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My Next Alexander Payne Book Event Comes to Florence
Looking for something different to do on your Tuesday night?
Then come to my next Alexander Payne book event:
Tuesday, Nov. 20, 6:15 pm,
Florence Branch Library, 2920 Bondesson St., Omaha
Your favorite Omaha writer talks about “Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film – A Reporter’s Perspective”
I am just returned from the set of Payne’s new film, “Nebraska,” and I will share my impressions of that production. My highly praised book about the filmmaker and his work will be available for purchase. It’s only $19.95. I will personally sign copies.
The book makes a great gift for the movie lover(s) in your life.
Get yourself a copy of the book and find out why it’s receiving such generous praise as this:
“Alexander is a master. Many say the art of filmmaking comes from experience and grows with age and wisdom but, in truth, he was a master on day one of his first feature. Leo Biga has beautifully captured Alexander’s incredible journey in film for us all to savor.” – Laura Dern, actress, star of “Citizen Ruth”
“Leo Biga brings us a fascinating, comprehensive, insightful portrait of the work and artistry of Alexander Payne. Mr. Biga’s collection of essays document the evolution and growth of this significant American filmmaker and he includes relevant historical context of the old Hollywood and the new. His keen reporter’s eye gives the reader an exciting journey into the art of telling stories on film.” – Ron Hull, Nebraska Educational Television legend, University of Nebraska emeritus professor of broadcasting, author of “Backstage”
“Alexander Payne is one of American cinema’s leading lights. How fortunate we are that Leo Biga has chronicled his rise to success so thoroughly.” – Leonard Maltin, film critic and best selling author
“I’d be an Alexander Payne fan even if we didn’t share a Nebraska upbringing: he is a masterly, menschy, singular storyteller whose movies are both serious and unpretentious, delightfully funny and deeply moving. And he’s fortunate indeed to have such a thoughtful and insightful chronicler as Leo Biga.” – Kurt Andersen, novelist (“True Believers”) and “Studio 360 host
I am counting on my Blog followers and Facebook friends to come out and show support.
Hope to see you there.
Media Alerts:
•I will be doing a live appearance on WOWT during the 4 pm news today
•KIOS Radio is airing a segment about me and the book at 7:30 am and 4:30 pm today
•Check out Indiewire’s feature on the book at-
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- Alexander Payne’s ‘Nebraska’ Comes Home to Roost: The State’s Cinema Prodigal Son is Back Filming Again in his Home State after Long Absence (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
Laura Dern Endorses My Alexander Payne Book
Acclaimed actress Laura Dern has remained good friends with Alexander Payne since she starred in his first feature, “Citizen Ruth,” and I was lucky enough to interview her a few years ago in advance of a program she did with him in Omaha. Now, I’m privileged to have her endorse my new book about the filmmaker.
Here’s what she says about “Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film – A Reporter’s Perspective 1998-2012″:
“Leo Biga brings us a fascinating, comprehensive, insightful portrait of the work and artistry of Alexander Payne. Mr. Biga’s collection of essays document the evolution and growth of this significant American filmmaker and he includes relevant historical context of the old Hollywood and the new. His keen reporter’s eye gives the reader an exciting journey into the art of telling stories on film.” – Ron Hull, Nebraska Educational Television legend, University of Nebraska emeritus professor of broadcasting, author of “Backstage”
“Alexander Payne is one of American cinema’s leading lights. How fortunate we are that Leo Biga has chronicled his rise to success so thoroughly.” – Leonard Maltin, film critic and best selling author
“I’d be an Alexander Payne fan even if we didn’t share a Nebraska upbringing: he is a masterly, menschy, singular storyteller whose movies are both serious and unpretentious, delightfully funny and deeply moving. And he’s fortunate indeed to have such a thoughtful and insightful chronicler as Leo Biga.” – Kurt Andersen, novelist (“True Believers”) and “Studio 360 host
The book, “Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film – A Reporter’s Perspective 1998-2012,” can be ordered at AlexanderPayneTheBook.com.
The Bookworm in Omaha carries it.
Now available, too, from Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com as well as for Kindle and other e-reader devices.
The book makes a great gift for the film lover in your life.
Preview it at www.facebook.com/LeoAdamBiga.
Book events:
Florence Branch Library, Tuesday, Nov. 20, 6:15 pm
Media Alerts:
Related articles
- More Alexander Payne Book News: WE MADE INDIEWIRE!!! (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- Another sweet endorsement for my Alexander Payne book… (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- Alexander Payne’s ‘Nebraska’ Comes Home to Roost: The State’s Cinema Prodigal Son is Back Filming Again in his Home State after Long Absence (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- Alexander Payne book news (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
More Alexander Payne Book News: WE MADE INDIEWIRE!!!
WE MADE INDIEWIRE!!!
The Web’s leading site for independent film is running an exclusive feature this week on my Alexander Payne book, including an excerpt. This is our first national coverage. It coincides with the book becoming available, today, on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and for Kindle and other e-readers.
Read: Exclusive Excerpt From ‘Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film,’ A Book That Goes Behind-the-Scenes With the Oscar-Winning Auteur
The collection will be available November 13 from Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com, as well as for Kindle and other e-reader devices. Go HERE for more info.
Introduction
I first met Payne in the fall of ‘97, and my first story about him appeared at the start of ‘98. Though I have covered many other filmmakers and film projects since then, my body of Payne work remains unique for its duration, scope, and depth. Early on, I recognized in him an important cinema figure and the fruits of my cultivating that relationship are the stories that comprise this book.
I also saw in Payne an opportunity to write about one of the most significant Nebraskans in film to come along in a while. Many from the state have made major contributions to the film industry either by the prominence or quality or volume of their work….I have interviewed several of the contemporary figures…Payne is the preeminent filmmaker among them all…
Some of the fondest memories I retain from my professional life are the lively, engaging, one-on-one sessions I enjoy with Payne. They are as much conversations and explorations between two film guys as they are interviews between subject and journalist.
Payne, as you would expect, is a superb interview. Highly literate. Thoughtful. Composed. He is rarely less than frank. He can be both profane and flat out funny. He is only politically correct and circumspect when it serves a project. He generally knows what you are looking for but does not necessarily hand it to you on a silver platter, which is to say he will only give as good as he gets. He does so much press now that he does sometimes repeat quotable nuggets or tag lines from interview to interview. The strategic part of him has shown more as his career has exploded. Who can blame him?
Oh, I have my scripted questions at the ready all right, because I always feel I have to be extra prepared, not to mention be on my mental toes with him, certainly more than with most subjects. He is so damned smart that it can be a bit intimidating even now, 15 years into our relationship. I make sure to do my homework when possible. But I am also comfortable enough to go off script and wing it on occasion and to let him take these interludes wherever he wants to go with them. The best material often comes from these asides or addenda anyway, and so I am not about to curtail his digressions or flights of fancy. Or my own for that matter.
In preparing this book I was reminded of the rather comprehensive Payne archive I have been able to compile as a result of doing so many interviews with him over a decade and a half period that roughly covers his entire feature filmmaking career. It is an archive that no other journalist or author has been in a position to acquire. This body of work has accrued because I have persisted in covering him and cultivating our relationship and because he has responded by consistently granting me great access. The often exclusive interviews and unfettered access continue…
Some who know about my long-tenured coverage of Payne assume that he and I are friends or buddies. Not exactly. I mean, we are certainly friendly with each other. But we do not hang out together. Ours is definitely a closer relationship than most journalists have with a subject, but it is by no means a rare or unprecedented one. We never speak about it, but my sense is that he and I feel the same in that while it is fine we have this thing together, we do not push it so far that it compels him to meddle in my work or tempts me to compromise my journalistic integrity.
In other words, we do not cross certain lines. That includes not probing too deeply into our personal lives. I only rarely mention his life away from film in my stories. He has no financial stake in or editorial control over this book. He never interferes with what I write, just as I never think about censoring my work to please him. We both want it this way. It’s the right thing to do and it avoids weird conflicts of interest.
Because I am in the unique position of having covered him for so long and in such an in-depth manner, this book uses the interviews and stories I have done to chart the arc of his filmmaking career.
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Get Your Greek On at My Next Alexander Payne Book Event
I am personally inviting you to attend my next Alexander Payne book event:
Friday, Nov. 16, St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church, 6:30 pm 602 Park Avenue,
George and Peggy Payne Community Center (lower level, south entrance)
I will be signing copies of “Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film – A Reporter’s Perspective 1998-2012.”
Yummy Greek treats served.
Come mingle with Omaha’s Greek American community and enjoy the splendor of this recently restored Byzantine-style edifice. This is the very church the filmmaker and his family belong to. His grandfather helped found it.
I will talk a bit about Payne and the book and I will personally sign copies.
Hope to see you there.
Here’s what others are saying about the book:
“Leo Biga, through his extraordinary talent with words, brings us a fascinating, comprehensive, insightful portrait of the work and artistry of Alexander Payne. Mr. Biga’s collection of essays document the evolution and growth of this significant American filmmaker and he includes relevant historical context of the old Hollywood and the new. His keen reporter’s eye gives the reader an exciting journey into the art of telling stories on film.” –Ron Hull, Nebraska Educational Television, UNL emeritus professor of broadcasting, author of the new memoir, “Backstage”
“I’d be an Alexander Payne fan even if we didn’t share a Nebraska upbringing: he is a masterly, menschy, singular storyteller whose movies are both serious and unpretentious, delightfully funny and deeply moving. And he’s fortunate indeed to have such a thoughtful and insightful chronicler as Leo Biga.” –Kurt Andersen, novelist (“True Believers”) and “Studio 360″ host
“Alexander Payne is one of American cinema’s leading lights. How fortunate we are that Leo Biga has chronicled his rise to success so thoroughly.” –Leonard Maltin, national film critic and best-selling author
Buy a copy or two or three. The book makes a great gift for the film lover in your life.
More about the book at AlexanderPayneTheBook.com.
Available November 13 from Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com as well as for Kindle and other e-reader devices.
Preview the book at www.facebook.com/LeoAdamBiga.
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- Alexander Payne book news (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- Another sweet endorsement for my Alexander Payne book… (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- Alexander Payne’s ‘Nebraska’ Comes Home to Roost: The State’s Cinema Prodigal Son is Back Filming Again in his Home State after Long Absence (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
Alexander Payne book news
The plaudits for my Alexander Payne book keep coming in. First there were glowing remarks from national film critic Leonard Maltin and novelist (“True Believers”) and “Studio 360″ host Kurt Andersen, and now there are these generous words from Nebraska Educational Television legend and UNL emeritus professor of broadcasting Ron Hull:
“Leo Biga, through his extraordinary talent with words, brings us a fascinating, comprehensive, insightful portrait of the work and artistry of Alexander Payne. Mr. Biga’s collection of essays document the evolution and growth of this significant American filmmaker and he includes relevant historical context of the old Hollywood and the new. His keen reporter’s eye gives the reader an exciting journey into the art of telling stories on film.”
Thank you, Ron. By the way, his own new book, “Backstage,” is a delightful read.
In case you missed it, here’s what the earlier endorsements said:
“Alexander Payne is one of American cinema’s leading lights. How fortunate we are that Leo Biga has chronicled his rise to success so thoroughly.” Leonard Maltin
“I’d be an Alexander Payne fan even if we didn’t share a Nebraska upbringing: he is a masterly, menschy, singular storyteller whose movies are both serious and unpretentious, delightfully funny and deeply moving. And he’s fortunate indeed to have such a thoughtful and insightful chronicler as Leo Biga.” Kurt Andersen
The book, “Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film – A Reporter’s Perspective 1998-2012,” can be pre-ordered at AlexanderPayneTheBook.com.
Available November 13 from Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com as well as for Kindle and other e-reader devices.
Preview the book at www.facebook.com/LeoAdamBiga.
Book events:
Remember to come out for my 1 pm singing at The Bookworm this Saturday, Nov. 10
If you can’t make that, come to St. John Greek Orthodox Church for my signing on Friday, Nov. 16 at 6:30 pm
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- Alexander Payne’s ‘Nebraska’ Comes Home to Roost: The State’s Cinema Prodigal Son is Back Filming Again in his Home State after Long Absence (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
Another sweet endorsement for my Alexander Payne book…
And the hits just keep on coming where my Alexander Payne book is concerned.
On top of Leonard Maltin’s recent thumbs up, we just received another sweet endorsement, this one from novelist (“True Believers”) and “Studio 360″ host Kurt Andersen, who has bestowed on us a beautifuly worded and generous statement of support:
“I’d be an Alexander Payne fan even if we didn’t share a Nebraska upbringing: he is a masterly, menschy, singular storyteller whose movies are both serious and unpretentious, delightfully funny and deeply moving. And he’s fortunate indeed to have such a thoughtful and insightful chronicler as Leo Biga.” Kurt Andersen
Thank you, Kurt.
More big news about the book is just around the corner.
The book, “Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film – A Reporter’s Perspective 1998-2012,” can be pre-ordered at AlexanderPayneTheBook.com.
Available November 13 from Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com as well as for Kindle and other e-reader devices.
Preview the book at www.facebook.com/LeoAdamBiga.
Media Notes:
Watch me talk about the book, Payne, and his new film on “Heartland Focus” this Saturday, Nov. 3 at 6:30 pm on WOWT.
Listen to me do the same on the current “Worlds of Wayne” podcast at http://worldsofwayne.libsyn.com/
Book Events:
And I hope to see you at my next book event, Saturday, Nov. 10, The Bookworm, 1 p.m.
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- Alexander Payne’s ‘Nebraska’ Comes Home to Roost: The State’s Cinema Prodigal Son is Back Filming Again in his Home State after Long Absence (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
I Am Personally Inviting You to My Next Book Event…Sat. Nov. 10 at The Bookworm, 1 pm
I am personally inviting you to attend my next Alexander Payne book event:
Saturday, Nov. 10, The Bookworm, 1 p.m.
That’s at 8702 Pacific St. in Countryside Village, Omaha
I will be signing copies of “Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film – A Reporter’s Perspective.”
Leonard Maltin just gave the book a thumbs up.
Buy a copy or two or three. The book makes a great gift for the film geek or film buff in your life.
I hope to see you there.
If you can’t make it, you can pre-order at AlexanderPayneTheBook.com.
Available November 13 from Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com as well as for Kindle, iPad and other e-reader devices. Preview the book at www.facebook.com/LeoAdamBiga.
Related articles
- Author Leo Adam Biga to Sign His Alexander Payne Book at Various Events as Shooting Continues on the Filmmaker’s New Picture, ‘Nebraska’ (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- Alexander Payne’s ‘Nebraska’ Comes Home to Roost: The State’s Cinema Prodigal Son is Back Filming Again in his Home State after Long Absence (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
Alexander Payne’s ‘Nebraska’ Comes Home to Roost: The State’s Cinema Prodigal Son is Back Filming Again in his Home State after Long Absence
I call Alexander Payne Neb.’s cinema prodigal son because he left here to find himself as a filmmaker, then he came back to make his first three features in his home state, only to leave again to make Sideways and The Descendants in faraway Calif. and Hawaii, respectively. And now, after a 11-year absence filming here he’s back shooting his new pic, Nebraska. In truth, he was never really gone-gone. He’s maintained a residence in Omaha all along and has returned innumerable times for all sorts of things. That he’s returned to make a feature with the name of his native state in the title and is doing so after the immense success of The Descendants only makes Payne, who’s already the most compelling living Nebraskan outside perhaps Warren Buffett, only more a figure of intense interest. The following cover story for The Reader (www.thereader.com) is the first of what I anticipate will be a whole string of pieces I do related to this film. My reporting on the project converges with my new book out on the filmmaker, Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film – A Reporter’s Perspective 1998-2012, which you’ll find plenty of posts about on this blog. My coverage of Nebraska will undoubtedly end up in future editions of the book.
Alexander Payne’s ‘Nebraska’ Comes Home to Roost: The State’s Cinema Prodigal Son is Back Filming Again in His Home State after Long Absence
©by Leo Adam Biga
Now appearing in The Reader (www.thereader.com)
In 1968 Francis Ford Coppola led a small cinema caravan to Ogallala, Neb. for the final weeks shooting on his independent road picture The Rain People starring Shirley Knight. Joining them were future fellow film legends George Lucas, Bill Butler, Robert Duvall and James Caan.
Now a road pic of another kind, Nebraska, is underway here by native prodigal son Alexander Payne. For his first filming on his home turf since 2001 Payne’s lit out into northeast Neb. to make a fourth consecutive road movie after the wandering souls of his About Schmidt, Sideways and The Descendants.
Nebraska began shooting October 15 around Norfolk, where the production’s headquartered, and will complete 35 days of principal photography by the end of November. A week of second unit work will run into early December.
The project is set up between Payne, Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa’s Bona Fide Productions and Paramount Pictures.
Despite proclamations he doesn’t care for road movies, much less shooting in cars, Payne’s once again attached himself to a story of lost and broken people careening to some revelation about themselves.
Asked why he keeps returning to this theme or structure, he says, “I have no idea, I personally don’t really like road movies all that much and it’s all I seem to make. No, none of it’s intentional, I’m a victim. Yeah, it just happened.”
Characters hitting the road is a classic metaphorical device for any life-as-journey exploration and Payne’s not so much reinvented this template as made it his own.
“I think self-discovery is a big theme in his movies,” says Berger.
The protagonist of Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) goes in search of meaning via his mobile home after his life is knocked asunder. In Sideways buddies Miles (Paul Giamatti) and Jack (Thomas Haden Church) indulge in a debauched tour of Calif. wine country that rekindles the love impulse in one and confirms the unreliability of the other.
The by-car, boat and foot journey of The Descendants is propelled when Matt King (George Clooney) discovers his dying wife’s infidelity and sets off to find her lover. What he really finds is closure for his pain and the father within him he’d forgotten.
The bickering father-son of Nebraska, Woody (Bruce Dern) and David (Will Forte), hold different agendas for their trek along the highways and byways of Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota and northern Nebraska. Woody, a unrepentant, alcoholic old coot estranged from everyone in his life, is hellbent on collecting a sweepstakes prize that doesn’t exist. David, the good-hearted but exasperated son, decides to placate his pops by promising to drive him from Billings. Mont. to the prize company’s home office in Lincoln, Neb. by way of several detours. He’s sure his father will come to his senses long before their destination.
This mismatched pair’s road-less-traveled adventure in the son’s car finds them passing through Woody’s old haunts, including his hometown, the fictional Hawthorne, Neb., a composite of Hartington, Wausa, Bloomfield, Norfolk and other rural burgs. At nearly every stop they encounter the detritus from Woody’s life, which like the broken down Ford pickup in his garage he can’t get to run is a shambles of regret and recrimination. Woody’s made the fool wherever he goes.
A longtime nemesis, Ed Pegram (Stacy Keach), is a menacing presence.
By story’s end this father-son journey turns requiem. To salve his father’s broken spirit David performs a simple act of grace that gives Woody a valedictory last laugh.
Producer partners Berger and Yerxa (Little Miss Sunshine), who shepherded Payne’s Election in conjunction with Paramount and MTV Films (1999), brought Bob Nelson’s original script for Nebraska to the filmmaker’s attention a decade ago.
Payne says, “Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa had gotten a hold of it, and asked me to read it, not thinking I would want to direct it myself. They wanted to know if there was some young up and coming Neb. director I knew about who could make it for a very, very low sum, and I read it and I liked it and I said, ‘How about me and for a sum not quite so low?’ And so it was, and they’ve been kind enough to wait for me these eight or nine years since I first read it.
“I read it before making Sideways but I didn’t want to follow up Sideways with another road trip. I was tired of shooting in cars. I didn’t think it would take this long, I didn’t think Downsizing (his as yet unrealized comedy about miniaturization) would take so long to write in between. And then The Descendants came along and now I’ve circled back around to this austere Neb. road trip story.”
The story’s essential appeal for Payne is its deceptive simplicity.
“I liked its austerity, I liked its deadpan humor, I like how the writer clearly was writing about people he knew and representing them faithfully to a certain degree but also sardonically. And I’ve never seen a deadpan, almost Jim Jarmusch sort of comedy that takes place in rural Nebraska.”
The barren, existential landscape should find ample expressive possibilities in the black-and-white, wide-screen visuals Payne and cinematographer Phedon Papamichael (Sideways, The Descendants) plan capturing. Papamichael says the palette they’ve hit upon after much testing emphasizes natural lighting and texture. They’re using a high contrast stock from the ’70s that’s less sharp or defined. Film grain is being added to it.
“We’re really coming to appreciate and love the poetic power of the black and white in combination with these landscapes” says Papamichael, “and of course the landscapes are playing a huge role in this story. It’s scaling the human drama and comedy with this vast landscape. It’s a road movie but it’s also a very intimate, small personal story.”
“Well, I certainly wanted to make one feature film in my career in black and white because black and white when well-done is just so beautiful,” says Payne. “And I knew that whatever film I made in black and white couldn’t have a huge budget, so this one seemed to lend itself to that that way. Then also in reading it I wanted the austerity of the characters and of their world represented also in a fairly austere way and I thought black and white in the fall could be very nice. By that I mean ideally after the trees have lost their leaves – to just get that look.
“Sometimes where you’re in rural America there is a certain timeless quality in all those small towns which have the old buildings. You know, change comes slowly to these places.”
In terms of visual models, he says, “we’ve looked at a number of black and white films and photographs but it’s not like I’m consciously saying, ‘Oh, Walker Evans or Dorothea Lange’ (or The Last Picture Show) or something like that. No, not really. I mean, I’ve seen them. We’re just going to follow instinct in how this one should look like.”
Berger supports Payne’s aesthetic choice, though it came with a price and a fight as Paramount execs reportedly resisted the decision to forgo color. But Payne and Papamichael held firm. Berger feels the project gives Payne a new creative space to work in.
“I always was excited artistically about what he was trying to accomplish,” says Berger. “Clearly we would have gotten a lot more money if we didn’t film in black and white and life would have been a lot easier for the production. Alexander’s films have always had a very authentic look. He’s obviously a great appreciator of cinema and he has a wonderful eye and I think in a way this is his first opportunity to showcase a more iconic, archetypal look.”
Payne may just do for the northeast Sand Hills what John Ford did for Utah’s Monument Valley in capturing a certain beautiful desolation. The play of light on wind, barns, trees and wide open spaces offers evocative chiaroscuro possibilities.
“I think it’s exciting to see what he and Phedon will come up with here,” says Berger. “And it’s scope as well and so that will add yet another dimension. And digital for the first time for him and it’s going to be interesting how that helps us getting in tight spaces like cars and using low level lighting. There’s all sorts of tools at his disposal on this one that he hasn’t had before.”
Berger’s come to know Payne’s meticulous eye for finding locations and actors that ring true.
“Once the script is right and once the cast and the locations are in place I feel he’s completely ready to make the movie. I wouldn’t say the rest is easy but I think that is the critical bedrock upon which his movies are made. I think he’s a filmmaker who’s completely in-tune with what he’s trying to say both emotionally and comedically. It’s been a real pleasure to be able to watch this evolution in his work.”
“I just know in the time frame in which I was trying to get this film made these guys rose to the top of my research and struck me and John Jackson, my casting director, as being the right fit.,” Payne says of Dern and Forte.
The irascible yet playful Woody proved most difficult.
“In this case Woody’s a very, very specifically rendered character and I just couldn’t plug any actor in there,” Payne says.
He interviewed-auditioned many, including big names. For the longest time no one matched his conceptions.
“In today’s world it was kind of hard to find someone whom I believed in that part and I didn’t want it to change the character of Woody.”
No compromising.
He finally found his Woody in Bruce Dern, whose daughter Laura Dern starred in Payne’s Citizen Ruth and remains a close friend. What made Papa Dern (Silent Running, Coming Home, Family Plot) the perfect Woody?
“Well, he’s of the right age now and he can be both ingenuous and ornery. And he’s a cool actor. And in a contextual level I haven’t seen on the big screen a great Bruce Dern performance in a few years and I’m curious to see what he can do. He’s a helluva nice guy as well.”
Dern and Will Forte (Saturday Night Live) didn’t meet until they arrived in Norfolk in early October to participate in table readings and visit locations with other principal cast. Any chemistry they produce will be worked out on set. That’s how it worked between Giamatti and Haden Church on Sideways.
“I cast those two guys in Sideways separately. They never met before 10 days or two weeks before we started shooting. Or George Clooney and Shailene Woodley (in The Descendants), they had never met before. I’ve just had good luck with that. Actors know it’s their job to develop some sort of chemistry, hopefully not force it but develop it, and then of course film has a wonderful capacity to lie.”
The casting of Forte surprised many. Not surprisingly, Payne has a considered rationale for the choice.
“Will Forte, physically, I believed could be the son of Bruce Dern and June Squib (who play’s Woody’s long-suffering wife, Kate). and then I just believe him as a guy I would know around Omaha or meet in Billings. He has a very, very believable quality. And I also think for the character of David he is capable of communicating a certain wide-eyed quality toward life and also damage – like he’s been damaged somehow, somewhere.”
Payne’s confident he has a stand-alone project.
“I don’t think you would have seen anyone portray characters like these before. I mean, I’ve never seen exactly this move with exactly this dynamic.”
Payne revised Bob Nelson’s script alone, then had Phil Johnston (Cedar Rapids) take a pass, before revising it again. He admires how close the material is to Nelson’s experience.
“His parents were from Hartington, Neb. and I think Wausa (Neb.) but he grew up in Snohomish Wash. You know how other people summer in the south of France or the Caribbean? Well, this guy used to summer in Hartington, That’s where he would spend time with his many uncles on his father’s side.”
Nelson confirms the hard-tack individualists and towns of Nebraska are composites of relatives and places there and in rural Wash., though Woody is directly based on his late father. He darkened characters and incidents for dramatic effect and invented the sweepstakes storyline. Nelson’s best-known writing credit before Nebraska was for the award-winning Seattle television show, It’s Almost Live. He meant to shop his feature script around L.A. but it quickly got into the hands of Payne, who instantly committed to making it and never reneged. Getting Payne behind it, he says, “changed everything.”
To his surprise and delight, Payne didn’t overhaul his script.
“I’m pretty sure I would have been happy no matter what he did with it because I believed in him as a filmmaker. The fact that so much of my dialogue and so many of the scenes remain is really almost unheard of if you have a writer-director taking over,” Nelson says. “That’s another thing that impressed me. I could tell he didn’t go in and try to turn it into his own screenplay. He wasn’t driven to put his own stamp on it just to do that. He went through it and thoughtfully changed things he thought could use changing but he left in things he thought could work well. For that I’ll always be grateful.
“When he’s rewriting it I think he’s turning in a way already into a director who’s thinking, ‘Do I really want to shoot this scene and do I want to shoot it like that? Is there anything that could make this better?’ You can almost see that going on in his mind. The one thing you hope when your work is adapted is that it will be made better and he’s one of the few guys in Hollywood you’re almost certain will make it better. I really trust him.”
Payne rooted the production in Norfolk after a long search.
“I spent a year driving around Neb. when I had free time – a wonderful education on the state. I considered places like Columbus. Grand Island. Hastings, but I landed on Norfolk because Norfolk has a pretty good number of small towns of about 1,500 people orbiting it, and maybe it’s also no coincidence that that’s the area Robert Nelson was writing about. Hartington is within spitting distance of Norfolk.”
Earlier this year Payne and Papamichael followed the route Woody and David make in the film, traveling for three days in a Toyota owned by Payne’s mother, Peggy, “just to get a feel for the land,” says Papamichael. “He really wanted to convey the feeling of the land to me and that was very helpful. I took a lot of black and white stills.”
Nelson, who’s seen footage and visited the set, says the film’s locations are spot-on.
Finalizing locations and cast members led Payne to make certain tweaks. “Yeah, as it always does,” he says. “I start incorporating locations more into the script and I might steal a line of dialogue or two from an actor in an audition who can’t remember his line or adds an improve that I think is quite good. Or as I’m going along I just think of things which could be better.”
He’s continued tinkering.
After seven years between his last two features he’s moving quickly from project to project now. He expects to jump from Nebraska, whose editing he should finish in the spring, into Wilson, his adaptation of the Daniel Clowes’ graphic novel slated to shoot in San Francisco next fall.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Biga is the author of a new book about Payne. Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film – A Reporter’s Perspective 1998-2012 is a compilation of the reporter’s journalism about the filmmaker. Preview it at http://www.facebook.com/LeoAdamBiga. Pre-orders are being taken at AlexanderPayneTheBook.com. Biga’s appearing at several venues through the fall to discuss the book and his many years covering Payne. At each venue he will personally sign copies. The book retails for $19.95.
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Cindy Williams Interview: Film-television Atar to Appear at Nov. 2 Screening of ‘American Graffiti’ in Omaha
Cindy Williams Interview: Film-television Star to Appear at Nov. 2 Screening of ‘American Graffiti‘ in Omaha
©by Leo Adam Biga
FOR EVENT DETAILS, VISIT: http://www.omahafilmevent.com
Cindy Williams broke our hearts in American Graffiti and made us laugh in Laverne and Shirley and this ageless American Sweetheart is still plying her craft in film, television, and theater. She’s coming to Omaha for a 40th anniversay screening of the classic George Lucas coming-of-age movie, American Graffiti. The Friday, Nov. 2 event at 7 p.m. in the Joslyn Art Museum’s Witherspoon Concert Hall is the latest revival by film historian and impresario Bruce Crawford. Williams will speak before the film to share some behind-the-scenes anecdotes from one of the most warmly regarded pictures of the last four decades. She spoke with me by phone from a bus transporting her and her fellow cast members after having just completed a performance of Nunsense Boulevard as part of a tour the musical comedy production is making on the East Coast and in the Southern states. The play is part of the Nunsense franchise by Dan Goggin. Williams appeared in Nunsense I and she calls the material “a lot of fun,” adding, “They’re happy musicals about a gaggle of nuns.”
LAB: In terms of your work on American Graffiti the first thing I’m curious about is what did you make of the young George Lucas?
CW: “He was just one of the gang, he was like one of us, he was our age. We knew he had directed at film at USC. There were rumblings he was a boy genius and his film THX-1138 was received so well. When Ron Howard and I went in to read for him, even before we had read it, he said, ‘Think of it as a musical.’ He told us that was because the music would never stop in the entire film except when the source of the music was gone, which would mean that the car was gone or the characters were out somewhere where they couldn’t hear a radio.
“I remember walking out of that meeting with Ron and saying, ‘A musical, incredible, that’s genius. Both of us agreed on that.”
LAB: So what kind of an experience did you have working on the film considering it was a low budget production all shot at night and you were among a cast of relative newcomers on a film that the studio (Universal) had little faith in?
CW: “It was like a very risque church camp experience.”
LAB: How is that?
CW: “We had one car, which was the prop car, that also was the car that took us to and from the hotel – the Holiday Inn we were staying at. Everybody had to ride together because he (the driver) wasn’t going to make anymore trips than he needed to because he was also the prop master. There was a Winnebago for the cast. There were no dressing rooms, there was no makeup, there was no place to go.
“We would start shooting at 6 at night and end at 6 in the morning with a guy from Universal there watching the clocl, making sure we didn’t go over schedule, and with one hand on the plug to the generator (to pull it and shut down filming if he had to). And so it was like fly-by-your-pants and we’ve-got-to-get-this-done and we’re-all-pulling-together.
“I don’t know if Ron had worked for Roger Corman yet but I had and I believe Harrison (Ford) had and a few others had. It was like Roger’s schedule. We were all young and anything he (Lucas) said we would just go with. Like the ending scene…Ron and I had been dismissed, it was over for us for the night, so we were in the Winnebago and he was in the boys section and I was in the girls section and we were waiting to get a ride from the prop car home. And all of a sudden the A.D. came in and said, ‘Put your wardrobe back on, we’re shooting the ending scene.’ And this was like 5 in the morning.
“Well, we had never rehearsed it, we weren’t prepared. I panicked and I said, ‘I can’t do this, I’ve read it like twice, we haven’t blocked it.’ We put our wardrobe on and ran out to George and said, ‘We’re not ready,’ and he said, ‘We’ve got to shoot it now because we’ve got to get the sun rising.’ We said, ‘Well, what do we do?’ and he said, ‘Improvise.’ And so we all got together and decided what we wer’e going to do. Haskell Wexler, the cinematographer, with a hand-held (camera)…The cars turned over, they started the car on fire, and Harrison and I figured out I’d be hitting him with my purse and then Ron was going to run up…We just talked about it as actors and we discussed it with George in about 30 seconds and he said, ‘Action!,’ and that was it, it was one take and it was over.”
LAB: Did you have a sense while making it that the picture was something special or did it surprise you because as you know little was expected of the film and yet it became a sensation?
CW: “That’s a tribute to the genius of George Lucas and to the beautiful photography of Haskell Wexler (one of three DPs on the film and officially credited as the film’s “visual consultant”). But, you know, the overriding factor is George Lucas had a vision and he shot the vision. And when he said it was a musical, when you think about the music in the film it’s another character in the film and it tells the story. It just leads everybody through this fabulous one night of coming-of-age.”
LAB: Do you regret that Lucas departed from this personal, humanist strain of movies to go on to do the Star Wars franchise?
CW: “That’s a very good question, no one’s ever asked me that. But here’s the thing: we wouldn’t have had Star Wars, there wouldn’t have been the phenomena of Star Wars. Yeah, you’d have to ask George, I can’t speak for George. In him, you have someone who can write the humanist story and who also can write the techno story and the fantasy futuristic story in brilliant terms. And let’s not forget it was written by Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck and George.”
LAB: Anything more you’d care to add about Lucas?
CW: “He’s a great great person, he’s got a wonderful heart and he just happens to be a genius. He’s a computer-age genius along with being a humanist.”
LAB: Even though you were a relative unknown to most moviegoers then, you’d already done some films and a fair amount of television before Graffiti and you’d worked with some very good people. I’m thinking of Drive, He Said with Jack Nicholson and Bruce Dern and Travels with My Aunt with Maggie Smith and directed by George Cukor.
CW: “I don’t even know if I had a line in Drive, He Said. Travels with My Aunt – I had just come back from doing in Spain, and the next day they called me about American Graffiti and I said, ‘I cannot come in and meet anyone.’ I was jet-lagging so bad that I was sick, I just wanted to go to bed for like a month. They kept calling me and I went in and that was because of the casting director Fred Roos, who’s brilliant. He produced The Godfather. He cast American Graffiti. Fred Roos had cast Mayberry RFD and that’s why he thought of Ron to play the lead in American Graffiti.
“I went in and I met with George and I really liked George. After I read the script I said, ‘I’d like to play debbie, the Candy Clark character, or Carol, the Mackenzie Phillips character, and Fred Roos said, ‘No, we’ve cast those, we cant find the ingenue, Laurie,’ and I said, ‘Oh please don’t make me an ingenue who cries all night.’ I didn’t want to go and screen test becauae I was so tired. I didn’t think i could learn the dialogue. I’ve got ADD and Dyslexia anyway, so it was almost impossible. I needed two weeks and a fresh mind. Well, I went in and did screen test with Ron and they offered me the part, and I said, ‘I can’t,’ I was still jet-lagging. I know, it sounds crazy. So then my agent called and said, ‘I think this is going to be a great movie.’ But it wasn’t until Francis (Coppola, who produced the film) called (that she accepted the part).
“I hadn’t seen The Godfather but I had seen (his) You’re a Big Boy Now – it’s one of my top ten favorite movies of all time. I was just awe struck that Francis Coppola would call me. I was like hypnotized: Yes, evil master, I will do the film. I said, ‘Of course I will.’ And it wasn’t because of The Gofather, it was because of You’re a Big Boy Now.”
LAB: You went on to work with Coppola on The Conversation, which also reunited you with Harrison Ford.
CW: “I could tell you a whole bunch about that (film) and about the genius of Francis Coppola, and I’m talking about a double scoop of genius.”
LAB: A few years after Graffiti you played the character of Shirley Feeney on several Happy Days episodes before starring alongside Penny Marshall in the monster TV sitcom hit Laverne and Shirley and so I take it then that Graffiti had quite an impact on your career?
CW: “Oh, absolutely. People always ask me if it was because of American Graffiti that Happy Days happened. I think they had already shot the pilot for Happy Days and American Graffiti was shelved by Universal. They hated it (despite great test screenings). Yeah, it was shelved for a year and then Francis Coppola offered to buy it. You should look that up, it;s so interesting. And then it was because Elton John and a bunch of musicians had screenings for it and people went crazy and they loved it and it became a populist kind of thing. And then I guess Universal took another look.
“Well, you know Universal passed on Star Wars (too), so then Fox picked it up.”
LAB: And the rest is history. Star Wars helped usher in the blockbuster event motion picture but Graffiti became a huge hit in its own right, sparking the nostalgia craze, and it’s still one of the top money earned versus cost to make productions in movie history.
CW: “Who knew?”
LAB: Why do you feel it resonated so strongly with the public?
CW: “It was the music, the cars, the characters. It all took place in one night, it was coming-of-age. There was something for everybody in that film.”
LAB: It’s a beautiful observance of certain youth rituals in a particular place and time and yet there are universal themes of yearning and courtship it touches on, too.
CW: “That’s so true, Leo. It’s the basic goodness of those rituals and also, and I remember George saying this, the story took place before President Kennedy was assassinated and before we all went to just hell in a handbasket, before everything became cynical. It was like a delineation. It was an age of innocence in those cars and with that music. There was nothing diabolique or gruesome or shocking. It was just all this sweet mirth. They were happy times, and you go to Garry Marshall in creating Happy Days. It was really a lovely time. It was such a different time.
“I remember that line drawn where you’re happy one day and then the president is assassinated and the whole country is trying to figure it out and mourn and grieve, and then all this cynicism began.”
LAB: You obviously continue to feel very warmly about American Graffiti and what it represents.
CW: “I always will. That film, to be a part of it, is such a privilege and an honor. A happy happy time of my life.”
LAB: Are you still close to some of the cast and crew?
CW: “Oh yeah, I see Paul Le Mat all the time and Candy (Clark) and Bo Hopkins. Things were so uncanny about the film. Like my best friend Lynne Marie Stewart, who played Miss Yvonne on Pee Wee’s Playhouse, she played Bobbie Tucker, who throws Richard Dryfuss out of her Volkswagon. Do you remember that scene? Well, Richard Dryfuss was her childhood friend – they went to elementary school together, and I knew Richard because of Lynne way before any of us started acting professionally. And so that was just like crazy that we all got cast in it, though Lynne and I went to theater school together. We knew Fred Roos together.
I haven’t seen Suzanne (Somers) and Ron (Howard) in a while. Richard, I’ve seen recently, and Harrison. But yeah everybody’s very friendly.”
LAB: Did you see any evidence of Howard’s interest in being a director?
CW: “Yes, he would get out of the car and he’d go and talk to Haskell and come and sit back in the car because we had no where else to do, and I’d say, ‘What are you doing?’ and he’d say, ‘Oh, I’m just asking Haskell how he’s shooting this because I’d like to direct some day,’ and I thought, ‘Yeah, right.’”
LAB: I take it that you’re coming to Omaha for this revival screening because you enjoy celebrating the film with fans.
CW: “I’m happy to get up before the film and tell everybody this was shot in 28 nights for $750,000 and most of that went to the music rights. Tell them little stories about it because people who love it, that just makes them love it even more and it let’s them see it the way I see it. I kind of give them a from-the-inside out kind of view of it. So yeah it’s a happy thing, Leo, and how many of those are in the world right now?”
LAB: The whole night shooting aspect of it is pretty fascinating.
CW: “Twenty-eight nights. It all takes place at night except for one shot in the morning when Kurt (Dryfuss) takes off for college in the plane. If you look at the plane real close one of the engines catches on fire when it starts up.”
LAB: Just how tight the shooting schedule was boggles the mind. But then again working fast forces you to be inventive.
CW: “You know, when you don’t give people a chance to (over)think and they’re thinking on their feet sometimes you get the best stuff because people just work twice as hard and they just buckle down. It’s great. When I was in school and we’d have a scene due a week you just did it, you didn’t question anything, you didn’t say, ‘What’s my motivation?’ You figured it out in your mind and your body and your heart and your soul and you did it.”
LAB: Do you regret making the sequel to American Graffiti?
CW: “No, not at all.”
LAB: Even though it was very poorly received and is not well regarded today either?
CW: “I know but I don’t regret it at all. I wish George had given the director more time to shoot it.”
LAB: Where do you place American Graffiti in your career compared with other projects you’re most proud of?
CW: “They’re on a loop – American Graffiti, Laverne and Shirley and The Conversation.”
LAB: You’ve done some producing as your career’s gone on.
CW: “I did co-produce Father of the Bride and that’s a whole other ball of wax, which im happy to talk with you about some other time. It’s a good story.”
FOR EVENT DETAILS, VISIT: http://www.omahafilmevent.com
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Author Leo Adam Biga to Sign His Alexander Payne Book at Various Events as Shooting Continues on the Filmmaker’s New Picture, ‘Nebraska’
Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film
