Reader Spotlight: K.M. Soehnlein
Monday, May 23, 2011 at 12:01PM 
Are you still enjoying the reader spotlights? I hope you've found a few kindred spirits in the featured readers thus far. Today, I'm talking to K.M. Soehnlein in San Francisco who is a longtime reader and also a novelist. Discovering that novelists read you is a bit humbling. Anyway... let's talk!
Nathaniel: So... earlier this year you received the Warren Beatty book "STAR" from a Film Experience contest. What's your favorite nugget so far?
K.M. SOEHNLEIN: There’s a nugget on every page of “Star,” if by nugget you mean hot steamy chunk of gossip: “He made love to [Joan] Collins relentlessly, although every now and then he would accept calls while he was inside her.” In the Introduction to the book, Peter Biskind, the author, says he’s interested in Beatty as “one of the foremost filmmakers of his generation…at the intersection between politics and culture.” But he also talks about how difficult Beatty was to get interviews with, and you start to suspect, as the negative characterizations of Beatty pile up, that maybe Biskind is enacting some kind of revenge on his “star.”
But! There are absolutely page-turning stories about film production. I just finished reading the chapter on Bonnie and Clyde. I had no idea it was so difficult to get this film or that it was the vehicle that saved Beatty from a string of flops that would have sunk his career before he was 30.
You've written books yourselves and graciously sent me two. I'm really enjoying "The World of Normal Boys" and especially love the movie references, duh! How autobiographical are they?
Soehnlein's book references three huge musicals of its era
I’m glad you like the book! The scenes in my novel are mostly fictional – I never went to a drive-in to see Saturday Night Fever with the sexy older boy next door – but the music, the setting, the flavor of the times, that’s all from experience. Yeah, I’m a child of the 70s which meant we had one “stereo system” in the house. My parents had lots of soundtrack albums, so that was the first music I listened to as a kid: The King and I, Funny Girl, Godspell (we were Catholic), and the one I got completely obsessed about, West Side Story. I had every lyric memorized before I'd ever see these movies. I don’t think I could overstate the phenomenon of Grease when it came out in 1978. Kids were OBSESSED with it. I used to walk around with the girls in my neighborhood playing the soundtrack on portable cassette player, acting like the Pink Ladies.
Your three favorite actresses. Go.
Old school: Natalie Wood would be my first answer but that’s not because she was the best actress – in fact she’s often pretty terrible – but just because of my West Side Story obsession. When she cries those tears of injustice at the end of the film – “How many bullets left in this gun? Enough for you, and you, and you?” – I think some kind of tragic template lodged in my blood that has never quite left. Reigning queen: Julianne Moore. It might be a redhead identification thing, but I love her in everything. I especially like her in comedies, from The Big Lebowski to The Kids are All Right, though my favorite performance is in Far From Heaven. Rising star: Give me more Michelle Williams. (Meek’s Cutoff recently opened in San Francisco.)
Take an Oscar away. Give it to someone else.
Only one? Didn’t one of your recent readers get six? OK let’s take away Cate Blanchett’s Oscar for that hammy imitation of Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator and give it to any of the four women she was nominated against: Laura Linney in Kinsey, Virginia Madsen in Sideways, Sophie Okonedo in Hotel Rwanda, or Natalie Portman in Closer. (Maybe if Natalie had won that year we could have seen Michelle Williams win this year… Sorry, wishful thinking.) Just for the record I love me some Cate Blanchett but I’d have given her the statue all the way back for Elizabeth. Sorry, Gwyneth.
Supporting Actress 2004
Name your favorite in each of the following 4 genres: Drama, Horror, High School, Woody Allen.
Drama Something by Mike Leigh, probably Naked or Secrets and Lies. Horror Carrie. High School The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love, which was my good friend Maria Maggenti’s debut back in the mid-90s and which I have a huge sweet spot for. (Plus: Dale Dickey in an early role.) Woody Stardust Memories.
They put you in charge of the movies. How do you wield this awesome power?
Well if I can be completely self-interested the first thing I’d do is green-light the film adaptation of The World of Normal Boys which I’ve been trying to get made for ten years.
Then I’d wield my awesome power to dump money on all the filmmakers I love: Mike Leigh, Todd Haynes, John Cameron Mitchell, Kelly Reichardt, Spike Lee, John Waters, etc. etc. etc. I’d put limits on the amount of money any single film could cost. I’d set up some kind of incredibly well-funded National Film Agency, maybe run by a cabinet-level Secretary of the Arts, (how about Meryl Streep?). I’d make sure artists had health care. Socialism. Yes please.
Reader Comments (13)
I love these reader spotlights, they make the site seem so friendly and welcoming, and this is one of my favorites, especially for the anecdote about Warren Beatty and Joan Collins, which made me splurt my coffee. I agree about Mike Leigh's "Naked," although I think one of the most emotionally cathartic scenes in the movies--and I mean all movies--comes between the mother and daughter in "Life Is Sweet."
Owen -- well hopefully the site IS friendly and welcoming rather than merely "seeming" to be so ;) . Horrible confession: I have never seen Mike Leigh's "Naked" AND I LOVE MIKE LEIGH.
my BF is reading THE WORLD OF NORMAL BOYS at the moment and he likes it very much :-)
what a weird coincidence. it's definitely a page turner.
Love, love, love the Michelle Williams (no relation). Odd how she's universally castable and respected, but seems to be a bit of an unexpected/underappreciated choice when I see her. Like Deborah Kerr or Sally Field a few decades ago (right?).
Whoa. I read your book years ago and loved it. I really need to re-read it. Wood, Moore, and Williams are all fantastic choices!
As a longtime follower of this site, I've always felt completely alone in my general apathy toward Julianne Moore, but since the introduction of the reader spotlight series, my sense of alienation in that respect has deepened. It's not that I don't consider her a fine actress (I liked her better than Bening "The Kids Are All Right"); it's just that her performances have never elicited the type of rabid fandom that so many readers seem to share.
And as much as I liked Blanchett in "The Aviator," I would have been elated to see Virginia Madsen crowned best supporting actress in 2005.
No, you can't take away Cate Blanchett's oscar! If not for her performance at least for the amazing 'I hope my sons marries your daughter'-speech!
Great to see some love for Michelle Williams, her performance in 'Blue Valentine' was so good and memorable.
And regarding Beatty, I think Madonna's 'Truth or Dare' says enough about him haha.
I also love Mike Leigh's films, but couldn't sit through Naked. (Too many rape scenes... which I know was part of the point, but it was too much for me to bear.)
The Natalie Portman wishful thinking game is a good game to play. Like if she didn't turn down the Amy Adams role in Doubt, won over Penelope Cruz, the best actress category would have been open territory last year. (Also, I wanted Amy Adams to win in 2008 because Portman's reason for turning down the role was really stupid. She couldn't play a nun because she didn't believe in abstinence? The guy who played Ahmed Khan ate fried chicken for the role and he was a vegetarian.)
Also, the 'He's cute' is our version of 'First!' of the Reader Spotlight, so I'll start it.
"Naked" is a weird case. The first time I saw it I sort of hated it, thinking that it was doing what I call "sentimental pessimism," being nihilistic just to be cool. Then I kept seeing it on cable and, being doofus Americanus, I turned on the subtitles in order to understand the Manchester accents, and the movie began to grow on me. I probably don't think it's the greatest drama ever; "The Third Man" pops into my mind for that title. But I think it's one of the great movies of the 1990's, and one of Leigh's best and most uncharacteristic. David Thewlis should have had a whole string of amazing roles since "Naked" instead of Harry Potter cameos.
If I were to steal one (and only one) Oscar? Alan Ball, American Beauty, no QUESTION. I still view it as one of the top films of the year for everything else it does well, but the teen-speak groaners would cost it the Screenplay nom, let alone the trophy.
My Picture field:
Fight Club - Winner
American Beauty - Bronze
Toy Story 2 - 4th
Magnolia - Silver
The Virgin Suicides - 5th
My Original Screenplay field:
The Matrix (this is the reverse of American Beauty. A genuinely great script...let down by a blank lead turn, a "mentor" stock type that, as played, seems utterly devoid of either warmth OR bitterness and framing and cinematographic choices that seem cool on the first watch but become NAUSEATING and OBVIOUS on return trips. Personally, the only good parts other than the script are Carrie-Ann Moss and the Machine VFX.)
Being John Malkovich
All About My Mother
Magnolia
Toy Story 2
That's really cool that he'd pick Cate Blanchett's Oscar for The Aviator to take away and give to any of the other nominees, because I've had a similar idea for a while (I wish either Natalie Portman or Laura Linney had won that year). Also, I started reading the first few pages of The World Of Normal Boys today, and I think it's great so far :)