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Screenplay & Film Consulting By Susan Kouguell

Category: SCRIPT MAGAZINE ARTICLES (page 6 of 13)

Susan Kouguell Interviews “Mouthpiece” Director Patricia Rozema

June 19, 2019 / / Comments Off on Susan Kouguell Interviews “Mouthpiece” Director Patricia Rozema

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Patricia Rozema and I met for our interview in a Greenwich Village hotel restaurant to talk about her new film Mouthpiece. It had been several decades since we had last seen each other; her film I’ve heard the Mermaids Singing  was just picked up for distribution by Miramax Films where I was working in the story department. There was certainly a lot to catch up on.

When I first saw I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing, I was immediately struck by Rozema’s distinct vision, story sensibilities, sense of humor, and her willingness to take chances. I closely followed her career since that time and continue to be inspired by her often rule-breaking work.

We started our interview talking about the expectations and sacrifices of mothers and daughters in relation to Mouthpiece, as well as with our respective daughters whose mothers work in the film industry—well known to have hiring and pay inequities.

There is a scene in Mouthpiece when a clip of Ruth Bader Ginsburg pops up on Cassandra’s laptop with Ginsburg’s words: “Women will not have equality until men are involved in raising the next generation.”  Rozema commented: “That’s how RBG did it with her husband. I think there should never be a choice between developing yourself as a skilled human and having a family; you should be allowed to have both.”

ABOUT MOUTHPIECE

Mouthpiece is a powerful, funny and highly original look into the conflicted psyche of Cassandra Haywood—a fiercely independent millennial woman. Cass is a single writer who lives by her own rules. She’s also a bit of a disaster.  Following the sudden death of her mother, Elaine (Maev Beaty), she finds herself in crisis, unable to think straight with a debate raging inside her head. This movie makes that invisible conflict visible: Cassandra (Amy Nostbakken & Norah Sadava) battles it out while figuring out what to say at her mother’s funeral. What unfolds is a wild careening through grief, anger, sex and self-sabotage in an exploration of the messy lives of women from both generations. Raucous jokes, musical numbers and heartbreaking memories add up to a deeply moving and political portrait of a mother and a daughter as seen through the eyes of one conflicted young woman.

Susan Kouguell interviews filmmaker of Mouthpiece, Patricia Rozema, diving into the adaptation process and taking risks in filmmaking. 

Patricia Rozema

PATRICIA ROZEMA – Director, Screenwriter, Producer After an Honours B.A. in Philosophy and English from Calvin College in Michigan, Patricia Rozema distinguished herself as a writer/director with her internationally celebrated first comedy feature, “I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing” at the Director’s Fortnight in Cannes, where it won the Prix de la Jeunesse. It then opened the Toronto International Film Festival in 1987. Other highlights: writing/directing the contemporary lesbian love story “When Night is Falling,” adapting/directing the politically progressive Miramax Jane Austen feature “Mansfield Park” with Harold Pinter, and co-writing HBO’s “Grey Gardens” starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange (PEN Screenwriter’s award, Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe). She also won an Emmy for writing and directing a Yo-Yo Ma/Bach film “Six Gestures.” In 2015, Rozema adapted and directed the apocalyptic thriller “Into The Forest” with Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood. She has also directed “Anne with an E” and “Mozart in the Jungle” for Netflix/CBC & Amazon. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Rozema with Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava

FROM STAGE TO SCREEN

Rozema was introduced to the stage play Mouthpiece by her now 22-year-old daughter (she also has a 14-year-old daughter) who was working as an intern at Toronto’s Nightwood Theatre. “It was so fresh and strong and tapped into a visceral feeling that I had never seen represented before” says Rozema, who then insisted that Alexandra Hedison and Jodie Foster check it out while they were working in Toronto. Foster and Hedison said, “When we first saw Norah and Amy’s breathtaking performance, we were speechless. Mouthpiecetouches on every part of the female experience from birth to death using dance, music, and wicked humor with just a bathtub for scenery. The result is a new kind of feminist language which ignites pure, intravenous emotion. It’s impossible to describe and truly unforgettable.”

The theatrical production consisted exclusively of Cass, played by Nostbakken and Sadava, wearing white bathing suits, often sitting in a bathtub. The film, on the other hand, is much broader and very visual.

THE INTERVIEW

KOUGUELL: Tell me about the adaptation process and collaborating with Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava, bringing their play to the screen.

ROZEMA:  We did a lot of talking. The thing I brought to it was to add the mother character. The play was one hour.  I have daughters and my mother had died so I thought I had the right to be in it. We just riffed and told stories and wrote them out. Mostly I was at the keyboard, sometimes they were.  They didn’t know the format of screenplays, like Final Draft, so I would write it, then after a session I would polish it up and then share it, It was like a writers room. I loved it. I always wondered if I would enjoy a writer room, but I loved it.

Their senses of humor are so close to mine and their B.S. detector is similar to mine. I also brought to the story was the Christmas section. I  thought what was needed in the film, was a bit more of a narrative drive so, I thought, ‘What was the question that remains unanswered?’

KOUGUELL: The question of: What happened at Christmas?

ROZEMA: Yes, What happened at Christmas. It’s amazing, if you have one tiny hook like that, you can put so much on that’s emotionally and socially relevant.

KOUGUELL: Tell me about the shoot and post-production.

ROZEMA: The shoot was 28 days. We did a lot of screenings during the editing process. I said: Is this a pizza with too many toppings?  The trick is that the film needs to be unified, yet diverse. If it’s too unified it’s boring, if it’s too diverse, it’s a pizza with too many toppings, and it’s a mess. I had test screenings with people who didn’t know me and had nothing to do with the film every couple of weeks during the editing just to see what do they get, what do they not get, are they confused, and so on.

KOUGUELL: You have been working in both feature films and television, including ‘Mozart in the Jungle’—have you found any differences working in these various mediums?

ROZEMA: It’s all just storytelling; filmed fiction. I have a huge appetite for novelty, for newness, I can’t have done it before or seen it before. I’m very open as to length, format, decimation, it’s all just story. I tell my agent: big budget little budget, I don’t care, just give me a story that needs telling, that is new, and let me play.

It’s interesting, Paul Schrader and I have the same background. We both went to Calvin College, we were both Calvinists, that was our world. Schrader was 10 years before me and I heard him speak recently about his film First Reformed and his nomination, and he was saying something about the fact that he never enters into the making of a film, thinking it’s going to be like this other film I saw, it’s always, ‘I wonder if this will work’ or  ‘oh, I’ve never seen this before, I’m going to try this or try this crazy combination.’ I thought, is there something about being a lapsed Calvinist that makes you seek out novelty? I wonder if there is something about our formation.

KOUGUELL: Maybe the strict rules?

ROZEMA: Maybe. They say when you leave that religion, you’re like the colt that escapes the coral, you have no rules.  So, there are the rules of the 3-act structure for example, and I think let’s break some of these rules.

KOUGUELL: It was a powerful and effective decision not to portray the two sides (the bifurcation) of Cassandra as one good and one bad.

ROZEMA: I had so much pressure to do one good and one bad.

KOUGUELL: The overall choreography and particularly the physical battle was very moving.

ROZEMA: That synchronicity was in the play, and done with such natural gestures, and that thrilled me. I was hungry to put that into the film. There’s no trick to that. It’s work. Looking in the mirror. Take after take after take.

The fight scene was just a fight scene that we choreographed but we wanted it to feel harsh.I wanted it to feel like the things I say to myself, what we say to ourselves.

I loved how Catherine Lutes lit it, she did an amazing job; very classical, very eternal. i loved it being an empty church. That was in the play. I loved her throwing herself down eventually. I loved this idea of the fight, the self-defeating metaphor.

KOUGUELL: Do you feel there are more opportunities as a Canadian woman?

ROZEMA: Yes. I sort of self-selected out of the big Hollywood situation;  I felt why would they be interested in me as a woman, a lesbian, with female leads as an inclination, and my work which is a combination of comedy and non-comedy.

KOUGUELL: You have a very unique sensibility

ROZEMA: There’s money for things that are not genre, that aren’t obvious crowd-pleasers, but even more profound than that, if I make a film that no one wants to see, my kids still have health care, and they still have good schools they can go to. That is profound. So, I can make dangerous artistic choices, I can take risks, I can experiment, and not risk starvation. That is  a big difference for me, living there. It’s also very progressive and creative.

Finding collaborators who have just the right politics, sense of humor, worth ethic; that’s a needle in a haystack and I always like to try new things.

Susan’s Interview: “The Short History of the Long Road” Filmmakers Ani Simon-Kennedy and Bettina Kadoorie

June 19, 2019 / / Comments Off on Susan’s Interview: “The Short History of the Long Road” Filmmakers Ani Simon-Kennedy and Bettina Kadoorie

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“As a filmmaker, I believe it is my duty to tell stories with truth and empathy. We are living in a divisive time, and it’s important to shed light on voices that lie in the shadows.”

 — Ani Simon-Kennedy

The Short History of the Long Road had its world premiere screening in the U.S. Narrative competition at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival where it received the Best Screenplay Special Jury mention: ‘To a story of a woman finding her biological family and her logical family on the highway’ for writer and director Ani Simon-Kennedy.

About The Short History of the Long Road

For teenage Nola, home is the open road with her self-reliant father and their trusty van, two nomads against the world. When Nola’s rootless existence is turned upside-down, she realizes that life as an outsider might not be her only choice. In this coming-of-age film, The Short History of the Long Road depicts the fortitude of resilience, especially when following the most devastating of blows, in the most under-resourced of areas.

Ani Simon-Kennedy

ANI SIMON-KENNEDY – Director / Writer / Producer

Raised in Paris and based in New York, Ani Simon-Kennedy is a feature film, documentary and commercial director. Under the banner of Bicephaly Pictures, she collaborates with cinematographer Cailin Yatsko on socially-conscious stories. Her first feature film, Days of Gray, played at top festivals around the world with an original live score by Icelandic band Hjaltalin. The sci-fi silent film was deemed “an assured debut” by the Hollywood Reporter. She has directed award-winning campaigns for Colgate, Smirnoff, Intel, Glamour, The New Yorker and Vice. Her work has received support from the Sundance Institute, the Tribeca Film Institute, IFP, Film Independent, Chanel and AT&T. Her second narrative feature, The Short History of the Long Roadpremiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival.

Bettina Kadoorie

BETTINA KADOORIE – Producer

Growing up in Hong Kong inspired Bettina Kadoorie to tell stories from all over the world. Her first film, Taste, was accepted to The Short Film Corner at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011. She then produced and directed the documentary Child of Cambodia in 2012, before moving to New York to attend Columbia University. There, she wrote three features and interned on The Eagle Huntress in 2015. She graduated in 2017 with an MFA in Screenwriting, Directing, and Producing. The Short History of the Long Road marks Bettina’s first time producing a narrative feature. She is an Executive Producer on the upcoming documentary I am Belmaya about Nepal’s first female filmmaker and has directed two shorts currently in post production: Santiaguera, shot in Cartagena in January 2019, and a documentary on Chittagong’s shipbreakers, shot in February 2019.

Sabrina Carpenter as Nola

As I was perusing the Tribeca Film Festival catalogue, seeking projects to cover for this publication, it came as a wonderful surprise to find the name of my former film and screenwriting student, Bettina Kadoorie, listed as one of the producers on this project.  However, it was absolutely no surprise that her dedication to her craft and commitment to filmmaking continues to blossom, and that she is working with an impressive group of young filmmakers.

Bettina and director Ari Simon-Kennedy, and cinematographer Cailin Yatsko met while attending the Prague Film School about seven years ago. (The year after that, in 2012, I taught at the summer program at the Prague Film School.) It was a special conversation not only to reminisce about our respective times at PFS, but to learn how they grew and evolved as filmmakers.

KADOORIE: We wrote and directed many shorts together at the Prague Film School and it was cool to move to New York at the same time.

SIMON-KENNEDY: At the Prague Film school, Cailin and I were the only two in the cinematography track. I wanted to be a DP, and we started shooting everyone’s work and that’s how we came up with the name for our company Bicephaly Pictures. Then I had an awakening that I wanted to be a director, and we’ve had the company for seven years.

COLLABORATION

KADOORIE What was great was that I continue to learn from Ani; she knows what she wants as a director, and she is a strong writer. I was so impressed at how rich and deep the script was. Ani made another feature, Days of Grey, which unfortunately I was not able to work on with them because I was working on another film.

SIMON-KENNEDY: Bettina and I have been friends forever, and she has an amazing writing background, and is always a huge support. We share a lot of writing commiseration, (they both laugh) and her notes were incredible. She has a great eye for detail.

KOUGUELL: It’s interesting that this is a film set in the U.S and takes place on the road, given that you two did not grow up in the United States.

KADOORIE: Nola is a unique character that we could all relate to, despite the fact that we were not raised in the U.S. She was so inspiring and universal to us.

THE WRITING PROCESS

SIMON-KENNEDY: I started writing the script about five years ago, after Days of Gray. That film has no dialogue; it’s very sparse, and I wanted my second feature to be a talky.

Writing is lonely. The way I write is unusual; I map out the story in my head, and then I buy friends dinner and tell them the story, to gauge what’s working and what’s not working. I like that immediate feedback and to see what they’re interested in or confused about. There’s a lot of oral storytelling before I put it on the page.

I also attended the Cine Qua Non Lab that takes place in Mexico for two weeks. It was a really wonderful international place to workshop the screenplay.

Susan Kouguell Interviews We the Animals Director and Screenwriter Jeremiah Zagar and Screenwriting Collaborator Daniel Kitrosser

VAN-DWELLING

Van-dwelling is a growing subculture in the US that is thriving.  The hashtag #vanlife has been used over two million times on the platform since it first appeared in 2011.

SIMON-KENNEDY: I grew up in France with American parents and I feel at home in Paris and I feel at home in New York. I feel at home in both places. I was very drawn to characters who seem one way on the outside but have a backstory that you wouldn’t attribute to them. That’s why van-dwelling appealed to me. The van-dwellers are very connected, they have a very vocal presence online.  Some live in vans out of necessity and others it was a choice, and that was something that fascinated me and made me very attracted to that story.  I travel to make movies and make movies to travel.

KADOORIE: Ani spent two years interviewing van-dwellers of all ages and backgrounds.

SIMON-KENNEDY: The appeal of the van-dwelling lifestyle is undeniably tremendous. There is a freedom that is hard-earned and terrifying at times, but one that is endlessly expansive, too.

In France, every citizen has a right to health care, shelter and education, which is a different approach in the U.S., and having not grown up in the States, I fundamentally didn’t get it, and that was a bit part of the script and fascination I had for a long time that I wanted to get some kind of clarity. How people figure it out.

Susan Kouguell discusses collaboration, the writing process, and bringing The Short History of the Long Road to screen with filmmakers Ani Simon-Kennedy and Bettina Kadoorie.

THE CHARACTERS

KOUGUELL:  The characters were multi-dimensional; many are flawed with gray areas. Their choices may not be sympathetic, but they are empathetic characters—we feel for them—even if it’s frustration and judgment because you’ve examined why they chose the actions they did and their motivations. The audience was truly at the edge of their seats rooting for Nola to survive.

KADOORIE:  It’s interesting to see people react when watching the film, there is an inherent fear for Nola. Sabrina Carpenter (the actress portraying Nola) changed up her look, and she embraced this role of a girl living in a van, exploring it with nuance.

SIMON-KENNEDY: The threat of what could happen to her was very real, Nola escapes because she has her wits about her.

KADOORIE: What’s great about the character of Nola, is that who she is on the screen is who she was on the script. Ani knew this world and populated the world with characters of this world. Ani went so deep into her.

SIMON-KENNEDY: Every person Nola encounters is someone who is trying to survive and who might not have a safety net. Miquel’s character built his own shop, he’s a lone wolf, and Cheryl, (Nola’s mother) who didn’t have the tools to have a kid made a brave choice not wanting to be a mom and not being able to in a material way, and Marcie has her big flaws. They’re all trying to do the best with what they’ve got because there’s no help, there’s nothing to fall back on, you have to be self-reliant.

I loved Agnès Varda’s Vagabond,  but I didn’t want to write a cautionary tale, I wanted Nola to belong on the road; that’s where she feels the most comfortable. So many women I spoke to love it. I wanted to show Nola surviving through her unconventional upbringing and how her father gave her the tools to survive.

PRE-PRODUCTION, PRODUCTION, AND POST-PRODUCTION

KOUGUELL: How many days did you spend on pre-production and shooting?

SIMON-KENNEDY:  It was a 20-day shoot. We did one month in pre-production in New Mexico on the ground there for three months, then we went back for two days for driving shots, shooting the landscape out the window.

KOUGUELL: And the editing process?

SIMON-KENNEDY: Our editor, Ron Dulin, was fantastic. We wanted to find an editor who would be on set with us. I love working that way for the editor to get the sense of the place, and atmosphere, it shapes their perspective. We were all living together in Albuquerque, like college, Ron had an editing suite there which was helpful, and we could apply to the Sundance editing lab because he was on set with us; he was cutting while we were shooting. That was hugely helpful in shaping the film. We wrapped at the end of May and went right to get the full assembly together, went to Utah, did the lab, and edited in July, August, and September.  In October, we started sending out festival applications. And then we finished post—we had a wonderful kind donation from Eggplant Picture & Sound in Toronto, and we did sound and color out there.

IMAGERY

KOUGUELL: Ani, you mentioned that visually, you and your cinematographer Cailin Yatsko were inspired by Justine Kurland’s work, particular her series of photographs depicting life on the road with her young son.

SIMON-KENNEDY: Imagery is a huge part of how we work.  We do a lot of mood boards. I loved Kurland’s work forever. One of the most exciting things is the fact that she lives the lives of her subjects, and she had long periods of time on the road with and without her kid, and incredibly familiar. I had not spent time in New Mexico before. I was completely taken by the landscape. It felt like nowhere else in the States that I had been to. There was such a rich culture and history there.

For filmmakers Ani Simon-Kennedy and Bettina Kadoorie, the filmmaking road certainly looks to be long and bright. To learn more about screenings of The Short History of the Long Road, visit the film’s website and follow them on Facebook.

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Susan’s INTERVIEW: “The Brink” Filmmakers Alison Klayman and Marie Therese Guirgis

March 27, 2019 / / Comments Off on Susan’s INTERVIEW: “The Brink” Filmmakers Alison Klayman and Marie Therese Guirgis

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On a late afternoon in mid-March in New York City, I had the pleasure to sit down with filmmakers Alison Klayman and Marie Therese Guirgis to discuss their powerful and must-see documentary The Brink. Their mutual respect for each other and their passion about their film made for an inspiring interview.h

ABOUT THE BRINK

The Brink follows Steve Bannon through the 2018 mid-term elections in the United States, shedding light on his efforts to mobilize and unify far-right parties in order to win seats in the May 2019 European Parliamentary elections. To maintain his power and influence, the former Goldman Sachs banker and media investor reinvents himself — as he has many times before — this time as the self-appointed leader of a global populist movement. Keen manipulator of the press and gifted self-promoter, Bannon continues to draw headlines and protests wherever he goes, feeding the powerful myth on which his survival relies.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

ALISON KLAYMAN– Director/Producer

Alison Klayman’s directorial debut, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, about the Chinese artist and activist premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival where it was awarded a US Documentary Special Jury Prize for Spirit of Defiance. The film was released theatrically around the globe and shortlisted for the Academy Award. Her other films include The 100 Years Show (theatrical run at Film Forum) about Cuban-American artist Carmen Herrera, the Netflix Original, Take Your Pills (SXSW 2018), and the upcoming short, Flower Punk, about Japanese artist Azuma Makoto. She also executive produced the award-winning documentaries Hooligan Sparrow and On Her Shoulders.

MARIE THERESE GUIRGIS – Producer

Film producer and executive Guirgis has worked in both fiction and documentary film. Recent documentary credits include On Her Shoulders by Alexandria Bombach, and Author: The J.T.Leroy Story by Jeff Feuerzeig. Guirgis produced the fiction films Keep The Lights On by Ira Sachs and The Loneliest Planet by Julia Loktev. Guirgis launched and ran the documentary division of RatPac Entertainment, where she oversaw the development and production of numerous feature documentaries and documentary series. Prior to moving into production, Guirgis worked in arthouse film distribution, releasing films by renowned directors such as Jacques Audiard, Steve James, Paolo Sorrentino, Claire Denis, and Jafar Panahi, among many others.

Alison Klayman and Marie Therese Guirgis

The Brink is an important contribution not only to documentary film, but also to the discussion of the current international political moment and movements. Klayman began filming in October 2017, one month after she first met Bannon in Washington, D.C., and was embedded with him for one year, through the midterm elections.

We began our discussion talking about their collaboration process.

GUIRGIS: In many ways the idea for the film is very personal. I was close to Steve Bannon at one point, and I had strong feelings about the direction he had gone in. I hadn’t been in touch with him when he joined with Trump. It was painful for me. It was personal. One of my motivations was the travel ban; it felt like a personal betrayal.

It was hard for me to trust someone with a subject so personal to me.  As soon as Alison started filming, I knew it had to be her film, her vision, and her experience of Bannon. I trusted Alison; I trusted her as a filmmaker and person, and I knew she would respect the subject matter. Alison had final cut on the film.

We had a lot of logistical and practical hardships; it felt like the act of making the film was like a feminist act of resistance.

KLAYMAN: We had to trust each other a lot.

KOUGUELL: Alison, you were a one-person crew.

GIURGIS: It took Alison guts and courage making the film for a year.

KLAYMAN: Marie Therese came to local shoots, to see Steve fairly regularly when there were bigger asks.

GIURGIS: The film couldn’t have been made if Alison wasn’t alone. Alison had to develop a relationship with Bannon. She needed to learn about him through her own interactions.

KLAYMAN: I hundred percent knew that. Marie Therese deserves credit, she was brave and smart not to pull my strings. From my perspective, to let me, as a director, figure that out; the investigation of the story and who Bannon is. All the places she gave me space were the right things to do.  That was lucky for me.

GUIRGIS:  We did talk about the fact that we wanted the film to be fair, it’s easy to make a film about polemics.

KLAYMAN: We did not want this film to be a tool of persuasion; to make something fair is harder to dismiss. We both entered the film without our own worldview; it’s not about going in to a film to have that confirmation. I wanted something to be revealed to me, but I didn’t have my worldview shook by this, I didn’t think Bannon was offering anything particularly seductive to me.  I went in never underestimating him.

GIURGIS: I was obsessed by the notion of fairness. We are living in a moment of junk media and easy media. The fact is, most people are not one-dimensional: What if they do evil stuff and can be charming? I didn’t want Bannon to say that there was a cheap trick or manipulation in this film. One of the critics said that he hung himself while members of his team said that it is him.

KOUGUELL: Has Bannon seen the film?

GIURGIS: We showed it to him before Sundance. He was quiet about it.

KLAYMAN: It’s not the movie he would make or expected, I feel sure about that.

When Weiwei saw the documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry that I directed about him, his respect and appreciation for the film grew as it was taken in by audiences.

GIURGIS: Bannon knew we didn’t share his beliefs and that the film was going to be critical. Transparency was important to me. He probably expected it to be critical.

KLAYMAN: The least important audience member is Bannon, and that was something that I had to come to realize because he’s such a good manipulator and talks about it; it’s a thing you have to face. I felt that responsibility to ensure I wasn’t his tool. The film wasn’t about making it to piss him off. It’s a distillation of my time with him. I tried to push for balance, looking for the banal moments as much as the bigger (geopolitical) moments. The film is bigger than just him.

KOUGUELL: Indeed. The film offers unprecedented insights into Bannon’s connections to many world leaders, as well as his savvy knowledge and implementation of media manipulation.

KLAYMAN: There was a level of responsibility—I asked myself what is the value of this movie and why does it need to exist?

KOUGUELL: Overall, you had unprecedented access to Bannon and other government and political leaders outside the United States.

KLAYMAN: There were a lot of times I wanted to be in the room that I was denied. I think any documentary is not full access. I think the movie does show privileged moments.

KOUGUELL: Alison, you co-edited the film with Brian Goetz and Marina Katz. Talk about your editing process.

KLAYMAN: I came into the edit with the most intention that I ever had and with my two editors and brilliant assistant editor; it helped us work smart, not just fast but smart. Once the midterm elections happened.  It was impossible for one editor to do.

KOUGUELL: Did you work from an outline?

KLAYMAN: We had lot of transcripts, which were very helpful, and outlines, and a list of themes. I’m about key moments. It became more about notes on the cut and with verité, too. It’s calling out your great moments. We came up with title cards, which was not always the intention, but we could do more with certain cards.

KOUGUELL: You chose a vérité approach to the film.

KLAYMAN: From the other movies I had made, I knew that it’s hard to find the real meat in the story if you’re keeping the subject at arm’s length. I thought it would play to my strengths for vérité filmmaking—being embedded for a year, being observational, not knowing what I would encounter.

When you’re a fly on the wall, making a vérité movie, it’s not your place to interject, but I got outraged a lot. There was a lot of biting my tongue!

The Brink opens March 29.


Susan’s Interview with Academy Award-winning Film Editor Tom Cross on FIRST MAN, WHIPLASH, and more

February 9, 2019 / / Comments Off on Susan’s Interview with Academy Award-winning Film Editor Tom Cross on FIRST MAN, WHIPLASH, and more
INTERVIEW: Academy Award®-Winning Film Editor Tom Cross Discusses First Man

Susan Kouguell Interviews We the Animals Director and Screenwriter Jeremiah Zagar and Screenwriting Collaborator Daniel Kitrosser

December 28, 2018 / / Comments Off on Susan Kouguell Interviews We the Animals Director and Screenwriter Jeremiah Zagar and Screenwriting Collaborator Daniel Kitrosser

By: Susan Kouguell | December 19, 20182

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In a lively and insightful conversation I spoke with We the Animals Director and Screenwriter Jeremiah Zagarand his screenwriting collaborator Daniel Kitrosser about their new film, which has garnered numerous awards and nominations. We discussed the adaptation process and bringing the novel We the Animals written by Justin Torres to the screen.

About Jeremiah Zagar and Daniel Kitrosser

Co-Writer and Director Jeremiah Zagar

Born to hippie artists, Jeremiah Zagar (Director/Screenwriter) grew up in South Philly spending most afternoons in a dark movie theater or wandering the aisles of his local TLA video store. Later, on trips home from Emerson College, he started filming his parents, resulting in the documentary, In A Dream, which premiered at the SXSW Film Festival and screened theatrically across the US and in film festivals around the world. It was broadcast on HBO, shortlisted for an Academy Award and received two Emmy nominations, including

Best Documentary.” His next feature-length documentary, Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart, premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival and aired on HBO to much fanfare in 2014. Other notable output includes the pilot episode for Showtime’s 7 Deadly Sins, and commercial work for GE Capital, Pedigree and New Balance. We The Animals based on the best-selling novel was selected for the Sundance Directing & Screenwriting Lab fellowships, and debuted at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.

Daniel Kitrosser

Daniel Kitrosser (Screenwriters) is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter, whose plays include The Mumblings, Dead Special Crabs and Tar Baby(Scotman’s First Fringe Award, Amnesty International Citation). For the screen, Dan co-wrote We the Animals(dir. Jeremiah Zagar) and was the script consultant on Night Comes On (dir. Jordana Spiro), both premiering at the Sundance Film Festival 2018. He is currently a TimeWarner 150 Fellow for his television series The Move, about West Philly in the 1980s and is the Artistic Director of Writopia Lab’s Worldwide Plays Festival, a festival of plays by young playwrights from all across the country now in its 8th year.

ABOUT WE THE ANIMALS

SYNOPSIS: Us three. Us brothers. Us kings, inseparable. Three boys tear through their childhood, in the midst of their young parents’ volatile love that makes and unmakes the family many times over. While Manny and Joel grow into versions of their loving and unpredictable father, Ma seeks to shelter her youngest, Jonah, in the cocoon of home. More sensitive and conscious than his older siblings, Jonah increasingly embraces an imagined world all his own.

Based on the celebrated Justin Torres novel, We the Animals is a visceral coming-of-age story propelled by layered performances from its astounding cast – including three talented, young first-time actors – and stunning animated sequences which bring Jonah’s torn inner world to life. Drawing from his documentary background, director Jeremiah Zagar creates an immersive portrait of working-class family life and brotherhood.

MAKING THE FILM

Shot in the summer of 2016 over a 27-day period, the team returned to the location in February 2017 for another six days of shooting for a very specific purpose. “We wanted to see the boys grow up onscreen,” Zagar says. “I wanted their aging to be literal, not acted, and to observe a true passage of time.” (Inserts for the journal were created a few months later, and additional pickups were filmed in December 2017.)

JONAH’S JOURNAL

One of the most unique and most important narrative tools Zagar uses in the film is Jonah’s journal. In a family where complex emotions simply don’t get talked out. Zagar explains: “It’s a device we use to help you understand the private space of this young boy and how he’s processing what he sees. And in this family, in a house that intentionally has no doors – just curtains – there is no privacy. They all live together, they all hear everything. They all feel everything. And even though Jonah desperately wants a private, secret world, the reality of him actually having that is very, very difficult. So, under the bed was our place where he could achieve that private world.”

L to R – Raul Castillo and Evan Rosado

THE ADAPTATION

Their adaptation was, as Zagar states, “a screen translation, not a rewrite of the book. We wanted to remain as true to the book as possible, while making sure it was applicable to the screen.”

There were a few important modifications, the most notable of which was keeping the protagonist at a young age throughout the story, rather than following him until he’s a teenager. The protagonist is also given a name, Jonah, in the film, whereas in the book he is an unnamed narrator, a quiet observer soaking in much more than he can handle. In Torres’s novel, the journal only appears in the last part of the book, when it is discovered by his family. But Zagar and Kitrosser wanted it there to illustrate Jonah’s journey throughout the film. “We wanted to create a device where you understood that Jonah was slowly separating from his family.”

L-to-R-Evan-Rosado-Sheila-Vand-Raul-Castillo

THE INTERVIEW

Kouguell: Tell me about your adaptation process and how you worked together.

Kitrosser: In terms of the adapting process it was a lovely experience. Jeremiah was living in a wonderful apartment, and we would read a chapter from the novel and argue it out, trying to find the cinematic way to tell that story and transfer his lyricism into the screenwriting program Final Draft. Then, I would type it and Jeremiah would make lunch. Over lunch we would discuss the writing and take another stab at it. We would focus on each tile of the mosaic individually and then ask, how do we weave that tapestry together?

Zagar: We got the rights to the novel in 2012. We were rewriting straight through the entire process. We had a greenlit script in three years. Dan was on set during the shoot. There were scenes that had to change once we were on set.

Kouguell: Why was that?

Zagar: It was a low-budget film and there were certain constraints that inhibited the script we wrote. For example, combining two scenes because there wasn’t enough time to shoot both. When it was practical, we had to accommodate.

Kouguell: Let’s talk about your collaboration.

Zagar: Dan is the real writer. And a wonderful playwright. I’m a director, and I understand the visual medium a bit better. We would talk each chapter of the book out, and I would talk about the best way to interpret each scene and Dan would write it. And then Justin would edit it with Dan and we would edit back and forth together. Justin was involved every step of the way. Our objective was to stay true to Justin’s work as best as possible.

Kouguell: What were some of your challenges adapting the book to the screen?

Zagar: The time lapse in the book; Jonah grows much older and condensing that time into one year was a big challenge. The ending had to change dramatically, and we wanted to maintain the intentions of the novel.

Kouguell: How did you develop the voice-over narration and the visual animation?

Kitrosser: It was not in the script come shooting. For me, I had to learn the limits what we could do when shooting; we didn’t have access inside Jonah’s head. We had written in flashes of images in his head, but then watching Jeremiah with the editor and animator, they were able to go deeper by adding the animation.

Zagar: There were text cards in the journal. In the edit, it was supposed to be similar to the style of the Tarnation documentary, but that wasn’t working. We didn’t have access to Jonah’s intimate life, we didn’t want to just use voice-over. The animation was the same thing. We wrote in moments that weren’t coming alive to the mind of the audience, so we had to bring them to life for the audience in the editing process. In the editing process, Justin said the animation was really working, and the voiceover was really working, which was really affirming.

Kitrosser: Jeremiah has a lot of collaborators – his editor, cinematographer; his vision is really clear and it’s wonderful to see how these different marriages come together.

Zagar:  We love to write together. We love working together. The three of us plan to keep working together as long as possible.

Learn more about the film here.

Susan Kouguell Speaks with Patrick J. Don Vito, Editor of Green Book

December 22, 2018 / / Comments Off on Susan Kouguell Speaks with Patrick J. Don Vito, Editor of Green Book

By: Susan Kouguell | December 18, 20182

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The awards buzz is swirling—not to mention some early wins for Green Book, which is currently in theaters. I had the pleasure to speak with editor Patrick J. Don Vito about editing Green Book and his collaboration with director Peter Farrelly.

PATRICK J. DON VITO

Patrick J. Don Vito has been working in Feature Film and TV Picture Editorial for over 27 years. He has worked with directors, including Peter Farrelly, Jon Avnet, Jay Roach, Judd Apatow, Donald Petrie, Steve Brill, and Dennis Dugan, among others. Born in Southern California, he graduated from Chapman University in 1991. During school he focused on editing and immediately afterwards went into the profession. His passion for storytelling has taken him through the world of Features, Episodic Television, TV Movies and Documentary, whilst covering many genres throughout his career. As a classically trained pianist he has also had a few compositions included in projects on which he has worked.

ABOUT THE GREEN BOOK

Academy Award ® nominee Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises, The Lord of the Rings trilogy) and Academy Award ® winner Mahershala Ali (Moonlight, Hidden Figures) star in Participant Media and DreamWorks Pictures’ Green Book.  In his foray into powerfully dramatic work as a feature director, Peter Farrelly helms the film inspired by a true friendship that transcended race, class and the 1962 Mason-Dixon line.

When Tony Lip (Mortensen), a bouncer from an Italian-American neighborhood in the Bronx, is hired to drive Dr. Don Shirley (Ali), a world-class Black pianist, on a concert tour from Manhattan to the Deep South, they must rely on the Green Book to guide them to the few establishments that were then safe for African-Americans. Confronted with racism, danger, as well as unexpected humanity and humor—they are forced to set aside differences to survive and thrive on the journey of a lifetime.

THE INTERVIEW

KOUGUELL: What drew you to the project?

DON VITO: I read the script and thought it was amazing, it was one of the best I read. I do a lot of comedy and it had so many different elements in it, which was the challenge of the movie; it was a hybrid of comedy and drama.

KOUGUELL: You’ve worked with Farrelly before on Movie 43.

DON VITO: Yes, and on a pilot that never aired.

KOUGUELL: Tell me about your collaboration with Farrelly.

DON VITO: Working with him is always collaborative. Peter knows what he wants but he’s careful to let you try what you want, to see if that will be a help.

Farrelly knows story really well.  He wanted to be a novelist before he became a director.

DON VITO: It’s interesting how this movie got made. This movie fell into Farrelly’s lap. He ran into Brian Currie—the character actor, and he said he was working on his first script and told Farrelly the idea, and a couple of months later Farrelly asked what was happening with the script about the bouncer, and then he suggested, why don’t you, Nick Vallelonga (Tony Lip’s son), and me start on it? They had a wealth of story to work from, hours of tapes.

Once Pete got involved, he wanted Viggo attached. He sent a wrote a letter and sent it along with the script to Viggo, and said, ‘This is a departure for me, please read the first 20 pages.’ Viggo liked it, and this started the ball rolling.

KOUGUELL: As an editor do you stick close to the screenplay?

DON VITO:  My first pass, I try to stick to the script but along the way and something comes up we will try alternate cuts. There are always little things that you try to fix along the way that you don’t necessarily know until you sit with the audience. Sometimes it’s about trimming, sometimes clarifying an idea, sometimes it’s too clear and needs some mystery. There are always many ways to solve problems, so you have to figure out which will work the best.

KOUGUELL: Let’s talk about the balance between drama and comedy in Green Book and how you worked with Farrelly to create this balance.

DON VITO: The trick of the whole movie was getting that balance right. There was improvisation on the set, the writers were on the set the entire time, too. The stars also would pitch in ideas, so the script would evolve while they were shooting. In the cutting room, I would first cut everything together and then pull out things that weren’t the right kind of joke or didn’t seem to come naturally out of the scene or if it wasn’t the right tone.

KOUGUELL: What’s your reaction to all the awards and recent nominations the film has received?

DON VITO: It’s very cool, better than the opposite! Better than being ignored. I’ll take it. It’s been fun to go to screenings and having people excited.

KOUGUELL: Your advice for aspiring film editors?

DON VITO:  Keep working. Use your instincts and look for stories that you really connect to. It’s been an amazing ride.

Learn more here about the film here.

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Susan Kouguell Speaks with Filmmaker Sam Green About His Live Documentary “A Thousand Thoughts”

December 17, 2018 / / Comments Off on Susan Kouguell Speaks with Filmmaker Sam Green About His Live Documentary “A Thousand Thoughts”

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Susan Kouguell speaks with filmmaker Sam Green about his new project "A Thousand Thoughts." Green performs a live narration on stage throughout the 85-minute piece alongside the Kronos Quartet.

“I’m endlessly interested in live cinema.”

— Sam Green

In early December of 2018, I spoke with filmmaker Sam Green about his new project A Thousand Thoughts. Green performs a live (poignant and often very funny ‘voiceover’) narration on stage throughout the 85-minute piece alongside the Kronos Quartet, who are also performing live on stage and often alongside images of themselves.

Kronos Quartet violinist David Harrington describes the work as “a live documentary”—a film, a concert and lecture.

A Thousand Thoughts is a unique and powerful experience that is not limited to an audience of music lovers or just fans of the Kronos Quartet; its themes are universal and its presentation, captivating.

Sam Green

ABOUT A THOUSAND THOUGHTS

Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker Sam Green (The Weather Underground), in collaboration with Emmy Award®-winning writer and editor Joe Bini (Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, Grizzly Man), takes the stage with the legendary classical-music group, Kronos Quartet, to create a “live documentary” that chronologically unfolds the quartet’s groundbreaking, continent-spanning, multi-decade career.

Wildly creative and experimental in form, A Thousand Thoughts is a meditation on music itself-the act of listening closely to music, the experience of feeling music deeply, and the power that music has to change the world.

Green narrates the piece live onstage while the Kronos Quartet performs the score, and a rich blend of archival footage, photos, and interviews with members of the Kronos Quartet—as well as longtime collaborators like Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Terry Riley, Tanya Tagaq, Steve Reich—unspools on screen. After premiering at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, A Thousand Thoughts screened at the National Opera House in Athens, Greece, and is touring nationally. It received the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

Director, Writer, Editor Sam Green is a New York-based documentary filmmaker. He received his master’s degree in Journalism from University of California Berkeley, where he studied documentary with acclaimed filmmaker Marlon Riggs. Green’s most recent live documentaries include The Measure of All Things (2014), The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller (with Yo La Tengo) (2012), and Utopia in Four Movements (2010). With all of these works, Green narrates the film in-person while musicians perform a live soundtrack. Green’s 2004 feature-length film, The Weather Underground, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, was nominated for an Academy Award, included in the Whitney Biennial, and has screened widely around the world.

Director, Writer, Editor Joe Bini is best known for his long-time collaboration with Werner Herzog. Their work together is comprised of over 20 films in all, including the narrative films Rescue Dawn and The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans and such notable documentaries as Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Grizzly Man, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Into the Abyss, and the 2015 drama, Queen of the Desert. Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, a film that Bini cut and co-wrote, won the Documentary Film Editing Award at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and an Emmy Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Writing. He won the Prix Vulcain De L’Artiste-Technicien at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival for We Need to Talk About Kevin.

ABOUT THE KRONOS QUARTET

For more than 40 years, San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet—David Harrington (violin), John Sherba (violin), Hank Dutt (viola), and Sunny Yang (cello)—has combined a spirit of fearless exploration with a commitment to continually reimagine the string quartet experience. In the process, Kronos has become one of the world’s most celebrated and influential ensembles, performing thousands of concerts, releasing more than 60 recordings, collaborating with many of the world’s most intriguing and accomplished composers and performers, and commissioning over 900 works and arrangements for string quartet. Kronos has received over 40 awards, including the Polar Music and Avery Fisher Prizes, two of the most prestigious awards given to musicians.

THE INTERVIEW

The filmmakers had extensive archival material from which to work, as well as the Kronos Quartet themselves and its former members. During the film, filmmaker Chantal Ackerman’s News from Home (the 1977 avant-garde documentary) is referenced, and how this work captured America unraveling during this era; this reference underscored the historical context that coincided with the 40 years of the Kronos Quartet’s existence and how the history of the past four decades are an integral part of the evolution of the Kronos Quartet as musicians, as well as the music they perform and commission.

KOUGUELL: In A Thousand Pieces you discussed the definition of documentary, and what this film is and isn’t. Please expand on this.

GREEN: There are many different types of documentaries and some subjects are permanent and never changing. There are many reasons I thought the live format would work for this project; experiencing it in person is a completely different thing than just including recorded music.

I generally don’t like music documentaries because they’re so formulaic. Like the “Behind the Music” types; they’re predictable and what I don’t like in that is it’s just a little bit of music, and the music fits into it. (Green laughs) And Kronos was not trashing hotel rooms in the 70s.

In a normal documentary, when you have three minutes of music it’s way too long. In the live format there are no rules, so this form is well-suited, and music is at the heart of it. The live experience is unique and in some ways the form reflects it.

KOUGUELL: How many times have you presented A Thousand Pieces?

GREEN: To date, this project has been performed 15 times. We have fine-tuned things; some small changes. Every show is different based on the size of the room, the time of day, is the audience drinking alcohol, and so on. There are a million intangible things that I like a lot.

KOUGUELL: Let’s talk about your collaborations with Joe Bini and Kirsten Johnson, and the collaboration with the Kronos quartet.

GREEN: Cinematographer Kirsten Johnson and I are old friends. I was floored by her documentary Cameraperson—the sensibility behind it, it was so wise and insightful, and I knew I had to have her on this project.

Joe and I met at a Sundance event, and he was so smart and radical, and we became friends. The editing was challenging and complicated. My collaboration with Joe was one of the best I’ve ever had.

Working with Kronos was great, we interviewed them, and showed them the film at the end.

KOUGUELL: In the film, you mentioned that this film was an “unauthorized biography” of the Kronos Quartet. What was the reaction of the project by the Kronos?

GREEN: We had no rules about what we could include or not include in the documentary. There were some small things they didn’t like; the bigger things like when Harrington talked about losing his son, the quartet doesn’t like sitting through that, they rather not be in that, but they recognize that it’s a big element that evokes something deep and complex.

KOUGUELL: Let’s talk about the writing process and script.

GREEN: We started with the music and created scenes from around the music and pieced together a story. Joe and I wrote the story, we pieced it together with words, images and music. It’s a tech-based piece, and it is a script, and I’ve memorized it.

A funny thing: I’ve never been able to write with someone else, but while Joe and I were working, I said I’d work alone with the first section and he gave me a weird look, and suggested we try it together. It totally worked! I asked him, ‘How do you know how to write voice-over?” and Joe laughed and said: “I worked with Werner Herzog for years.”

Find A Thousand Thoughts upcoming events here.

Susan Kouguell Speaks with “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” Editor Anne McCabe

December 2, 2018 / / Comments Off on Susan Kouguell Speaks with “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” Editor Anne McCabe
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Susan Kouguell speaks with Can You Ever Forgive Me? editor Anne McCabe about her collaboration with director Marielle Heller.

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Anne McCabe

About Anne McCabe

Anne McCabe, editor, started in the cutting rooms of Woody Allen, Brian de Palma and Sidney Lumet. She has collaborated with Director Greg Mottola on several projects, including The Daytrippers, Adventureland, and the award-winning pilot for HBO’s Newsroom. She also worked closely with Kenneth Lonergan on the Academy Award-nominated film You Can Count On Me, and Margaret. Her television credits include Nurse Jackie, Damages, Younger, The Purge and this summer’s HBO’s hit drama Succession. Navigating both drama and comedy, she cut Chris Rock’s acclaimed movie Top Five and is currently editing the untitled Tom Hanks and Matthew Rhys Mr. Rogers movie, also directed by Marielle Heller.

About Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Melissa McCarthy stars as Lee Israel, the best-selling celebrity biographer (and cat lover) who made her living in the 1970’s and 80’s profiling the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Tallulah Bankhead, Estée Lauder and journalist Dorothy Kilgallen.  When Lee found herself unable to get published because she had fallen out of step with the marketplace, she turned her art form to deception, abetted by her loyal friend Jack (Richard E. Grant).

Melissa McCarthy in ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’

THE INTERVIEW

I spoke with Anne McCabe by phone for our interview; it was certainly fortuitous timing as McCabe was in the editing room working on her next project with director Marielle Heller on the new (untitled) Tom Hanks film about Mr. Rogers.

Kouguell: Tell me about your collaboration process with Marielle Heller.

McCabe: I was drawn to project because it was a different type of story than we usually see. As an editor I’m told, ‘Can you make this woman more likeable? Does she have to do this terrible thing?’ It was wonderful to work with Mari who was unafraid to make Lee Israel super grouchy, correct people’s grammar, and so on. Lee was a difficult person and not a typical character you often see on film.

Mari is drawn to stories we haven’t seen a million times; even the character of Jack is not one we normally see. Often, we see an English character who is more informed, for example, but Jack is shallow and Lee is smarter than he is.

Interview: I, Tonya Editor Tatiana S. Riegel

Kouguell: How long was the editing process?

McCabe: About 8-9 months.

Kouguell: Did you refer directly to the shooting script?

McCabe: Absolutely. Several people spent an enormous amount of time writing this script, and I try to create as close to it as possible. Occasionally on set lines might drop, but very much what was written, is on the screen.

Before we started shooting we talked about the script, and while Mari was shooting we would discuss scenes, and the story beats. We stayed as close to the script as possible in the first cut of the movie. We did spend a lot of time reshaping the film while staying true to the story.

Kouguell: Were you cutting as they were shooting?

McCabe: Yes. I would cut the dailies the next day. Continuity was often a challenge because they were shooting in New York and there was so much changing weather.

Kouguell: You’ve worked across all genres. Tell me what made this experience unique.

McCabe: It was great to work with a lot of women who are clever and confident. I love that Mari is bold and taking chances. I worked with producer Anne Carey before on Adventureland. Mari and I had a great connection. It was great to also work with Jane Curtain and Anna Deveare Smith.

Jane Campion Talks Top of the Lake, The Piano, Writing and Moviemaking

Kouguell: Let’s talk about your reaction to McCarthy’s dramatic performance.

McCabe: Melissa Mccarthy was fabulous – she’s a beautiful woman in real life, she embraced the ‘not-looking-gorgeous’ in this role. The film starts with a close-up and they put makeup on her to make her look worse, it was a brave thing. Even the cat crap under her bed, she dove in. She embraced this grouchy, difficult person. Lee Israel is complicated, and McCarthy has so much warmth that she brought to the character.

Kouguell: Some final thoughts about the film?

McCabe: I love the fact that the film centers on two gay characters but it’s not a central theme. It’s looming, regarding the AIDS in New York City during this time period. That last scene I was most proud of. We worked hard on that. There were a lot of ways to go. The moment Lee really becomes honest and goes through all the different stages of a relationship. They’re uneasy, there’s humor, sadness. Their lives are so lonely, everyone can relate to that feeling of ‘you don’t fit in.’ Lee gets ignored because people often don’t acknowledge women in their fifties, and it’s the same for Jack. And for each of them, finding that friend.

More articles by Susan Kouguell

Susan’s article: Diversity in Film at Producers Guild of America’s Produced By: New York Conference

November 28, 2018 / / Comments Off on Susan’s article: Diversity in Film at Producers Guild of America’s Produced By: New York Conference

Diversity in Film at Producers Guild of America’s Produced By: New York Conference

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At the recent Producers Guild of America’s Produced By: New York conference held at the Time Warner building in Manhattan, producing and collaboration panels emphasized the continued need for diversity, both in hiring and onscreen representation, as well as writing and filmmaking in this current political climate.

Here are some highlights from the Producing Masterclass events.

Emily Blunt, Rob Marshall, Ronny Chieng, John Penotti

Mary Poppins Returns

Director Rob Marshall and star Emily Blunt discussed their upcoming film Mary Poppins Returns (they previously collaborated on Into the Woods). Blunt stated, “It’s a divisive time. Here’s a film that could be a great unifier. This is what the world needs. You can feel the acrimony and the bitterness, and here’s the opportunity for hope to reappear literally from the skies.”

Marshall said he chose to set the film during the Great Depression because of the parallels between that era of economic instability and our present social climate. “It’s a message of hope in a very dark time, which is what I feel we’re in these days.”

They also remarked on their trepidation about remaking the classic 1964 Mary Poppins and Blunt’s concern about playing the role made famous by Julie Andrews, recounting a talk she had with a friend who encouraged her to take the role: “Dude, you’ve got balls of steel.” Blunt added: “It’s the most delicious character I’ve ever played.”

Kevin Wilmott

BlacKkKlansman

Director Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman documents the 1970s police’s infiltration of the Ku Klux Klan and closes with images of the 2017 Charlottesville Virginia riots. Producer Jason Blum remarked, “To me, the message of BlacKkKlansman, which I tell people when they’ve asked me, is very simple: Racism is stupid, and people who are racist are stupid, and people in the KKK are stupid racists, period. That’s what the movie is about.”

The film’s co-screenwriter, Kevin Willmott added, “You would think we wouldn’t have to say that!” Willmott continued, “It’s a really historic time we’re living in. People will look back and say, wow that’s when it happened, that’s when it was either going to go to hell or come back. We tried to…make something humorous that’s not funny. With hate, you have to get as close to the hate as you can and by doing that, you reveal the absurdity. That’s where the humor lies.” Regarding the hatred instigated by KKK Leader David Duke in the film, Willmott said, “That kind of hate has become part of the mainstream and it’s in the White House. It’s bizarre—if we had tried to write this, people would have said you can’t expect us to buy this crap. And yet it’s happened.”

Anne Carey (L) Marielle Heller (R)

Can You Ever Forgive Me? 

The film Can You Ever Forgive Me? chronicles the true story of Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy), the writer and literary forger, and her accomplice and friend Jack Hock (Richard E. Grant). Producer Anne Carey and director Marielle Heller revealed the importance of the two main characters’ final meeting (Spoiler Alert).

Carey: “Hock didn’t really have an ending, it was only about Israel’s ending. One of the beautiful things that Mari (director Heller) did was give them a weighted moment. It was in the book actually—that line in the book, it says, ‘I saw you and I felt like I wanted to fucking trip you.’ That was a line in the book that hadn’t been in the script and Mari read the book and brought that line right back and gave them that scene.”

Heller stated: “I wanted to set it in the context of the AIDS crisis in New York, because the truth of the matter was that wasn’t part of the story so much when I came on board, but it was the truth of what these characters were living in. It was 1991 in New York. He was a gay man. The real Jack Hock died of AIDS, so it was important for me that that wasn’t something we were softening or skating over for the sake of telling an entertaining story.” Heller said at her first meeting with Searchlight: “This is the most important thing to me that we bring in—the reality of the context of who these people are and where they’re living.”

Jason Blum (L) Garbriela Rodriguez (R)

Roma

The timely themes of Alfonso Cuarón’s semi-autobiographical film Roma about life in Mexico City in the early 1970s, were addressed by producer Gabriela Rodriguez and star Yalitza Asparico. Rodriguez said: “Our movie speaks to class diversity and ethnic diversity and strong women characters lead the story.”

Crazy Rich Asians

Often referred to as a cultural phenomenon, Crazy Rich Asians is one of the only major studio films to feature a predominantly Asian cast. Star Ronny Chieng contributed his hilarious insights into the film’s success: “It’s about time we had a movie about rich people. Their stories are under-told. They’re 1% of the population but represent 99% of the power.”

Learn more about the event here.

Susan Kouguell Interviews “Searching for Ingmar Bergman” Director Margarethe von Trotta

November 18, 2018 / / Comments Off on Susan Kouguell Interviews “Searching for Ingmar Bergman” Director Margarethe von Trotta

INTERVIEW: Searching for Ingmar Bergman Director Margarethe von Trotta

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“’Searching for Ingmar Bergman’ was an active but inward process. The film might appear to be an external quest, as it travels from Sweden, to Germany, Spain, and France. But the protagonists, and particularly his sons, his actresses, like Liv Ullmann, Gunnel Lindblom, Julia Dufvenius, and filmmakers of the next generation like Ruben Östlund, Olivier Assayas, and Mia Hansen-Løve, express themselves in such a very moving and intimate way that in those encounters I found what I was looking for—a world of personal experience that resonates with the films.”
                       — Margarethe von Trotta

Director Margarethe von Trotta

About Searching for Ingmar Bergman

Internationally renowned director Margarethe von Trotta examines Ingmar Bergman’s life and work with a circle of his closest collaborators as well as a new generation of filmmakers. This documentary presents key components of his legacy, as it retraces themes that recurred in his life and art and journeys to the places that were central to Bergman’s creative achievements.

About Margarethe von Trotta

Born in Berlin, Margarethe von Trotta is considered one of the leaders of the New German Cinema movement. After studying Germanic and Romance languages in Munich and Paris (where she encountered the Nouvelle Vague and the films of Ingmar Bergman), von Trotta pursued a career in acting, working closely with Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Volker Schlöndorff. Starting with her first independent directorial effort, The Second Awakening of Christa Klages (1978), von Trotta’s filmography lists numerous critically-acclaimed titles, including: Marianne & Juliane (1981), which won the Golden Lion in Venice; Rosa Luxemburg (1986) and Love and Fear (1988) both of which were nominated for the Palme d’Or in Cannes; L‘africana (1990), which was nominated for the Golden Lion in Venice; Rosenstrasse (2003), which earned actor Katja Riemann the Coppa Volpi Award in Venice; and Hannah Arendt (2012), which won the German Film Award. Her first feature documentary Searching for Ingmar Bergman (2018) celebrated its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and premiered in the U.S. at the 56th New York Film Festival.

The Interview

I had the great pleasure to speak with Ms. von Trotta at the Quad Cinema in Manhattan, which will be celebrating her work with a retrospective: “Margarethe von Trotta: The Political is Personal” November 2-8.

We began our discussion with talking about the theme of the retrospective—the political is personal—in her narrative films, including the powerful sibling relationship in Marianne & Juliane and how this work, as well as many of her other films, remain relevant and poignant today.

KOUGUELL: For many years I’ve taught your work in my cinema studies and screenwriting classes. The Promise (Das Versprechen) was thought-provoking to my students as a hybrid film, incorporating documentary footage within the fictional love story that was inspired by a compilation of interviews you did with people about their experiences during this time period.

VON TROTTA: There was very strong black and white documentary material for the construction of the Berlin wall, which I put in the beginning of The Promise but I could not find strong material when the wall came down. In the early 60s there were no video cameras, there was only 16mm, film and the camera people had to be very aware of what images they wanted to film; that one scene, that one image gives a whole sense of the time. In 1989, when the Berlin Wall was opened for the first night, people went there with video cameras and filmed, but I couldn’t find one image that gave the sense of the importance of that moment. So, I had to make my own.

KOUGUELL: That was interesting in terms of the idea of memory and imposing one’s own story on that historical moment.

VON TROTTA: And that was much more expensive, too. One thousand extras on the bridge coming from the East to the West; that was the most expensive scene I did.

Liv Ullmann (L) von Trotta (R)

KOUGUELL:  You were approached by the Ingmar Bergman Foundation of Stockholm to direct Searching for Ingmar Bergman.

VON TROTTA: One of the producers who is half-Swedish, was planning for Bergman’s 100th birthday, and she asked me to make the film since I knew Bergman personally during his time in Munich. I said in the beginning, ‘No, I can’t do that; I’m such an admirer of his, I’m so fond of him, he was such a genius, I couldn’t dare do this.’  The Bergman Foundation knew my films and asked me to make it in a very personal way; a research of one filmmaker about another filmmaker. They asked me to mainly speak about his time in Munich because nobody knows so much about this period of his life. That was the most personal side of the film.

KOUGUELL: Tell me about working with your son, Feliz Moeller, on this film.

VON TROTTA: My son is a documentary filmmaker (Forbidden Films (2014), Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Suess (2008) two films about the Nazi time about Nazi filmmakers, and Sympathisanten: Unser Deutscher Herbst (2018). He started as an historian and then he became a documentary filmmaker. When I said to him, I have never done a documentary, he said he would help me. That gave me more courage to do the film. He looked for all the documentary material, which I put in the film, and I did the interviews.

I was used to making narrative feature films, and I knew exactly what to do. I wrote my own scripts, I knew the scenes, the actors, how to direct it, and how to do it in advance. But in a documentary, you make it in the editing room. It becomes a film in the editing room. That was totally new for me.

KOUGUELL: So, there wasn’t much pre-planning for this film.

VON TROTTA: No there wasn’t it. When the Bergman Foundation asked me to make a very personal film, I knew immediately I wanted the scene at the seaside where I was sitting where Max Von Sydow was sitting, looking at the black sky. I knew immediately I had to start with this image.

Our conversation shifted to a personal note about my great, great aunt Therese Giehse, the late German actress whom von Trotta knew, and the connection I felt to von Trotta’s narrative films, which often have included the incorporation of actual historical events and weaving in the personal and the political lives of her characters.

VON TROTTA: Giehse was a big figure, and very courageous in her political meanings of her work. And her work with Bertolt Brecht.

KOUGUELL: You, Giehse, and Bergman shared a personal common experience—relocating to a foreign country and not necessarily by choice. Giehse was exiled from Germany during World War II.

VON TROTTA: I was stateless until my first marriage. Bergman felt stateless when he left Sweden accused of tax evasion, he felt so humiliated. Humiliation for him was always a main theme for him in his films. No one pushed him to go away from Sweden, it was his free choice.

KOUGUELL:  In Searching for Ingmar Bergman, there were fascinating revelations when you visited the places of his childhood combined with the analysis of his films, and how he and his work connected with spirituality and faith, and his father who was a priest.

VON TROTTA: Before I made this documentary, I was interested in Bergman’s films as a filmmaker. I wasn’t curious about his life and his women, for me it was just about how he made his films. Then knowing that I was going to make this documentary, I read his autobiography “The Magic Lantern” and there I discovered the main points of his life. I discovered about his nurturing in his childhood.  He wrote so much more about his childhood, his mother, his father, his grandmother, and much less about his wives and his children. I had the feeling he wanted to stay as a child, during his whole life.

Film Director Ingmar Bergman together with wife Kabi Laretei and son Daniel. Picture from the book “Lennart Nilsson – his best pictures”.

KOUGUELL: We see that very poignantly when you interviewed his son.

VON TROTTA: Yes, and he said, exactly that was it. When Bergman’s last wife died, he wrote in his autobiography: ‘Finally I have to go out of my children’s room, out of my playroom.” His wife also helped him stay (as) a child; she did everything for him.

KOUGUELL: Looking back at the journey of making this documentary, did it influence you as a filmmaker?

VON TROTTA: Influence? I don’t know, I’ll have to see in the films I will do. The main things which are influences you don’t even feel it at the time, it comes out when you are doing a film.  I like it when it stays unconscious, that you get influences unconsciously, take them in and they come out without knowing that you have it as a treasure.

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