Stage and Screen: "Facing East" and "Priscilla"

I'm still trying to work up to a weekly Theater series (as related to cinema as it can be) as I know that many readers are interested in Broadway, too... but we'll see. It's difficult to branch out onto those invite lists.

To most people the news that Broadway star Will Swenson, who was so sensational as "Berger" in Hair  is going to direct a film called "Facing East" about a Mormon family dealing with their gay son's suicide is just regular pre-production movie news. To me it's college nostalgia gone wild. The universe is just refusing to let me live in the present this past month or so. So many things keep throwing me backwards in time. See, Swenson went to BYU in the 90s when I was there and he's the second alum to make me feel completely unproductive. What have I been doing with my life? First there was Aaron Eckhart, who preceded us, becoming a movie star and now Swenson, directing on top of being an amazing musical theater performer? 

I have to thank Towleroad for sharing the news but it's more than news to me; it's personal.

The writer of the play Carol Lynn Pearson was kind of a heroine for me and my friends in college because she was a (controversial) Mormon celebrity who was speaking out within the Mormon community about the LGBT struggle when people just didn't talk about it. Or talked about it in horrific ways. (I could tell you horror stories.) We all read her memoir "Goodbye I Love You" (her ex-husband, a closeted gay man, died of AIDS) and went to see her one woman monologue show "Mother Wove the Morning." I haven't seen this play "Facing East" but if anyone is familiar do share.

While it seems odd for a Broadway star to get a movie directing gig, it's not an entirely random decision. Swenson was a headline star of that brief media-blip wave of Mormon cinema in the early Aughts. He knows the subject matter and he has one directorial feature under his belt already: Sons of Provo, 2004. I only ever saw one of those "Mollywood" (teehee) features, a murder mystery called Brigham City (2001) which was okay.

Terence Stamp, Guy Pearce and Hugo Weaving in PRISCILLA (1994)

Currently Swenson is headlining Priscilla on Broadway. Yes, it's based on the 1994 Oscar winner. Swenson has the Hugo Weaving role of "Mitzi", who drives the narrative with her performing gig in the outback, taken for secretive personal reasons. Nick Adams is playing the showy Guy Pearce "Felicia" part and Tony Sheldon has the best role "Bernadette" previously played by Terence Stamp to Oscar nomination worthy effect. Damn you AMPAS.

(It's weird that Broadway is colliding with Mormonism right now, huh? The Book of Mormon is all anybody wants to talk about.)

OFFSCREEN 
For what it's worth Swenson is dating the one & only Audra McDonald. McDonald has been wasting her musical talents for some years now on television in Private Practice (unless that show has become a musical against my knowledge). Then again if she's not on TV she's not going to win the EGOT and she's only an Emmy and an Oscar away. She's already got two Grammys and four Tonys!

While I'm sure her bank account thanks her for the series regular decision, voices like hers (straight up magnificent) don't come around very often. If you are anywhere near the Boston area, try to get a ticket to the reimagining of Porgy and Bess that's coming in August with McDonald headlining. It'll most likely be a true event.

Cloud and "The Music Box"

Despite the egomaniacal reputations that usually fuse themselves to one-named-superstars, one of my favorite things about Madonna is how many careers she's helped bolster or even launch over the years. Whole armies of people owe their careers to her and even people who were doing all right for themselves before her involvement won new fans through her friendship or fandom or enthusiasm (Sandra Bernhard, Antonio Banderas, Alanis Morrissette, Sacha Baron Cohen, etc...) The last performer she took a shine to that I  latched onto was Daniel Cloud Campos. He had a showcased Madonna debut in the "Hung Up" video and went on to dance in other videos and on tour with her.

Now he's the writer/director/editor/actor/choreographer/dancer (whew) of the short film "The Music Box". It's ten minutes of goofy inventive cheer and a must-watch for people who love dance-heavy musicals and wish the movies would someday get another Gene Kelly (as if), someone whose joy of dance just made the audience feel all limber and gravity defiant inside.

Some people have too many talents. But we can't hate them when they're so generous and cheerful about the sharing.

Manuel Muñoz on Psycho, Nashville, and Movies as Inspiration

Interview
The Film Experience doesn't often push books upon you, but it's time for an exception. Manuel Muñoz's debut novel "What You See in the Dark" hits bookstores, virtual and otherwise, this week. While it is a work of fiction, it borrows from reality for its backdrop. The pre-production and eventual release of Alfred Hitchcock's immortal Psycho (1960) figure into the narrative in crucial and evocative ways and both The Actress and The Director in question are characters.

Consider this amazing "double feature"

Full Disclosure (as I always believe in such things): I met Manuel Muñoz at a poetry event about four years  ago and he introduced himself as a reader of The Film Experience. Though predisposed to rooting for him as a result (I'm only human!) we hadn't really kept in good touch. In the intervening years, I bought a copy of his second short story collection. Two months ago his first novel arrived in galley form and I ate it right up.  I think it's quite an amazing read.

Nathaniel: Before your beautiful novel, which we'll get to in a moment, you had two short story collections published. The first piece of yours I ever read was "Skyshot" which had an amazing Robert Altman thread. That really won me over. How did that story come about and has the cinema always inspired you creatively as a writer?

Manuel Muñoz: I was lucky enough to see Nashville on the big screen at the Brattle in Cambridge when I was in college. I was stunned by it, and it remains my favorite film (with The Piano a close second.) Altman's command of multiple character arcs enthralled me--it was the closest I'd seen a film parallel the possibilities of words on the page. He could shift magnificently and I loved that he could suggest interiority with camera movement: I was stunned when I realized the camera had crept up on Lily Tomlin as she listened to "I'm Easy." (He did the same to Ronee when she sings "Dues.")

At the time, I was coming to terms with identity and subject matter, so it confused me to be so attracted to a film like Nashville, which is far outside my experience.

Manuel Muñoz by © Stuart Bernstein

But I eventually thought of how often we use films to narrate our own lives. I've never sat at the back of a bar while in love with a performer on stage, but I've worn that look that Lily has on her face. Know what I mean?

Nathaniel: I think so.  But to the point on identity. I've always believed that specificity -- be it in sharply drawn characterizations or carefully observed milieus -- has a way of inverting itself so it's suddenly universal. I see that in your writing too as you're often dealing with the Chicano experience, which I have little connection to and yet it's totally alive for me.

I'm guessing this has a lot to do with an assured storytelling voice, one that's relaxed about the audience feeling whatever it is they're going to feel without forcing it upon them.

Read the full interview for more on Great Actressing, casting dreams, Psycho and unlikely inspirations.

Click to read more ...

New on DVD: Black Swan, Topsy-Turvy and More

Hi everybody. Michael C here again. A quick drop in to remind everybody that Aronofsky’s Black Swan, a film I consider the finest of last year, is hitting DVD shelves.

Having seen the remarkably in-depth behind the scenes featurette on the Swan DVD I can report that the real contribution that got screwed out of recognition was not Portman’s dancing double (igniting recent controversy) but Swan’s special effects team. On a limited budget, the effects of Black Swan are just as skillful as Inception’s. Swan's effects are often invisible (few stop to think how they are able to film in rooms filled with mirrors), but when they are intentionally noticeable they contribute to the film’s artistic vision. Why doesn’t that factor into award recognition? (Although I should point out that small scale f/x are no obstacle to Film Bitch Award recognition)

Though technically flawless I doubt the invasion of killer robots during Iron Man 2's climax is going to linger in anybody’s memory, yet I can confirm that Nina’s legs snapping violently backwards with a sickening crack has lingered since the film first screened. 

So I encourage folks to check out that DVD doc to fully appreciate the craftsmanship that went into this amazing film, although there may be a few points you will want to cover your eyes in order to preserve the magic.  And as long as we're shopping for movies another masterpiece hits Blu-ray today, under the Criterion Collection umbrella: Mike Leigh's Topsy-Turvy. Leigh's ode to the creative process is the staid and dignified white swan to Aronofsky's wild and subjective black.

Also hitting DVD or BluRay today:

• Fair Game (Naomi Watts & Sean Penn)
• Resident Evil (Hilary Swank, straight to DVD)
• Tangled (see previous posts)
• Made in Dagenham (Sally Hawkins, Miranda Richardson & Rosamund Pike)
• All Good Things (TFE's Kirsten Dunst interview)

Reader of the Day: Kyle

March is winding down. Only three more Readers of the Day. Please let us know if you'd like to see future Reader Spotlights, albeit less frequently, in some capacity. Today we're talking to Kyle by way of Ohio and now South Carolina.

Nathaniel: When did you start reading the Film Experience?
KYLE: I started reading in 2004. I appreciated your love for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The Oscar coverage, witty writing, and overall admiration for cinema kept me coming back. I've visited the site at least once, every day, for the past six (almost seven) years.

I love to hear that. Okay, what was your first movie / movie obsession?
KYLE: The first movie I definitely remember seeing in a theater was Jurassic Park and I totally fell asleep! I remember my eyes slowly closing right after the T-Rex attacked the kids in the car.

I had several movie obsessions when I was younger, but two really stick out.  I would watch The Witches EVERY day when I was about four. I would put it in, demand to be left alone, and wouldn't budge until the end credits. My dad learned this the hard way, when after coming to pick me up (divorced parents), I refused to go with him until it was over. Don't come between me and my Anjelica Huston! My next major obsession was with Scream. Random I know, but I could recite the dialogue scene by scene when I was like ten or eleven.

 

Your three favorite classics and three favorite contemporary films. Spill.

Umm...toughest question ever? Okay first thoughts, or I'd stall all day. Classics: Halloween, Rear Window, Suspiria (I realize those are all suspense/horror, and I'm cool with that.) Contemporary: American Beauty, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Interview with the Vampire.

These are a few of Kyle's Favorite Things...

Take away and Oscar and give it to someone else: Who, when, why?
Recently: Sandra Bullock. I'd love to just snatch it out of her hands (gently so not to harm him), and hand it to Abbie Cornish (I will always defend Bright Star, and how excellent every aspect of it was.)  I really do like Sandra, but her winning was so...wrong. Abbie wasn't even nominated but she completely moved me in that film.

 

The biopic of your life. What's it like?
It'd be called Who Am I Trying to Impress?, which is a saying I often use when I'm about to do or say something I know I shouldn't. It would obviously star me, and be directed by Darren Aronofsky.  I'm sure he'd make my nights of sitting on my bed, eating peanut butter, and watching American Idol seem way more interesting.  I just hope he'll make some creative changes and give me orange hair and add my very own lesbian sex scene.