Lisa Cholodenko is the director of High Art and her new film is Laurel Canyon.
Laurel Canyon is the story of a pot-smoking, free-wheeling Los Angeles record producer [Frances McDormand], with a rock star boyfriend [Alessandro Nivola], whose straight-laced son [Christian Bale] comes back home after graduation from Harvard Medical School with his rich fianc [Kate Beckinsale], who's working on a book. Although mother and son are initially at odds, their relationship begins to change when he discovers that his bride-to-be likes his mother's rock-n-roll lifestyle too.
Check out the website for Laurel Canyon
Daniel Robert Epstein: Did you shoot certain scenes you had certain songs in mind?
LC: Yeah, That was funny because when I wrote it I had this Led Zeppelin song in there called No Quarter, which added this funny weirdo irony to it. It was just a little bit more kind of twisted and comic. But to license that song was probably about 2 million dollars, we fought the battle and then I finally laid down my arms and started looking for other music and realized that we actually had it in the budget to do a Roxy Music song and I have always liked them a lot and though that music was equally iconic in sort of a different way. A little bit more sentimental and emotional than I was going for when I wrote it but I like it.
DRE: You had so many great character in the movie and so many strong performers how much leeway did you give them in going off on their own, stretching out and improvising?
LC: A little bit, it was really well scripted so I think everybody knew pretty much what their dialog was and what was the intention and the sort of texture and subtext of the scene. There was certain moments, like when Fran lifts up her shirt and a guy throws down his drum stick and they have like a little moment, those guys were sort of fooling around and did that and I thought it was fun. I thought it was in the spirit of the scene anyway and it felt spontaneous so I just let them do that.
DRE: This is such an interesting film that you cast it is such a combination of people. Some of them you wouldn't expect to see together. And the fact that Alessandro can sing. Did you have it in mind to be that kind of pop band?
LC: I originally conceived it was more like a Radiohead kind of band. And this is sort of an Americana version of that kind of band. Like a Travis type band. That was the intention and I guess fabricating it the way I did, it came out pretty close to how I saw it.
DRE: Getting back to his question, I think he has a point here about trying to get people to interact and make that feel organic and all especially when some of the members of the cast are from a rock band and not actors per say. I think you really did manage to achieve that. I'm kind of curious to hear you talk more on what it took to took people to do it? Was it as loose and comfortable atmosphere at shooting as it came off in the movie?
LC: Yeah. The house is kind of an interesting story. it's sort of like an historic landmark house in Santa Monica canyon.
DRE: How did you find it?
LC: My producer is kind of a collector of houses and he had recently purchased that house and they were getting ready to sort of tare it down to the beams and reconstruct it to its original architectural specs. It's being done now. I mean they literally started the project like 5 seconds after we finished shooting. And when we had gone out a couple of times to scout houses it was really obvious that it was going to be a complete nightmare and impossible to find what we were looking for anyway. And at that point he said you know what, I don't know if it would appeal to you but maybe we should check out my house, maybe it will appeal to you. I was like yeah its all sort of right there, what is not appealing?
DRE: If they were going to trash it you should have put in more scenes to trash the house [laughs].
LC: You know it felt like it wasn't that kind of rock and roll scene. Other people have said that why isn't it more dirty. Why does everything rock and roll have to be dirty and disgusting? I mean they were kind of snotty educated British musicians, that is who they were, they weren't junkies they were just those guys.
DRE: You've said about having this script grow out of the music of Joni Mitchell.
LC: My editor, well she has been my editor on the movies that I have made, had brought in a Joni Mitchell CD here in NY and I just hadn't heard that record in a long time. It was my favorite records when I was young. I was just looking at the cover, this water color that Joni Mitchell had done of this hillside of the Laurel Canyon . I was just kind of taken by it and it just brought up some memories that I had of growing up. And I thought that everything is right here, and this would be a beautiful place to set a film in. Visually it's kind of wonderful and I think it would be interesting to design a character, a contemporary character but someone who embodies the spirit of that kind of early 70's.
DRE: In High Art. You're the photographer and you're this mentor/student kind of relationship. Is this a conscious thing? Is it something that you will do more of?
LC: I'm probably not going to be doing that on the next one and the one after that. It just unconsciously became part of the structure of this film. I didn't really think of it as an intergenerational mentor story. It was really more about how a young person navigates their way through a difficult right of passage of professionalizing. It was more about ambition for me on that picture. And this was more about this square couple having to figure out where their middle ground is and having to strip themselves out of their self righteous rigid selves.
DRE: I think you are, kind of interestingly enough, exploring how that happens for people, in these two films at least certain things change or how the older person the dynamic changes them in some way.
LC: Yeah I like it just as kind of an archive sort of thing. I think they are classic types, the innocent and the mentor and all of that and for me it's interesting and sexy to watch that.
DRE: You mentioned bohemian is that what you consider yourself, are you bohemian are you an outsider?
LC: I think of myself as kind of caught between the two worlds like I kind of portrayed in these two movies. On some level since I am the writer and the director they are reflections of my sides.
DRE: So you're saying it was very carefully scripted, what was the process of writing?
LC: A lot of drafts. You just keep writing until you have a certain amount of pages and the story works. Until you feel like each character gets their due and is complete as they could be for the story that you conceptualize.
DRE: Did have Francis McDormand in mind when you wrote this? The casting is so perfect. I can easily see Francis McDormand and Kate Beckinsale in the same film.
LC: No I didn't have anyone in mind. I sort of navely believe that it would be easy to cast and that there would be tons of hot actresses between 45 and 55 or whatever I was thinking. There are plenty of actresses but this actress as it was conceptualized on the page is really complicated, she is rye, funny and sexy but she's not conventionally sexy. And when I got down to it I was like what have I don't to myself. Fran didn't come into the picture until 2 years after I had written it. And it was just because I was to the point where yeah I'll meet anybody. She read the script and she loved it and she came to a meeting we were having at a restaurant downtown and she looked almost exactly like she looked in the film. Her personality is very close to what it is in the film, I mean her value system is different. But it was sticking, it seems like I had written this for this person, how weird is that?
DRE: Did you have other people in mind?
LC: Yeah but nobody that I really flirted with or kept in mind for too long. It wasn't like I wrote it for anybody else. I was just on a search and she showed up and it was perfect.
DRE: There is one thing that you said, something about an evil twin of a mom from Almost Famous.
LC: I thought that was funny.
DRE: I spoke to Rebecca Miller [director of Personal Velocity] a while back and we asked her if being a female filmmaker harder that being a male filmmaker. And she said I've never been a male filmmaker [laughs].
LC: I get asked that question all the time. I don't know what to say about that.
DRE: Sometimes they say that male directors have trouble sometimes with women do you find there are certain issues that you have to work through to develop make characters?
LC: You know I am conscious that it is easier for me to write female characters and I think it's probably easier for most men to write men. I think it's the exceptional anomalous person that is just ambidextrous, that can just pull it all off. So I am conscious that I have to work harder and really be more ambitious in my research when I'm trying to flesh out my male characters.
DRE: What is next?
LC: Probably this summer I am going to do a movie based on a book called Cave Dweller. Kyra Sedgwick is producing it. So she is going to be the lead.
DRE: Are you directing it, writing it?
LC: It's written. I'm just directing it. So it will be my first time just being a director on a feature, which I am excited to do.
DRE: What is exciting about that?
LC: That I don't have to write it.
DRE: What is the unique challenge about directing as apposed to writing and directing?
LC: I think I get this opportunity not to be burdened by when to take off the writer's cap and just approach it and be completely indulgent with how do I see this, what is the visual. What is it that I want from the actors? And not have to be constantly fidgeting with the script and make it better. Because I think when you are a writer/director it is very hard to step out of the role of screenwriter. It's not like answering a math problem, there is no right answer it doesn't ever end so there is that feeling that you can always be making it better.
DRE: How did this film change you, did it have an affect on you?
LC: Yeah, I moved out to LA, I felt loved, it's all good.
DRE: You were raised in LA moved to NY and came back to LA?
LC: I was raised in LA I came here in 92 to go to film school and stayed for ten years and moved back to LA six months ago.
DRE: How was Columbia?
LC: I really liked film school, I was older I was 28 when I went to film school and I was really ready for it. It was a smart sophisticated environment and I was at a point where I could really appreciate that.
DRE: Was there a choice involved in going to Columbia rather than The School of the Arts?
LC: No because I didn't get into The School of the Arts. I just went where I was wanted.
DRE: Are you a fan of DVD commentary tracks? Are you going to do one for Laurel Canyon?
LC: I am going to do one.
DRE: Did you do one for High Art?
LC: High Art is now just coming out.
DRE: Are you a fan of commentary tracks in general?
LC: Yeah as a filmmaker I always enjoy hearing what a filmmaker has to say about their process, it's how you learn about your own.
DRE: Are you teaching now?
LC: I'm not. I did semester up at Columbia but I'm not now. I think that teaching is really hard. I would rather make movies than teach.
DRE: Are you going to do more TV?
LC: Yeah I like doing TV; I don't have anything lined up right now though.
DRE: What was your experience working on Six Feet Under?
LC: It's an ambitious show, they have very high standards, and I learned a lot. It was their first season and I hadn't done a lot of TV but I am proud of the episode.
DRE: What did you think about digital video vs. shooting on film?
LC: I'm a fan of film; I'm an old school person. I thing digital video is cool and it has opened up opportunities for people who can't afford to shoot on film. When it's done interestingly the way that Thomas Vinterberg did on Celebration I think it's beautiful to watch.
by Daniel Robert Epstein[URL]
Laurel Canyon is the story of a pot-smoking, free-wheeling Los Angeles record producer [Frances McDormand], with a rock star boyfriend [Alessandro Nivola], whose straight-laced son [Christian Bale] comes back home after graduation from Harvard Medical School with his rich fianc [Kate Beckinsale], who's working on a book. Although mother and son are initially at odds, their relationship begins to change when he discovers that his bride-to-be likes his mother's rock-n-roll lifestyle too.
Check out the website for Laurel Canyon
Daniel Robert Epstein: Did you shoot certain scenes you had certain songs in mind?
LC: Yeah, That was funny because when I wrote it I had this Led Zeppelin song in there called No Quarter, which added this funny weirdo irony to it. It was just a little bit more kind of twisted and comic. But to license that song was probably about 2 million dollars, we fought the battle and then I finally laid down my arms and started looking for other music and realized that we actually had it in the budget to do a Roxy Music song and I have always liked them a lot and though that music was equally iconic in sort of a different way. A little bit more sentimental and emotional than I was going for when I wrote it but I like it.
DRE: You had so many great character in the movie and so many strong performers how much leeway did you give them in going off on their own, stretching out and improvising?
LC: A little bit, it was really well scripted so I think everybody knew pretty much what their dialog was and what was the intention and the sort of texture and subtext of the scene. There was certain moments, like when Fran lifts up her shirt and a guy throws down his drum stick and they have like a little moment, those guys were sort of fooling around and did that and I thought it was fun. I thought it was in the spirit of the scene anyway and it felt spontaneous so I just let them do that.
DRE: This is such an interesting film that you cast it is such a combination of people. Some of them you wouldn't expect to see together. And the fact that Alessandro can sing. Did you have it in mind to be that kind of pop band?
LC: I originally conceived it was more like a Radiohead kind of band. And this is sort of an Americana version of that kind of band. Like a Travis type band. That was the intention and I guess fabricating it the way I did, it came out pretty close to how I saw it.
DRE: Getting back to his question, I think he has a point here about trying to get people to interact and make that feel organic and all especially when some of the members of the cast are from a rock band and not actors per say. I think you really did manage to achieve that. I'm kind of curious to hear you talk more on what it took to took people to do it? Was it as loose and comfortable atmosphere at shooting as it came off in the movie?
LC: Yeah. The house is kind of an interesting story. it's sort of like an historic landmark house in Santa Monica canyon.
DRE: How did you find it?
LC: My producer is kind of a collector of houses and he had recently purchased that house and they were getting ready to sort of tare it down to the beams and reconstruct it to its original architectural specs. It's being done now. I mean they literally started the project like 5 seconds after we finished shooting. And when we had gone out a couple of times to scout houses it was really obvious that it was going to be a complete nightmare and impossible to find what we were looking for anyway. And at that point he said you know what, I don't know if it would appeal to you but maybe we should check out my house, maybe it will appeal to you. I was like yeah its all sort of right there, what is not appealing?
DRE: If they were going to trash it you should have put in more scenes to trash the house [laughs].
LC: You know it felt like it wasn't that kind of rock and roll scene. Other people have said that why isn't it more dirty. Why does everything rock and roll have to be dirty and disgusting? I mean they were kind of snotty educated British musicians, that is who they were, they weren't junkies they were just those guys.
DRE: You've said about having this script grow out of the music of Joni Mitchell.
LC: My editor, well she has been my editor on the movies that I have made, had brought in a Joni Mitchell CD here in NY and I just hadn't heard that record in a long time. It was my favorite records when I was young. I was just looking at the cover, this water color that Joni Mitchell had done of this hillside of the Laurel Canyon . I was just kind of taken by it and it just brought up some memories that I had of growing up. And I thought that everything is right here, and this would be a beautiful place to set a film in. Visually it's kind of wonderful and I think it would be interesting to design a character, a contemporary character but someone who embodies the spirit of that kind of early 70's.
DRE: In High Art. You're the photographer and you're this mentor/student kind of relationship. Is this a conscious thing? Is it something that you will do more of?
LC: I'm probably not going to be doing that on the next one and the one after that. It just unconsciously became part of the structure of this film. I didn't really think of it as an intergenerational mentor story. It was really more about how a young person navigates their way through a difficult right of passage of professionalizing. It was more about ambition for me on that picture. And this was more about this square couple having to figure out where their middle ground is and having to strip themselves out of their self righteous rigid selves.
DRE: I think you are, kind of interestingly enough, exploring how that happens for people, in these two films at least certain things change or how the older person the dynamic changes them in some way.
LC: Yeah I like it just as kind of an archive sort of thing. I think they are classic types, the innocent and the mentor and all of that and for me it's interesting and sexy to watch that.
DRE: You mentioned bohemian is that what you consider yourself, are you bohemian are you an outsider?
LC: I think of myself as kind of caught between the two worlds like I kind of portrayed in these two movies. On some level since I am the writer and the director they are reflections of my sides.
DRE: So you're saying it was very carefully scripted, what was the process of writing?
LC: A lot of drafts. You just keep writing until you have a certain amount of pages and the story works. Until you feel like each character gets their due and is complete as they could be for the story that you conceptualize.
DRE: Did have Francis McDormand in mind when you wrote this? The casting is so perfect. I can easily see Francis McDormand and Kate Beckinsale in the same film.
LC: No I didn't have anyone in mind. I sort of navely believe that it would be easy to cast and that there would be tons of hot actresses between 45 and 55 or whatever I was thinking. There are plenty of actresses but this actress as it was conceptualized on the page is really complicated, she is rye, funny and sexy but she's not conventionally sexy. And when I got down to it I was like what have I don't to myself. Fran didn't come into the picture until 2 years after I had written it. And it was just because I was to the point where yeah I'll meet anybody. She read the script and she loved it and she came to a meeting we were having at a restaurant downtown and she looked almost exactly like she looked in the film. Her personality is very close to what it is in the film, I mean her value system is different. But it was sticking, it seems like I had written this for this person, how weird is that?
DRE: Did you have other people in mind?
LC: Yeah but nobody that I really flirted with or kept in mind for too long. It wasn't like I wrote it for anybody else. I was just on a search and she showed up and it was perfect.
DRE: There is one thing that you said, something about an evil twin of a mom from Almost Famous.
LC: I thought that was funny.
DRE: I spoke to Rebecca Miller [director of Personal Velocity] a while back and we asked her if being a female filmmaker harder that being a male filmmaker. And she said I've never been a male filmmaker [laughs].
LC: I get asked that question all the time. I don't know what to say about that.
DRE: Sometimes they say that male directors have trouble sometimes with women do you find there are certain issues that you have to work through to develop make characters?
LC: You know I am conscious that it is easier for me to write female characters and I think it's probably easier for most men to write men. I think it's the exceptional anomalous person that is just ambidextrous, that can just pull it all off. So I am conscious that I have to work harder and really be more ambitious in my research when I'm trying to flesh out my male characters.
DRE: What is next?
LC: Probably this summer I am going to do a movie based on a book called Cave Dweller. Kyra Sedgwick is producing it. So she is going to be the lead.
DRE: Are you directing it, writing it?
LC: It's written. I'm just directing it. So it will be my first time just being a director on a feature, which I am excited to do.
DRE: What is exciting about that?
LC: That I don't have to write it.
DRE: What is the unique challenge about directing as apposed to writing and directing?
LC: I think I get this opportunity not to be burdened by when to take off the writer's cap and just approach it and be completely indulgent with how do I see this, what is the visual. What is it that I want from the actors? And not have to be constantly fidgeting with the script and make it better. Because I think when you are a writer/director it is very hard to step out of the role of screenwriter. It's not like answering a math problem, there is no right answer it doesn't ever end so there is that feeling that you can always be making it better.
DRE: How did this film change you, did it have an affect on you?
LC: Yeah, I moved out to LA, I felt loved, it's all good.
DRE: You were raised in LA moved to NY and came back to LA?
LC: I was raised in LA I came here in 92 to go to film school and stayed for ten years and moved back to LA six months ago.
DRE: How was Columbia?
LC: I really liked film school, I was older I was 28 when I went to film school and I was really ready for it. It was a smart sophisticated environment and I was at a point where I could really appreciate that.
DRE: Was there a choice involved in going to Columbia rather than The School of the Arts?
LC: No because I didn't get into The School of the Arts. I just went where I was wanted.
DRE: Are you a fan of DVD commentary tracks? Are you going to do one for Laurel Canyon?
LC: I am going to do one.
DRE: Did you do one for High Art?
LC: High Art is now just coming out.
DRE: Are you a fan of commentary tracks in general?
LC: Yeah as a filmmaker I always enjoy hearing what a filmmaker has to say about their process, it's how you learn about your own.
DRE: Are you teaching now?
LC: I'm not. I did semester up at Columbia but I'm not now. I think that teaching is really hard. I would rather make movies than teach.
DRE: Are you going to do more TV?
LC: Yeah I like doing TV; I don't have anything lined up right now though.
DRE: What was your experience working on Six Feet Under?
LC: It's an ambitious show, they have very high standards, and I learned a lot. It was their first season and I hadn't done a lot of TV but I am proud of the episode.
DRE: What did you think about digital video vs. shooting on film?
LC: I'm a fan of film; I'm an old school person. I thing digital video is cool and it has opened up opportunities for people who can't afford to shoot on film. When it's done interestingly the way that Thomas Vinterberg did on Celebration I think it's beautiful to watch.
by Daniel Robert Epstein[URL]
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
ok. sorry. had to do it. you can smack me now, guys. really.
Seriously though, I love hearing about female directors, and I can't wait to see Laurel Canyon. And not just because I want to see Christian Bale naked again....
...erm...but...[doodles absentmindedly in dirt with shoe]..you had a lot of typos in there...spellchecker busted?