Interview: Nati Baratz of ‘Unmistaken Child

Posted on July 2, 2009 at 8:00 am

As they have for hundreds of years, a Buddhist monk goes on a journey in search of the “unmistaken child” who is the reincarnation of his master. The quest is unchanged in its goal and its procedures. But this time the monk is sporting a very modern backpack, traveling in part by helicopter, and the journey is being filmed by an Israeli documentary film-maker.

I spoke to that film-maker, Nati Baratz, as he was traveling through the United States to talk about the film, “Unmistaken Child.”

Tell me how this project came about.

Back in 93 I fell in love with Tibetans, especially the people, and I felt a moral responsibility about the suppression by the Chinese. I went home to study cinema and I wanted for a long time to make a film abut Tibet, to bring to the audience the experience of the culture and the qualities. The Tibetans have this happy nature, they are calm and non-violent and they have developed a lot of wisdom over thousands of years. Most of all, they have this endless commitment to benefit others. You can read about it but to experience it is different. The Buddhist culture is the best thing I have found in my life until today. It is not formal but I am connected to it, more Buddhist than anything else, more than my Jewish background.

And how did you decide on this particular story?

I wanted to make a film about a hidden Tibetan tribe. In the course of this I went to Nepal and joined the meditation to deepen my understanding of Tibetan Buddhism. There I heard this talk about the life of the master who had just died. The lama Tenzin Zopa touched me with his huge heart when he asked us all to pray for the swift and unmistaken return of his master. I knew this is the movie I have to make.

Do you believe in reincarnation? Specific, individual reincarnation of the master’s spirit in one unmistaken child? Do you want the audience to believe in it?

That is a tricky question. I want people to contemplate and think, not just experience the film but engage with it. I tried to challenge the viewer. You see one part of the film and the child looks holy, in another he looks like a normal child. I want to make the audience decide for themselves. That idea is connected to Buddhist teaching. They should not believe anything you say but should examine by themselves.

How long did if take?

It was a 5 Â½ year film-making. I moved with my wife and two year old daughter to India, just to give you an example of my commitment. It was great for her to live in the monastery and to play with the reincarnated child. It was tough on my wife but she had a great experience. We were really fortunate that they agreed to allow us to enter into the most private and hidden part of their life and tradition.

How did you get their cooperation?

I told him I am not a formal Buddhist but I have a strong commitment to the Tibetans amd really want to make this movie. It was a chance to show the world the qualities of the master. The Dalai Lama is famous and so many people are benefiting from it. It is not a problem to be famous, it is what you make out of it.

I had to ask permission from a very senior lama. It was a three month journey that really tested my patience and insistence. I passed an astrology check. And it took Tenzin quite a while to really trust me. They are monks so they are not used to the camera, they are modest. He is an amazing example. For me, all the reincarnation is just a narrative motor to have enough suspense and interest in the film to experience Tenzin’s journey of maturity, from a servant to a leader, bringing the treasure back home to the Tibetan people.

As the father of a two-year-old while you were filming, how did that affect the way you portrayed the family asked to give up their two-year-old?

I tried to give an intimate and close look at the story to give people the option to experience a different way of thinking. When the parents give up the child, this is the most touching part of the film for me, because they do it for the benefit of others. It is very inspiring that people give up their most precious thing for the benefit of others. That is what makes the film a feature-like experience. It is a documentary with an amazing character on an amazing journey that is very spiritual, a transformation.

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Documentary Interview

Interview: Rufus Sewell of ‘Downloading Nancy’

Posted on June 4, 2009 at 3:58 pm

In “Downloading Nancy,” British actor Rufus Sewell plays the husband of a troubled woman (Maria Bello) who develops a tragic relationship with a man she met online (Jason Patric). Sewell often appears as smoldering, brooding characters and is perhaps most widely known in the U.S. for being the guy who treated Kate Winslet so badly in “The Holiday.”
If I were the casting director for this film, I think I might have asked you to play the other leading male role, the one played by Jason Patric.
And I’d have turned you down! I consider it’s my job to find what casting directors wouldn’t think of me for. People tend to think of me for the same thing but I’m not a type and it would be the wrong kind of type-casting based on parts I’ve played before. That is something I’m just bored with, but it is only in films that would make it across the pond. Here I’ve played a very wide range of characters and feeling comfortable doing so. The character in this film is very far away from what people consider me to be like. In many ways all of the characters are hard to get into the perspective of. People might not like him or empathize with him, but I could relate to him and feel sorry for his predicament.
Do you have to be able to have that kind of empathy with your character?
I could even say I didn’t like him but you absolutely need to be able to see through their eyes. You might think he’s making the wrong judgment, but he was not equipped to deal with the situation.
The reason I didn’t feel he was a bad guy is that all of the characters are damaged. The way I could see myself as him is someone who is in a situation with someone who is in a lot of pain. This is his only way to respond because he is ill-equipped. He is blaming himself. He may not be able to express his guilt but you can see how he feels. Everyone has the same store of feelings, they either get caught up inside or come out.
How do you introduce the character in a way that makes the audience forget their past associations with you?
I don’t worry about playing to a particular audience. Some people don’t want to see you a particular way but my responsibility is to myself and the work that I do. It is not any easier to play a good guy than a bad guy. And the only power I have is what work I don’t do. That keeps me from playing the same thing over and over again.
There are ways that this film is very of the moment because of the way the wife meets the other man online but the themes of failure of connection and communication are eternal.
That’s true enough of relationships with people in the same house.
What makes you laugh?
Pretty much everything. I laugh a lot! I find it funny when people think of me as brooding. If there’s one thing I’d like to get a chance to do, it’s comedy.
What is your training and how is it reflected in your process for creating a character?
I went to the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. It is a theater training school, but all drama schools are based in theater, basically it’s acting one way or another. I was there for three years. Coming from my background, artistic but not well-to- do, I had not met any actors. I didn’t know how to go about the business of becoming an actor. I was very, very interested in Stanislavsky and the Method and had read up on my own. I was always very interested in actors like Brando and Montgomery Clift and character actors like Charles Laughton, Anthony Hopkins. It was a far more practical training about getting up and doing it, being loud enough and physically free enough. I have always been very much into accents, too. I am musical and have a good ear, so always loved and had an ability to do accents. I found quite freeing, quite liberating, it concentrates all your tension in one area. When youre given a limitation, your imagination can fly.

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Actors Interview

Interview: Mike Nelson of MST3000 and RiffTrax

Posted on June 2, 2009 at 3:58 pm

Michael J. Nelson is the former host and writer of the Emmy-nominated, Peabody Award-winning Mystery Science Theater 3000 and the author of the hilarious Mike Nelson’s Movie Megacheese. His witty commentary on movies is wildly funny but also very clever and perceptive. He spoke to me about his website, RiffTrax, where you can download his commentary to play along with your own or rented DVDs and upload your own to share with everyone else. He was every bit as much fun to talk to as I hoped.

How did you got started being snarky?

It came from watching movies. Midwestern people are almost by their nature snarky. And I came from a snarky family. My brothers and I always did that kind of thing, making smart-alecky comments about what we were watching. A lot of people do that but it falls away as you grow up and mature. My parents were very strict about bedtime, but they would put us to bed and then my dad would wake us up to watch some late night movie. My mom just rolled her eyes.

Did you get in trouble as a kid?

Well, someone once said, “Do you think you can make a living watching TV?” And I did!

What makes a movie a good candidate for comic riffing?

It has to take itself seriously. And it should probably have Keanu Reeves in it!

The main thing is that it is not boring. A lot of people don’t realize that truly bad movies are really boring and no one wants to watch them. There’s only so much that you can elevate with your comments. The baseline of entertainment has to be there. We’re enhancing and hopefully improving what is already there. I would have thought that sci-fi uniquely lends itself to what we do but if you carefully write something and work on it, it can be done on many different kinds of films. There’s subject matter that you can’t do but we’ve done dramas and other genres.

Are there actors you especially enjoy making fun of?

We’re big Patrick Swayze fans. We also give a lot of grief to Hayden Christienson — he didn’t take to the green screen acting very well.

Is there a movie that has such a devoted following that it can’t be riffed?

We did “Twilight!” That has both passionate fans and passionate detractors. A bunch of guys were dragged to it and wanted revenge on it in some way, to have us rescue it for them. The slow pace, and mopey, gothic overtones made it work — it became one of our fan favorites.

Tell me about RiffTrax.

It’s a full service comedy commentary site. We sell separate commentaries, video on demand, and shorts. People are constantly doing it themselves and wanted an outlet so we let people make their own and post them and compete with each other. That makes it possible for us to check out things we’d never do because the movie is too obscure for us. There are people out there who think we’re just picking on the mainstream and so they do films we’ll never get to.

We’ve been doing it for three years and it is growing. It has exceeded my expectations, and I’m especially happy to see so many younger people on the site. A goal would be to get a team of writers, people who want to do this. It is so much work. It takes so much time, we can’t quite keep up with the releases. A goal is to look at the uploaded tracks to see if there are people we can use, maybe get us close to doing all major releases.

Interview: Paul Newman biographer Shawn Levy

Posted on May 27, 2009 at 3:58 pm

Movie critic Shawn Levy, author of the superb books King of Comedy: The Life and Art of Jerry Lewis and Rat Pack Confidential: Frank, Dean, Sammy, Peter, Joey and the Last Great Show Biz Party, has a new book about one of the most accomplished and adored movie stars of all time, Paul Newman. He very kindly made time for an interview in the midst of his book tour.

Q: Newman was one of those rare performers who become icons of their eras. What was it about his style of acting and choices of scripts that seemed so particularly characteristic of the post-WWII years?

A: He often played younger than he really was, like many actors, but it was particularly his casting as the failed sons of strong fathers in such films as “The Rack,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Hud” and, in a sense, “The Long Hot Summer” and “The Hustler” that cemented him as an icon. He carried the sensitivity of James Dean into a new era when the promise of a film like “Rebel Without a Cause” bled into mainstream and prestige films. He easily segued into rebel/countercultural figures starting in the mid-’60s (“Harper,” “Hombre,” “Cool Hand Luke,” “Butch Cassidy”). And because he was older than the characters he was playing (he was 38 when he made “Hud”), he also carried a savor of mature authority. He played, in short, equally well to both the establishment and the kids who threw mudballs at it.

Q: Is there a performance of Newman’s that you think is particularly overlooked or underrated?

A: His turn as the stage manager in the Broadway production of “Our Town,” which is available on DVD, is a classic bit of Americana. In movies, “Hombre” is tough and sullen and cool in a way you’d associate more with, oh, Steve McQueen than Newman. Both excellent films.

Q: What did he consider his biggest failing?

A: In acting, he felt he was too mechanical and calculating for the first 25 years or so of his career, and I think I’d agree. You see him pulling poses and striking moods quite deliberately even in such fine films as “The Hustler” and “Hud.” But later in life he ratcheted back and produced some astonishing performances. In life, I think he felt he was a very remote and arbitrary father until he reevaluated himself after the death of his son, Scott, in 1978.

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Actors Books Interview

Interview: Pete Docter of ‘Up’

Posted on May 26, 2009 at 3:55 pm

The first thing I saw when I walked into the room was — of course — a bunch of beautiful helium balloons. And then I saw Pete Docter, the lanky and affable director of Pixar’s new film, “Up,” about an extraordinary journey to South America in a house lifted into the sky by an enormous bunch of balloons.

What makes a good voice actor for an animated film?

Some actors can create a picture of what is happening with their voice. Some actors works a lot with their bodies and facial expressions. You have to unplug the video part and listen to the voice. For Carl we wanted a voice that was grouchy and curmudgeonly, a voice that suggests that nothing is quite as good as it used to be, but a voice that is still very appealing and funny and Ed Asner fit that bill. You can tell he deeply cares about the peoople he is insulting. For Russell Joe Grant taught me to ask, “What are you giving the audience to take home?” You have to have some relatable emotion as a foundation for the fun stuff. You need the sad beginning so that you care about Carl and want what he wants.

What movies did you love as a kid?

I loved “Dumbo.” I watched Bugs Bunny time and again. The Muppets were big, too. All of those, they have this real, not darkness but poignancy, that’s what makes it stick with you. We tried for that in this film. When we were about halfway done we showed it to an audience, and the highest group of positives was women age 12-25 because they connected to the story.

Did you draw inspiration from real-life locations for some of the stunning images in this film?

Yes, we studied the Tabletop Mountains called tepui, with all these weird rock shapes. You start to see figures in the mist. There are strange plants you dont see anywhere else. It is where Venezuela meets Brazil and Guyana. “The Lost World” was inspired by this one mountain we studied. Most of them have never been set foot on. The more we can base on real life, the more you will believe the stuff we make up. The bird in the film was based on a crane and a monal pheasant, the most iridescent creature there is.

Every animated movie director tells me there was one technical challenge that was especially difficult. What was yours?

Balloons! The maximum our system could only handle was 500 and we had to expand to ten thousands. Not only does each balloon “know” where the others are, each one can respond to wind, turbulence, and each of the other balloons. And we could not have thousand strings. The whole things is so preposterous we had to find little elements that anchor it and make it more believable but also poetic.

What were some of the decisions you made about the film that were different because it was being made in 3D?

We did a bunch of reseasrch what makes successful 3D. We did not want the “Whoa! 3D” effects that take you out of the movie; we wanted them coming out of the story. 3D allows us to play with the depth the way we use color and lighting. When Carl is cut off and closed, we made it claustrophobic and slow. When he triumphs we make it as spacious as we can.

I don’t know the exact quote, but there is this thing that Walt Disney said, something like, “We’re not making these movies for kids, we’re not making them for adults; we’re making them for that still quiet part the world has made you forget but that our films can make you remember.”

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3D Animation Interview