-
-
Ad Space
(728 x 90)
Never mind splashy screenings for the likes of Baby Mama and Speed Racer. Tribeca '08 will largely be a forum for the Little Films That Can. And many won't. Some projects may have the money for a reasonably slick marketing push; some won't have enough coin to fly the director's family out for the premiere. Regardless of the camp into which they fall, we thought it only fair to allow the people in charge of these films, the directors, to appeal to our readers themselves.
We posed the same five questions to every filmmaker accepted into the festival and offered them the chance to reply. Below are the responses we've received, virtually unedited. (We've made a few snips for clarity; that's it.)
Richard Ledes, director of The Caller
1 Why should someone watch your movie, in 100 words or less? (Don't just paste in your marketing blurb. Persuade our readers.)
I think the performances of Frank Langella and Elliott Gould stand out and that the story of the film’a corporate thriller that focuses on the psychological dynamics of a cat-and-mouse game’is timely and compelling. The film gives these two great actors, who are roughly the same age, an opportunity to work together for the first time and the result is, I think, very special.
2 Without spoiling your plot, describe a scene in your film that audiences will love.
Detective Turlotte (Elliott Gould) has staked out the apartment of Jimmy Stevens (Frank Langella), a man whom Turlotte has been hired to watch. Turlotte is unaware that the man he is watching is also the man who anonymously hired him over the phone. Jimmy calls Turlotte to find out how his work has been going. Turlotte explains that as they speak he is watching the subject through a window in a building across the street. Caught by surprise, Jimmy must then continue the conversation without revealing that the person whom Turlotte is watching is also the person to whom Turlotte is speaking.
3 If your protagonist were an animal, what would he/she be and why?
Aristotle called a human-being a zoon politikon,a "political animal." This is the kind of animal Jimmy is’he lives and breathes through the words he speaks, the wine he drinks, the woman he loves, the deals he makes and, most of all, through the dreams that sustain him.
4 What will surprise me about this movie?
The link between what happens in contemporary New York and what happens in the woods in occupied France during World War II.
5 How would describe your filmmaking style or philosophy? How is that reflected in this project?
I try to find projects that are compelling to me personally. This allows me to sustain a strong sense of what I want to accomplish. This in turn allows me to be open to the many invaluable contributions that will be made by the cast and crew, as well as by others. In this film I was drawn to the dynamics of watching and witnessing in a setting like contemporary New York, which is saturated with media, cell-phone cameras, surveillance cameras and instruments of vision of every kind. The central actions of this film are concerned with watching’the degradation of vision and its redemption.
