PATTI SMITH: DREAM OF LIFE—Q&A With Patti Smith and Steven Sebring

Wild crow she's a rabbit
She tells you she's a crow
She smiles her sea-shell smile on you
Like she was your very own
She ain't no Picasso
She ain't no Bill Monroe
She plays lead guitar with history
But she looks like rock & roll!

—Eric Anderson, "Wild Crow Blues" (For Patti Smith)

In 1975, I arrived in San Francisco with one suitcase in hand, $20 in my pocket and a heart full of dreams. I found a job as a busboy at Fanny's Cabaret in the Castro, rented a room from an acquaintance for $100 a month, and used one of my first paychecks to buy Patti Smith's Horses, which was all the rage at that time. At parties in the Haight people were smoking marijuana, hazing out on angel dust and LSD, and Patti's voice was the raw serenade ubiquitously pulsing through it all. She didn't quite catch me—I was more folk-pop than punk—and so I turned away from her subsequent recordings. Truthfully, it was her Rimbaud-esque stance that I was fond of and not so much her vocals.

Somehow in my mind over the years she morphed into a snarling sullen Queen of Punk Rock—a completely unfair characterization—and it wasn't until I listened to her heartfelt remembrances of Robert Mapplethorpe in James Crump's Black White + Gray (2007) that I reassessed my memories to place her creative contributions in articulate perspective. With Steven Sebring's crazy cowboy quilt Patti Smith—Dream of Life, I've had to thoroughly revamp my image of Patti Smith's persona. Especially as—waiting in line for last night's screening at San Francisco's Lumiere Theatre—Patti Smith with her iconic floppy felt hat walked up and down the line of fans waiting outside to catch her in-theatre appearance, greeting us all with a jetlagged smile and the sweet grace of all these years between then and now. Perhaps I had to wait until my heart was more full of memories than dreams to finally love the worn timber of her voice and the sheer poetry of her survival. In possibly one of the most generous Q&As I've ever attended, all I wanted to do afterwards was rush home and play 1975 all over again.

* * *

Once the applause subsided, Patti Smith thanked us for staying so late, though she qualified that it wasn't really that late. "It's late in Australia," she emphasized.

Patti Smith—Dream of Life has been compiled from 11 years of footage and a year's worth of editing. "It just organically happened that way," Sebring responded when asked why the project had taken so long. And as for how he developed a relationship with Patti so that she would be willing to be filmed over such an extended period of time, Sebring joked, "She immediately fell in love with me. She let me come around whenever I could. She invited me places. We became really close and we made a movie."

"Steven's like my brother," Patti added. "I mean, I do love him as my brother. As a true brother, he's completely trustworthy. It wasn't really like we were doing a documentary. He was just discovering. He was just shooting film. He didn't have any agenda. He had no design. And I liked that. I liked that he had no point of view. He didn't know very much about me and so he was discovering as he was shooting. He had the same philosophy as me: he doesn't like documentaries where you see a bunch of people talking about somebody like they're dead, saying how great they are or how obnoxious they are. It was just life, y'know? He was shooting what my people and my kids were doing trying to rebuild our life and rediscover who we were without their father, without my husband. [Patti Smith's husband and the father of her two children Jesse and Jackson—Fred "Sonic" Smith—died of a heart attack on November 4, 1994.] Steven was encouraging and it was nice to have him. He had just one camera, no lights, no crew, he was just there, y'know?"

"And it wasn't bad to become Patti's friend," Sebring confirmed.

Someone observed that there were quite a few chirping birds in the film and wondered if there was any subliminal intent in that? Sebring conceded a slight subliminality but the truth was that chirping birds were just everywhere. Patti added, "There were a lot of birds, for instance, at William Blake's gravesite. Birds everywhere. There were birds outside my window in New York. Doves and all kinds of birds."

"We enhanced it," Sebring admitted.

"The enhancement of birds," Patti grinned.

"It's part of that dreamy thing," Sebring summarized.

One young woman commented on the painting Patti Smith was working on throughout the film and asked if she could talk about it a bit? "It's part of a series I did, mainly silkscreen. When the Trade Towers came down, I live right near them so when I went down [to look at Ground Zero], the South Tower was remaining at the time. It was the only thing that remained and it looked a lot like Bruegel's Tower of Babel. I immediately took note of that. Also at the very top of it, it had two prongs that stuck out like a peace sign and I was fascinated with this image. I was thinking that—had Andy Warhol been alive—he might have done multiples of this or the Trade Center. He might have done something. So I decided I would do it, sort of as a continuation of something he might do. A lot of my drawings are created from language. I did a really big one. Steven made me a very light digital print of the image about four feet high and I wrote the Essene Gospel of Peace and made the structure all with handwriting so that when you looked at it from afar, you saw the structure, and when you got close to it you saw that it was the Gospel of Peace. I worked with that image in a lot of different ways."

Asked how she kept a positive sense of hopefulness in the face of modern horrors, Smith replied: "I like to be alive. When I was young in my early 20s, I lived in the Chelsea Hotel and I saw a lot of people that I admired, very famous people who would pass through the Hotel, and they seemed so sad. A lot of them were quite self-destructive and a lot of them died. I learned at a very young age that I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to die. I felt too happy to be alive to want to destroy myself. I always remembered these people that I so admired and thought were so great and I learned a lesson from them. There's something positive every day. There's always new people doing things. For instance, I like that the other day Colin Powell came out and endorsed Senator Obama. We all know that Colin Powell made some very unfortunate decisions and wasn't always true to his own instincts; but—despite that—he does have a certain amount of moral authority in our culture and he said that he felt that John McCain could handle the presidency; but, he felt that—more than that—we needed a generational change. We need new people. We need youth. We need new blood. We need people that understand our present culture. I'm 61 years old and I'm really happy to see someone of a new generation come in to see what they can do. George Bush and I are the exact same age so I've already seen what someone of my generation can do. Colin Powell's endorsement of Senator Obama makes me hopeful. Seeing what my children are doing makes me hopeful. I can go on MySpace and see what strangers are doing just to entertain or inform each other. I find that hopeful.

"Ralph Nader told me that pessimism was just a waste of time. I agree with that. It's great to be alive. Life is hard for various reasons. It might be hard because you have physical problems, illness, loss, you might be poor, hungry, I mean there's all kinds of reasons why life can be hard. Your boyfriend left you, perhaps. There's all kinds of things. But also every day there's such cool things. You go out and there's a full moon or the sky is clear and you see all these stars. You see a little kitten. Even stuff that people say is so corny; it might be corny but what's more beautiful than a little kitten?"

Asked about her son Jackson and her daughter Jesse, how old they are now, and if they appreciate the film now that it's done, Smith said her son is 26 years old. During the course of the filming he was 18 during the last footage of him. Her daughter is 21 and she, too, was 18 towards the end of the film. The reason there's not more footage of her children, Smith explained, was because Sebring was so respectful of them. When her daughter was eight, she asked not to be filmed anymore and so Sebring simply didn't film her anymore until she finally agreed ten years later to step in front of the camera. "He was never invasive to my kids," Smith said. "He didn't try to sneak in and take footage of them when they weren't looking. Jesse didn't want to be filmed and so Steven just didn't film her." As for what they think of the film, like anyone else they sometimes get embarrassed watching themselves on the screen but, all in all, they appreciate the film. They like seeing their grandparents, who passed away shortly after being filmed. They know that the film in a subtle way is an homage to their father Fred who was such a great man. Her brother Todd was also great; he died unexpectedly, shortly after her husband. The film is a nice tribute to all of them: her parents, her husband, her brother; their grandparents, their father; their uncle. The film is a nice way to think about them, to remember them. "My parents have become minor celebrities because of the film," Smith offered, "and they would have loved that." Likewise, her children loved Sebring. They had no problem with him. People compliment the film for being so natural and that's because Sebring produced a natural atmosphere.

Asked if Smith ever felt the need to add scenes she felt were necessary for the film, she answered that it was never like that. It was more like she wanted to visit her parents because she felt it would be nice to have them in the film and so she would ask Sebring, "I'm going to go visit my folks. Wanna come?" Or, "I'm going to William Blake's grave. Wanna come? I didn't have any vision about what would happen. We're going to protest the strike on Iraq. Wanna come?"

Asked how he shot the film, Sebring said he used a very heavy 16mm ARRI SR1 camera, which he has since retired. Smith imitated him trudging around with the camera "like John Bunyan in Pilgrim's Progress."

Knowing that Patti Smith was going to be in concert the following evening with her band, one gay man asked if she would play "Madrigal" for he and his husband who are reconfirming their vows? She congratulated them and wished them a long and happy life together but admitted that the reason she couldn't honor his request is because the song is too painful for her to sing. She wrote it in response to the death of her husband and would much rather have never had a reason for writing it, though she expressed appreciation that the fellow in the audience requested it. Few people mention the song.

One man asked her: "What's one thing I should do before I die?" Without missing a beat, Smith answered, "Get your teeth cleaned by a professional. There's nothing like it!"

A young woman admired that Smith had survived so long in the music industry on her own terms without compromising her artistic integrity, especially nowadays when you don't make it as a female musician if you're not "sexy". "In my day," Smith replied, "if you weren't male, you didn't make it. Sexy didn't help you very much. For myself, I just did my work. It depends what you want. If you're going for a career, that has a whole set of rules and an agenda and lifestyle that I can't tell you that much about. There's nothing wrong with wanting a career. There's nothing wrong with someone wanting to be a pop star if that's what you choose to be; but—in terms of myself—all I ever wanted to do was good work and the fact that I got as far as I did is kind of amazing and pretty much due to all of you. I did my work but I never thought anyone would care. I was willing to starve and get TB and die in obscurity just to do brilliant work. It really depends on what you want out of life. If you want to do good work, concentrate on the work. If you want to be famous or get rich, concentrate on the things you have to do to get rich and famous. Sometimes it depends on what your gift is. For myself, I would have loved to write a song like 'Beautiful' or 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine'. I would have loved to have written a song that—when people heard it—they'd go, 'Yeah!' Y'know? Universally. But I'm not Smokey Robinson. Everybody has their own special gift. I don't think that one is better than the other. I think people are better. You're either a good person or not. The most important thing is to be a good person, y'know? That's between you and your work."

One young mother asked if Patti had any advice in how to steer children towards their specific gifts and opportunities off the beaten track? "Actually," Patti responded, "I did the best to pick the best from my own mother and father. My mother was not perfect but neither was I and though she was far from perfect, she loved us. She was kind of strict. She had to work as a waitress and we had to fend for ourselves a lot; but, the main thing was that she really loved us. She noticed the things that were important to us. We didn't have much money but I loved to read and she would save up her tip money and—even when she was in her eighties and to her dying day—she would look through catalogs to try to find a book I liked. Right before she died, she gave me William Blake's complete works, a remaindered copy printed by Oxford University Press. My point is, she loved us. She made lots of mistakes, sure, but's that one thing that I never have to go through life thinking that I wasn't loved by my mom. I could say, yeah, she would yell a lot or be very reactive or whatever, but I can honestly say that my mother loved me and still loves me. I think if you love your children, everything will fall into place. We all make mistakes; but, if your kids can look back and think, 'Well, yeah, my mom was a drag sometimes, my mom didn't do this or she didn't do that, but, yeah, she loved me.' That's a good start."

One young woman said that Patti Smith's music helped her through her adolescence and that she was convinced that God spoke to her through the music. She wondered if Patti's God could talk to her? "Well, my God would be happy to talk to you," Smith quipped. "For me, I really believe that God is everywhere. As a child, my feeling about God was that it meant I wasn't alone. God meant that I had somebody to talk to, to tell my secrets to, to wish to or to dream to. As I got older, perhaps this transferred to other beings or sometimes I'd find God in others. At this time in life I pray more to my husband than I do to God but I feel like it's all the same. For me God is an energy. If I put it in really simplistic terms, I could say that—if God was a bank and we, with all our good deeds and all our love—we could replenish our God bank. We'd magnify God with our acts of charity, our acts of love, so we can create as big a God as we want. Or have that God shrink. I don't know. I don't really have a religion but I think that religion is not the point; the point is that we be good people. I believe that prayer is a beautiful thing and that God is who we imagine Him to be—or It, Her, it doesn't really matter—because I believe that our imagination also is like God." Patti apologized for being so jetlagged that she couldn't phrase a more articulate response and she sincerely wished she could express herself better, especially to such an attentive audience. "God is as we wish God to be. I guess that's the best I can say."

Following suit, one young man wondered—when she went to Jerusalem—if seeing the holy temples there strengthened her faith in any way? "That was all beautiful though what really strengthened my faith at the time was seeing—at that time in Jerusalem things were a bit more hopeful—and I thought it was magical when I would see at the place where we were eating people of the Islamic faith and the Christian faith and the Hebrew faith all commingling and I thought these are three of the great churches right in this tiny little city and they all have amazing history here—the history of Mohammed, the history of Abraham, the history of Jesus—and I just found it all beautiful because, for me, I believe that they worship the same God. I thought the possibility of everyone commingling is a beautiful thing. It wasn't so much the houses or The Wall or anything, it was at that moment the possibility of the people moving together, coexisting."

The next fellow—knowing that Patti had performed last year in Istanbul and then in Moscow—wondered what it felt like for her to perform in new places in contrast to returning to San Francisco where she has played many times before? He asked if she tuned into those differences? "We tune into everything, right?" she answered. "I can remember coming to San Francisco in 1973 or 1974 and we played in Rather Ripped Bookstore or Record Store and there were people there! I thought, 'How do these people know?' I couldn't believe that people actually came to see us! It was so great. But it's all magical. We just played in Lebanon. Istanbul sounds so romantic and interesting and, yeah, in a way it is; but, then you go to some little town outside of Oslo, Norway or somewhere in Finland and you have a mystical connection with the people or with nature that is totally unexpected. Or right now! This is no different now than being anywhere else. We're here. We're exchanging energies. I'm doing all the talking, I know. Sorry. Don't forget, it is a Steven Sebring film!"

I asked if Sebring could address how he shaped the film through the editing? How long it took him? How the themes emerged?

"I had an idea," he conceded. "And it just kept morphing into other things. It was really about taking scenes from other places and putting it against another scene and seeing how it worked, knowing that I was probably going to try to get Patti to talk over some of the scenes. It was a hard film to edit because you would try something cool that you thought was going to work and then it didn't work at all. I edited for a year and I was editing while I was filming. In fact, as I was editing, I was filming her in her bedroom because I needed to have a through line to go back to."

Smith remembered that the last thing Sebring shot was her preparing to leave to her art exhibition in Paris and that ended up being the final scene in the film. Sebring said that he needed an end to dream the life so the Shelley quote worked. He came to visit her as she was packing to leave and the camera was set up so the end became the end. It proved to be wildly successful in Paris because the audiences were aware that the film had segued into its premiere there.

Cross-published on Twitch.

The BAWIFT Interview With Publicist Karen Larsen

Recently when I was speaking with Don Bachardy for my Evening Class interview in conjunction with Chris & Don: A Love Story, Don described Karen Larsen as "a class act." I guess it takes one to know one. Some of you might recall that Karen Larsen, the head honcho at the publicity firm of Larsen Associates, was the individual responsible for granting me my first-ever press pass so—in effect—she was the first professional to grant credence to my efforts at The Evening Class. She has done everything in her power to further my passion for writing on film by granting me access to screenings and setting up interviews with many of her clients. Over the years I've come to think of her as not only a consummate professional but a dear friend; but—as is often the case with friends—I've admittedly taken her for granted. We talk so frequently—in person, over the phone, by email—that the notion of interviewing her seemed superfluous. However, when I read Simone Nelson's interview for Bay Area Women In Film and Television (BAWIFT), I kicked myself for not taking care of this earlier. For now, I'm grateful to Simone Nelson at BAWIFT and Karen Larsen for granting permission to reprint their conversation for The Evening Class.

* * *

BAWIFT: What exactly is it that you do as the Principal/Founder of Karen Larsen Associates for independent filmmakers, media organizations and film festivals in the Bay Area?

Karen Larsen: I do everything from consulting with an organization (a press list to CinemaTech) and sharing of press lists with organizations or filmmakers to doing publicity for festivals and opening films theatrically in order to get as much publicity—TV, radio, print—as we can for each job and strategy for PR and marketing (if it is opening theatrical vs. the festival circuit and theatrically). I do it all.

BAWIFT: How long have you been in the Bay Area and where else have you lived and worked? Have you always been in PR and Publicity and how did you get into the field of publicity and PR for media and film?

Larsen: I moved back here in 1970 from Santa Cruz and went to work at KQED on a lot of shows as an Assistant Director and PA and I also was a single mom so I worked part-time hours, did research and exhibits for places like The Oakland Museum, worked on helping cast films, and had a million freelance jobs. Eventually I worked on Over Easy on KQED as the talent coordinator and got to know Judy Stone and Mel Nobokov, which is how I got to know so many filmmakers, work for film festivals and major film distributors and studios who hired me to open films theatrically in the Bay Area. I then became the publicist at the San Francisco International Film Festival, which was then a four-month job (January through April), then Mill Valley asked me to be their publicist, Frameline hired me in their 10th year and The Jewish Film Festival and Asian American Film Festival all hired me as well.

BAWIFT: How have you seen the field of indie film and film festivals change over the years?

Larsen: The internet was a huge change. Before The Blair Witch Project, Sony used to ask me why I was letting someone be interviewed by an internet-based publication—they didn't care about that—and then they saw the success of Blair Witch Project and saw the power of the internet as a marketing tool. This week filmmaker's Wayne Wang's new film Princess of Nebraska is opening on YouTube's Screening Room. Wayne was conservative about the on-line environment but even he has changed. Theatrical festival screenings have changed (taking a cue from film festivals). They've learned that it works to have filmmakers and artists there to do Q&A. Opening a film with Q&A's by directors/actors and producers are packed screenings. Festivals are still important. The Asian American Film Festival has an unusually supportive community and audiences. I've noticed now that people go to Festivals because it's an experience, especially the Asian American, Jewish and Frameline Film Festivals locally. I've noticed a strong cultural connection with Asian/Jewish/Frameline and have literally heard people at the Jewish Film Festival say it is "their synagogue." I've also spoken to folks who come to every event at every festival and come out to these Festivals, buy full passes and treat it like a vacation. That's especially evident at Frameline, which takes place during Gay Pride Week and people come from all over the Country for the events around the Week and to attend Frameline.

BAWIFT: What would you recommend local filmmakers do in terms of marketing and promotion to help position themselves and their work in the festival circuit and beyond? And do you have any tips, dos and/or don'ts, etc.

Larsen: Do find out who a festival's publicist is and call them (not too often though) and in a very nice way offer to help, like the Going on 13 filmmakers. They email me once or twice a week and update me on what they are doing themselves for marketing and PR and what screenings are happening. They told me that they were doing the Panel Event this month for BAWIFT. Do ask if the publicist has enough of your DVDs, photos, and make sure they have your materials. Offer to send more DVDs, press kits, photos. Tell them when you are available while at the Festival; give a schedule and give helpful details. Offer to do more and give more packets, postcards, posters, clips, info, DVDs, etc. so the publicist doesn't have to keep getting or copying more. Know how to make a press kit (and make sure your information is all email-able and downloadable). What publicists generally don't like is when a filmmaker calls over and over; especially if they are one film in a big Festival and the publicist is representing that Festival which has over 200 films. There just isn't enough time to focus so much on only one film so know the appropriateness of your calls and questions!

BAWIFT: What do you like most about the work that you do?

Larsen: When connections get made. For example, a young filmmaker named Arturo Perez made a film called Where Have the Flowers Gone? about a 20-year-old coming out to San Francisco in search of the 60's culture and sensibility. He got my name from another local filmmaker Luke Wolbach (Row Hard, No Excuses). Arturo created his own press kit and already had some internet presence but for a small fee, I offered to send an "e-blast" on his behalf. From that one e-blast, he not only got a story in the Chronicle but West Coast Live wanted him on the Show. He had done his part and made a nice press kit. I love that and he is so appreciative.

BAWIFT: What are the general fees or costs to work with you?

Larsen: I offer organizations, companies and people individual hours-long consultations with complete press lists and a walk through and complete analysis of the lists and what needs to be done for approximately $500. I also offer $100 an hour consultations to individuals and charge a small fee for just the use of my press lists.

BAWIFT: Any favorite moments or people from your years in the industry and what's your favorite type of films?

Larsen: My favorite filmmaker is Wong Kar-Wai as his films are so romantic. Unfortunately I haven't met him but I did have Tony Leung here on interviews. I was really fond of the actress Amy Adams (June Bug) as she was so lovely on interviews and recently I had Charlie Kaufman on interviews. He's shy and I was worried but he was really nice. I'm also really fond of the director Errol Morris and have had him on interviews about four times over the years. I admire his work greatly. One of the highlights of my professional career was getting to go to the Academy Awards for the 1990 film Berkeley in the Sixties as I did the PR nationally and internationally for that film. The filmmaker, Mark Kitchell, was nominated for an Academy Award for that documentary and invited me to join him. Unfortunately, the film didn't win that year but it was exciting to be at the Oscars with him.

For Film or Festival Publicity, contact Karen Larsen from Larsen Associates at (415) 957-1205 or by email at larsenassc@aol.com

SFIAF08—Line-up

In its third edition spread over four days from November 13-16, 2008 at Landmark's Embarcadero Center Cinema, with special live events at the Apple Store and the Ninth Street Independent Film Center, the San Francisco Film Society presents the San Francisco International Animation Festival (SFIAF), which celebrates "one of the most fertile, creative and productive forms of artistic, experimental, commercial and industrial media." In the ol' days we called them "toons"; but, some highfalutin words are required nowadays to express the strength and breadth of this year's eclectic program, curated by SFFS programmer Sean Uyehara.

Two years back Nina Paley workshopped her first feature-length film Sita Sings the Blues at Stephen Parr's Oddball Films. The program was wildly successful and so it came as a surprise to me to read that Sita Sings the Blues inspired controversy earlier this year at the Tribeca Film Festival. As Eric Kohn reported to The Jewish Daily Forward, Hindu fundamentalists—never known for their sense of humor—were convinced Paley had defiled their sacred traditions. "Have fun representing white people with your cultural appropriation and misrepresentation" went one rant, while religious conglomerate Hindu Janajagruti Samiti fumed that "Paley is trying to bring Sita down to the level of mortal love experienced by her, a product of materialistic-individualistic ideology." To borrow from Bill Maher's lexicon: how religulous! In my estimation, Paley has done more to familiarize the uninitiated with the Indian classic The Ramayana—let alone the sweet hot ("that's all!") jazz of Annette Hanshaw—than any grimacing fundamentalist. Despite controversy, Paley's beautifully animated East-meets-West visual feast has delighted audiences around the world, taking the top prize at Annecy, the world's premier animation festival. Decide for yourself when Sita Sings the Blues screens twice on SFIAF08's opening night at 7:00PM and 9:15PM, Thursday, November 13, with Paley in person to discuss her triumphs and travails at a reception sandwiched inbetween the screenings at the former Gallery One Space, on the lobby level below the theater.

Inbetween effects projects with Bong Joon-ho's The Host and Rodriguez/Tarantino's Grindhouse, I met up with Webster Colcord at San Francisco's The Orphanage for an SF360 interview. I'm delighted for the chance to catch up with Colcord and his Orphanage collaborator Corey Rosen for their SF360 Live discussion: "2½-D: New Aesthetics in the 3-D Environment", offered free at the Apple Store, One Stockton Street, on Friday, November 14, 3:00PM. This presentation will lay out the creative issues that stand between 2-D and 3-D.

From their Apple Store presentation it's back to Landmark's Embarcadero Cinema for the 6:30PM screening of Locomotion, a collection of short films that "bring a fascinating and fascinated eye to the mechanics of movement." Director Mike Roush will be present to discuss his entry "The Hidden Life of the Burrowing Owl."

Locomotion is followed at 8:30PM by "The Best of Annecy 2008." Widely regarded as Europe's most important animation festival, SFIAF08 is pleased to present a selection of the best shorts from this year's program.

At 10:15PM, Webster Colcord returns to introduce his animated music video "The Dandy Warhols: Welcome to the 3rd World", part of the Play It By Eye program, which reprises SFIAF's popular survey of the best recently completed animated music videos. This survey mixes established veteran directors like R. Malcolm Jones, Nima Nourizadeh and Joel Trussell with up and comers such as Flourescent Hill and Stephane Manel and design stalwarts such as Motomichi Nakamura. Come rock out to The Dandy Warhols, The Chemical Brothers, Gnarls Barkley, and The New Pornographers, among others.

On Saturday, November 15, SFIAF08 kicks off with a 10:30AM "Meet the Maker: Practice and Craft" session with Gene Deitch at Ninth Street Independent Film Center, 145 Ninth Street. Maverick animator Gene Deitch will discuss his 50-plus years in animation, touching on key moments in his career such as heading Terrytoons, being the creative director at UPA and working with writers Maurice Sendak and William Steig. He'll also address contemporary issues in animation.

The festival proper commences at Landmark's Embarcadero Cinemas with the high noon presentation of Play: The Art of the Animated Film Title, wherein animation's major role in the history and design of film titles is explored.

At 1:45PM there will be an encore screening of Best of Annecy 2008, followed at 3:30PM by Encyclopedia Pictura. This enigmatic collective made up of Sean Hellfritsch, Darren Rabinovitch and Isaiah Saxon "is enjoying a groundswell of notice for its inventive and precise application of puppetry, construction, mathematics, animation and design, as seen in their wildly creative animated, live action and hybrid pieces." All three directors will be present to answer queries regarding "virtual reality, psychokinetic energy, anarcho-primitivism, cryptozoology, natural geometry and psychedelic shamanism." Get ready and burnish your questions.

Encyclopedia Pictura will be followed at 5:15PM by Control Freaks, a collection of shorts where the questions continue: "Are we the masters of our destinies? Does your response depend on whether or not you are an air-filled cell on a sheet of plastic?"

The SFIAF08 program then shifts to questions of memory and its therapeutic practice with the 7:15PM screening of Ari Folman's tour de force exploration—Waltz With Bashir—a standout of the main competition section at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Waltz With Bashir "focuses on a politically charged, nonfictional event with such force and thoughtfulness that it recasts the dramatic potentials of long-form animation." Folman's uncompromising feature exemplifies how "the malleable, expressive nature of animation" can "communicate essential ideas about the subjective nature of truth."

Next at 9:45PM is Bill Plympton's Idiots and Angels, "a dark and humorous allegory about morally bankrupt men." Sound like anyone you know? Share resemblances with director Bill Plympton who is expected to attend.

SFIAF08 wraps up on Sunday, November 16 with a follow-up on Gene Deitch's Ninth Street Independent Film Center presentation. Deitch will present an 11:00AM "Retrospective of Films for Children" at Landmark's Embarcadero Cinema. This program will focus on his child-friendly works including adaptations of stories by Maurice Sendak and William Steig, his Oscar-winning classic Munro and some of Deitch's own favorites and surprises.

The Deitch program will be followed by encore screenings of Idiots and Angels (1:00PM) and Waltz with Bashir (3:30PM).

Film Tickets are $10 per program for year-round SFFS members, $12.50 general, $11 seniors, students and persons with disabilities; CineVoucher 8-packs are $72 SFFS members, $92 general; the Opening Night film and reception is $15 SFFS members, $20 general; Meet the Maker is $10 SFFS members, $15 general; SF360 Live: "2½-D: New Aesthetics in the 3-D Environment" is free. Tickets are available online or by calling (925) 866-9559.

Cross-published on Twitch.

BALLAST—The SF360 Interview With Lance Hammer

Lance Hammer's debut feature, Ballast—now playing in San Francisco—premiered at January's Sundance Film Festival to resounding critical fanfare, winning prizes for best director and cinematography. It followed with awards in Buenos Aires, Boston and the 51st San Francisco International Film Festival, where I had the opportunity to sit down with producer-director-writer Lance Hammer to discuss the film's impressive structure. Since our conversation, Hammer's film has been navigating the hazardous waters of distribution and has—as Anthony Kaufman at indieWIRE states it—"steadied its course" by opting out of a distribution deal with IFC Films in order to self-distribute through the film's production entity, Alluvial Film Company, along with Steven Raphael's Required Viewing. This brave maneuver places Hammer in the vanguard of independent filmmakers strategizing new models for theatrical self-distribution. Our conversation is up at SF360.

KRABAT—The Evening Class Interview With Marco Kreuzpaintner and Daniel Brühl

Krabat, Marco Kreuzpaintner's film adaptation of Otfried Preußler's beloved bestselling novel Krabat (The Satanic Mill)—which sold over 2.1 million copies worldwide and has been translated into more than 30 languages—has come highly anticipated. Starring Daniel Brühl (Goodbye, Lenin!, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Edukators), Christian Redl (Downfall) and David Kross (Tough Enough, The Reader) in the lead role of Krabat, Kreuzpaintner's film is a soul-stirring adventure for all ages that seizes the viewer with its atmospheric power, emotional truthfulness, and discreet SFX rather than CGI overload and arcane storylines. I had the good fortune of touching base with Kreuzpaintner and Brühl during the film's international premiere at the 33rd Toronto International Film Festival. They startled me for arriving clean-cut to our scheduled interview without a trace of mud or grime. My thanks to Stephen Lan and Bavaria Film International (whose website provides a subtitled trailer) for arranging the interview and to movieScope for publishing our conversation in an abbreviated edit.

* * *

Michael Guillén: Though an accomplished film, I'm concerned whether Krabat will sell in North America? Its dark Christianity might prove problematic. You're probably aware that the Harry Potter franchise came under fire, and The Golden Compass franchise suffered greatly from American predispositions? Do you feel Krabat will be able to surmount these cultural obstacles?

Marco Kreuzpaintner: I would have to ask you what you mean by "dark Christianity"? Is that an American point of view?

Guillén: Yes, definitely. I'm a student of the mythologist Joseph Campbell and am well-steeped in folklore and mythology. What I mean by "dark Christianity" is a Christianity that has an acknowledged root in Eastern European traditions of pantheism. From my perspective, this only enrichens Christianity; but, Campbell was the first to criticize that American Christianity—fearful of this root—has chosen instead to whitewash the religion and divorce themselves from that root.

Kreuzpaintner: Though I cannot really share this point of view, I can understand your concern. But Krabat's story is universal. First, it's an obvious fascism parable. Otfried Preußler, on whose novel Krabat is based, is like the Dr. Seuss of Germany. Certainly he worked out his experience of WWII through his novel. I don't believe he was a member of the Nazi party but he was a soldier who became imprisoned in Russia. So, though perhaps the Christianity in Krabat goes back to Germanic roots, writing Krabat was more a healing process for Preußler; his recognition of how tempted he and the German populace were by a "black sorcerer"—it's obvious who he meant by that—and the question of the freedom and humanity Germans were forced to relinquish. The answer, of course, is obvious. It was never worth it. That's also why I think the book was so successful in Europe and why it won so many awards in youth literature when it came out. Young people can connect to the fact that they are always tempted to be part of certain groups, nowadays even more than before. Everybody talks about individualism but does individualism truly exist anymore? Advertisements boast: "Be individual and choose your own cellphone color" and then they offer four colors. So individualism is reined in by commercial choice. For me it was interesting to tell this story in such a way that young people can ask themselves, "Is it really worth it to just become part of a group and give up my self?" That is the universal language of Krabat. I want to believe that all over the world people will focus on that aspect, not on a particular interpretation of Christianity.

Guillén: You've drawn the fascism parallel, which intrigues me because Hitler himself was into mythology and was—in his own perverse way—updating the mythology.

Kreuzpaintner: There's something specifically Old European about the dark forest, already present in the Grimms fairy tales for example.

Guillén: I'm intrigued, Marco, because you're such a young director and, Daniel, you're such a young actor. Obviously, Krabat—which Preußler adapted from a folktale—spoke to you as young Germans. What was it that you heard when you read this novel?

Daniel Brühl: I was extremely young when I read Krabat; I was only 13. I was a child. At that time, I didn't understand or see the whole depth of the story. I first read it as an entertaining, dark, gloomy fairy tale. Along with my generation, I just enjoyed it. Almost everybody at school read it.

Kreuzpaintner: We were attracted to its magic because—at that time—we didn't yet have the Harry Potter novels. That's why when I'm asked if Krabat is an answer to Harry Potter, I have to stress that generations of producers have tried to finance Krabat but the German film industry was not in a position back then to finance such an epic film. In terms of precedent, this movie could have been done way before the Harry Potter movies but it wasn't. Fortunately, I have to say, because I got to make it. When I read Krabat as a child, it was certainly its descriptions of magic that attracted me. Plus, I had never read a children's book that dealt with death. The Disney-fication of children's stories with bright, happy set-ups ignores that children aren't really like that. The novel steered into a world of darkness and children know darkness is out there so when we discovered Krabat, we found a story we could connect with. Maybe parents fear that their children will come across something they shouldn't in a story like Krabat, but—on the other hand—for me this book was at a moment when I was at the edge of childhood becoming a young adult with the awareness that I would die someday. Maybe parents can argue about exposing their children to such a truth; but, this truth didn't kill me. I'm sitting here. I became a film director. It didn't mess me up to read Krabat. It's a powerful book for young adults.

Guillén: My understanding of fairy tales in general is that they're structured to speak on multiple levels. As a child, you can take these stories as entertaining and exciting battles between light and darkness; but, as you grow older, the same story acquires ethical depth whose themes mature over time and through experience. Truthfully, fairy tales aren't for children; they're more for adults.

Kreuzpaintner: That's how they're written actually. If you think about the Brothers Grimm, they never told their stories to children. They traveled from village to village making a living by telling their stories to adults who paid for entertainment and that entertainment was frequently dark. People like to hear not only love stories but dark stories and—to return to your earlier question about Christianity—the guilt and fear in some of these stories might be predicated on Christian concerns.

Guillén: Hopefully, Krabat will pass Christian censors Stateside because it's structured so that the Christianity is set aside as the darkness is explored and then returned to the story as resolution, as salvation. Its magic doesn't replace Christianity as in the Harry Potter books. You mentioned that generations of German filmmakers have tried to adapt Krabat into a film. How did it come to you?

Kreuzpaintner: I believe the rights to the novel first went to Dieter Geissler, who produced Die Unendliche Geschichte (The Neverending Story). He wanted to produce it as an American production under the name The Satanic Mill. Interestingly, that's the title under which Krabat was actually published in the United States; but, that was in the '70s and '80s when people were, perhaps, a little bit more open-minded. He wasn't able to finance it so the rights fell back. Then Claussen Wöbke, our producers, bought the rights in the '80s, I think, so it has also taken them a long time to pull the money together. Another German director was attached, Hans-Christian Schmid, but—as Christian developed himself into another kind of filmmaker more concerned with realism only—he wanted to do the film without the shapeshifting into ravens, and without the magic, and suddenly it wasn't Krabat anymore. The producers made the creative choice that they didn't think the project was right for Schmid. I was in the middle of directing Trade with the same producers of Summer Storm, and felt that—after Trade—I had to do something that was a little lighter. Otherwise I was getting too caught up in darkness. I'm actually a positive thinker and a fun-loving person and—granted—there's not a lot of humor in Krabat; but, at least it has an element of fantasy. The producers knew I was interested in fantasy because I had already done a short fantasy film Der Atemkünstler, with August Diehl—who you might know from The Counterfeiters—with whom I co-wrote the film. So I was already into fantasy and Krabat was a chance to rediscover the genre on a bigger scale.

Guillén: Do you feel that your youth and the fact that it was filmed in Europe were essential for Krabat to be finally filmed?

Kreuzpaintner: It's such a European story. It's a German story. Believe me, there were many discussions about whether we should shoot it in English.

Brühl: It's also set in a very precise time, during the Thirty Years War, and the story again is too European, too German, to have been shot anywhere else.

Guillén: How did you get pulled into the project, Daniel?

Brühl: I heard that Marco was preparing to film Krabat. It's the first time that—without reading a script—I accepted a role rightaway.

Kreuzpaintner: You never told me that!

Brühl: When I heard the movie was being made, I knew I had to be a part of it no matter what. Then I found out Claussen+Wöbke+Putz was producing it, I read the script—which I really liked—and I also liked my character Tonda. When I read Krabat at 13, I loved Tonda and already identified with him.

Guillén: As a character, Tonda is the most mature of the apprentices and he immediately comes across as the conscience of the group. Is that what appealed to you?

Brühl: Yes. And also because I would finally get to play a mature role. In all my other roles, I have been the young, innocent, naïve guy so to get to play someone responsible for the other guys, someone mature and wiser, appealed to me. I could easily identify with this character and the relationship I had to David Kross, the actor who plays Krabat, was pretty much like the relationship in the movie, which was helpful to both of us. I see myself in David because he's beginning to have an incredible career but he's also quite modest, shy and curious. He wants to learn from more experienced actors. I felt like his big brother during the shoot and we have become friends. I think you can see in the film that we genuinely liked and cared about each other.

Guillén: Not having read Preußler's novel Krabat, nor the folktale on which it's based, how closely does your filmic adaptation follow the folktale and the novel? Are there any major divergences?

Kreuzpaintner: Not really. The main difference is that the novel is structured over the period of three years and in the film we cut it down to two years. In the novel there's another cycle inbetween where another guy dies. We structured the film so that it tells the audience about the guy in love with a girl who was killed by a falling tree, whereas the novel went into that full year. In the novel it took Krabat two years to figure out what was happening at the mill but in the film we—as the audience—grasp it more quickly because we see all the images. I suspect the audience would have become impatient with a third cycle. We wanted to make Krabat more of a hero and a bit more smart. That was the biggest change. There was another episode left out where the Master tries to seduce Krabat before the confrontational scene we left intact in the movie. The Master takes Krabat by carriage to a masked ball in Dresden. That scene was actually scripted but we had to remove it for budgetary reasons.

Guillén: Also, it would have pulled the audience out of the locale of the mill and distracted them, I think.

Kreuzpaintner: Yes, that's what I see now. What I like is that the film is so dense and enclosed at the mill that it's almost claustrophobic. If the movie had opened up with a trip to Dresden, it might have expanded the film production-wise, but story-wise it would not have worked out too well.

Guillén: As a student of mythology, there were three mythic elements that stood out for me in your film and I'd love for you to comment on them. The first is the idea of the "true name." Also, as someone born in the month of October, a Libran, my Native American totem is the raven, and the shapeshifting of the boys into ravens was one of the first things that drew me into your film. Likewise, my main training has been in Mesoamerica, where there is a linguistic homonym between seeds and bones. To this day in Mexico the seed of an avocado is called a hueso. I appreciated that you had the year-end sequence where bones were ground into meal.

Kreuzpaintner: Some people have expressed that they were bothered that we didn't explain what was going on; but, I wanted to retain the ambiguity. Any explanation would have been too obvious. Of course life and death are so close to each other. Out of that death mill where bones / seeds are ground comes new life. I'm stunned when people want me to explain everything. It's more beautiful as a metaphor than an explanation.

Guillén: Although I can understand why you chose not to explain it, I did want to see the bread made from the bone meal. Let's discuss the premise of the "true name" by which the Master can obtain control over someone? In the film the boys at the mill have the chance to be released from their servitude if a young woman they love comes to the mill and asks the Master directly for their release. However, if the Master secures the name of the girl, that chance is forfeited. In Krabat's case, Kantorka is the young girl he is in love with.

Kreuzpaintner: Kantorka, the name of the girl, has a meaning by the way. It means she's a pre-singer or a fore-singer. She sings first and then the chorus responds.

Guillén: But that's not her real name?

Kreuzpaintner: No, you're never told her real name. That's just what Krabat names her because she was singing so beautifully and because he didn't want the Master to ever know her real name.

Guillén: When Tonda warns Krabat—in their invisible spectral state—that he's never supposed to touch one of the girls, and Kantorka stumbles backward and Krabat catches her—inducing that beautiful golden liquid moment—was Tonda trying to adhere to the Master's principles by warning Krabat away from love? Was he sincere? Because, obviously, Tonda had already defied that rule.

Brühl: Yeah. That moment is ambivalent, I suppose. I see that Krabat is special. I see that I can dare to tell him what happens outside the Mill. I try to introduce him to my secret life. But, on the other hand, I want to protect him of course because I know such secrecy is dangerous. The danger of his secret eventually catches up to Tonda. But Tonda is also sowing seeds in Krabat, hoping to fulfill his own destiny through Krabat.

Guillén: That's the sense I got. As an elder brother—instead of becoming angry when this golden moment occurs between Krabat and Kantorka—Tonda watches at a respectful distance, almost happy. His ambivalency was purely intriguing. He had just warned Krabat that this was a bad thing; but, obviously, it wasn't. By film's end you realize it's love that is the counterforce to sorcery. Is the shapeshifting of the boys into ravens in the original story?

Kreuzpaintner: Yes, but it's described differently. They shapeshift in the Black Chamber; they don't do it outside. But, technically, we didn't know how to show the shapeshifting within the Black Chamber in a spectacular way so we chose to dramatize it off the edge of the cliff.

Guillén: What fascinates me about the shapeshifting into ravens is that it leans into a longstanding tradition of the Arthurian legend of Merlin, who is associated with the month of October, and who is likewise associated with ravens. Also the premise of the older person becoming younger through magic is a Merlinesque touch.

Kreuzpaintner: [Laughs.] You know more about this than we do!

Guillén: I've studied mythology my entire life. Which is actually one of the reasons I love film so much. I consider films to be the modern mythology of world culture and the reason why audiences love film, even if they're unaware of this aspect.

Kreuzpaintner: I agree; but, you are probably the only person left in the press who sees it like that!

Guillén: I don't know about that. I won't be that egotistical. How difficult was it to achieve those effects? Or more pertinently, with the large budget you were given, you struck an admirable balance in not going overboard with the special effects.

Kreuzpaintner: We wanted to do special effects that felt real and were not seen as effects. We wanted them to be believable at every moment, just part of the story. You might not realize it but there are 400 CGI shots in Krabat.

Guillén: Some of them having to do with landscape, I understand, as seen through open windows and that sort of thing?

Kreuzpaintner: Also, set extensions. For example, we didn't have one day of snow during the shoot.

Guillén: It was all fake snow?!

Kreuzpaintner: It was all fake snow.

Guillén: How do you simulate fake snow? Cornflakes?

Kreuzpaintner: No, it's paper. The good news about that is that it decomposes organically.

Guillén: But the mud was real?

Kreuzpaintner: [Laughs.] The mud was real. The reason we shot in the Carpathians was because the Romanian Film Commission promised us a 99% assurance of snow! The fact that there was none was a horrible problem. Wherever the actors went, we had to place the artificial snow in the background. Though we photographed the landscape, we still had to place a bluescreen inbetween, digitially fill it with snow, and put the filmed image with snow back onto the bluescreen. That reliance on CGI slowed down the production and made it much more expensive.

Guillén: I look forward to the DVD with all those production extras. Final question: What's coming up for both of you?

Brühl: I've had a very good year. I shot The Countess with Julie Delpy. I shot the film John Rabe in China based on a great true-story account of a German businessman who saves more than 200,000 Chinese during the Nanjing massacre in 1937-38. It has a great cast, including Steve Buscemi. I did a German comedy Lila, Lila that's an adaptation of a bestselling book. [Though Brühl was not allowed to say at the time of our interview, he has also been attached to Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards, due to begin filming in mid-October. As well as Jon Amiel's Angel Makers.]

Kreuzpaintner: I have two projects that I'm working on. One is another adaptation of a novel by Frank Schatzing—who wrote The Swarm—called Death and the Devil. It's also based in the Middle Ages, but much earlier than Krabat, around 1260. It's a mystery-thriller based in Cologne during the building of the Cologne Cathedral and is about a young guy who brings light into the darkness of the Middle Ages by advocating that the devil doesn't exist. And the other project I'm working on—which was just announced yesterday—is a biopic about the life of Fassbinder.

* * *

Through their Filmcatcher series, Filmmaker offers videotaped interviews with both Marco Kreuzpaintner and Daniel Brühl.

Cross-published on Twitch.

movieScope 2:4

The tenth issue of movieScope has just hit the stands. Though it still hasn't yet achieved North American distribution, I'm happy to report that its online presence has greatly improved though—as is often best with such film journals—subscriptions insure you don't miss a single in-your-hands issue.

The current issue features not only my two entries but—within the Insiders P.O.V. sidebar—Rick Drew reports from the third annual SWF Screenwriters Festival held this past Summer near Cheltenham on the cusp of the Cotswolds. The bucolic locale afforded the unique experience to rub elbows and share collective wisdom with a stellar combination of legendary writers of screen, stage, and television, including Oscar®-winning screenwriters Christopher Hampton (Atonement), Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park), and Ronald Harwood (The Pianist); writer/director Mike Leigh (Happy-Go-Lucky, Vera Drake); and beloved novelist Terry Pratchett (the Discworld series), among others.

Boyd von Hoeij contributes to the Global Focus sidebar with an interview with Philippe Claudel, whose first narrative feature I've Loved You So Long has been impressing audiences with a tour-de-force performance from Kristin Scott Thomas. "At times she would propose a certain take on the scene we were about to film and then it would be light-years away from where I imagined this scene would be going. So at times we really did shout at each other, because I knew who Juliette, her character, was, and she didn't seem to know anymore. It is in these moments that you have to be strong and not think about the fact she's got 25 years of experience in the business and you don't." I've Loved You So Long will be opening theatrically at San Francisco's Landmark Clay Theatre on October 31.

Global Focus also offers Chris Patmore's interview with Tarsem (The Cell) regarding his most recent labor of love, The Fall. Tarsem discusses how he obtained his film education through cunning subterfuge, how he handles his films being panned by the critics—"As long as you don't say it's comme ci comme ça"—and opines that the only things he likes in digital are news and porn and that everything else should be shot on film.

Scriptwriter Andy Conway offers a Fading In editorial piece on being inspired by the mumblecore movement to film his own scripts. Wout Thielemans reviews Peter Dunne's Emotional Structure—Creating the Story Beneath the Plot: A Guide for Screenwriters (Quill Driver Books); John Truby's The Anatomy Of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller (Faber & Faber); The Shut Up and Shoot Documentary Guide: Any Budget. Any Camera. Any Time. (Focal Press) compiled by Anthony Q. Artis; and David Carter's The Western (Kamera Books). Finally, Rick Drew reviews the DVD release of the second season of Dexter.

Cross-published on Twitch.

Mark A. Vieira—Hollywood Dreams Made Real: Irving Thalberg and the Rise of M-G-M

Mark Vieira has an undisputed eye for beauty, especially the glamorized beauty of Hollywood's golden studio era. A portrait photographer, film historian, and the author of four previous volumes—Hurrell's Hollywood Portraits, Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood, Hollywood Horror: From Gothic to Cosmic, and Greta Garbo: A Cinematic Legacy, all published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc.—Vieira graciously forwarded me his latest Abrams publication, Hollywood Dreams Made Real: Irving Thalberg and the Rise of M-G-M, and I've been admittedly ensorcelled by Vieira's stunning selection of previously unpublished photographs and his informative and revelatory commentary.

Nicknamed Hollywood's "Boy Wonder," Irving Thalberg was running Universal Pictures at the age of 20 and M-G-M at 23. From 1924 to his untimely death in 1936, he supervised more than 400 M-G-M films; made stars of—among others—Norma Shearer, Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Lon Chaney, and Greta Garbo; and helped to elevate film to the level of fine art. Hollywood Dreams Made Real tells the story of Thalberg's short but productive life and confirms his role as the prime architect of the Hollywood studio system.

Thalberg pioneered many of today's filmmaking practices, including story conferences, sneak previews and the resulting retakes. But he was a complex and often contradictory man, regarded by some as a genius and by others as an exploiter of writers. In Hollywood Dreams Made Real, Vieira sets the record straight. The author includes accounts of Thalberg's rise to prominence in the company of colleagues who later unseated him; anecdotes of Crawford's competition with Shearer; and evocative stories of the making of Thalberg films, from the brilliant all-star vehicle Grand Hotel to the bizarre horror film Freaks, which literally sickened viewers. Vieira interweaves the recollections of Thalberg's wife, Norma Shearer, and those of other M-G-M veterans with newly discovered interviews and data from unseen production records. More than 200 previously unpublished photographs comprise a treasure trove of images from Thalberg's films. The result is both a portrait of a Hollywood pioneer and an enchanting tour of the magical world he created.

To celebrate the publication of this lustrous volume, the Rafael Film Center has programmed three rare treasures from this legendary producer. On Wednesday, October 29, 7:00PM, Vieira will present Red Dust and on Thursday, October 30, 7:00PM, he will present The Merry Widow. Vieira will guide discussion after each screening and then sign copies of his new book, which will be made available for purchase at the Rafael. On Sunday, November 2, 7:00PM San Francisco Chronicle film critic Mick LaSalle will round out the series with a screening of Private Lives and guide discussion afterwards.

Cross-published on Twitch.