Movies Til Dawn

Today's clip shows Andy and Steven working in the yard together and ends with an impromptu boxing match. Again, a nice bit of work that won't find it's way into the finished film, so I'm dumping it into the blogosphere. In a sense, this blog is becoming the film's "trimbim"--a parking lot for all the little things that otherwise would have been abandoned along with the harddrives when the editing is completed. Within this scene, as you'll see, is the explanation of what makes City Islander's so unique: the insistence that to be considered a true local, you need to have been born on the Island. This makes you a "clam-digger" in their parlance. If you simply pick up and move to City Island from somewhere else, you're a "muscle-sucker". This point was made in the New York Times article which first brought this strange and lovely place to my attention. I dutifully wove it into the script but somehow didn't quite believe that...

Here's a take of a perfectly nice scene of Andy Garcia walking down the main drag of City Island, talking on his cell phone and then entering the famed City Island Diner. It appears unlikely to make it into the final version of the film so I decided to let it live on this blog for as long as this blog lives. (What about that? Will the blogosphere ever self-erase? I have no intention of closing this blog, but what do we know about the shelf life of blogs?) One of the forever fascinating and frustrating things about filmmaking is that, no matter how much you cut the script before shooting--no matter how certain you are that you're only shooting what's absolutely necessary--you still wind up dropping large chunks of material once the picture is assembled. What makes this doubly frustrating for me is the time I've lost on these unnecessary scenes is especially precious when working on a tight schedule as we were (the whole film was shot in 28 days). Nonetheless, its "p...

Below I've posted a fascinating clip from a truly strange Laurel and Hardy movie, "Twice Two" . Shot in 1931, it's one of several films in which L&H play dual roles (the only other that I can think of at the moment is "Our Relations" but I'm sure there are at least two more)--in this case they play men who married each others sisters. Thus Laurel is married to a female Hardy and vice verse. Furthermore they live together in one house. And L&H work together at the same place. The incestuousness of this would be weird enough in a movie with four different actors. But with L&H playing each others wives, it becomes almost too weird to watch. Ah, wait--there's "Brats", where they play their own sons! Yes, very good. But while its charming to see Stan and Ollie as fathers to two little Stan and Ollie's, its unsettling thinking of them having sex with each other. Indeed, one of the strange things about L&H that has often been...

For the "car crash" scene in "City Island" (yes, even quirky romantic family comedies need a good car crash) we mounted our lovely brand new 35mm Arricam on the back of our not so lovely 1970 Ford Galaxy. There was a lot of talk about how to achieve the car crash--we were going to have the car on a "leash" controlled by a vehicle behind the picture car, we were going to rig something to do with a fake bumper etc. etc. Finally Andy Garcia simply said: "Why don't I just crash the car myself"? Why not indeed? Andy is a very confident actor (and person) who likes to keep things simple--one of his favorite things to say to me was to give him stuff to do "so I don't have to think about acting". We made a few safety adjustments, lined up the car in front of him and decided to go for it--after all, as car crashes go it was quite modest: just a nice, simple rear-ender. We lined up the shot, tied down the camera, got into position and I c...

Below are two clips from a scene which takes place on the Roosevelt Island Tram. For those unfamiliar with Manhattan and it's satellitte islands, Roosevelt Island is a strange little place located to the east of Manhattan, on which for many years the only thing of any importance was a mental hospital. (The building is still there but is closed, abandoned, deeply ghostly). Later, projects were built--middle-class projects to be sure but nonetheless vast, gray, uninspiring projects. (Somebody I know once referred to them as looking like "retirement homes for old spies"). But in the early seventies, a tram was built to take people from 59th Street on the East Side of Manhattan over to Roosevelt Island...and suddenly, one of New York's loveliest secrets was born. For the tram ride through Manhattan, over the East River and descending upon Roosevelt Island is truly a magical experience--by night or by day, in the rain or in the sunshine. The trip is a mere five or so minut...

Apropos of the interest expressed by several readers about why we use the device known as a "process trailer" to film car scenes on, I thought I'd re-post the "tour of the trailer" that one of our interns did--believe it's already been up once but I figure if Sinatra can repeat material, so can I. As far as process trailers go, ours was pretty hinky. It had, frankly, seen better days and none of us were convinced that it would survive the days work. But it did and I have a feeling that the company we rented from have no plans to retire the old horse until it literally collapses on the job. Some of the coolest equipment along the same lines are made by a company called Shotmaker--I tried but was financially unable to deploy some of their equipment. Click here to check out their website. Tomorrow I will be writing at length about my old friend, filmmaker Edward Dmytryk ("Crossfire", "Murder My Sweet", "The Caine Mutiny") whose c...

In my experience there are three kinds of improvising actors: those that can, those can can't, and those that think they can but really shouldn't bother. Ezra Miller belongs to none of the above categories. He belongs to one of the rarest of all actor categories: those that MUST improvise because their flow of creativity so surpasses whatever material they are working with that it would simply be irresponsible for a director to not encourage it. When I hired Ezra--who most of you don't yet know, but trust me you will soon--it wasn't because I knew he had this gift; rather it was because of his charm and natural humor that he displayed in his reading. And his confidence. Often, actors coming in to read for a part may not even be the best actor for the role--but if they give the director a sense of security, if they display a sense of self-sufficiency, that can go a long way to making a director feel...how to put it? More at ease. Like there's one less burden on my s...

Apropos of my discussion the other day of the absurd contraption known as the "process trailer", here are two charming and telling moments, showing Julianna in the one and Andy in the other, each alone--trapped--in the car trying to figure out how best to get started. Directing via walkie-talkie is almost impossible and being out on the highway, with other cars passing and pointlessly honking at us, makes everything even tenser. Dig Julianna and her wildly winning attitude--she is so frigging cute when she gives that thumbs up having successfully slated herself, while holding the cigarette. Julianna and I had a line we used with each other: whenever you need her to do something--even if you haven't successfully explained it--she suddenly...just does it! I complimented her on this acting fearlessness once and she said, "Yeah. I commit!" That is such a lovely thing about actors--once in the moment they are there to get un-shy, unabashed, unafraid. The better they ...

Look below at what I found on the TUBE. It's a "screen test" of Marlene Dietrich for "The Blue Angel", the film that made her an overnight international star. Von Sternberg--then working as a successful American silent film director at Paramount--was imported to Germany to direct his apparently modest, low-budget film for the impresario Erich Pommer. Little did he know his life was about to be transformed by his collision with the singer/cabaret chanteuse who Pommer foisted on him and who became his star, muse, lover and destroyer. "Miss Dietrich is I, I am Miss Dietrich" Von Sternberg famously told Peter Bogdanovich years later. Apparently Marlene didn't dispute this: she always believed that he was, in essence, her creator. I love finding pieces of film like the below--old dailies, screen tests, even dopey bloopers. You get a glimpse at what was going on around the making of the picture--notice a few odd things here: they don't use a normal s...

Two clips below, featuring Steven Strait and Dominik Garcia: they're driving in a car. Sounds simple, right? NOTHING IN MOVIES IS SIMPLE. This mini-moment involved mounting the Honda Element onto a contraption called a "process trailer"--an insane device that is, essentially, a trailer on which you mount the car you're shooting, several cameras, all kinds of lighting equipment...etc. etc. Then a few of us--the director, the DP and the script supervisor at a minimum--ride in the car that's towing, buried in video monitors, headphones etc. Often the sound crew rides in the cab of the towing car, trying to dial in the actors voices...all I can say is Oy Vey. Steven is one remarkable young man--I hate referencing him by age because he's truly ageless. Still, it was often strange for me to realize, while working with him, that when I was his age (early twenties) he was barely born. So asssured and serene is he in his dealings with work, the world and people that I ...

One of the delights of the shoot of "City Island" was observing the genuinely warm and admiring friendship between Andy Garcia and the great Alan Arkin. Alan plays the role of the "great and failed acting teacher Michael Malakov" (as Emily's character Molly characterizes him) and though he's only in a few scenes, he's pivotal as the presence who allows, in a sense, Andy's character to take his acting ambitions seriously. Alan played Malakov not in an ironic or comic way, but as a very real somewhat burned-out veteran of the "arts wars". Alan and I had a discussion about Malakov in which I suggested that far from being a quack or a phony, he was an actor who--some years back--might have achieved a certain level of prominence, at least among other actors; perhaps he won or was nominated for an Obie. And then, like so many fine actors who don't really take off, he turned to teaching to support himself while waiting for the breaks that neve...

I have the odd feeling, having worked with the ineffably charming and wildly professional Emily Mortimer, that I've worked with an "obit-definer". Do you know what that is? Well, think about it. When we die, if we deserve a public obit at all, it tends to be about things that we might not have imagined were going to be quite the life-definers that we'd originally set out to make. I remember a few years ago reading about a man--a Congressman for Goddsakes--who was the last person to have breakfast with John F. Kennedy. That fateful morning in Dallas, this guy--who knows his name?--was the local politico who hosted the President's breakfast. Kennedy was shot a few hours later. Forty some years later, this fellow died and rated a Times obit. Not because of his life's accomplishments. But because fate put him in the way of something much larger. Truly Emily Mortimer makes me feel this way. When I'm aged and decrepit--assuming the journey takes me that far--I h...

As some of my readers might remember, this blog began as a survey of whatever old movies and old music clips caught my fancy on the glorious invention known as youtube. As "City Island" will be in post-production all fall, I will of course be keeping you abreast of its progress and posting what clips and pix I can. But I'd like also to begin to dip back into the glory of our cultural past--and what better, more upstanding and more singularly dignified example of that culture is there than the clown named Jerry Howard, known to all as "Curley". Recently I showed the below clip to my four year old son who became fascinated by it--not just finding it funny but loving all of Curley's facial tics, expressions, dog-barks, face-slaps etc. The short that it's from is "Dutiful But Dumb", directed by Del Lord when Curley was at his peak in the early 1940's, and before his mysterious (and very visible) brain damage began to slow him down. The waiter ...

The above machine is a movieola, the ancient industry standard editing machine. I'm old enough to have actually learned to work one--it was on its last legs and flatbeds (remember them?) were already in use. Currently we're editing on Final Cut Pro. I'm also old enough to remember when convincing the producers on my first feature to spring for an Avid instead of forcing us to cut on film seemed like a very progressive thing to do. (To their credit, they did even though they thought it a lavish request). Below are three snippets of film from the Empire Diner night. In one you'll see Rocco, Andy Garcia's stand in, seated in Andy's place for lighting. The second is of Andy in the same position and features a bizarre camera malfunction--I believe the film jammed which creates the rather pretty,yellowing effect at the end. Last is a piece of Emily laughing at something--for the life of me I can't remember what (it was by then about four AM and at that hour everyt...

While I was shooting "City Island" I learned that a dear friend of mine had passed away. Luther Davis died on July 29 of this year, age 91, of natural causes. For those who follow musical theater, Luther was something of a legend, having written the libretto's (scripts) to two hugely successful and influential musicals--1953's "Kismet" and 1990's "Grand Hotel" (he was nominated for the Tony for both and won for the former). The librettist's art is an under-appreciated one--they are often called "book writers" which was a term Luther would have firmly rejected--and Luther, along with Joseph Stein ("Fiddler On The Roof"), Dale Wasserman ("Man Of La Mancha") Larry Gelbart ("A Funny Thing Happened On The Way to the Forum") and Hugh Wheeler ("A Little Night Music") was one of the giants of his theatrical generation. He was also a screenwriter of note, having written "The Hucksters" wit...

I've received a number of questions from various readers and thought I'd address a handful of them in no particular order. First: the most fun scene to shoot? Andy Garcia going on his first "audition", lousing it up horribly and then unexpectedly being asked to do an improv at which he proves to be quite brilliant. I always say that for every movie I've done, there's one scene I can't wait to shoot and one that I hate the thought of shooting. The audition scene was the one I was always most eager to do--it epitomizes, to me, the story's essence--that within everybody there lies a sleeping lion of an artist, just waiting for the right opportunity to come along and roar. Andy was brilliant in the scene too--clearly he relished the moment. On the other hand, the day we spent shooting in the prison (Andy's character is a corrections officer) was by far the least pleasant. Having never spent a moment behind bars, I was unprepared for how deeply unpleasa...

Somehow the past three days vanished in a haze of life-cathing-up errands, phone calls and the truly transitionary shift from production to post. Said "transition" for me takes the form of a particularly strange anxiety dream--this exact dream has happened to me after every movie. In it, I am standing on the set waiting to shoot but NOBODY HAS A COPY OF THE SCRIPT. At first I stay calm and tell myself that since I know the script I can deal without it. But I can't. I need to shotlist, I need to read the lines, I need to tell the actors something--and all this requires a COPY OF THE SCRIPT. And everybody becomes aware of the fact that not only can't I tell them what to do, they can't help me with the easiest request possible--to hand me a COPY OF THE SCRIPT. Embarrasment mounts and then turns to anger. Why are there no COPIES OF THE SCRIPT? I wind up thrusting myself down on the ground, like a child, and pounding the pavement: until there is a COPY OF THE SCRIPT i...