Month: October 2011

John C. Reilly

A conversation with actor John C. Reilly is like talking to an old friend. He comes across onscreen in films like “Cyrus” as such a good-hearted, ordinary, normal guy onscreen. After the conversation with Reilly, (which took place on Wednesday, October 12, 2011), the Chicago-born-and-bred DePaul graduate who grew up in the Marquette Park area of Chicago, the impression is that he is just as down-to-earth and nice off-screen as he is onscreen.

When asked what reminds him of Chicago, Reilly says his first impression from way-back-when is the color green, in the schools and neighborhood of his youth. The Marquette Park area was a rough neighborhood (“The old Chicago lumbering into the future”) where the interiors and exteriors of the Irish/Polish neighborhood under “Daley I” were always green in various shades. Reilly said, “Market Park was the only place that physically attacked the Reverend Martin Luther King, before he was assassinated. ..Market Park and Johannesburg had to be two of the most prejudiced places on the planet at that time.”

Reilly, born May 24, 1965, did not grow up a child of great privilege. His Irish father ran an industrial supply linen company and Reilly was one of six children born to his Lithuanian mother. He made his screen debut in Brian DePalma’s “Casualties of War” in 1989 and met his wife, Alison Dickey, an independent film producer whom he married in 1992, on that film. Thanks to the various Chicago programs provided for youth by the city of Chicago, he was able to participate in drama and improv classes beginning at age 8. Music was almost always involved. His later role in the musical “Chicago” would stem from those early experiences and Reilly was even Grammy-nominated for the song “Walk Hard,” which he wrote and performed in the comedy satire “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.” In 2002, Reilly, a veteran of 50 films, was in 3 of the films nominated as Best Picture. He was also nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor in the musical “Chicago.”

With John C. Reilly at the Chicago Film Festival.

At DePaul, early in his dramatic training, Reilly was cast as the male lead in “The Way of the World,” a Restoration-era comedy by William Congreve. He soon decided, “This is boring. Being the leading man is not all it’s cracked up to be.” His discovery that character actor parts were more interesting “informed a lot of my later parts.”

Asked about whether he felt he was “a spokesman for your generation,” Reilly said, “I never felt like a spokesman of my generation. I try to portray people who have layers of meaning that you can peel back and expose.”

Q: What was the most fun you ever had on a movie set?

A: “’Boogie Nights’ (1997) was the most fun. “The 1997 film where Reilly wrote and performed “Feel the Heat” and portrayed Reed Rothchild predates his partnership in comedies with Will Ferrell. (Of Ferrell, Reilly said, “Will’s America’s Sweetheart…what can I say?” He added that the two have an almost brotherly rapport and are trying to find the time to make a sequel to “Stepbrothers.”

In commenting on “Boogie Nights,” Reilly noted that large chunks of that Paul Thomas Anderson film were improvised. “Paul Anderson and I made 3 great movies together (“Hard Eight” in 1997; “Boogie Nights” in 1997; and “Magnolia” in 1999). “Paul Thomas Anderson has what a great director needs, which is (1) a great photographic eye (2) the ability to be good at motivating groups of people and (3) the ability to be really enthusiastic about the project.”

Actor John C. Reilly at the Chicago 47th International Film Festival.

When asked what actors or actresses he most wanted to work with, Reilly said that he has already worked with some of the best, including Meryl Streep and his current co-star, Tilda Swinton (“We Have to Talk About Kevin”). He suggested that he is more likely to select film projects based on directors with whom he wants to work, citing Terry Gilliam and the Coen Brothers as some on his “would like to work with” list.

Reilly also mentioned that he was recently asked to appear in “Carnage,” which is based on the French play “God of Carnage” that recently ran in Chicago. (The play is a dark comedy about 2 couples who meet to discuss the schoolyard fight that caused one boy to hit the other boy and knock his tooth out.)“I tried not to wet my pants when Roman Polanski called and asked me to do a movie,” said the humble Reilly.

Reilly said, “When I’m reading a script, I ask, is this how people talk?”(in helping him make a decision about whether to do a part.) “All a character can really control is the part he plays. Film is so much a director’s medium. You have to really focus on your part. I’m looking for stuff that’s different from what I’ve done before. You have to be careful what parts you choose. If you aren’t, you might find that you’ve created a big crappy snowball at the end of your life…An actor needs to try his best, show up every day with his best intentions. “

Asked whether there are any movies he is less fond of, Reilly noted, “I’ve seen them all. I’ve returned to the scene of the crime. You don’t put 6 months in and then don’t go see it. You can learn from even the ones you’re disappointed in. “Refusing to name any less-than-stellar roles, Reilly said, “It’s a miracle when one of them works. I’m not gonna’ kick a dog that’s down.”

Q: “How do you receive scripts now?”

After noting that the usual agent-to-actor filter applies, he joked, “They come by carrier pigeon now. If they are too heavy for the carrier pigeon to carry, then I don’t do it.”

Reilly is in an intense new independent film directed by Lynne Ramsay entitled “We Have to Talk About Kevin.” Ramsay, a 1995 graduate of the UK’s Film and Television School, had not done a film for 7 years. Reilly was interested in doing a film with Ramsay, the female British-born director of “Ratcatcher” and “Morvern Callar”), and sought her out. He found that Ramsay, as a director, knew exactly what she was wanted on set and would often call it a wrap after the first take

John C. Reilly’s advice to other would-be actors? “Be there. Be present. Listen and be enthusiastic. Notice what is going on between ‘Action’ and ‘Cut.’”

“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.

Chicago 47th Film Festival Showcases “The Last Rites of Joe May” on Opening Night

By Connie Wilson

On October 7, 2011

In Movies, Pop Culture, Reviews

Dennis Farina arriving at the 47th Chicago International Film Festival.

“The Last Rites of Joe May,” starring Dennis Farina opened the 47^thChicago International Film Festival, with most stars walking the red carpet for the accolades they and the film justly deserve. “The Last Days of Joe May” chronicles the final days of an aging con man, clinging to the perennial belief that he’s just one scam away from the big score. Gary Cole plays Lenny, his fence, a man Joe asks to hook him up in jump-starting his life of petty crime, talking to Lenny about “the old days,” when he was best friends with Lenny’s dad. (Cole’s characteristic cool serves his role well.)

It Came from the ‘70s

Of significance to me is the concept that the film reflects a yearning on the part of audiences for a return to character-driven films like those excellent films of the seventies, something I articulated in an entire book (It Came from the 70s: From The Godfather to Apocalypse Now). “Moneyball’s” movers and shakers (Brad Pitt, et. al.) recently echoed that thought (Sports Illustrated, Sept. 26, 2011).

Seventies films often depicted a man clinging to a code of conduct, but facing a world that had changed around him. The anti-hero arose then: one man defying the establishment. [Writer/Director Joe Maggio admits to being a fan of the films of Vittorio DeSica (“The Bicycle Thief,” “Two Women”) and of “The Friends of Eddie Coyle,” a Robert Mitchum movie.] The films of the seventies, when compared to CG-dominated fare of today, make you long for a return to telling a human story that touches the audience’s heart and doesn’t have to depend on an encroaching ice age, toys come to life, or asteroids destroying the earth (not to mention the “end of days” scenario of “2012.”)

Todd Brown of www.Twitchfilm.com reviewed “The Last Rites of Joe May” this way: “I’m just happy that someone out there still wants to make movies like this while there are still stars like Farina to feature within them. This man is a true American icon who deserves far more recognition than he gets, and this is the sort of role that fits him like a glove.” That opinion was shared by the enthusiastic Chicago audience Thursday night, who gave a round of applause to a controversial line in the film (Farino and Writer/Director Maggio debated it). Joe May calls the police station to give Jenny’s abusive policeman boyfriend, Stan Butchkowski (Steppenwolf Theater regular Ian Barford), this message after he puts Jenny in the hospital : “If I ever see his ugly, greasy, wife-beating face, I’m gonna’ rip his balls right out of their sacs and stuff them down his c********** throat.” The audience openly cheered, much as they cheered Eastwood in 1971’s “Dirty Harry” (“Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya’, punk?”).

The Plot

As the story of Joe May opens, he is being released from the hospital after several weeks of treatment for pneumonia. He’s still not really a well man. Everyone thinks Joe’s dead. The apartment he lived in for 40 years has been rented to a young mother (Jamie Anne Allman) with a 7-year-old daughter; his belongings have been thrown out or given away, with the exception of his collection of vinyl opera records (Verdi, in particular); and his 1989 Cutlass has been sold for $75. (When Joe protests the sale of his car, the civil servant on duty says, “I’d say you got off easy. You had $250 of unpaid tickets and a $1,000 storage fee,” noting that the car was officially declared “abandoned” when Joe lingered in the hospital for weeks.) Joe’s net worth is exactly $443.56. He is irrevocably estranged from his only child, a son (Scotty) who screams at him to get out of his house saying, “There’s nothing to talk about. We don’t even know each other.”

When the young mother (Jenny, well played by Jamie Anne Allman), who works as a nurse, sees Joe homeless in the streets outside his old apartment and sleeping on a city bus and a public bench, she asks him if he would like to rent his old room for $100 a week. He agrees and moves back into his old place, but in a platonic fashion. His relationship with Jenny in the film is that of a father figure, not a lover. Farina said, “I think, for him, not becoming involved with Jenny represented a noble gesture.” Farina described discussions with Writer/Director Joe Maggio where they agreed that Farina’s old-world code wouldn’t find it acceptable for him to sleep with the young woman while her 7-year-old daughter was under the same roof.

Joe May’s Pigeons

Joe’s relationship with Jenny’s daughter, young Angelina (Meredith Droeger) develops around the pigeons Joe houses on the roof (a throwback to Marlon Brando in “On the Waterfront.”) The pigeons are symbolic of many things and their fate is pivotal in the movie’s plot. (Joe tells Angelina, “I’ll always come back,” much as the pigeons do.) The pigeons were also one of the sticking points in relocating the film from Maggio’s original New York setting to Chicago. Said Farina, “My biggest concern, believe it or not, it’s a small thing, but I wasn’t aware of how many pigeon coops were in Chicago, because pigeon coops are normally associated with the East coast. That the only thing I’m concerned about…do we have pigeon coops? Though it’s illegal to have pigeon coops in Chicago, there are, indeed, a lot of them.” As a resident of Chicago, Farino said, “It’s the best big city in the world. Of course, I’m a little prejudiced, but I love it.”

Farina is the perfect choice to play Joe May. This film—after a lengthy career as a reliable character actor—fits him like “Rocky” fit Sylvester Stallone. As Farina admitted in an interview, “I can tell you, I’m 68, yeah—there are a lot of things going on that I just don’t understand. And it’s funny, I think maybe when you’re Joe May, your world just gets smaller and smaller and you keep gravitating to people who think like you, or are like you, because you don’t understand or can’t accept what else is going on in the world.” It’s the universal truth: “It’s hell to get old.” Or, as Bette Davis once put it, “Old age is not for sissies.” [Farino’s scenes with old friend Bill (Chelcie Ross) are great, especially one where he drops Angelina off with Bill at the assisted living facility and Bill gets the line, “Hurry up and say good-bye. Uncle Billy is freezing his nuts off.”]

Writer/Director Joe Maggio based Joe May’s character on his maternal grandfather, a short money hustler, and said, “Joe’s trouble isn’t that he fails to live up to his code; it’s that the world has changed to such a degree that, in obeying these rules, Joe is, in a sense, holding devalued currency.”

What code would that be?

Writer/Director Maggio: “You always pay your debts. You never let anyone know when you’re down and out and no matter how bad things get, you keep your shoes shined, your pants pressed and your hair trimmed. If you can’t afford to leave a tip, don’t go into the bar. You wait your turn, with patience and fortitude, because better days will come, eventually.” Joe’s character, in the film, tells his estranged son, who scoffs, “I just always felt there was something great waiting for me.”

At this point in his life, despite being down and out (“One day you’re on top of the world, and the next day you’re floating in the crapper.”) Joe is not ready to go gently into that good night. He plans to rage against the dying of the light, saying, “I still feel I have something to offer.” This is a universal theme that anyone over 50 can relate to.

After an altercation between Jenny and her violent boyfriend frightens Angelina, Joe reassures Angelina telling Angelina if her mother’s abusive cop boyfriend returns, “I’ve still got a few good moves left in me.” A scene on a city bus where Joe gets up to give his seat to a woman and is soon pushed into the senior seats by a young woman is telling.

The Verdict

Any number of Hollywood icons would have been good in this role in their day. Paul Newman comes to mind. Clint Eastwood a few roles back. But there are no actors working today who would have done the part more justice than Dennis Farina, and certainly none who could locate it as well in authentic Chicago neighborhoods in the dead of winter.

Farina’s convincing portrait of a man whose best friend Billy (excellently played by veteran character actor Chelcie Ross, co-star of “Hoosiers” with Gene Hackman) has hung it up and retired to an assisted living facility, is tinged with the sense of doom that Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman brought to their roles in “Midnight Cowboy.” Joe’s sense of being out-of-the-loop reminded me of the “Wall Street” sequel (“Money Never Sleeps”), when Michael Douglas’ character has lost touch with the present-day while in prison. The sub-plot where Angelina is temporarily MIA reminded me of Jeff Bridges’ Oscar-winning role as Otis “Bad” Blake in 2009’s “Crazy Heart,” when he (temporarily) lost girlfriend Maggie Gyllenhaal’s child.

“The Last Rites of Joe May” opens on video-on-demand on October 28, 2011 and will open November 4, 2011 at Quad Cinema in New York City and at the Gene Siskel Film Center November 24, 2011. It’s a heart-warming, satisfying film experience with a message that resonates.

Brad Pitt’s “Moneyball” Hits A Home Run

By Connie Wilson

On October 2, 2011

In Books, Movies, Reviews

“Moneyball” is a movie about baseball that Brad Pitt wanted to make. But to say that “Moneyball is a movie about baseball is like saying that The Sopranos was a series about the waste-management business,” as Austin Murphy put it in “Brad Pitt Deals.” (September 26, 2011 Sports Illustrated).

It’s a wonder the film got made at all, since Pitt was really not a baseball player back in his high school days at Springfield (Mo.) Kickapoo High School. Wrestling. Diving. Football. But no baseball for Brad Pitt in his sports-playing days.

When Pitt read Michael Lewis’ (The Blind Side) book about baseball, he realized it was not really a book about baseball as much as it was a movie about believing in yourself and having the courage to buck the system to prove that you can do it…whatever “it” is. There’s even a scripted line from the scouts, who are critiquing the prospects for next year’s team: “He’s gotta’ be successful to be confident, and that’s when you’ve got something.” Years ago, Steven Tyler described his own success as lead singer of Aerosmith as “Fake it till you make it.”

The concept of success breeding success is something I promoted for 20 years as the CEO of a Sylvan Learning Center (#3301) I founded in the small town of Bettendorf, Iowa. I could relate instantly to the gamble that Oakland “A’s” team manager Billy Beane has made in deciding to revolutionize the game of baseball by integrating statistics to determine whom to draft. The team is looking for bargain basement deals that will unexpectedly turn out to be winners, giving it the appearance, at some times, of “an island of lost toys.” Their roster has just been raided of their 3 best players, and the cupboard is bare.

Beane de-emphasized the role of dugout managers such as the character played by Philip Seymour Hoffman (Art Howe) and, instead, plucked “Google Boy,” as the plot dubs him, a young whipper-snapper dubbed Peter Brent in the movie (real character name: Paul Podesta, Beane’s fresh-out-of-Harvard assistant) who, in the movie, is a recent graduate of Yale. Brent (Jonah Hill in a nicely understated serious turn) tells Beane “Baseball thinking is medieval.”

Beane buys in to the premise that statistics can help make his struggling team (“We’re the last runt at the bowl.”) into a winner. The Oakland “A’s” at the time had a budget of approximately $38 million to compete with the $121 million of teams like the New York Yankees. In Jonah Hill’s character of Peter Brent, Beane sees a way to even the playing field. This is not popular with the old-timers on staff. As Beane, using Texas Hold ‘Em terminology says says to his young assistant, “Just you and me, Pete. We’re all in.”

When Brad Pitt read the book Moneyball, he recognized the universal themes underlying the story of a team that, from a dismal start, went on to set the American League record for most consecutive wins in a season (20 games). In 103 years, the record had never been broken, but the Oakland “A’s broke it in 2002, using what the grizzled veteran scouts termed “statistical gimmicks.” Not unlike “Road to Perdition,” where the universal father/son theme resonated with the Zanucks and helped propel the film based on a graphic novel written by Muscatine, Iowa native Max Collins, Brad Pitt wanted to play Billy Beane, a man he sees as someone tilting against windmills and fighting the good fight against odds that often seem overwhelming. Risking it all. Standing up for what he believes in. Being loyal to his principles and his team. The onscreen Beane says, “I made one decision based on money, and I said I’d never do it again,” alluding to his earlier player days, [when he turned down a full-ride scholarship to Stanford to turn pro right out of high school.] Although Beane’s success with the “A’s” earns him the offer of a $12 and 1/2 million-dollar contract with the Boston Red Sox, after wavering a bit he turns it down to stay with Oakland.

As the script puts it, “We are card counters at the blackjack table. We’re going to turn the tables on the casino.” With “adapt or die” as the motto, Beane locks horns with virtually everyone, including his dugout manager, his scouts, his players, his family, his bosses and himself.

The script by award-winning writer Aaron Sorkin (“The Social Network”) and Steven Zallion (“Schindler’s List”) is clever, funny and meaningful. Much of it wrote itself when genuine baseball scouts gathered to share their wisdom. Some of the people in the room when Pitt holds a scouting meeting are real baseball scouts, but you’ll also recognize Aaron Pierce from “24” (Glenn Morshower, 49 episodes) or Chief Jerry Reilly from “Rescue Me” (Jack McGee, 44 episodes, 2004-2007). You may also notice that the actor playing Scott Hatteberg, Chris Pratt, is from “Parks & Recreation” where he plays Andy Dwyer (48 episodes, 2009-2011).

The most substantial role for a former TV series regular went to Kerris Dorsey (“Brothers & Sisters,” Paige Whedon, 91 episodes 2006-2011), who plays Billy Beane’s daughter Casey. She was Paige Whedon on “Brothers & Sisters” until the show was canceled recently. It is Casey’s singing of a song about being “a little girl lost in the middle,” which she performs for her dad, that frames the movie. Singing about “a little girl lost in the middle” (a la Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle”), Casey’s pure voice speaks to her dad, who encourages Casey to share her talent and perform for others. One of Billy Beane’s scouts (Grady, played by Ken Medlock) whom he ultimately must fire for insubordination has told Beane (Pitt), “You’re going to have to explain to your kid why you’re working at Dick’s Sporting Goods,” when Beane keeps pushing his statistically-driven agenda in the face of opposition. But Beane has bought into Bill James’ book on baseball statistics, 1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 Categories of Statistical Information That You Just Can’t Find Anywhere Else. Even before that 1977 book, there was Earnshaw Cook’s Percentage Baseball, a 1964 Johns Hopkins engineering professor’s treatise on sabermetrics.

Brad Pitt saw Billy Beane as “the voice of reason speaking against the establishment.” We all know that speaking truth to power is not popular, but it made for some great 70s films, which I chronicled in “It Came from the ’70s,” a book with 50 representative films of the era. Pitt also appreciates movies of the seventies. He explained the difference between today’s films and the films of that great movie-making era this way: “In scripts today, someone has a big epiphany, learns a lesson, then comes out the other side different. In these older films I’m talking about, the beast at the end of the movie was the same beast in the beginning of the movie. What changed was the world around them, by just a couple of degrees. Nothing monumental. I think that’s true about us. We fine-tune ourselves, but big change is not real.” (Austin Murphy’s Sports Illustrated article “Brad Pitt Deals”, September 26, 2011). Director Bennett Miller shared Pitt’s enthusiasm for 70s movies, as do I.

As the third director on the film, Bennett Miller said, “It (“Moneyball”) seemed like a shoot-the-moon project because it was complex and messed up in 1,000 different ways.” Stephen Soderbergh had parted ways with the project when his idea for a more documentary-style approach was rejected as too expensive. The film languished in development hell for 8 years. Pitt, who has given 2 Oscar-worthy performances this year (the other as the father in Terence Malick’s “The Tree of Life”) says, “What we were trying to do is tell an unconventional story in the Trojan horse of a conventional baseball movie.”

Michael Lewis, in the 2003 best-selling book on which the film is based wrote, “At the bottom of the Oakland experiment was a willingness to rethink baseball: how it is managed, how it is played, who is best suited to play it, and why.” Lewis has said, “I always thought of it (Moneyball) as the biography of an idea, and I wrote it as a biography of an idea. And you can’t make a movie of an idea.”

But you can if you’re Brad Pitt, the 800-lb. gorilla of leading men.

Pitt saw the same themes that Rachael Horovitz recognized after 12 years working for Hollywood studios: Taking a new path. Having belief in one’s self to risk and move forward. Loyalty to one’s principles in the face of the temptation to abandon them. Horovitz picked up “Moneyball” in 2003 as a free-lance producer and, fortunately for her, “As long as Brad Pitt wanted to make this movie, it was going to get made.”

When Pitt talks about the film, he references 70s anti-heroes like R.P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Gene Hackman as Popeye Doyle in The French Connection and Steve McQueen, in pretty much every movie he ever made. That was the premise of an entire book I wrote (It Came from the’70s: From The Godfather to Apocalypse Now): that 70s movies were the best era for film since the 30s, precisely because of those themes and those performances. The contrast with today’s computer-generated blow-up-more-cars approach to movie-making is stark. What appealed to me as I spent 8 years of my life compiling a retrospective of 70s movies, culled from 15 scrapbooks of reviews of that decade saved in my basement for 43 years, also spoke to Brad Pitt. (www.ItCamefromtheSeventies.com).

The result is a movie with a heart, a brain, a spine and a funny-bone. Some of the funny was provided by the scouts. A sample: “This is the kind of guy who, when he walks into the room, his dick has already been there for 2 minutes.” Beane on the “A’s” standing amongst other teams: “There’s rich teams, poor teams, 50 feet of crap, and then there’s us.” Beane to a scout who mentions that one player “has a good face,” “It’s not like we’re looking for Fabio.” “He’s freaky—and not in a good way,” And—one truism articulated by Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) that explains why Beane was prepared to risk it all to find a way to make his team competitive—“If we try to play like the Yankees in here (i.e., while selecting new players to draft), we’re going to lose to the Yankees out there.” And that’s what led to Beane’s radical move to using statistics to give the “A’s” a competitive advantage…something that every major league team does now, but few did then.

The Mickey Mantle quote with which the film open is apropos: “It’s unbelievable how much you don’t know about the game you’ve been playing all your life.” (Oct. 15, 2001). Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” is used in one opening day montage, a particularly good choice, and the entire film worked, for me, because, as Director Bennett Miller said about his sensibilities and those of his star, “Both of us were drawn to some of the same films from the ’70s where you don’t have to have a character that stops the asteroid from hitting the Earth.”

Pitt is excellent in the lead role. Jonah Hill turns in a nicely-restrained supporting performance as Google Boy (Will Hill be as funny now that he’s creepily cadaverous?), and Philip Seymour Hoffman is also good as bullpen manager Art Howe, a man at odds with the boss. Stephen Bishop also does justice to David Justice, (to savor the pun).

A fine film about heart and risk and life…and baseball.