SUNDANCE, ‘98. DAY IX. 1/23...
On Day 9 of Sundance ‘98, "At Large" predicts that the film "Pi" will win the Grand Jury Prize tomorrow night. Of course, by the time this report is posted the awards ceremony, hence Sundance, will have come and gone. Just remember that I filed while the jury was still out. Thank you.
Just before the Sundance Juries convened this afternoon I had the opportunity to interview the most esteemed member of the panel -- writer / director / legend, Paul Schrader. Before I bestow you with the most amazing exclusive to ever hit the entertainment wires, I present to you the 1998 Sundance Film Festival "At Large" Awards:
Best Quote:
When Miramax honcho Harvey Weinstein was spotted wearing a fur-lined jacket by a screaming skull liberal lunatic who yelled, "Fur is Murder!," he responded dead-pan: "Call a cop." Weinstein wins for best quote, but, coming in a close second is actor / auteur, Vincent Gallo, who, when asked to have his photo taken for a magazine boasting Gary Oldman on the cover, responded: "Gary Oldman made a mediocre picture. My film ["Buffalo 66"] will change the world. It’s the cover or nothing."
Best Sundance Employee:
Karen, the lady who minded the gate, checking passes in the Hospitality Center. Unlike some of the angry bull-dikes working the doors at several of the screenings, Karen greeted all who passed her booth with a warm smile, quick wit, and the amazing propensity for remembering names.
Best Party:
Bar none, the Slamdance "underground" party featuring Moby.
Biggest Ruse:
The Park City Yellow Pages listing two escort services with direct lines leading to the local police station vice unit.
Best Meal:
Any meal "At Large" didn’t pay for, particularly the $50 prix fixe at Grappa courtesy of The Sundance Channel.
Biggest Asshole:
A certain Endeavor agent present. So sorry you lost Wesley Snipes last week. Who’s next?
Most Ridiculous Fashion Accessory:
Ski Helmets.
Most Unnecessary Accessory:
Personal Publicists.
Best Interview:
Paul Schrader...
At Large: You want to take a moment to catch your breath?
Schrader: I want to take a moment to find my cigarettes if I can.
At Large: In 1976, at some Writer’s Guild panel featuring you, Joan Tewksbury, and a few others, Tewksbury set the theme for that "how to write a screenplay" workshop by stating, "You can’t be taught to write." You, having come off "The Yakuza" and "Taxi Driver," jumped up and said, "You want to know how to write a screenplay? I’ll tell you how. You take your theme, you put in your metaphor, and you ram it through your screenplay." Is that what you told the audience?
Schrader: Yeah. I was teaching screenwriting at UCLA, and that was the method I was teaching at the time. You start with a personal problem which hopefully has resonance for a larger public. Then you find a metaphor for that problem, and then you take that metaphor and you ram it through a story.
At Large: That was a right on time lesson in 1976, I’m sure, yet - at the same time - having dabbled in screenwriting myself in the Eighties - every time I would try and take that advice, the notes back on my spec script would inevitably read, "This is far too personal."
Schrader: Well, that’s where the metaphor comes in. The metaphor is what takes it away from being too personal. If the personal problem is loneliness, then the metaphor is the taxi cab.
At Large: Or "alienation" as personal problem?
Schrader: Yeah, and there has to be a distance between the personal problem and the metaphor, because that’s the spark over which the creativity rides. And if those two things are too close together, there will be no spark. So, if your problem and your metaphor are the same, there will be no spark. And so, you have to have a metaphor that is slightly off from your problem. So, if the problem is "you can’t come out of the closet," then the metaphor can be "a CIA agent who is trying to get out." You know? There’s a leap there, because you’re not talking about homosexuality there. But you are.
At Large: Your film here is "Affliction." Where’s the theme, the personal problem?
Schrader: That is not my personal problem. It had to do with Russell Banks [the author of the novel Schrader adapted from and directed]. And the problem was "male violence" -- particularly the type born in the blood and bred in the bone, and passed down from father to son. And "How do you escape the cycle of that kind of violence?" The metaphor is "a small town cop who mistakes a hunting accident for a murder."
At Large: Unlike how "The Sweet Hereafter" might have been, did Banks provide everything you needed according to your formula?
Schrader: In that case, he did. It was a fairly straight adaptation, pretty much one-to-one. I dropped a couple of sub-plots, but, uh -- unlike "The Sweet Hereafter," which was a very difficult adaptation -- "Affliction" lent itself quite easily to be adapted because it had a confined time frame, a confined list of characters, and a strong protagonist [Nick Nolte, with Willem Dafoe as his brother and the narrative voice].
At Large: If you were to sit on a Director’s, or a Writer’s Panel today --
Schrader: -- I just came from one.
At Large: Great timing. If someone was to advise, "Go watch movies. See Chinatown... I don’t know... Whatever it would be to set the same unhelpful tone... What would you jump in with?
Schrader: Well, I just said it again this morning. I said, "Examine the difficulties you’re going through in your life at this particular time; examine the social fabric -- where the tears are, where the social needs are -- and try to find a metaphor which can be a character, a genre or a story that brings those two together. And, uh, you know -- watching other movies is, for me, the least effective way to get inspired.
At Large: Would you give the same advice to a hired gun writer or director?
Schrader: Well, I was hired years ago to do a film called "Cat People" -- a horror film at Universal. I thought it might be nice to do something non-personal -- a genre film, a horror film. By the time I was finished with it all... re-written the script, I discovered that it was as personal, or more personal than anything else I had done. And, uh, I just was not able to work without finding some deep attachment somewhere. So, that probably doesn’t make me the best hired gun, you know, because just like a script -- if I can’t find the theme and the message underneath it, it’s very, very hard to get your fingers typing.
At Large: Not knowing you personally, but looking over your body of work, it seems like a lot of your stuff bordered on obsession. When you wrote "Hardcore," it seems as if you were obsessed with life’s seamy side. Were you?
Schrader: I did a fair amount of research into pornography at the time, which is one of the reasons I was so impressed with "Boogie Nights." It was exactly how I remembered it. But, that was really meant to be a film about my father -- trying to throw my father into this world.
At Large: Was this in any way a reaction to your strict Calvinist upbringing?
Schrader: Yeah, but, uh, the characters I have drifted around, and... I’ve made different kinds of films because I think that when you watch a strong filmmaker, often what you see is a person trying to keep from being bored. And that’s really sort of what becomes their style, because movie making can get very boring... But there’s a kind of character that I have drifted around -- a man who drifts around; peeks into other people’s lives, doesn’t have a life of his own. He wants to have a life, but can’t quite figure out how to do it. And, uh, I come back to the existential kind of hero, and that all sort of floats around, and sometimes I work away from it. I wrote "Last Temptation Of Christ," which was about a tortured Jesus Christ, then I turned around and made a film called "Touch," which was about a totally un-tortured stigmatic. I said, "Wouldn’t it be interesting to take that character from ‘Last Temptation,’ and give him no pain?" So, you know, that was trying to do something a little different to try and keep from being bored.
At Large: Circa "American Gigolo..." Would it be fair to say you ran with the "gay elite" at the time?
Schrader: Yeah.
At Large: Moroder, Armani, Scarfiatti...
Schrader: Yeah, that was pretty much my social crowd, and I was interested --
At Large: -- Was there anyone else I’m missing there?
Schrader: Oh, there’s a fuck of a lot of them. Most of them are dead now... I was interested in what I felt in terms of social fabric. I felt a kind of new male vanity coming in. It was my hunch. The problem was the inability to express love, so then I hit on the metaphor -- the gigolo -- which was the perfect character for someone who couldn’t express love. Therefore, he was grounded in a real personal problem. On the other hand, he had a connection to the social fabric because he represented what I felt was a need for male vanity -- a narcissism, a new Edwardianism in clothes... So, in that case, I actually nailed it. I was able to hit both.
At Large: You wrote and directed "American Gigolo," and your shots were very homo-erotic. Specifically the ones of Richard Gere.
Schrader: I took the style basically from "The Conformist." That was the dominant influence.
At Large: As an outsider trying to comment on what was going on in and around that film, I have to ask -- Did you, in effect, set Richard Gere up for all those gay rumors?
Schrader: I heard that Stallone claims to have started it. [He laughs.]
At Large: Why would he do that?
Schrader: Just for the hell of it. [He laughs again].
At Large: So, there’s no way I can hang it on you. You know, people were accusing you of being gay...
Schrader: No. I ran into Richard recently, and he said, "You know, you created this monster." He was referring to that image which he still has -- of the good looking stud.
At Large: It’s served him. So, were you the kid with his nose pressed up against the window? Or were you actually, physically part of that scene?
Schrader: Oh, no. I came from a very restrictive background. I had no female siblings, and I really --
At Large: -- You didn’t see a movie until you were twenty-one.
Schrader: Eighteen. And I had no real sense of how to interact with women. I was afraid and uncomfortable. Through that crowd I became comfortable with physicality -- with holding and kissing and touching and dancing, because I knew at the end of the night it would never happen. I wasn’t that guy. But, I couldn’t get in the front door, so I came in the back door. The back door of human contact. My father was actually a man who would physically shake if you touched him, so I had to get over that hurdle somehow. And I got over it with the boys. And then I realized that all the boys want is the same thing that the girls want. They want somebody to talk to, they want somebody to share their feelings with, they want somebody to touch. And it wasn’t that hard with them. And then I began to figure out how to get along with women.
At Large: How old are you now?
Schrader: 51.
At Large: Where were you brought up?
Schrader: Grand Rapids, Michigan.
At Large: And you’re married [to Mary Beth Hurt] - what? - fifteen years now?
Schrader: Yep.
At Large: If you could take the reigns of the marketing of "Affliction," what would your game plan be?
Schrader: The film plays a game, as does the book. It pretends to be one thing, and reveals itself to be another thing. It starts out pretending to be a story of a small town cop. And then there’s a hunting accident and he thinks it’s a murder, and he thinks he’s gonna redeem himself in the eyes of his community, his boss, and his ex-wife. Then, about two thirds through, you realize that there was no murder, and he is in fact going crazy -- and it’s been about his father all along. And the drama will be resolved with his father.
At Large: Did you approach this project identifying with Nolte’s character? The father/son thing?
Schrader: Yeah. I mean, I’ve tended in my own work to keep the father off stage. But this is a fairly autobiographical piece for Russell, and he was a product of that kind of environment. So, when I adapted the book, I said to myself "There’s no way I can factor myself out of the equation. I’m the writer, I’m the director -- I’m gonna be in here, so just be faithful to Russell, and you’ll find it when you arrive. Your place will slip in." And, in the original films I’ve written, I try to end them with a bit of a grace note. There was no grace note in the book, and I put no grace note in the film.
At Large: I think you once said "They should lock the door to Hollywood and not let anyone else in." Did you say that?
Schrader: Yeah. We had far too many filmmakers, far too may films. [He laughs.] I’ll say it again right now.
At Large: It seems like you got caught out in the hallway on that comment because the other night at dinner you said "My last three films have been independents. Studios don’t make my kind of movies any more."
Schrader: Not the last three, the last seven or eight. The first five were studios.
At Large: Let’s go through them with what you did on each.
Schrader: "Blue Collar," Universal -- wrote and directed; "Hardcore," Columbia -- wrote and directed; "American Gigolo," Paramount -- wrote and directed; "Mishima," Warner Brothers -- wrote and directed; "Cat People," Universal -- only directed, and then after I came back from Japan was when I realized the industry had sort of changed. After that came "Light Of Day," "Patty Hearst," "Touch," and now "Affliction." And there may be one I’m missing...
At Large: "Taxi Driver" and "Light Sleeper" come to mind. There’s a heavy independent factor working there. Do you think that studios will come around?
Schrader: No, no, no. I think they’ve pretty well abdicated that deal. That’s why Sundance is so important. It’s a big feeder system. Sundance is now the NCAA to the studios into film.
At Large: How much do you care about the fact that they’ve abdicated?
Schrader: Well, as long as it’s still possible to make films, it doesn’t really matter. I mean, it would be nice to make a studio film and have the luxury of those budgets and talented craftsmen, but, uh, you know, there is a price for those budgets. And once a film gets to a certain budget, it’s almost impossible to have deep complexity of character. You know, the audience around the world wants to know who the good guy is and who the bad guy is -- and at a certain amount of money you have to break out the black hat and the white hat, put them on, and have the man in the white hat shoot the guy in the black hat.
At Large: Well, that’s something left to the high paid technicians in the industry.
Schrader: Yeah. And so you look at a film like "Affliction" and say "Who’s the good guy?" And you say, "Oh, uh, Wade Whitehouse [Nolte]." And then you say "Who’s the bad guy?" "Wade Whitehouse." You know? So, a film like that you must make at a lower budget.
At Large: What’s your next project?
Schrader: Well, I just finished a script for Scorsese again after all these years.
At Large: Can you tell me what it is?
Schrader: It’s called "Bringing Out The Dead," and it’s again the story about a kid that drives around at night in New York -- only now he’s an EMS worker. A Paramedic. And he’s on the side of the angels, he’s saving lives. But he’s still going crazy. [He laughs]. And then I have three things that I’m trying to put together -- one is a gangster, one is a love story, one is about a born-again Christian. I don’t know whether I’ll get any of these financed. I’m going out on Monday to pitch a new idea in Los Angeles, you know, and try and pick up some money because I really can’t support myself and my family making movies like "Affliction."
At Large: I’ve seen your schedule. Are you having fun being a juror and a filmmaker here at Sundance?
Schrader: Uh, yeah - yeah. It’ll keep you busy. You don’t have time to do much else.
At Large: Can you talk about any of the films that you dig?
Schrader: Uh... No, I can’t. Deliberations start at 5 O’clock. I mean, you can safely assume that the film that wins the Grand Prize will be the film that I like. There’s already a consensus on that.
At Large: I have placed Nick Broomfield up front as kind of the poster boy of Sundance. What are your final words about Sundance ‘98?
Schrader: I’m less cynical than when I came. I had assumed that Sundance had simply become the venue for small studio films. You know, basically commercial cinema.
At Large: Certainly in the Premiere section...
Schrader: Yeah, and that this was just a marketing and selling convention. I have seen more stronger, and vital, and personal work than I expected to see.
"Click here" tomorrow to find out which film Schrader picked for the big prize. Meantime, I’m going skiing. Finally.