We mourn the loss of director Mike Nichols, who died yesterday at age 83, survived by his wife, television journalist Diane Sawyer. Nichols began as part of the 1950’s improvisational movement coming out of Chicago, and rose to fame as half of the comedy team Nichols and May, with Elaine May, who also became a director. Their humor was brainy and neurotic, part of the same genre that included stand-ups Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce and cartoonist Jules Feiffer. He then became one of the most gifted directors of the late 1960’s through the present day, winning all four in the EGOT awards, Emmys (“Wit,” “Angels in America”), a Grammy (best comedy album with May in 1962), Oscar (“The Graduate”), and multiple Tonys including awards as producer of “Annie,” and director of “Death of a Salesman,” “Spamalot,” and “Barefoot in the Park.” He also received the nation’s highest artistic honor, the Kennedy Center Award, and the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Nichols was born in Germany as Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky and immigrated to the United States when he was seven. He dropped out of pre-med at the University of Chicago to study at the legendary Actors Studio in New York with Lee Strasberg. His first Broadway directing job was Neil Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park,” a huge hit. He worked with Simon many more times, and Simon pays tribute to him in his book Rewrites: A Memoir as the smartest person in the world.
His first film was the groundbreaking “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” starring real-life battling spouses Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, followed by the even more groundbreaking “The Graduate,” a moment-defining film that spoke to what was then called the generation gap of the 1960’s and launched the careers of Dustin Hoffman and Simon and Garfunkel. Following an uneven version of the unfilmable “Catch-22,” he made the highly controversial “Carnal Knowledge,” starring Jack Nicholson, Candice Bergen, and Ann-Margret. The film, written by Jules Feiffer, had a then-highly controversial frankness about sex that got it banned as obscene in a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court ruled that it was not pornography.
Nichols’ other films include “Working Girl,” “Heartburn,” “The Birdcage,” “Silkwood,” and “Postcards from the Edge.” Actors loved working with him and some of the best, like Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson, worked with him many times. Only Nichols could have coaxed Melanie Griffith to what is by far her best performance in “Working Girl,” much less persuaded one of the most successful actors of all time, Harrison Ford, to appear in the film in a supporting role, but also one of his best and most natural and witty performances. Nichols was especially good with actors. Bergen, then very inexperienced, talked about how her helped her in the early scenes of “Carnal Knowledge.” When she was having a hard time finding the right note of nervousness and vulnerability for a college party scene, he had her wear a slip but no skirt while her close-ups were being filmed. In the same film he gave Ann-Margret a chance to show a depth and complexity no other director ever did and she was nominated for an Oscar for her performance. Cher was not an established actress when he cast her in “Silkwood,” and audiences were surprised to see how grounded and natural she was as the title character’s lesbian roommate.
His television work included the outstanding adaptation of “Wit,” with Emma Thompson as a professor dying of cancer.
Nichols always put top-notch performers in even the smallest roles in his films, and his music, cinematography, and design partners in filmmaking were superbly chosen. His taste was impeccable. He leaves behind an extraordinary legacy of work that will be appreciated for generations. May his memory be a blessing.
Interview: A.J. Edwards of the Lincoln Movie “The Better Angels”
Posted on November 16, 2014 at 8:00 am
A. J. Edwards is the writer and director of “The Better Angels,” a lyrical new film about the early years of Abraham Lincoln, when he was a boy growing up in a small log cabin. The title comes from Lincoln’s famous quote:
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
I very much enjoyed talking with him about making this movie.
I’m from Illinois and we take Abraham Lincoln very, very seriously. I have heard about him all my life growing up. I have been to his home in Springfield, the Lincoln Museum, and the Library. But I did not know about this cousin, whose memories of growing up with Lincoln provide the narration for the film. So tell me a little bit about how you learned about the cousin and his story.
Dennis Hanks, Abraham Lincoln’s cousin, is essential to understanding the Indiana years because he provides one of the best and most thorough accounts of that time. And it is all available in a text in the form of an interview conducted by a journalist named Eleanor Atkinson when Dennis was what must have been his late 80s or 90s. He was a very old man sitting by the fire and over a series of nights, Atkinston interviewed him and got all these precious memories of his that give us a full picture of Lincoln as a boy, told by man who was with him. And it’s hilarious and tragic and so it’s just bittersweet and it reads like Mark Twain.
Was it difficult to cast the boys?
The boys and girls were found through a year-long search throughout Kentucky and it was one led by producer Jake DeVito and Casting Director Stephanie Coley. They scoured schools and youth groups, churches, camps for over a year. And we looked at thousands and thousands of kids all from rural Kentucky. Children of coal miners and everything just as Kentucky as we could get. And all for their athleticism, being outdoorsy, thoughtful, ready to engage with the world, young and old people alike. So we didn’t want video gamers and internet kids and kids that may have a little more boredom to them. And also their accents, they have this beautiful Appalachian accents, the same one Lincoln spoke with, and so that was very important to us.
You begin the film with Lincoln’s famous quote about owing everything to his mother. Most people think he was speaking of Nancy Hanks but some people think that was really reference to his stepmother. Which do you think it was?
You’re absolutely right. That’s good research. There is disagreement about it and I think in fact maybe even the majority say that it was his biological mother Nancy, who was very dear to him. But the thesis of the film is how his stepmother was really a light to him in much darkness, the way that she guided him to the end of his life. She was just a positive force for good. And she is the one that really pulled him out of despair and grief when he was 10 years old. And she encouraged him towards education. She had a great amount of humanity. Her compassion, tolerance, gentleness — and their bond was a very special one. She also had a very beautiful interview that you can read when she was quite old. And the stories she tells are just very tender and there also some funny ones about him cutting up.
Where did you do your research?
We went to the Lincoln library in Springfield, went to the Boyhood Memorial in Indiana, went to his home as well in Springfield, the Coles County Cabin there in Lerna, and Thomas and Sarah Lincoln’s Cabin. We tried to travel around a lot and also read a lot over an extended period. Studying him is infectious and it’s a lifelong study. Anyone that picks up books about him you can’t stop, you’re it so fascinated.
Amazingly in a hundred years of cinema no one has ever shown his Indiana years.
Why do you think it’s so important to explore that?
Well, it’s the most mysterious chapter; it’s the one that most people don’t know. They know his birth in Kentucky, they know his lawyer years in Illinois. But the tragic events that befell him in Indiana as well as the hope and joy that he experienced are essential to understanding his character. So much of him was shaped during the decade and a little bit more in Indiana. And it was shaped mainly by the positive influences of his two mothers and his teacher Andrew Crawford, the Catholic and veteran.
And even in just the strength of his father. He’s a disciplinarian, he’s a harsh man but he still has integrity, a strong sense of faith. He built their church, attended it regularly. He was a primitive Baptist to oppose slavery and moved his family from Kentucky to Indiana to get away from the institution of slavery. And Indiana was a free state. It was brought into the union that way. And so all of these people Lincoln were a reflection of, the best in them he absorbed. And certainly a good amount of him was God-given and a miracle, his greatness I mean. But there was definitely so much that he was reflecting. And that is all to say his better angels that he was reflecting.
There are two elements of the look of the film that were very powerful. And one was the beauty of the natural world, living out in the wilderness. And the other is the isolation, the incredible isolation of that world. Both were conveyed visually in the film. So how do you think those really affected him?
Oh yes, it was wild country for sure as Carl Sandburg, the great Illinois poet described. He said it was “land unknown to the plough” in his biography of Lincoln. And so many wild animals. Lincoln and his father would go on bear hunts. And for sure the isolation must have affected him when his father left them during a very brutal winter in order to go find a new wife, which he did in Sarah Lincoln. He brought her home but during that time, during that absence, Lincoln was left to fend for himself with his sister and their 18-year-old cousin, Dennis. They were very lonely times. Dennis recounts them in that interview, they just sound very despairing. And when Sarah returned with Thomas to find these children, her description of them was that they looked hardly human. They were so malnourished and so dirty that it was her first task to feed them, dress them, bathe them which she does in the film. But nature is in the film as more than ornamentation, not just to be pretty but rather because that is their character, that was their life, they moved at the rhythm of nature be it Little Pigeon Creek that they lived beside, their source of water or the Ohio River which separated Indiana from Kentucky that was the main passageway by which all people traveled. There were the ponds and brooks that they enjoyed, the meadows, the fields that they worked. So many people are of a cynical view when they see the film and just talk about being pretty but no, it’s the locale and their entire universe.
Copyright Brothers K Productions 2014
I was very impressed by the way that the texture of the clothing seemed very authentic the way it came across in black and white.
The costume designer is a brilliant woman name Lisa Tomczeszyn and in this film she had quite a task ahead of her not only in the research that’s required and the authenticity that is expected in the costumes but also the fact that it’s a monochromatic palette. And so any film the goal is separation. You need people to separate from the background and in color that can be a lot easier, because blue and red are completely different, blue wall, red shirt, the actor will separate. But in black and white blue and red can be the same shade. And so we had to do many tests to figure out how to get them to stand out from the darkness of the trees or the lightness of the sky or the kind of mid tones that the grass would be when they were out in the meadows. And so she was always having to switch things out to be getting them to separate from the background. She did a beautiful job, she really did her research and one of my favourite costumes in the picture is the dark big coat Sarah Lincoln arrives in, which is very iconic looking. The bonnet that Diane Kruger wears just looks so cinematic.
I also loved the score of the film, which really helped to set the mood.
The music is in part an original score by Hanan Townshend but the majority of it is some classical music by an Armenian-American composer, Alan Hovhaness, and Aaron Copland. That Copland I really loved, it so emotional. It plays over the young boys reuniting after some time and they enjoyed some days together cutting up. Then there is a piece by 19th century Russian composer named Kalinnikov. That’s sort of the theme of the film and usually associated with the mothers. And then also there’s the work of 19th century German composer Bruckner and that’s a sort of grander theme that suggest the ideas of his growth every time its used.
What is it you hope people will take from the film?
One thing I don’t usually get a chance to speak about is a sense of the Calvinistic views of the time, the sense of destiny and faith that they were bound for something. It was not uncommon for families lose three or four siblings to sickness and death, a lot of children not living past three or four years old including Lincoln’s brother. He had a brother that died in infancy. If you lived to be 17, 18 years old that was quite an accomplishment, you had a greater sense of destiny that you were being preserved for something greater than yourself. There were forces in this world that were invisible to you that were guiding you always and sometimes guiding you through others, being the better angels.
But that sense of faith and destiny not only applies to all that Lincoln accomplished, some of the greatest accomplishments in this country’s history, but it applies to all of us that the film should act as a mirror that our circumstances now don’t determine the ones that will come later. Maybe we started in poverty, we started in sickness or we faced a job loss, divorce, death but those things aren’t eternal. And that hope, faith charity, these ideas can guide us to something better. And just as Lincoln pulled himself out of deep grief and loss and suffering, and was also pulled out of those things by his stepmother, a new chapter began for him. A door was opened and he was led further down the road to his great destiny. And so this movie is just a slice of that but you can make it about anyone because we all have these chapters of our lives. And so hopefully it’s a family film that young and old alike can enjoy because of these universal ideas. You know a picture without cynicism and instead it’s one that is hopefully filled with light for people.
Interview: Gina Prince-Bythewood of “Beyond the Lights”
Posted on November 14, 2014 at 9:28 am
It was an honor to speak to one of my favorite filmmakers, Gina Prince-Bythewood, writer/director of one of this year’s best romantic dramas, “Beyond the Lights.” As I spoke to her, she had just received word that Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who stars as Noni in the film, had been nominated for a Gotham award.
Copyright 2014 Relativity Media
You must be so proud of this great recognition for Gugu Mbatha-Raw.
It was a pretty phenomenal morning to wake up to that. Gugu started working on the character really for two years but really hard-core for six months in terms of being in the dance studio for hours, a couple of days a week and then the vocal studio with the vocal coach and the amount of work she put into this character knowing that this character is a hundred and eighty degrees from who Gugu is. You know how bold and brave she had to be to put this out there and to go there and we knew we had to go there given what is happening in the industry now and needing to compete with that and having the knowledge that you have to lead an audience into a world before you can lead them out. So, the fact that she bought into the vision of the piece and really went there — it is just a beautiful thing that she is being recognized and not only for the incredible work she did but in terms of just the preparation. But she gives a really phenomenal performances. I love that it is being recognized.
As a woman who writes and directs, you did a particularly good job of addressing the objectifying elements of what goes on in show business today. Was that an important theme for you to address?
Absolutely. first as a woman who is seeing what happens especially in the music industry and the blueprints that the young artists have to follow to make any sort of noise when they first come out, it really is hypersexualized. But also as a mother of two boys in seeing the trickle-down effect that is happening, the hyper sexualization becoming normal and teen girls and teen boys – and the things that they are doing now are very frightening to me as a mother. And we really are hoping that the film can change the conversation.
I like what you said a moment ago by taking people into the world before you can take them out of it. Tell me a little bit about what that means to you.
Copyright 2014 Relativity Media
For me to put this out there, I mean it was hard shooting the music video as at the beginning of the film and putting that out there in the world and telling an actor to put that energy out. We went there because it was necessary. This is the character that five minutes later is on the edge of a balcony about to jump and we really needed to show the psychological effects on a 10-year-old girl who just wants to sing, who’s probably in front of a mirror singing into a hairbrush and no one dreams about being in an artist and putting that kind of energy out but to make this dramatic jump to that music video and I want the immediate question of how did that happen, how did that little girl become this and what is the psychological effects of that film. So we had to push it and we had to go there because it was important to the story that we were telling.
You have said that you were very glad to be working with Nate Parker again on this film. What makes him one of your favorite actors?
I love Nate as an actor because he has no inhibitions and he would just go for it and that karaoke was a scene that he had to do that. Obviously he is not a singer and he just wanted to do it live and whatever came out of his mouth came out of his mouth. There was a real crowd out there but he just threw himself into it and it is so great the reactions that the audience get when they see it because this character has been so reserved and serious. It was really important to see them thrive in Mexico, both of them letting go and finding their voice and falling in love. And that was a really important aspect to see his character see what Noni brings out in him as well as what he brings out in Noni.
What is next for you?
The next one I am going to write, I’m very excited about it but I can’t talk about it too much. It does deal with female friendships. All my films have a personal aspect and this one is no different, so I’m very excited. And it will be a little more comedic in tone.
You create some of the best love stories that I’ve seen on screen and it is a compliment to say they remind me of the classic romances of the ‘40s with actresses like Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck. Are you a fan of that era of movies?
That is a tremendous compliment, thank you. I have to say the great things about film school is being exposed to films that you normally would never see and you get to seei them on the big screen, films like “The Apartment,” which is I think is such a great film influenced on me, “The Rose” is a fantastic film that came out in the ‘70s, “Lady Sings the Blues,” I love that type of romance, to wrecked by movie emotionally and then be built back up and leave inspired. Those are the kinds of films I love to watch and so for me it is writing what I want to see.
Interview: Laura Poitras of the Edward Snowden Documentary “Citizenfour”
Posted on November 5, 2014 at 12:00 pm
I normally begin my interviews by asking for permission to record the conversation for my notes. But there was something eerily resonant about that routine request when I spoke to journalist Laura Poitras, director of the new documentary “Citizenfour,” about Edward Snowden, a contractor for the NSA who leaked massive amounts of confidential information about the pervasive and invasive intrusion of government spies into private exchanges by phone or email, even without any evidence of a threat to national security. Snowden first contacted Poitras, identifying himself only as “citizenfour.” They agreed to meet in Hong Kong, and most of the film takes place in his hotel room, as, joined by Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, they prepare for the release of the information and their stories about it. Even though we know what happened, it is tense, gripping, and mesmerizing to see those last few moments before Snowden’s face was on front pages and every newscast around the world.
Poitras agreed to be taped, noting that she had to assume she was always being recorded. I began by asking her about the limitations she felt as a filmmaker in making a visually dynamic film while being confined to just one room. “At first when I walked in, it was like ‘oh wow, this represents limitations here. We are still stuck in this room, the walls, there is so much white in the room, there is no space.’ That was my first impression but I think actually in the editing room I realized that there are ways in which it was really a blessing, that you get this kind of claustrophobic feeling that increases over the days and that time sort of stops and then slowly we feel the outside world coming in. So I do think in the end it turned out to be a positive thing. And then in terms of the dynamics that happened, it was pretty extraordinary for the building of events – from the first meeting to the publication to the global reaction, and then ultimately to Snowden leaving and going underground so I feel it was really interesting in the fact that is kind of awkward in this contained place. Honestly I was thinking there is a lot of white in this room. White is not easy to work with but I think in retrospect I am appreciative of that circumstance.”
I asked how to achieve the right balance between secrecy and privacy. “From what I’ve seen since 9/11, we’ve eroded civil liberties in the name of national security and I think that the government is becoming increasingly secretive about what it is doing. People know less and less and so for instance in terms of NSA surveillance, there is a public law, and then the government has the secret law or secret interpretation of that law. And I think that is really problematic. I don’t think that these kinds of policies or decisions should be made behind the scenes by people in secret with no public debates or inner knowledge. I think that is problematic and I think we’ve been drifting more and more into increasing secrecy in the government. It’s a problem. Elected officials are there on our behalf and we should know what our government is doing. I think is also false to say it is making us more secure because what we have right now is a situation where the U.S. is going around the world and making more enemies than it is making friends. We should re-think our policies. James Risen has a book, Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War. This idea of the endless war — we have been at war since 2001 with these various countries and now we are seeing some of the unintended consequences of that. I would question whether or not the policy direction that the U.S. is going is actually making us any safer and I think there are lots of evidence to suggest that it is not. And collecting information on people who are suspected of nothing on a large massive scale doesn’t make us safer either because then here we have intelligence agencies that are drowning in too much information plus we are violating fundamental rights of our citizens around the world.”
She disputes the argument that the massive collection of data makes it less personally invasive. “I don’t think so at all, I think if you look at for instance journalists, if you’re collecting the call records of all journalists and you want to know who are their sources then you just query their phone records and so I think that it can be used in very invasive ways. I don’t think that because they collect so much it means that it is less invasive.” And she does not think that this level of surveillance would have prevented 9/11. “The CIA knew that there were people who came into this country and they didn’t pass the information to the FBI. So that is not example that they are swimming information it is that they didn’t communicate it to the people who could have prevented what happened.
Poitras is concerned that the depth and breadth of the information collected is itself a security risk. “There are people saying something like five million people have security clearances in this country. That is a lot of people. And there is more and more contracting out to other people who are not even working for the government. They are working for private companies and all have access to this amount of information.” I asked her to compare the intrusion of government with the apparently even more massive use of personal data by corporations like Google and Facebook. ” I think it is different. The power that the government has is very different than the power that the private company has. So I think there are actual big differences in terms of how this information can be used. But I think they people should also questions about how much information these companies have about us.” And, she pointed out, the government can use the information collected by Google and Facebook as well. “I also think there is a question of consent. When do you consent to share information and what is not consent.”
She respects the work of Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall in trying to establish more accountability and better policies, “but I also think that they could go further. They have immunity, so that they can come forward and let the public know what is happening if they have concerns about the scope and extent of these kind of programs. I’d love to see a real inquiry into the extent of surveillance and I think that those two senators are the forefront of pushing for that, but I urge them to do more.” And is Edward Snowden a hero? “That is not a question I engage in. I just find it a bit reductive and so I will pass on that question.”
Documentary filmmaking is now one of the most dynamic and compelling forms of journalism, so I asked Poitras what a movie can do in reporting that print cannot. Her answer was more about the timing issue than the format.
“They are totally different. They are both bound by by journalistic principles of making sure you do your fact checking and all that kind of stuff but it also needs to have more lasting meaning and raise more universal questions. Otherwise it is not going to be interesting. When I work on a news story, it has a certain impact but in a documentary, we were very clear in editing room our job is not to break news. That I can continue to report on this material and work on the news but the film needs to say something that is not just interesting for a certain amount of time but that will have lasting resonance and so for me, it is a question about individuals who take personal risks and that becomes more of a universal story. Yes, it is about NSA and NSA surveillance but it’s about human nature in different ways.”
Interview: Todd and Jedd Wider about the Bullying Documentary “Mentor”
Posted on October 24, 2014 at 3:56 pm
Producers Todd and Jedd Wider generously took time to answer my questions about their documentary, “Mentor,” the story of two teenagers who committed suicide following relentless bullying. The film, which received Honorable Mention for Best Documentary Feature at the 2014 Woodstock Film Festival this past weekend, will be shown this week at the Austin Film Festival:
Sunday, October 26 at 12:00pm @ Rollins Theatre
Thursday, October 30 at 7:00pm @ IMAX Theatre
How did you first hear of the problems in Mentor?
We read about the problems several years ago as we were researching an idea to examine the concept of bystander versus upstander behavior.
Was it difficult to get the cooperation of the families?
No, they were very willing to help and wanted to share their stories.
What is the status of the lawsuit?
The Mohat lawsuit was settled, the Vidovic lawsuit is on appeal.
If you could have interviewed the principal or school counselor, what would you have asked?
All school representatives refused to speak with us. We would have asked one simple question: why?
If you could have interviewed the bullies, what would you have asked?
This film really is about the victims and the devastation that bullying can bring to individual families and the community at large.
What makes kids into bullies?
We feel that at this moment in time, with the rise of internet and social media, bullying is increasingly easier because it is more anonymous and impulse control is reduced to simply deciding to click a button on your computer. The anonymity has made the bullying more vicious because one can seemingly bully with almost no ramification. Look at what happened after Robin Williams tragic death with the amount of hateful tweets that his daughter received. In the past, when we grew up, you had to look someone in the eye if you bullied them. Now, you do not. The internet has essentially created a generation of cowards. As to why kids do it? One root cause has always bothered us which is the choice to pick on the outsider. You rarely see the captain of the football team or the head of the cheerleading squad getting bullied. It happens, but it is more rare. Usually it is a child that is somehow branded an outsider–a person that dresses a bit differently, or perhaps is smarter, or speaks differently, or thinks about things differently. There is a real tragedy here because we are a nation built from diversity. It was the diversity of all of the people that came here and brought with them different ideas and skills that helped build this nation. We should be celebrating diversity, not denigrating it.
Did the school take any steps in suicide prevention education and support?
You should ask the school this. We would argue not nearly enough was done.
What can schools do to be more effective? Are there any communities that have responded more effectively?
We feel that schools and parents need to teach kindness and empathy to children. One excellent program that helps kids learn basic civics and decency is Facing History and Ourselves which is available in many school around the country and internationally. If your school doesn’t offer this program or a similar program, ask your school administrators to bring it to your district.
. This idea of the endless war — we have been at war since 2001 with these various countries and now we are seeing some of the unintended consequences of that. I would question whether or not the policy direction that the U.S. is going is actually making us any safer and I think there are lots of evidence to suggest that it is not. And collecting information on people who are suspected of nothing on a large massive scale doesn’t make us safer either because then here we have intelligence agencies that are drowning in too much information plus we are violating fundamental rights of our citizens around the world.”