Once upon a time (during the 1980s, actually), hot-shot twenty-something Shane Black sold the spec script Lethal Weapon to a major Hollywood studio for a million bucks. Not long after that coup, veteran script writer Joe Eszterhas pumped out Basic Instinct and walked away with $3 million for his efforts. With these purchases, Hollywood, which had long been in danger of overextending itself, finally found a way to push the panic button.
And, as they say on Wall Street, the run was on.
Mega-pictures were born with equally outrageous budgets. The lengthy list includes Batman, Terminator II, Hudson Hawk (star Bruce Willis was reported to have over 20 personal assistants during the shooting of this film) and Alien III. When Disney (aka Touchstone) ran with Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy, the buck finally began to slow down but not exactly stop. In essence, the hemorrhage was reduced to a mere trickle. Still, it was a trickle of hundreds of millions of dollars.
An infamous 1991 memo from Jeffrey Katzenberg (the head of Disney) to the film community complained about financial excesses. In his memo—which was leaked to the press—Katzenberg railed at the ludicrous amounts of money being spent on marginal films. The criticism obviously has had its desired effect—Hollywood began to reexamine its financial statement.
The pendulum has now begun to swing the other way. That is to say that during 1992-93, more quality started showing up at a lesser cost. Several of this year’s best films were small independents that found audiences, films like One False Move, Midnight Clear, Reservoir Dogs, The Bad Lieutenant, Howard’s End and The Crying Game. The most recent rage is the first film by twenty-four-year-old Robert Rodriguez. El Mariachi cost seven thousand dollars to make. Hollywood has found it, blown it up into larger-than-life 35 mm prints and will run enough copies to deliver it around the globe. In the meantime, Rodriguez has been offered a three-picture deal.
For a while, at least, vision, talent and a commitment to quality have replaced the greedy little bidding wars of the last decade.
Which brings us closer to home. For years, state and local business people have been talking about building a movie studio somewhere in the metro area. The problem is that it doesn’t make good business sense to invest that kind of money with the amount of business we currently have. It comes down to a chicken-and-egg argument. In order to get the business, you need a studio but you need a studio in order to get the business.
A more realistic approach might be to encourage more filmmakers such as Chris Johnstone to make their movies here. Johnstone came to New Orleans late last year to prepare for his next film production, Saint City. His first film, Buffalo Jump, has done surprisingly well on the film festival circuit and has drawn some favorable reviews from the likes of Variety, which said, “[Buffalo Jump] is a witty and well-observed independent effort. The picture recalls the low-key humor and insight of another no-frill debut, John Sayles’ Return of the Secaucus Seven, with quirky humor and engaging bit-player riffs. The film makes the most of a small budget.”
Johnstone formed the Machipongo Inlet Film Co-Op in the early 1990s to encourage and jumpstart the making of independent, regional features. Says Johnstone, “It’s always been my guiding philosophy that people who know an area or have some kind of empathy for an area can actually make a better film than, say, someone who blows in to town for a week or two and decides on locations. We want to foster a kind of grassroots approach to filmmaking and make movies in places that you don’t normally see and about situations that aren’t so cut and dry.”
Johnstone admires the work of film directors Eric Rohmer, Alex Cox and Jonathan Demme. In fact, his Buffalo Jump has a faintly European feel about the way his characters drift through life in a series of episodic encounters. There are several long, uninterrupted sequences, including a seven-minute scene near the climax of the film where the two lead characters confront one another with their hopes, dreams and thoughts of life and death. The video recently completed a weekend run at Movie Pitchers and is available at Video Alternatives on Magazine Street.
Johnstone’s Saint City will go into production this summer. It is the story of the Quixotic journey of a man attempting to reconcile love while searching for an authentic blues horn section to back blues legend Tugboat Harris. In synopsis form, the movie appears to have some of the aimless qualities of a Jim Jarmusch film—exploration and discovery on the murky peripheries of film. Many local acts are being courted for parts in the film.
Whatever the outcome of Chris Johnstone’s effort with Saint City, it’s refreshing to see a young filmmaker working, living and absorbing the city that he’s about to put on film. Movies have never been a true reflection of real life, but then again, New Orleans’ reel life has never been put to good use in the first place.
For a night of Hollywood infighting, rent the two newest offerings from Tinseltown—Robert Altman’s The Player and Barry Primus’ Mistress. Mistress is a dead-on satire about the business of selling an idea to Hollywood. Martin Landau (whose career has gotten quite a boost lately) is wonderful as a seedy producer who talks the talk and walks the walk at a variety of delicatessens in the San Fernando Valley and along the Strip. At one point he even tries to run down actor Ernest Borgnine with a script when he spies the actor leaving a supermarket with an armload of groceries. When Borgnine speeds away in his BMW, the dejected producer returns and says miserably, “You were right. He’s too old for the part.” Mistress is wonderful stuff. Treat yourself.
When Clint Eastwood won this year’s Academy Award for Best Director, he walked right over to Robert Altman and shook his hand. Eastwood was most deserving of the statuette and I’m not taking anything away from him, but most of the Hollywood film community was winking right along when Eastwood communicated his silent respect for Altman and his career. Before it’s over, Altman will get one of those special Oscars just like Frederico Fellini received during the recent Oscar ceremony. Rent The Player and see some of Altman’s best work to date.
