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This is what I tweeted last week on my WeekofWonders twitter account:
Romantic in the classical sense, BRIGHT STAR is a perfect film. Perfect. Film.
Did I hear Tony Scott on “At the Movies,” say that “Bright Star is porno for English majors”?
OK. He’s got my number.
Some smart person at distributor Apparition or publicist Donna Daniels picked the charming, historic Tilden Mansion as the setting for television and other interviews with director Jane Campion, producer Jan Chapman, and actors Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw, and Paul Schneider. Built in the 1840s, the Victorian mansion now houses the National Arts Club.
Inside the Tilden Mansion on Gramercy Park
There, lovely, gestural Abbie Cornish, who plays Fannie Brawne, said that this poem is one of her favorites:
Ode To A Nightingale
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thy happiness,—-
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
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“The wall between distributors and filmmakers is coming down,” said panelist Paola Freccero, president of distribution for B Side Entertainment at The State of Distribution– The Current & Future Indie Model. “The days of the big bad distributor taking advantage of the naive filmmaker is over—OK, some distributors are evil,” she admitted, “but others are looking for alignment with filmmakers.”
Concurring, Mark Urman, president and owner of Paladin, said that he and filmmakers “are on the same side of the table now.”
“We agree on everything,” he added.
I was struck by these words yesterday, when moderator and FILMMAKER editor, Scott Macaulay, requested some “good news” from the panelists, on the state of distribution.
A few of years ago, when I was working in film distribution, the dirty little secret was that distributors and filmmakers pretty much hated each other. “I’d like to put all our filmmakers in a room with a wet cat,” one highly placed acquisitions exec confided to me then.
Distributors saw independent directors as outsized in their egos, with blockbuster demands. Filmmakers felt that their work was being used as a tool for distributors to build empires off their backs. There was hostility on both sides. It was war every step of the way.
Now, it looks like economics and technology are turning the relationship into a love fest.
Necessarily, filmmakers are contributing money and financial risk to their releases, as well as an expertise in marketing (particularly online) to their niche. The dialogue is open. There is transparency and partnership. And decisions are made jointly, at least in some companies.
So I was reading the press notes for Deadgirl, a gruesome teen horror film coming out on DVD on Tuesday, and I noticed this about the director of photography: “Harris Charalambous was born in South Africa in 1977, and then moved to Cyprus at an early age. It was there that he discovered his passion, photographing the island’s isolated landscape and unique people.”
What? What?
I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing two other cinematographers with the name Harris, who also hail from the small island of Cyprus. What do they put in the water?
Most notable is Harris Savides, who frequently works with Gus Van Sant (Milk, Elephant) and is now working with Sophia Coppola. In 2007, Savides told me in an interview for a magazine feature, “My parents were both immigrants from Cyprus. I’m first generation American and that makes life great and complicated at the same time. I was an only child in a Greek household. Everybody always worked hard all week and on Sunday the house was filled with people. Everybody helped cook and hung out together, partying.”
“He calls me little Harris and I call him big Harris,” said Harris Zambarloukos, speaking of Savides, in an interview I had with him at the 2008 Thessaloniki Film Festival, where he was enjoying accolades for the international hit, Mamma Mia! His new movie, The Other Man, starring Antonio Banderas, Liam Neeson and Laura Linney, was released in theaters yesterday, and is lensed in his characteristic luscious, artistic style. “I like going home to Cyprus about six times a year when I’m not working,” he said. “I come from the only divided city in the world. I think the forced diaspora gives you a desire to tell stories, but also an introspection. The island is better known for exporting engineers, but the prominent Greek director, Mihalis Kakogiannis (Electra, Zorba the Greek), is a Cypriot.”
My story in the current Summer 2009 issue of FILMMAKER magazine* is called, “The Morphing of a Media Career.” I had a blast talking to senior faculty and staff from programs at The New School, American University, Chapman University, Los Angeles Film School, School of Visual Arts, Vancouver Film School, and University of North Carolina. I asked these savvy and articulate folks to discuss the career targets and job prognoses for film students today, and how that’s changed over time.
In a previous era, Spike Lee, Jim Jarmusch, Allison Anders, Kevin Smith and their like, inspired legions of students to dream of a career launch with a hip first film for art-house distribution. “In today’s world,” I write, “shifting values, globalization, new technologies and the faltering economy have conspired to undo the goals from previous decades.”
Now, the landscape is shifting, and new and different opportunities are emerging.
*The story is available only in the hard copy of the magazine.
“Docu-liberals” is how my former distribution colleague referred to them—the generally educated, generally white, left-leaning folks who like documentaries, and will go to see one with an inner city theme faster than an inner city audience will.
So I was thinking of this as I was watching Pressure Cooker, Mark Becker and Jennifer Grausman’s film about an aggressive culinary arts high school teacher in Phillie who successfully coaches her inner city students in a scholarship competition.
Then I thought about Nel, my smart, artistic teenaged “little sister” from Harlem who I’ve mentored for three years in the Big Sisters program. If she had seen this film when she was 12 or 13, I think it would have made a big impact on her life. Those early teen years are pivotal. There is nothing like seeing the kids in the film get focused and work towards a goal, with a tough but caring mentor. This is a film for a younger version of kids like them.
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