一些知名导演将走上纪录片之路

monkey-E

来源：Houston Chronicle   
2004-03-22 15:06:29
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Some big names going the documentary route

Ha Lam / Special to the Chronicle

Director Jonathan Demme speaks about his new documentary, The Agronomist, at the South by Southwest Film Festival, March 13, in Austin.
AUSTIN --
Thanks to digital video, laptop editing and sound studios, virtually anyone can become a filmmaker. That partly accounts for the glorified home movies that inevitably find their way onto art-house screens. But established directors also use the new technology for their own, more sophisticated purposes.

Documentaries, especially, lend themselves to video, and this year"s South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival offers a strong slate. Many were made by brand-name filmmakers better known for other types of movies.  

Take John Landis. The 53-year-
old director made Animal House, The Blues Brothers and An American Werewolf in London, comedies that were considered outrageous and undisciplined when they were made, but now are classics.
Landis wryly noted as much during a presentation Monday when someone mentioned the debt owed to Animal House by the recent Old School.
"I"ve never made a great film, but I"ve been very influential," he said. He didn"t want to talk about Old School, which seemed to leave a bad taste in his mouth, but he said, "I"m responsible for a lot of bad movies. I"m sorry. I"ve been influential, but not always for good."
Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, Something Wild) also brought a documentary to SXSW. The Agronomist is a portrait of a Haitian journalist who was killed for his political activism.
"I like that documentaries are now really, really presenting themselves as entertainment," said Demme, who for years has switched between fiction and nonfiction, including the Talking Heads concert film, Stop Making Sense.
"When I go to see something like Spellbound or Capturing the Friedmans, I hope to learn something, but I go anticipating an emotionally engaging experience."
Demme"s movie is in keeping with the theme of this year"s film festival: politics. Classic political documentaries are scheduled, as well as new ones such as The Last Man Standing, about a 2002 Texas congressional race.
Other high-
profile documentaries are Bush"s Brain, a critical portrait of George W. Bush"s key strategist, Karl Rove, and Super Size Me, a look at America"s junk-food culture by a filmmaker whose health deteriorates during the 30 days he eats nothing but food from McDonald"s.
Landis" film, Slasher, is a funny, sprightly portrait of used-
car salesmen, but even it has a political edge. Originally Landis intended to compare the selling of used cars to the Bush administration"s selling of the war in Iraq. He dropped that plan when he discovered that news footage costs $400 per second.
So now he starts the movie with a quick montage of presidential lies, including Nixon"s "I am not a crook," George H.W. Bush"s "Read my lips -- no new taxes" and Clinton"s "I did not have sex with that woman." It ends with a clip from Polish television in which the current President Bush declares flatly that weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq.
Landis is a funny, engaging raconteur. He"d open with a comment like "I"m going to tell you a true story," then launch into a joke, such as one about an agent making a deal with the devil.
In a wide-
ranging talk, conducted as an onstage conversation with a film journalist, he covered everything from his early years in the business to the difficulties of making a living in Hollywood to the psychological costs of superstardom.
He knows something about the last topic, having directed Michael Jackson"s Thriller video. "It was like being with an amazingly talented 10-year-old," he said. But years later, when he directed Jackson"s Black and White video, "He was already crazy -- he had crossed over."

Landis said he was stunned by Jackson"s friendships with other fabulously famous people. On the set, the singer received telephone calls from Nancy Reagan, Fred Astaire and Elton John. Landis said he once went to Jackson"s trailer at four in the morning and found him chatting with Jacqueline Onassis.
"I went to dinner one night with Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando," he said. "I was like: I"m on another planet. These people have no basis in any reality I know."
Landis, who hasn"t had a hit movie since 1988, blamed the studios for dumping his last two films.

"The film business is horrendous," he said. "I try to dissuade everyone" from entering it. The process of making a movie is great, he said, but the business "is a terrible thing, full of terrible people."
Demme"s next movie, due this summer, is a remake of The Manchurian Candidate starring Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep. It follows the financially unsuccessful The Truth About Charlie, also a remake.
"I did The Truth About Charlie because I thought a remake of Charade starring Thandie Newton and Will Smith would be great," he said. When Smith became unavailable, Universal Studios rushed Demme to make the movie with Mark Wahlberg because it feared a strike would halt production.
"I met him and thought he was very cute, and I wanted to make the movie, so I did," said Demme dryly. "Mark"s gifts didn"t lend themselves to the part the way Will Smith"s would have."