Cleveland Festival Will Focus on Sayles: Independent Filmmaker Gets Director’s Spotlight Award
By The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio
Feb. 29–When John Sayles receives the Director’s Spotlight award at the 32nd Cleveland International Film Festival, it will honor what can be accomplished with independent filmmaking.
For close to 30 years, the filmmaker, 57, has been making thoughtful movies, often to critical acclaim, and generally without the big budgets (and big headaches) that come with major Hollywood movies.
The film festival, which begins Thursday, will show six of his films — The Brother From Another Planet, Passion Fish and Eight Men Out (all on March 7), and Lianna, Return of the Secaucus Seven and The Secret of Roan Inish (all March 8).
While they illustrate some of Sayles’s accomplishments and range, they don’t cover them all. (Asked if he chose the films, Sayles said no. And festivals select certain of his movies “because those are the most available.”)
There’s no Lone Star (which got him an Oscar writing nomination, as did Passion Fish), or Matewan.
The selections also cover only the years from 1980, when Sayles made his indie-film debut with Return of the Secaucus Seven, through 1994 and Roan Inish. He has continued to make interesting films in the 21st century, including Sunshine State, Silver City and his newest movie, Honeydripper, which will reach Northeast Ohio on March 14.
There’s a common thread through the decades, Sayles said in a recent telephone interview from his office near Poughkeepsie, N.Y. “I’m always interested in transitions.”
That’s true in Return of the Secaucus Seven, in which former young radicals faced turning 30, and Lianna, in which a married woman finds new passion with another woman, and in the changing nature of Major League Baseball in Eight Men Out, and Honeydripper’s portrayal of changes in music and race relations in the 1950s South.
But Sayles’ movies are not the kind that you usually find in your local multiplex. He eschews big effects. He likes people talking — about politics, society, love, even if the talk doesn’t always lead to positive results.
To maintain his independence, he spends a tremendous amount of time and energy raising money to make his movies, including writing and rewriting screenplays for more commercial ventures. (The Spiderwick Chronicles is a recent credit.) And he sees his brand of filmmaking as a thing apart from so-called independents like No Country for Old Men or Juno.
“We had $5 million to make our film,” Sayles said, referring to the cost of shooting and promoting Honeydripper. Juno cost about twice that just to make, and No Country had a reported budget of $25 million.
Even more important from Sayles’ view, those movies had the resources to get into a lot of theaters as the buzz for them built. Juno had the backing of Fox through the studio’s Searchlight label, No Country had Disney’s Miramax, There Will Be Blood had Paramount Vantage.
Sayles makes 30 to 40 prints of one of his movies (although he is also getting more into digital delivery of movies to theaters). Juno was in more than 2,500 movies at its peak, No Country to date has been in as many as 1,300.
Sayles pays actors union scale, although his reputation and history make it possible to get names. Honeydripper’s cast includes Danny Glover, Charles S. Dutton and Mary Steenburgen. Silver City had Chris Cooper — a Sayles mainstay long before Cooper won his Oscar for Adaptation — Richard Dreyfuss, Kris Kristofferson and Tim Roth. Sunshine State had Steenburgen, Edie Falco, Angela Bassett and Timothy Hutton.
Then he has to shoot efficiently and inexpensively. No building grandiose sets. Where another filmmaker might have had cotton fields assembled for scenes in Honeydripper, Sayles had to wait for the real thing. And he had to hold off shooting for a year when the original production plan came together only after cotton season was over.
And then he hits the road to sell the movie to distributors, theaters and audiences. And not just the highways of the U.S. Sayles recently returned from a European trip to promote Honeydripper and is about to embark again. He knows the territories, that Honeydripper did well in Hartford, Conn., “Lone Star was big in France, Passion Fish was really big in Scandinavia.”
But at least, that means the movies will be seen somewhere. And as long as there is an audience ready for his stories and ideas, Sayles will figure out a way to make movies.
Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and in a blog at http://www.ohio.com. Contact him at 330-996-3582 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.
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