Category: Interviews

Among the notable folk that Connie has interviewed (partial list) are: David Morrell (3 times), William F. Nolan, Kurt Vonnegut, jr.; Joe Hill; Frederik Pohl; Anne Perry; Valerie Plame; Vanessa Redgrave; Michael Shannon;; Taylor Hackford; Jon Land and Liv Ullman. The interview subjects might be from the world of Hollywood or simply be much-read authors, but her interviews have run in newspapers for 61 years.

Director Tomas Alfredson ("Let the Right One In") and actor Gary Oldman after the screening of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" on November 17, 2011, in Chicago.

“I feel like I’m back in my old hometown—Gotham. He abandoned you, didn’t he—Nolan?” said Gary Oldman with a laugh, as he kicked off a Q&A in Chicago following the showing of his new film with Swedish Director Tomas Alfredson (2008’s “Let the Right One In”). The reference, of course, was to Oldman’s role as Lt. Jim Gordon in 2008’s “The Dark Knight.” The “Nolan” reference is to Christopher Nolan and that director’s choice of Pittsburgh as the setting for the newest Batman movie in the franchise, to be released in 2012.

Actor Gary Oldman.

Oldman’s presence in Chicago this night with Director Tomas Alfredson was to publicize “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” the movie version of John LeCarre’s novel of the same name. (LeCarre worked as a producer on the film). Oldman said, “I’ve waited 30 years for a role like this. I had to rein in emotion for this one. It was a nice difference.” Referring to a scene in the film where George Smiley, Oldman’s character, lets a fly out of the car where it has been bothering the three occupants, he says, “The fly scene in the car encapsulated Smiley. He expends only enough energy, like a cat. Smiley is a real study in economy. That (fly scene) tells you more about his character than any dialogue.”

Gary Oldman, star of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy."

Noting that John LeCarre was a producer on the film, Oldman said, “The shadow of Alec Guinness (who played the part previously) was large enough. And, of course, we had John LeCarre as a resource. He had written the book and lived the life. John could fill in the earlier days for me, as this book was more autobiographical for him than some others. One stop shopping, for me.” He added, “That’s the exciting thing, for me. You go to work and the work happens in the moment. Hopefully, the cloak of inspiration will fall.”

Director Tomas Alfredson said he wanted to make a period piece steeped in atmosphere. “I tried to create a voyeuristic perspective. I wanted to recreate the feeling of London in those days. Sort of a damp tweed and cabbage feeling. It’s a lot of fun to make period pieces and its easier if the period is further away.” The director also commented on the atmospheric soundscape of the film, where the sound of toast being buttered or a tea cup is important. “It’s refreshing to see a movie that isn’t just cut, cut, cut and doesn’t assault you,” both agreed. Noting that, “The secret to playing this (George Smiley) was in the book,” Oldman agreed with Alfredson about the film’s emotional depth. “I thought one of the great things about it is that we were not forced to kick it up a notch. It was sort of like watching a lava lamp,” he joked.

Director Tomas Alfredson ("Let the Right One In")

What both men meant was that there are not gratuitous explosions or car chase scenes, but simply the story of a mole within “the Circus,” the London location of MI6’s headquarters at Cambridge Circus. Several times in the film this line occurs: “There’s a rotten apple. We have to find it.”

On a humorous note, Director Alfredson told of a scene where Oldman is filmed frying an egg. It was a very quiet scene, with Oldman cooking the egg and then carefully cutting and eating it. As he watched the daily rushes, Oldman smiled and said to Alfredson, “I used to be Sid Vicious, you know,” a reference to his portrayal of Sid Vicious in the 1986 film “Sid and Nancy.”

“Tinker, Tailer, Soldier, Spy” opens wide December 9^th.

Introduction to (Actor) John C. Reilly Interview at Chicago Film Festival (10/13/2011)

By Connie Wilson

On October 14, 2011

In Interviews, Movies

Link to an Interview with John C. Reilly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebwZQCc_PAM

“On the Bridge:” A Gut-Wrenching Documentary for Our Time – An Exclusive Interview with Director Olivier Morel

By Connie Wilson

On October 9, 2011

In France, Interviews, Uncategorized

Shakespeare wrote, “The evil that men do lives after them.”

Olivier Morel’s film “On the Bridge,” which I viewed on Saturday, October 8, 2011, at the Chicago Film Festival, is a powerful, intense examination of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), based on filmed interviews with many of the veterans, families and friends affected by this “cancer of the spirit,” as it is termed by one soldier in the film.

The singer mentioned in the film (Jason Moon) put it this way in one haunting lyric:

“Somewhere between lost and alone, Trying to find my way home.

I’m tryin’ to find my way home. It’s hard to fight an enemy that lives inside your head.”

Nowhere is this more true than in those returning Afghanistan and Iraq War veterans who suffer from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Olivier Morel, a French-born film-maker on the faculty of Notre Dame, began filming the documentary interviewing returning veterans in cities across the United States over three years ago. The film, which is showing at the Chicago 47^th International Film Festival is “On the Bridge.” (*Review to follow).

What follows is an exclusive interview from Olivier Morel, the Director, who was kind enough to answer these questions about the documentary, [which I will review in a separate article and in shorter form for Yahoo and Associated Content.]

Olivier Morel to Connie Wilson

Interview on the film “On the Bridge” (Zadig-Productions/ARTE, 2011)

www.onthebridgethemovie.com

1) What initially inspired you to start making this documentary 2 years ago? Did you personally know some returning veterans …what?

This film would never have been possible without the fantastic women and men, the Iraq War veterans that I met while starting to develop what was at first a simple curiosity for the “subject:” They are the ones who inspired me. My initial intent was not necessarily to make a “film.” The very reason why I started working on the issue of war trauma among returning veterans from the war in Iraq is that I got really angry: I was stupefied when I learned about the epidemic of suicides among soldiers and veterans. (*8,000 a year, 23 a day).

The first thing I was exposed to, if I remember well, was that cold but gut-wrenching statistic in the news. I was also uncomfortable with the fact that the “news” rarely report on the subject: this is not a “breaking news” story. On the contrary. Like the war itself, it has become a very banal thing: the soldiers who are struggling with war-related psychological trauma “survived” the war, but many kill themselves at home and most of those deaths are completely anonymous. In most cases, those deaths are not seen as are war-related but rather as “personal” matters affecting “individuals” and it tells a lot about how our society relates to the current wars and those (soldiers, relatives, communities…) who are sacrificing for them. I found that unacceptable.

For some reason I ended up re-considering the entire way that the soldiers, or the veterans, are perceived in our society. To put it in a nutshell, I have the unpleasant feeling that, on the one hand, there is a positive perception that “glorifies” the “heroes” who are coming back from the war zones, and that, on the other hand, there is a (very) negative perception, a discomfort, to say the least, a taboo, or worse, a profound and insidious disgust with regard to what the soldiers have been through in combat zones, and regarding the kinds of actions in which they have been involved, the things they have done, etc.

Those representations, if they are connected with a concrete reality in many cases (yes, they are very brave, they deserve a tremendous respect; yes, in some cases that have already been reported. Bad things were done by occupation forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places, during the past ten years…), are also, in my opinion, very reducing, if not, very unfair when it comes to the “bad” things, and very disconnected when it comes to the “good” things.

This Manichaeism, this is my point, instead of helping us comprehend what the soldiers have been through, this attitude is, on the contrary, blocking us from understanding in all of the senses of the word, what is going on here. This is not only about understanding what it means that the U.S. is a society at war since 2001, this is also about what happens when, very concretely, soldiers are coming home : they are not understood, not well treated, not well considered and regarded, and the controversial ways in which the soldiers and veterans are handled by an institution such as the Veterans Administration is a paradigm of this lack of understanding[1]. That is what I found the most unacceptable. It affects the soldiers, the warriors, but also millions of families. I had the unpleasant impression, that neither the families, the communities, were prepared (for their return from war), nor, the soldiers themselves! And that raises enormous questions: about our culture, our culture of the war, our understanding of what it means to be a soldier, to serve a country, to sacrifice, to be a warrior, and of course, to make the highly challenging adjustment back to civilian life when they come home, surrounded with civilians who (in the vast majority) have no clue (even when they think they know, which is complicated…) of what being in a war means. So, the consequences of this gap between the “good” and the “bad” soldier, is just devastating.

That’s why the film is “devastating.” A good friend of mine, who runs a movie theater, after having watched the film, said: I have tried to film in this “in-between” zone, this grey zone, trying to avoid the “good” and the “bad,” guy, this is why this is an observational documentary.

I started filming when I knew I had reached this point with the veterans, when they knew I would never judge them, but also not be a part of the “congratulations, thanks for your service” automatic and pre-formed discourse (this does not mean, I want to make it very clear, that I do not want to “thank” them. On the contrary: they are the most inspiring, bright and respectful people I have met in my life!). I’m not trying to glorify or magnify, and I’m not judging the fact, the war, the actions in which they have been involved or about which they talk in very raw terms in the film.

The film is straightforward in that sense. No sentiments, no myth, but, I hope, a profound compassion, at the end. This is also what I have done with those mute portraits of the protagonists who are watching the viewer, looking straight into the lens of the camera, at the end of the film. To a certain extent and without sounding too convoluted I am trying to give the impression that this is a film that watches us, that interrogates us, instead of a film that we are passively watching.

So after the initial shock, I started investigating around 2007. Now the subject is less and less anonymous, mostly because the post 9/11 era veterans are organizing themselves and starting to constitute a real “political” and social lobby in our society. Also because there are wonderful individuals who are publishing books or making great films (think about the unexpected recognition of a feature film like The Hurt Locker, great documentaries like Restrepo, Poster Girl, Where Soldiers Come From, for example), that are, very slowly, exposing the general public to these issue. I still do not see a drastic change in the overall people’s attitude toward the issue, but I hope this will happen!

Christopher Kim & Vincent Emanuele, from the documentary "On the Bridge."

My interest in the subject might also be related to the fact that I am European citizen (born and raised in France) who emigrated to the U.S. in 2005. While I was developing this project, I was also applying for United States citizenship. As a European, I belong to the first generation who never got drafted in a war since the beginning of the 20^th century. And what wars! WWI, WWII, decolonization (the Algerian war specifically…)… all conflicts that had a devastating and profound impact on everyone’s lives, including in my own family. (*In introducing the film, Olivier mentioned his grandfather, who became an alcoholic after his war service and died of a heart attack when Olivier was a boy.) So making On the Bridge was also a very personal journey.

2) How did you first become interested in film, and what is your “official” title at Notre Dame?

I have worked as a radio, print and TV journalist in Europe for almost 20 years (I started when I was just 18…). While I had collaborated on many TV documentaries, I never had directed one before On the Bridge, which is feature-length.

At the University of Notre Dame I teach as a lecturer and also work for the Doctoral program in Literature. This is a great institution and the level of support and enthusiasm that I encountered at “N.D.” while doing this, is just fantastic: from colleagues and students, from employees, from all different horizons! Notre Dame has a very convincing way to cross boundaries and take advantage of the “trans-disciplinary” dimensions of such a work: from film studies (Film Television and Theater) to sociology, from literature (Romance Languages and Literatures) to “peace building” (Notre Dame has a powerful Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, http://kroc.nd.edu/aboutus).

In this very dynamic context, most of my recent classes and research focuses on this question: why is trauma such a significant source for creation and writing today, while at the same time trauma is also what leaves us speechless, without words? I faced this question in my doctoral dissertation, which investigates the impact of the Holocaust on contemporary writers from outside Germany (People who live in Berlin, the epicenter of the Holocaust, and who are dealing with multiple religious identities, Jewish, Muslim, Christian and nationalities, Russian, Hungarian, Turkish, etc.) I am also dealing with this in the film, while showing veterans who are carrying the burden of the War in their souls, while writing, composing music, speaking out, building bridges between soldiers and civilians, Americans and Iraqis…

3) We talked a bit about your country of origin. Do you have any insight into how the people(s) of Europe (including France) view the U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan at this time?

It is very dangerous to generalize. Historians, sociologists, among others, are already investigating this very carefully. Without misrepresenting things here, one can say that in most European countries, including those who joined the coalition which invaded Iraq in 2003, a vast majority of the population was, to say the least, very suspicious about the reasons to go off to war against Iraq, and more specifically, I think there were not many European citizens who believed in the official version(s) provided by the U.S. administration: the existence of WMDs, for example, but more importantly, the fact that Iraq had anything at all to do with the 9/11 attacks, etc.

You probably remember that, on the contrary, a majority of the U.S. population trusted those versions, while there were huge demonstrations against the invasion of Iraq all across Europe. This is not saying, though, that the European people “liked” the Saddam Hussein regime or “hated” America and “supported the terrorists” against the U.S. On the contrary! But Europeans (to just mention the place where I was born and raised) were very cautious and had bad memories of the previous invasions of Iraq! It might sound very far from us today, but for the reasons I already explained, WWI has affected every family in Europe (including mine), and there are still many families in the United Kingdom or France, who remember that their grandfathers or great-grandfathers fought and died in the Middle East, and… in Iraq for example, in…1917, 1918 and that Europeans were militarily involved in those regions during the Second World War, not to mention the wars of decolonization. Of course most of the world leaders who were in favor of the invasion, never put this history up in the front, but the citizens are not as stupid and amnesiac as is often claimed.

Witnessing and facing these misunderstandings made this time (2002-2003) a very painful moment for me. And even with the turnabout of the U.S. attitude towards the war in Iraq, things still have not been processed, and this tension still has bad consequences on the very complex and passionate U.S./France relationship, to just mention an emblematic case of the love-hate fascination that the world (and not only Europe) has for the U.S.

Now, I am only focusing on Iraq in my response. The case of the war in Afghanistan is slightly different in many ways, and it would take me a long time and too much space here to explain why. You probably know that the French are involved in Afghanistan, and that, by the way, more French soldiers died in Afghanistan this year than ever since the beginning of the war ten years ago.

4) I worked with head injury patients at a Sylvan Learning Center I owned for close to 20 years. Your film is about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, another serious mental condition. What do you think is going to happen to all these returning damaged young men and women? More of them were “saved” in these conflicts than in any other previous wars, but saved in what fashion? Do you think the U.S. is equipped to deal with such serious mental disorders as these, and, if not, what would you as an educator and a human being like to see done to help these injured soldiers that isn’t being done?

In his second address, President Abraham Lincoln said that the Nation had to “care for him who has borne the battle and for his woman and orphan.” Unfortunately, instead, the Veterans’ Administration is far from living up this motto.

I am not an expert in PTSD or war-related trauma from a medical perspective. I am not the most competent person either when it comes to analyzing and commenting on the way the health care system has dealt with the enormous influx of traumatized veterans since 9/11. So all the things I might express here relate to the many books and articles I read on the subject, as well as many conversations with care providers, therapists (my dear friend Hans Buwalda, who was a consultant on the film, or Dr. Judith Broder who created the Soldier’s Project), and of course the dozens, if not hundreds of veterans with whom I have spent a lot of time in different parts of the U.S. (West Coast, Midwest and East-Coast) during the past two-three years.

That said, to my stupefaction, my empirical study was confirmed by a few other sources like great books I read. There is massive agreement in the veterans’ community about the fact there is a shameful lack of preparation and adequacy of the system. The lack of preparation has a strong impact on the epidemic of suicides by soldiers/veterans in the U.S.

This was not only a lack of anticipation, but, I think, also a political choice. Shortly before the beginning of the invasion of Iraq, on February 3, 2003, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld told the soldiers in Italy that the war “could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.” (*On the 10^th anniversary of the war, on-air commentator Wolf Blitzer marveled somewhat disingenuously that no one thought the war would last ten years when it began. This may be true for Wolf Blitzer, but some of us who were protesting it as it started felt otherwise.) This is also in 2003, in January, that the Veterans Administration announced that a cost-cutting move would start turning away middle-income veterans who applied for medical benefits. As a result, in 2007, a team of researchers from Harvard found that 1.8 million veterans lacked of health insurance. This is just an example taken among the many cuts that were operated in the VA’s budget in this period[2]. For me, this was extremely difficult to comprehend and I think that it is also the case for the vast majority of our fellow Americans who are aware of the sacrifice that the soldiers of this Nation are making, as well as their relatives, friends, communities.

Now if we consider that there is a whole generation of veterans who are going on multiple deployments (up to 9 now!) it is very easy to understand why this epidemic of war-related psychological trauma, suicide, etc., is unprecedented… Like you say, it might also reflect on the specificity of those wars. I have seen the devastating effects of that situation all the vets I met! For the majority of them, being just able to survive the VA’s hurdles, and bureaucracy, the delays, the complexity of putting together the required elements to make your case plausible, is a huge struggle, that is even worsened by the fact that the veterans are asked to repeat “their story”, to explain their “problems” over and over, with all the consequences that one can imagine: the system is set up in such a way, that it is re-traumatizing them…

As far as I see it today, I think that this Nation is still very far from recognizing and treating its veterans decently. So as an filmmaker and educator (to answer your highly pertinent question), I am doing what everyone should be doing: not accept the disastrous situation of our veterans as a fatality. Things are going to change, not only when veterans organize themselves (and they are doing it beautifully!), but also, when the “civilian” population takes its responsibilities.

5) When you were filming, you mentioned the warm welcome of Chicago residents, and I know you became close with these returning veterans. Have you “lost” any friends from these groups? In other words, have there been any instances of some of the veterans whom you interviewed saying, “I can’t handle this” and, in an extreme case, committing suicide? Conversely, have you seen any signs of recovery in any individuals you, specifically, became acquainted with?

Lisa Zepeda, veteran and Chicago police officer, and Director Olivier Morel.

These friendships that we have built over the course of the past three years with veterans, are among the most inspiring, powerful and beautiful things that happened in my life. And I want to name them, they are my heroes: Wendy Barranco, Lisa Zepeda, David Brooks, Vinny Emanuele, Ryan Endicott, Jason Moon, Chris Arendt, Derek Giffin, Sergio Kochergin, but also my dear friends Jason Lemieux & Kevin Stendal, the veterans’ friends and relatives whom one should never forget when we talk about war-related psychological trauma: Eduardo Zepeda, Louis and Sylvia Casillas, Cecelia Hoffman, Paulina Brooks, Alejandro Villatoro, Aaron Hughes, Pete Sullivan, Hans Buwalda, Nikki Munguia, Sarah Dolens-Moon, Dylan Moon, Molly M. Taylor and of course the parents of Jeffrey M. Lucey, Joyce and Kevin, and his sister Debbie, who are playing a crucial role in the film.

The reason why I am mentioning these names is because when you ask about how the vets could “handle this” one can never forget the great men and women who are behind them: this is not an individual who is being deployed and then comes back to civilian life. For the reasons I mentioned earlier—the lack of institutional care, notably—the first in line who “cares” for the veteran is a husband, a wife, their children, a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, their friends, their neighbors, the overall society… They are the one who are, at first, exposed to the consequences of the war on a soldier’s soul. And when most of these exposures to the soldier’s tormented souls, occur in private, when the first “symptoms” or “crisis” erupt in the middle of the night, or during the Thanksgiving meal, or… on the 4^th of July (you know why… the explosions…), I deeply think that it is not a fully “private” thing, on the contrary! We are all involved, concerned, and this is why I have put these animated “pictures” of mute, immobile veterans, watching straight in the lens of the camera, head on, at the end of the film: to give the viewers the idea that this is not a film that they are watching, that this is not for entertainment, but rather, that this story regards them, that the vets are watching them at the end, asking them questions. I know it might sound like an easy and convoluted affirmation, but I wanted to make a film that watches us, us the society, instead of a film that we watch in the classical sense of the term.

Director Olivier Morel surrounded by veterans, advisors and friends, after the October 8, 2011, screening of "On the Bridge" at the Chicago Film Festival.

In this context, filming those veterans would never have been possible without a long, very careful and dynamic preparation. I did not show up one day with a crew, putting a huge HD camera and lights in their faces to ask them to talk about the most disturbing moments of their lives! I worked hard on trying to find veterans who would be willing to talk about their “stories” but also at the same time, to try to avoid, as much as possible, the potentially strong undesired side-effects of the exposure to their combat-stress that would logically occur as a consequence of the filming, the interviews etc. I was very fortunate to have the support, and tremendous help, of wonderful professionals, like Hans (Johanna) Buwalda who is a therapist who does an amazing job (http://storiesandart.com/), working in Chicago with veterans, fighting for their rights, helping them readjust, and find their way through the complex and discouraging VA system, among many things. It has been the most challenging and extremely stressful thing that I had to handle during the making of this film: I really wanted to do it to address the issue of “PTSD”, but to do so, to share the difficult aspects of the daily life of a traumatized veteran “at home,” I had to put my protagonists in difficult and challenging situations and I did it in full awareness of what could happen. It is still a source of astonishment to me, that they all gave 200% in the project, from the very beginning, and this is not “my” film, in a certain sense, or a film about “them”, but our film, a film about us (in many sense of the term). In other words (and I do not want to say much about that), I also gave a lot of myself in this work.

I really admire the courage that they had, and their relatives and friends, to testify without filter, straight, head on! I could not begin to tell you all the amazing stories behind the film (this would be another film), but for example, this fascinating singer, Jason Moon (http://www.jasonmoon.org/fr_home.cfm): we filmed him in March. Around the middle of July, I received a long email from him. He had not contacted me in a long time, and I did not want to bother him… so I was awaiting a sign from him in great anxiety, furthermore, I was already in the stressful editing room, surrounded with colleagues who were just in tears anytime they had a chance to watch the images of the recordings of his beautiful and moving songs, of his interviews… If you watch the film, you will know that Jason is, was, has been extremely disturbed after is deployment to Iraq, to a point that was debilitating. After he came back, he went through all kinds of phases, from the happiness of being back home, to… hell. The only thing that he could still do from time to time, was take his guitar, write songs, but even that, he could no longer do it after a few months. During this period, he wrote the most powerful, violent, sad and haunting songs I have heard in my life… (Jason had written a few songs upon his return from Iraq, in which he described the different phases of his PTSD, but was unable to “touch” those, because of the overwhelming emotional charge that was associated to those songs…). Now, as said, I get this email in July: Jason explained that it had taken him eight long weeks to “recover” from the filming session (March), that he was starting to feel “better” and that he came out of the post-filming depression, while wanting to finish writing his songs, and that new songs were pouring out of his soul, that he wanted to record an album. While reading this email in the Parisian heat in the middle of our editing room, I was going through all the possible states of mind that are humanly imaginable: anxiety, fear, devastation, but also elation, happiness, joy. Not only had Jason been profoundly affected by our filming session, and had been put at risk, but also, had he been able to beautifully overcome, and come back stronger than he ever was since he had deployed! I was so impressed and proud him… of us! Today Jason is performing every week, he has been invited to perform in all kinds of contexts, including at Walter Reed… And I could mention similar stories of veterans who are today doing much better than when we first met three-four years ago. Not that the film has always necessarily played a role, but I think that it was the case for many of them: the sensation that they would touch other people’s minds, was indeed, very rewarding from them.

That’s why I also deeply hope that this film will reach people out, that we seeing the very beginning of its career. And this is not a selfish affirmation, as you see. This is our contribution, and we want to change things here. It’s urgent.

Chicago! Yes! After many years in the U.S., for reasons that I still cannot fully explain, Chicago remains as my favorite, always close to my heart! By far! And this is not only, for the obvious reasons, due to the beauty of this city, the mysterious presence (especially for an European) of this gigantic Lake, the splendor of its downtown… this is also that in my experience of the city, I have found a level of understanding and support in Chicago. For example, we have had the privilege to film Lisa Zepeda at her workplace, with the Chicago Police. Many people told me that it would be fairly difficult to obtain authorizations, to be able to film Lisa in uniform, etc. We had to work a bit on it, but as soon as they learned about my project, and how I was planning on working, they were not only very welcoming, but even preceded all of my expectations. For example, I have had the privilege to interview Lieutenant Jeffry Murphy, who is in charge of a very original program, the Crisis Intervention Team (http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=CIT&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=94839), a group that is trying to train people in the Police on how to handle potentially traumatized veterans in their daily work, interventions etc. This, as far as I know, is a pilot program, that is rather unique that it is precisely going in the direction that I am pointing in my work here: the fact that our society has to prepare itself for all the challenges that are occurring when the soldiers, the warriors are coming back. And this is not a discovery: unfortunately, many people do not realize that we are only seeing the beginning of the epidemic (of PTSD or war-related psychological trauma) at the very beginning of the process, it will take a long, a considerable and constant effort…

Olivier Morel, Director

South Bend, Indiana, October 7, 2011

[1] There are several good books about this vast subject. One of the most convincing and well informed is Aaron Glantz’s The War Comes Home, “Washington’s battle against American veterans”, University of California Berkeley Press, 2009.

[2] Again, read Aaron Glantz’s book in which he details all those cuts and the political justification that motivated them… op. cit., chapter 10, p. 118.

Ryan Gosling: The Hottest Actor Currently Working in Hollywood

By Connie Wilson

On August 28, 2011

In Interviews, Movies, Pop Culture

Ryan Gosling: now appearing in a movie theater near you.

Ryan Gosling, who turned 31 on November 12, 2011, is in George Clooney’s new film “The Ides of March,” which is to open the 68th Venice Film Festival on August 31, 2011. Clooney both acts and directs in the film, portraying the fictional Governor Morris, based on Dr. Howard Dean, in a run for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Gosling will play Governor Morris’ spokesperson, with Paul Giametti as a rival campaign manager. I was there at “the scream heard ‘round the world” (ValAir Ballroom, Des Moines, Iowa, 2004) and I look forward to seeing how the movie makes use of that climactic moment in the Dean run for the roses.

Gosling also just acted in his first romantic comedy (“Crazy, Stupid Love”) with Steve Carell and Emma Stone. Next up will be his turn as an action hero in “Drive.” It seems that the handsome, idiosyncratic actor can play anything and is everywhere, these days, just as it seemed as though Shia LaBoeuf was everywhere with the “Wall Street” reprise, “Transformers” and his role as Indiana Jones, Jr. just a year or so ago.

With Gosling, however, you get the sense that— like Marlon Brando whose accent he says he copied after living in Florida with Canadian roots (born in London and grew up in Cornwall, a mill town on the border of Quebec and the United States). —it’s more about the craft of acting.

Beginnings

Gosling has been acting since the age of 12, after winning a spot in the Disney troop alongside such future stars as Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera and Brittney Spears. He beat out 17,000 other child actors and, with his mother (Dad, a paper mill worker, had split), he and Mom moved to the Yogi Bear trailer park in Kissimmee. Ryan’s acting paid the bills and was the duo’s sole income.

Of his Disney years, Gosling has said, “I loved the idea that Walt Disney had this dream of a place and then made it a reality.” Later, in discussing the David Lynch film “Blue Velvet” Gosling says, “It’s so clearly one person’s singular dream. The fact that somebody believed in their idea so much to make it a reality…I want to be that kind of person.”

Gosling has become that kind of actor, with indie cred but also the bankability of roles such as his 2004 starring role in “The Notebook” opposite Rachel McAdams. After “The Notebook” hit, he took a job in a sandwich shop near where he lived. Why? “I’d never had a real job.” Noting that “The problem with Hollywood is that nobody works” he concludes that it would be “a much happier place” if actual work were performed there.

Oscar Nod

Gosling has done some serious work in films that were honored by the nomination committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, most notably his leading actor nomination for the role of drug-addicted teacher Dan Dunne in “Half Nelson.” Most experts predicted he would be nominated last year for his leading role opposite Michelle Williams in “Blue Valentine,” but only his co-star got the nod. Of that film, Gosling says it’s the best film he’ll ever make and comments on Director Derek Clanfrance’s dedication in having the cast actually live together in a house, as a family, prior to shooting the film. Clanfrance had spent 12 years on the film, declaring it “the film that I was born to make” and he allowed his actors to improvise much of their dialogue. “They had so much to do, so much to say in it,” says Clanfrance.

“Blue Valentine”

As for Gosling, he appreciated the opportunity to become part of the dream of a happy couple whose marriage falls apart, saying, “I thought it was really smart of him (Clanfrance) to do that, because even though you don’t see it in the film—they’re not scenes in the movie—I think you can feel it.” He also commented on the onscreen chemistry, saying, “It’s a love story, you know, and physical intimacy is a part of that and we were trying to capture that in a way that was not gratuitous or trying too hard to be sexy or something.” Gosling felt another dream world had been created and said, “Michelle and I found it hard to take off our wedding bands when it was over. We’d built this castle and then had to tear it down.” He does note, “What I like about the film is that it leaves it open.”

By that, Gosling means the end of the film, where the young couple seems as though they could, conceivably, reconcile. Or not. In that way, “Blue Valentine’s” ending was similar to Nicole Kidman’s film “Rabbit Hole.” Kidman was Oscar-nominated as Best Actress last year in that film, which also leaves the viewer to decide if the couple, (whose son has been killed in an automobile accident), is going to survive the tragedy or not.

Hot, Hotter, Hottest

Gosling’s onscreen chemistry with his leading ladies has been remarked upon repeatedly. In “The Notebook,” his scenes with Rachel McAdams were so incendiary that they almost earned the film an ‘R” rating. After making “Murder by Numbers” with Sandra Bullock, the two were a couple from 2001 – 2002, despite the fact that Gosling was 22 at the time and Bullock 37, a 16-year age difference. (The 47-year-old Bullock is rumored to be dating another younger Ryan, the twelve years younger Ryan Reynolds, age 34, her co-star in “The Proposal,” who is just out of a brief marriage to Scarlett Johansson.)

Doing It His Way

In a career that, despite his relative youth, has been ongoing for 18 years, Gosling is making his mark, and he’s doing it his way, selecting films that are idiosyncratic, like “The Believers” (2001) or “Lars and the Real Girl” (2007) and then switching over to his most recent box office offerings.

As he said, “There’s this idea in Hollywood, and I’ve seen it work for people, where the unspoken rule is, ‘Do 2 for them and 1 for yourself.’ And that’s kind of considered a fact. I’ve never really found that to be true for me. I’ve gotten more opportunities out of working on things I believed in then I ever did on things that weren’t special to me.”

For this actor, who points to Gary Oldman as his favorite actor, that method works for him. And it works out quite well for his audiences, as well. It is rumored that he will reprise Michael York’s role as “The Sandman” who catches “Runners” in the film reboot of “Logan’s Run,” the ’70s movie made from the classic William F. Nolan book.

Whatever Gosling does, it will be interesting.

Christopher Hitchens and Me

By Connie Wilson

On June 11, 2010

In Editorial, Humor and Weird Wilson-isms, Interviews, Pop Culture

For those of you who don’t read “Vanity Fair,” Christopher Hitchens is a columnist/regular contributer to same. He appeared at the noon luncheon of the BEA (BookExpo America) and mainly recited questionable limericks. I have to give this to him: he knew them from memory. One was a questionable item decrying the clergy for episodes of pedophilia, which I won’t repeat here for fear of offense.

True story, however: as I exited the Women’s Rest Room just opposite the downstairs hall in which the program was to take place, I saw some people entering a stairwell. One of those people, a rather tall gentleman, was holding what appeared to be a REAL drink (and it wasn’t even noon yet) so this caught my eye, and I decided, “Well, that person definitely is in to the sauce already today, and I’ll just follow that group in to find our seats.” I was halfway up the stairwell stairs when we hit the landing and I realized that the rather tall gentleman holding the drink (it was in a wine glass, anyway, and it certainly did not look like iced tea) I belatedly recognized as Christopher Hitchens, the keynote speaker. I remember thinking that it was too bad I didn’t have my camera with me, but my next thought was to exit as gracelessly as I had entered (i.e., stumbling into the wrong stairwell and almost ending up onstage, it would seem).

This sort of thing seems to happen to me a lot. I ended up in an elevator with Mickey Rooney and his 9th? 10th? wife in Washington, D.C. once at a poetry thing where he was to speak. (Actually, he spoke just a little, sat down, and his wife sang. She sings well.) His wife was quite angry with little Mickey (who came up to about boob-level) that he had “gotten on the wrong elevator.” Apparently, there was a “special” elevator for the star speaker, but Mickey—who was then nearing 80 if not already in his eighth decade—had picked the wrong elevator and therein lies my “brush with greatness.”

With Christopher Hitchens, I didn’t really stay in the stairwell long enough to be identified as an interloper and, therefore, was merely an audience member wondering why he just kept repeating limericks, some of them fairly outrageous, and then shared memories of deflowering various male members of Parliament or some such. I grew up in Iowa. I now live in Illinois. I am obviously out of the NYC loop and most of the audience that day, when Patton Oswalt (a comedian) hosted, seemed to be out of the NYC loop, also. I think there were several deep breaths taken by the audience (and deep drinks taken by Mr. Hitchens) before he abruptly exited, stage left (the very same stairwell he came in) to “catch a plane to London.” Ah, the lifestyle of the rich and famous!

In keeping with that lifestyle, I’d like to share with you, with appropriate attribution, Christopher Hitchen’s remarks, as quoted in something entitled “Diary” on page 82 of the July, 2010 “Vanity Fair.” It is just a small part of a longer piece, but, in light of my remarks above, I think you’ll get the general idea, and I won’t even tell you about the time I ended up in the elevator with Jesse Jackson’s entourage inside the Pepsi Center in Denver during the DNC, BEFORE he was accused of trying to purchase Barack Obama’s soon-to-be-empty Senate seat (which he vociferously denied).

Here is the excerpt from Christopher Hitchens’ diary, the very same C.H. with shom I had a “brush with greatness” in the stairwell of the Jacob Javits Center on May 27th,…although I’m sure he never knew I was there:

“There was a time when I could outperform all but the most hardened imbibers, a generous slug or 10 of Mr. Walker’s amber restorative being my tipple of preference. It was between the Tel Aviv massacre and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. I now restrict myself to no more than a couple of bottles of halfway decent wine for elevenses, and then a couple more as an accompaniment to luncheon, with Mr. Gordon’s gin firmly ensconced in the driving seat for the remainder of the day. As an enthuisastic participant in the delights of Mr. Dionysus, I offer no apology for passing down these simple pieces of advice for the young.

Never drink before breakfast, unless the day of the week has a “u” in it. Martinis go surprisingly well with Corn Flakes, while a medium dry sherry remains the perfect accompaniment to Mr. Kellogg’s admirable Rice Krispies.

It’s much worse to see a woman drunk than a man. I don’t know why this is ture, but it is, it just is, I don’t care what you say, it just is and you can take that from me and anyway that’s not what I said. (*Author’s note: it is what you said, and it’s sexist as hell!)

And finally, if, like me, you are, like me, a professional scrivener, like me, never ever ever drunk while written an article column piece ever. It is, perforce, something I never don’t.” (As told to Craig Brown and previously printed in “Private Eye”)

Colin Hanks Q&A: “The Great Buck Howard” on Oct. 27 at the Chicago Film Festival

By Connie Wilson

On October 28, 2008

In Interviews, Movies

Question #1: How long did it take to get the film made? A: “It took us 3 years to get the financing and 2 years to make.”

Question #2: Is Buck Howard like the real-life character of Kreskin upon which Buck is based? A: “The handshake thing is for real. I’ve actually never met Kreskin,” said Hanks. “I hear Malkovich’s portrayal is pretty amazing.”

Question #3: Do you think you’ll ever do more movies like (2002’s) “Orange County?” A: “I think I’ve pretty much done all I can in that genre.”

Question #4: Where did this story come from? A: “The Great Buck Howard…at least about the first 15 minutes of it…is all about the experiences of the writer/director Sean McGinly. He’s the one who worked for Kreskin. I just liked the story. I just think this is a really cool story and it is just a great little movie that can get a few laughs and tell a story.”

Question #5: How did you get all the people to do the cameos in the film? “Most of the cameos were written into the script. I have some mutual friends with
Jon Stewart and Conen O’Brien. Martha Stewart was the one I was surprised to get, but all of them were petrified to have been performing with John Malkovich. I’ve actually thought it would be cool if John would dress up as Buck Howard and go back on the same shows to promote our film. We also got Ricky Jay (Gil Bellamy in the cast, as Howard’s manager), because he’s kind of a historian of magicians. He was too busy to consult, but he came in and said, in a matter of seconds, ‘This is about Kreskin, isn’t it?’”

Question #6: What was John Malkovich like to work with? A: “Malkovich was extremely friendly, very very funny, a pleasant surprise, because, obviously, you don’t always like the people you work with and people say, ‘That dude is supposed to be the weirdest man ever.” I asked John about his weekend one day. He said, ‘I woke up on Saturday. I read the paper, even though it’s all bullshit, but I read it, anyway. I hung around the house and went to the park and played in a pick-up game of basketball.’ Anywhere he is filming, John Malkovich will be taking part in a pick-up game of basketball. The thing that makes John such a great actor was his adding little touches like the Captain & Tennille and telling me, “Those flowers are expensive. Take the flowers.”

Question #7: What was it like working with your dad? A: A lot of fun. It was good. He makes it easier, more enjoyable because he’s so good at what he does. With Malkovich, as well, it was a trifecta, a sandwich of joy.”

Question #8: Did you always know you wanted to be an actor?” A: “If my team was in the play-offs in sports, then I often wanted to be whatever sport that was. I always enjoyed acting, though, and I always did it. It was not until I got to college that I realized I had to figure out what I wanted to do. I love what I do and actually there is nothing else I would really rather do. The truth is, I love what I do. I have genuine passion for it.” (*The younger Hanks had a production assistant job on “Apollo 13” and most recently had a story arc as Father John Gill on AMC’s “MadMen” televsion show, with Jon Hamm. He also starred in 2005’s “King Kong” as Preston, Jack Black’s assistant and in 2002’s “Orange County’ as Shaun Brumder, Jack Black’s scholarly brother. He had a role as 2^nd Lt. Henry Jones in the television mini-series “Band of Brothers,” which his father helped produce, and had a small role in “That Thing You Do” in 1996, as a male page, a part which he got using a fake last name to avoid trading on his father’s fame. Colin Hanks also has a small part as Speechwriter #1 on Oliver Stone’s “W” out now.)

Question #9: What is your next project? A: “To be honest, I’m not working on a whole lot right now. I just had a story arc on “MadMen” and a bit part in “W.” I’m directing a documentary on Tower Records, which could take a while.”

Question #10: Do you have any other idols, other than your dad? A: “No, not really. I do like Jeff Bridges in “The Big Lebowski.”

Question #11: What have you been doing while you have been in Chicago?” A: “Well, I just killed an hour in the bowling alley that’s attached to this place and I was hoping to go to a World Series game while here. I saw a BlackHawks game. I heard some good comedy at Second City. I ate a buffet at the John Hancock building (not so good). I saw some great art.”

Question #12: Did you visit any bars? A: I’m gonna’ plead the fifth on that one? Well, okay: Timmy O’Toole’s.

Question #13: What is your favorite Tom Hanks film? A: “I really can’t pick ‘a favorite,’ but I can tell you that I can’t watch ‘Philadelphia.’”

Mickey Rourke Roars Back as Randy “The Ram” Robinson in New Darren Aronofsky Film

By Connie Wilson

On October 26, 2008

In Interviews, Movies, Reviews

“The world don’t give a shit about me. You can lose everything that you love, and I’m not as pretty as I used to be, but I’m still standing and I’m the Ram. You people here are my family.” So says Mickey Rourke, roaring back to the big screen in Darren Aronofsky’s (“The Fountain”) low-budget film “The Wrestler” as Randy “the Ram” Robinson. The role was supposedly modeled on Randy “Macho Man” Savage, although Rourke gives credit elsewhere for his gritty portrait of a washed-up professional wrestler facing retirement due to a heart condition.

(www.chicagotribune.com). In an interview with Michael Phillips about this entry in the Chicago Film Festival which is receiving Oscar buzz for Rourke’s strong performance, Rourke said (October 12, p. 5): “My younger brother, Joe, back in the day in Venice Beach, we used to go lift weights at Gold’s Gym, which was the mecca of bodybuilding back then. And there was a guy named Magic. He had long blonde hair. He had two hearing aids and couldn’t hear a (expletive deleted) thing. He was a character, a biker dude who lived in a bus behind the gym. He wrestled on the side, and I based my character on this guy Magic more than on anybody else.”

Wherever the inspiration for his wrestler character, the character’s words ring true in Rourke’s career and life when he speaks lines like, “I just want to tell you: I’m the one who was supposed to make everything okay for everybody, but things didn’t work out. And I left. And now I’m an old broken-down piece of meat, and I’m alone, and I deserve to be alone. I just don’t want you to hate me.” That bit of dialogue is uttered in a touching scene with Evan Rachel Wood, who plays his estranged daughter. Their trip to a deserted, run-down amusement park/arcade previously visited in her youth is symbolic of “The Ram’s” broken-down status in his career and in his life.

Randy is struggling to connect with someone…anyone. He tries to romance a local stripper (Marisa Tomei, showing a lot of skin in her role). He tries to win back his daughter, who shouts at him, “There is no more fixing this. It is broke. Permanently.” The Ram is even reduced to waiting on customers wearing a nametag that says “Robin” and a hair net at a deli (Abraham and Charlotte Aronofsky have bit parts here).

Most critics are predicting an Oscar nomination for Rourke, who, in the Phillips interview, said, “For a while there in the dark years before “The Wrestler” I needed to get away, to just…I had too much crap going on in my life.” He adds, “I didn’t know it was going to take me 13 years, but what are you going to do? I was really bad for a long time, and it wasn’t anybody’s fault except mine. Change is hard, especially for a guy like me. And it’s not that I wanted to change. I had to change. And I’m very thankful now that I did.”

No young actors in this country in the early eighties were more promising than Mickey Rourke and Sean Penn. Acting class colleagues used to spread the word when either was going to do a scene, as all admired the duo’s intensity. Rourke was in “Heaven’s Gate” in 1980 (cited as one of the biggest financial failures of all time) and in “Diner” in 1982. He had a real run of films in the mid-to-late eighties, with “9 and ½ Weeks,” “Angel Heart”(1986) and “Barfly” (1987). Then he made the controversial “Wild Orchid” in 1990, a critically panned film that paired him with Carre Otis, a former model whom he would marry and, later, divorce in 1998.

The number of roles that Rourke supposedly rejected, which turned out to be big box office and bad career decisions, is legion. Rourke actually retired from the ring to box professionally from 1991 to 1995, a move that left him with a battered face that is almost unrecognizable when compared to his early acting years. Born in 1956, he was told he was too old to really be good when he resumed boxing, so he took beating after beating. His love of boxing began at age 12, when he won a bantamweight fight at 118 pounds.

For this latest film, Rourke trained with professional wrestler “Afa, the Wild Samoan,” and many other pro wrestlers are given credit at the end of the film, such as Brutus Beefcake and The Flesh Eaters. With an 80s soundtrack (guitars by Slash on the original music composed by Clint Mansell) and the line extolling the eighties with the sentiment “That Cobain pussy hadn’t come around and ruined it (rock and roll)” the low-budget look into the life of Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Ramzinsky), who lives in a trailer and is nearing the end of his career, is depressingly realistic. It gives both Rourke and co-stars Evan Rachel Wood (as his daughter) and Marisa Tomei (as his stripper friend) meaty roles. The fight against “The Ayatollah” that climaxes the film is supposedly based on the WWF wrestler “The Iron Sheikh.” (www.FilmSchoolRejects and www.NYA.com).

Robert Davi Answers Questions about “The Dukes” at Chicago Film Festival

By Connie Wilson

On October 23, 2008

In Interviews, Movies

During the Q&A with Robert Davi at the Tuesday night (Oct. 21) showing of “The Dukes”, the audience, which was not a full house, was treated to “vamping” by the long-time character actor, as he waited for friends of his to arrive and for traffic to allow others to see the film.

First question for Robert Davi was: “How long did it take for you to shoot the film?”

A: “Eight months to a year.

Question #2: “What was the film shot on?” A: “The film was shot on Super 16, then I did a D.I. and transferred it to 35 millimeter. It is a modern film that doesn’t have a sleek look. I wanted a rough-around-the-edges look.” Davi gave credit to his DP (Director of Photography) Michael Goy for the film’s look, which is intimate and classic.

Question #3: Object of the film? A: “I wanted to bring light to the world whenever we could. I wanted it to have no politics and have an upbeat ending.” Davi also said, “I hope your dad’s not a dentist,” in reference to the heist of a dentist’s gold from his safe. Davi reminisced: “Growing up, going to the dentist was a huge thing. It was expensive. It was humorous. It was universal. With the stock market thing and the housing crisis, I thought it was something that wouldn’t bring people down.”

Question #4: “What about the character Murph?” A: “In the script, Murph was originally a tough Irish guy. I wanted to break the stereotype, so the part was reworked for the Latvian character actor who played Murph. “I wanted to have the idea of transplanted New Yorkers.” And, added Davi, “That was me singing at the end of the film. The guy who was a stand-up comic in the film was also a stand-up comic in real life. He tried to become an actor in Los Angeles, but it fell apart. There is a sense of geographical dislocation in the film, a New York story set in Los Angeles.”

Question #5: “What made you want to be an actor?” A: “I got the idea from watching Italian films when I was a kid growing up. Then, I worked in the theater. Then we discovered I had a voice. I was a baritone with the soul of a tenor. I studied voice with Tito Gobi.”

Question #6: “What was your inspiration…your idea for the story?” A: In the 1970s I worked with Stella Adler. This was when there were 25,000 steelworkers being laid off. The idea of that, of losing your job, was very frightening to me, as a young guy. And then my dad was laid off. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to make my first film with Frank Sinatra and I met Jay Black, who had been in a group called ‘Jay and the Americans.’ There was also an influence from Alvin Toffler’s book ‘The Third Wave.”

Question #7: “Will there be a sequel?” A: “If it’s successful, there might be a sequel. I did think about it. At the beginning, that is Cousin Brucie you hear, who used to open for the Beatles at Shea Stadium and place like that. I showed this to David Edelstein and Peter Travers in New York City of the New York Film Critics’ Association. They loved the music in it. I had some ideas to do things differently. For example. I had the idea of the car going into a tunnel sequence where the car would break into musical notes and then the car would go out onto Ventura Boulevard.

I also used Ash Wednesday because it was a remembrance of these guys pulling a heist with ash on their foreheads. It was a whole dichotomy of that, indicative of these guys, the melting pot aspect of the group.

Question #8: “What were some of the hurdles you faced in making the film?” A: “The financial was the biggest hurdle. I was looking for the challenge and I was ready. Also, distribution is always a problem. Independents aren’t really that bad. Also, we had to have the right cast. I was lucky to find the kid who played my son. I met 15 young boys who were all lovely, but it was a pivotal part. I did several improvisations with him and bonded with him. He was a very loving and very open little boy. Finding him was as big a challenge as Vittorio DeSica finding the right boy to use in “The Bicycle Thief.” The young actor later went on to play the son in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.’ Then, the biggest emotional push was when the group gets shut down on opening night.”

Question #9: “What about the cast?” A: “I knew I wanted Chazz. I knew all the other actors. I’m not an overactor, so I knew that ensemble. Originally, Murph was an Irishman, but I rewrote it. You know what someone once said, ‘After the writer writes the screenplay, he should die.’”

Closing comments: “I love Chicago. I appreciate you all being here. Thank you all for sharing this with me.”

17 Questions for Writer/Director Kevin Smith (“Zack and Miri Make A Porno”)

By Connie Wilson

On October 23, 2008

In Interviews, Movies

Q&A with Kevin Smith following the October 21^st showing of “Zack and Mimi Make a Porno” at the Chicago Film Festival

As Kevin Smith approached the front of the theater to answer questions, his opening gambit was, “Awesome to be here in Gotham City.” He added, “If our movie makes one-tenth of what that movie made, I’ll be a happy man.”

The first audience question was: “How did you get an “R” rating for this movie?” Smith’s answer was involved. “Initially,” he said, “the movie was given a rating of NC17. We expected that. They said, ‘No, it is still too raunchy. That s*** shot will never play in an ‘R’-rated movie. We just had to accept the rating. Then, it goes before a board of 14 people. One half were from NATO, and I thought, ‘Whoa!’ I didn’t know it was this important!’ Turns out NATO means National Association of Theater Owners. The other 7 are Motion Picture ratings board people. We had 15 minutes to stand up and tell why the movie should be an ‘R.’ Then you leave and there is a silent vote. There were 2 areas that were under discussion. One was the first porno scene because of ‘too much thrusting.’ I felt like saying, ‘Come to my house. There’s no thrusting at all; just hovering.’ The other area of concern was the s*** shot. It’s only 14 frames…not even a second of film. It definitely makes an impact. It certainly did on Jeff Anderson! You get to cite precedent, so we were ready to argue our case. It takes 24 frames to make up one second of screen time. That shot is only 14 frames. If I were 13 and it was 1983 and I saw those scenes, yes, I would go to the bathroom and tug one out. But no kid is gonna’ do that today. So, we cited, as precedent, Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke in ‘Taking Lives,’ where there is a lot of (sexual) thrusting, but it’s done seriously. Our was a comedic version of sex. In order to do that, we had to go over that. For the s*** shot, we cited “Jackass: the Helmet,” where they have a fart helmet. Then, they get a funnel and there’s actual excrement expressed into the funnel in documentary fashion, and THAT got an ‘R’ rating.

So, I’m out in the hall with Joan Gravis who heads up the ratings board and I’m close to making a deal. I was definitely invested in keeping the s*** shot. And then someone comes out and tells us we’ve been given an ‘R’ and I’m, like, ‘See you later, Joan.'”

Question 2: “What about marketing the movie?”: A: “Marketing the movie has been a bitch. We actually use stick figures for the marketing poster, and we’re still having trouble getting the word out or getting people to post them (the posters). We’re having a hard time marketing because the word ‘porno’ is actually in the title. Some people think it actually is a porno film because of that. I’d rather let the movie speak for itself; it comes out in 10 days.”

Question 3: “What about the current generation? Would you let your children see your films?” A: “My daughter is 9. She is gay for ‘High School Musical 3.’ That is the antithesis of our movie. I can get behind it, though. I think our audience is all 10 to 20 years older than my daughter. Kids are hip to that s***. Even in the kids’ world, gossip rules.”

Question 4: (from a would-be writer) “I’m a writer. Can I work for you?” A: “I don’t’ have enough juice to get my own s*** made! I had to get Seth Rogen in this movie before I got the power to get it made.” (Answer was a resounding “No.”)

Question 5: “What strikes you as funny?” A: “I try to make myself laugh and, if other people laugh, that’s my internal barometer.”

Question 6: “How did it happen that Tom Savini appeared as Jenkins, the owner of a shop in the film?” A: “Tom Savini, of course, is the make-up guy associated with George Romero in films like ‘Dawn of the Dead’ and many, many others, and he was a fan. He just wanted to be in it. Monroeville was the place where they shot ‘Dawn of the Dead’ and that shopping mall where they shot that film is in the movie.”

Question 7: “When would Joe Siegel walk out?” A: “I don’t know that he would have made it past the s*** shot. And then he died. So, I really couldn’t talk about it with him. But thanks for bringing the room down!” (Laughter) [*The reference to Joe Siegel was an attempt by an audience member to show how much more he knew than the rest of we mere spectators and how much better informed than the rest of us he was, in that most of the audience didn’t have clue one about Joe Siegel (“Please, Alex! May I buy a clue?”) including me. I assume(d) Joe Siegel had something to do with rating movies…before he died, of course. I don’t really care. It was not germane, really, but, hey…audience member guy! I hope it was a Big Ego Boost to know something arcane that the rest of us didn’t know and that had little or nothing to do with the film, itself and thanks for asking that question and wasting all of our time!]

Question 8: “Were the scenes all scripted, or was there some ad-libbing and improvisation?” A: “Will Ferell and Chris Rock are great ad-libbers, as is Seth Rogen. Take the line, ‘Why is he so high-strung?’ It just sounded like Ben Affleck trying to be funny. With Seth, it was germane to the scene. It propels the scene forward.”

Question 9: “Whose films have influenced you? Who would you like to work with?” A: Jason Segal, Jonah (from “The Forty Year Old Virgin,” and “SuperBad”), Seth Rogen. When I saw Seth in “The Forty Year Old Virgin” I decided I was going to write him a lead. I wrote him an e-mail, asking if he would be interested, and I had an e-mail back within 5 minutes. Seth said he had told his agent, when he arrived in Hollywood, ‘I want to be in a Kevin Smith movie.’ This dude is famous now. He’s more famous than me.”

Question 10: “Do you think there will ever be a ‘Clerks II’?” A: “There was a messy divorce between the Weinstein Brothers and Miramax, so I doubt it.”

At this point, Smith diverged into telling a story about Thanksgiving dinner at the home of Steven Spielberg. George Lucas stopped by, and Ben Affleck was there at the time, along with the Paltrows, who are close friends of the Spielbergs. So, Affleck calls me up and says, (of Lucas and Spielberg), “They were both really geeky. They had a website-off and then lost interest in that and started surfing for porn, but not good porn, you know? That soft porn stuff. And Affleck asked them if they’d ever heard of a movie called ‘Clerks’ and he said, ‘Yes.’ That’s enough.”

Question 11 had to do with the use of R2D2 and other Lucas-inspired characters in the film, such as Princess Leia. A: “Rich McCallum who worked for Lucas let us use the sound effects. It’s not like Lucas said, ‘You put balls on R2D2? I was gonna’ do that in the 50-year-reunion DVD.'”

The conversation moved on to Smith’s recent weight gain, which he attributed to not putting himself in the movie for the first time in many films and, therefore, hitting the craft services wagon much too heavily. “I look in the mirror now and I see my father at age 65, and I’m, like, only 38! Once this movie is over, I’m going to go and drop a lot of weight, but I didn’t think I’d hear anything about my weight here in Chicago. I expected Chicagoans to say, ‘Come: you’re one of us. Come feed with us at the trough.’

Smith then told a funny story about breaking a futuristic toilet at the Laker Blazers poker tournament. When he saw the futuristic toilet with no base, which jutted directly out from the wall, he thought, ‘Nothing under it. That is no friend to a fat man.’ Smith went on to describe doing what he termed “the hover,” (as done for women for years in public rest rooms.) He went into a long discussion of being “a back or front wiper.”

Basically, the story ends with the toilet pulling straight out of the wall and breaking, with Smith saying it was “Horrible on every f****** level. I gotta’ get off the bowl, count to 3 and jump like in ‘Lethal Weapon II.’ And then there’s the guy waiting on the outside of the stall. He’s shouting, ‘You okay in there?’ It’s not like you can come out and be like, ‘Who did this?'”

All ended well when the owner of the emporium was summoned and promised, “Nobody ever has to know.” [Except that Smith just told the world.]

Question #12: “Are you filming a horror movie?” A: I’m filming ‘Red State,’ a $3 to $5 million-dollar horror movie. I’m having a hard time getting funding for it. It’s so black it makes ‘The Dark Knight’ look like ‘Beverley Hills Chihuahua.'”

Question #13: “Do you think you have grown as a filmmaker?” A: Noting that he is now back with his original Director of Photography Dave Klein, Smith said, “I think this is the best thing we’ve ever done visually.” Smith promised to stay faithful to using Klein in the future, noting that he had been paired with Vilmos Szigmond on “Jersey Girl,” as the studio sought to educate him by pairing him with a great Director of Photography in some recent projects. “They ended up saying, we could put him with a great DP and he would turn him into s***. I told Klein, ‘Dude, I will never not work with you (Klein) again.'”

Smith notes that he likes to set his movies in places where he hangs out, hence his settings which, up until this movie set in Pittsburgh, have always been in New Jersey. When he met Seth Rogen, Rogen told him: “‘Clerks’ was the movie that made me want to be a filmmaker.’ He’d (Rogen) say, ‘You’re great!’ And I’d say, “No, YOU’RE great!’ We have a very good interaction. I’d work with him again in a heartbeat.”

Smith then told the audience that the s*** shot had actually happened to Barry Sonnenfeldt when he was working shooting porno films. “I want an e-mail or a call from him, saying either, ‘Dude, you nailed it!’ or ‘You were so far off!'”

Question #14: “Why did you cast 2 actual porn stars (Traci Lord and Katie Morgan) in the film?” “It was Seth’s idea. ‘Think about it,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing you can ask her to do that will be as horrible as what she does in her day job.’ So, we were researching it on the internet…just for the movie, I swear (laughter)…and I saw a YouTube bit of Katie Morgan where she was pretty good in the acting part. She was so excited about the Premiere of the movie. I was like, ‘I’ve been doing this for 15 years now. I’m jaded. I’ve got it at my house. I can watch it in my living room,’ and she’s all excited and enthused about the Premiere.”

Smith noted that Morgan has said to him, “I want to be able to do both” (i.e. serious and porno films). “It was very helpful having Katie and Traci on the set. They knew how it worked in the porn industry. It became ‘Teach me how to direct, Katie Morgan.’ Getting Traci Lords was kind of a coup for us. She hasn’t made a porno film in, like, 20 years and, insensitively, we sent her the script. She read it and decided, ‘Maybe it’s time I embraced my past and made fun of it.”

At this point, Smith told a humorous story about interviewing the porn queen in his home and how he could just imagine his mother and father from his childhood viewing this. He said, “Why did you waste the time on this?”

Question #15: “Do you still work with Scott Mosier?” A: “I find it nearly impossible to do my job without Scott. He’s a wonderful film editor, and he’s a great guy to bounce cuts off (Smith both wrote, directed, and edited the film). It’s like a porn version of how Scott and I make films.”

Question #16: “Who thought up or gave you the idea for the Dutch Rudder?” A: “That came from DP Dave Klein, and I added the Double Dutch Rudder. There was a third one that got cut, the Double Dutch Fudge Rudder.”

At this point, there was a discussion of Jason Mewes always being naked. “He’s always got it out or what-not.” (Smith says “what-not” a lot! Next up: “Yada?”) “When he walked out of the bedroom, naked, he was a lot larger than he normally is, and Ben Affleck said to me, ‘You realize that Mewes is one pump away from total lift-off.’ Mewes, upon hearing this, said, “Tell Affleck that I’m my own fluffer. And I was on the way down, not on the way up.'” An audience member asked if Mewes was off drugs and alcohol. Smith responded, “He’s been sober for 6 years. Doesn’t drink. Doesn’t do drugs.” (As I recall, we applauded Mewes being sober…and I don’t even know the guy!)

Question #17: “Do you have a favorite ‘Star Wars’ sexual fantasy?” A: “I never have had a “Star Wars’ sexual fantasy.”

Writer/Director/Editor Smith told an amusing story about chatting with Brandon Routh, who played “Superman” in the most recent installment of that franchise, and who plays a gay classmate of Zack and Miri’s, in this film. (Smith): “I asked him if there wasn’t some sort of morals clause in his contract that would forbid him from making this film, and he said that the only clause was that he couldn’t portray other superheroes and, when I heard that, I said, ‘Right on! Get in there and kiss that guy!’ “(Jason Long)

Audiences who can handle the crude language (as Smith fans can) and situations and are not scandalized by the storyline, which is basically a sweet story of the discovery of true love, will enjoy “Zack and Miri Make A Porno.” All of us present on October 21st enjoyed the film and the following Q&A at the Chicago Film Festival with Writer/Director/Editor Kevin Smith.

Barack Obama Gives Speech from Richmond, Virginia

By Connie Wilson

On February 13, 2008

In Editorial, Interviews, Politics

Barack Obama Delivers Eloquence in Richmond, Before Virginia Vote

I heard Barack Obama giving a speech (from Richmond, Virginia) on CNN on Sunday, February 10th prior to Virginia’s Tuesday primary race on February 12th. I was struck, once again, with how many people he constantly thanks. People like to be thanked. I’m sure Tim Cane and Mark Warner and Doug Wilder and Bobby Scott and Jim Morain and Rich Baucher and Dick Granevald and Amy Rieger and all the others Barack was thanking so profusely were grateful. I remember that, when he appeared in Davenport, Iowa, he brought out all the young campaign workers and thanked each of them personally in front of the crowd. This “niceness” may well be a big part of Barack Obama’s appeal.

Said Obama, in the televised speech excerpt, “It has been one year since we began this race to the Presidency on the steps of the Old Capitol in Springfield, Illinois…I knew we wouldn’t be the favorite. I knew we would be the underdog from January till June. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. But then something started to happen. Across this land, the message is the same: we are tired of being disappointed by our politicians. While Washington is consumed by the same distractions, another father puts up another for sale sign on the lawn…and it goes on and on and on and on and on. We become cynics. We lower our standards.”
And then, swinging into full Obama Oratorical mode, Barack said, “Not this time. Not this year. The stakes are too high. People want to turn the page. People want to write a new chapter. Yes we can! We won in (fills in blank with recent states of victory) and I believe we can win in Virginia on Tuesday (February 12) if you’re ready to stand with me and fight…”

Obama went on to use the “no more Scooter Libby justice; no more Brownie incompetence; no more Karl Rove politics” line I have heard him use in person. “We are gonna’ be unified as Democrats to make sure that we bring it in from the failed politics of George W. Bush. That’s how we are gonna’ win in Virginia and that’s how we are gonna’ change this country.”

Get this man a church! He is dynamite from the pulpit!

If you have the chance to hear Barack Obama, in person, do not miss it. To wit: “There’s a moment in the life of every generation when we must act. Virginia, this is our moment. This is our time. You and I together will transform this country.” Chills.

I was instantly reminded of my all-time favorite Shakespeare quote, which I will (roughly) paraphrase for you here:

“There is a tide in the affairs of men which, if taken at the flood, leads on to fame and greater fortune. If omitted, all the voyage of our lives is bound in the shallows of misery and despair.” That’s not exact quoting, but it reminds of Obama’s eloquence and the sentiment is certainly similar.

You gotta’ love it! Unless you’re a Republican and you’re seeing doom in the upcoming November election trying to defeat Barack Obama, should he secure the nomination. The most charismatic speaker in a long time has come down the pike, and he’s intelligent, too!