Interview: Dan Fogelman, Writer/Director of “Danny Collins”

Posted on March 19, 2015 at 3:55 pm

Dan Fogelman wrote “Cars,” “Tangled,” and “Crazy Stupid Love,” and now for the first time has directed with “Danny Collins,” starring Al Pacino and Annette Bening. Fogelman told me he was wasting time on the internet because he did not know what he wanted to write next when he came across a headline about a musician who did not find out that John Lennon wrote him a letter until 34 years after it was sent.

I had just finished the movie Crazy Stupid Love and I was trying to figure out what to do next. And I was just completely stumped and procrastinating and sitting in front of the blank computer for months on end and looking at the Internet as you do when you are procrastinating and I came across this musician who receives a letter from John Lennon forty years too late. I called him that day. I tracked him down immediately and I told him I heard his story which became the jumping off point of this story the letter, and the receiving of the letter. That’s exactly what happens in the film “Danny Collins.” Literally we wrote out pretty much the same letter. So that is all absolutely true, he was a young musician in the early, early 70s. They said, “We think you are the next big thing”. He said, “I’m terrified of what fame and fortune might do to me,” and cut to 34 years later John Lennon had read that interview had written him a letter offering him advice and he didn’t get letter until the present day. It got sent to him care of the magazine and somebody saw a handwritten letter from Lennon, it got sold to collectors and just never came across his bow until 40 years later. So I couldn’t stop thinking about that, the what-if of the entire situation.

Pacino plays Danny Collins, an aging rock star who can still fill a stadium with his baby boomer fans, who are happy to sing along when he plays his hits. But it feels stale and empty to him, and when he sees the letter from Lennon, he realizes he could have taken a different path and been truer to himself as an artist and a man. Fogelman said,

His life has become everything he feared that it would become. And when I first talked to Al about the character, we talked about the dark place that this guys is in. He is alone, he is very lonely, he is very alone and he is very unhappy with the way his musical career, the direction it has taken. And who he is as a person. He is a drug addict and a drunk and he is dating well beneath his appropriate age range and who he is. And he doesn’t have a family which is a big part of this. He doesn’t have that human connection with people. And so he gets this letter at 65 years old, and that kind of sends him on this course correction.

Lennon’s letter was written to reassure a young musician that success and fame do not have to be corrupting, but in the case of Danny Collins, his concerns about that were justified.

Any form of art is also commerce nowadays. I mean some art becomes popular posthumously but any artist who becomes famous in their own lifetime learns that art starts becoming commerce and vice versa. You are making your living off of it. Your identity is defined by it, your legacy is defined by it, whether it’s music or writing or acting or television or film or journalism. I think when you are defined by your art it is a weird line.

A central image of the story is Collins’ arrival at the very ordinary kind of place he has not seen in decades — a small chain hotel in New Jersey. The design of the hotel had a very specific inspiration.

When I first heard the story of the real guy, Steve Tilston, I knew exactly what I wanted the story to be about. I knew I wanted it to be about family and reconnection. And so I got a couple of images in my head. I said, “Where would be the craziest hotel in the world for Al Pacino to just check into indefinitely?” And I pictured the Woodcliff Lake Hilton which was the hotel in New Jersey that I went to every eighth grade party. I was actually a best man four different times in that hotel. If Al Pacino walked in, they would be ill-equipped to handle him. It would be such a disconnect. We had to shoot the movie in LA but we recreated the Woodcliff Lake Hilton in California and we actually screened it back in that neighborhood and nobody realized that we weren’t actually in New Jersey. New Jersey felt like the most normal place in the world to me because it is where I am from. So the street we had for Bobby Cannavale and Jennifer Garner, with that neighborhood we tried to paint that kind of picture like when I go and visit my friends – the issues they are dealing with, and the kids, that kind of picture.

As Collins, Pacino wears heightened, rock-star attire in the early part of the movie, a striped jacket, scarf and pocket square. And then, as his life becomes more normal, connected, and authentic, his clothing is toned down. He even mentions shopping at Banana Republic.

Danny was a bit of a dandy which I like. When you see Al, in real life, he is kind of vagabond. He has a very cool bohemian look and he is always in black, a sloppiness but it is kind of a put-together sloppiness. That carried over to Danny Collins because for him it is all an act. It is all performance for him to seem really sharp and dandy. He is referred to numerous times in the movies as a ridiculous man and the outfits needed to be able to be both ridiculous in palette but also really precise in the cut and the fit and the accessorizing. And so he always has a scarf and he also has varied vibrant prints and stripes. And we start taking that down as the movie goes on. He is never going to be a guy who walks around in jeans and a T-shirt. By the end, though, he has a black shirt, but he is still wearing it wide open. He has become a fully formed regular human being as much as he is capable of.

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Interview: Writer/Director Tom McCarthy of the Adam Sandler Fantasy “The Cobbler”

Posted on March 12, 2015 at 10:00 am

I am a huge fan of writer/director Tom McCarthy (Win Win, “The Station Agent,” The Visitor), and was delighted to get a chance to talk to him about his new film, co-written with Paul Sado, “The Cobbler.” It is a gentle fantasy starring Adam Sandler as a shoemaker who discovers his father’s old machine for sewing shoes has magical properties. If he tries on the shoes repaired with that machine, he takes on the appearance of the shoe’s owners. The film co-stars Dustin Hoffman, Dan Stevens (“Downton Abbey”), and Ellen Barkin. It opens in theaters, and on VOD and iTunes March 13, 2015.

As an actor and as a writer, you have to use your imagination to step into the shoes of different characters all the time. Is that what inspired this idea?

Probably a little bit. It didn’t dawn on me till later in the making of it. It was probably as we started to rehearse with the actors that we realized realize it was something actors are very used to doing. Initially it was just the idea that you don’t know a man until you walk a mile in his shoes. There was something about that that sounds really compelling. The idea of exploring the interesting world of the Cobbler and the Shoe Repair Man as a way of exploring that idea.

The title, “The Cobbler,” has a fairy tale quality, very different from your earlier films. When you are creating a fantasy film, how do you work out all of the internal rules to keep it consistent and organic?

Paul and I really wrestled with what it meant, what we could do what we couldn’t do. We felt like, okay, there are definite limits to this. We had to keep double-checking to make sure we were not breaking any of our own rules. We tried to keep it as simple as possible, what exactly Adam was allowed to do and what he wasn’t allowed to do, what he could control and what he couldn’t control. And like all superheroes, we figure his power would increase as he begin to master it as he got better at it. But there certainly are stages when he is exploring it and having fun with it and in some cases abusing it and then ultimately using it for good.

What made you decide to try fantasy?

You are searching for new things, new things to challenge you at different ways and you are looking to have fun and you are looking to explore. I don’t ever profess to be limited to one particular school of filmmaking or any type of storytelling. It’s always what sort of tickles me in the moment when I think of something exciting and challenging and “The Cobbler” was all those things for me.

“The Cobbler” was not the movie I was planning on making, I was planning on making “Spotlight,” the movie I am editing now. Spotlight got pushed back because we couldn’t get it together in time. Paul and I had really been working on “The Cobbler” for a long time. So we just had the idea to just get together and bang ideas around. Just the energy of collaboration and the synergy that it brings about is just really exciting and cool. Paul and I are old friends and we really connect so it was a good time.

It is quite a challenge for actors to have to not just play their own character but Adam Sandler’s character as well.

Sometimes we just have to work on keeping it straight as we were in the moment. And then beyond that, when you have an actor like Dustin, it is really just little tweaks here and there reminding him of maybe what was too much, not enough or too much depending on where he was in the scene. All these people had a pretty good sense of how they were going to approach Adam. They weren’t just trying to mimic him. They were trying to get the essence of what Adam might be in their body. And it was really a little bit of modulation on everybody but not much. It was kind of just making sure that the story held together and that the audience could keep track of who is who at any particular time.

Your cast included some actors who are very trained and experienced and others who were not. What did you think about as you were casting the film?

I’m always just trying to find what actor I think would best connect with the role. Some secondary considerations are where the actor comes from and what their work ethic is like and how they approach material ultimately especially in a film like this where you are building an ensemble. But mostly it is who is right and then we work backwards from there. Some people are classically trained and some aren’t trained at all, some are connected, some come from comedy and stand ups, some came out of rap, so people are coming from all kinds of places. I think that adds a really nice texture to the movie. I think one thing I’m very proud of with this film is that it really represents New York in a very authentic way. I think it gets the culture, especially the Lower East Side. I think we did a good job of capturing that.

And if you could pick out one pair of size 10 1/2 shoes and be him for a day, who would you pick?

That’s a really good question. I think it would be kind of cool to check out Putin. I want to see what that guy does, walk around the Kremlin and see what is going on in that place. My feeling is Kruten doesn’t have a 10.5, though, I think he is a little guy, he is probably got like an 8 or something.

I liked the way you kept the origin of the magical shoe repair machine a little bit mysterious, even though you had the flashback with the men all speaking Yiddish as they came up with a plan to stop the neighborhood bully.

I didn’t understand a word of the Yiddish when I was filming it but it was really fun to listen to that language. They speak it so beautifully and it was nice to be around for a couple of days. But I think ultimately with that opening sequence , it’s a little nod to Max’s heritage and that period going back to a generation that would have been Jewish immigrants from mostly Eastern Europe who at that time were kind of flowing to the lower East Side and making that their home. What Paul and I were playing with is this idea that all these sorts of different shop owners and tradesmen were being kind of run out by a slumlord/landlord who is raising rent and forcing them which of course is what we ended up dealing with later in the movie with Ellen Barkin. Every generation has their own problems and if we would listen to our grandparents we would find out that there a lot of the same problems, just different looks. And so we thought that it is a cool way to see all the tradesmen coming to the cobbler asking for help and sort of setting up the motif. And for me also it was a little nod to a time when being a tradesman was a really respected position in society, as it should be. I think is really wonderful when you have talented craftsmen and tradesmen and I hope we never lose track of that, we don’t become one big mall. It is good to go shopping and deal with one person who fixes your shoes or works on your clothes or does whatever that is they are doing. It is a nice way to do business.

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Tribute: Documentary Pioneer Albert Maysles

Posted on March 6, 2015 at 3:05 pm

We mourn the loss of film visionary Albert Maysles, who with his brother David, showed us a new way to see film and a new way to see the world. They were the first Americans to create intimate, unstructured documentary storytelling without experts talking from behind their desks or extended narration. This is “direct cinema,” the distinctly American version of French “cinema verité.” The Maysles brothers were the first to make non-fiction feature films where the drama of human life unfolds as is, without scripts, sets, or narration. In part, this was due to their way of looking at the world, which was open-hearted and non-judgemental. But it was also due to changes in technology since the very earliest days of documentary. In 1960, he said, “With the equipment we have today, which is directly descended from the equipment we made; you could go beyond the illustrated lecture for the first time. These innovations made it possible to get what was happening so clearly and directly that the person viewing the film would feel as though he was actually present at those events. For the first time, it was possible for someone watching a documentary to feel as though he was standing in the shoes of the person he was seeing onscreen.”

Maysles’ subjects had lives that were in some ways ordinary, like those of us in the audience. Salesman was about door-to-door Bible salesmen. He said, “There are daily acts of generosity and kindness and love that should be represented on film.”

But he also made extraordinary films about extraordinary lives. Perhaps his most famous was Grey Gardens, about “Big Edie” and “Little Edie” Beale, relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis who continued to live in their crumbling East Hampton mansion with no money and very little contact with the outside world. The movie was later adapted into a hit Broadway musical and a movie with Drew Barrymore.

He filmed Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Otis Redding, and the Mamas and the Papas.

He filmed the Rolling Stones.

He filmed Paul McCartney.

He said,

As a documentarian I happily place my fate and faith in reality. It is my caretaker, the provider of subjects, themes, experiences – all endowed with the power of truth and the romance of discovery. And the closer I adhere to reality the more honest and authentic my tales. After all, the knowledge of the real world is exactly what we need to better understand and therefore possibly to love one another. It’s my way of making the world a better place.

May his memory be a blessing.

Interview: Jody Lee Lipes of “Ballet 422”

Posted on February 16, 2015 at 3:55 pm

“Ballet 422” is a new documentary directed by cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes (Lena Dunham’s breakthrough “Tiny Furniture,” Judd Apatow’s upcoming “Trainwreck,” written by Amy Schumer). It is an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at the creation of a new dance number for the New York City Ballet, choreographed by a young member of the Corps de Ballet named Justin Peck. I was very fortunate to get a chance to speak to Lipes about the film.

The film really illuminates the extraordinary collaboration and teamwork by everyone, the dancers, lighting crew, costume designers, and musicians, very different from the stress and competition we have seen in ballet films from “The Red Shoes” to “The Turning Point” and “Black Swan.”

I don’t know that much about the culture of the ballet world in general but just in terms of Justin’s specifically and his process. This is very early in his career, this is a big opportunity. It was the second ballet he had choreographed to be performed at Lincoln Center for the company and the third overall. And I think there are a couple ways that people can respond to a certain inevitable insecurity that comes along with that. One is to sort of be pissed off and angry and blame things on other people and get upset when things don’t go your way and stamp your feet. And then the another way is to work really hard and to try to incorporate other people’s opinions and their knowledge and to use the people around you in the best possible sense to get closer to what you want.

Justin is much more like the second way and I think that kind of calm and that apparent confidence and cooperation and collaboration that he tries to create would lead to what we saw in the film. I think it’s top-down. Just as in any other creative group or business or social situation, the person in charge really dictates the tone. A lot of the dancers were people that he basically grew up with and has been working with for a really long time. Instead of being jealous or angry or frustrated that they’re being told what to do by somebody below them, I think they’re really excited that one of their friends is becoming this really important artiste and they are excited that they were chosen to work with him and to help him and to collaborate with him.

So I think that is the tone of the film. There are definitely some tension at points in the film. There is like a general tension underneath but it’s not really a film is driven by conflict. It is a process film so it is just really about all of the pieces that come together to make a work of art and each step along the way and hopefully the progression of that is enough to keep people interested and they don’t need screaming and crying to be interested in what’s happening.

My favorite example of that is just before the premiere, when the ballerina asks her co-star if there is anything he needs her to go over before they go on.

Yes, I agree. You are the first person that ever brought up that moment with Sterling and I have talked to many people about this film at this point. But it is really my favorite part of the movie too and I really love how Amar responds to that, too.

You let the story unfold without interviews or narration. What made you decide on that style?

I don’t know like when that additional material became what you have to do to tell a story. The documentaries that I always loved the most those or that are verité films. I’ll never forget the first time I saw Don’t Look Back, the D. A. Pennebaker about Bob Dylan on tour in Europe. It felt like there was so much happening. My parents have Dylan records and I like them a lot but then when I saw that it was like a whole other thing. I was like, “Oh this is why people are so crazy about this guy.” There is a way that you can get to know people and that you can also put your own ideas into who they are in this style which is even more meaningful at times than if someone tells you who they are or decides for you what you should think about them.

It is like people showing you who they are through their actions and how they behave rather than through telling you what they want you to think about it. And also I think for me the goal is always to tell stories visually and cinematically and verbal story telling is a different thing to me. It is not always necessary and if you can avoid it sometimes it is a good thing to just let things happen. So it is just the kind of movie that I like basically but I think it works really well in this case because it is such a physical visual arts form and because there is this natural sort of ticking clock in this film because it there is only X amount of time until the premiere so I think the combination of those two things allows for this kind of storytelling.

I also think the narrative in the film is very very clear and it is very precise.

You tell us a lot with just a few words. Knowing that Peck is so young and inexperienced and that he is a member of the less prestigious Corps de Ballet and that he has such a short time to create the piece.

The last thing in the world I want is someone who doesn’t know ballet to feel like they can’t access this film or that they can’t follow it because they are not in that world. Of course I want those who do like ballet to like this film but that’s just preaching to the choir. The real challenge and the real storytelling comes when you are telling the story to people who don’t know anything about that world and who don’t care about the world. So it was very important that we set up the language and the rules of that world in order for people to follow it who do don’t care or don’t think they like ballet.

Did you intend for it to be a big surprise to find at the end that Justin was actually going to be appearing in a different number at the same time that he was doing this overwhelming work of putting his number together?

It was a surprise to us. We did not find out until a couple of days before from Justin that he was dancing the same night. But yes I think that’s one of my favorite parts of the film. It is like something that you couldn’t really write. It’s kind of shocking to me still that that’s how things are done there. He has two jobs and he has to do both of them and it was a very delicate balancing act to make sure that the audience doesn’t totally totally forget that he is a dancer. That was also a very delicate thing to do and part of that was making sure that the physical therapy scene was in there.

What do you want people to talk about after they have seen the movie? What is it that you want them to think about?

I want them to be entertained first of all because that is an important thing to me. I also just hope that people don’t think that this is a movie that is not just about dance, it is about a creative process in general. And I think for me the reason why that is interesting is because I’m always trying to get better at what I do and at the way that I make art and so I think I’m fascinated with how other people do that because I get to spy on their way of doing things. I’m always picking things up from that and learning how to behave and how to get what you want and how to make better work and challenge yourself more and how to treat people and all those things and so I hope that people will walk away with a greater appreciation for that.

There’s never a sense of anyone being self-conscious. How did you make a safe environment for the people in the film so they could behave naturally?

A big part of that was the fact that I had already made a dance film two years ago so I had that that kind of leg up. The producers and I had a relationship with the company and the dancers already. Ellen Bar is a Director of Media at New York City Ballet so she shoots with them all the time.

So this is not a new experience for them. They are used to being filmed for promotional stuff. So I think the right combination of those two things and also of Justin being cool and saying it’s okay and his strength and letting us be there watch him figure this out and the same thing for the dancers. I think it sort of percolates down and the fact that he is cool he is okay with not being perfect on camera all the time really helps.

Your next project is a high-end Judd Apatow film. That must be quite a contrast.

I have done a lot of different kinds of films over the years and whether I am working as the director or cinematographer I think that is a really healthy thing. I think it refreshes you to do things in a new way on a new scale, you go back and forth and have to use different muscles to do your filmmaking. So I hope I can always do that, I hope that I can always do dramatically different projects back to back. I think it keeps you awake and engaged.

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Interview: Dogs on the Inside, Documentary About A Prison Program for Rescue Dogs

Posted on February 10, 2015 at 7:00 am

“Dogs on the Inside” is a profoundly moving documentary about a program that teaches prisoners how to care for rescue dogs. Seeing the dogs and the men in prison learn patience and trust from each other is touching and inspiring. I imagine it will attract the attention of Hollywood as it would make a great feature film.

The documentary is available today on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Instant Video, VUDU, and dogsontheinside.com. I spoke to directors Brean Cunningham and Douglas Seirup and Candido Santiago, a graduate of the program who appears in the film.

How did you first learn about this program?

BC: Doug and I were looking for a story about dogs that we wanted to be both compelling and kind of informative about how great dogs are. But we wanted it to have a little bit of an edge and we discovered this prison dog training program and thought it was both a no-brainer in the sense that the program existed and taking stray dogs and pairing them with prison inmates, I thought it was interesting. I think that was the story to bring to life on film.

What did the inmates learn from the dogs?

BC: I think the biggest thing that they learned was understanding, kind of getting outside of their own heads and learning about the benefits of helping others and in this case it was dogs.

DS: I think the most important thing they learned was that they are still human. If an image were to pop in your head of an inmate you might just think that of something negative and I think what this film does is remind people that wherever you are, if you are even an inmate it does not matter, you’re still human.

CS: From an inmate’s point of view, it was more often learning how to cope and deal with not only the other cons but also with dogs as well and growing with them as well as a person.

What are the qualities that are required for the inmates who participate?

DS: Before they can be allowed into the program, each of the inmates is thoroughly screened. What they are looking for is patience, responsibility, and trust, and most importantly caring. And overall they cannot be violent, they cannot have any type of violent history.

Are there other programs like this throughout the country?

DS: There are and since we started filming over three years ago they have been continuing to pop up all over the country.

And are there any studies being done of how effective they are or monitoring the participants after they leave?

BC: Yes. There is a great program called New Leash On Life USA, based in Philadelphia. And they are the gold standard for this type of prison program because they have measurable results and the recidivism rate for prison inmates coming out of Philadelphia prison system goes down about 50% by comparison to the average. These guys are actually staying out of jail because of what they do helps them get internships, help get them placed in jobs in animal care and those kinds of things. So it is much about a person as it is about an animal.

Do many of them chose to continue professionally with animal care when they get out?

CS: I want to be a zookeeper. I love animals in general. The person that gets into these dog programs, they have got to love animals first and foremost. If I could, I would own a farm and adopt all of them. Because I love animals in general but reality is that I can only take the step of helping the dogs that are in shelters. I’m going to be donating my time doing that in a shelter out in Springfield, Massachusetts. I’m going to get my education and try to see if I can become the very best zookeeper that there ever was in history.

Candido, tell me a little bit about your first experience in working with one of the dogs.

CS: My first experience was with Sam, who was a very scared dog, he was very skittish, he used to tremble when he first got there. He used to growl when anyone got close to him and it took me a little bit of time to actually get him comfortable with me. What I mean by that is, it took me a few days but I got half my body inside the crate in order for him to feel comfortable with me. Then once I was able to finally caress him and rub him, I guess he looked at me like “Wow! You are not what I expected.” So with that being said I carried on and everything, he was a Chihuahua and by the end of the term he got adopted to a very young, very beautiful kindhearted person. She got married, the lady that is Sam’s owner and they sent me pictures of Sam in a tuxedo, so I’m guessing he was the Best Dog.

When an animal has been abused and is afraid of people, how do you gain their trust?

CS: I know that for me it took a lot of patience first. I looked at Sam the way I looked at my own life. I could relate to the way he felt, the way he thought probably. And in the beginning when I tried to get close to him and he growls, I got up, kept walking around doing whatever I had to do in the room but I still talked to him and I told him “Don’t worry about it. I got you, I’ll take care of you, sooner or later you’ll come around.” And that’s basically it, you have got to have a lot patience and a lot of love for any animal that goes through something like that. I mean it’s horrendous to begin with but you have got to have a lot of understanding too behind it. I’ll say this too, it took a little bit of bribery too. I used to give them treats, and I mean, who doesn’t like treats? I love treats. I love candy bars so you give me a candy bar and I’ll do anything for one bar, how about that?

So you can identify.

CS: Yes, I could definitely, with Sam and with every dog that kept coming through there.

And what was the most important thing that you learned from the training that you got about working with the dogs?

CS: I learned a lot actually. The trainer that we had, her name is Paulette, she is a very good trainer. She taught us and it was installed in me by her to have patience but be firm, to be loving and caring at the same time. But also to try to understand their point of view as much as possible. It’s about them primarily, you’ve got to put them first before yourself. It’s like having a baby, when you have a baby, your baby comes first before yourself.

What do you want people to learn from this film?

DS: If they could adopt a dog that would be wonderful but that’s a lot of responsibility so I think one of the things that people can take away from this film is that they have the opportunity to make a difference on their own. And it is attainable for them, it is not too far out of reach for each person. And not only that but to remind people that everyone is equal and to believe in second chances.

BC: I think for me it is to remind people that there’s some really good things going on around the world. That is one of the motivations we had in looking for a story. It just goes to show that with effort and the right thoughts we can really create the magic in this world.

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