There’s something delicious about this montage. It’s Fassbinder meets Christiane F. meets Cat People meets Europa. It’s pure fetish and delight… and, as much as I hate dissolves, these shapes work wonders. This sequence made the film for me.
I’m a huge fan of the series Mad Men and, as such, I tuned in to hear its creator, Matthew Weiner, on The Treatment. I’m not going to expound on the the show’s merits, but, in my option, it’s some of the best programming I ever seen. Read any episode breakdown by Defamer’s Brian Moylan (for instance, “The Night Betty Found the Box”) and you’ll understand why — the writing, acting, design… nuanced, complex, beautifully development. Of course, coming from a television neophyte, that’s not saying much… nor am I sure what constitutes “television.” The Dekalog was a TV series. So was Scenes from a Marriage. As was one of my personal favorites, Dennis Potter’s Karaoke. But all these were mini-series thus, not fair comparisons. Twin Peaks perhaps; that was television — network television, no less. But I digress…
Here’s where I’m going with this. During the interview, Weiner and host Elvis Mitchell discussed how The Sopranos influenced Man Men — about how Tony Soprano’s speech in the pilot (”wishing for a return of the strong, silent type”) forecast the coming of Don Draper. Weiner goes on to say: ”everything about (The Sopranos) influenced me” …and what he found most encouraging was that “a piece of art” like that found a wide audience and was such a commercial success. A rarity, no doubt.
All of this led me to watch The Sopranos. I had never seen a single episode, so this was a fresh immersion. I’m well into the second season and I’m seeing all types of parallels. It’s a remarkable series… but, in the end, it’s still not Mad Men.
A little tribute to Denis Lavant, to the movement and physicality he brings to his roles, and to two directors who allowed him to display it. The first clip is from Leos Carax’s Mauvais sang and the second one is from Beau travail by Claire Denis, whom I regard as highly as any director working today. Note, the dance continues beyond the credits.
It’s been a very long time since I posted an updated on “A Girl and a Gun.” Much has happened in the past eight months… as the project evolved in exciting and unexpected ways.
First of all, around the time of my screenings at Sunset 5, I teamed up with producer Liz Federowicz. Together, Liz and I started All You Need Productions, through which we’re producing the film. Months of meetings, rewrites and strategizing followed.
By mid July, Liz and I hired Janet Hirshenson, Jane Jenkins and Michelle Lewitt of The Casting Company (Harry Potter, Transformers, The Da Vinci Code, A Beautiful Mind, Jurassic Park, A Few Good Men, Home Alone, The Outsiders) to cast the film… and a long search for our Ian and Anna began.
In the meantime, our project garnered the interest of a few fabulous cinematographers, with whom I’m still discussing the project… and Leslie Shatz (Twilight, Milk, The Road, The Assassination of Jesse James, Paranoid Park, Last Days, Dracula, The Mummy) agreed to do the film’s sound design, with Wildfire Studios handling audio post.
I’m a long-time fan of Leslie’s work. His sound designs have an intimate (sometimes internal) quality, and it’s perhaps in recognition of this sensitivity that he was awarded the Technical Grand Prix at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival for Last Days (you can read an interview with him here, at the FIPRESCI site). Per Diana Blake, Director of Business Development at Wildfire, Liz and I are his biggest groupies… a distinction we wear with honor.
And lastly, in the spirit of our story, a bevy of interest has trickled our way… as we continue to peddle our “dream-boxes” around town. The crooks and the criminals are among us and it’s near impossible to be sure who’s who. One thing we are sure of: “all you need for a movie is a girl and a gun.” We now have our girl… and the gun? Well, our waiting period at the local Wal-Mart is almost over. We’ll see you on the streets in March.
Isabel Lucas and me at Autism Speaks 6th Annual Acts Of Love Celebration.
Jacques Tourneur’s Out of the Past is, without a doubt, my favorite noir film… and one of my favorite films of all time.
It’s wonderfully shot, Robert Mitchum plays a great tough guy, Jane Greer is one of the most beautiful women to ever grace the screen and its dialogues and voiceovers have a poetic bend to them.
In noir, the femme fatale’s entrance is of great importance… and it doesn’t get any better than in these two clips.
In the first, she comes “out of the sun“… and, in the second, she walks in “out of the moonlight, smiling.”
Isabel Lucas, during an interview promoting Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
And an interview and photo shoot for Australian FHM …with a link to the full PDF.
When we first meet Anna — our Girl in “A Girl and a Gun” — she mentions having starred in a film in her native Kansas… a film titled “By Night, My Love”. It was that experience that brought her out to Los Angeles.
This film is mentioned a few times and it’s the sole credit on her headshot. As such, we’re planning to shoot some footage from this film and put together a faux trailer, which we could then use as a promotional tool for “A Girl and a Gun”… in a similar manner that Hotel Chevalier served The Darjeeling Limited.
The role Anna plays in “By Night, My Love” is that of a classic femme fatale. Thus, I thought I’d shoot it in the style of a period noir… black and white, with voiceover narration, as if Anna had emerged from another place and time… a Kansas that hadn’t changed since the 50s. And, when it comes to the narration, I’ve always been stuck by the directness and strange grandeur of Sydney Greenstreet’s introduction to “The Maltese Falcon”… a role he would later rehash in the despicably hilarious “Across the Pacific”.
I guess the real challenge will be finding someone who resembles and sounds like Sydney… and then cramming all the requisite buzzwords into the trailer’s narration: astounding, astonishing, fabulous, incredible, fascinating, unbelievably exciting and diabolical. Oriental treachery, however, might not make the cut.
Here are a few keyframes by storyboard artist Janet Kusnick (Kill Bill Vol. 2, The Road, The Day the Earth Stood Still), who storyboarded most of the film.
The storyboards for “A Girl and a Gun” can be found here, in a private, password-protected gallery.
Storyboard #47_20, by Janet Kusnick, for “A Girl and a Gun”.
Features Show Reel:
“Dustclouds” Clips:
Understanding (Part 1)
Understanding (Part 2)
Delirium Waltz
Journey Outward
Mrs. Casanova and the Dust
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