Platform

Eavesdropping: the year in quotes

By Michael Fox

Opening today: two weeks of reflection on the Year in Film and the Decade in Film by Bay Area critics, writers and filmmakers. Below are some of the pithier thoughts by Bay Area industry stalwarts (and a few select others) as quoted in a variety of publications, from the New York Times to Variety to SF360.org. We know this is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the Bay Area’s impact on the national/international filmscape: Please offer your own quotables, or collected wit/wisdom, in the Comment Box at the article’s end.

Milk, doing good
"Harvey [Milk] gave me his story and it saved my life. My whole thing was to tell those kids out there that they’ll be alright."
Dustin Lance Black, backstage after winning the Academy Award for Original Screenplay, quoted in Variety, Feb. 22. 2009

Penn in the crosshairs
"For those who saw the signs of hatred as our cars drove in tonight, I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect, and anticipate their great shame, and the shame in their grandchildren’s eyes if they continue that way of support. We’ve got to have equal rights for everyone."
Sean Penn, acceptance speech for Best Actor for Milk, Feb. 22, 2009

Penn’s new pal
"[Sean Penn]‘s a great actor, and if you hire him, you’ll get a good performance. I’m just not going to give a guy who gives aid and comfort to people like [Iranian president Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez and Saddam Hussein, when he was alive, my 10 bucks. That’s my right as an American."
Bill O’Reilly, The Hollywood Reporter, Mar. 30, 2009

Coppola, starting over
"I view Tetro as the second film of my second career. From now on I’m always going to be writing the scripts, and every film will be personal. I’m going to be the kind of filmmaker I wanted to be when I was beginning."
Francis Ford Coppola, New York Times, June 3, 2009

Bradshaw’s ordinary people
"When people say, ‘Wow, I loved your film, it was so great,’ it’s hard for me to take that compliment. It’s hard for me to think, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m a great filmmaker! Thanks! Of course!’ It’s just not in me to be that guy, and I think the main character [in Everything Strange and New] is that way, where his wife has paid him a really kind and generous compliment and he’s having a very hard time accepting that. So instead of feeling great he feels stupid. I think a lot of people have that. A lot of people tend to be obsessed with getting those compliments, or are deeply afraid of getting them. I tend to fall into the latter camp."
Frazer Bradshaw, Hammer to Nail, June 18, 2009

Avatar’s auteur
"You’ve got to eat pressure for breakfast if you’re going to do this job."
James Cameron, Crave Online, Aug. 12. 2009

Hot topics at SFJFF
"I was not naive that Rachel was a controversial film. I know there are many members of the community who would prefer if the festival stayed away from programming films on difficult topics or topics of passionate division of opinion. That being said, if we, as an arts organization, are going to remain relevant in our time, it really is part of our role to catalyze conversation, however uncomfortable it may be."
Peter Stein, Executive Director, S.F. Jewish Film Festival, j. July 9, 2009

Jenkins’ work ethic
"I think I’m getting surly. It’s almost like as time goes on, I like Medicine for Melancholy less and less. It’s weird because when you think about it, the actual work we did on the movie was over a year ago. We shot it in November ’07. So it’s like I’m still going around, getting buzz or accolades or whatever you want to call it, off work I did over a year ago. So it makes me feel like I haven’t done much."
Barry Jenkins, Hammer to Nail, Jan. 30, 2009

Taking notes for Sorry, Thanks
"Is there a better way to sum up how you feel at the end of a relationship than ‘Sorry, thanks?’ The inspiration for the title actually came from a handwritten note that I have had on my refrigerator for ages that Andrew Bujalski wrote at a party he had long ago. It was pinned to his Steenbeck editing machine and it said, ‘Please don’t lean on—this beautiful machine.—Sorry/thanks—The management.’ I always thought that every line of that note would be a great title——for a movie or a band or a song."
Dia Sokol, director and co-writer (with producer Lauren Veloski), SF360.org, Oct. 24, 2009

Howl high school
"The Beats were very important to me when I started reading literature more seriously in high school. They were some of the first writers that I read and fell in love with."
James Franco, Allen Ginsberg in Howl, Entertainment Weekly, May 15, 2009

Miller’s crossing
"The average age to see hardcore porn on the Internet is 9. What does that tell a kid about love and sex and where they fit into the world—especially if the parents aren’t communicating to them? A lot of My Suicide was about addressing that condition today. And getting that message across that you are not alone in sharing this pain and that connection is the answer. And that the best things in life are a direct result of giving as opposed to taking."
David Lee Miller, Austin Daze, March 24, 2009

La Mission’s mandate
"Over the years, I’ve heard many elders explain how we live through the stories we tell ourselves. That stories are living powers which shape our relationships, dreams, aspirations, perceptions, and ultimately our actions. Today, they say, the world is in need of a new story."
Peter Bratt, La Mission, Indiewire, Jan. 4, 2009

Home economics
"So we were thinking of a couple that’s opposite us. When I first got here, I knew this is where I’d stay. I think it’s the best environment for writers and artists—it’s very supportive. It’s all about balance. I’ve lived in places where the balance didn’t feel right. People who swear by San Francisco usually like that unique equilibrium, of culture and nature and activism and optimism…. But what if there was a couple that hadn’t yet found such a place? Where would they start and end up? Not that they would live here. They couldn’t afford it. Maybe someday."
Screenwriter Dave Eggers, Away We Go (with Vendela Vida) and Where the Wild Things Are (with Spike Jonze), SF Weekly, May 19, 2009

Balboa’s hero
"There are only two reasons that the Balboa is still open besides the fact that I’m a fool, take no salary and I put my money into the theater: I like to save a neighborhood theater and I’d hate to put my staff out of a job."
Gary Meyer, SF360.org, May 14, 2009

In the Lyme-light
"I’ve sort of become an accidental activist for the cause, but it’s important to say that I didn’t start out that way. I had no idea that the project Under Our Skin was going to take on these dimensions. It was my curiosity and my compassion hat brought me to this conclusion. It’s the data, too—the hard data and the data of interviewing hundreds of people. And so, I feel a real commitment to those people. And I feel a real commitment to saving people’s lives. So my work as a filmmaker in some ways is secondary to the issue of doing good in the world."
Andy Abrahams Wilson, Vanity Fair, June 26, 2009

360 degrees
"I don’t know how [I] or anyone else could be objective in a documentary film because everything is rooted in choice: camera angle, duration of sequence, order of sequences, transitions, themes. Objectivity is not an issue. If you shot with 360 cameras with 360 angles for 360 days, it wouldn’t be objective."
Frederick Wiseman, La Danse, Baydance,org, Dec. 8, 2009

Second life
"I don’t have a lot of time left, but I’m so in love with the cinema that I want to learn all I can about making movies. I just want to write another screenplay and make another movie."
Francis Ford Coppola, New York Times, June 3, 2009

topics: activism, actors, bay area, directors, diy, documentary, jewish cinema

12.21.2009