Killing a Hollywood Legacy

The San Sebastian International Film Festival may not have the profile of Cannes or Sundance, but insiders know that it is one of the world’s most inviting festivals. Set in a spectacular seaside town in northern Spain known for its world-class Basque cuisine, the festival always showcases a sterling selection of new films from around the world.  Equally impressive is its classic programming. Director Ami Canaan Mann, who visited San Sebastian this year to present her new film, Texas Killing Fields, says, “I can’t think of any American festival that has such extensive retrospectives.”

Carlos Alvarez

This year San Sebastian showcased a series titled “American Way of Death: American Film Noir 1990-2010.”  Although the series undoubtedly reflected Europeans’ views of American preoccupation with violence, it was a wide-ranging and impressive selection of 40 films, including two from Ami’s father Michael Mann (Heat and Collateral), the Coen brothers’ Miller’s Crossing and Fargo, David Fincher’s Seven and Zodiac, Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, Curtis Hanson’s L.A. Confidential, Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River, and Sidney Lumet’s last film, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.  Texas Killing Fields, about a series of murders of young women in Texas, was the only new film in the series, and it opened the retrospective.  “I was incredibly honored to be chosen,” Mann says.  “I’ve always loved the genre.” After its festival screenings in Venice and San Sebastian, the movie opens in the U.S. on Oct. 14.

Back in Los Angeles to promote the movie, Mann spoke about discovering the story. Ten years ago, her father developed the script with screenwriter Don Ferrarone, who heard about the crimes in Texas when he was working as a DEA agent.  (He later switched careers and has worked as a consultant or producer on such movies as Miami Vice, Man on Fire, and Déjà Vu.)  But the project languished until Ami decided to revive it.  She secured financing once Sam Worthington agreed to star as one of the detectives investigating the murders. Worthington persuaded his co-star from The Debt, this year’s “It” girl Jessica Chastain, to take a supporting role as his ex-wife and fellow cop.

Mann was haunted by photographs of the 50 women whose bodies were discovered outside Texas City, Texas.  She explains, “In many cases, all they had were school photographs of these young girls, smiling and looking straight at the camera.  Some of the victims have never been identified, but they are all daughters and sisters.”  While the women were the victims of a number of different killers, Mann and Ferrarone knew they needed to provide a plot that would link several of the murders to one killer, providing the framework of a whodunit without oversimplifying the case.  So they created the character of one young girl in jeopardy, played by Chloe Grace Moretz, to provide an audience focus for all the forgotten victims.  “I wanted to give a face and voice to the victims,” Mann says, acknowledging that this gives the film a different feeling from many crime films made by men. She also wanted to avoid depicting the murders in a grisly way. “I wanted to be more evocative,” she explains, and she says that her chief influences were more atmospheric thrillers, like Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock and Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now.

“Peter Weir takes a stone cliff and brings it to life,” Mann explains.  “I wanted to do the same thing with the swamps in Texas where many of the bodies were found.  I was very lucky to find the location.  We just happened to turn off on a weird road and found all these tree stumps in a swamp that had once been a forest.”  One of the strongest elements in the film is the haunting depiction of this ravaged landscape.

In some ways, Texas Killing Fields was a family affair.  Her father was one of the producers, and her half-sister, Aran Reo Mann, was the production designer who helped Ami to find the eerie locations and construct the beautifully detailed sets.  Both of them made important contributions.  “It was a unique advantage having Michael as a producer,” Ami says.  “He needed to make decisions on budget, but he could step outside that and see things as a director would.”  As for Aran Mann, who also worked on Miranda July’s first feature, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Ami says, “She’s a brilliant, quiet force of nature.  She catches nuances and details that many people would not see.”

Hollywood movie stars a big hit on streets of Upper Darby

Another reader snapped this shot of star Bradley
Cooper last week during the filming in Ridley Park

UPPER DARBY — If the myriad trailers and film crews didn’t give it away, then the throng of women milling around Park and Madison avenues Tuesday afternoon was a big hint.

Hollywood hunk Bradley Cooper was on the 200 block of Madison Avenue Tuesday, shooting portions of the upcoming film, “The Silver Lining Playbook.”

“I’m a fan, and it’s awesome just to meet someone famous,” said Stephanie Siegman, 29. The Drexel Hill, Upper Darby, resident said she and several friends were thrilled to have the actor visiting their township.

“And for it to be in our area is awesome, too,” she said. “(Plus) he’s hot.”

Based off a Matthew Quick novel by the same name, and directed by David Russel, the film stars Cooper and longtime Hollywood leading man Robert De Niro.

Not everyone was there to see Cooper. Michelle Kao, 26, brought her 17-month-old son, Noah, along to “stalk and watch” De Niro go to work, she said.

“It’s Robert De Niro! How would you not want to come see him?” she said. The Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital unit clerk cited “Goodfellas” as her “all-time favorite ever.”

“How could you not want to stalk him if he is up the street from your house? I don’t understand that,” she said.

Tuesday’s scene involved Cooper’s character, Pat Peoples, returning from a mental institution to live with his parents.

The homeowners have been temporarily relocated to an area hotel at the expense of the filmmakers. A phone message left for the homeowners was not returned by press time Tuesday.

‘Top Line’ at the Movies: Ken Burns’ ‘Prohibition’ and History’s Repetitions

Legendary director Ken Burns turns his lens on “Prohibition” for his latest documentary, a three-part, 5 1/2-hour film that premiered on PBS last week.
The film is about the oft-misunderstood 13-year period — from 1920 through 1933 — where the manufacture and sale of liquor was illegal in the United States.

 It’s also about larger truths in American politics – as the nation watched a “magic bullet” spectacularly misfire — with lessons emerging that are newly relevant today, Burns told us in an interview for ABC’s “Top Line.”

“I learned more on this project than almost any other project I’ve gotten involved in,” Burns said. “It’s about single-issue political campaigns — wedge-issue campaigns that metastasize with horrible unintended consequences. Sound familiar? It’s a story about the demonization of recent immigrants to the United States and, as always, African-Americans. Sound familiar? This is the story of the loss of a civil discourse and smear campaigns during presidential election cycles. Sound familiar?”

“This is about a debate about the role of government in people’s lives, about unfunded congressional mandates, about warrantless wiretaps — I mean, all of a sudden I’m working on a project, and I’m going, OK, did I just abandon history? Or am I talking about current events? That’s the story.”

Burns told us that among the many things misunderstood about Prohibition was what it actually meant for the ability to get a drink in the United States in the years between the enactment of the Eighteenth and the Twenty-First Amendments.

Official Washington was particularly guilty of hypocrisy during that time period, he said.
“It was easier to get a drink during prohibition than after they repealed it, because once government came back in and regulated, there were opening and closing hours. You couldn’t sell to minors. Kids could walk into a speakeasy and get a drink,” he said.

“It’s one of the great ironies that it was harder to get a drink when they repealed it. This is the center of hypocrisy,” he said. “The president of the United States, Warren G. Harding, has a bootlegger come to the White house twice a week to fuel his whiskey cabinet when he’s in support, publicly, of prohibition. … This was corruption from the top down. And finally at the end it sort of crushed of its own sort of hypocrisy.”
The period also empowered women politically, setting the stage for women’s suffrage and broader involvement by women in politics. And it speaks to larger truths about the American spirit, Burns said.
“It is symptomatic of human nature,” he said. “We’re prurient but we’re also puritan. We’re Saturday night and we’re Sunday morning.”

Turning to modern politics, Burns – a strong supporter of President Obama in 2008 – said he’s confident the president can recover in time for 2012.

“All you have to do is look to see where we were four years ago to understand that Hillary Clinton had basically doubled up Barack Obama’s lead,” he said. “The No. 1 for the Republican nomination at this time was Rudolph Giuliani, followed by Fred Thompson. We have a fluid scene.”

“I think that the president will be reelected. I think it will probably be narrower than before. But a lot of it has to do with the ever-changing, unpredictability of things — which eventually then historical documentary filmmakers got get to make films about.”

We filmed the interview at Washington’s Jack Rose Dining Saloon, with the proprietiors bringing a Prohibition feel by breaking out some whiskey that was bottled during Prohibition – and were available for sale in the United States during that era for “medicinal use” only.

Upcoming Citizen Jane Film Festival has creative niche

COLUMBIA — Fire spinners, aerialists, acrobats and an "electric circus" dance part are part of the Citizen Jane Film Festival this weekend.

Starting Friday, about two dozen feature-length and short films and special events will be held at Stephens College, Ragtag Cinema and other locations. The theme for the fourth annual festival is "Cirque du Cinema."
Citizen Jane's goal is to increase the number of women working in film and expand their opportunities in the the field.

Hillary Carter touches up a sculpture known as "Lady Jane" on Thursday afternoon at Stephens College in preparation for the Citizen Jane Film Festival, which starts Friday

"But then on the community level, it’s just to celebrate this artistic town that we live in,” said Kerri Yost, chairwoman of Stephens' film department and co-chairwoman of the festival.
“It’s a really nice reminder of what a creative community we are and how well we work together,” she said.

Citizen Jane began as a lecture series in 2005 when Stephens added a film major. The college brought in guest speakers two to three times a semester to put what the students were learning into context, Yost said.
In 2006, Stephens hosted a weekend-long Fem Film Symposium to extend what it was already doing with the guest speakers. The Citizen Jane Film Festival premiered in 2008.

The festival dovetails with Stephens' mission to empower women.
"Citizen Jane grew out of Stephens — it's everything we're about," said Shelley Gabert, director of marketing and public relations.

The festival is deliberately held in the fall to complement the True/False Film Festival held in late February and early March, Yost said.

But Citizen Jane is also developing into a presence throughout the year. In addition to the lecture series, there is now a Citizen Jane Summer Film Academy.

The festival has grown every year since it started. Last year, almost 4,450 people attended, said Amy Schneider, acting director of the Columbia Convention and Visitors Bureau. A survey the visitors bureau conducted for the first time last year at Citizen Jane showed three-fourths of attendees were women.

The survey also showed 44 percent of attendees were from out of town. Of those, about 74 percent said the festival was their primary reason for coming to Columbia and 65 percent stayed in town overnight, Schneider said.

"The festival brings another level of folks to Columbia that may not be coming if Citizen Jane wasn't here," Schneider said.

Yost enjoys talking with festival out-of-towners about Columbia.
“It’s refreshing to see how other people see our community, and our town and everything that goes along with it,” she said.

She predicted the festival will continue to grow.
"Sometimes when you live in a city and all these incredible things are going on around you, you don’t appreciate it as much as when you’re coming from outside," Schneider said. "I know that there are a lot of community members that do appreciate Citizen Jane, and I hope as it grows and as the years go on, that more and more people become aware of it."

She said one reason Citizen Jane was embraced when it started was that Columbia's arts community was coming into its own.
“If it weren’t for the community, we'd still be a kind of quiet symposium," Yost said.