David Jacobson really impressed me with his feature Dahmer that came out a few years ago. I was very excited when I found out his next feature, Down in the Valley, would star Edward Norton, Evan Rachel Wood and David Morse. Jacobson has written and directed a fascinating tale of love that spirals quickly. Norton plays Harlan, a young man in his 20s who wanders aimlessly through the United States. Evan Rachel Wood plays Tobe a beautiful 17 year girl whose father is a stern prison guard. When Tobe and Harlan meet, the sparks fly but it turns out that Harlan is seriously disturbed.
Check out the official site for Down in the Valley
Daniel Robert Epstein: I noticed a lot of structural similarities between Down in the Valley and your previous film, Dahmer. They both have a slow descent but, Dahmer, obviously starts much farther along down the hill.
David Jacobson: Yeah, I think thats just how my brain is structured. So everything that comes out is like that.
DRE: What was the inspiration for Down in the Valley?
DJ: It was a very strange, long, circuitous and organic search for a story but it started with me writing just some scenes about some kids growing up in the San Fernando Valley, like I did. I was thinking about writing a story slightly based on my life there. Then as I was doing that, I was doing rewrites of Dahmer [laughs]. Also I was inundated and immersed in a series of classic Western films and then somehow those Western films and their stories and those characters started to bleed into my story of growing up in the valley.
DRE: Is it autobiographical in a sense where you might be Lonnie [Rory Culkins character]?
DJ: Yeah Im like Lonnie and my sister is like Tobe. My situation wasnt as bleak or severe as theirs was, but it was nice to be able to draw on a lot of little experiences and feelings I had growing up.
DRE: The perfect screenplays are the ones that start with a slide and have a character arc, you said thats the way your mind works. Could you explain that a little bit?
DJ: Well thats the thing that I dont do. I dont totally outline a story but I do think about an overall arc in a very vague way and that provides a little bit of guidance. Its just very much like this slow process of development. At a certain point very early in the process the ending was quite different. You write certain scenes and then out of those scenes certain themes and ideas start to come out. Then those themes spawn other scenes so I let it develop like that.
DRE: When you see David Morse in a movie, youre never sure if its going to be a small or a big role. But, of course, hes always amazing.
DJ: I felt very fortunate with the casting because for other films Ive made Ive cast unknown actors, which I always find very exciting and interesting. But in this case me and the producer decided to go for some known actors. Somehow I was able to get this set of known actors who are able to make themselves new each time.
DRE: Did you get Edward Norton first and thats what drew everyone else?
DJ: Well I had the script and then we went to Edward. He was, at the time, writing his own story so his agent said that he wasnt reading anything. So my expectations were pretty low about getting him involved. We were about to give up and then low and behold they called and said Edward would read it. It was just very fortunate to get our first choice. Once Edward was on board it really helped us because hes an actor that other actors want to work with.
DRE: When youre shooting a Western if Bruce Dern doesnt show up
DJ: Then why even bother? [laughs] Bruce Dern is just so wonderful. The odd thing was that it just came to me in the casting process. Of course when I heard he wanted to do it I was overjoyed because he was the guy in every great 70s movie, especially all the cult movies. He would regale me often of all the stories of working with Roger Corman and Alfred Hitchcock and Walter Hill.
DRE: Im assuming with your last name and the content of the movie that you are Jewish.
DJ: Yes. Well barely. By name and culture I would say. [laughs]
DRE: How conscious of a decision was it for you to put a Jewish element in the movie?
DJ: The film is very much about me growing up in the valley and feeling a cultural displacement. I didnt get a Bar Mitzvah. In the early 70s when parents were liberal my Mom told me that if I wanted to have a Bar Mitzvah I would have to go to Hebrew school everyday. I said, No, I didnt want to go to Hebrew school everyday. So I said, Mom, no. I would just do it for the money anyway. In a weird way, I regret it now. I didnt have even that religious community that you have if you go to Temple. We were just living out there in the prairie of the San Fernando Valley. So I think it is that disconnection from the past that I share with Lonnie and Tobe and even Harlan. That sense of loss made me think of that connection to Judaism. In Harlans case, even though his parents were Jewish he certainly didnt have any Jewish upbringing.
DRE: I like to go into movies totally ignorant of what theyre about. When I was watching Down in the Valley I thought it was going to be a younger version of a older man, younger woman thing. Then when the descent startled it was very startling. Was that element of Harlan being unstable always going to be in there?
DJ: That was one of the constants throughout the writing. I never was interested in the age difference in their relationship. That came out more in the casting because when I was writing it I pictured Harlan being around 27 and Tobe around 17. In my experience that happens quite a lot. But it certainly was not Jeremy Irons and Dominique Swain at 13.
DRE: It doesnt get any more post modern than a guy in a car chasing someone else on a horse.
DJ: Im glad that you caught that. The shootout in the western town is like man versus car.
DRE: That scene almost felt Michael Mann-ish.
DJ: I know Ive seen people who write and they go, Well, it can go a little bit over the top and far fetched when they end up on the Western set. Those are people who dont live in LA because I can tell you theres like five of those sets all on the outskirts of LA which is where they were riding. There is a level of realism.
DRE: Its not clich because when Jeffrey Lewis ducked down behind a car door he still got shot. If he had not gotten shot, then that would have been over the top. People just dont get shot like that.
DJ: Thank you. Write that stuff. Whats really weird is that Geoffrey Lewis was in so many Clint Eastwood movies. Thats another connection and then his daughter is Juliette Lewis.
DRE: Really?
DJ: Yeah, isnt that weird?
DRE: I didnt even know she was a legacy family.
What Westerns had you been watching that popped into your head for this one?
DJ: I like the John Ford ones like My Darling Clementine. Also I like Shane by George Stevens and Red River by Howard Hawks.
DRE: It seems like the character of Harlan was a big fan of Westerns too. But you never have him watching old movies on TV. Instead he play acts with his guns.
DJ: I like that level of like play acting and role playing. One of the themes I actually remember talking with Edward about early on was this whole sense of how fantasy and imagination could be creative but it also could be very destructive if taken too far.
DRE: When Harlan was play acting, he seemed very much like a little kid wanting to make movies.
DJ: Exactly, he wanted his life to be a movie.
DRE: When you did Dahmer, it was one of the first and certainly the best film of all those serial killer films that were being commissioned, I think, for Blockbuster Video?
DJ: Yeah, that was all a weird coincidence.
DRE: I assumed it was the same producers that did them all.
DJ: No, it was weird. First of all, I was not a serial killer fanatic. I just heard about a book written by Dahmers father. That was my entry into that world. I wrote the script and then made it. But as we were producing it in 2001 it turned out there was another producer, named Hamish McAlpine, who was doing a trilogy of serial killer films. They were going to do Dahmer but when they heard we were doing Dahmer they just picked another serial killer. Thats how thought out that was. But then my producer went on to produce a film on John Wayne Gacy. I was upset by that and I told him so. To me Dahmer is a movie about a very strange character. Very similarly, suddenly theres like four Westerns coming out now. When I did this I thought no one was doing Westerns. Then theres suddenly Brokeback Mountain, The Proposition and the Tommy Lee Jones one [The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada].
DRE: Are you writing another screenplay?
DJ: Yeah Im now writing one based on a true story about this guy who was convicted of first degree murder. He was robbing a liquor store and he killed the clerk and ended up in Angola Penitentiary in Louisiana. He was there in the 60s, 70s and 80s when it was the most violent prison in America. He goes from this uneducated poor white trash guy to where he learns a lot and becomes an advocate for the prisoners. He actually ends up helping integrating the prison in the 70s and then, while still in prison, he became a journalist and won all these national journalism awards. Then he met a journalist who was doing a story on the death penalty in the 80s and they got married. They fell in love and got married and even there are no conjugal visits, they stayed married for 25 years. He just got out of jail last week.
DRE: I dont ask directors what theyre doing, instead I ask them what remakes they are being offered.
DJ: The only one that I was actually considering because I remember loving it when I was a kid was a remake of Soylent Green. Granted that movie is not an incredible movie but I thought you could make a really cool remake. But the script they gave me was terrible.
DRE: Since the ending of that movie is so well known, would you have to make it people on top of something else?
DJ: That was the issue. Since we know its people we got to take it further. But in the script they end up going into the desert and it just becomes like seven other movies. You know how they do that, they just go take a bunch of different movies that weve seen and then mash and sew them together into this Frankenstein. They should remake the bad ones. Those movies that had a great concept but they just fucked the film up. I hate when they remake a Hitchcock movie. Like when they did Psycho, even though Gus Van Sant has done some good movies I was so upset by that. It felt like it was blasphemy.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Check out the official site for Down in the Valley
Daniel Robert Epstein: I noticed a lot of structural similarities between Down in the Valley and your previous film, Dahmer. They both have a slow descent but, Dahmer, obviously starts much farther along down the hill.
David Jacobson: Yeah, I think thats just how my brain is structured. So everything that comes out is like that.
DRE: What was the inspiration for Down in the Valley?
DJ: It was a very strange, long, circuitous and organic search for a story but it started with me writing just some scenes about some kids growing up in the San Fernando Valley, like I did. I was thinking about writing a story slightly based on my life there. Then as I was doing that, I was doing rewrites of Dahmer [laughs]. Also I was inundated and immersed in a series of classic Western films and then somehow those Western films and their stories and those characters started to bleed into my story of growing up in the valley.
DRE: Is it autobiographical in a sense where you might be Lonnie [Rory Culkins character]?
DJ: Yeah Im like Lonnie and my sister is like Tobe. My situation wasnt as bleak or severe as theirs was, but it was nice to be able to draw on a lot of little experiences and feelings I had growing up.
DRE: The perfect screenplays are the ones that start with a slide and have a character arc, you said thats the way your mind works. Could you explain that a little bit?
DJ: Well thats the thing that I dont do. I dont totally outline a story but I do think about an overall arc in a very vague way and that provides a little bit of guidance. Its just very much like this slow process of development. At a certain point very early in the process the ending was quite different. You write certain scenes and then out of those scenes certain themes and ideas start to come out. Then those themes spawn other scenes so I let it develop like that.
DRE: When you see David Morse in a movie, youre never sure if its going to be a small or a big role. But, of course, hes always amazing.
DJ: I felt very fortunate with the casting because for other films Ive made Ive cast unknown actors, which I always find very exciting and interesting. But in this case me and the producer decided to go for some known actors. Somehow I was able to get this set of known actors who are able to make themselves new each time.
DRE: Did you get Edward Norton first and thats what drew everyone else?
DJ: Well I had the script and then we went to Edward. He was, at the time, writing his own story so his agent said that he wasnt reading anything. So my expectations were pretty low about getting him involved. We were about to give up and then low and behold they called and said Edward would read it. It was just very fortunate to get our first choice. Once Edward was on board it really helped us because hes an actor that other actors want to work with.
DRE: When youre shooting a Western if Bruce Dern doesnt show up
DJ: Then why even bother? [laughs] Bruce Dern is just so wonderful. The odd thing was that it just came to me in the casting process. Of course when I heard he wanted to do it I was overjoyed because he was the guy in every great 70s movie, especially all the cult movies. He would regale me often of all the stories of working with Roger Corman and Alfred Hitchcock and Walter Hill.
DRE: Im assuming with your last name and the content of the movie that you are Jewish.
DJ: Yes. Well barely. By name and culture I would say. [laughs]
DRE: How conscious of a decision was it for you to put a Jewish element in the movie?
DJ: The film is very much about me growing up in the valley and feeling a cultural displacement. I didnt get a Bar Mitzvah. In the early 70s when parents were liberal my Mom told me that if I wanted to have a Bar Mitzvah I would have to go to Hebrew school everyday. I said, No, I didnt want to go to Hebrew school everyday. So I said, Mom, no. I would just do it for the money anyway. In a weird way, I regret it now. I didnt have even that religious community that you have if you go to Temple. We were just living out there in the prairie of the San Fernando Valley. So I think it is that disconnection from the past that I share with Lonnie and Tobe and even Harlan. That sense of loss made me think of that connection to Judaism. In Harlans case, even though his parents were Jewish he certainly didnt have any Jewish upbringing.
DRE: I like to go into movies totally ignorant of what theyre about. When I was watching Down in the Valley I thought it was going to be a younger version of a older man, younger woman thing. Then when the descent startled it was very startling. Was that element of Harlan being unstable always going to be in there?
DJ: That was one of the constants throughout the writing. I never was interested in the age difference in their relationship. That came out more in the casting because when I was writing it I pictured Harlan being around 27 and Tobe around 17. In my experience that happens quite a lot. But it certainly was not Jeremy Irons and Dominique Swain at 13.
DRE: It doesnt get any more post modern than a guy in a car chasing someone else on a horse.
DJ: Im glad that you caught that. The shootout in the western town is like man versus car.
DRE: That scene almost felt Michael Mann-ish.
DJ: I know Ive seen people who write and they go, Well, it can go a little bit over the top and far fetched when they end up on the Western set. Those are people who dont live in LA because I can tell you theres like five of those sets all on the outskirts of LA which is where they were riding. There is a level of realism.
DRE: Its not clich because when Jeffrey Lewis ducked down behind a car door he still got shot. If he had not gotten shot, then that would have been over the top. People just dont get shot like that.
DJ: Thank you. Write that stuff. Whats really weird is that Geoffrey Lewis was in so many Clint Eastwood movies. Thats another connection and then his daughter is Juliette Lewis.
DRE: Really?
DJ: Yeah, isnt that weird?
DRE: I didnt even know she was a legacy family.
What Westerns had you been watching that popped into your head for this one?
DJ: I like the John Ford ones like My Darling Clementine. Also I like Shane by George Stevens and Red River by Howard Hawks.
DRE: It seems like the character of Harlan was a big fan of Westerns too. But you never have him watching old movies on TV. Instead he play acts with his guns.
DJ: I like that level of like play acting and role playing. One of the themes I actually remember talking with Edward about early on was this whole sense of how fantasy and imagination could be creative but it also could be very destructive if taken too far.
DRE: When Harlan was play acting, he seemed very much like a little kid wanting to make movies.
DJ: Exactly, he wanted his life to be a movie.
DRE: When you did Dahmer, it was one of the first and certainly the best film of all those serial killer films that were being commissioned, I think, for Blockbuster Video?
DJ: Yeah, that was all a weird coincidence.
DRE: I assumed it was the same producers that did them all.
DJ: No, it was weird. First of all, I was not a serial killer fanatic. I just heard about a book written by Dahmers father. That was my entry into that world. I wrote the script and then made it. But as we were producing it in 2001 it turned out there was another producer, named Hamish McAlpine, who was doing a trilogy of serial killer films. They were going to do Dahmer but when they heard we were doing Dahmer they just picked another serial killer. Thats how thought out that was. But then my producer went on to produce a film on John Wayne Gacy. I was upset by that and I told him so. To me Dahmer is a movie about a very strange character. Very similarly, suddenly theres like four Westerns coming out now. When I did this I thought no one was doing Westerns. Then theres suddenly Brokeback Mountain, The Proposition and the Tommy Lee Jones one [The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada].
DRE: Are you writing another screenplay?
DJ: Yeah Im now writing one based on a true story about this guy who was convicted of first degree murder. He was robbing a liquor store and he killed the clerk and ended up in Angola Penitentiary in Louisiana. He was there in the 60s, 70s and 80s when it was the most violent prison in America. He goes from this uneducated poor white trash guy to where he learns a lot and becomes an advocate for the prisoners. He actually ends up helping integrating the prison in the 70s and then, while still in prison, he became a journalist and won all these national journalism awards. Then he met a journalist who was doing a story on the death penalty in the 80s and they got married. They fell in love and got married and even there are no conjugal visits, they stayed married for 25 years. He just got out of jail last week.
DRE: I dont ask directors what theyre doing, instead I ask them what remakes they are being offered.
DJ: The only one that I was actually considering because I remember loving it when I was a kid was a remake of Soylent Green. Granted that movie is not an incredible movie but I thought you could make a really cool remake. But the script they gave me was terrible.
DRE: Since the ending of that movie is so well known, would you have to make it people on top of something else?
DJ: That was the issue. Since we know its people we got to take it further. But in the script they end up going into the desert and it just becomes like seven other movies. You know how they do that, they just go take a bunch of different movies that weve seen and then mash and sew them together into this Frankenstein. They should remake the bad ones. Those movies that had a great concept but they just fucked the film up. I hate when they remake a Hitchcock movie. Like when they did Psycho, even though Gus Van Sant has done some good movies I was so upset by that. It felt like it was blasphemy.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
courtneyriot:
David Jacobson really impressed me with his feature Dahmer that came out a few years ago. I was very excited when I found out his next feature, Down in the Valley, would star Edward Norton, Evan Rachel Wood and David Morse....