the
incredibly creepy and malevolent police inspector Zhurov in Alexey Balabanov’s
“Cargo 200.” He looks like a cross between Putin and Gollum and has a genius
for macabre sadism that beats anything you’ll see in “Hostel” or “Saw” or even
“Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” Based, you’ll be relieved to know, on a true story.
Worst/best drunks:
That would have to included almost
every character in “Cargo 200," especially Zhurov’s charming mother.
The anesthesiologist in Alexei
Popgrebsky’s “Simple Things” also deserves consideration, his choice of
anesthetic being the 100 proof half
liters served up in the neighborhood
dive “The Lower Depths” (which explains why the Russian health system wasn’t
showcased as an alternative to US HMOs in Michael Moore’s “Sicko”).
But the winner is a toss-up
between two characters in Estonian first-time director Veiko Õunpuu’s “Autumn
Ball.” Should it be the estranged alcoholic husband who hides in the woods to chase
his ex-wife on the way home from work? Or the would-be writer whose outrageous
excesses and embarassing folly include one of the worst pick-up attempts in
film history? I’d have to say the jury’s still out on that one.
Kookiest female:
Again, a highly competitive
category this year. From Romania comes the kooky aspiring actress in Nae
Caranfil’s “The Rest is Silence” whom we first meet as she poses in an artist
studio and begs the film’s protagonist to throw a glass of cold water on her
beautifully lit bare breasts. From Warsaw
is the kooky 20-something in Polish director Grzegorz Pacek’s “Wednesday,
Thursday Morning” who breaks the ice with the protagonist by taking a kooky pee
during a parade commerating the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. But the prizewinner comes from the USA, the home of kooky movie women. If you're in the mood for kooky pee scenes, none can beat that of
the irrepressible title character in Jason Reitman’s “Juno;” the opening
pregnancy test sequence excels in its tweeness, labored hipness and, of course,
kookiness.
Most abused female:
Sadly, there are no end to
candidates in this category, a kind of complement to the one above. Let’s eliminate self-abused women, such as the
depressive heroine of Mexican director Pedro Aguilera’s “The Influence” whose
relentless downward spiral is depressing to stay the least. Instead, let’s
focus on victims directly abused by loutish men, such as the estranged wife and
hapless pick-up victim described above in “Autumn Ball.” Or perhaps the woman
burnt alive on stage in “The Rest Is Silence.” But my vote goes to Zhurov’s
“bride” in “Cargo 200” who ends up…But I won’t abuse my role as critic by
giving away the most grotesque black comic scene in this film festival.
November 22, 2007
Another Thanksgiving in a country without Thanksgiving.
Speaking of family get togethers, fathers are definitely taking a beating at this festival. In addition to the "Hamlet" mentioned before, several other films offer a dark view of paternity and the legacy of inherited evil. In "Vasermil," no dads are present, and good riddance ("Do you want to turn out like your father?). When substitute father or a stepfather puts in an appearance, he's usually worse than the guy who's gone (except the paternal coach who looks like Bob Lobel). In "Elli Makra - 42277 Wuppertal" the estranged husband/father is an abusive drunk. In "Juno," "dad" is a well-meaning but spineless teenaged tadpole played by Michael Cera.
Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur, however, wins the festival prize for most negative depiction of fatherhood for "Jar City". Also, at least for the first five minutes or so, the most poetic and powerful. A man sings a lullaby to his terminally ill five-year-old daughter. The lullaby is taken up by a chorus of uniformed men as a cut is made to the tiny blue foot of the girl's corpse on a morgue table. Then the burial follows, and an aerial shot of tract housing that looks like a graveyard as well. Moving, if a bit downbeat, and had he kept up in this vein Kormakur's film might have been something else.
Instead, for one thing, the damned chorus never goes away, sounding off at the drop of a hat for sometimes comic (unintentional, I assume) effect. Plausibility is also a problem. An detective is investigating a murder scene, and let's just say this is not "C.S.I. Reykjavik." In fact, I'd go so far as to say that, Clousseau aside, he is the worst detective in movies. Think we should check the blood stain on the window for DNA? Or the ashtray used to bust the victim's head open for prints? And the creaking floorboard and awful smell everyone keeps complaining about, should we check it out?. Don't distract me, I've got a murder to investigate! Let's track down this desolate graveyard in the photo we found in the desk drawer. And so on.
Anyway, it's a long way around the block to solve a crime that could have been wrapped up with a couple of phone calls. This is detective work as Bergman might have done it, designed to reaffirm the dolorous theme of the inescapability of the sins of fathers. A definite problem especially with a gene pool as inbred as that of Iceland.
But "Jar City" does contain one scene that will stick with me, more horrific than anything in "Saw." The detective is heading home and stops off at the fast food joint for the usual -- a sheeps head with all the fixin's. He settles down to read a fire and brimstone passage from the Good Book (he's looking up the source of a passage written on one of the gravemarkers. He pauses between fulminations, pulls out a pocket knife, scoops out the sheep's eyeball, and pops it in his mouth.
Maybe I'll spend Thanksgiving next year in Reykjavik.
November 20, 2007
Chances are John Malkovich might have been in a sour mood during his master class, the legions of statuesque female fans notwithstanding. At the ceremony where he received the Golden Alexander he thanked, among other worthies, British Airways for "helping me to evade my tendency to overdress by losing my luggage." Otherwise he seemed gracious and pleased by the encomia heaped on him by the presenters, who hailed his ability to merge into a role using various hairpieces, though they didn't mention any in particular or show any clips (ironically, they did screen "Being John Malkovich," in which he plays himself in the most solipsistically way possible).
Speaking of challenging roles, one of the festival's more intriguing offerings was the 1920-21 silent version of "Hamlet" in which the title role is played by the great Danish actress Asta Nielsen. Hamlet had been played by a woman before in silent cinema (Sarah Bernhardt in 1912, which is alluded to in one of the other festival offerings, the Romanian serio-comic epic "The Rest is Silence"), but in this version Hamlet IS a woman. In a complicated prologue (the film bears little resemblance to the Shakespeare play) Gertrud is giving birth as her husband, Hamlet senior, apparently has been mortally wounded while defeating the Norwegian King Fortinbras.The child turns out to be a girl, so to insure the succession Gertrude pretends it is a boy. When Hamlet senior returns alive, they have to continue the deception.
And so years later the transgendered Hamlet emerges, played by Nielsen. I couldn't quite put my finger on who she reminded me of: a little Margeret Hamilton, Cesare the sleepwalker from "Dr. Caligari," maybe Andy Dick. The sex change definitely has an effect on the story's dynamics, though to what point is unclear. Made during the heyday of Freudian analysis, it seems to posit an alternative to the Oedipal situation in which Claudius serves as Hamlet's projection, killing his father and marrying his mother. Here the problem is more Elektra-fied, as Hamlet 
the melancholy Dame loves Horatio, the surrogate of her dead father. I don't know if it was a good film or not, but it is a must-see, especially for the (unintentionally?) comic scenes near the end where Hamlet daintily tries to conceal her decolletage from her best friend Horatio.
November 18, 2007
Athens, being the cradle of Western civilization and all, might overshadow its northern rival, Thessaloniki. 
But the less touristy Thessaloniki is still the second largest city in Greece. Historically it's nothing to sneeze at, either, founded back in the 4th century BC by Cassander, one of the late Alexander's generals, who named it after his wife, the world conqueror's half sister, perhaps to make up for the fact that he murdered her mother to take over the throne. Those Greek tragedies were not just something someone made up. In addition, Thessaloniki hosts a film festival listed by Variety as one of the 50 in the world you must attend.
Thessaloniki also boasts of the most beautiful women in Greece, and most of them were mobbed into the lobby of the John Cassavettes Theatre waiting for the "John Malkovich Master Class." One of them, a 6 foot tall powerful looking blonde woman with an agenda, kept shoving my companion YH, and so to avoid any injury, we decided to pass on the class and wait for the reception later in the evening where John Malkovich would be awarded the festival's "Golden Alexander."
And so, on to the movies. The four I have seen so far seem all deal with disaffected youth, more or less. "Valermil," an Israeli film, follows the intersecting paths of three Israeli kids -- an Ethiopian, paint-huffing, Rastafarian/Jewish dreamer, a bullet-headed, coldblooded Russian emigre, and a native-born, pissed off and insecure brother of a local mob enforcer. To avoid expulsion the first two are all kept after class to play for the soccer team on which the native-born guy is the captain. Unnervingly, the coach looks exactly like WBZ sportscaster Bob Lobel. As for the story, let's just say organized crime and amateur sports don't mix. Though it tends to the programmatic, the film evokes a real world and real people.
The hot American indie "Juno" by Jason Reitman also makes an appearance in Thessaloniki. I found Reitman's first film "Thank You for Smoking" overrated, smarmy, superficial and hypocritical. "Juno," on the other hand, combines all the worst aspects of the biggest Indie hits of the last few years. The self-conscious tweeness of "Napoleon Dynamite," the sentimentality and stereotype disguised as artiness in "Little Miss Sunshine," the reactionary politics pushed as hipness of "Knocked-Up." "Ghost World" is also a heavy influence. Plus the young actress who plays the overbearingly tough and precocious, pregnant 16-year-old protagonist has all the charm of a pint-sized Janeane Garafolo.
Still, "Juno" looks good next to the perky Polish existential romp "Wednesday, Thursday Morning," in which a disaffected young man hooks up with a kookie blond girl for a 24-hour spree in Warsaw. These kids are just trying too hard to be free-spirited, subversive and wacky. Kind of like "Juno" but with allusions to Polish films like Wajda's "Ashes and Diamonds."
Finally "Elli Makra - 42277 Wuppertal 31", the film that sounded dreariest in the catalogue description (Greek immigrant in depressing German city decides to return home) proved to be the most engaging, authentic and human. Plus, it's teenaged non-comformist heroine Niki has it all over Juno.
November 15, 2007
Let me join the chorus in saying that a cultural era passes
with the death of Norman Mailer, a time when writers (and filmmakers and
artists in general) were regarded as something heroic and iconic and not just purveyors
of products and backdrops for corporate advertising. Also, I’m personally
pissed off because I was looking forward to the next two installments of
Mailer’s Hitler trilogy that began with the publication this year of “The
Castle in the Forest.”
No doubt Mailer’s youngest son John Buffalo is mourning too,
but perhaps his grief is mitigated somewhat by the prospect of adapting his
dad’s entire catalogue of novels and books through his production company. Starting
with the first, “The Naked and the Dead,” a project the younger Mailer
announced the day after Norman’s
death, causing some to suggest that he could have been more discrete and waited
at least until the old man was in the ground.
Actually, a new adaptation is a good idea, because the
first, made in 1958 by the feisty Raoul
Walsh, nonetheless
was a little tame (it
doesnt even include the word “fug,” Mailer’s euphemism for the familiar four
letter word). Though I do recall a chilling scene in which Aldo Ray squishes a bird in his bare hands. As for the
book, it’s not the Great American Novel (the closest Mailer got, I’d say, is
“The Executioner’s Song”) but towards the end, when an annoyed American officer sitting on the crapper
inadvertantly strategizes the defeat of all the Japanese forces on the island, it’s like Tolstoy via Joseph Heller.
Some, however, might doubt the younger Mailer’s ability to do the book justice. Others might point out that he could do no worse than the pater
familias himself, as witness “Tough Guys Don’t Dance.” 
Having recently seen much of Norman’s
screen ouevre, I’d say he was a pretty bad filmmaker, but he truly revered cinema as an
art. He also had his moments of genius and ecstasy, and, and being
who he was, those moments embody the times in which he lived and which he
shaped.
Mostly, he believed film and literature and art could be transcendent,
and with his passing that crazy notion inches a little closer to oblivion as
well.
November 12, 2007
Note that this conversation took place before the World Series and so Brolin was not entirely stating the obvious when he made the prognostication toward the end. Since things took a fairly chatty, friendly turn I regret not asking him more provocative questions such as what it was like to see his then girlfriend Minnie Driver take up with Harrison Ford on the rebound after their break-up some years back. But why push my luck?
PK: You studied method acting. This seems like a role that
you can adapt that that methods to..
JB: Yeah, I mean I studied method and all that kind of
stuff. But I don’t know. I’ve gotten to a point in my life where you know, you
try a lot of different things on because of insecurity or a lack of confidence
or a lack of understanding, and a lack of confidence in the process. But you know now I don’t know if it’s because
I got to a place in my life where I go, I don’t mind humiliating myself and I
don’t mind embarrassing myself on set in order to find the right tone or the
right character trait or whatever. It’s to stay open- that’s the most important
thing for me it to stay open and to really listen to people and to be able to
be open rather than to stay in my own process. I’m going to pick up my coffee
and look at it and see if there are any chunks of cream that have gone bad and
do all this stuff. If that’s what happens, then that’s great. If it’s a thought
out process thing instead of a spontaneous thing, I find it to be a little
masturbatory, but that’s just me. So that’s why I loved working with Javier so
much because he’s very much the same way and he’s a brilliant actor. And you
know, we just like keeping it going, using the imagination. We just like to
keep the imagination acute so there’s a lot of fucking around on the set and
then when we have to do what we have to do I think we’re very focused. We do
it. We’re completely open when we’re doing it, and I think that’s why his
character didn’t turn out to be very silly because I think it could have.
PK: Despite the hair cut.
JB: Despite the hair cut, despite the eyes, despite
everything. It turned out to be chilling. And then my character- he doesn’t say
but fifty words. That’s not an easy thing for any actor to do, especially when
acting revolves around movies and all that- dialogue and theater. You suddenly
take away the one crutch that you have to be able to distract the audience to
how you’re really feeling. Or lend to how you’re really feeling. And suddenly
it’s all about something else- you know, body language, and inhales and grunts.
PK: You don’t have any scenes together, though. You’re on
the phone together, but that’s about it.
JB: Yeah, that’s right--we just shoot at each other. Javier
did a fun thing because he had to leave because he was doing “Love in the Time
of Cholera” so he left a little bit early, so I was doing the scene with him on
the phone and they had left an earpiece with a recording and they said “Here,
use the earpiece,” and I said I don’t want to use the earpiece, I’d rather have
someone else do it, like the script supervisor or something. I said I could
hear Javier in my head so it’s ok, so we did it a few times and the Coens were
like “You should really use the earpiece,” but it was just distracting for me.
Finally, the last take we did, I finally used the earpiece and Javier’s voice
is in there and he says, “Do you know where I am?” and I said, “I know where
you are.” Then he answers “I’m in the south of Spain, on the beach--having the
greatest time with the naked women.” Suddenly I got all confused because I was
totally into the scene and I looked back at Ethan and he had a huge smile on
his face. I thought, “Fuck you guys, you nailed me.” It was fun.
PK: I heard that as directors they don’t offer a lot of
direction.
JB: No, they were extremely supportive. They offer what’s
needed and not anything beyond that. They don’t offer a lot of that padding of
the ego or that kind of stuff, you know. There’s not a lot of praise where it’s
not needed, which is a great thing, because it was all about the work. And then
Javier and I could have fun when we wanted to have fun, and we could have fun
with the Coens and the Coens were actually a ton of fun. But it was more about,
let’s just do the work.
PK: More fun than Tommy Lee Jones?
JB: Tommy was great, actually. I love Tommy. I can’t imagine
he’s the greatest to reporters, but I’ve gotten to know Tommy well--especially
after the movie. but you’ve got to know that kind of character, though.
PK: You weren’t in any scenes with him?
JB: No, I wasn’t in any scenes with him. Tommy’s a good man.
Tommy’s just funny. I don’t know what he does, he’s just authentic
PK: Hell is being in an elevator with a tape recorder and
Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford.
JB: Just silence. Total silence.
PK: Just glares of contempt. Heavy sighs.
The Coen brothers make a very interesting stylistic choice
here; they show most of the violence offscreen. You just came from “Grindhouse”
where the violence is so in-your-face.
JB: Yeah, but it’s so gratuitous it’s so ridiculous in “Grindhouse.”
And that was the point; it’s an homage to that kind of ridiculous Bozo the
clown violence.
PK: These are two different approaches.
JB: Totally, this is much more Hitckockian. You look back
and you think you’ve seen something with so much violence than you actually
are. You know, but the violence is unnerving and painful and awful; it’s not
empowering in any way, at least it wasn’t for me just watching the movie as a
film buff. Javier and I were sitting next to each other watching the film for
the first time, it was like...
PK: Some of the key confrontational moments are offscreen.
Does that bug you a little bit?
JB: Oh, you mean [omitted to avoid spoiler] …this is not on
the radio, right?
PK: No. I can avoid mentioning it in the article.
JB: Well, that’s the way it happens. I think people want to
be given the opportunity to be manipulated into a place of death in film. Being
about to grieve and say goodbye and experience the death because we’ve gotten
so used to movies like “Saw” -- I don’t know what it is. I think that’s why
this is unique, because it happens like it really happens. My mother hit a
tree; she was just dead. One moment I was just talking to her and the next
minute I could never talk to her again. So when I look at that, I go, that’s an
homage to me and reality, which I think was very loyal to Cormac’s book because
that’s the way it is in the book; that’s the way it is in life. Sometimes
we’re given the opportunity to say goodbye, there’s maybe a death by disease,
but in my experience I have never seen that in film, where it just happens. You
know, the minute where there’s hope and you think [omitted to avoid spoiler].
That’s it--everything changes.
PK: You write yourself don’t you? Didn’t you write stories
and poems? Do you want to go into writing and directing films?
JB: I just directed a short film that I wrote. And there was
another short that I had written with Robert Rodriguez that we didn’t do
because I was got frustrated; it was too complictated for my first thing. So I
wrote a short. I had some of my friends do it and it was great. 26 set-ups in
three days and now it’s in the festivals and doing all of that.
PK: What’s it called?
JB: “X.” Just “X.” And, um, I have a theater company in
L.A.for which I wrote wrote, directed and produced a play. It was three hours
long and it was sold out every night. We did very well with that. We’re almost
finishing this play called “Pig’s Nest” [?] that will start in January. Um, I’m
adapting a play that I did 15 years ago into a film right now. So there’s a lot
of stuff.
PK: And then the acting, you know.
JB: Yeah, I just like stories. I love storytelling. Yeah,
the acting will continue because it pays my bills. The other stuff sort of siphons
my bank account.
PK: Any more projects? Spielberg?
JB: No. There was a movie he was producing that they offered
me, no… Scorsese is doing this thing called “The Wolf of Wall Street,” which I think is an amazing book about Jordan Belfort. I don’t know what part
would be in there because I know Leo is going to be playing Belford. I just
like the story. I would love to be in it.
PK: What are you reading now?
JB: Right now I’m reading CK Williams--a book called “Misgivings.”
PK: Red Sox, Rockies?
JB: Sox.
PK: Colts, Patriots
JB: I just don’t know.
November 09, 2007
Josh Brolin plays some really tough guys in his two new movies
“American Gangster” and “No Country for Old Men,” and after a confusing
encounter in the hotel lobby when I did a double take and he may or may not
have misinterpreted it, I wasn’t about to begin the conversation by saying that
I saw him one night in the parking lot of a fish and chips place on Martha’s
Vineyard with Diane Lane clinging to his arm. And certainly I wasn’t going to
break the ice, as I had planned, by asking what Thanksgiving Dinner was like at
the Barbra Streisand/James Brolin place. Also nixed, questions about “The
Goonies” 
and licking armpits in “Flirting With Disaster.” 
So instead the
interview started softball style like this. And even then he I thought he was
getting a little pissed off.
PK: So you had the
screening last night, I guess?
JB: Yeah. We were
literally just making these screenings because we would fly and we’d do the
interviews during the day, and then we’d land and we’d go right to the — well
usually the planes were delayed and…
PK: Where have you been?
JB: All over really. I went to New York to the “American Gangster” premiere
with my son, and my sister goes to the Berklee School of Music here so…
PK: Oh really?
JB: Yeah so I went to my son’s school — he’s in his second year
in Ohio. So I
went from New York to Ohio,
went from Ohio to Chicago, Chicago to here, tonight from here to DC. DC
to Austin, Austin
to Dallas, Dallas to San Fransisco, San Fransisco to Santa Rose. Back to San
Fransisco, Seattle, LA,
New York, LA.
PK: What a memory! You never muff a line I’d guess…
JB: [Laughing] Not that much dialogue to muff up.
PK: How did it go over with the audiences?
JB: Oh, really well. I liked the questions that they asked, you
know. It’s a hard movie to watch, at least from what I’m getting. A hard movie
to watch and get any questions afterwards you know? I mean other than the
obvious ones that I can’t really say. Yeah, there were some really intelligent
questions, you know? Which is fun. And then at the end just try to make a joke
out of everything.
PK: Must be hard to keep all the movies straight because you have
what? Four movies this year alone?
JB: Five. “Grindhouse,” “The
Dead Girl,” “[In the Valley of] Elah,” “American Gangster” and this.
PK: So is this the breakout year people keep saying it is?
JB: Ok.
PK: Does that annoy you?
JB: It doesn’t annoy me. I
would never want to negate the amount of work that I’ve done, you know? Because
I appreciate the work, I appreciate the people who have given me the work. I appreciate
the diversity that people have given me the opportunity to explore, you know?
So no, I didn’t just show up. But the movies are being seen. That may be the
difference.
PK: After 20 years or so…
JB: Yeah, a little bit longer.
PK: What do you think is special about this year?
JB: Well, they’re
established, iconoclastic filmmakers, you know? You have Ridley Scott, who has…
you just look at “Thelma & Louise,” “Bladerunner,” and all that. I mean
it’s just an amazing resumé. And the Coens, more than anybody I think, from the
beginning just established that they want to make their own personal films, and
they don’t want to be controlled by anybody, and to be involved with people
like that is a dream come true for me, you know? Just to be involved with people
like that, I would have been fine being a photographer on set or anything else
you know? Just to be a shadow and watch them do their work.
PK: So you’ve had your eye
on working with them for some time…
JB: No I’ve appreciated
them for a long time but I could never imagine myself working with them, no.
Never, never. Maybe a small part somewhere in some comedy that I could do a fun
thing in, but that was about it you know. And I auditioned for this part. I
sent in a tape that Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarentino and I did. They saw
the tape — it was a beautiful looking tape. [Laughing] It was ok, the acting
wasn’t so bad. But they saw it and they go “That’s not what we’re looking for
but thank you very much.” So they didn’t really know what they were looking
for.
PK: So they rejected you
in the first place?
JB: Oh yeah. Yeah. Very
clearly. It was my agent who kept calling them. And I think that they were
basically doing… I think they were sick of hearing my agent but I know that
they were having a last casting call and they were going to choose I think one
of four people. And they called at the last moment — I mean they literally
couldn’t have called later, the night before, and they said “You know what?
Fine. Let him come in. We’ll be happy to see him and spend a moment with him
Here’s six scenes. Have him remember those.” And then I came down and I met
them and I had it.
PK: Enigmatic, aren’t they?
JB: Very. Very. Even when I left the room I thought “This isn’t
going to work out.” Because I talked to Ethan — we were having a great time
talking about his book of poetry and his book of short stories, and I had read
them both. And we really didn’t talk about movies. We talked about the
character, did some scenes. And Joel just sat there the whole time like this — he
didn’t move. And then I did something that I’ve never done. I said “Hey listen,
you know I spent some time in the country, even before I left, I’ve never done
this. I spent some time in the country and you know I think I have a handle — I
might not now but given the research and the time I think I could pull it…” and
Joel said “Stop. Stop. Don’t do that please.” And I go, ok.
PK: Joel’s the silent one.
JB: Yeah. Joel’s the
taller one. Joel’s the older one. And he stopped me in my tracks. I felt really
embarrassed. And I shook their hands and I walked out the door and said “Well
that’s not going to work out. That’s too bad.”
PK: We don’t know when
they’re putting you on either.
JB: They don’t really put
people on, no.
PK: What about the article when
they asked why they hired you and they said that they really wanted your fater James and made a mistake?
JB: Well that’s me and
Ethan, you know. That’s just us having a good time together, you know? A lot of
people believed that article which is kind of phenomenal. But that’s ok — it
got a lot of press.
PK: So your last thoughts
as you were flying through the air after you crashed your motorcycle were, ‘I
missed my chance to be in that Coen brothers movie?’
JB: Exactly. I was just
talking about it outside. She asked me how my collar bone was healing and I
said good — perfectly. It was tough, man, it was right after I got the role and
I was driving down and I was going from one wardrobe fitting to the other and
the car was just there. I mean, I’ve never been in a street accident ever — a
lot of dirt bike accidents but never a street accident. And I fancy myself as
someone who can get out of that stuff pretty quick, having raced dirt bikes and
all that. I was just there. I could do nothing. The skid mark was like that
long. You know, and I hit it, and I knew something was going to be up. I was
just very pleased to hit the top of the car. I probably would have broken both
my legs.
PK: What was your hang time?
JB: How long was my hang time? I would imagine a good four
seconds. One, two, three, four. I was in the air for about four seconds. I was
in the air for a long time man.
PK: Was it exciting? Or
depressing?
JB: No. It wasn’t depressing
or exciting. I hit- I heard the snap you know. That wasn’t exciting. I didn’t
even think of it because I imagine I was starting to go into shock at that
point. It was a big blackout there. They wanted me to apologize to the woman,
which I didn’t really understand. I just wanted to fight. It’s just- the whole
thing was fucking weird.
The driver said it was
my fault! You’ve got to be insane. How could it be my fault? I was going in a
straight line and you turned in front of me. It was blind. I understand how you
did it, but I think you hoped that there was nobody in the third lane, you
know? She just kind of sneaked — the cars were stopped on this end so she was
just kind of sneaking, and then she punched it. So very obviously her fault,
but that’s ok. I don’t blame her for it, I mean she didn’t try to hit me. She
didn’t like chase me down and try to run me over, or shoot me, or any of it.
PK: Actually this would probably be good preparation for your
role because the film is kind of like trying to cheat death.
JB: Right.
PK: You, with Javier Bardem’s character as Death. What? you’ve
got this, like, glum look on your face…
JB: No no no. I agree with
you. I agree. I haven’t heard that actually- cheat death. Yeah, I think that’s
good.
PK: The Bardem character
is kind of like a death figure.
JB: Right.
PK: Did you draw on this for your character?
JB: Did I draw on my accident?
JB: No. Not at all. Not in the least.
PK: So this is my interpretation of the movie: it’s the same as “The
Seventh Seal,” but instead of playing chess with death you shoot at him with a
shotgun.
JB: Seventh Seal was with uh…
PK: The Bergman movie.
JB: Haven’t seen it, yeah — and I’m a huge filmophile, but I
haven’t seen it.
PK: It’s a good one.
JB: I’m sure.
PK: It’s another film about death.
NEXT: Enough about death already.
November 02, 2007
As I’ve mentioned before, whenever I wax a little political
or philosophical in discussing films like, oh, "300"
or any of The Lord of the Rings movies or any other movie in which crypto
fascist fanboys can act out their sad little gotterdammerung fantasies, I am
always reminded , “It’s only a movie” (among other usually unflattering or
otherwise anatomically dubious
suggestions). Well, all I can say is that at least I don’t have a history of
burning people at the stake for deviating from my critical opinion.
After
enjoying a brief honeymoon with Hollywood after the late Pope John Paul II gave
an infallible thumbs up to "Passion of the Christ," the
Vatican has once again soured on the studios over Shepak Kapur's “Elizabeth: The Golden
Age.” To my surprise, they objected not
to Cate Blanchett’s resemblance to Gary Oldman in “Francis Ford Coppola’s
Dracula,” but for bad-mouthing the Inquisition and other Catholic institutions. To
quote the London
“Times:”:
“Writing in Avvenire, the official organ of the Italian
Bishops’ Conference, Franco Cardini said that the film formed part of a ‘concerted
attack on Catholicism’ by atheists and ‘apocalyptic Christians.’”
Furthermore, the good prelate asks
prophetically, “Why put out this perverse anti-Catholic propaganda today, just
at the moment when we are trying desperately to revive our Western identity in
the face of the Islamic threat, presumed or real?”
Sign me up for the Tenth Crusade!
Closer to home, that watchdog of American values and subversive
left-wing conspiracies, Glenn Beck of CNN, has pointed out what everyone
suspected but no one has had the cojones to say out loud: the new G.I. Joe
movie is part of a United Nations plot to take over the world. You remember
that Beckhad it right on
the money not long ago when he tore into "Happy Feet" as “propaganda” and “the animated
version of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’” Backing 
him up is critic and talk show host pundit Michael Medved, author of “Hollywood vs. America,”
who ominously notes that the Pixar release was “the darkest, most disturbing feature-length
animated feature ever released by a studio.” Medved goes on to hint, “There’s also a
bizarre anti-religious bias operating unmistakably and gratuitously in the
film... As in so many other recent films, there’s a subtext that appears to
plead for endorsement of gay identity.”
Only a movie? Isn’t that what they said about Hitler at Munich? Wake up. America!