cinéarts film guide - winter 2015

FILM GUIDESUMMER 2016

TALKING CLASSICS WITH TCM’S BEN MANKIEWICZ pg 8

ON THE COVER: WOODY ALLEN’S CAFÉ SOCIETY The CinéArts Spotlight pg 7

PARENTHOOD 101: WHAT IS RIGHT & WHAT IS BEST?Interview with Writer/Director Matt Ross of Captain Fantastic pg 20

WHAT MAKES A GENIUS?Writer A. Scott Berg Discusses the Essence and Making of Genius pg 23

INSIDE THE INFILTRATORInterview with Director Brad Furman pg 17

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DAVID OYELOWOAND MADINA NALWANGA

LUPITA NYONG’OACADEMY AWARD® WINNER

S E PT EM B E R

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Set in 1940s New York, Florence Foster Jenkins is the true story of the legendary New York heiress and socialite (Meryl Streep) who obsessively pursued her dream of becoming a great singer. The voice she heard in her head was beautiful, but to everyone else it was hilariously awful. Her “husband” and manager, St. Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant), an aristocratic English actor, was determined to protect his beloved Florence from the truth. But when Florence decided to give a public concert at Carnegie Hall, St. Clair knew he faced his greatest challenge.

Starring Meryl Streep, Hugh Grant, Simon Helberg, Rebecca Ferguson and Nina Arianda. In theatres August 12.

© 2016 Par. Pics

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Woody Allen’s Café Society is a panoramic tale of 1930s New York and Hollywood with a

kaleidoscopic cast of characters that range from movie stars to millionaires, playboys to professors, and working girls to wise guys.

The film’s broad scope was integral from the start. “When I wrote the script, I structured it like a novel,” says Allen. “As in a book, you stop for a little while in this movie and see a scene with the protagonist with his girlfriend, a scene with his parents, followed by a scene with his sister or gangster brother, a scene with Hollywood stars and wheeler-dealers, and then the café society with politicians, debutantes, playboys, and the people cheating on their wives or shooting their husbands. To me it was always a story not of one person but of everybody.”

Within the sweep of the movie is the story of Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg), a Bronx boy whose ambitions take him to Hollywood and back again to New York. “Bobby’s love story is the armature that the film is hung on,” says Allen, “but all these other characters make up the atmosphere and fabric of the story itself.”

“Café Society” refers to the socialites, aristocrats, artists, and celebrities who gathered in fashionable cafes and restaurants in New York, Paris, and London in the late 19th and early 20th Century. The term became popular in New York City in the ’30s, after the end of Prohibition and the rise of the tabloid journalism that avidly covered the denizens of Café Society.

“That era has always fascinated me,” says Allen. “It was one of the most exciting times in the history of the city, with tremendous theatre life, café life, and restaurants. Up and down the line, wherever you were, the whole island was jumping with nighttime sophisticated activities.”

Golden Age Hollywood also had its haunts for the rich and famous, but their nightlife was markedly different from the one in New York.

“It was the glamour of the Cocoanut Grove and the Trocadero,” says Allen. “There weren’t many places to go to, the hours were earlier, the clothes were lighter, and everyone was driving their cars places. There was a certain amount of it that was very glamorous because they had the movie stars, but New York had a certain all night sophistication that Hollywood didn’t have.”

Having worked with many of the world’s greatest cinematographers, Allen teamed for the first time on Café Society with three-time Academy Award® winner Vittorio Storaro. “The cinematography in a film to me is very important in my telling of the story and Vittorio is a superb artist,” says Allen.

In a first for both of them, they shot the film digitally. Storaro had experimented with digital cameras for years, and he felt that the technology had advanced to a level where the

results satisfied him. The two worked closely together to give diverging aesthetics for the three worlds of the film: the Bronx, Los Angeles and New York.

Costume designer Suzy Benzinger’s work illuminated the differences between New York and Hollywood glamour. “Hollywood was built on an incredibly fake world that was created to drive millions of people to movies,” says Benzinger. “It was very important for them to make the starlets glamorous—they dressed them every time they exited their homes. In New York, it’s more realistic: It’s cold outside, so women come in with hats. New York women were a little more European, a little more chic than the women in California.”

Eisenberg, a writer and soon-to-be director himself, who previously appeared in Allen’s

“To Rome With Love,” describes working with Allen as both challenging and fulfilling. “It’s nerve-racking because you are not going to spend all day on the same shots, and so if you feel like you didn’t get it exactly the way you wanted, it’ll still be in the movie,” he says. “But it’s also a relief to realize you are being watched and corrected by somebody who is able to focus on whatever it is that’s most important in a given scene, and highlight it in the most efficient, clear, and artful way.”

Steve Carell, who portrays Bobby’s uncle Phil, appreciated that Allen didn’t do a lot of takes: “When you do too many, you can start over-thinking it, and that’s when you can come up with artificial moments or reactions. I think he loves immediacy and I think it pays off.”

As Bobby’s Hollywood love interest Vonnie, Kristen Stewart felt that Allen pushed her outside of her comfort zone. “There’s a buoyancy and a levity to Vonnie’s personality that I just don’t easily encompass,” she says. “And so he was really on me about that and forced me to lighten up and find that sort of airy nature.”

Carell believes that Allen’s approach to

directing is grounded in an appreciation for actors and their work: “I think he respects actors so much that he assumes that they will come in prepared and that they will do their job. He leaves the acting up to the actors. So unless you have a question or unless he has a concern, it’s very simple—if it’s working, you don’t really hear anything.”

The love story at the heart of Café Society is bittersweet. The characters wonder about the choices they have made and the paths their lives have taken. “Life is like putting together a huge mosaic—but you only get to see one little stone at a time, you don’t get to see the big picture,” says Stewart. “You’re responsible for the decisions you’ve made, but your decisions weren’t fully informed. There’s a ‘what-if ’ at play during this whole movie that drives me crazy, because that’s life—you always wonder if the decisions you’ve made were the right ones.”

Says Carell: “What you think is your ultimate dream might not necessarily be so. There can always be a yearning and a dream beyond the one that you have at hand.”

“It’s just choices that people make in life,” says Allen. “Things work out for Bobby and Vonnie to some degree, but they still dream about each other and it’s not going to happen. If Vonnie had made a different decision earlier, they’d be together. But the way things are, they can only be together in their dreams.”

Poignant, and often hilarious, Café Society, a film with a novel’s sweep, takes us on a journey from pastel-clad dealmakers in plush Hollywood mansions, to the quarrels and tribulations of a humble Bronx family, to the rough-and-tumble violence of New York gangsters, to the sparkling surfaces and secret scandals of Manhattan high life. With Café Society, Woody Allen conjures up a 1930s world that has passed to tell a deeply romantic tale of dreams that never die.

Café Society opens in CinéArts Theatres in July 2016.

The CinéArts SpotlightCAFÉ SOCIETY

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There are just some guys you could talk to for hours and hours and never feel like it’s enough. For me, Ben Mankiewicz is one of those guys. As a host of Turner Classic Movies for over a dozen years, he’s someone who’s

become a ‘go-to guy’ for opinions on cinema, present and past. He’s comfortable and passionate about movies at the same time. He can get into the minutia of the history of a film and still be able to relay it in a way that is remarkably simple and clear.

So with over 200 Cinemark locations across the country programming the TCM Big Screen Classics series, presented by Fathom Events and Turner Classic Movies, Cinemark was grateful to Ben for giving us a few moments to clarify for us what a ‘classic’ really is, and to give us a glimpse into why these outstanding movies showing on-screen throughout the rest of the year qualify for such a distinction.

Frank Gonzales: Ben, what are the true components of a classic movie?

Ben Mankiewicz: I’m probably not going to answer this question as well as I should but I think a movie has to have stood up to some sort of external pressure and moved past it. For many classics, maybe it’s because it had a classic star in it, or maybe because it has a classic story, or simply because in the historical context in which it existed turns it into something that’s bigger than it is. Certainly it helps that a classic movie is great, but they are not all great. So it could come from a particular era or it could have merely have weathered the storm, which I often think applies to classic movies. It could have been criticism at the time, or difficulty in it getting made, but something bigger than the celluloid or digital card that it’s on.

FG: So I guess all great movies may not be classics?

BM: Arguments could be made that terrible movies could be considered classics. A movie like Red Dawn, which I think is atrocious, was still directed by a director with a great resume, John Milius. For anyone who loves American movies of the 70’s, like I do, I have a very warm spot in my heart for him. I mean we could do a night of John Milius movies on TCM and as part of that we could make the argument to show Red Dawn. We’d have to put it in some historical context and then put it on the air. Does that make it a classic movie? Maybe. But what’s important to understand is that we wouldn’t just show Red Dawn. Another

network may just show it, but we would only put it on unless there was some context of a night of John Milius movies or the ‘United States Gets Invaded’ movies. In the context that we curated it properly, then we’d show Red Dawn. Does that make the movie any good? I guess in the context of the late Cold War, maybe it was.

FG: That’s the thing about Turner Classic Movies, the channel places movies in the correct context to make it important in one or more ways, shapes or forms, right?

BM: Correct. A movie that is infamously famous could be included if placed in the correct programming context. Then it becomes interesting and could become something else than just famously bad because we’ve taken care of it and properly curated it.

FG: So what about the TCM Big Screen Classics series? What separates these classics from mere movies?

BM: I think if you put any of these movies like Willy Wonka, The King and I, Dr. Strangelove in no context at all, these movies would still appeal to audiences on a visceral level and they say something particular about the time they were made. But more importantly these movies ‘mean’ something to people! They appeal on an emotional level. Willy Wonka means something to the people who love Willy Wonka. And that’s just true about all of these movies in the Big Screen Classic series. They mean something emotionally to the people who love them.

That’s not always true of even real good movies; you just like a movie, but it doesn’t mean something to you, it doesn’t make you feel something for the time when you saw it for the first time. That connection to your past, with your mother, with your father, with your grandparents, something like that, that is the connection that TCM has with its fans. No one else on television has that. That’s why

BEN MANKIEWICZ TALKS CLASSICSTCM Host discusses Big Screen Classics with Frank Gonzales


we have an audience that feels viscerally and emotionally connected to us, through the curation of these movies.

FG: I imagine it doesn’t hurt that these are very quotable movies either.

BM: People quote Willy Wonka all the time! There are catchphrases from Willy Wonka and from all of the others in this series. Willy Wonka represents a particular time in America so we’re connected to that movie because it reaches beyond the sum of its parts. Willy Wonka stays with people. Planet of the Apes stays with people. I mean if you’re going to go around quoting movies these are great ones for that. If a movie in a simple phrase can create an entire craze with people who didn’t even see the movie, then it’s penetrated beyond the scope of its 115 minutes.

FG: Planet of the Apes and The King and I are movies that are meant to be seen on the big screen, from a purely filmmaking point of view. The size and scope of a movie certainly play a role in determining its status as a classic.

BM: Exactly! That’s why we are doing this and that’s why we get such great response. It’s also why the TCM Film Festival is so successful. We just wrapped up our seventh one and it keeps getting bigger and better. The festival brings together people who love movies and places them in movie theatres. There’s something great about that because all of these movies were meant to be seen that way and it matters! It makes a difference.

I guarantee you a lot of people will go and see The King and I and many have seen the movie, but I would venture that most would not have seen it in a theatre. It’s a different experience. There’s enormous value in that. I mean, listening to a record is one thing, but experiencing a live concert is vastly different. Now the difference between a movie in

home or in a theatre may not always be that dramatic, but it does matter. Watching The

King and I on a big screen, or shouting “I’ve got the Golden Ticket” during Willy Wonka, there’s a joy in that. And sharing that joy with people you may or may not know, packed into a theatre, waiting the entire movie for that moment…that is a human connection you cannot get at home. Today in a world of less and less authentic human connectivity, this is valuable. I don’t think we’re saving the universe, but anytime you bring people together for a shared experience, you’re richer for it.

FG: Sometimes, to go along with the size and scope of a movie, is the director who envisions the movie and brings it to life. That

too can be the reason a film becomes classic. Stanley Kubrick, who gets two movies in the series is a great example, right?

BM: Absolutely! Kubrick didn’t just break the rules, he changed them. Then he changed his rules and broke new ground. Others were shocked, but they talked about how he did things differently and eventually started to copy him. That’s what’s being truly innovative is. So it’s no accident that there’s two Kubrick films. And I’m sure in the coming years there will be more.

FG: What was it about him that made Kubrick unique?

BM: There was something special in what he was able to do. Stanley Kubrick seemed unbound by the restrictions of the craft. Not real restrictions, but just the way that things had always been done. Everyone falls into it in every craft we do. I like to think about Kubrick in another way: what if he’d did other things? What if he was a cab driver?

Would he have driven on the sidewalk? What new way of thinking would he have created? Man, Stanley Kubrick would have been a great chef! He would have put things in dishes that no one had ever thought. So I’m thrilled that we’re doing two of his movies, but we could have done Paths of Glory, or A Clockwork Orange, or 2001: A Space Odyssey.

FG: A great thing about the TCM Big Screen Classics series and TCM in general is bringing in new audiences to see the best of the history of cinema.

BM: At the festival we show movies that are undeniably classics and unquestionably stand the test of time. Take a movie like From

Here to Eternity (which will show on-screen in December). I’ll ask festivalgoers how many have seen the movie and inevitably over half the theatre has not seen it! I’m still struck by how many will have a first time experience. And I’m sure it will be true for the Kubrick movies, for Animal House, The King and I and the rest in this series.

FG: There must be a great range of ages of your audience members.

BM: We see who comes to these events and there are plenty of young people there. And I’m sure there are people who will come see Planet of the Apes and their only experience with the movie is the recent 2001 version. I’d love to know how many people coming out for Strangelove have never seen it. Same thing for The Shining, I’m certain there will be many who’ve never seen it at all, much less on screen.

FG: I guess it does come back to that visceral experience the audience shares, right? That is really the hallmark of a classic movie.

BM: I’ll share a story with you. We recently showed One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest at the TCM Film Festival and most of the people in the theatre had seen it, maybe a third had not. But it didn’t matter! That two-thirds of the crowd who had seen it before and were in that theatre seeing it again were weeping! You could hear it! Danny DeVito came in to do a Q&A afterwards and walked in with me at about the last twelve minutes of the movie and he cried! I mean, you’re in this room and you cannot help but be moved by it. You’re sitting there with these other human beings; it’s such an emotional experience.

FG: Ben, thanks a bunch to you and TCM for the Big Screen Classics.

BM: This is fun for us. We love what we do. It’s a pleasure for us to bring these movies to a big audience.

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THE WORLD’S MOST FABULOUS FUGITIVES ARE ON THE RUN...

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As a fan of many sports, I’m accustomed to all of the cliché’s and adages associated with them. You

know, “there’s no I in team,” or “I’m giving it 110%.” One of the most frustrating aspects of team sports in general is the notion that every outcome comes down to the action or inaction of one person. A game, a series, or even a season somehow can rest on the shoulders of one person making a bad play at a crucial moment. For baseball fans, Bill Buckner’s error wasn’t the downfall of the team, but everyone points to it like it was. Closer to home for me, Jackie Smith not catching a touchdown pass in a Super Bowl didn’t make the difference in the game, but many still act like it did.

The opposite is also true. One great play by one talented athlete could be remembered as the only thing that mattered in a win. That perspective is also skewed. I thought there are 10 other guys on same side of the ball in a football game? Or 8 other guys working for every run and every out on the baseball diamond?

What I’m meaning to say is that all great moments in sports, in moviemaking, and in life are not done alone and in a vacuum. Just as a pro-golfer or tennis player needs a coach to nurture and push their talents to championship levels, a great movie is usually the result of a team of actors and artists working together to reach unprecedented heights. And the coach that gets them there is the director.

This team ethic is never more visible than in Director Brad Furman’s latest movie The

Infiltrator. Both on-screen and off, the film is a testament to groups of people putting their best work forward. On screen, the story of undercover federal agent Bob Mazur (Bryan Cranston) and his descent into the Florida drug underworld in order to nab drug lords associated with Pablo Escobar is a gritty and intense drama, which shows how much planning and teamwork went into pulling off one of the nation’s largest drug busts in history. Off screen, The Infiltrator draws its fuel from a tight script and a director leading a talented crew.

Furman is no stranger to telling a great story, having been behind the camera for 2011’s The Lincoln Lawyer and 2013’s Runner Runner. Both movies were showcases for a director in charge of his craft, who fully understands the role he plays in bringing out the best work of everyone involved. In a recent conversation with CinéArts, the director discussed the origins of this project, his role in getting it made, and how teamwork started at home in order to get The Infiltrator onto the big screen.

The Infiltrator is based on the 2009 book by Bob Mazur, the federal agent who went undercover to infiltrate one of the largest drug syndicates in the US. For Furman, the road to getting the rights to make the movie was a story of perseverence and infiltration itself.

“It took about two and a half years to get the rights for the project directly from Bob Mazur,” he recalls.

“At one point this was a very high profile book that was in a bidding war in Hollywood, unbeknownst to us. From my understanding

DiCaprio’s company wanted it, Tom Cruise’s company wanted it and some studios were interested. A production company acquired the rights and began to develop the story, but were not succesful and the option lapsed.”

“Fortunately for us, one of my best friends from college, Don Sikorski, who is a producer on the film, brought the book to my attention. We both loved it and tried to go through official channels to obtain the rights with no luck.”

“So with nothing to lose and in true investigative journalistic fashion, we tracked down Bob Mazur’s number and I cold called him! I told him I had directed The Lincoln Lawyer, which he had seen, and I gave him my pitch on why he should give us the option rights. And that was the very, very beginning of The Infiltrator. I don’t think I’ve told anyone that story before!”

The director had already been intersted in the drug cartel scene of South Florida in the seventies and had even worked on trying to get a film made about Columbian kingpin Pablo Escobar. As he describes it, one project lost set the stage for another one to fill the void. “About four years ago, I was involved in a film about Pablo Escobar, which didn’t move forward, but gave me a great base of knowledge for The Infiltrator story.”

Another integral team member on The Infiltrator turned out to be the screenwriter Ellen Brown Furman, the director’s mother. And while you think there could be a hint of nepotism here the director Furman is quick to point out that the writer Furman drew upon certain insights that only the mother Furman

INSIDE THE INFILTRATOR“The Making of” with Director Brad Furman By Frank Gonzales

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could provide. “In writing The Infiltrator she really insisted on placing a strong emphasis on family into the story.”

“The movie gives audiences an insight into the undercover world that we don’t typically see,” Furman added. “My mother really wanted to show the balance Mazur struggled with in trying to have a family and in trying to do his job. Bob was going back and forth from Tampa to Miami and he was away from his wife and children; Mom really brought out how hard that was for Mazur. She was also able to show how even drug lord’s lives were influenced by their families. She should get a lot of credit for her brilliant work in crafting a screenplay that got it right. And I’m not saying that because she’s my mom, but because it’s very true; she gave us a unique insight into this world that I don’t think would have been present without her perspective.”

On screen, The Infiltrator fuses a great script with a talented cast that worked well with the director. Furman knows that the bond between actor and director is special and having a comfort level with them makes for a better set and a better outcome. The essence of this is trust which builds the team.

“I think that trust is everything between an actor and director.”

“Each and every one of us on the set, in front and behind the camera, is a filmmaker.

We are all focused on the same singular goal. Going into this, shooting a period movie with budget limitations, we knew we could rely on each other.”

“Bryan was with me for The Lincoln Lawyer. John has been in two of my prior films and he’s one of my dearest and closest friends, I’ve known Benjamin Bratt (Alcaino) and Yul Vasquez (Ospina) for twenty years, and Diane Kruger (Kathy Ertz) and I had met on a movie a few years prior; so I’ve had deep personal relationships with the core base of actors in this movie and I think it paid wonderful dividends for me, for them and The Infiltrator.”

The trust between director and actor was further enhanced by the bond Furman had with his crew. “With a great crew you need a shorthand, trust and a bond. I have it with these guys.”

“There’s that old schoolyard game when you’re a kid where you close your eyes and put your arms across your chest and fall backwards. Your friends are supposed to catch you. That trust game is the trust level and bond I have with my crew.”

“Joshua Reis, who shot The Infiltrator, was second unit director of photography on my first two films. Jeff McEvoy, the Editor, also cut The Lincoln Lawyer and Runner Runner.

I’ll continue to work with the crew members I trust deeply. I’ll fall backwards for these guys anytime.”

For Brad Furman, The Infiltrator is a championship winning effort. It’s one built on individual efforts combining into a cohesive team that is determined to succeed. Audiences will be rooting for this team to win this summer.

The Infiltrator is based on a true story of Federal Agent ROBERT ‘BOB’ MAZUR (Bryan Cranston) as he goes deep undercover to infiltrate Pablo Escobar’s drug trafficking scene plaguing the nation in 1986 by posing as slick, money-laundering businessman Bob Musella. Teamed with impulsive and streetwise fellow agent EMIR ABREU (John Leguizamo) and rookie agent posing as his fiancé KATHY ERTZ (Diane Kruger), Mazur befriends Escobar’s top lieutenant ROBERTO ALCAINO (Benjamin Bratt). Navigating a vicious criminal network in which the slightest slip-up could cost him his life, Mazur risks it all building a case that leads to indictments of 85 drug lords and the corrupt bankers who cleaned their dirty money, along with the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, one of the largest money-laundering banks in the world.

The Infiltrator opens Wednesday, July 13, 2016 in CineArts Theatres.


ANTHROPOID

ANTHROPOID is based on the extraordinary true story of Operation Anthropoid, the World War II mission to assassinate SS General Reinhard Heydrich. The Reich’s third in command after Hitler and Himmler, Heydrich was the main architect behind the Final Solution and the leader of occupying Nazi forces in Czechoslovakia whose reign of terror prompted Allied soldiers (Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan) to hatch a top-secret mission that would change the face of Europe forever.

#Anthropoid

The Operation To Assassinate SS Commander Reinhard Heydrich

IN THEATRES THIS AUGUST

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By Frank Gonzales/CinéArts

WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS BEST?The CinéArts Interview with Writer and Director Matt Ross of

Hollywood has had some great parenting moments over the years. There’s the iconic Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch navigating his life and the lives of his children through

turbulent times in To Kill A Mockingbird. There’s the ingenious, protective John Mills of Swiss Family Robinson. Even Marlon Brando’s turn as the head of a crime family in The Godfathergave new meaning to protection and provocation.

So while Hollywood has given us parenting skills that are as varied as genres, the ultimate question we can take away and apply to real life is: when it comes to parenting, what is best versus what is right for your child? Writer and director Matt Ross, of the new Bleecker Street fi lm CAPTAIN FANTASTIC, attempts to examine that question through an emotionally moving and entertaining piece of moviemaking.

CAPTAIN FANTASTIC, starring Viggo Mortensen in the titular role, turns the question of parenting on its head, which is exactly what the writer/director was going for. “My goal was to create an emotional experience in a movie that is also a piece of entertainment,” stated Ross, in a recent CinéArts interview.

“But on a deeper level I’m also trying to create something that will stay with a person for days after they’ve seen it. Movies can be nothing but a fun rollercoaster ride, but they can also be something that can impact your life on some level. I was hoping for that.”

As a father himself, Ross knew his story would resonate with other parents who are learning with the intricacies of raising a family, but wasn’t sure if he could also make it appealing to children of parents. “I was unsure that people who were not parents would react positively to the movie.

“But as I went along I realized that over the course of testing the movie with friends and family of a wide variety of

ages and experiences, including teenagers, that they were moved. Even teens reacted positively since after all, they are children of parents, and are in families.”

He eventually realized that the common denominator in his and all great movies was something everyone is born into: family. “I think all great dramas are about the family. Look atThe Godfather, what is it really about? It’s about family. Tonally, it’s a very different movie, but about family.”

But Ross didn’t want to just make another story of a family and the confl icts they endure from outside forces, but rather delve from the inside out into what makes a family move and feel, and how a parent infl uences that dynamic. “CAPTAIN FANTASTIC is about a father who was not very refl ective about his parenting and over the course of the events of the fi lm begins to closely examine what he’s doing and why. For me personally, the reason I wanted to tell this story is because I have two kids and I was certainly thinking, ‘What are my values? What do I want to teach my children?’”

“The real truth is that until you become a parent, in some ways, you may not have to question your own values. You do the things you do, you eat the things you do, and until you have a child you start thinking ‘Is this the best thing to do? What am I teaching them about nutrition? Why do I look the way I do? What do I believe?’ All of these things we’ve done on autopilot for so long, now we have to stop and take a moment and think and analyze. And whether or not I agree with your parenting style is immaterial. What is important is taking the time to refl ect on what you’re doing.”

Ben Cash, Mortensen’s character, has removed his children from society, living a seemingly idyllic life in the woods of Oregon, opting to educate them in the ways of the world

unlike any syllabus ever seen. Ross sees this method of parenting as a springboard to examine the ultimate goal of the job: to make your children better and adaptive to whatever challenges they face. The writer realizes that any form of parenting has its faults, even the ones that look perfect from the outside. “Over the course of the movie it becomes apparent not so much what he’s teaching them, but how he’s isolating them.”

“If we’re analyzing Ben’s faults it is that he really hasn’t prepared them in terms of socialization to the world outside. He has this idea that in order to really teach his children his values he needs to take control of their education and their environment. And in a larger case that is true for everyone. We send our kids to school and hope that it’s the truth that they are being told and taught.”

Ross’ background was actually one not too unlike the fi ctional Cash family in CAPTAIN FANTASTIC. “I grew up in rural environments. That part of it is semi-autobiographical as my mother had started some alternative living communities in Oregon and Northern California. And a close element in the movie to my life was the journey of Bo [George MacKay] who needs to go off into the world. I lived in such a rural area that I was not around kids my own age, so that part of existing in the world with your fellow man was unknown to me.”

For the director this experience allowed him to approach the fi lm as someone caught between two worlds: the one they create and the one creating them. “The heart of the movie for me is that the children are isolated and not prepared for the outside world. And in order to be prepared for the outside world you have to exist in the outside world. In a way Ben’s cheating them by removing them and ultimately in Ben’s case the question is whether or not he’s done a disservice to his children.”

No one seemed more in tune with the “earthier” aspects of the Cash compound than Viggo Mortensen, who literally ate, slept and lived the role. Ross was thoroughly impressed. “He helped build the set. He came a couple of weeks early and slept in the tipi before and during the shoot. He built the garden by himself and made sure it was a functional garden that would sustain itself throughout the year. He showed up with a pickup truck full of props and books. We had an excellent prop

department on hand, but he felt very strongly about what kinds of books the characters might read.”

“I wanted to cast someone who I believed could really live in this environment and actually understands what he’s talking about. That’s a tall order. You need an actor who can portray someone who is well spoken, well read, and very intelligent. These are challenges you have to navigate with casting. But with Viggo you absolutely believe it!”

Yet in a movie about family, about parenting, and about combining the two in the real world, Ross faced one more challenge: to create a group on screen that not only acted the part, but was one you believed in the part.

He said it took a lot of time to get the right mix of actors. “We saw kids from every English speaking country from around the world and what we were looking for was not just great physical skills but more of a spirit that was hard to defi ne. Ultimately the ones I chose had something that was unique.”

The end result is a touching, at times funny, drama that challenges conventional wisdom and brings into question what it means to be a family.

CAPTAIN FANTASTIC Opens atCinemark Theatres this July


By Frank Gonzales/CinéArts

WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS BEST?The CinéArts Interview with Writer and Director Matt Ross of

Hollywood has had some great parenting moments over the years. There’s the iconic Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch navigating his life and the lives of his children through

turbulent times in To Kill A Mockingbird. There’s the ingenious, protective John Mills of Swiss Family Robinson. Even Marlon Brando’s turn as the head of a crime family in The Godfathergave new meaning to protection and provocation.

So while Hollywood has given us parenting skills that are as varied as genres, the ultimate question we can take away and apply to real life is: when it comes to parenting, what is best versus what is right for your child? Writer and director Matt Ross, of the new Bleecker Street fi lm CAPTAIN FANTASTIC, attempts to examine that question through an emotionally moving and entertaining piece of moviemaking.

CAPTAIN FANTASTIC, starring Viggo Mortensen in the titular role, turns the question of parenting on its head, which is exactly what the writer/director was going for. “My goal was to create an emotional experience in a movie that is also a piece of entertainment,” stated Ross, in a recent CinéArts interview.

“But on a deeper level I’m also trying to create something that will stay with a person for days after they’ve seen it. Movies can be nothing but a fun rollercoaster ride, but they can also be something that can impact your life on some level. I was hoping for that.”

As a father himself, Ross knew his story would resonate with other parents who are learning with the intricacies of raising a family, but wasn’t sure if he could also make it appealing to children of parents. “I was unsure that people who were not parents would react positively to the movie.

“But as I went along I realized that over the course of testing the movie with friends and family of a wide variety of

ages and experiences, including teenagers, that they were moved. Even teens reacted positively since after all, they are children of parents, and are in families.”

He eventually realized that the common denominator in his and all great movies was something everyone is born into: family. “I think all great dramas are about the family. Look atThe Godfather, what is it really about? It’s about family. Tonally, it’s a very different movie, but about family.”

But Ross didn’t want to just make another story of a family and the confl icts they endure from outside forces, but rather delve from the inside out into what makes a family move and feel, and how a parent infl uences that dynamic. “CAPTAIN FANTASTIC is about a father who was not very refl ective about his parenting and over the course of the events of the fi lm begins to closely examine what he’s doing and why. For me personally, the reason I wanted to tell this story is because I have two kids and I was certainly thinking, ‘What are my values? What do I want to teach my children?’”

“The real truth is that until you become a parent, in some ways, you may not have to question your own values. You do the things you do, you eat the things you do, and until you have a child you start thinking ‘Is this the best thing to do? What am I teaching them about nutrition? Why do I look the way I do? What do I believe?’ All of these things we’ve done on autopilot for so long, now we have to stop and take a moment and think and analyze. And whether or not I agree with your parenting style is immaterial. What is important is taking the time to refl ect on what you’re doing.”

Ben Cash, Mortensen’s character, has removed his children from society, living a seemingly idyllic life in the woods of Oregon, opting to educate them in the ways of the world

unlike any syllabus ever seen. Ross sees this method of parenting as a springboard to examine the ultimate goal of the job: to make your children better and adaptive to whatever challenges they face. The writer realizes that any form of parenting has its faults, even the ones that look perfect from the outside. “Over the course of the movie it becomes apparent not so much what he’s teaching them, but how he’s isolating them.”

“If we’re analyzing Ben’s faults it is that he really hasn’t prepared them in terms of socialization to the world outside. He has this idea that in order to really teach his children his values he needs to take control of their education and their environment. And in a larger case that is true for everyone. We send our kids to school and hope that it’s the truth that they are being told and taught.”

Ross’ background was actually one not too unlike the fi ctional Cash family in CAPTAIN FANTASTIC. “I grew up in rural environments. That part of it is semi-autobiographical as my mother had started some alternative living communities in Oregon and Northern California. And a close element in the movie to my life was the journey of Bo [George MacKay] who needs to go off into the world. I lived in such a rural area that I was not around kids my own age, so that part of existing in the world with your fellow man was unknown to me.”

For the director this experience allowed him to approach the fi lm as someone caught between two worlds: the one they create and the one creating them. “The heart of the movie for me is that the children are isolated and not prepared for the outside world. And in order to be prepared for the outside world you have to exist in the outside world. In a way Ben’s cheating them by removing them and ultimately in Ben’s case the question is whether or not he’s done a disservice to his children.”

No one seemed more in tune with the “earthier” aspects of the Cash compound than Viggo Mortensen, who literally ate, slept and lived the role. Ross was thoroughly impressed. “He helped build the set. He came a couple of weeks early and slept in the tipi before and during the shoot. He built the garden by himself and made sure it was a functional garden that would sustain itself throughout the year. He showed up with a pickup truck full of props and books. We had an excellent prop

department on hand, but he felt very strongly about what kinds of books the characters might read.”

“I wanted to cast someone who I believed could really live in this environment and actually understands what he’s talking about. That’s a tall order. You need an actor who can portray someone who is well spoken, well read, and very intelligent. These are challenges you have to navigate with casting. But with Viggo you absolutely believe it!”

Yet in a movie about family, about parenting, and about combining the two in the real world, Ross faced one more challenge: to create a group on screen that not only acted the part, but was one you believed in the part.

He said it took a lot of time to get the right mix of actors. “We saw kids from every English speaking country from around the world and what we were looking for was not just great physical skills but more of a spirit that was hard to defi ne. Ultimately the ones I chose had something that was unique.”

The end result is a touching, at times funny, drama that challenges conventional wisdom and brings into question what it means to be a family.

CAPTAIN FANTASTIC Opens atCinemark Theatres this July

22 | CINEARTS.COM


If you grew up in a certain time, as I did, The Beatles were the soundtrack to your life. I was just a tad too young to see them on The

Ed Sullivan Show, but I do remember when I saw “A Hard Day’s Night” the first time. I still get chills when I hear “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” And any time my big brother brought home a new 45 RPM single of the band and played it on our hi-fi stereo, it was another high point in my childhood.

Little did I know it as a kid, but that was my first brush with genius. Then later on I discovered the genius who made the genius possible: George Martin. As the producer of The Beatles, he discovered, nurtured, cajoled, chided, enlightened, and created, as much as anyone else in the band, the sound that poured forth from our speakers and into our collective history. He was the fifth Beatle, but he was so much more.

We all have this summer a great opportunity to peek into the world of genius as the film of the same name, Genius, opens in theatres across the country. The movie tells the story of Max Perkins, the venerable book editor of Charles Scribner’s Sons, and his dynamic, explosive relationship with Thomas Wolfe. Colin Firth as Perkins and Jude Law, as the wildly expansive Wolfe, bring to light not only an incredible relationship, but sheds light on the role of genius in the artistic process and in the beauty of friendship.

Genius is based on the book Max Perkins: Editor of Genius by Pulitzer Prize winning writer A. Scott Berg, who has also written biographies on Samuel Goldwyn, Charles Lindbergh and Katherine Hepburn. At the time of Wolfe’s bursting onto the literary scene of the 1920’s, Perkins was the man

who brought F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway to the masses. Because of his childhood obsession with Fitzgerald, Berg was introduced to the editorial genius of Perkins, which led eventually to Genius.

“When I was 15 I developed an obsession with F Scott Fitzgerald,” Berg relayed in a recent CinéArts conversation. “I began reading anything by Fitzgerald, about Fitzgerald, anything that had to do with him.

“Then when I was 17 I applied to the only college I seriously wanted to go to and that was Princeton, which was where he had gone. On my second day on campus I went to the library and began to go through the Fitzgerald papers. And everywhere I went in these papers I kept running into this name of Max Perkins.

“I knew from my reading the biographies of Fitzgerald that Perkins had been his editor, had discovered him, had developed him, and had stood by him. But here were dozens and dozens and dozens of boxes in the archives which really detailed the extent to which Perkins worked with Fitzgerald. I began to see how Perkins was not just a book editor, but he had become a very close personal friend who was also a mentor, a marriage counselor, a money lender and I thought ‘this guy is more interesting than some of the writers.’”

Berg soon realized that Fitzgerald wasn’t alone when it came to having a special relationship with Perkins. “I quickly learned that Perkins had done the same thing with Ernest Hemingway and with Thomas Wolfe.

“So by my sophomore year I thought ‘this is too much. This guy who stands in the shadows and pushes these other guys out into the limelight, he’s more interesting to me instead

of those superstars.’ So I began my senior thesis at Princeton actually in my sophomore year because I thought that if this thesis turns out okay there could be a book in it. And that’s just what happened; when I graduated they said ‘this is the beginning of a book. Keep going!’

For Berg, who adored biographies, writing a biography came naturally, and considers the task a cinematic one. “When I was a kid, I was always interested in reading biographies. I always got more pleasure, and I felt I was getting much more information out of non-fiction rather than fiction.

“So the reason I write biography is to not just tell the story of a life, but to tell the story of a whole period. To use a movie metaphor, I use my subject as a lens through which I can do these vast panorama shots of what was going on in America, if not the world, at the time. Also, I can do close-ups of them. So I think of my writing of these books as a giant movie, and it’s more than just a way to define the subject but to also define the period in which the subject lives.”

In fashioning the tale of Perkins and Wolfe, Berg used a bit of ambiguity in the title to create interest. “If you go back to the Latin derivation of the word genius, it is a ‘deity guardian, an ethereal protective spirit’, and that’s what the genius Perkins was and had.

“You have to ask the million dollar question: Who was the real genius here? I purposefully wanted ‘Editor of Genius’ to be a double entendre. Was Max an editor who edited geniuses? Or was he a man of genius himself? I wanted the reader, and now the moviegoer, to constantly wonder at that.

WHAT MAKES A GENIUS?Interview with Writer A. Scott Berg By Frank Gonzales

24 | CINEARTS.COM

“John Logan, the screenwriter, I think very cleverly drops several times into the movie a phrase like ‘Max had a genius for friendship’ or

‘Max has a genius for this’ at the same time he’s working with all of these geniuses. So I think the answer is both. I don’t think if Perkins had become a writer, which he had thought about as a young man, he would have been a first class writer. But I think he had a real talent as an editor. I think he had a genius for that.”

And in much the same way Berg saw Perkins’ gift as a source of a story, Berg’s dramatist and writer friend John Logan saw the book as fertile ground for a film. “I have had an extremely close relationship with John Logan for many years. One night many years ago he said he wanted to discuss something very personal which might be difficult.

“He said ‘I have always seen a movie in your book and is there any way you would let me buy the rights to it so that we don’t have to go to a studio and we could make a movie that is really true to the material?’ I knew him and his

work well enough that I knew he could pull it off and be faithful to the material. So for about ten years I was the only person John worked with.”

The project incubated, then got to critical mass which led to the movie. Berg continued,

“At about year 12 we felt comfortable enough to go after Colin Firth to play Max Perkins. He loved the script and the story and signed on and was really a champion for us.

“Then John, who had worked on a play with director Michael Grandage, asked him to take a look at this screenplay to see how he would react to it. He knew Michael wanted to get into directing movies. Michael loved it too and then everybody seemed to fall in love with everybody and the next thing we knew we had a movie to put together!”

For Berg, the whole journey from Princeton library to the big screen has been arduous, but well worth the effort. “I’ve felt very good about everything. The process was great. I don’t think it could have been more inclusive and as a result the movie is very true to the book, which means it’s very true to literary history.”

That truth was very important for Berg who sees Genius as a chance for people to really understand the pain and pleasure that goes into a unique relationship. “I’d dug thru every scrap of paper, every note, every matchbook that would pertain. On that book I did five years of research so I had every fact nailed down.”

The writer knows what he went through to get the story right, and demanded the same of his screenwriter. “The challenge for me as a biographer was ‘how do you turn a bunch of facts into a compelling story?’ And in some ways John and I had the same job: we have to make a good story, but the only thing is I have to really stick to is the tens of thousands of facts that I found.

“For John, I said to him when he signed on, ‘You have a great luxury. You don’t have to stick. Read the book one more time and throw it away. You’re a dramatist, a screenwriter; make drama out of this.’ But I made sure to stand over him to make sure he didn’t really wander too far or, if he missed a great historical piece,

show him how it would be great drama. That’s the way we worked, and I thought it was very effective.”

In the movie Genius Perkins spent hours, days, months and years working with Wolfe to pare down his stream of consciousness, vivid imagery into a readable prose which could be discerned and digested by the masses. It wasn’t an easy task. And in a nod to ‘life imitating art imitating life’ Berg agreed that his relationship with Logan mirrored the subject. “John had even said as much!

“He said while we were working together for days and nights and hours and hours that ‘this was just like Perkins and Wolfe.’ And it was very exciting! We got to have that same kind of artistic exchange and it was one of the great experiences of my professional life to be able to do that.”

And as far as the movie production itself, Berg could not have been more honored and proud of the cast and crew and the unique energy of the set. “I always thought ‘boy if we could just get good actors…,’ but then to get actors who are also movie stars, and then to

get good actors who are movie stars who also have all of these Academy Award credentials, I thought ‘this is unbelievable!’

“Even the bigger stars, Colin Firth and Jude Law, realized this was a low budget movie and they and Laura (Linney) and Nicole (Kidman) and everyone shaved their salaries just to make the movie. It was a real labor of love for everybody. That includes John and Michael and me. So that’s why the movie works so well; everybody LOVES the material!”

Berg continued, “I grew up in a Hollywood family. My father was a producer so I’ve been on a lot of sets over the years. And I’ve never been on a set when after they’ve shot a scene everybody would be gathered around the monitors to watch the brilliant acting. The costume lady, the assistants, they were all just hovering and watching it. They couldn’t get enough of it. It was very exciting.”

The author understands that “this is really a small story about a book editor and a writer,” but holds onto hope that the bigger picture shines through. “What makes it work is that Michael and John were always careful not to make this a movie about editing books, but rather about the relationships and the personal drama between all of these people.

“Thomas Wolfe was very important in his day. When he was first published, they thought about him as the ‘American Dostoyevsky.’ He was supposed to become America’s greatest novelist. He was the new Whitman, a new great voice for America.

“Today he’s really a forgotten man. He’s not taught in schools anymore. So it would be a wonderful thing if people would start to look at Wolfe once again. Literature in some ways has moved on, but I still recommend him to a lot of people and they are as swept away by his book as I was at age 19. He’s still a thrilling writer.”

But the other half of the relationship is just as important and is a discovery unto itself. Berg concluded, “People should know who Max Perkins is; he really changed the course of the literary river. Don’t forget that all three of the big guns, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Wolfe were all turned down by New York publishers. It was Max Perkins who took a shot on all of them.

“Perkins certainly had a good eye. He had that for literature. But the real reason for his great success in working with these people is his character. It’s just who he was inside. He was basically a thoroughly giving person. We meet very few people, in the course of our lifetime, who are like that, sort of living to help others. And Max Perkins was one of them.”

For me, this summer will be one of discovery as I add Wolfe to my reading list and behold the genius writer and his genius editor. And I feel certain that just like the first time I heard “She Loves You,” I’ll sit in wonder and amazement. Let’s hope that with Genius audiences experience the same when it opens in CinéArts Theatres this summer.

2 | CINEARTS.COM

cinéarts film guide - winter 2015

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