David Gordon Green: A Southerner Looks to the North, Part Three

A Chat with David Gordon Green: On the Production (click here for part two)

I'm inspired less by specific movies and books than
I am by sitting on a porch listening to somebody.
--Green to the New York Times (2004)

Was Snow Angels [the novel] autobiographical in any way?

I assume it is, to some degree. More of it, I think, was just his [Stewart O'Nan's] curiosity and investigation of headlines-district headlines--and then he tried to humanize them, and I'm sure he brought a lot of an autobiographical perspective, especially within the younger character.

Do you mean that there was an incident like that when he was growing up?

Just things he was affected by at various points in his life, and then I tried to do the same thing. When I was in the fifth grade, a girl in my town went missing for two years, and she was around my age, and I remember there was this real surreal quality about the whole thing where you kind of felt like you knew her, because her face was on flyers all over the place.

[image]
Halifax in the snow

Was she found?

Yeah...some bones.

It sounds like Undertow was a really arduous shoot, in terms of the location, the bugs [hordes of chiggers], etc. I'm wondering if this was an easier shoot? It was a totally different environment.

No, it was not easier. It was, like, 30 below zero, we're shooting all night, and hoping for snow.

And you're probably not used to that weather.

No. The other thing about Undertow is that the whole crew--the entire crew--were all my best friends. There weren't strangers on that movie, and this movie... it was ultimately a positive experience, but I had to learn to communicate with a lot of strangers, a lot of people who were doing a job. It's weird when you have people who are getting paid to hang out with you-and get paid more when it goes into overtime, so they slow it down and don't work very hard. And they think that's good. It's just a weird psychology when people...you know, it's a legitimate industry, rather than it's your buddies and you've got a few bucks and you want to make something great and have a crazy time. So it was difficult in that way, because I had to communicate rather than have people read my mind. But it was certainly rewarding, and there is a good crew base up in Halifax. I brought my DP [director of photography] and production designer and sound mixer and the major technical contributors to my other movies, but then we had to hire a lot of locals.

[image]
Devon Alan & Jamie Bell, Undertow

Were you filming at the same time-and I know this wasn't in Halifax, but it was in Canada--as The Assassination of Jesse James?

[A movie filmed in Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg.]

This was right after that.

I was wondering, because there were all these big movies filmed in Northeastern Canada that came out in the past year. That also reminded me of you, because Paul Schneider is in it and because it has, to me--some people don't see this--but it has this [Terrence] Malick look to the cinematography.

[Schneider, an NCSA classmate, appears in George Washington and All the Real Girls. Malick has produced two of Green's films.]

People don't see that in Jesse James? Drunk people!

I know! That's what I was thinking, but I was talking to a friend, who's steeped in film history, and he said the cinematography reminds him of some more obscure name. I can't remember who it was, but it might've been someone more...Expressionist. Like that opening scene, where it's all blurred out on the sides--which I don't associate with Terrence Malick-but the rest of the film: how could anyone not see that? And in a good way. I thought it was a gorgeous film.

[The Assassination was shot by Roger Deakins of No Country for Old Men fame.]

It's a pretty movie. I was on the set for a bit. The director's a friend of mine.

You're friends with Andrew Dominick?

I premiered my first movie in Australia when he premiered his first movie.

[2000's Chopper with a stand-up comedian named...Eric Bana.]

That's awesome. I can't believe he took so long between his two films.

He's a perfectionist. It took so long to edit his damned second movie.

And it's a long movie. It also has Zooey Deschanel in it. I hadn't thought about that, but it has other actors with whom you've worked.

A lot of folks, like Pat Healy, the mechanic from Undertow...

And he's in Great World of Sound. I also caught him in an episode of The Shield. Now that I know who he is, I've been keeping an eye out for him.

He's been in a bunch of stuff. Yeah, a lot of incestuous relationships.

Like Sam Shepard.

[From Malick's Days of Heaven.]

And Sam Rockwell.

Next: On the cast

[image]
Casey Affleck and Rockwell in The Assassination of Jesse James

Snow Angels is currently playing at the Harvard Exit Theatre. Images from The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Geek Literature (Stephen Cawood), The New York Times, No Budget Film School.

David Gordon Green: A Southerner Looks to the North, Part Two

A Chat with David Gordon Green: On the Adaptation (click here for part one)

Right: Michael Angarano as Arthur Parkinson

I was in the band the fall my father left, in the second row of trombones, in the middle because I was a freshman. Tuesdays and Wednesdays after school we practiced in the music room, but on Fridays Mr. Chervenick led us outside in our down jackets and tasseled Steeler hats and shitkicker boots and across the footbridge that spanned the interstate to the middle school soccer field, where, like the football team itself, we ran square-outs and curls and a maneuver Mr. Chervenick called an oblique, with which, for
the finale of every halftime show, we described--all 122 of us-a whirling funnel approximating our school's nickname, the Golden Tornadoes. We never got it quite right, though every Friday Mr. Chervenick tried to inspire us, scampering across the frost-slicked grass in his chocolate leather coat and kid gloves and cordovans to heard us into formation until-in utter disgust--instead of steering a wayward oboe back on course he would simply arrest him or her by the shoulders so the entire block of winds had to stop, and then the brass and the drums, and we would have to start all over again.--opening paragraph from Snow Angels (copyright Picador)

[image]
The original novel

Another thing from the press notes, that people can interpret in interesting ways, is that Sam Rockwell compares you to Glenn. He phrases it really carefully.

What does he say? Does he say, 'He's crazy as hell'?

He doesn't. What he says is very flattering, but someone who knows more about Glenn [an alcoholic at the end of his rope] than about your career might read it in the wrong way. He says you're really passionate, ferocious, smart, instinctual, but he's saying, 'So is this character.' Do you agree you're like Glenn in those ways?

I'm like Glenn in a lot of ways; I just didn't know what he was letting people in about.

He meant it in a good way, but if you've seen the movie and you know what Glenn does...

All the characters are enough of me where I find the movie very private, and I'm thrilled to be able to exploit my own passion and dialogue and stories and to be able to use the generosity of actors that have brought a lot, and to try to blur the lines, so that [it's] some weird amalgamation of Stewart O'Nan's original novel, characters that have been brought authenticity by the actors, and some of my strange little twists and turns of life along the way.

It's interesting that you mention improv, because I know you've used that in your other films, but you haven't done an adaptation before. From what I understand, Stewart's made promotional appearances on behalf of the film.

[image]
Tom Noonan as Mr. Chervenick

Yeah, I met him last week. He's really cool.

What did he think about the improvised or altered parts?

[Green changed the structure of the narrative, but preserved primary events.]

He's fine. It's all very true to the characters he created, and ultimately, you know, the book takes place in the '70s and there are some characters taken out and combined and all the typical adaptation-bastardizations of a novel, but he seems happy with it, so it's a real seal of approval for me. I tried to
bring enough of myself to the role so that I could be invested in it, but I wanted to make sure it was still obviously inspired and instigated by his great book.

That reminds me of James Ellroy. I met him years ago, and he's known for being a no-bullshit kind of guy, and one of the first adaptations of his novels was Cop with James Woods.

I saw that.

When I asked, 'What did you think of it?,' he said, 'It was awful, a piece of shit,' but at the time he was promoting L.A. Confidential, which I could tell he really liked, and we talked about what was changed [from his novel]. He seemed happy about it, and I think he was being sincere.

That's good that his first experience was bad, so that he could kind of expect the worst, and then be happily surprised. I know Stewart O'Nan is good friends with Stephen King, so Stephen probably said,
'It's hit or miss. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.'

[image]
Angarano, Beckinsale, and Green at the LA premiere

Next: On the production

Snow Angels is currently playing at the Harvard Exit Theatre. Images from the IMDb (Michael Angarano), The New York Times, and Fantastic Fiction.

A Southerner Looks to the North: A Chat With David Gordon Green About Snow Angels

Raised in Texas and educated in North Carolina, Snow Angels marks writer/director David Gordon Green's first Northern production. Shot in snow-covered Halifax, the action takes place in an unidentified New England town (author Stewart O'Nan's rural Pennsylvania). The movie marks other firsts. To start, filmmaker Jesse Peretz (who adapted Ian McEwan's First Love, Last Rites for the silver screen) initially hired him to adapt O'Nan's 1994 novel, making the movie Green's first literary adaptation and work-for-hire project. When a conflict took Peretz out of the picture, Green (George Washington, All the Real Girls, and Undertow) stepped in as he'd gotten so immersed in the material he could no longer imagine handing it over to anyone else.

I spoke with Green while he was in town in support of his fourth feature. What follows are some excerpts from our conversation--and it's definitely more of a conversation than a formal interview. I quickly discovered that the slight Texan loves to shoot the shit, but he's less enthusiastic about answering specific questions. At the film's blogsite, Green notes that "self-promotion" is "a pretty tough aspect of the job. Every ten minutes you've got a new person to talk to, a new set of questions, or an old set of questions that you want to put a spin on so you don't just end up repeating yourself over and over again." He isn't the first director I've encountered who prefers to talk about work other than his own. I did my bit to keep things on track, but we went down a few meandering paths, and I found it best to go with the flow...

[DGG image]

You might find this of interest. It has nothing to do with your films, but it does actually have something to do with you. When Aaron Katz was in town [with Quiet City], I thought about you...

I know Aaron. Did you like his movie?

I did, very much.

It's a good movie.

I thought about you, because you went to the same school [The North Carolina School of the Arts], and I think he mentioned that you've worked with some of the same people.

His DP on Quiet City. And his cinematographer dropped out of college to work for free as a PA on All the Real Girls, which is my second movie, and then, based on that, he heard about our school, went there, and met Aaron.

Interesting. He now kind of has, on a smaller scale, the same set-up as you, in that he's working with a lot of the people with whom he went to school.

It's a good school. We went to a pretty cool place.

He had nothing but nice things to say about it.

Those people are taking over the world now. Did you see [Craig Zobel's] Great World of Sound last year?

[Green produced Great World of Sound and fellow alum Jeff Nichols's Shotgun Stories.]

I did, and I was going to ask you about that, because I just watched Undertow, which is the only one of your films I hadn't seen, and I noticed Craig Zobel. I knew he worked on the film, but I didn't know he was in the film.

Oh yeah. [smiles] And our line producer plays his bride.

She looked familiar, too. I recognized her from the "making of" featurette. So, until [your film] Snow Angels, I hadn't heard about the novel. My understanding is that Jesse Peretz came to you with the idea for an adaptation. In the press notes, you talk about really getting into it while you were working. Was there something in particular that really resonated for you?

I think it's the idea that it's an arena, an ensemble of characters, with intertwining love stories offering various perspectives, and the more you write that kind of thing, the more you personalize it--or at least [that's] me. So then the more I started personalizing it, the more invested I became in these characters--the more I really liked these characters, laughed with these characters, sympathized with these characters--the more I started reflecting myself within these characters, then I got into it, kind of self-indulgently. I don't really know how to write things I'm not self-indulgent about. I haven't mastered the art of keeping a character at arm's length.

Maybe that's good.

Well, it's good for my head, it's not good for my wallet.

Next: On the adaptation

[Snow Angels image]

Snow Angels is currently playing at the Harvard Exit Theatre. The Harvard Exit is located at 807 E. Roy on Capitol Hill (206-781-5755). For more information about the film, please see the official website. Image of Sam Rockwell and Kate Beckinsale from the IMDb.  

Ladies in Risky Situations: Ira Sachs' Married Life and David Gordon Green's Snow Angels

 

"It was fun to be platinum. I think we forget, because so many photographs are in black and white, that women were very risque and, at the time, it was very usual to be that blonde."
--Rachel McAdams on her look in Married Life

*****

Sometimes I write about films way in advance. In the case of Ira Sachs's Married Life, I posted something in January, because that's when the Seattle press screening took place. Also, I wanted to compare and contrast Sachs's period piece with Bela Tarr's Prefab People, which was playing around the same time. Click here for the full review.

Coming soon: An interview with writer/director David Gordon Green, whose Snow Angels opens today at the Harvard Exit, and Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno's documentary Zidane, A 21st Century Portrait, which opens at the Northwest Film Forum on April 4. 

Image of Rachel McAdams in Married Life from the IMDb.