Coming Soon: the Veronica Mars Movie
Posted on February 26, 2014 at 8:22 pm
Related Tags:
Interview: Roma Downey and Mark Burnett on “Son of God”
Posted on February 26, 2014 at 8:00 am
“I just put on hand cream, so I can’t shake your hand,” Roma Downey said as I walked into the room. “You’ll just have to get a hug.” Fine with me!
I was there to talk to Downey and her husband, Mark Burnett, about “Son of God,” adapted from their ground-breaking television series, “The Bible,” and released in theaters this week, in time for Lent.
I know you had an overwhelming response to the television series. Tell me about the comments that you got that were most meaningful for you.
MB: I think the biggest comments initially were the result of the viewership; it being the number one show of the night. I think they were surprised there was a big audience. It was the number one show of the night and then of course they repeated it and the repeats beat most of the new shows. It just became like this wave and all press; faith press and secular press, like to get on board with something is that hot. And so, the big discussion’s for five weeks. Whoa, everyone is talking about the Bible! Everyone is talking about the Bible!
RD: We’ve been so humbled and excited as we travel around the country now with the film, “Son of God,” letting people know the movie’s coming up, people stepping up and shaking our hands and thanking us for having put “The Bible” on TV. And it’s a bit like I would imagine maybe serviceman returning feel. There’s been such a overwhelming sense of gratitude being expressed from people who are around the country as we go in to do interviews; the receptionists, the guy in the elevator, the driver of the taxi, everybody just responding that it brought enlightenment to Scripture, for families that it gave an entry point into a bigger conversation around the kitchen table. In office places it allowed for an entry point for conversation around the watercooler. The people at work who typically didn’t speak about faith or it hadn’t come up at the workplace. It was like it gave people permission to have that bigger discussion and that’s very encouraging.
And we had wanted to relay the story in an exciting and dynamic way, but ultimately to reveal it for the love story that it is and I think that that certainly came through in the series. With this film, to see the Jesus narrative stand alone in the feature film experience, you really get a sense of this extraordinary life in a way that’s grand and epic and sweetening and it is surprisingly intimate.
You chose to play Mary. In that agonizing crucifixion scene, that you have to do everything with your eyes.
RD: I just had a few lines in the entire film and yet they speak volumes with no words. Mary and Jesus had this extraordinary relationship between them. What a teacher Mary is really. It is the ultimate trusting; that she had to trust God, that she was so privileged to be the mother of the Savior, that she had to stand there as a mother and watch her son being murdered and trust that that is what he came to do. It was a very emotional few days filming those scenes for everybody.
As producers, what did you do to create the kind of spirit on the set that could be felt through the film?
RD: I think everything begins with intention. We prayed on this from the beginning, from its beginning as a whisper in our hearts, we prayed on it and we continued to pray and asked others to pray for us and with us. And I think that has been part of the spiritual engine, certainly behind the project from the beginning. There were moments over there we clearly could feel the presence among us. Every day we had to clear away one or two snakes, but on the day when we filmed the crucifixion, there were over 40 snakes to be cleared away.
MB: She told this story, at the National Shrine and people gasped.
RD: As our cast would arrive in Morocco, Mark and I wanted to do something that would be special for each and everyone of them. I have memories myself as an actor, of showing up on a location and how strange that can be sometimes when you don’t know anybody and yet as an actor you are often required to do your most vulnerable scene first or to step in pretending you know everybody and so I thought it would be nice if we greeted each person personally and it became clear that it was fine for the first few actors coming in. But then we were actually out and working and on the set so it wasn’t possible so the next best substitute was a handwritten letter and so every actor who came into a hotel room late at night on that late flight from Casablanca would receive a little hand selected gift of some sort and letter which was just a letter of welcome. And as they started this journey with us of shining a light; because our company is called Light Workers, tired of cursing the darkness; we wanted to be part of shining a light, shining his right. And what is interesting is that we got to know them after that, a few of them that they were so deeply touched by this; the warmth of the welcome immediately put them at ease and a few others thought we were complete nut cases but once they met us and knew our hearts, that everybody immediately felt so comfortable.
And I think what also happened with all the actors. This is where the spirit just wove itself through everybody. There was such a camaraderie that the developed among the actors. You know I’ve been on many sets my whole life and I can’t remember too many where we sat around on rocks in a desert reading Scripture together. There were times we would go into a scene and we had to emotionally reset; we would say “shall we reread this Scripture leading up to the scene” We were about to pray just to give everybody a reminder of where they are coming from and what is about to happen. And so we would sit around and read and pray and that is very, very special.
I wanted all of the focus to be on Jesus. I want his name to be on the lips of everyone who sees this movie, so we cast Satan out. It gives me great pleasure to tell you that the devil is on the cutting room floor. This is now a movie about Jesus, the Son of God, and the devil gets no more screen time, no more distractions.
Was 2013 the Best Year in History for African-American Films?
Posted on February 25, 2014 at 10:49 pm
Many thanks to Kevin Sampson for inviting me to join my friends Tim Gordon and Jason Fraley and director and DC film office head Pierre Bagley for a lively discussion and debate on movies made by African-American filmmakers.
Responding to the Complaints about “Noah”
Posted on February 25, 2014 at 4:09 pm
As I noted earlier, Variety reported the results of a bogus survey as though it represented legitimate concerns from the faith community about the upcoming film, “Noah,” starring Russell Crowe and directed by Darren Aronofsky. It is always disappointing when a small portion of the Christian community perpetuates the worst stereotypes too-often assigned to all believers, coming across as shrill, prejudiced, and thin-skinned, far more interested in finding reasons to be offended than in demonstrating compassion, humility, and grace. We saw that this week in The American Family Association’s calling on its members to protest a “profanity-laced” television commercial with only one bad word: “hell.” And then there is this silliness, yet another bad example of people who devote more energy to telling other people whether they qualify as Christians than paying attention to their own behavior. A good refresher for those who claim to be victims of bigotry is this essay from a United Church of Christ (UCC) minister and fire station chaplin. Basically, if you can worship in the place and manner of your choice and your only objection is that you cannot control the behavior of other people, you are not the subject of discrimination.
This hypersensitivity is just one reason it is so difficult for Hollywood to produce films that honestly portray people of faith or stories based on the Bible. The New York Times’ Michael Cieply, a movie producer-turned reporter, wrote a piece called “Can God Make it in Hollywood?”
Once, studios routinely made movies with overtly religious themes for the mainstream audience. Classics like “The Ten Commandments,” “Quo Vadis” and “A Man for All Seasons” — each of which was nominated for a best picture Oscar — were box-office winners with a wide range of viewers. But after years of neglect or occasional hostility, the question now is whether Hollywood can still find common ground with religious audiences.
That is borne out by stories like the one in Variety, based on a survey with a biased question put to people who had not seen the movie. So it is very reassuring to see this excellent piece by Steven D. Greydanus in the Catholic Register, titled Everybody Chill Out about the “Noah” Movie.
There’s a lot of room in the biblical story for interpretation and imagination, and anyone who’s been thinking about this story as long as Aronofsky has is likely to have some interesting insights into it.
It is well worth reading in full. As noted before, unlike some of the people who are complaining about “Noah,” I will wait to report on the movie after I have seen it.
Interview: Patrick Creadon of “If You Build It”
Posted on February 23, 2014 at 8:00 am
Patrick Creadon is the director of the new documentary “If You Build It,” the story of an idealistic young couple who movie to a depressed North Carolina community to teach teenagers how to solve problems with design. He talked to me about the town, the couple, Emily Pilloton
What led you to this story?
When I was growing up, the television show “This Old House” was by far my favorite TV show. I was the nerdiest kid on the block and I loved PBS. But I particularly loved that show and I loved seeing things getting torn down and rebuilt, or not torn down but redone, and fixed. The fixing of things, and loving things, and taking care of things was incredibly inspiring to me. I loved it. I loved everything about it. And truthfully, I also love the movie “The Breakfast Club” so for me, this was like a mash up.
I was around sort of filmmaking when I was a kid. I did some acting, but I never considered it to be a life pursuit. It was more like a hobby that we did as kids. We have some really fun experience with doing it but I really, really love documentaries. And being around filmmakers, I realized I could be a documentary filmmaker and that could be a thing. I’ll do that. And I worked for WTTW for about three years when I got out after college.
And I did that for three years. I studied film at the American Film Institute here in LA. I came out in one graduate school. And for about 15 years, I was a freelance cameraman and I was shooting other people’s stuff, documentaries, and TV shows, and stuff. And my wife and I made a documentary about the New York Times crossword puzzle called Wordplay
And then along came this story and for a reason I already mentioned, it resonated with me. I loved design, I love fixing things, I love a high school story. We thought that there could be some really great characters that we would meet and kind of a culture clash between Emily and Matt and the students. The bottom line is Christina and I have three young daughters who are in public schools in LA. It felt like there were a lot of compelling reasons to make this movie so even though it was a story that took place in a small town that we have never even heard of, it felt incredibly personal to.
This is the story of a small group in a small town but there are some important big issues and lessons with broad applicability, too.
I think it takes a little time for people to understand what’s in it for them like what is in this movie for me. And what we’ve learned over the last three-and-a-half years since we started is that, I know this sounds lame, but there is something in this film for everyone. I really firmly believe that. So whether you’re a parent, or a student, or a retiree, or a young person looking for their first career, or someone who’s midcareer and they have some community projects that are thrown in their side and they can’t figure it out how to fix it like I think what I’m trying to say is I think that our country is in a like a reboot moment like we’re rebooting a lot of things. We really are rethinking the way we’ve done things and the way we should be doing things. And the challenge there is that that’s a very scary moment, but it’s also a very exciting moment. And as people are thinking about rebooting things in their lives, it’s a good time for some designed thinking. And it’s a third time to really think about problems from a fresh perspective and I think that that’s what designers do. I really believe in that.
One of the things I wrote in my notes was this movie answers the age old question of “When am I ever need calculus?”
It’s hard to get truly inspired when you’re taking PE Online. That’s just not going to inspire a kid.
Why was it important to include the earlier story about Matt’s failed effort to donate a house that he built in Detroit?
Well I think it’s really fascinating and it’s a little heartbreaking when you see the story about what happened. Honestly, our biggest fear with this film from the beginning was, “Oh no! We’re making a Kumbaya movie.” Where everyone’s going to sit around the campfire and sing a song and there will be nice people doing nice things. And that might be a little lame frankly. And from the very first day, we realized how hard it was to do the kind of work that Matt and Emily were doing. I mean our very first trip was when the school superintendent was forced to resign, that was shortly after we got to town. We went to North Carolina about one week every month for a year. On one of our trips, Matt was looking like his dog has died or something and I said, “What’s wrong, Matt?” He had just gone back to Detroit and saw the condition the house was in. But the thing is I’ve met so many folks in the non-profit space we’ve all got our Detroit story, everyone of us has a story like that. And it’s talking about rebooting, really rethinking charity. Never give a guy a fish but teach him to fish. So the thing about Matt and Emily and the thing about our film is, they haven’t really reinvented any wheels here. The one thing they did that’s unusual and I think that is cutting edge is they took this curriculum into a high school. And to my knowledge, this level of certification and this level of ambition is unique. These kids were basically learning graduate level and college level skills. So that is unique but project-based learning, new charity models, community redevelopment, new educational experiments, I don’t think Matt and Emily had a monopoly or anything of those things or they aren’t the creator of either of any of those sorts of things. They’re certainly not the creator of this idea of design thinking. What they did though, they took a risk. They took ten kids for a year and spent three hours a day with them and taught them something that most people thought was way above them, way above their heads and the kids are not going to be able to keep up. And the kids loved it. You saw it. You kids loved it.