Interview: Lauren Greenfield of “The Queen of Versailles”

Posted on July 12, 2012 at 8:00 am

Lauren Greenfield is the director of the new documentary, The Queen of Versailles, the story of Jackie Siegel and her husband David, a monumentally wealthy couple who were building the largest residence in the United States, a 90,000 square foot mansion with ten kitchens, a baseball field, a spa, and two tennis courts. While Greenfield was filming, the financial crisis hit the Siegels and like millions of other Americans, they were suddenly and unexpectedly at risk of losing their home. It is just that their home was modeled on the palace that Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI lived in before the French revolution. Greenfield spoke to me as she was in town for the Silverdocs film festival and was preparing to show her film to the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. David Seigel’s fortune comes from the timeshare company Westgate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqDreqlPe98

Where are the Siegels now?

Jackie was here at Silverdocs last night and she’s on a road trip with her kids, a vacation road-trip. I asked if it was a downsized vacation and she said “kind of,” but she stopped at Saks Fifth Avenue and went to Chanel and Westgate is continuing to make sales, and David says it’s very profitable. At the end of the film Richard, his son, says, “If he gives up the keys to Vegas, the lenders will continue to lend and they can go back to making money, and he can go back to his life as it was.” Some of that has happened, the lenders have continued to land and so the rest of the resorts are making money and they are still in debt (I think they have estimated a few years to get out of debt). And David would like to start construction on the house again.

He’s such a good businessman in so many ways and yet he was very foolish about not segregating his own assets from the company’s and that put him under a lot of financial pressure he’d really didn’t need to be under.

Vegas was such a gamble and in a way such an irrational gamble, I think was part business and part emotion because he was also thinking about the $2 billion he was going to make there and was kind of holding onto that as his crowning achievement. He also had the Westgate name and lights brighter than anything else on the strip, perfect spot on the strip, and then the legacy of Vegas with his parents and then perhaps the other legacy of their gambling which ultimately kind of brings that dream down for him.

How do you as a film maker state close to a family like that over such a long period of time and yet maintain some objectivity? It must’ve been very difficult, particularly as you observe the way they behave with each other.

In a way that’s my modus operandi. I feel like I have that perspective in all my work and in my photography, too. I do get really close to the subjects, but I also am always kind of looking at things from a sociological perspective. I think with Jackie and David’s story – I could feel a lot of compassion for them and I really liked Jackie a lot and respected David. The original premise of the film I really saw it as allegory that represented what happened to so many Americans. So, I saw their virtues and their flaws as speaking to our virtues and flaws as Americans, too, and so I guess I solve them as individuals and also sort of symbolic. I am able to kind of get close to people and be there on a day-to-day basis but also step back and look at “what does it mean, what does it mean for us in the context of the bigger picture, eventually the allegorical picture?” With that said, some of that comes with living with the footage. I filmed over a three-year period and I cut over a six-month period in that process would show mentors and other editors and I went to the Sundance lab with the film, so I also had a chance to kind of step back, how do people react what do they get what do they not get? But in terms of my view I was always looking at them as both incredibly fascinating characters, incredibly fascinating story and also kind of a symbolic one; that in a way is a viewpoint in all my work.

I just don’t take on being an interventionist in the work. I feel like in a way this is a social issue film, it’s about the housing crisis, it’s about our culture of consumerism. I feel like it’s a morality tale that also speaks to the consequences of access, but I would never take it upon myself to intervene. I try not to judge, too, and I think you can see that in the perspective of the film that I am kind of there, and let’s step back and see what it means.

Tell me about the decision to include in the film the incredibly poignant commentary from Virginia the nanny about her own situation.

The minor characters are always important to me, and even before when they were building the house, when I thought this was going to be about the building of the house, I was interested in the upstairs downstairs quality of the house and the kind of different cultures, different classes all living as a kind of unusual extended family and with Virginia and with Cliff and with Jonquil , I was really interested in showing other experiences of the American dream, both their similarities and their differences. So, Virginia has a tragic story about not seeing her kids for over 20 years now. And yet, I think her story also speaks to so many people stories about coming to America to find fortune and Virginia is a salaried employee, her two other colleagues have gone back to the Philippines and yet Virginia chooses to send all her money home and not go there herself. I think she would like to, she was actually saving for it but her mother died and there was a funeral to pay for. So, these are really hard choices. I saw a parallel, too, between Jackie and Virginia because money was the reason both of them were not doing direct parenting. So, I guess I saw a lot of relationships and when Virginia said her dream was to build a concrete house in the Philippines, that was really poignant to me, and I also got the sense that she thought it was hard to go back if you didn’t have something to show for it – in other words, she could afford the ticket, but she couldn’t afford to go and give everybody money, and she didn’t want to go back without that. Again, I think that story speaks to the virtues and flaws of the American dream and the importance of money. She works seven days a week she has another job on the weekends at the supermarket.

What does Jonquil bring to the story?

Jackie’s niece and adopted daughter Jonquil is another story; in a way, she represented Jackie’s experience because she came from Binghamton, but overnight she went from poverty (she came from a poor family and her mother passed away and Jackie took her in) to the mansion overnight, and also has a down to earth, quirky character. What was interesting was to see her evolution because she kind of goes from “I can’t believe I’m in this house” and Victoria—her sister now talks about how she’s had this positive influence on all the other kids so they won’t be spoiled. By the end you can see how she is when she says, “When I used to see rich people on TV, I thought I’d be happy, and now I see I just want more and more” and so that, to me, really speaks to the whole story.

Have you been surprised by people’s reaction to the film?

I’ve been really pleased that people have found them relatable. Not everybody does, but most people tell me that they don’t expect to in the beginning, and they’re surprised to find themselves in the end. I feel like that is really what I wanted to get through because I think there’s no point in a film where you’re like, “Look at them and their bad decisions!” It’s really only valuable if you’re kind of like, “Did I spend too much on my credit card? How am I complicit in this?” It makes the movie more compelling if you understand them or care about them.

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Movieline Asks Both “Spider-Man” Filmmakers the Same Questions

Posted on July 8, 2012 at 8:00 am

If they’re going to make the same movie, why not ask the same questions? Movieline went for it — with a side-by-side comparison showing the responses by the directors and stars of “Spider-Man” and “The Amazing Spider-Man” to the same questions. From asking directors Sam Raimi and Marc Webb how they balance the action and comedy to asking stars Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield how they got into shape and what if feels like to wear the Spidey suit, you can see if the people behind the film are as different, or as alike, as their performances.

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Behind the Scenes Superhero

Interview: David France of “How to Survive a Plague”

Posted on July 7, 2012 at 8:00 am

“This isn’t a movie about what AIDS did to us,” writer/director David France told me as he was preparing to present “How to Survive a Plague,” his documentary about AIDS activism at the prestigious Silverdocs film festival in Silver Spring, Maryland. “This is a movie about what we did to AIDS.”

France made the film because most of the cultural touchstones associated with AIDS like the award-winning plays “The Normal Heart” and “Angels in America” and the book and movie “And the Band Played On” document the early years. They are filled with images of emaciated victims, weeping friends and family and bleak prospects. But this is a story of inspiration and triumph, as one of the most devastating diseases in modern history went from being a certain death sentence to an illness that can be managed. More than that, the people in this movie changed the way the medical and research communities interact with patients and their families who are coping with all diseases and conditions.

The film recognizes that the activists who led the fight in what became one of the most successful public initiatives in American history deserve recognition for their extraordinary accomplishment. In less than 15 years they were able to transform the medical options for people with HIV and AIDS and the ways that all medicines and treatment are developed. Along the way, they established the foundation for full integration of gay members of American society, with the freedom to be themselves and love the people they love. I spoke to director David France about the unique opportunity he had to make use of the extraordinary archive of footage used to document the movement from its earliest moments. This is not just the story of a brave and dedicated group of activists literally fighting for their lives. It is the story of how a heroic and remarkably effective political movement came of age, with its internal conflicts as well as the external ones. And it is the first time any movement has had the benefit of this range and depth of documentation, an explicit commitment going back to the earliest days.

“I didn’t want to over-burnish the halos of these guys, although I do think of them as heroic. But heroism is never a direct line; it is not a single path leading you straight to victory. And as in all movements, there are sharp differences and especially over time. ‘How to Survive a Plague’ covers nine years and four Presidents and in that period we see a lot of accomplishment and a lot of failure, as with any movement. The failures, despite the accomplishments, meant people kept dying. And people who were in the trenches, comrades of people I was following, didn’t make it. The desperation that underlay turned inward, as one might expect and ultimately created real battle lines among the activists. Those I thought were essential to tell, not just because they’re true, but because that’s human nature—and the fact that they were able to accomplish what they accomplished despite that was phenomenal. That made their triumphs even more unusual, that they worked through that anger and despair and self-doubt, suspicions among one another and still found a way to their end, and their end was the development of a drug that would finally make survival possible.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQbM4bb6Zpk

What makes the film so remarkable is its use of the extraordinary archive of footage. In all the political movements that have been recorded over the years, this one was probably the most thoroughly documented. France explained, “It’s the first kind of self-documented movement. HIV was first identified in the medical literature in 1981, the summer of 1981, and the camcorder hit the stores for the first time in the summer of 1982. So, in a way, they’re like siblings—sibling epidemics, really. They grew up together and became pandemic, right? So people involved in AIDS saw the value of the tool at a time when no one was covering AIDS. AIDS suffering was not being paid attention to. AIDS activism was ignored and the only images that we saw through the 80’s and really through the 90’s about AIDS were skeletonized patients in bed. We saw them on the news from time-to-time. We saw victims, and the people who were doing AIDS activism and knew that that was only a small fraction of the story and that the story of what was going on was really about self-empowerment and that it was brilliant, and that it was new. There was never a patient population that had identified and developed the kind of strength that this group had, and in order to be able to capture that and reflect it back to the individuals, they’d use these tools—and they started shooting everything. By 1987 when AIDS activism took full force, cameras were everywhere. From the very beginning of Act Up, they had a committee called DIVA TV, Damned Interfering Video Activists, that’s what they called themselves, DIVA, and they created TV. It was also the beginning of cable, of public access—they grabbed a public access station—and every week they would, on their public access shows, show the footage of what happened last week in a way to build the movement and to reflect back to the people who were doing it, the beauty, really, of what they were doing and to show AIDS power, to show fierceness, to show agency in AIDS at a time when that was being denied. That footage was—my thought was from the beginning that there was enough of that, because I saw those cameras—there was enough of that footage that I could create a documentary that would bring us back to that time. I brought in, ultimately, footage from thirty-three different individuals. It was shot by activists; it was shot by video artists who would come through like the Guggenheim program, by film-makers who are now well-known, and by loved ones who just wanted to capture what the people they love looked like in their youth, knowing that that’s all they were ever going to have.”

(more…)

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Directors Documentary Interview

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Posted on July 5, 2012 at 6:00 pm

A prize-winner at Cannes and Sundance, this near post-apocalyptic story of a father and daughter in a condemned part of Southern Louisiana is a stunningly assured debut by first-time feature director and co-writer Benh Zeitlen and extraordinary performances by a cast of non-professionals.

Six-year-old Hushpuppy (the mesmerizing Quvenzhané Wallis) and her father Wink (Dwight Henry, who owns a bakery in New Orleans) live in homes made from trash in a fictional community called The Bathtub. They do not have electricity, running water, or telephones, but Hushpuppy is happy and feels lucky to be there.

Zeitlen, the 29-year-old son of folklorists, makes this story exquisitely lyrical. It is poetic in tone and epic in scope. Seeing through Hushpuppy’s eyes makes it feel like a fairy tale because of the freshness of her conception of what is real and what is fantasy, what is strange and what is ordinary, what is scary and what is comfortable. Like Margaret O’Brien in the beginning of “Meet Me in St. Louis,” she introduces us to the community she loves. Like Alice, she brings us into a strange and enchanted world.

‘The Bathtub has more holidays than the whole rest of the world,” she tells us; while ordinary people in other places only have one or two holidays, they celebrate all the time. She is a part of a fiercely devoted community. We hear her repeat what she has been told and we see the contrast between what she is telling us and what we are able to understand. Her father’s hospital gown and the precariousness of their shelter signify nothing special to her, but we can tell it means that her father is very sick and the next big storm will flood The Bathtub. What we see as peril and deprivation, she sees as a place of myth and plenty. And she sees it as her home. For her, it is “the prettiest place on earth.” That is what she has been told and that is how it seems.

Later, when they are taken to a shelter, we see that through her eyes, too. For Hushpuppy, it is not a place of rescue and protection but a place of strangeness and sterility. Buses parked outside, ready to take displaced people from the exotic but familiar world of The Bathtub to strange-sounding far-away places like Des Moines seem institutional and predatory. Later, another possible rescue takes her to a part of the “civilized” world that again, we understand when Hushpuppy does not see how very dangerous it is.

Hushpuppy’s teacher points to the tattoo on her thigh to illustrate her stories about the aurochs, boar-like prehistoric beasts. The fable-like timelessness of the setting makes the era of the aurochs feel very close. When they appear, in a scene of breathtaking synthesis of myth and metaphor, Hushpuppy’s spirit seems to expand to fill all of the courage, resolve, and vision of the human spirit.

Zeitlen achieves a naturalness and state of wonder that is breathtaking to experience and one of the most impressive films of the year.

(more…)

Savages

Posted on July 5, 2012 at 5:23 pm

Oliver Stone’s new movie about drug dealers and drug users seems to assume that its audiences may be watching in an altered state of consciousness as well. Stone has never been known for subtlety, but just to make absolutely sure that everyone watching the film knows what is what, he makes a very clear distinction between our heroes and our villains. The good drug dealers are two guys and a girl who live together in an almost Edenic state of polyamorous bliss on Laguna Beach and donate money to African villages. The villains are the bad drug dealers, who chain-saw off the heads of seven people before the opening credits are over and are led by viciously evil Selma Hayek with a hairstyle that makes her look like a demented Veronica from the Archie Comics.

Our narrator cautions us that just because she is telling the story does not mean she is alive at the end of it. O (for Ophelia) is a California girl from a wealthy but dysfunctional family whose primary occupations are shopping and having sex with her two boyfriends. Chon (Taylor Kitsch) is the muscle, a cynical former military guy. Ben (Aaron Johnson of “Kick-Ass”) is the idealistic botany/business guy. Together, O tells us, they make the perfect boyfriend, and they love each other, too, so it’s just one happy cuddle puddle.

But the very thing that makes them so successful — the exceptional quality of their weed — has made them a threat to the big, bad drug dealers from Mexico. When they make an offer Ben and Chon can’t refuse, Ben and Chon refuse anyway. They are willing to turn over the business but they are not willing to work for Elena (Hayek) and her group. So O gets taken hostage, and if Ben and Chon do not start cooperating, they will chop off her fingers.

When O and Elena have an elegant dinner and O starts prattling on about her failed effort at community college as though she is talking to her parents’ friends at the country club, we get a sense of the grand guignol possibilities of this story, based on novel by Don Winslow, who co-scripted. Hayek’s relish in the role is entertaining and John Travolta has a good turn as a paunchy FBI agent with no illusions. But Benicio de Toro’s portrayal of Elena’s sociopathic henchman is just icky. Stone’s re-re-re-treading of the same issues that have pre-occupied him since he was fighting in Vietnam — drugs, corruption, military, power — is tired. The butchery and dissolution of the bad guys is over the top and the heroes give us no reason to root for them. A final fake-out is an insult to any remaining goodwill left from the audience and the overall preposterousness finally feels like an insult.

Parents should know that this film has extremely graphic and disturbing violence including torture and rape, explicit sexual situations, nudity, drinking, smoking, extended drug use (marijuana and cocaine) and drug dealing, very strong language

Family discussion: Why do the different characters refer to each other as savages? Do you agree with the definition used at the end? What kept O, John, and Ben together?

If you like this, try: “American Gangster” and “Blow”

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Based on a book Crime Drama