Next Cinema Lounge

The Cinema Lounge meets on Monday, July 12 at 7:00pm to take an in-depth look at the films of maverick director John Cassavettes. Suggested viewing: Shadows (1959), Husbands (1970), A Woman Under the Influence (1974), The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976), Gloria (1980), and Big Trouble (1984).

Cinema Lounge, a film discussion group, takes place the second Monday of every month at 7:00pm at Barnes and Noble Books, 555 12th Street, NW in Washington, DC (near the Metro Center Metro stop).

Film Society Members Meet with John Irving and Tod Williams at the Screening of A Door in the Floor

By John Suozzo, D.C. Film Society Member

At the Landmark E Street Cinema on June 14, D.C. Film Society members were privileged to have author John Irving, and Tod Williams, director and screenwriter of A Door in the Floor (based on Irving's book A Widow for One Year) present for questions after the film. There was no lack of questions from the packed theater as Film Society members queried the two for about 45 minutes. The film is scheduled for release in July and stars Kim Basinger, Jeff Bridges, and Jon Foster.

Question: Tell us about how the idea for the movie began.
Tod Williams: The story of The Door In The Floor is taken from the first 183 pages of a 700-page novel. The bulk of the novel tells Ruth’s story as an adult 36 years later. I had read the novel when it came out and immediately became a big fan of it. I realized this first section would be worth exploring, with characters rich and paradoxical, and strong enough to stand on its own. I met with John Irving and we agreed that I would adapt this section into a screenplay.

Q: Has the accident at the end of the film been changed from the novel?
Williams: The accident is essentially the same as in the book. The essential lesson from the accident--don’t turn the wheels to the left before starting into a turn as you can get pushed into an oncoming vehicle.

Q: Why did you use the image of a real "Door in the Floor" as the final image of the film?
Williams: The racquetball court is on the second floor and you needed a way to get to and from it. What does the final image mean? It’s very rich--a man descending into his grave or climbs down to rejoin his daughter in the garden. Also it conjures up an image of the vagina or facing our ultimate fears in life. It was also a way to put my stamp on the film. But nothing is wrapped up. We don’t know what happens to Ted or Marion.
John Irving: It is also similar to some of the themes that Ted wrote about in his children’s books.

Q: Was John Irving involved in the production of the movie?
Irving: Yes, I found this an agreeable collaboration because Ted did all of the work (laughter). I always felt more involved in the editing because that is closest to the art of writing a novel. The idea to adapt the novel was Tod’s; I was not interested in adapting this novel myself.

Q: Why did you set the movie in the present time?
Williams: We could potentially do another film based on the book. We kidded about having a reunion with Elle Fanning (Ruth) when she is 35. So we were conscious of the actors’ current ages. The movie needed to exist on its own and we didn’t want to explain the characters’ actions based on a 1950’s mindset. Therapy, divorce and Eddie’s sexuality would all have to be explained from the viewpoint of the 1950’s. We wanted the audience to feel like these characters might be people they know.

Q: Did you have to convince John Irving to set the movie in the present?
Irving: No, not at all. My experience with Cider House Rules found that a principal impediment to its success was the fact that it was a period piece. Period pieces distance the audience from the film, so I found the decision [to set the movie in the present] liberating. Why not make it that way? We knew we had to change the title--you couldn’t call it A Widow for One Year--and we had 20 chapter titles to choose from. I liked the way Tod worked the title into the final shot--it was much more interwoven with the plot of the story. Both of these decisions [present day and new title] were easy choices, really.

Q: Tell us about the casting? Did you have anyone in mind when you first read the book?
Williams: Not really, though I probably had Jeff Bridges in mind from the start since I think he’s one of the best actors we have today. And casting a female role for an actress over the age of 40 means you’re going to be meeting the greatest actresses of this generation. One of the first things I noticed about Kim Basinger was that her eyes were especially expressive.
Irving: And he wanted to meet a lot of actresses (laughter). I mean…Madonna? Afterwards he said she wasn’t right for the part. But still, he met Madonna!!

Q: In the movie, Ted explains his theory of writing. Do Ted’s ideas agree with your ideas about writing?
Irving: I think Ted’s theory is right. Even failed writers like Ted know more than young kids. One of the most faithful things in the movie is how true it is to the writing process. Ted’s point about "specific details" is important. Ted knows what he ought to do but doesn’t do it, and thus is a failure.
Williams: Is scriptwriting manipulative? I don’t know. I struggle with that.
Irving: I think we all do. I think if we witness a tragedy at home, there is a temptation to think "This would make a great scene". I’m a storyteller, a craftsman. I care more about my writing’s impact on readers’ emotions. Can I generate sympathy for a character that has done bad things? In Cider House Rules, how sympathetic does an ether-addicted abortionist sound? In that same movie, the Delroy Lindo character impregnates his own daughter. The world is full of gray areas. Neither Door in the Floor nor Cider House Rules were "good-guy versus bad-guys" movies. If you think these characters are fully evil because they have committed evil acts and you can’t get past that reaction, you need to skip literature and movies and stick to reading the newspapers.

Q: How was the cinematographer (Terry Stacey) chosen?
Williams: I looked at a lot of people, most of whom were more experienced than me, so I had to decide whom to trust and who I could talk with. He had done American Splendor on a small budget so I thought he could operate on this set, which had a small budget but big-name stars. The guy who did the score, Marcelo Zarvos, was also fairly inexperienced. In the past, I had been disappointed when I hired the "best resume" and didn’t take these other factors into account.

Q: For John Irving, what is your favorite novel that you have written?
Irving: Readers should have their own favorite, but asking me that question is like asking me to choose a favorite among my children. But I will say this: my last five novels are much better structurally than the first five. Any of the last five are better than the first five. But remember that when I wrote the first five novels, I had other jobs and could not devote 8 hours a day to just writing.

Q: When Marion takes both the pictures and the negatives at the end of the movie, what was her motivation for that? And did Jeff Bridges do all his own art work?
Williams: Jeff did all of his storyboards but not all of the nudes. Marion leaving with the negatives is designed to leave you with lots of questions about why she did certain things.
Irving: Yes, it was cruel but as Eddie tells Ted, "She said you would say that". Marion thinks Ted had this coming. This film is all about loss and grief--and who can handle it and who can’t. As sympathetic as Ted becomes late in the film, he is still a manipulative SOB. He brings Eddie in because he resembles his dead son and may be attractive to Marion. He is a bad husband, a bad guy but a good father. Be careful what you wish for. Ted gets everything he wished for, including the pool, but his life is worse than he thought. I didn’t know who my father was until I was 36 and even then I didn’t have a very clear picture of him. But…that may have helped me as a writer. This picture about is a little girl who is forced to imagine everything (about her brothers). [In the novel] it takes 36 years for Marion to come back to her. So there…I don’t know why she took the negatives. Probably [it was] a reaction to Ted’s behavior. You have to leave some mysteries intact.
Williams: I was also interested in using the image of the empty walls.

Touch of Pink

By Linda Posell, D.C. Film Society Member

Alim is a gay, South Asian Canadian living in London with his boyfriend. He is so caught up in the romance, style and dreams of old Hollywood that he thinks he's living with the spirit of Cary Grant. The couple is happy together but their lives are soon thrown into chaos when Alim's devoutly Muslim mother comes to visit…and tries to set him up with a proper Muslim girlfriend, totally unaware that he is gay, let alone living with a man. With his mother in the picture, Alim's different worlds quickly begin to collide, and he has to choose between his fantasy life with Cary and the earthlier pleasures of real life.

Linda Posell: Who is the audience for this film?
Ian Iqbal Rashid: If you’re thinking about an audience when you’re making a film, the game’s over. You make it for yourself and let the marketing people worry about that. I made the film for me and if audiences like it, I’m thrilled. It’s a personal project. I hope lots of constituencies come to it; the film has the potential to reach and touch lots of different people. I’ve shown the film in Canada and a few places in the States. In Miami, the film was embraced by the Latino community. I have Jewish friends in New York who have seen the film and they get it. I think there are cross-overs. Anyone who feels on the outside will get it.

LP: It’s a film about outing on all levels.
Rashid: It’s about Alim coming out as a gay man but it’s also about living the Hollywood fantasy life and adopting the values of Hollywood. Hollywood is really powerful (Reagan’s memorial service was in progress blocks away as we spoke). It’s a film about rejecting all that and getting to a truth in ones own life about who you are.

LP: How do you want the film to be categorized?
Rashid: It’s easy to appreciate the film as a comedy but it’s so much more. It’s about identity and sexuality and what keeps people on the margins. This is a film about someone who wants to be front and center in his own life. But I wanted to make it fun and an old-fashioned film experience. I wanted this movie to have an old movie warmth and feeling…and that tone. Because the budget was so limited, there was only so much we could do. I played with the idea of sections in black and white but had to give up on that idea. I wanted the tone and pacing to reference old Hollywood films. Certain scenes we tried to do with that screwball rhythm…quick talking rather than speak-listen-think-respond style. People are their thoughts, the dialogue is their thoughts… It’s a leap of faith for actors because the acting styles are so different now.
Jimi Mistry: It was very interesting to do because, as an actor, you want to be real. Ian would say, “Trust me. We’ll do it ping-ping-ping.” When you watch it, it’s great to see. I put my faith in that idea and it works beautifully.

LP: Tell us about your decision to have the Cary Grant character speak to the audience as the opening of the film.
Rashid: I wanted the audience to get used to the idea of Cary Grant as a character in this movie and introducing him gradually would have been too distracting. So I throw it out to the audience, let them catch it and get it out there. It’s a lot of pressure on Kyle at the beginning but it’s a film about Alim learning to accept who he is and become the star of his own life. Cary Grant made his most profitable films in the 1950s and 60s. This was his Hitchcock phase: Notorious, North by Northwest. He made Charade in the 60s, his best romantic film. That Touch of Mink was a somewhat cynical project, trying to trade in on the success of Pillow Talk and wasn’t seen as a very good movie but it’s an important film for me personally.

LP: Who are your influences?
Rashid: My Beautiful Laundrette is one of the reasons I moved to London from Toronto. It was one of the first films to come out from FilmFour. And I thought, any country that can make films like this is where I want to live. So challenging and subversive. I loved it. Michael Barker, one of the CEOs of Sony Pictures Classics, was really instrumental in making Laundrette a success (originally made for TV and blown up for theatrical release). He went after Touch of Pink because he believes that the film is the post-Thatcher version of Laundrette. They’re like bookends in a way. They paid a lot more money for this film than they like to but it was very personal to Michael.
Mistry: The Buddha of Suburbia and Laundrette are the early films of the 1980s and 90s featuring South Asian themes and actors. Then there was a real gap. We did East is East and The Guru (which went to the top of the UK box office) in the 90s which made FilmFour money, then lost it. I feel a part of the move to bring Asian culture to the mainstream. I’m inspired by Ian and Hanif Kureishi and other writers who make it possible for me to do the job I love doing and to open doors for others to do the same.

LP: Who inspires you?
Rashid: John Sayles and Ang Lee are important reference points. As a scriptwriter, I love the old comedy writers like Preston Sturges, Ernst Lubitsch, and early Woody Allen.
Mistry: Those willing to take risks and make hard choices. Ben Kingsley is exactly the same mixture of races that I am (Anglo-Irish and Indian). For someone to be brave enough to take on Ghandi and to be embraced as an actor is what inspires me. To be embraced as an actor regardless of where I’m from and who I am. It’s hard if you’re of an ethnic background to be seen as an actor, respected for what you do.

LP: The music in the film was great and well chosen, especially a Cleo Laine recording, “Lies of a Handsome Man,” a perfect pairing of story and song in the film.
Rashid: I wanted Gershwin and Cole Porter but we couldn’t afford it. I had this brilliant Canadian composer, Andrew Lockington. I was despondent that we couldn’t get the songs I wanted and he said, “Let’s write them.” I wrote the lyrics and he wrote the music.

LP: Do you ever think about musicals? Do the old Hollywood musicals or Bollywood attract you?
Rashid: I’ve just written a musical inspired by Pennies from Heaven. Growing up in Toronto, my reference point is Busby Berkeley. Bollywood is new for me. I’m just learning to appreciate the films now.

Touch of Pink opens on July 16, 2004.

Ian Iqbal Rashid was born in Tanzania, grew up in Toronto and has been living in England since 1990. He is the author of three award-winning volumes of poetry and short fiction and has written widely for British radio and television, including the television series This Life. In 1998 Rashid wrote and directed his first short film Surviving Sabu, which won the jury prize at the Out on Screen Festival in Vancouver and at the Zanzibar Film Festival. Stag was selected for Time Out’s Gala at the 2002 London Film Festival.

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead Press Conference

By James McCaskill, Storyboard Special Correspondent

This press conference with Director Mike Hodges, Screenwriter Trevor Preston, and actors Clive Owen and Jonathan Rhys Meyers was held last summer. Co-stars Charlotte Rampling and Malcolm McDowell were not able to attend but the film's publicity people provided comments.

Mike Hodges does not control the dark, edgy film noir genre but he does have the master's touch. He shot to the top of the heap with his groundbreaking 1971 gangster thriller Get Carter where he first probed the underworld sensibility and the evolving role of the masculine code of honor. The raves a few years ago with his exploration of the world of addiction in Coupier confirmed his status. That film was, in Hodges' words, "headed toward the video oblivion, without even a proper UK release" until it proved immensely popular in America. That success refocused attention on his body of work leading to retrospectives being held at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The American Cinematheque in Los Angeles and The Film Museum in Munich. Coupier was named on over 100 Ten Best Film lists in North America.

You expect the thriller motive to drive a Hodges film. He has used that as the jumping off point for commenting on the criminal psyche in Get Carter, science run amok in The Terminal Man and the destruction of the environment in Black Rainbow. If you realize that a Hodges movie is well written and peopled with characters on the fringes of society whose obsessions provide fascinating looks into the darker, compulsive side of human nature then you won't be disappointed with I'll Sleep. The absorbing atmosphere and driving intensity of his past work is here in buckets.

One of the reasons for the well written, well crafted aspects of his films is the great respect Hodges has for the writers. He insisted that his gifted screenwriters share the possesory credit in Coupier (a Mike Hodges-Paul Meyersber film), in his Emmy award winning Squaring the Circle (a Mike Hodges-Tom Stoppard film), and now in I'll Sleep it is a Mike Hodges-Trevor Preston film. Hodges and Preston first worked together in a 60s British TV arts series. Preston was the writer-researcher on the films Hodges made about Orson Welles, Jean Luc Goddard and others. "It was natural for Trevor to send me I'll Sleep When I'm Dead", Hodges said, "which was written in a taunt, tense, yet human style that complemented the seemingly rough characters and underworld milieu. The thriller a form I'm particularly drawn to." Hodges continued, "Screenwriters are known for being miserable bastards. I am working with a man who is as good a writer as I am. Directors are jealous of writer because they have the idea."

Speaking of the script Clive Owen said, "In 1998 we began shooting Coupier. It had the tightest, leanest script. I have ever read. This one, I'll Sleep, was even leaner and so tight." About the casting, Hodges said, "Casting the part of Will Graham, the gangster who retreated to the woods to escape the crime life, was difficult, as the actor had to convey and contain outer strength and inner turmoil, always in control and always on the edge."

While making Coupier, Hodges and Owen really got on together and Hodges felt he had his lead for I'll Sleep. "Clive is the most precise actor I'd worked with since Michael Caine," he says. "He also has extensive knowledge of filmmaking and its rhythms." He has an absolutely impeccable sense of the scenes that really count. It's a bit like Hitchcock, where you are drawn to certain moments in his films. Clive has that uncanny sense of where these passages occur. There are some long dialogue scenes and the manner in which he delivers them is startling."

While you might think that with the Coupier track record of Hodges and Owen future film funding would be easy. Not the case with I'll Sleep. Because of the controversial nature of the film finding funding took years. "I'll Sleep came together through the commitment of Ruth Vitale, the co-president of Paramount Classics," said producer Kaplan. "She immediately recognized the film's quality and potential and whose enthusiasm and support never wavered."

Both Owen and Charlotte Rampling made early commitments and stood by the project despite both their rising profiles. Rampling said she stayed with the project because she found the script "haunting." "I was absolutely haunted by the script when Mike first talked to me about it. Revenge is one of its themes although the best part for me was watching Mike come up with ways of making revenge visually interesting and of enhancing the beautifully written screenplay. The script was really thought through, with no unnecessary words. It is writing I love as it says something with meaning very simply. The story takes place in the world of gangsters but it's not a gangster film. It's very moving and very deep."

When they initially talked about the film, the ages of Will and Rampling's character, Helen, were the same. "Why should not Helen be older?," Hodges asked. If so, there was not only a prior sexual relationship between them but also a kind of spiritual one." "It also made Helen more interesting as this well-heeled, classy woman needed the excitement of being with a criminal; a bit of rough stuff. Relationships never cease to puzzle me. Why certain people get married or become lovers. I thought that without stating the obvious this idea would come through."

Hodges believes that casting is the key to filmmaking. "The whole process of choosing the cast - and there isn't a single actor I asked to read--is for me intuitive. Like a chef, you put all the ingredients into the pot and hope it will taste good and look good. But you don't ever delude yourself that the director has anything to do with the acting. You can shape and suggest things but the actual performance comes from the actors, from their mysterious abilities to summon up the truth in their characters.

Davey, played by Rhys Meyers who also made an early commitment to the project, is a petty thief whom the audience has to really like and miss once the character leaves the film. "Jonathan," said Hodges, "was able to capture the duality of being a petty criminal like the Artful Dodger and still immensely likeable,e as well as convey the anguish of what happens to him. The pain he displays in the bathroom scene is profound. His is not a massive role but it is vital and I am lucky to have met him."

Rhys Meyers returns the compliment. "Every frame means something. There are no wasted shots or dubious sequences. Most films you see nowadays have lots of fancy sweeping shots that are just fluff. But everything here makes sense."

At this point the press conference almost becomes a love fest with Owen saying, "Most unusual set to be on. Most stress free set you could ever hope for. The working environment was most pleasant." Hodges explained, "Actors give you wonderful things if you are pleasant. So why have an uptight set?" Rhys Meyers revealed that, "I had an ulcer throughout the film shoot. Everyone said, 'Sit down, how is the belly?' That made the dark stuff easier. I have never been treated with such respect."

The rape scene was the most difficult. "How can you shoot the scene and not repulse the audience?," Hodges asked. "You have to film it in such a way that you get the horror of what happened. We shot that scene first and what he gave me was amazing. It was made in one take."

For Malcolm McDowell who plays Boad, the film's cold, complex, catalyst, Hodges' work is remarkable. "One can't help be taken by Mike's precise, accomplished direction", he said. "Mike is a great friend and we always wanted to work together but I had to think twice about taking this role for there is a major scene which is quite horrible, something I refused to do, even in Caligula. But I am so impressed with Mike, who did this horrific sequence all in one shot. When you see it, it is very powerful without being salacious. I'm so happy things have come round for him and people are now saying he's one of Britain's all-time bests. He's a master who never got his due, until now. I also loved working with Clive Owen. He's a minimalist actor and terrific at what he does."

This was a difficult project for McDowell as in the fall of 2002, when I'll Sleep was shot in London and Wales, he was also playing the leading male role, the artistic director of a ballet company, in Robert Altman's latest, The Company. Roles at polar extremes.

Where did the title come from? Preston revealed, "I am an old rock and roller. While finishing this screenplay I was listening to one of my favorite songwriter, Warren Zevon, and the track 'I'll Sleep When I'm Dead' was on it. As Will Graham is a restless, driven man who has grown up with shadows on his soul, the title was a perfect fit. Clive Owen has also found a compelling way to embody Will's haunted, haunting character that one feel he never sleeps. . . or blinks."

The revenge motive is in the background of this film. For Hodges, "I can't think of anyone living who does not understand revenge. It motivates. Revenge is not even contemplated until the end of the film. Right at the very end you have the last shot where someone is taking revenge. Revenge begets revenge.

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead is distributed by Paramount Pictures and opens on July 2.

Riding Giants: Q&A with Director Stacy Peralta and Film Participants

By John Suozzo, D.C. Film Society Member

On June 27 D.C. Film Society members were treated not only to an awesome documentary about surfing at the AMC Mazza Gallerie but also to a question-and-answer session afterwards with the director, co-writer, and some of the surfers seen in the film. Following is a summary of what we discussed.

In attendance: Stacy Peralta (Director and Co-Writer); Sam George (Co-Writer and Surfer); Greg Noll (Big Wave Surfer); Jeff Clark (Mavericks Surfer).

Q: Who was filming the shots of Greg Noll and the other surfers of the '60s?
Greg Noll: First, I want to apologize for my language [in the film] (Laughter). In the old days, I would take the films when I wasn’t surfing. If I was surfing, there was usually someone around who picked up the camera and helped out.
Stacy Peralta: The reason they took the pictures was to show their friends what the waves actually looked like. Nobody had seen the really Big Waves and Greg was always being asked what they were like. They used an old Bell and Howell 16mm.

Q: For Stacy, are you a surfer too?
Stacy Peralta: I am a surfer, too. I had never surfed until I moved to California after college.
Greg Noll: He is a really good surfer and also a world-class skateboarder.
Stacy Peralta: That’s true. I made a previous film, Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001), that dealt with skateboarding.

Q: Every generation seems to find a bigger wave. What’s next?
Jeff Clark: No telling. We are chasing swells and storms all over the planet. We’re very much like Storm Trackers.
Sam George: Remember though that Jeff and his crew represent a small percentage of surfers. Recreational surfing is growing like crazy. Lots of families, lots of women are getting involved in the sport. There is something for everyone in the world of surfing.
Stacy Peralta: Because of what they can do with technology--they are waiting for the "Wave of the Century".
Greg Noll: We never thought we’d see surfers doing what surfers are doing today.

Q: For Greg, when was the last time you surfed in Hawaii?
Greg Noll: At my age, Jeff and Laird will tow me out but they will tell you the tow will lead straight to the cemetery. (Laughter)
Stacy Peralta: I just want to add that the wave you saw Laird catch was so dramatic the surfer community will be talking about it 100 years from now.

Q: What was it like protecting the cameras while you were shooting? Did you lose any cameras during the filming?
Stacy Peralta: None were lost, but that was because the guys that were shooting were surfers first and cameramen second. These guys were not land-based. We didn’t go up to studio cameramen and ask them to follow us out into the ocean with their cameras.
Sam George: I’ll tell you a story from another surfer movie I was involved with. The surfers tried to warn the cameramen not to move their cameras too close to the breaking waves. The cameramen thanked them but told them to leave the filming to them. Sure enough a wave crashed into the cameras and sent them to the bottom 150 feet below the surface. The surfers couldn’t resist asking, "how much will you pay us to dive down and bring back your cameras?" (Laughter)
Jeff Clark: Remember the guy in the movie who invented the IMAX theaters? We helped him move his camera closer and closer to the action. He got the shot--unfortunately the wave got his camera.
Stacy Peralta: The guys we hired for this film--we had used them for a long time, from way back. They were very used to working in water.

Q: The newer Big Waves are recent discoveries. Mavericks [was discovered] in the 80’s, Jaws within the past 10 years. Where will the new waves in the world be found?
Jeff Clark: The Sea of Cortez (100 miles west of San Diego) was surfed for the first time 4 years ago. Also, the Bay of Biscay in France--they are finding Big Waves everywhere. Biarritz, France too.
Sam George: Greg, you guys discovered new spots back then too.
Greg Noll: It won’t stop. They have all the technical stuff to follow the surf. These guys are almost like professional weatherman.
Stacy Peralta: Would you tow-in [surf] today?
Greg Noll: Absolutely yes.

Q: Stacy, I used to skateboard and I loved your first movie. All respect to you. What is your next project?
Stacy Peralta: There are other subjects I’d like to tackle. But the folks at Sony Pictures Classics have asked me to develop a fiction film, a coming-of-age film that is based upon the life of Greg Noll. I told Sony I would do it provided I could work with Sam George as my co-writer. I’m sure it will be an exciting adventure.

Q: For Greg--Did you realize when you were surfing that the sport would grow to be this big?
Greg Noll: We had absolutely no idea that it would last or that so much attention would be directed to the sport. We were just kids, living on oatmeal and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and having a good time. I’m proud to have been a pioneer.

Q: In the early film clips, a lot of the land in Hawaii was undeveloped. Are there any plans to ensure that these farms and other places are preserved from development?
Greg Noll: Well, I was partially responsible for depleting the pineapple supply on the North Shore (Laughter). I would hope that we can preserve what we were able to enjoy back then.
Sam George: Just last year I stopped at a little country market that was there in the Greg Noll days. The grandfather of the current owner recognized me and asked me where I had been [the last few years]. The North Shore has changed very little. There still are no hotels or other commercial developments.
Greg Noll: There are a few more houses overlooking the water, however.

Q: How was it to surf all by yourself for the first couple of years up at the Mavericks?
Jeff Clark: I didn’t [surf alone] because I wanted to--there was just nobody else there [to surf with]. Even before I started surfing there, my friend and I would just sit on our boards and watch the waves day after day. I would have loved to have company.
Sam George: [The Mavericks were so scary] nobody wanted Jeff to call them (Laughter).

Q: How did you meet the characters in the film?
Stacy Peralta: I met Greg on the "Old Surfers Hot Line". You know "Former Surfer, 50-ish but young at heart". (Laughter).
Greg Noll: I’m not going there (Laughter).
Stacy Peralta: I was helping a friend finish up a film he was working on and one of the things I had to do was interview Greg Noll. When I met him, he was so charismatic and so full of great stories I knew he would be great to work with. I asked him if anyone had done a film about Big Waves. He said no but "Do it soon!" because the old guys weren’t getting any younger (Laughter). Then we hooked up with Laird and Jeff.

Q: In the film Blue Crush, they said people need to have a membership card to surf certain beaches. Does this apply to Big Wave surfing?
Greg Noll: That’s just a sad situation.
Sam George: In the really Big Surf, you don’t get the kind of crowded conditions you have in recreational surfing. They’ve even coined a phrase, Surf Rage, to describe the conditions at some beaches. But on the other hand, you couldn’t walk up to the free-throw line at a big city park and start playing basketball, either. It’s a classic battle of a limited resource (a great wave) being pursued by too many people.
Jeff Clark: There is a pecking order in Big Wave surfing. Those who surf Big Big Waves--that group is very small.
Greg Noll: I want to thank Stacy Peralta for giving me a chance to ride one more Big Wave. I’ve seen just about all of the "Surfer Movies" and this is the first time it’s been done right. [It’s] a movie hopefully everyone can enjoy (Applause).

Q: For Stacy, can you tell us a story about the challenges of making this movie?
Stacy Peralta: The biggest challenge was to tell the story of the three Beaches--The Mavericks, Wialea and Peahi--in a coherent way. How to develop each of the 3 story lines. Who the players would be for each beach. There is a certain amount of "casting" involved for the interviews to be used in each segment. And also, apart from the guys here tonight, a lot of surfers have big egos, so that was a factor too.
Sam George: I was probably the only naysayer. Could we do it well? I didn’t know. But Stacy’s passion for the subject convinced me.
Stacy Peralta: On a film like this you end up wearing a lot of hats. But we thought of ourselves as worker bees.

Q: Tell us about the 3D still photos used in the film? They were amazing.
Stacy Peralta: A friend of mine told me he had a process to make 3D photos from regular pictures. So I gave him 3 photos and he went back to his lab to work on them. Two weeks later he came back with these beautiful 3D pictures. Beautiful, but also very expensive.

Q: Mark Foo, the surfer who died. There wasn’t a lot about him in the movie--no interviews, etc. How come?
Stacy Peralta: There was a lot of film and other stuff about Mark out there. We just didn’t have the time. We had the material.
Sam George: Plus, because he died we couldn’t interview him. Anything else would have been a set-up for the accident.

Q: For Greg Noll, tell us about the Wave of the Century in '69.
Greg Noll: It was [only] a six-footer (Laughter). Fortunately there were no pictures from that day.
Sam George: Michael Moore might want to look into it (Laughter).

Riding Giants is scheduled for release this month.

Lights, Camera, Cannes! Part Deux

An Informal Interview with An American Student at the Cannes Film Festival

By Cheryl Dixon, D.C. Film Society Member

Film Society member Claudia Lagos and I met several American students studying at the Academic Program in Aix-en-Provence in France at the “Le Cinema de la Plage” show of San Duk Bei Do (Cheh Chang 1971). Here are the comments of one of them: Erin Rasmussen (University of Wisconsin).


Erin, Cody, and Danny, American students at "Cinema on the Beach"

Cheryl Dixon: What brought you to the 57th Annual Festival de Cannes? How long are you staying?
Erin Rasmussen: We were able to come because the director of our study abroad program is friends with another program director who knows someone that got his group plus a dozen of us the Cinephile badges and home stay families. The allure of movies stars and good movies was too good to pass up! I stayed the last five days of the Festival.

CD: Is this your first time at the Festival? If not, how many times have you been here before?
ER: First time! Pretty good for a college student...

CD: What were your favorite movies screened during the Festival? Why?
ER: I really enjoyed Nobody Knows, a Japanese film in competition for the Palme d'Or. Also, Schizo, which I believe was in the Certain Regard selection. It is a Khazakstani film. I think they actually have things in common--poignant looks at children forced to be on their own. That paired with stark cinematography, purposeful dialogue, and loaded silences made the films exceptional.

CD: What were your least favorite movies? Why?
ER: My least favorite film was Breaking News by Johnny To. This is probably due to the horrible subtitling, but I have a feeling that the original dialogue was just as bad. It was a formulaic action flick. Disappointing.

CD: Did you meet any celebrities?
ER: Ahhhh. No. However, I did get to see a few (up close in real life!) David Carradine and Mark Hamill were at a screening I tried to get into, and Tarantino walked in front of me about six inches away. Unfortunately I chickened out. I wanted to ask him to meet for a chat over coffee...

CD: What's your opinion of the Festival? Did you enjoy it? Will you return to it?
ER: I did enjoy it, but the business aspect and the exclusiveness of it is a turn-off. I would only return if I had a more important badge--one where I could see more films, i.e., a VIP badge, or press accreditation or the marche du film badge. If the Festival is business, it would be nice to see the real face of it, instead of trying to treat it like a festival for the “public.”

CD: Can you describe a typical day at the Festival?
ER: Waking up early to see what extra tix are at the cinephile tent, then doing nothing ‘til the afternoon when we see our first film. The “doing nothing” includes sitting at a cafe getting burned, sitting on the beach getting burned, or waiting in line getting burned. Then we see the movie or maybe two, and then we go to the beach for the evening free film. Really, the movies we saw depended on what tix we found. The cinephile badges have a lot of movies playing at theatres off the Croisette, but that includes leaving the center of the festival, standing in line in the sun, and possibly not getting in to the film, at which point we'd have to walk all the way back...I was happy at cafes...

CD: Any other parting comments for our readers in Washington, DC?
ER: Go to Cannes for your job or for the beach. It's hard to do it in between.

CD: Erin, thank you for sharing your thoughts on the Festival. What do you say? Same time, next year?

An Interview with Jack Lechner, Producer of The Fog of War

By James McCaskill, Storyboard Special Correspondent

Local boy makes good stories are standard newspaper articles. When that local boy not only makes good but makes darn good films the story becomes fascinating. When one of those films is Errol Morris' Oscar winning The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara then the story becomes compelling.

That local boy is Jack Lechner who grew up in Arlington, Virginia. I've known his parents for 35 years (his mother is one of the producers for It's Academic) and watched Jack grow up and graduate from Yorktown High School. He was head of development at Miramax from 1996 to 1999 and was involved in the production and development of such movies as The Crying Game, Good Will Hunting, The Full Monty, Little Voice, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Shallow Grave, Velvet Goldmine, Brassed Off, Bhaji on the Beach and Guinevere. An impressive list. Prior to that he was an executive at HBO in New York, Film Four in London and various studios and production companies in Los Angeles. During this time, when Lechner received on-screen credit it was usually limited to a "Thank you" in a long list during the closing credits. "That's why Fog of War was so exciting for my family," he wrote in our exchange of email. "It was the first time I had a credit that didn't appear just before the lights came up in the theatre."

Lechner was one of five executive producers for Fog of War. Two of the others, Jon Kamen and Frank Schermas, head up @radical.media. "@radical.media is a multi-disciplinary production company that produces commercials, motion pictures, and television," he wrote explaining how he became involved with Morris. "Errol Morris directed commercials for @radical--in fact, he's become one of the hottest commercial directors in the world, unbeknownst to most of the documentary film community! So when Errol first conceived the idea of the film, he asked us to help, and we were honored to do so."

"When we began work on Fog of War it was well before 9/11 and certainly before the war in Iraq. Any number of people--including potential financiers--asked us why we thought anyone would be interested in the life of Robert McNamara. Of course the film took on greater resonance as events caught up with it. I think it's a great lesson about trusting your own instincts. Anything that fascinates you sufficiently will probably fascinate others eventually."

When asked if he anticipated the critical and audience praise for the film, Lechner answered, "I'd be lying if I said that I ever imagined the film would receive the kind of attention and acclaim it has. I don't think Errol did either--he's a true pessimist. The one person who did anticipate everything that happened was Michael Barker at Sony Pictures Classics. When he agreed to pre-buy the film, Michael told me that it would win the Oscar for Best Documentary. I pointed out that Errol Morris had made six other features and that none of them had even been nominated. 'Those were Errol Morris films,' Michael explained patiently. 'This is a film about the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Those win Oscars.' And he turned out to be right. Our film ended up competing for the Oscar against four extraordinary films, all of which were eminently deserving--but ours had the highest body count, which does seem to be the deciding factor."

The title, uttered by Secretary McNamara in the film, seems to have originated in the military masterpiece On War by Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831), the Prussian war theorist. Clausewitz uses the phrase to mean that a military campaign is so complex that a commander cannot see the full realities and makes tactical errors. McNamara appears to use it to mean the complexity of war excuses moral shortcomings.

When asked his opinion on why McNamara agreed to make the documentary when he could have written a book or arranged a TV interview Lechner responded, "I think McNamara has a powerful impulse to confess, to atone, and to share his experiences in the hope that others will avoid his mistakes. At the same time, he's still a man in denial, which is how he survives. The other side of McNamara wants to be judged less harshly by history, and to present his side of the story. Either way, he wants to be forgiven. This film is another straw he could grasp at to pursue the forgiveness he yearns for--forgiveness which he can't quite grant himself."

I told Lechner that from my one meeting with Morris years ago I had the impression that he took the funds and said, "Thank you. See you after the film is made." Lechner agreed that as far as "the ultimate financier, Sony Pictures Classics, that's pretty much true. They were an ideal backer in that they trusted Errol to make his film and didn't interfere."

@radical "brought the project to Sony Pictures Classics, which pre-bought all rights. Sony's money was paid on delivery of the completed film so @radical cash flowed the movie along with Errol and co-executive producer Robert May." Scout Production had produced Morris' previous film (Mr. Death, 1999) and his TV series, First Person (2000). "Errol asked @radical to come aboard as executive producers shortly afterwards. Michael Williams of Scout was first onboard. He is a wonderful guy. Shortly after we began production Michael started telling me about another Scout project which sounded even riskier than The Fog of War. That other project turned out to be Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, which has become a true cultural phenomenon. It's nice when the good guys win."

Lechner continues to be busy. He currently is in pre-production on two feature films and another feature documentary. "I'm also working on a pilot for the Sundance Channel and doing additional episodes for their ongoing TV series Parking Lot for the Trio channel. It's a good bet there is another hit in there somewhere." Indeed, Jack, sometimes the good guys win.

Another project of Errol Morris--a companion book by James G. Glight and Janet M. Lang--is scheduled for release this month.

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