Friday, October 19, 2007

THE FIRST REVIEWS...

Well - the world premiere of U & ME & TENNESSEE - an American romance... took place in London on Tuesday the 2nd of October as part of the RAINDANCE FESTIVAL - and I was - frankly, um...how to put it? Overwrought? Nervous? Fried? Exhausted?

It was the first time I'd ever screened a feature film that I had not only produced and directed, but also appeared in. What would happen? Would the friends and colleagues who turned up have to "make nice" afterwards, or damn the whole thing with faint praise? Would everything go smoothly - or would glitches materialise from nowhere?

My dear friend COLIN STINTON - a superb actor - showed up early to hold my hand (and BOY was I glad he did !). Colin was kind enough to share a story about DAVID MAMET's first premiere as a writer/director (on HOUSE OF GAMES). Apparently SIDNEY LUMET (director of THE VERDICT - a Mamet Script - and also of THE FUGITIVE KIND, a Tennessee Williams script) phoned the Mamet household late on the afternoon of the premiere. LINDSAY CROUSE, star of the movie and at that time Mrs. Mamet, answered the phone.

SIDNEY LUMET: Hello, Lindsay? This is is Sidney. How is David? Is he sick yet?

LINDSAY CROUSE: Oh hello, Sidney - Well YES, he IS !


SIDNEY LUMET: Don't worry. That's how it is on your first premiere !

I knew how Mamet must have felt...

Problems? Yes, a few. Some weird sound distortions at the ends of words for the first few minutes only - annoying but not overpowering - Thank God ! Aspect ratio? Well - THAT wasn't quite right for the first ten minutes or so, when I finally realised "Well, you don't ask, you don't get!" and had a word with the Cineworld manager.
She was standing by right there to make sure everything ran smoothly, and in less than a minute the onscreen pictures assumed their proper proportions ! Ahhhh.......

Laughter? Yes - for the first ten or fifteen minutes - but deepening silence as the picture rolled on...

I couldn't bring myself to laugh at the spontaneous quips and gags that had emerged naturally between KONRAD HOPKINS and myself as we'd conversed on camera (as a pointer for the audience - something neither Tennessee nor Konrad would have had the slightest difficulty doing !) No. This audience was composed of professionals - renowned actors, documentary directors, writers. It would be an insult to their intelligence and an imposition on any friendship I might share with them to try and torque their natural reactions...

And so the quiet grew more profound...I was naked here in the dark. My soul was up there onscreen visible in the entire production, and so was Konrad's in his unflinching, un-selfpitying tale of life as Ganymede in the vortex of the Zeus of Broadway in the early 1950's.

End credits rolled - lights came up. ELLIOT GROVE, founder of RAINDANCE, had taken time from his jam-pacled schedule to watch the entire movie, and then graciously introd
uced me afterwards to field questions or comments.

But it wasn't until after that that I was able to get a sense of the true reaction to our film.

And it was overwhelmingly positive. People were genuinely and deeply moved, delighted with the production values, unaware of the editing (just the way you want it to be !) and entranced, moved to ponder, to talk to one another, to see the world from a wider perspective because of the awakening nature of what they'd experienced.


Whew!

Comments? SIMON CALLOW was there, and called out "Fantastic!" as the lights came up. He e-mailed a few days later, describing it as: "A real illumination of the ruthlessness of genius. Konrad is a fascinating study himself: so elegant, so charming, so perceptive...Well done. Really fascinating."

My friend Derek Guthrie, a very experienced factual producer/director - who I have to say sometimes offered faint encouragement over the past many months, no doubt concerned on my behalf in case this project which had consumed so much time, care and attention should prove, after all, little more than a visual radio documentary, was unstinting in his praise:

"It was fantastic. You were absolutely right to make it as you have done! Konrad is everything you said he was. It's a work of art. I was crying in it, I was so moved !"

Paul Sutton, editor of LINDSAY ANDERSON's DIARIES, has written a review on his blog
CAMERA JOURNAL - I quote:

"More than a thousand documentaries were entered for the fifteenth Raindance festival in London, but this, with its grinningly brilliant tag-line — ‘A gay art house movie for all the family!’ — was one of the nine accepted — and no wonder — it’s terrific!"

Sofia Dastur replied to Paul's review - "This is a very brave and a very funny film...What a conversation !...the movie is just so humane and honest..."

Some people watched it online, at the Tiscali.co.uk - Raindance Festival website.

Rich Darvey, who works for the highly respected Hollywood firm R.C. Baral (we met when I was acting on 1408, and he was troubleshooting on behalf of The Weinstein Company) e-mailed to say: "I've got one word for you - Outstanding. Konrad was so wonderful to listen to. There was nothing sensationalized about the interview. I liked the graphics, inserts, etc. Music was very good...The production work was great...I'm really glad I was able to view it. This was a great story to be told !"

Ines Wurth, the dynamic actress and producer whose solo stage show I MISS COMMUNISM has been astounding audiences all over America, Ireland the the U.K. over the past two years, cut short a visit home to Zagreb to catch the premiere, and she simply said: "I LOVED it!"

It's been very encouraging. A major broadcaster currently has the movie and is mulling over acquiring it - and I'm off to Leipzig to the 50th annual DOKFEST and DOK-MARKET to see if other film and television companies around the world will be interested in our movie - which Konrad Hopkins refers to as:

"Tennessee Williams's final work."

Photo of Paul Birchard & Konrad Hopkins copyright Alan Wylie 2006 - All rights reserved.

Text copyright Paul Birchard 2007 - All rights reserved. 

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