Archive for the ‘CINEMA’ Category

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Summary

Kids find worth in filmmaking

Article

Cause Cinema

Hopes & Dreams Project offers kids an alternative

By John Esther

Since the dawn of cinema children around the world dreamt of becoming movies stars, basking under the public light of adornment, one day making that Oscar speech, and taking in the big bucks, but for some kids right here and now in California, cinema means something far more transcendental than fame. Faced with such unfortunate circumstances as a life-threatening illness or parental loss, making movies is a way to overcome obstacles no child should ever encounter.

Thanks to the Hopes & Dreams Project under The United States Entertainment Force, children who suffer from disease or family strife due to military service find solace and a renewed sense of self worth and larger purpose by making movies.

“Besides providing a positive distraction doctors say is so needed, the children gain leadership, research, organization, public speaking skills, confidence and developing informative presentations by being involved in the Hopes & Dreams Project,” said Jerry Payne, Founder of the United States Entertainment Force and the Hopes & Dreams Project. “Counseling is a very important part of our project and we are able to build trust by using art and film. In doing so we are able to ease suffering and provide comfort in those individuals whose lives are convoluted with disappointment and despair.”

Working with youth between ages 7-18, the Hopes & Dreams Project has already made nine G-Rated films in Central Valley, Ca., with Filmic Storyworks, Inc., of Fresno and is now making its way to Los Angeles to make more movies for more children in crisis.

“Being in Hollywood allows us to take the Hopes & Dreams Project to the next level and position ourselves for our national roll out,” said Payne. “We already have Tino Struckmann Productions, a movie production company in Los Angeles, and we are now working on raising money to start shooting on location in Los Angeles.”

For these children in crisis, the Hopes & Dreams Project is a four-week process. First there is the casting call and then participation in the Hopes and Dreams Actors Workshop where professionals coach the budding thespians. Then they go to wardrobe and makeup where they receive personal attention toward creating the character they will be playing in the film. Next is a photography segment where they will receive attention in shooting a professional headshot the child gets to keep. After this the young, aspiring actors are ready for the counseling sessions, which commence at the beginning of the fourth week. Once ready to make the movie the kids are escorted a lá limousine to location for a two day-shoot with professional filmmakers.

“We will embrace their creativity, hope, enrichment, and social interaction and personal growth,” said Payne. “Let the magic of moviemaking be absorbed by the young actor and provide a memory that will last for a lifetime.”

For each film, along with eight professional actors, 10 kids are given speaking parts written just for them. The feature film is then edited into six episodes, running approximately 10-minutes long each, where it will then appear on YouTube.

As fun as making a movie may appear, it is important to emphasize the project’s goal is not necessarily to create future actors — although a few have now been bitten by the bug — but open one’s eyes to her or his own potential in life vis-à-vis the many aspects of moviemaking/art.

“Once the movie has been shot and goes into post-production the children now know that they have the talents and confidence to go forward with a positive attitude,” said Payne.

The longer plan is to extend the Hopes & Dreams Project throughout California and beyond.

“As we grow and raise more money we will expand to all states and all children throughout the United States will have an opportunity to attend a casting call of the Hopes & Dreams Project,” said Payne. “We then want to fly them to Hollywood to be cast in a film shooting at a movie studio and receive all the magic of moviemaking, similar to American Idol, with a slip of paper from us they then can yell: ‘I am going to Hollywood!’ We then will have celebrities aboard to increase the excitement that is found in moviemaking.”

Beyond his general concern for children, the Hopes & Dreams Project hits close to home for Payne.

At the age of 18, Payne was the youngest commissioned army officer during the Vietnam conflict. He spent 18 years in service to our members of the Armed Forces. After that Payne served as the Producer of USO Entertainment for 11 years and on the board of directors. As the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns intensified, the needs and sacrifice of the military family had increased and the children were becoming the victims — racked with confusion, hurt and stress due to the death of a parent, divorce, multiple deployments of parents and parents with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The Afghanistan and Iraq occupations have “increased the need of this project by 100 percent,” said Payne. “We have so many dependent children who are in need and waiting for the help we can give them. Without our help the kids are turning to crime, sex, and drugs instead of a positive plan for their future. We must get them onto the right road to success for themselves and their families.”

Of course, like most worthwhile filmmaking endeavors, the great obstacle is finding the money — especially for a nonprofit organization in these times.

“It cost us $15,000 to produce each movie which then will affect hundreds of children who see what we are doing for their brothers and sisters,” said Payne. “We need to attract major donors who would love to put their time and money into the Hopes & Dreams Project.”

For those who would like to make a tax deductible contribution, please visit: https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_flow&SESSION=3Ev8hT9LQAHQB-YMJ2mMT3oeGu8kvIjuwI7Ju7Tn62bXM35vnbLbiZkI5Cu&dispatch=5885d80a13c0db1f8e263663d3faee8d4b3d02051cb40a5393d96fec50118c72

For more information, please visit: www.theusef.org

Summary

Toback gets inside Mike Tyson’s head(s)

Article

The most controversial figure in professional sports since the great Muhammad Ali’s heyday heroics in the boxing and political rings, former-heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson cut a complex, crazy and callous character. 

On November 22, 1986, Tyson became the youngest heavyweight champion of the world at the age of 20. Less than one year later he would also become the first boxer to simultaneously own all three major boxing belts: WBA, WBC, and IBF.

Beyond the death connection, what do you have in common with Mike?
JT: An experience of madness, a love of extreme behavior — both in oneself and in others, a feeling that there are no rules except the ones you make up yourself. It’s important to know yourself and it’s important to have yourself fully revealed to yourself; also a love of boxing, a love of certain sports.

Tyson seems to have matured in many ways over the years with the noticeably exception of sex. He still seems to be a kid. Did you ever talk to him about it? “Hey, Mike, you still sound like that kid.”
JT: No, because the idea was not to adulterate anything he was saying and to let him come across in his own way. Just as he in not a censor of himself, I didn’t want to be a censor. For instance, he says, “fellatio,” when what he means is cunnilingus.

The natural process of editing does censor.
JT: That’s not censoring. That’s selection. That’s what I had to do as opposed to releasing a 30-hour movie.

Do people question your wise choice not to include other interviewees?

Summary

Finding Eleven Minutes of fashionable fame

Article

As fashion spews its glamorous, conspicuous consumptive self this Sunday at the Academy Awards ceremonies, taking Eleven Minutes to task appears apropos. 

Once labeled “The next great American designer” on season one of reality television’s Project Runaway, fashion designer Jay McCarroll is gearing up for his next show.

Chronicling the whereabouts and wear-abouts of McCarrol these days, directors Michael Seiditch and Rob Tate go behind the seams of New York’s Fashion Week to get a look at what makes the cut-throats in today’s fashion industry.

Egos rise and egos fall and nobody will have to mend and sew the fears, fury, fun, and fabrics more than the funny and foulmouthed McCarroll before he gets his eleven minutes of fashion and fame.

We caught up with McCarroll recently to get his thoughts on Eleven Minutes. Some of which may give second thought to those fancy duds paraded along the red carpet this Sunday.

For the full interview go to: http://jestherent.blogspot.com/2009/02/exclusive-interivew-jay-mccarroll.html

Summary

Oscar nominated director talks On the Line

Article

A security guard at a department store, Rolf (Roeland Wiesnekker) spends his days watching others. From the floor to the vantage point of multiple cameras with zoom capabilities, Rolf knows his way around the place. A leader who stays calm when others get out of line, Rolf is a symbol of Swiss security.

Yet love is always a glitch in one’s secure domain. For the lonely Rolf, there moves his co-worker, Sarah (Catherine Janke). Rolf spends a little too much time watching her from the eyes in the sky, but he appears harmless enough.

Off camera, Rolf has three primary opportunities to seduce Sarah. The first one is awkward. The second one is tragic. The third is his response to the first two.

One of five live shorts nominated for an Academy Award, Reto Caffi’s 30-minute On the Line (Auf der Strecke) sets up more than one huge dilemma for his protagonist.

Born, raised and educated in Switzerland, Caffi’s short films have won over 50 awards at festivals. In town for the Academy Awards ceremonies this Sunday, we caught up with Caffi to briefly discuss his short film.

For interivew go to: http://jestherent.blogspot.com/2009/02/exclusive-interview-reto-caffi.html

Summary

Pick-axe-ing My Bloody Valentine with the smart guy

Article

As 3-D technology increases, we can expect more and more movies to come at us from the big screen. Of course, what better way to get the youth to wear those funky glasses than to promise sharp objects, blood and gore?

Moving from one Valentine’s Day to another Valentine’s Day a decade letter (without any of those dumb male wigs to signify another time), My Bloody Valentine tells the discordant tale of the town of Harmony. Plagued by the hard economy, the members of the this mining community now live in fear of a pickaxe wheeling maniac who was presumed death but, apparently, has arisen from the grave to spear away the downtrodden.

While the Sheriff Axel Palmer (Kerr Smith) has his pants full with his lover Megan (Megan Boone) and his wife, Sarah (Jamie King), whom he mistrusts around Tom Hanniger (Jensen Ackles), her ex-boyfriend who vanished after the last time a homicidal maniac attacked Harmony, Deputy Martin looks on.

Played by Edi Gathegi, Deputy Martin is the brains of the bunch, and also the only one who does not have a link to the past. Perhaps he is the town’s only African American?

Born in Kenya and raised in Berkeley, Ca., while his father was in the process of picking up five degrees from UC Berkely, Gathegi stumbled upon acting after a basketball injury that ended one career and started another.

Gathegi’s first screen acting break was in the movie Crank followed by such roles as Zeke Molinda in Veronica Mars, Darudi in The Fifth Patient, Cheese in Gone, Baby Gone, Dr. Jeffrey “Big Love” Cole in House, Laurent in the recent blockbuster, Twilight, and other films and television programs.

In this exclusive interview we spoke to Gathegi about My Bloody Valentine, his life and the upcoming sequel to Twilight.

JEsther Entertainment: What kinds of films did you watch while you were growing up?
Edi Gathegi: As a kid I was into cartoons like all kids. I remember watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie and leaving the theater trying to do jump kicks. Then I went through this “horror phase.” I remembered being freaked out by A Nightmare on Elm Street and not being able to like sleep for two nights. Now, as an actor having dabbled in a lot of different genres, I’m most excited about playing real life, historical figures/biopics of some sort. I like having their entire life there as resource material. The joy in acting for me is playing the detective where I may even find footage of the person walking and talking.

JE: When did you decide you wanted to be an actor?
EG: My family tells me I was always a natural performer. I was the cloud, the family raconteur. I tell dinnertime stories and bedtime stories to my brother in our bunk bed, but I didn’t claim until I broke my knee trying out for the basketball team in college. I just wanted to take an easy course and acting seemed like something that would give me joy, even though I was getting depressed from not being able to walk. And then I fell in love with acting. I decided I wanted to make it my life’s journey and my mother and father fully supported me.

JE: How did you get involved in My Blood Valentine 3D?
EG: I was in Portland working on Twilight and a I had a few days off so my representation gave me a same-day audition for My Blood Valentine, which I hated because it didn’t give me time to prepare. They still found I was right for the part and the rest is history [laughs].

JE: You mentioned you like to do research, what kind of detective work did you do for this film?
EG: Good question. I did not see the original version because I was told my character was not in the original version. This is a very tone. That was a very campy film. I didn’t feel it was going to be useful for what was required with the script I had. I don’t have a lot of action scenes with the killer so I didn’t watch a bunch of horror films. For me, I was just a deputy sheriff trying to solve a case and that’s the way I approached it. I talk to friends who had friends who were in law enforcement. I read some law enforcement material. I geared my character toward what it means to be on that law enforcement side.

JE: He is only character who does not appear in the opening scene 10 years ago.
EG: Good observation. I can’t tell you where he’s from. That’s my own personal secret [laughs]. An actor’s got to have some secrets.

JE: What do you think you have in common with your character?
EG: My character and I share a perceptive quality. My character is the perceptive one in the cast. He’s the one who’s sort of quietly watching. He’s got a finger on what’s going on. He knows secrets that others don’t know, that they don’t want him to know. I’m not saying this about myself but my character is the smartest one in the movie. He is the one I would trust to be the sheriff. He’s got FBI aspirations. He’s not going to stop at this case. This case is a stepping stone if he solves it. He’s going to go to Washington, D.C. That’s the kind of guy he is.

JE: The film does not let him solve the mystery. Why not?
EG: [Laughs].

JE: He should be the sheriff. The sheriff he works for is erratic and an adulterer, which the small townsfolk should know.
EG: Alex’s a bit short-fused. Every man who’s cheating eventually gets caught, or they continue cheating [laughs]. He’s a guy who’s got his issues. I’m sure Kerr did not judge the character he played. He did a wonderful job.

JE: There are quite a few metaphors going on with the pickaxe, the mining shafts, the villain has a condom costume, and so on. What is the film saying about sexual oppression in this small town?
EG: Wow! I hadn’t thought about it, but I’m sure some scholars – if they do see this movie because I’m sure it’s right up their ally – will have a field day with that metaphor, with that dissertation [Laughs]. They’ll put it into pieces.

JE: Plus it is in 3D and the point of 3D is to have things come at you, which are almost always phallic. These things, shall we say, are thrown in your face.
EG: [Laughs]. That’s definitely a way to look at it. I don’t know if that was intentional. I haven’t thought about it like that. I thought of it as seeing a cool, badass film. [Laughs]

JE: Well if these things work on the subconscious it could make for a good date movie.
EG: [Laughs]. It’s hard to believe but this is the perfect date movie. When you take a girl on a date you don’t necessarily want to take her to a romantic comedy. That’s mundane. You want to go do something that’s exciting. A 3D movie is like a roller coaster. You’ve got live action, excitement, laughs, camp. Your woman will get scared, jump on your arm and feel your bicep. You get to be the hero [laughs].

JE: What can you tell us about the upcoming sequel to Twilight?
EG: We got that locked down. We’re doing that in a few months.

Summary

Ten films and 10 movies recognized by AFI

Article

In the spirit of creative community and civil rest, filmmakers and others met today at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons Hotel for the AFI Awards 2008 luncheon.

Director Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler), actor Laura Dern (Recount), actor-director Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino), actor Michael Emerson (Lost), director David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), actor Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), actor Emile Hirsch (Milk), Melissa Leo (Frozen River), Donal Logue (Life) director Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon), actor Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon), actor Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler), actor Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler) and others were in attendance for their films, which were among the 10 films and 10 television shows –- of obviously notably meritorious worth — honored at the ninth year event to record entries into American Film Institute’s almanac of the 21^st Century.

Introduced by AFI President Bob Gazzale after the above-par Four Season lunch the ten honorees in television were introduced by Rich Frank chair, AFI Jury for Television. This year’s selected honorees were: Breaking Bad, In Treatment, John Adams, Life, Lost, Mad Men, The Office, Recount, The Shield, and The Wire.

This was followed by film reviewer Leonard Maltin, chair, AFI Jury for Motion Pictures, who announced this year’s film selections: The Curious Case of Benjamin, Button, The Dark Knight, Frost/Nixon, Frozen River, Gran Torino, Iron Man, Milk, Wall-E, Wendy and Lucy, and The Wrestler.

Howard, who has made the best film of his career with Frost/Nixon, concluded the luncheon with a toast to “our good work,” which he was “proud” of being a part. During the benediction Opie/Richie drew comparisons between our difficult economic times and a documentary he made about the Great Depression back in the 11^th grade.

“We are not immune to the challenges we face,” said Howard encouraging his fellowmen and women to rise to the challenge and be at “our absolute best in the upcoming years.”

Other guests present were AFI President Emerita Jean Picker Firstenberg; Marshall Herskovitz; Kathleen Nolan; Frank Pierson; Tony To; Lisa Arpey; Jim Gianopulos; Dan Glickman; Daniel Petrie, Jr., and selected college professors and media.

Summary

Old man Robeson keeps rolling along

Article

This year has been a year of progressive biopics, bringing Che Guevara, Harvey Milk and Richard Nixon back to life on the screen (lauding the first two, reviling the latter). Add to this distinguished company Speak Of Me As I Am, a leftist bio-play starring the stirring K.B. Solomon in an inspiring one-man show about Paul Robeson that is perfect for the holiday season.

The son of a slave, Robeson was a Renaissance Man, an all-star athlete at Rutgers who earned a law degree and went on to become an actor (his most famous role was as a character of the Renaissance, Othello, from whom the play’s title is taken), singer and probably most importantly, a pro-Communist black militant who stood up to “whitey,” be he a Southern racist or German fascist.

The first act of Speak of Me As I Am tells much of Robeson’s story through film clips, songs performed live accompanied by a pianist and cellist and most of all by Solomon’s commanding presence. We see how Robeson went from all-American to “un-American,” the star of stage, screen and concert hall’s annual salary of $100,000 reduced to $2,000 per year when he was blacklisted during the HUAC-McCarthy era.

Accused of being a Communist, Robeson was denied the right to perform at home, and his passport was seized by the State Department, preventing the internationally acclaimed celebrity from accepting the numerous gigs he was offered abroad. Although the play doesn’t mention it, one of Robeson’s greatest “crimes” was declaring during the Cold War that African Americans wouldn’t fight for the USA against the Soviet Union, about 20 years before another black activist, Muhammad Ali, refused to serve in Vietnam because no Viet Cong had ever called him the N-word.

Robeson died in the 1970s, and for today’s generation, the closest they’ll come to “meeting” this extraordinary man is through this show written and produced by Solomon and Krys Howard.

Solomon’s performance is a marvel not to be missed. The towering basso profundo opera singer has the icon’s stature, mannerisms and smile down, and his mellifluous voice is a delight that sometimes had the audience singing along to numbers such as “I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night.” Deftly cutting from the spoken to the sung word to tell Robeson’s saga, Solomon’s renditions of classics like “Porgy’s Plenty of Nothing,” “The House I Live In,” “Danny Boy” and but of course, Robeson’s signature tune, “Old Man River,” shall have you tapping your tootsies and perhaps tearing up, as your inner self is transported heavenward. It’s almost as if this life force, which tirelessly stood up for the “little people” against injustice, has come back to life.

Indeed, this is the premise of Speak of Me As I Am – Robeson returns from heaven (where Solomon wittily observes he can’t find J. Edgar Hoover or Joe McCarthy) to tell his story. In particular, Robeson seeks to redeem himself against charges that he was unpatriotic, insisting that he was a real American in the revolutionary tradition of 1776, fighting for truth, justice and the democratic way. The play glosses over Robeson’s relationship with the Communist Party and Soviet Union, which he was accused of being a stooge for. Indeed, during a visit to the USSR Robeson did confront the Stalinists over the imprisonment of an artist or intellectual, whom I believe was Jewish.

This incident is powerful ammunition against those who denigrate Robeson as a Stalin apologist, and could be incorporated into Act II. In this much shorter second act, which seems to be a work in progress, the modern day Robeson comments on today’s recession and the election of America’s first black president.

I called Speak of Me As I Am a one-man show, but in fact the play makes clever use of an enchained black mannequin onstage, so that at times it almost feels like a cast of two. Photos of famous radicals and infamous reactionaries, from Thomas Jefferson, Frederick Douglas and John Brown to Hoover, McCarthy and Harry Truman, also decorate the set and are also put to good use.

Speak of Me As I Am joins the illustrious company of Che, Milk and Frost/Nixon, as well as the play Marx in Soho by people’s historian Howard Zinn as a work of art that brings great personalities and issues vividly back to life. This is one of the greatest things art can do. By the end of Speak of Me As I Am you, too, will feel Robeson and Solomon have got the whole wide world in their hands. Don’t miss this life affirming theatrical experience, which will be performed from time to time in 2009 as Solomon and Howard seek to bring Robeson’s thrilling story to a theater near you.

Speak f Me as I Am is being performed at 3:00 p.m., Dec. 21 at Venice United Methodist Church, 2210 Lincoln Blvd, Venice 90291. For more info contact 310/398-7192 or Email: peggylee.kennedy@gmail.com.

Summary

Interview with French Oscar pick director

Article

France’s official Oscar entry for best foreign film and winner of the Palme D’Or at Cannes International Film Festival 2008, The Class (Entre Les Murs) is the prime result of collaboration between co-writer and director Laurent Cantet, co-writers François Bégaudeau and Robin Campillo, plus a host of splendid third and fourth level students at the François Dolto Junior High — located in Paris’ 20th arrondissement.

Based on Bégaudeau’s novel, Entre les murs, and commencing with workshops in November 2006, the film version of The Class became a chronicle of François (Bégaudeau), a French teacher struggling with an array of smart, stupid, sassy, simple and sympathetic students throughout the school year.

Like in every other class at the school, these adolescents will contest their teachers toward their authorial demarcations. Undeterred to make a difference, in Socratic fashion François challenges these students to understand the power of language and erudition. Fortunately and unfortunately, he has the power of language superiority. The language skills he attempts to instill in the class may bode well for those students wishing to escape their working class milieu, but with a little knowledge comes any annoying sense of power. The more François teaches these adolescents to talk, the more they learn to talk back.

As the year incrementally concludes, so does the intensity, intelligence and innovation in the interchanges between teacher and students. Most of the time, François maintains his composure in the visage of delusional ignorance, mistrust and defiance. Yet there are some moments where he relinquishes his logomachy superiority with a careless lexical choice. Speak about quibbling over semantics.

A grade-B+/A- effort, Cantet’s fifth feature and the follow-up to his 2005 film, Heading South (Vers Le Sud), The Class should make the five-film Oscar cut (along with Israel’s Waltz with Bashir and Italy’s Gomorrah).

In this exclusive interview, we spoke to Cantet about The Class, class and culture.

Los Angeles Journal:  Why did you want to make this film?
Laurent Cantet: It’s cool, that special moment of school. It’s a moment where a lot of what we all became was decided and especially the image we have of our place in society. It’s a moment where you begin to think of yourself as part of a community, as part of a society, as a citizen. It was interesting to look at that moment. In France we have a very long and very old discussion about school: What school should be; what school is; what school is not. There is a lot of ideology in the discussion. I just wanted to say, “No, stop ideology and look what can happen between 25 people in a class.” After that everyone can make the conclusion or ask all the questions he or she wants. The film is showing a lot of reality and that’s all.

JE: Which of the kids do you think you were most like when you were his or her age?
LC: I was a very quiet kid and perhaps not enough opposed to the model the adults gave me and asked me to conform. In fact school was very important to me. I was very happy at school. I learned a lot of things. I really met so many people in school.

JE: What do you have in common with François?
LC: The sort of open mind about the issues of society. I have quite a lot of sympathy for the way he’s dealing with the children, the way he’s trying to make them think, going a little bit further in their thinking process and his respect for them. Even if he sometimes is very sarcastic, even if he’s pushing them any time, it’s a way to prove to them that they are real and to take themselves seriously.

LAJ: His class consciousness can aid and hinder his teaching capabilities.
LC: The scene I really like is at the end when we have this girl saying she didn’t understand or learn anything during the school year. In the book François finished the scene by asking himself, “Does she know she’s already socially condemned?” That’s what François really feels about these kids. That’s why he has the strong relationships with the problematic children and not the good students.

LAJ: What similarities can we draw between teach-student relationships and filmmaker-audience relationships?
LC: The relationship is more between a teacher and an actor or even a director. François, in the film, was acting and, at the same time, sort of directing the scene. He was driving the kids towards what I was expecting. He’s trying to make the children formulate the thing they have to understand and learn. The parallel is more on that side. I don’t think I am teaching anything to the audience. I may ask questions to the audience, but these are questions I am asking myself, too. I don’t have answers. I just try to give some pointers and that’s all.

LAJ:There are a lot of cultures in the classroom. How representative is that of a contemporary classroom in France?
LC: It represents quite well some parts of the cities. The way The Class was formed is quite interesting. We opened this workshop we made in the school to all of the volunteers. The 25 who are in the film are the 25 who stayed in the workshop the whole school year. So we didn’t choose one Chinese, two Arabs; it was made naturally. It’s representative of this school and a lot of schools in Paris.

LAJ: Something that is barely, if at all, recognized in the film is that the teachers are much more homogeneous in their cultures and “race” than the students are –

LC: Yes, that’s something that is quite strange. The teachers are all white. In France we have a lot of white French teachers and very few black ones, for example. Maybe it will change now because the psyche is a little bit more diverse than it was a few years ago. France has a problem. In general, France has a very high image of itself, of its culture. I hope we are going to change that soon because we have more and more people arriving from everywhere. We have to accept that the culture is not homogeneous and that it’s not all set and done and that it’s always evolving with the people who are living there.

LAJ: I imagine that is very problematic and very confusing, perhaps repressive, that at this turning point there are white teachers instructing multicultural students, who are in turn taught to “obey white people.”
LC: [Laughs]. Of course. A lot of teachers are quite intelligent and can deal with that and don’t stigmatize the children. But yes, nevertheless you have a strict program where you have to learn that and that and that and not this.

LAJ:Another connection made toward the end of the film when the kid tries to discuss human reproduction is that a school year lasts nine months. In a way it is like a birth for everyone, which you alluded to during the first question of this interview.
LC: [Laughs]. Yes, why not? I think the kid was more interested by the sexual question, but you are right — although I did not think that.

LAJ: The kids do not argue over political or historical figures but over who is the best soccer player in the world. Why do professional sports have such a strong hold on working class children?
LC: When I was 13 I must admit I was more interested in soccer than politics. But through the soccer questions in the film they’re dealing with a nationalist question. When you don’t feel accepted by the society which you are arriving, you are claiming your culture or country, which is not yours because maybe some of the players are not originally from that country. The harder it is to get integrated the more you hold onto the other culture. The nationalism is part of that.

LAJ: The film also deals with the power of language. How does language work to control kids in these environments where you are teaching them grammar like imperfect subjunctive?
LC: They will never use it. I don’t think I ever used it. I wanted to show through this scene that language in France is a very strong social marker. If you don’t know the codes you will be condemned to stay where your language obliges you to stay. School has a very strong mission to give all the tools it can to confront the psyche and give as much opportunity.

LAJ: Do you see any conflict between higher power structures then even teachers where teachers want to give children these opportunities, but higher structures, realizing that language sets social demarcations, implement policies or reduce funds for French language programs?
LC: One of the roles of school, which is difficult to accept by a lot of people, especially teachers who love the job they are doing, is that school is also a place where you sort the people. Some will go to the university and become managers. But we need those vocational workers, too. Society found in school the way to sort all the components it needs to function and that’s terrible. And that’s what Françoise tried to avoid without always managing it.

The Class opens tomorrow for its Oscar-qualifying run. For more information log onto http://www.landmarktheatres.com/Films/films_frameset.asp?id=70731

Summary

Noted actor plays an ex-convict in The Yellow Handkerchief.

Article

William Hurt stood six-foot two-inches under a press tent at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. We had just finished a press conference after the world premiere of his latest film, The Yellow Handkerchief, which is out this Friday.

During that conference Hurt made it clear he does not suffer fools gladly. More than once he drew aim and pulled at a reporter when she or he posed an inane question to him regarding his role in the film as a recently-released convict contemplating lost chances while he haphazardly sojourns through the back roads of post-Katrina Louisiana with two teenagers (Kristen Stewart and Eddie Redmayne).

For the role, Hurt spent a night in Louisiana’s notorious Angola Penitentiary (“The Farm”). So when a journalist said, “just acting,” he cut her short; or when journalists wanted to talk about what kind of offstage camaraderie the actors had instead of addressing racism and poverty vis-à-vis Angola, Hurt seemed eager to see the slumbering press conference quickly conclude. The reclusive Democrat and father of four who lives in Crane, Oregon and outside of Paris, France, did not have time for small talk.

Hurt was born in Washington, D.C. on March 20, 1950 to Alfred McCord Hurt and Claire Isabel (née McGill). His father worked for the U.S. State Department while his mother worked for Time, Inc. When his parents divorced, Hurt moved up north after his mother married Henry Luce III, the son of the founder of Time Magazine and writer Claire Boothe Luce.

Hurt attended the prestigious Middlesex School in Concord, MA, where he was Vice President of the Dramatics Club, before studying at Tufts University in Medford, Ma. While at Tufts, Hurt left to study at the Julliard Drama School. (In 2005 Tufts awarded Hurt with an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Fine Arts.)

Hurt first earned serious cinematic recognition with his role as Professor Eddie Jessup in the Ken Russell/Paddy Chayevsky’s Altered States. A politically-mishmash message film, Hurt followed Altered States with three consecutive blatantly right-wing theatrical movies – the anti-media The Eyewitness, the misogynistic Body Heat, and Lawrence Kasdan’s pro-Reaganite The Big Chill, in which Hurt plays a cocaine-snorting idealist holding onto the dreams and demands of the 1960s.

For his next role, 1985’s Kiss of the Spider Woman, Hurt’s talent was able to transcend the Academy’s typical homophobia and land him an Oscar for Best Actor. Since then Hurt has done dozens of films of various political merit, picking up two more best actor nominations for his performances in Children of a Lesser God (1986) and Broadcast News (1987). In 2005 Hurt received a nomination for Best Actor in Supporting Role for his less ten-minute performance in A History of Violence.

In addition to The Yellow Handkerchief, this year Hurt also appeared in the summer blockbuster hit, The Incredible Hulk and played a United States President in Vantage Point.

I spoke with Hurt about The Yellow Handkerchief, Hollywood’s demographics, George Clooney, politics and new models.

Los Angeles Journal: During the press conference you mentioned a “base of reality.” What reality of yours did you see in your character? Do you have something in common with him?
William Hurt: If you’re asking me about my personal life I’m not going to tell you because it’s not important. I could get just as much if I had a perfectly happy Tom Hanks life. Going and spending one night in Angola would give me more fuel for lost chances. How many people in one day told me, “I was in the wrong place in the wrong time” or “I was drunk.” Most of the guys in the yard said that by the time they get into prison they’ve woken up. Not during the trial while they’re still drying up. Aren’t we going to look at that? This film isn’t about that so what are you going to do to help people toward understanding that? You’re going to submerge the iceberg and play this sentimental tale — not on the basis of what you want people to feel about it, but where you’re character is coming from. You just think about that. You don’t think about what you want other people to feel. You think about what the character is living.

LAJ: It was also mentioned that many of the people in Angola are poor and black. In light of Hurricane Katrina and the images Americans faced in late August 2005 – poverty and racism are alive and malignant in America – in what way were you conscious about this film being about white people?
WH: A lot. I thought the presence of the black community should be much stronger and I fought like crazy for that. There were big scenes and I don’t know what the fuck happened to them. We had a whole series of scenes that were written about when the three lead characters arrived in the black community where they get confronted. All of it masterful and it should have been in the movie. There was a lot of friction between [indecipherable].

LAJ: There was friction between whom?
WH: I can’t tell you about it. I really can’t. But there were scenes that were cut out of the film that would have answered your question completely. Not only were they cut in the writing, what was shot was so bad! It was so superficial you couldn’t leave it in the film and compare it to the authenticity of the relationships.

LAJ: Would that have to do with a concern for pleasing American audiences?
WH: No. If it had been done well you could’ve pleased anybody because it would have been truth. You don’t want to please somebody with falseness. You don’t want to trick somebody into liking it. You want them to like it for good reasons. The fact that they left it white was very problematic to me. There were reasons for that and they were reasons completely out of my hands. I fought for a black guy to be on the flight deck of Lost in Space, too. He was originally cast as a black guy and when he was changed I went, “What are you talking about? You promised us there was going to be a black guy. We were going to diversify. You’re going to have multi-ethnicity up here.” It was going to be one good thing about the movie — the only good thing in it, maybe [laughs]? They took it out because of the demographics. But that was after I got cast. That happens a lot.

LAJ: This would be a reach for the truth.
WH: An actor doesn’t have control over editing or which scenes get shot. He only has control over the scenes he’s given to authenticate.

LAJ: Are you suggesting there has been a shift in priorities for acting?
WH: Well, George Clooney gave me a hug when he won the Academy [for Best Performance in a Supporting Role for the film in 2005 when Hurt was nominated for A History of Violence]. There’s a shift there. What he and I do as actors is very, very different in what we concentrate on. Right now what he’s doing is more important, frankly. The entirety around him is more in control and better expressed in terms of our time in history. Being the actor I am, the foundation I come from, I want films with formats as wide as complete as his are. Within that individual characterization I might be, I would like to flush that out. That’s my thing. That’s what I do: flush out the guy. So I’m not a producer [Hurt has one co-producer credit for the 2006 film, The Legend of Sasquatch]. I decided a long time ago not to wear more than one hat. I really wanted to sink my teeth into the one hat and hope everyone was being as attentive to theirs. I still believe in that dynamic, but right now that’s the shift I see, and they can’t afford it. They can’t afford to let me be fully accomplished in my one role because there’s been a paradigm shift that’s been placed in the model of society which could more or less be presented in some TV show like The West Wing where everybody’s talking at the same time and we’re also trying to figure out what it’s about. New corporate. New reality. New global economy thing. What’s that doing to society? Cultural shock. Cultural shift. Immigration and migration patterns. You’ll always pick up your phone before you’ll finish your conversation with me. You walk into a store. You’re on your phone. The cashier is no the phone. In the taxi. We’re all on the phone. We all prefer the phone. We’re all connected to the same things going on at the same time because of technology. It’s changed who I am as an artist. It has changed my format completely. I’m trying to stay up. I doing pretty good for a fellow my age, but it’s not easy.

LAJ: You play the President of the U.S. in the upcoming film, Vantage Point? WH::
I didn’t know his name or where he was from. Politically he’s something like a libertarian, maybe a Ron Paul.

LAJ: It also comes out during election year. How important is that to you?
WH: I stay informed. Like other liberals like myself, Paul is interesting to me but he’ll never be president. You know what he’s thinking and it’s not conducive to the party machinery.

LAJ: What about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton?
WH: I like Obama, but can he really be elected? Hillary is playing it very safe and she is as much a part of that political machine as anyone. That machine has America with its $500 billion military budget, not including Iraq. We need to take a much harder look at that. But it’s exciting to see that the candidate will be something new.

LAJ: Lastly, what do you think about these interviews where you discuss your work? Do they serve the work? Does it serve your film?
WH: It’s always been a problem. I’ve been at this for a long time. I’m always going, “No I am not the character I play. No, I am not the person I play.” Get off of it. I’m not acting out. That’s a little bit old hat. We’re living in the age of technology and terrorism now. We have a real subject to talk about rather than staring at our navels and me fighting that fight. I was fighting that fight to get you out of your navel and head toward character [Laughs], and not your own egocentric personality, your own narcissism. I despised narcissism as the hero of America and I still despise it. I always thought that if America was going to go to the movies looking for images in which to measure some authentic notion of self that it was doing the wrong damn thing. Really. That was my battle. Now I want to be part of the next battle and that’s to be techno savvy. I’m not bad but it’s a new model [sighs]. The model has definitely shifted.

The Yellow Handkerchief opens this Wednesday in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Town Center 5 in Encino. For more information log onto www.laemmle.com