Salon.com > Dimitra Kessenides

“The role of art is to be ahead of its time”

Fri, 24 Jan 2003 21:00:00 +0000

Costa-Gavras has been film's leading political dramatist since bursting onto the scene with "Z" (actually his fourth film) in 1969. That film, a docudrama about the assassination of a leading leftist by the military junta in his native Greece, set the template for much of the director's subsequent work. Costa-Gavras (the hyphenated name, by the way, is an abbreviated version of his birth name, Konstantinos Gavras) has documented the struggle between the government of Uruguay and leftist guerrillas in the early 1970s ("State of Siege"), the abduction of an American human-rights worker by Chilean death squads at the moment of a U.S.-sponsored coup ("Missing") and the war-crimes trial of a former Nazi official ("Music Box").

Although sometimes derided by American critics as an old-line Euro-leftist, Costa-Gavras has never shied away from a direct assault on authority or from staking out controversial positions. "A film contains a director's or writer's philosophy of life, so that makes it almost immediately political," he says. "In my films, because I've treated many themes that have rarely been treated by the cinema -- and I handle them in a personal way -- that makes them more political than others." With "Amen," his 19th feature film, Costa-Gavras, who will turn 69 in February, tackles yet another hot-button issue -- the complacency of the Vatican during the Holocaust.

Mormon misogynist goes soft

Wed, 04 Sep 2002 19:05:00 +0000

Most of us heard the name Neil LaBute for the first time five years ago. It was August 1997; "In the Company of Men," his first feature film, opened; and suddenly the new director was thrust into our consciousness. LaBute was labeled a misogynist, a man with a cruel and dark (and, perhaps, accurate) take on the capacity of men to be downright evil. And he was a Mormon, no less, a fact that added a bit of mystery and confusion, but, mostly, we made up our minds about LaBute: He was a creative brute likely to be in favor of polygamy.

His next film brought further affirmation. The lineup of despicable characters in "Your Friends and Neighbors" differed from "In the Company of Men" only in number (more of them), and gender (some nasty women were thrown in for good measure). But then, along came "Nurse Betty," a comedy, albeit a very dark one. It had moments of downright giddiness, and we had to wonder: "Is Neil LaBute going soft on us?"

The kid is back in the picture

Tue, 30 Jul 2002 19:28:00 +0000

Hollywood can play rough. Sure, it'll scoop you up and smother you with kisses when you're on -- you look good, you say the right things, you make somebody else rich, and it doesn't get any better. But you blow it, and it'll blow you off. One false move -- you're used, abused and left for dead.

But if you leave big, there's always room for a sequel. Robert Evans is proof. The legendary producer was, in his first life, the leading man of a classic Hollywood saga: A handsome young actor, perfectly at home in the business called show, gets discovered not once, but twice, and, at the tender age of 35, is handpicked to lead production for Paramount Pictures with little more than a couple of acting credits to his name. As head of production at Paramount Pictures he rolled out "Love Story," "The Godfather," "Chinatown" and "Rosemary's Baby." A burst of extraordinary moviemaking, fueled by a binge of dangerous merrymaking, follows and then screeches to a dramatic halt after a drug bust in the early '80s, followed by a link in the press to the murder of an investor in one of his films. (It was "The Cotton Club," and Evans eventually was cleared of any connection to the crime.)

Harry Shearer

Fri, 29 Mar 2002 20:00:00 +0000

Rich white men -- corporate titans, leaders of industry, politicians, celebrities -- get fairly leveled in Harry Shearer's newest film, "Teddy Bears' Picnic." The movie spoofs the annual power orgy that is Bohemian Grove, the exclusive, all-male retreat in the woods north of the San Francisco Bay Area. From Enron's collapse to the unfolding tragedy of Global Crossing, there couldn't be a better time for this movie.

Perhaps most memorable as heavy metal bassist Derek Smalls in the 1984 mockumentary classic "This Is Spinal Tap," the actor, comedian and satirist is also no slouch when it comes to more serious cultural criticism. There's his weekly radio program, "Le Show," writings for the online magazine Slate, commentary for programs like "Now with Bill Moyers" -- public television's sleeper hit of the season -- and even a brief column in Salon. And Shearer's list of film and TV credits is endless.

“The Execution of Wanda Jean”

Mon, 18 Mar 2002 20:00:00 +0000

Wanda Jean Allen was executed in January 2001, after spending nearly 12 years on death row in Oklahoma for murdering her former girlfriend, Gloria Leathers. Three months before the scheduled execution, filmmaker Liz Garbus (who previously co-produced and co-directed 1998's "The Farm: Angola, USA") traveled to Oklahoma to document the efforts to have Allen's death sentence commuted to life without parole. The legal arguments hinged on evidence that wasn't introduced in the 1989 trial -- most important, that Allen, as her legal team contended, was borderline mentally retarded. "The Execution of Wanda Jean," the resulting documentary directed by Garbus and produced by Garbus and Rory Kennedy, premiered on HBO Sunday night (it will also run on March 18, March 20, March 22 and March 28).

Gods and monsters

Tue, 26 Feb 2002 20:00:00 +0000

Filmmaker Larry Fessenden's horror movies aren't the blood-and-guts fare typically associated with that genre. "On the most practical level I'm trying to separate my films from conventional horror films," Fessenden says. "My agenda is to take people into a disorienting place where they're both thinking about horror and how it plays into our lives as well as experiencing the movies."

Over the last few weeks, Fessenden's newest film, "Wendigo," has opened in New York and Chicago. It will open in other cities across the country before the end of March. "Wendigo" is the third in Fessenden's trilogy of revisionist horror films that started with 1991's "No Telling" and continued in 1997 with the vampire cult favorite "Habit." In "Wendigo," Fessenden continues his focus on alienation and the loneliness of the human experience. In presenting a Manhattan couple and their son displaced from their urban setting for a weekend away in snowy upstate New York, he immediately sets up a story of conflicts rooted in both real and imagined horrors. On the drive up, when the family's car hits a deer, the accident leads to an encounter with some local hunters. That in turn sets in motion a series of events that turn the idyllic weekend away into an unsettling and menacing trip.

Skeleton on ice

Fri, 08 Feb 2002 20:00:00 +0000

Tristan Gale, 22, and Chris Soule, 29, of the U.S. Olympic team, are sliders. Their sport is skeleton, a solo event, which requires them to whip down an ice track of deep curves and straightaways, face down, headfirst, on a torso-sized sled (the name comes from the look of the first sleds, made in the 19th century, a metal framework that vaguely resembled a skeleton). During practice runs at the track in Park City, Utah, Soule, who stands 6 feet and weighs 167 pounds, has reached speeds approaching 85 miles an hour. "I'm in control of the sled just about the whole way down the track," he says, "unless I hit a wall or lose my focus. I'm in control every 100th of a second. You have to be very precise and be on top of your game when it comes to keeping that speed going down the hill." Gale, who, at 5 feet 2 inches, 108 pounds, is significantly lighter than Soule, pokes along at a mere 80 miles an hour. "I have total control of where I am," she says; "I can't come to a stop at any point until I come to the finish line, but I can choose to be anywhere I want on the track."