The Film That Changed My Life: 30 Directors on Their Epiphanies in the Dark

305 Pages·2011·1.21 MB·English

by  Robert K. Elder

TH E
T
FIlm H Danny Boyle on
Apocalypse Now
E
Rebel Without a Cause “If you love films and care about filmmakers, you’ll
have a hard time putting this book down. These lively Kevin Smith on
inspired John Woo to conversations reveal just how much one generation F Slacker F I l m
comb his hair and talk I
of filmmakers influences the next—and how a single
l John Waters on
like James Dean. movie can change the course of a young person’s life
and career.” m The Wizard of Oz
—leonard maltin, author of Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide
For Richard linklater, Richard Linklater on
T H AT
T Raging Bull
“something was simmering “A great and provocative read. Elder begins with a
in me, but Raging Bull simple question and leads a wide variety of film- H Peter Bogdanovich on
makers down all sorts of unexpected paths. Why do
brought it to a boil.” A Citizen Kane
we respond so passionately, even irrationally, to the
movies that change our lives? The wonderful thing T John Woo on
CH A NgE D
Apocalypse Now introduced about being a critic or a lifelong movie lover is that Rebel Without a Cause
life changes all the time in relation to the spells being C
Danny Boyle to “the pure
cast on the screen. Elder’s book honors that alchemic John Landis on
H
visceral power of cinema.” relationship many times over. It’s addictive.” The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
—michael Phillips, film critic, Chicago Tribune A
Atom Egoyan on
m y
A single line from The “If, as John Huston once said, movies are the reign- N Persona
Wizard of Oz—“Who ing art form of the last hundred years, then Robert K.
g
Richard Kelly on
would have thought a Elder’s idea of asking thirty directors to talk about
Brazil
the movie that most influenced their careers is a E
good little girl like you
bonanza for film buffs and a wonderful recommen-
D Kimberly Peirce on
could destroy my beautiful l I F E
dation to all who love movies. Elder has done us all
The Godfather
wickedness?”—inspired a favor: read this book, then go see for yourself why
these movies made the cut!” m
John Waters’s life, he says. Michel Gondry on
—lawrence grobel, author of The Art of the Interview
Le voyage en ballon
“I sometimes say it to
y
myself before I go to sleep, and many more
Robert K. Elder is a film columnist and a regional editor 30
l
like a prayer.”
of AOL’s Patch.com in Chicago. His work has appeared
I
in the New York Times, MSNBC.com, Salon.com, Time
F DIRECTORS
Out Chicago, and elsewhere. For more than a decade, he Robert K. Elder
E
served as a staff writer at the Chicago Tribune. His other
books include Last Words of the Executed and John Woo: ON
Interviews. Visit his website at www.robertkelder.com.
E
l
An A Cappella Book d THEIR
$16.95 (CAN $18.95) e
r
ISBN 978-1-55652-825-5
51695
EPIPHANIES
IN THE
9 781556 528255
DARK
THE
FIlm
THAT
CHANgED
my
lIFE
30
Robert K. Elder DIRECTORS
ON
THEIR
EPIPHANIES
IN THE
DARK
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Elder, Robert K.
The film that changed my life : 30 directors on their epiphanies in the dark
/ Robert K. Elder.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-55652-825-5
1. Motion pictures. 2. Motion picture producers and directors—Interviews.
I. Title.
PN1995.E5585 2011
791.43'75—dc22
2010038581
Cover and interior design: Visible Logic, Inc.
© 2011 by Robert K. Elder
All rights reserved
Published by Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
814 North Franklin Street
Chicago, Illinois 60610
ISBN 978-1-55652-825-5
Printed in the United States of America
5 4 3 2 1
To my mom, Tina, who weathered the storm of insomnia-driven movie
marathons—and even sat down to watch a few films with me (though she
never developed a taste for Monty Python). Thanks for the love and support.
Contents
Introduction … vi
1 Edgar Wright
An American Werewolf in London … 1
2 Rian Johnson
Annie Hall … 13
3 Danny Boyle
Apocalypse Now … 25
4 Bill Condon
Bonnie and Clyde … 39
5 Richard Kelly
Brazil … 47
6 Peter Bogdanovich
Citizen Kane … 55
7 John Dahl
A Clockwork Orange … 64
8 Henry Jaglom
8½ … 74
9 Brian Herzlinger
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial … 82
10 Alex Gibney
The Exterminating Angel … 94
11 Kimberly Peirce
The Godfather … 104
12 Steve James
Harlan County U.S.A. … 110
13 Austin Chick
Kings of the Road … 123
14 Guy Maddin
L’âge d’or … 132
15 Michel Gondry
Le voyage en ballon … 145
16 Michael Polish
Once Upon a Time in America … 152
17 Arthur Hiller
Open City … 160
18 Pete Docter
Paper Moon … 167
19 Atom Egoyan
Persona … 175
20 Gurinder Chadha
Purab aur Pachhim and It’s a Wonderful Life … 188
21 Richard Linklater
Raging Bull … 195
22 Jay Duplass
Raising Arizona … 202
23 John Woo
Rebel Without a Cause and Mean Streets … 210
24 John Landis
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad … 222
25 Kevin Smith
Slacker … 232
26 Chris Miller
Sleeper … 241
27 Neil LaBute
The Soft Skin … 245
28 George A. Romero
The Tales of Hoffmann … 259
29 Frank Oz
Touch of Evil … 265
30 John Waters
The Wizard of Oz … 278
Acknowledgments … 284
Index … 286
Introduction
Movies are personal touchstones. They provide soundtracks and wallpaper
for our memories, and sometimes they become part of our own histories.
For these directors, the films in this book are much more. They provided
a spark that illuminated the rest of their lives. They inspired whole careers
and, as the book title suggests, changed lives.
What made this project so entertaining wasn’t just talking about film—
although I, like most cinema lovers, can do that endlessly. The best parts of these
interviews are not just about the movies themselves but also about the impact
they had on each director’s life. For instance, John Woo’s story of how Martin
Scorsese’s Mean Streets almost made him a Catholic. Or how Kevin Smith was
convinced, convinced that no other movie but Slacker could have made him
a director. In these many conversations, I found not one but two directors
who told me about their adolescent quest to find brief cinematic nudity on arts
channels—only to have their lives transformed by the movies Persona and L’ âge
d’or (hint: both directors are Canadian). Still other interviews took unexpected
turns—including Michel Gondry’s thoughts about death and how he’d like to
die, given that his cinematic hero was killed while working on a film.
There are great stories of directors meeting their heroes, as in Kimberly
Peirce’s tale of meeting Francis Ford Coppola, and these connections turn-
ing into enduring friendships. We hear of Michael Polish loving Once Upon
a Time in America so much that he later hired one of the film’s stars—James
Woods—to star in his own masterpiece.
Throughout this project, I was able to gather directors from across the
cinematic landscape. Oscar-winners include Danny Boyle, animator Peter
Docter, and documentarian Alex Gibney. I’ve also tried to reach across
genres and generations, with conversations with veteran filmmakers such
as Arthur Hiller and Peter Bogdanovich, and relative newcomers such as
Brian Herzlinger and Jay Duplass. Some were long-winded, others pithy,
but almost everyone wanted to keep talking about their love of the films that
shaped them. Only two filmmakers refused to stick with one movie. You
(and the table of contents) know who you are.
vi
Introduction vii
I learned as much about these directors by their choice of films as I did
from their own work. Perhaps John Landis says it best: “It’s extremely impor-
tant to know . . . that how you appreciate a movie has everything to do with
your life experience at the moment when you see it, how you see it, and where
you see it.”
He continues, “People who see 2001 on DVD, on an eighteen-inch TV,
letterboxed or not, that movie is not going to have the impact it did when
you saw it in a Cinerama theater in 70mm. It’s just not, it’s a different expe-
rience . . . but that space station set to ‘Blue Danube’ is still one of the most
powerful images ever. And it’s just, how old were you when you saw it?
Where were you? How did you see it? Movies are subjective.”
And that’s why we keep coming back. Movies are not just movies, they
are mirrors of ourselves, our society, and our dreams—even if we’re not
quite ready for them. They make us laugh, cry, ponder our humanity, and
escape from it entirely.
And, for a few, movies make them want to go out and make more movies.
A Brief P.S.
Almost every director asked me this question, so here’s the answer:
The film that changed my life—that made me want to write about film—
was Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. Specifically, it was the scene in
which an undercover cop learns how to be an undercover cop.
Spoiler alert: It’s Tim Roth. His character learns a cover story—in this case,
the story of a marijuana deal. We see him learning the story, scene by scene,
practicing it over time. Then, he tells the story with increasing detail and
finesse to gangsters he’s infiltrating. In the next beat, Tarantino puts his char-
acter in the story he’s telling. We see him walk into a bathroom with a bag of
weed to find himself in the company of policemen and their drug-sniffing dog.
And the dog starts barking.
And then our hero, the undercover cop, begins talking inside the story
he’s telling—shaping the details of the story as he’s in the bathroom, a drug
dog barking at him and his black bag of marijuana.
It’s an amazing sequence, a piece of virtuosic directing—not a story
within a story, but a single story told by a character learning the story, tell-
ing it and then—knowing it so well—living that lie.
viii Introduction
For me, a seventeen-year-old high school student, it was the first time
I was overwhelmed by cinema, when the form did something unexpected,
literary. In this instance, Tarantino’s sleight-of-hand storytelling could only
be done with the medium of film. Moreover, it was the first time I felt the
presence of the director, a full-on personality and force of style imposed on
the movie. Tarantino’s DNA was on each frame of celluloid.
That, in a way, is the fix I’m constantly chasing—to find the directors
inside their work. To hear and see and feel that personality connect with
an audience.
Even if that audience is just me.
When you find it, it takes the wind out of you.
1
Edgar Wright
An American Werewolf in
London
Edgar Wright was probably a little too young to see John Landis’s An Ameri-
can Werewolf in London, even when he attempted to watch it on TV with his
family. Even before he saw the film, he was enamored with it, particularly by
images in fan magazines.
American Werewolf was a forbidden fruit made sweeter by Wright’s ado-
lescent pursuit to see it. But once he did, the impact was lasting. Compare
it with Wright’s own zombie-horror romantic comedy, Shaun of the Dead,
and it’s easy to see the inspiration, the attitude, the humor, and the humanity
shared by both films.
Here, the director talks about Landis’s masterpiece, a well-executed
update of the horror-comedy formula. “It can probably never be repli-
cated—nor should it,” Wright says.
Edgar Wright, selected filmography:
A Fistful of Fingers (1995)
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Hot Fuzz (2007)
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
An American Werewolf in London
1981
Directed by John Landis
Starring David Naughton, Griffin Dunne, Jenny Agutter, and
Frank Oz
1