Married couple Lisa Chess and Michael Pressman did everything with the best of intentions. They mounted Terrence McNally's beloved Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune at a local black box theatre; he was to direct, she to star. Then they lost their leading man to an indie, their theatre to other issues. So Pressman stepped in to co-star with his wife. And four weeks into the run--critically acclaimed we might add--Pressman decided the total experience needed to be retold on film. He mulled it over for six months, then started writing.
This week Frankie and Johnny Are Married gets its U.S. premiere at AFI, Nov. 8?10. It's not just that Chess limns the most subtle yet raw onscreen arcs around--as herself and as the emotionally closed Frankie. It's not just that the director is an equally skilled actor, tender and comedic. And Pressman insists his television and film credits (Emmy-winning producer for Picket Fences and the film To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday; director on The Guardian and Chicago Hope) have nothing to do with Frankie and Johnny's success--he said the festival selections have been blind. It's the warmth of the film--not merely an insider's look at Hollywood and L.A.'s 99-Seat theatre scene but also an honest examination of working with one's spouse--that has endeared the film to audiences and critics. As Pressman said, "It may speak to couples, to anyone struggling in a relationship, pursuing their dreams and taking risks."
The film begins as Pressman is directing an episode of Chicago Hope with a petulant Mandy Patinkin. And even though the film drops not only names but also insider cameos (David Kelley and Les Moonves, to name a few), said Pressman, "At the end of the day it's really a love story. The moment that makes that clear is when the audience sees me come home from a very difficult day at work, just like everybody else who has a difficult day, to find out I have forgotten the medicine for my sick son, and Lisa is upset that I've been that distracted. Everyone who's seen the film has said it's no longer just the journey through Hollywood."
Pressman said he kept the core of the story but heightened the drama for storytelling purposes. Said the director, "It was exaggerated." Exaggerated indeed. The leading man who left the play is turned into a madman, played by Alan Rosenberg, whom Pressman had in mind when he was writing the script. "He had seen us in the play and loved it," said Pressman. I was telling him the idea about making the movie, and he volunteered, 'I'll play the actor who becomes crazy.'"
Added Pressman, "It's nothing like the way Alan is--he's a sweetheart--but what he played was capturing the prototypical, quintessential, narcissistic, egomaniac, delusional actor."
The director feels the challenges of creating a theatrical experience exceeded those of the moviemaking. "Acting onstage with Lisa was the hardest and most challenging thing I've ever done and was the most exciting thing we've done creatively together," he said. Added Chess, whose credits include roles in Picket Fences, The Practice, Family Law, and Chicago Hope, as well as indies and theatre projects in L.A. and New York, "I had always wanted us to work together. My perception was that Michael accepted the common wisdom that you just don't work with your spouse because you can't go home and have a smooth, peaceful life together. I always challenged that. I was always dying to work together. So even though things collapsed in the first incarnation of the play, it had nothing to do with our working relationship. We found as we worked together that we absolutely loved it. When we were shooting the movie he made a joke on the set that in some ways it was easier to work with me at work than it was to live with me at home, because it wasn't me complaining that the towels were on the floor."
"Which is also what I explored and captured in the movie," added Pressman. "You're certainly not dealing with the mundane when you're dealing with the creative," Chess summarized.
Circuit Breakers
After writing his first draft, Pressman showed it to various colleagues. "I found the directors and writers more helpful than business people," he noted. Then he brought together a crew from his past work: producer Alice West (The Practice, Picket Fences, Ally McBeal), cinematographer Jacek Laskus (The Guardian, The Opposite Sex...), plus companies that helped cover costs of postproduction and camera rentals.
And then it was time to shop Frankie to film festivals. Pressman and Chess filled out various applications and sent out their film. "What's great, and I must say it renews my faith in the egalitarian system, is that we didn't do anything but submit it," said Pressman. "So it means through all the thousands of movies that get submitted, we were chosen. The one thing about the festivals is that--unless the film has power from a distributor, like a Paramount, where they do a little arm-twisting to promote the release of their movies--the more-independent films have to fight for themselves on their own without push." AFI accepted Frankie early; Montreal screened its world premiere; it is headed for Ft. Lauderdale after AFI.
And then came the time to promote the film. Said Chess, "Montreal was a whirlwind of publicity. We had several print interviews; we had an on-camera interview for a local news channel. It's somewhat new for me; now it's getting slightly more fluid. It's an interesting journey to find the salient points of the experience and be able speak about them in the moment."
Pressman seems most surprised that the film is appealing to a wider range of audiences than he had expected--not just industry insiders. "This film is in keeping with a new genre," he noted, "the whole autobiographical fictional reality evidenced in Being John Malkovich or Adaptation. and going back to another great film that started the genre in the independent scene, My Dinner With Andre, where people are acting themselves or acting people who are real, yet they are characters. The other, more recent film it's been compared to is American Splendor. It's about art and life." BSW