The Film Festival circuit, always on the lookout for the next Tarantino or Darren Aronofsky, creates buzz for such new, as-yet-undiscovered talents as Debra Eisenstadt, director of "Daydream Believer," featured in last month's column. But new does not always mean young, and indie filmmaking, by its very nature, is one creative arena where careers are not only made, but also revitalized and renewed. Actors may age into older, different roles—think of Ally Sheedy's renaissance or the recent Oscar nods for the late Richard Farnsworth and Ellen Burstyn—while certain directors continue working forever. (Remember John Huston wearing that oxygen thingie while shooting "The Dead"?) But it's still rare for behind-the-camera talent to either emerge or re-emerge at age 40 or beyond. Yet that's precisely what happened to veteran Bob Giraldi and 'mature' newcomer James Ryan, both of whom just finished successful Festival tours, leading to that all-important distribution deal.
In his roomy TriBeCa offices, director Bob Giraldi and I discussed "Dinner Rush," his sophomore film (arriving 14 years after his 1987 big screen debut with "Hiding Out"), which just won major critical acclaim at MoMA's 2001 New Directors/New Films series. At age 60, Giraldi is an acknowledged crowned head of the advertising world, with 2,500 commercials and some 500 awards to his credit. Most still remember his Michael Jackson 1983 "Beat It" music video, one of Rolling Stone's Top Ten "Best Videos of All Time," but his film "Hiding Out" was less than successful in its original release (although it has since attained a minor cult status). Unlike some of his younger music video comperes—David Fincher ("Fight Club"), Spike Jonze ("Being John Malkovich"), and Mark Pellington ("Arlington Road")—Giraldi didn't transfer to a big screen career. "In Hollywood, you're either the flavor of the month or you're not," he laughed philosophically. "It was like 'Bob had his chance,' so I went back to work in commercials and then I also got into the restaurant business. [He's currently a partner in several of New York's best-known restaurants, including Patria, Vong, and Gigino's—formerly Positano.] I'd still get scripts, but nothing clicked. I came very close to directing "Dirty Dancing," and did a lot of prep work on it. In fact, they gave me one whole point for my trouble, so I made a lot of money as the 'not-director' of the film."
But "Dinner Rush," about the generational conflicts in a family-owned TriBeCa trattoria, clicked big-time for Giraldi, bringing all of his life experience into play. He even used Gigino's as the film's setting. "In the kitchen," Giraldi commented, "The chef is Napoleon." His own star chef, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, was the model for Udo (Edoardo Ballerini), the film's brilliant but difficult chef, working in his father Louis' (Danny Aiello) restaurant. Aiello, who once did voice-overs on Giraldi's prizewinning Miller Lite commercials, gives his most delicious performance in years as the quasi-moral center of an amoral world. The rest of the top-notch cast (including Sandra Bernhard, John Corbett, and Polly Draper) came together courtesy of co-producer and casting director Lou DiGiaimo, an old Giraldi pal from Patterson High School.
The film, scheduled to open nationwide in September, debuted to good notices at Telluride last September, and then played the festival circuit from Sarasota to St. Louis, garnering both prizes and great notices. His advice to other "new" filmmakers, especially the young ones: "With today's technology, there's no excuse for not shooting a film. Of course, it helps to go to film school (even if it is mostly theory), but then go find work as a PA [production assistant]. Everybody hires PAs; it's a system that's neither sexist nor racist—kind of like 'boot camp,' where you build relationships while you learn who does what on a film. And never forget," the former high school basketball star concluded with a grin, "this isn't athletics—you don't go straight to the majors!"
Writer/director James Ryan and I talked about his debut film, "The Young Girl and The Monsoon," over a quick lunch near the New School, where he teaches playwriting in the Actors Studio MFA program. He was an actor and playwright for many years before he was asked to start a Playwrights Unit down at HB Studios. Dozens of his own plays were performed at Ensemble Studio Theatre, while others have been done at the O'Neill, Circle Rep, and Playwrights Horizons. The stage version of "The Young Girl and The Monsoon," from which his debut film is adapted, was produced at Playwrights. But as he was approaching the big 4-0, Ryan—winner of various fellowships and awards, who had also written screenplays for Disney, Warner Bros., and Spring Creek Productions as well as scripts for television's "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd"—still hadn't seen any of his film scripts produced. "Then, after the good reviews for 'The Young Girl and The Monsoon' at Playwrights," Ryan recalled, "I started getting phone calls from producers who hadn't returned my calls for years. But the material was very special to me, so I decided to do it myself."
Taking a leaf from his own recent BPI publication, "Screenwriting from the Heart" ("The Technique of the Character-Driven Screenplay"), Ryan wrote this story of a 40-ish divorced dad and his 14-year-old daughter very much from his own heart and life. "I raised the money [about $800,000] myself, and we shot most of the interiors in my apartment, which destroyed my place, but saved at least $25,000. And I drew on a lot of people with whom I have relationships. It was a first-time experience for a lot of the crew," Ryan explained, adding, "Since there was no money to speak of, I built my crew based on offering new challenges. Our editor, John David Allen [who went on to edit the new Merchant Ivory 'The Golden Bowl'] was a former student in my Brass Tacks Screenwriting Workshop, and DP Ben Wolf and I spent months prepping. I'm not an artist, so instead of storyboards, we'd go on location and I'd act out all the parts to get the camera angles I wanted.
"I'd never studied filmmaking but I did study acting, and we had Sidney Lumet-style rehearsals for three-weeks, so the actors were confident and it really paid off." Terry Kinney plays the dad, Hank; Diane Venora, a longtime friend, is Hank's boss; and Ellen Muth won the American Film Institute Best Actress Award playing Constance, the daughter with the raging hormones. The stage to screen journey of "The Young Girl and The Monsoon" (opening in New York on May 4), began with the original play in 1997, followed by the screenplay in 1998. Then, in an unusual move, he pulled the first edit of the film after a 1999 festival screening to re-cut it. The new version was subsequently shown at the 2000 Los Angeles Independent Film Fest, followed by the Avignon/New York Fest (see info on this year's A/NYFF under Local Fests), plus another nine or ten Fests on the circuit, winning critical kudos and more awards before eventually finding a distributor.
Ryan's most important advice to other new directors: "Don't mistake technique for substance. I'm not the character czar here, but you've got to have the basics of character, motive, and story, plus a subject matter with weight. In other words, you must have something to say." As for age, he reminded me, "Samuel Beckett wrote 'Waiting for Godot' when he was 42 or 43. Beyond the myth of a young genius like Orson Welles is the reality of building your craft." There'll be lots more good writing advice from Ryan on April 21 at 4:30 pm, when he returns to the Avignon/NY Fest to moderate a panel on "Adapting Film from Another Source." Call (212) 355-6100, ext.219 or e-mail to jhr2001@aol.com for specific info.