Memphis Movie (3 page)

A:
 
One doesn't use unpredictability just to be unpredictable. Maybe I'll switch to a klezmer band, that suit you?

Q:
 
Ok.

A:
 
Donald, don't print that. I'll come off as an asshole. I love Memphis music. You know, my other films are peppered with it. Scott Bomar helped with
Sunset Striptease
. That's his deconstructed version of “Eight Miles High” at the end. There's the “Big Star” song in
Cracker Hobgoblin
. I used “Your Eyes May Shine” as the opening theme for
Huck and Hominy
. Uh, John Kilzer and Rob Jungklas in
She and He in a Swivet
. And in
After You I Almost Disappeared
that's Reverend Al covering “Big Ass Truck.” How's that for Memphis mojo?

Q:
 
I guess I didn't realize—

A:
 
Right.

Q:
 
Hm.

A:
 
Amy LaVere.

Q:
 
What about her?

A:
 
I just wanted to say her name because I have a crush on her. Anyway. The music—

Q:
 
Memphis is there—

A:
 
In every film, yes. I have been, over the years, going home again and again. And now—

Q:
 
You're literally here.

A:
 
Yes.

Q:
 
Let's talk about the movie.

A:
 
Fair enough.

Q:
 
You said in a recent interview that you were coming back to Memphis to make your next film because its themes were Southern. What did you mean by that?

A:
 
Well, again, I don't want to give too much away. But the story concerns a man who comes up against the racism in his own family and has to make a choice between the people he came from and what his future may possibly hold, which includes a beautiful woman from New York. That's Hope Davis. She represents for him what he's never had, what he's dreamed of.

Q:
 
The Southern angle being the racism—

A:
 
No, no, now, don't go off on a toot. Racism isn't exclusive to the South. But for the character that Dan plays, this kind of racism, deeply ingrained in his family history, is like an anchor holding him back.

Q:
 
I see.
Monster's Ball
—

A:
 
Crossed with
The Reivers
. I can see the campaign already.

Q:
 
The Hope Davis character. Is she based on anyone?

A:
 
Anyone out there—in the real world?

Q:
 
Yes.

A:
 
No.

Q:
 
Yet, she—

A:
 
I see where you're going.

Q:
 
Well, the tabloids were full of stories about you and Ms. Davis. That you were seen nightclubbing—

A:
 
Is that really a verb?

Q:
 
For our purposes.

A:
 
The purposes being to make something salacious out of our casting Hope Davis. That Sandy would write her into our next movie as some perverse Hollywood sexual triangle thing.

Q:
 
No, I—

A:
 
Donald.

Q:
 
But you and Ms. Davis—

A:
 
I wish.

Q:
 
Do you?

A:
 
No, no, c'mon, Donald, be a go-with guy. I'm joking.

Q:
 
Oh, ok. So the Hope Davis character—

A:
 
Is based on dreamstuff, is pulled out of the same ether from which Scarlett O'Hara, Mick Kelly and Quentin Compson were pulled squalling from—

Q:
 
I don't—

A:
 
Move on.

Q:
 
Right.

A:
 
So, how you been, Donald?

Q:
 
Fine. Fine. Oh, you're looking for more questions . . .

A:
 
When you're ready.

Q:
 
Ha. Ok. Um, there's a moment in one of your earlier films. The main character, a filmmaker, has just been excoriated in the press for some of his more, uh, personal sexual content. It seems he has used his own life, his own sexual history for his films.

A:
 
Yes.

Q:
 
So, what would you say about this character? Is he you, an aspect of you?

A:
 
The question doesn't interest me much. But, for you, for the sake of your audience, I'll take a stab at answering. You're referring to the film
After You I Almost Disappeared
. My second feature and the first film I made after moving to Hollywood. I was homesick. I was thinking about my past. My first film,
Sunset Striptease
, had its success, you know. It took me to California where I was given a lot of money and told to do whatever I wanted. It's dangerous for an artist to be told, “Do whatever you want.” [Laughs.] So, I had all this cash and was told to make a wish list of actors, which I did, putting Hope Davis at the top, of course. And I set to writing a script that would be worthy of all this freedom.

Q:
 
Sandy didn't write this one?

A:
 
Wait. This is a story. I am telling you a story.

Q:
 
Sorry.

A:
 
So, I set about writing this script and I thought, man, they're eating up everything I dish out. I am king of the fucking moviemaking universe. This is what it felt like. Yet, underneath that there was this River Styx of regret and loneliness. I mean, I had left behind everything that was what I thought of as my identity. Memphis was gone gone. So this script was all about the past, all about my past, you dig? And I wrote scene after scene based on people I knew, people I loved, women whom I loved and lost, women whom I loved and left. You know? It's such a seductive topic for a young artist, that rich soil of the past. So I turn the sucker in, I take it to the studio and say, “Here. Here's my next film and here's who I want to play each part.” It's laughable now, my hubris. And Marty Sicowicz, at the studio, took this mess home with him. It took less than a day and I was called back in. He smiled a sad smile and handed me back my new masterpiece. “No,” he said, and sat back. That was it. I was dumbfounded. Just no. And that really
sent me reeling. So to speak. I went home, well back to this amazing house I was renting in Brentwood, and wept like a child. I was really stung.

Q:
 
It hurt, even after all the success.

A:
 
Yes, I was hurt. But another 24 hours went by and I went back in to see Marty. “What do I do?” I asked him. He gave me Sandy's number. And that was that.

Q:
 
That's how you met Sandy?

A:
 
That's it. And, it turned out, unbeknownst to me, she had been called in to doctor
Sunset Striptease
. So, when I say she wrote every one of my movies, I mean every damn one.

Q:
 
Huh.

A:
 
Yeah. And the finished product, the irony of the finished product is that the title is almost the only thing left from my self-indulgent script. Beverly was still there.

Q:
 
The Hope Davis character.

A:
 
Right, the character I wanted Hope Davis to play. Well, it's funny now, but, really, what I wanted was to visualize Hope Davis in the role of my ex-lover, a woman who was as hot as a pepper sprout.

Q:
 
And Beverly is her name.

A:

Q:
 
Or not. I see.

A:
 
Right.

Q:
 
Who ended up playing Beverly? I can't recall—

A:
 
Jodie Foster.

Q:
 
That's not a bad fantasy lover either.

A:
 
[Laughs.] You said it.

Q:
 
Huh. So . . . what was I getting at? Oh, yeah. This character, this filmmaker, then. He really is you.

A:
 
No. It's fiction.

Q:
 
Yes, but—

A:
 
It becomes fiction. Everything becomes fiction. Leave it out on the counter long enough and it becomes fiction.

Q:
 
Ok.

A:
 
That's the title of my next movie.
Everything Becomes Fiction
.

Q:
 
Really, that sounds—

A:
 
No, not really. I am pulling your leg.

Q:
 
Ah.

A:
 
Sorry.

Q:
 
Right. Do you have an idea for a movie after this, after
Memphis Movie
?

A:
 
I do.

Q:
 
Can you talk about it?

A:
 
I can.

Q:
 
Will you?

A:
 
Sorry. I will and now. But, with this caveat. I've been cut loose, so to speak. Hollywood has taken me off the teat, you know. So, I can't really say there will be a next movie. The monies for this one, well, have come from private investors.

Q:
 
Folks who will get an associate producer's credit.

A:
 
Ha! Yes. So, anyway, we are working already on our next project. Sandy has been working with a writer, a Memphis writer actually, on a screenplay based on his book.

Q:
 
A Memphis writer? Can you say who it is?

A:
 
I'd rather not at this point. It all could collapse like a dissolving palace of snow. But, the story concerns two middle-aged men and their private conversations. One of them, though happily married, is being tempted by a woman he has just met, tempted by the age-old demon-god, lust. He is contemplating having an affair, but a lot of the action of the story—and we're still trying to make this happen visually—is made up of dialogue.

Q:
 
This sounds familiar.

A:
 
Well, the book, which had no success whatsoever, is written entirely in dialogue.

Q:
 
Ah.

A:
 
Yes, and though that sounds like it's tailor-made for the movies, it has proven to be a sonofabitch to adapt.

Q:
 
Do you have a cast in mind?

A:
 
Yes, Hope Davis will be the wife . . .

Q:
 
Of course.

A:
 
Yes.

Q:
 
Lovely. Well, we're about through here. Good luck on
Memphis Movie
and we're happy to have you here filming.