Interview: Nanette Burstein of ‘Going the Distance’

Posted on September 2, 2010 at 8:00 am

Drew Barrymore and her real-life on-and-off boyfriend Justin Long appear together in a very contemporary romantic comedy called “Going the Distance.” I spoke to director Nanette Burstein about why it had to be R-rated, working with actors who have their own romantic history, and why they changed the early version of the script to make the characters older.
Sometimes real-life couples don’t come across well on screen, but this time it seemed that the off-screen chemistry of Drew Barrymore and Justin Long really came across through their characters. How did you know that would work and what was it like to work with them?
I spent time with both of them. You could see why they really enjoy each other’s company and feel so comfortable together. They have such strong chemistry onscreen it was a huge advantage for the movie. Drew is enormously charming, which is why we all fall in love with her on screen. And she’s a total professional, incredibly experienced, who has been doing this since she was a baby, so she knows the business very well and is a great collaborator. Fifty percent of the humor of the movie was improvised, based on the comic abilities of the actors.
I also loved Christina Applegate in the film as Drew Barrymore’s sister.
She is such an enormously talented actress and a great comic actress. Not only would she work well as Drew’s sister — they look like they could be sisters — she was perfect for the part and brought so much to it.
Did you make any important changes to the original script?
The very first script the characters were younger, in their 20’s. We made them a little older because the stakes are so much higher at that age. The issue of your career and love live become even more intense if you haven’t figured it out by then.
What decisions did you make about the look of the film?
I wanted the film to be very honest. Economics is definitely an issue. I wanted the production design to show the kind of real life they have. Often in romantic comedies and TV shows people don’t have a lot of money and they have these fabulous apartments. I wanted it to look like the places these people would live. And Christina’s character is very organized, meticulous character and the house needed to reflect that as well.
Most romantic comedies are a PG-13. Why did this need to be an R?
We wanted to be really funny and really honest. The reference would be “Knocked Up,” not a fairy tale romantic comedy but a really honest romantic comedy.
One thing that works very well in the film is the interplay between the guys. Was that a challenge for you as a woman?
I hang out with a lot of guys and my husband’s my best friend. It wasn’t a problem at all. It’s the same way men direct women and can make them honest and realistic. And sometimes we understand men better than they understand themselves.
What movies inspired you to become a film-maker?
I grew up watching the movies of the 70’s, Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola. The funny honest, character movies are the ones I love the most.
What do you think is funny?
When we make fun of our own frailties or vulnerabilities, anything can be comedy in the right hands. There is a scale and you have to find just the right note to make each scene work. Some you have to play a little over the top and some you have to be more subtle to make it funnier. It isn’t until you block it that you find out which way it will work.
What do you look for in the projects you work on?
It’s important for me in the films I make, whether documentary or fiction, that the characters are likable, so the audience can root for them. That’s not always true of movies. A lot of times in romantic comedies the female character can be uptight and neurotic and kind of repelling. They can be flawed, but I want to be able to fall in love with them and root for them.

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Directors Interview

Interview: Aviva Kempner of ‘Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg”

Posted on August 30, 2010 at 3:59 pm

Aviva Kempner is the director of the outstanding documentary, “Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg,” just out on DVD. I interviewed her about making the film and new material and surprising discovery she added to the DVD features.
What surprised you most in researching this film?
I never knew about the blacklisting and sad demise of fellow actor Philip Loeb, who played Jake Goldberg on first season of “The Goldbergs.” Very talented and union organizer Loeb was targeted and driven from the show even though Berg fought hard to keep him on. Losing his livelihood Loeb killed himself 55 years ago on September 1st. He taught many fine actors, including Kirk Douglas, and directed seasons of the Marx Brothers in “Room Service.” He lost his life to a disease called the blacklist.
What was it about the Goldbergs that made their stories seem so universal?
It was so delightfully about the joys and woes of family at a time that so many immigrant and accented speaking families were living together and struggling to succeed.
Is ethnic material handled differently now? What’s better and what have we
lost?
Sadly those ethnic characters are no longer the norm unlike those delightful characters on early radio and television. I was saddened to see “Ugly Betty” go off the air as it celebrated the aspirations of a Latin immigrant family. Hopefully more of those shows will emerge again.
Is there anyone today who is a performer/writer/producer the same way that Berg
was?
Tina Fey and Oprah are as multi-tasked and powerful women in popular culture today. I was honored to bring Gertrude Berg, the most famous woman in America you have never heard of, to the screen. I loved that a combination of senior citizens, who watched the show, and young viewers, especially feminists, flocked to the movie theatres. Now the DVD can expose the rest of America to talented Gertrude Berg.
What was her biggest challenge? Her biggest triumph?
Her biggest challenge was fighting the blacklist of Philip Loeb and the her biggest triumph was winning the first Emmy for an actress sixty years ago and then go on to also claim a Tony award for “Majority of One.”
What kinds of extras are on the DVD?
The jam-packed DVD includes interviews with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, actor Ed Asner, producers Norman Lear (“All in the Family”) and Gary David Goldberg (“Family Ties”), and NPR correspondent Susan Stamberg, as well as early career appearances of Anne Bancroft and Steve McQueen. The bonus features are chock-full with over two hours of material including my own audio commentary, episodes of “The Goldbergs” (including a surprising 1954 episode featuring Molly and Jake in the same bed together!), Gertrude Berg’s guest appearances with Edward R. Murrow and on Ed Sullivan, additional scenes and interviews, a Gertrude Berg recipe, an essay from the director and much, much more.

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Directors Interview

Interview: Rob Reiner of ‘Flipped’

Posted on August 27, 2010 at 8:00 am

Rob Reiner has given us a middle-school version of one of his most beloved films, “When Harry Met Sally….” with his latest movie, “Flipped,” based on the popular book by Wendelin Van Draanen. I talked to him about what all of his movies have in common, what men and women learn from one another, and the secret tribute to his father, Carl Reiner, hidden in this film.
I know for most people first love does not last….
I always believe that the two kids in the movie eventually got married. It does work out some times. My friend Billy Crystal married his high school sweetheart and they’ve only been with each other their whole lives.
This movie has some themes you have dealt with before.
I make the same movie over and over again. I always have it where the girl is much more emotionally developed and the boy can’t see beyond the end of his nose and it takes him a while to figure out that this girl in front of him is this great girl he should be with.
I think ultimately for men, they really do need a woman to help drag them into maturity. Girls, from an early age, have a much greater sense of their emotional make-up, they’re much more developed. Boys run around like idiots trying to figure stuff out and if they’re lucky they find a girl that can put up with them and help them grow up.
This is not just a love story; it is a story about two very different families and children gaining a deeper understanding of their families.
It was very important to show the difference in the two families, the values of the families, and how it affected the kids as they were growing up, laying the foundation. Juli’s mother loves her children and is so proud of them and you see that love and support. In Bryce’s family it’s more about material things. On the surface they have this idyllic post-war suburban lifestyle with the cars and the perfect house and everything but underneath they are lacking.
If Bryce’s grandfather hadn’t come to live with them, Bryce might have gone off on the wrong track. Bryce’s grandfather is the moral compass of the movie. He’s the one who points out what a great girl Juli is. The line he has: “Character is formed at a very early age. I’d hate to see you swim so far out you can’t swim back” — that to me is critical in the film because it starts putting Bryce on the right path.
It’s very difficult for a young kid. Up until those moments you look up to your father like a god in a way. You then start seeing that he’s human. But it’s very hard for a kid to go against his father.
Did you worry about confusing the audience by switching back and forth between two versions of the same incidents?
I was worried about being repetitive. It’s that way in the book but I wondered if audiences would sit through the same scene played over again. I kept going back to how the book affected me. Whenever I finished Bryce’s chapter I was dying to see what Juli’s take on it would be. It was always different. There was always new information. And so I said, “If this is keeping me engaged as a reader, it will work in the film, too.” You’re not really seeing the same thing. Girls and boys just see things differently. I think that’s true for our whole lives! I think it’s our job as men to try to understand the nature of women and women’s job to understand the nature of men. We go through our lives trying to do that.
The scene with Juli visiting her disabled uncle with her father is very touching.
That whole sequence with the uncle is really the most important sequence in the movie because it shows what’s important in the Baker family, the values that Juli is raised with. They don’t have some things because they have to take care of the uncle. Even though the mother has a momentary frustration, she tells Juli that these are the values that we cherish.
Madeline Carroll is really lovely in the part. How did you find her?
I saw her in “Swing Vote” and asked her to come in to read. We had about 30-40 girls but she was first. She was perfect! I said to the casting director, “That’s it. We’ve found Juli.” She’s adorable but not overtly beautiful in a flashy way. It’s just this incredible depth-full beauty that she has. She’s got this great spunky character and a little bit of a tomboy quality. And her acting craft is as developed as any adult actor I’ve ever worked with. It’s just uncanny. She was 13 when we made the film and it would floor me every time. And then with Callen McAuliffe , that was hard. You can’t find boys that age who are good actors. They’re usually running around playing sports. He was a soccer player who was injured and got into acting as a lark. Somebody sent us a tape and we looked at it and I was amazed. Here’s this kid with a thick Aussie accent and he can turn it on and off like a water faucet. He would actually spot before I did when he would go off and slip back into an Australian accent on a word.
If you’re smart you cast people who are right for the part and you’re 90 percent there. I told them to play it naturally and not to force it and if they went wrong I would tell them. But that hardly ever happened.
The name of the street the kids live on — is that from “The Dick Van Dyke Show” created by your father?
We lived at 48 Bonnie Meadow Road and my dad set “The Dick Van Dyke Show” at 148 Bonnie Meadow Road. The street in this movie is Bonnie Meadow Lane, which is my way of paying tribute to my youth and my dad’s show.

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Interview: Yael Hersonski of ‘A Film Unfinished’

Posted on August 19, 2010 at 8:00 am

For decades, our impressions of the Holocaust have been formed by the images that survive and by the memories of those who were there. Now, as we near a time when the experience will no longer be within the memory of anyone alive, we rely even more on the documentation that is available. Although we recognize its limits, we recognize that it is a starting point.
“A Film Unfinished” combines some of the most well-known, intensely studied, and now-iconic images of the Warsaw Ghetto with some newly-discovered outtake footage that adds context and a great deal of new information about what we thought we knew and understood. Until now, what we have seen was the story the Nazis wanted to tell about the community where Jews were sent to live before they were sent to concentration camps. With the new footage, we are better able to understand what was really going on. The film opened yesterday in New York and it opens tomorrow in LA and on Sept. 24 in Washington, D.C.
In the New York Times, Jeanette Catsoulis called “A Film Unfinished“:

remarkable as much for its speculative restraint as for its philosophical reach. Moving methodically reel by reel and acknowledging the “many layers of reality,” the director creates a palimpsest of impressions from multiple, meticulously researched sources representing both victims and oppressors.

I interviewed Israeli director Yael Hersonski about making the movie as she was preparing to introduce the film and lead a discussion at the Washington DC Jewish Community Center.
It is fascinating that you took footage made by the Nazis to tell a lie and combined it with outtakes to make it tell a story that is truer to the actual experience.
I don’t think I am showing the truth — it is too big of a notion. I just show what happens when we don’t decontexualize these images as if it is objective documentations of history. That is the way I was educated to see it, as though it was made by history itself. When I saw this footage, visually, I felt the cameraman standing behind the camera with his own idea of limited reality, his own choices. He was serving the purposes of his commanders. The cameraman claims he did not completely understand the purposes of what he was doing. He refers to “the rich ones” without acknowledging that it was staged.
Maybe the greatest discovery of the research of this film was finding the protocols of the cameraman who took these images. You can hear him describe what he remembers he was shooting as you see the images. When I read the protocols for the first time, I was overwhelmed. I realized that everything I thought I understood was distorted by the way it was used. It’s a general visual background for so many different stories.
Something like 95% of the imagery of the Holocaust was shot by the perpetrators for their own purposes. The Nazis were the only ones who could document during the war. We have the documentation of the liberation of the camps by Americans and others but while the war was going on the only ones to take pictures were the Nazis themselves. When we say “to remember, not to forget” in Holocaust education, our memories are formed by these distorted portrayals of what was going on. So we have to understand that this footage was shot from a very specific point of view, to separate the point of view from the image, the cinematic manipulation from what suggests itself as reality.
How were the outtakes discovered?
The old footage was found in 1954. Then in 1998, two researchers, one American, Cooper C. Graham, and one English, Edwin Wood, were looking for footage from the 1936 Olympic games. They were looking in a film vault in an Air Force base in Ohio, of all places. They saw two film cans with “Das Ghetto” written on them. They knew the old footage of course so they immediately recognized what this was. They got in touch with the Library of Congress, which got in touch with the Holocaust Museum. This included nine minutes in color, which is very rare, very powerful. I realized that my reference for the Holocaust in color is Hollywood films, not reality. It looked like a Steven Spielberg movie, not the real thing. Our vision is so defined by the black and white images we all know that it does not seem right somehow to see it in color. That, too, should make us question the way our understanding is influenced and defined by the limited documentation we have available.
It is haunting to see in the footage recently discovered the cameramen themselves, emphasizing the artificiality of the situation. And then you add to that, giving us his comments.
Suddenly he has a face, he’s looking at us for a second. It’s not this far away black and white, almost symbolic image; he’s here. I wanted to prove to myself the specificity and artificiality of these images.
What was the Nazi passion for documentation? What were they hoping to achieve?
Germany was the most advanced nation in Europe for photography and cinematography. They were obsessed about it. The soldiers traveled to their front lines with their own private cameras. The documentation was massive. Ninety percent were destroyed during the last days of the war. We can only speculate on what they were trying to achieve. We do have one clue. The Nazi minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, wrote in his diary four days before this filming began that he told Himmler, now when they start to move the Jews to the east, for “the final solution” process, it is urgent to make as many films as possible to educate the next generation. They wanted to establish the museum of the future in Prague. It would have been a memorial site for the Jewish race according to their own narrative. This would be “the last snapshot” of daily Jewish life, with the upper classes corrupted, indifferent, immoral, and the cause of poverty and diseases.
They took their own atrocities and shot it as if it was caused by the Jews. The most powerful propaganda is not entirely lies; they know how to combine what is true with what they want the story to be.
How did you find the survivors who were there during this filming?
Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial museum in Israel, has lists of survivors. Many have already died. We found four women who were still alive. This was the most urgent part of the film-making so it was the first thing we did. I invited each one of them alone to screen the footage to make it as intense as could be so maybe they would remember things even they did not know they knew. It was one of the most emotional and exhausting part of making the film. And of course it was hard for them. But these women felt it was urgent for them to interpret this silent footage as those who were there, who were hiding from the film crew, to have the last word, the final word over these images.
It’s the most truthful way to remember something that has meaning. We cannot understand numbers like six million. We can understand someone looking at us or talking to us and saying, “I was here.”

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Directors Documentary Interview

Interview: Lionel Chew of ‘long-distance princess’

Posted on July 17, 2010 at 8:00 am

This isn’t the way he envisioned using his Ph.D. in Sociology from Stanford. But after deciding he wasn’t going to be an academic after all, Lionel Chew brought his knowledge of sociology into the making of the feature film “long-distance princess” (in lower-case because it’s based on a screen name). The movie, which is a teen romance and comedy, finished post-production earlier this year. His goal is to fill a void in values-based movies geared toward youth.
“There’s a dearth of movies that communicate something meaningful to today’s teens, and I want to fill that gap,” offers Chew, who is also a licensed minister. Dr. Chew was nice enough to take time to answer my questions.

Hollywood movies overwhelmingly seem geared toward teenagers. What is it
that makes movies like the “Twilight” series so powerful for kids in that age
group?
In general terms, I think the producers have tapped into the teens’ collective
psyche. They’ve provided vehicles for them to experience vicariously emotions
and lifestyles that are either forbidden or inaccessible. Or they’ve crafted
a statement that validates the youths’ thoughts and longings. It could also
be those things in tandem. But as for Twilight, specifically, I think it’s a
unique phenomenon. I believe several factors work together to make the series
powerfully attractive to teens (or at least to the girls): 1) A
pre-legitimation before it hit the big screen thanks to a devoted fan base of
its books; 2) An attractive and believable lead actress who successfully
embodies a readily identifiable, every-girl persona; 3) Good-looking,
co-leading males, with sculpted physiques to tantalize the girls’ awakening
sexuality; 4) Dramatic tension in the possibility of being destroyed by a
ruthless vampire clan as well as the uncertainty of which of the two male
friends of the lead character, Bella, will eventually win her love; 5) The
vicarious experience of being passionately desired and pursued with an undying
and unconditional love by Bella’s two suitors; and 6) The novel idea that
there are actually such things as not only vampires and werewolves but also
good ones.
What differences do teenagers and adults have in the way they see movies?
Why do teenagers so often want to see the same thing — often the same movie
— over and over?
I’ve observed that usually adults are so much more cynical and critical than
teenagers. In the socialization process, adults are conditioned to think
analytically and professionally and to have professional taste. So it is with
movies. Everyone’s a film critic. I believe it’s also a natural part of the
cognitive maturation process. Adults have been exposed to so much stimuli
throughout their life spans that the mind has been trained to focus
selectively on and retain only that which is essential and non-processed.
What is tangential, trivial or already similar is dismissed in mili-seconds.
As for movies, very few things seem novel. What is new is processed quickly
into already established and comfortable interpretive categories. Then the
adult mind immediately moves on to more important things, like figuring out
whether to get the sedan or minivan. On the other hand, teens (and those
younger) are open to boatloads of stimuli as new. They’re like sponges.
Beside the cognitive, on the emotional level they enjoy things that they can
identify with and seem cool. They can relive those experiences again and
again as a form of positive self-reinforcement. Resolving narrative tension
is not nearly so important as affirming cultural identification. “Yeah, I
know what happens, so what? It’s awesome!!” And movies that resonate with
them also foster a sense of stability and familiarity at an age and in a world
wrought with tumultuous changes. They offer a rare level of security and
comfort as the teens endure an often very uncomfortable stage of life.
What does studying sociology help you understand about teenagers?
One thing that my sociological perspective has helped me understand is the
significance and prevalence of status. One of my areas of focus while at
Stanford was social stratification, which happens in all groups and in all
areas of life. So, naturally, I’m alert to its presence and dynamic. And
teens are also very sensitive to it. That’s why in junior highs and high
schools everywhere cliques are not only ubiquitous but also very well-defined.
And just about everybody knows who the high status, mid-status and low status
cliques are. And if you don’t, you’re probably on the bottom. In
“long-distance princess,” I do highlight this, but also poke fun at it,
because, in my opinion, everyone’s a little too obsessed with it, if not
consciously then subconsciously. A large part of the main character’s quest
is not just seeking love but breaking rank.
Why do you think so few movies communicate meaningfully to teenagers?
Most Hollywood executives are not out to communicate but to market. Money,
aka the prohibitive cost of making and marketing a film, so dominates the
landscape that executives–the money men–have reign of the regime and not the
artists, visionaries nor auteurs, of whom the latter are now industry relics.
Studios can’t afford to take risks on niche movies that don’t have obvious
mainstream allure. And, so they make movies that appeal viscerally with the
lowest common denominators (explosions, skin, weed, 3D, etc.) to fill seats in
the theaters.
What were your favorite movies when you were a teenager?
Wow, I’m not sure if I should admit this! But my favorites were “Star Wars,”
“Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and, yes, “Saturday Night Fever.” The
one that has influenced my filmmaking perspective today (at least consciously)
would be “Star Wars,” only because I know that its creator, George Lucas,
wrote the script, paying careful attention to employ hero myths that were
supposedly embedded in our collective subconscious. Similarly, when I wrote
“long-distance princess,” I purposefully employed common themes and motifs
underlying the princess archetype.
How did the idea for the “long-distance princess” come about?
I wanted to reach teens with something positive and affirming, knowing that
most Hollywood fare hasn’t been meeting this need. Teens today are assailed
by so many confusing messages and, given today’s post-modernized milieu of
morals in flux, aren’t sure where to turn. So they depend on their peers and
the media to be arbiters and gatekeepers of mores and style, however
unqualified. This creates a vacuum of positive messages and models and a
misguided glorification of the material, physical and superficial. The
pressure to conform to the resulting draconian social norms is paralyzing.
It’s not surprising that tragically the teen suicide rate in our nation has
been rising, especially among girls . To combat all this, I purposed to make
a movie that showed that someone cares about them and their struggles and that
ethics and convictions are still powerfully relevant. I also wanted to let
them know there’s real hope.
What were the most unexpected challenges you faced in making the film?
It was the difficulty of post-production. We had unforeseen equipment and
compatibility issues with the footage and editing system in the beginning and
middle of the process that nearly scuttled the project as well as my sanity.
Eventually, after endless hours of consultation with various “experts” and
simple, blind experimentation, all of it was finally resolved, which I really
consider a minor miracle. I’m just glad I can now communicate with you here
instead of some half-way house.
What is your favorite scene in the movie?
Ah, so hard to chose, when after all, all of it’s your baby. I’ll need to
choose among those that won’t give away the movie, but I’d say it’s the scene
at the beach where the two lead characters, Lisa and Todd, share their deepest
dreams. It sounds cliche, but I feel their exchange is poignantly real.
Overlooking the gentle roll of the ocean, they pine for those things that seem
hopelessly idealistic. Yet, they’re so earnestly honest. They give each
other a chance to peek into the most treasured part of themselves, and this is
when their hearts really start to touch.
What do you want to do next?
Right now, I’m working hard to attract the attention of potential distributors
for the movie by building interest and momentum. As for fan reaction, it’s
been great! Teens at preview screenings have gotten so into it that they’ll
actually shout things at the characters on the screen or scream in excitement
at certain parts. Obviously, I wanted the movie to connect with them, but,
honestly, I was really surprised it happened to this extent. And the parents
who’ve seen it have also been quite positive. This has really convinced me to
try to secure a wide, theatrical release. As for future films, I’ve got a lot
of ideas on the easel. But I’d like to give audiences the chance to
experience this one first.