Dirty Harry’s Place…

This is part two of our interview with writer/director/actor D.B. Sweeney. Part one can be found here. Two Tickets to Paradise hits DVD tomorrow. A purchase link is below the fold and an immediate add to your Blockbuster or Netflix queue’s helps with pre-sales.

Dirty Harry’s Place: What and who were your influences? Certain movies, filmmakers?

D.B. Sweeney: Cassavettes for sure in the performance aspect. I love Preston Sturges. There’s a French director named Blier whose movies I really like. Especially Get out your Handkerchiefs and Going Places. Essential road movies. They don’t make enough Westerns anymore and of course noir has been murdered by recent ineptitude, so the road movie is one remaining genre that I think allows you to say a lot without being pretentious. I threw in comic homages to 2001 and The Searchers, but you need a microscope to find them. So many filmmakers want to demonstrate all the movies they’ve seen and show you how clever they are. Tends to work at Festivals but it makes me puke. And Mel Gibson just going out and making The Passion of the Christ was the kick in the ass I needed to just do it. He’s the most interesting ‘event picture’ director in Hollywood. You look at Braveheart, Passion, Apocalypto…I can’t think of anyone with three better pictures in the past 10-15 years.

One of the many things I liked about the film were your casting choices. John C. McGinley, Ed Harris, Moira Kelly, and Pat Hingle are the kind of actors people who like actors enjoy seeing up on the screen. The word “competent” may be too clinical, but when actors like that show up you know you’re in good hands and relax into the make believe a little more.

I didn’t have budget for a Hollywood casting director, so I just called people I knew or admired. McGinley and I were at NYU together; Ed Harris and I did a Broadway workshop in the early ‘80’s and stayed loosely in touch. Moira was a gift: she lives in Wilmington and agreed to do it. If I knew I was going to get her I would have beefed up the role more. She’s a rare talent. Pat Hingle was also in North Carolina. Paul Hipp is a talented guy I’d known awhile who hasn’t had the best opportunities and I felt like he deserved a shot at a good role. Mark Moses, M.C. Gainey, Janet Gretzky are all friends I knew I could trust to show up and be professional. I thought they were terrific. And Gretzky’s kid Tristan just blew everybody away: a natural. Wayne started calling him “the Little Great One” Next time around I want to make sure I have budget for a front line casting director. Sharon Bialy, Mary Vernu…somebody like that. It’s a hard job, just thinking of the people you’d like to get, let alone scheduling them and convincing them to do it. Especially with 70+ speaking roles!

What do you want the audience to get from the film? I’ve seen it compared to, or called a “blue collar ‘Sideways.’” Is that intentional? Sideways had a lot going for it, especially its cast, but its hard for me to relate to an unrepentant, serial womanizer and a neurotic, bitter writer (okay, maybe the “neurotic part), but your guys most of America grew up with. You captured that world very well.

Repeated viewings. Among the many complaints Brian and I have about current comedies is once you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen the movie. The big four gags. We wanted to have a movie that would yield subtle little gifts the second, the third time through. I thought Sideways was very well made, but I agree with you that the relationships that are the movie’s foundation are thin. But when Virginia Madsen talks about coaxing the pinot grape and we watch Paul Giamatti fall in love with her…it doesn’t really matter. Some terrific scenes in that baby. And Alexander Payne is a very sure hand. Confident and more than a little cunning.

It’s such a rarity anymore to see the working class on film. Mostly, they’re written off as “rubes” and “bigots,” which is why there are so many more “Sideways” than films like yours. You seem to have a real empathy for these guys…

I grew up with these guys. And Mark’s gambling…well let’s just say I played some cards. I think Hollywood has disdained the ‘flyover states’ for quite some time. It’s a shame, because that condescension prevents you from getting to know the people who form the heart and soul of this Country. They make countless movies about making movies (or when they want to pretend it’s not about movies–they make the main character an advertising guy…or an architect.) but who really cares? Some guy drives a Jag and has three assistants. Yawn.

My favorite scene is when John C. McGinley cleans out his dad’s locker. It was very poignant and an excellent choice on your part to show rather then tell all the lost potential of that character…

Doesn’t hurt to have Bruce Springsteen backing you up as a director [on the soundtrack]! Fathers and sons is an endlessly rich vein to explore. That scene was very important to us. And very important not to talk over the images and ruin it.

Not just because I would suck as an actor, but directing myself seems impossible. How do you know you’re getting it right? Not too much, or too little?

As I said, it wasn’t my choice to direct myself, but once I committed I knew I didn’t want anybody else directing me either. I thought it would be confusing. And the video playback on movie sets is an abortion. Everybody watches the playback while whatever was happening in the previous take dissipates and can’t be built on. Can’t stand it. I worked out a system where I’d ask John McGinley and Claudio Rocha (my wonderful dp) if they thought I ‘had it’ after I’d done a few takes of my shot. Their choices of answer were “you got it” or “go again”. If either said ‘go again’, I would do two or three more takes, with no discussion and then move on. I trusted those guys and felt like they had my back.

So, you’re a director with a finished film taking it out into the world. What’s that been like? I know you got a lot of festival love.

I have learned so much showing the movie in front of live audiences. You watch their body language and learn where it’s working and where it’s not. Revelatory. I am looking forward to doing this again. I think I have a good sense of my strengths and weaknesses. I know I can be a good partner to a producer in terms of getting value on screen and being efficient. Post-production was the biggest learning experience and I have some thoughts on different strategies to be better positioned to go into that phase of my next one.

As an indie filmmaker still scrounging for a song, do you have compromising photographs of Bruce Springsteen and Dire Straits? Might I borrow them?

I got really lucky with Mark Knopfler. I shot the scene where we sing along to Walk of Life without the rights. I couldn’t think of a good alternate track, so I just went ahead, shot it, and hoped. I went with McGinley to see him play a show at the Greek theater in LA and wangled a backstage pass. We surrounded him and I said we couldn’t leave without the rights. He got a kick out of that. I’m not sure we were kidding. There was no re-shoot budget left. I met Mr. Springsteen many years ago and I guess he remembered because he instructed his people to look after me. The record companies are the opposite of helpful to a small producer. You have to try to get right to the recording artists. And be prepared for ‘No’ with some cheap alternate tracks.

You’re a busy, working actor, but what’s next in the directorial department? Would you like to do it again? Are you working on something?

I’m working on the Crash TV series right now. All the people behind the movie are on board and they are generating some great scripts. Dennis Hopper is in it and he has one of the best roles he’s had in ages. Fun to watch. Spike Lee’s Miracle in St Anna comes out in the Fall….just trying to stay busy. I have a TV series I’ve written called The Opportunist. Not sure where that is going yet but I have a few actors who want to be in it.

Looking at my experience in making a film, what surprises me most is that once you sign on as a director it never ends. The process never ends… As an actor you walk away after x-amount of days. This was a whole new ballgame for you.

You’re tellin’ me. And when you produce it too, it’s like 5-7 at Pelican Bay. And no time off for good behavior! I feel so blessed to have the movie finished, but I am NEVER wearing all these hats at once again!

My thanks to D.B. who was a gentleman through and through; returning calls, forwarding all these photos and returning emails. A real pleasure…

Tomorrow, look for my interview with Andrew Klavan about his new book Empire of Lies. 

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