Memphis Movie

by Corey Mesler

 

Q: So you've come back to Memphis to make a movie.

A: Yes. Is that it? Is that all you want to know?

--Ha, no. Why Memphis? Why now?

--Well, Donald, I'll tell you. Memphis is ground zero for me, that is, emotionally. It is, obviously, where I came from, but it is also where my heart goes when I am in need of solace, reparation, succor.

--I see. Plus your last movie in Hollywood tanked.

--Yes. Yes, it did.

--What happened? You were being hailed as the next—

--Don't say it.

--Tarantino.

--Shit. Yeah, I know. I got that, the next Tarantino. It's like being the next Dylan, you know? Like they called Springsteen that when he started. And, first, he had to live that down. First, he had to kill that spiritual father before he could become whatever it is he was to become.

--Would you say you're the Springsteen of movies.

--Huh. But, Tarantino, you know, at first I thought Tarantino wanted to be Robert Altman—now it's clear he always wanted to be St. Spielberg. It's the same gee-whiz, eternal-child, look-at-me, everything-is-nostalgic shtick. It makes one want to throw up one's pabulum.

--You had a falling out.

--No, no, I've never met the man. The whole Tarantino tag began and ended with movie critics. I think it was Premiere who first threw that one out there.

--Ok. So, the last movie—

--You can call it by name. I'm not ashamed of it.

--Spondulicks.

--A title only its progenitor could love.

--What does it mean?

--Didn't you read the crabby press? Money, it means money. A subject in Hollywood more taboo than incest, or child molestation.

--You think you opened some sores—

--Yes, that's one way of putting it. Hollywood, even moreso than Las Vegas, is a city built on greed, on making money. Say all you want about Dream Factories and such. The dollar rules. And, the irony is, that there is more money in Hollywood than in the mob's secret stashes. Pocket money out there is measured in the thousands. Tens of thousands.

--And your movie—

--Besides being disrespectful to the dream, it was disrespectful of the banks. Of the deep pockets.

--Chris, in the movie, the character played by Peter Riegert, he seems a product of Hollywood rather than a man who dreams independently.

--Yes, I think so. Chris, with eye on the prize, thought that if he made one more movie, one more stab at contemporary angst, he would hit it big. He was seduced by the city, by the idea that a movie could both be provocative and profitable.

--And his end is tragic, don't you think?

--Tragic and inevitable.

--Inevitably tragic.

--Right.

--So how much of Chris is you?

--Ah, that question. I'd say about 26%.

--Ha. So, it's a question that bedevils you, one you have grown weary of.

--Well, a friend of mine sent me a t-shirt that read "I am Not Chris."

--Uh huh.

--So, yeah, you know. I am not Chris. But I am, too. I am that piece of the dream.

--Do you see your end as tragic?

--Well, I hope I haven't reached the end.

--No, no, I meant, in Hollywood. Do you—

--Think I'm washed up in Hollywood? For today. You know it's also a city where a comeback is pre-programmed and expected. They count you out only to wish you to rise again someday, renewed, reinvented, the Phoenix from the flameout.

--Hm.

--You know, Donald. The thing is that most filmmakers have to do the Hollywood thing once or they don't feel validated. But, really, the reality is that today, with digital, with co-ops, with every state offering film companies incentives to work there, it's all so diverse, spread out, dispersed.

--Do you see that as a healthy thing?

--Well, as an independent I have to. I would be a fool not to celebrate it.

--Because it benefits you.

--Yes.

--So, at the height of your Hollywood fame, you made…

--Titanic Opera.

--Wha— I don't have that in my notes. Titanic Opera?

--Well, it's become a personal in-joke.

--How so?

--Well, I made this film, this epic, three and a half hours. It was gonna be my—my—

--Heaven's Gate.

--

--Sorry.

--My magnum opus. It was great, I mean really great. The cast was superb, Jon Voigt, Gene Hackman, Ellen Green, Halle Berry, Faith Glory, Blue Positive. And the photography—my god, Haskell Wexler, some of his best late work—and a sprawling, multi-generational tale, loosely based on Nabokov's Ada, but set in the San Fernando Valley.

--It sounds incredible. What happened to it?

--It disappeared. Poof. Cut down so small, bit by bit, both sides, studio and artistic, though I was left out and given no reason, snipping, snipping, so that eventually it was shown for the first and last time between features on IFC. About 4 and ½ minutes, I think was the final run time.

--Incredible.

--Yes, I think it's some kind of record.

--Hm.

--Yes.

--Ok, so, the new film. Let's talk about that.

--Of course.

--What is its working title?

--Curiology.

--What is that?

--It means picture writing. So, an obvious pun.

--Do you think that will be the final title?

--No, I learned my lesson with Spondulicks. We have also discussed Potemkin Village.

--Tell me why, what does that mean? An Eisenstein reference—

--It's a city that appears as an impressive showy facade designed to mask undesirable facts.

--A city with dark secrets.

--Yes, dark city secrets down its dark streets.

--Is this another Hollywood metaphor?

--No, not this time.

--Then—

--Well, running the risk of ruffling feathers, it's Memphis that is the dark end of the street.

--That's Dan Penn, our homeboy.

--Of course.

--So you think that title will stick?

--Don't know. The working title is, simply, Memphis Movie. Sandy wanted it to be called S is for Symbolism.

--That's Sandy Shoars, your wife and collaborator.

--We're not married, but, yes. My collaborator and paramour. She has written every one of my movies.

--And received an Independent Spirit Award for After You I Almost Disappeared.

--A nomination.

--She didn't win?

--No, that was the year Sleeping in a Box won everything.

--Oh, right.

--Sandy's new script, that is, for this movie set in Memphis, is the best thing she's ever done.

--That's very exciting.

--Yes, it is. It is how we get the actors we want, the power of her words. Actors relish good scripts, as they should.

--Hope Davis.

--Exactly. My first choice for all my movies but this is the first time we'll be working together. She's the right stuff.

--And lovely.

--Yes.

--Elena Musick, Ike Bana, Suze Everingham, it's quite a cast.

--Yes, we're very lucky.

--Beverly Ray, Deni Kohut.

--Yes.

--And this is the first time you'll be working with Dan Yumont.

--Yes, it is.

--His reputation precedes him. How do you think he'll be to work with?

--I don't anticipate any problems.

--Yet, upon his arrival in Memphis for preliminary meetings he was arrested at the airport.

--A misunderstanding.

--They found a box cutter and a roach clip in his pockets.

--He explained that.

--Ok.

--Dan is a complex man, a thinking man's actor. He is this generation's DeNiro.

--Some papers have compared him to Sean Penn—

--Or this generation's Sean Penn, an actor of the first water—

--Sean Penn, of the Madonna era, I was going to say. The spitting at paparazzi, the antagonism with the press.

--The press….well, best I keep myself to myself. Let's talk about the new movie—the soundtrack—

--And the soundtrack, you—

--Will be all Anjani.

--Leonard Cohen's —whatever——

--Yes.

--One would have thought you'd come to Memphis and use Memphis music.

--One would be wrong.

--Ok.

--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?

--I guess I didn't realize—

--Right.

--Memphis is there—

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

--You're literally here.

--Yes.

--Let's talk about the movie.

--Fair enough.

--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?

--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.

--The Southern angle being the racism—

-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.

--I see. Monster's Ball—

--Crossed with The Reivers. I can see the campaign already.

--The Hope Davis character. Is she based on anyone?

--Anyone out there—in the real world?

--Yes.

--No.

--Yet, she—

--I see where you're going.

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

--Is that really a verb?

--For our purposes.

--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.

--No, I—

--Donald.

--But you and Ms. Davis—

--I wish.

--Do you?

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

--Oh, ok. So the Hope Davis character—

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

--I don't—

--Move on.

--Right.

--So, how you been, Donald?

--Fine. Fine. Oh, you're looking for more questions…

--When you're ready.

--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.

--Yes.

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

--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 When I See Beverly. 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.

--Sandy didn't write this one?

--Wait. This is a story. I am telling you a story.

--Sorry.

--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 who I loved and lost, women who 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 my 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.

--It hurt, even after all the success.

--Yes, I was hurt. But another 24 hours went by and I went back into see Marty. What do I do? I asked him. He gave me Sandy's number. And that was that.

--That's how you met Sandy?

--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.

--Huh.

--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.

--The Hope Davis character.

--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.

--And Beverly is her name.

--

--Or not. I see.

--Right.

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

--Jodie Foster.

--That's not a bad fantasy lover either.

--(Laughs) You said it.

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

--No. It's fiction.

--Yes, but—

--It becomes fiction. Everything becomes fiction. Leave it out long enough and it becomes fiction.

--Ok.

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

--Really, that sounds—

--No, not really. I am pulling your leg.

--Ah.

--Sorry.

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

--I do.

--Can you talk about it?

--I can.

--Will you?

--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.

--Folks who will get an assistant producer's credit.

--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.

--A Memphis writer? Can you say who it is?

--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.

--This sounds familiar.

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

--Ah.

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

--Do you have a cast in mind?

--Yes, Hope Davis will be the wife…

--Of course.

--Yes.

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

--Thanks, Donald. I'm happy to be back.

© 2006 Corey Mesler