Only Van Sant could have pulled off this Portland-based love story on such a small, delicate scale, without manipulating madly. His touch is sure. Anne Thompson

Now that it has been well established that Gus Van Sant is secretly French, we can move onto other news, such as the positive reception Restless, his latest feature, received at Cannes.  If you have a subscription to Variety ( I don’t – wish I did), you can read a review there. Here’s what Deadline.com had to say about Restless opening the Un Certain Regard competition:

The second-most-important, and actually edgier, competition at Cannes got under way Thursday night with the premiere of Gus Van Sant’s Restless, which deals with a young kid (played by 20-year-old Henry Hopper, son of the late Dennis Hopper) who regularly likes to cruise cemeteries and attend funerals of strangers. There he meets a spirited young terminal cancer patient played by Mia Wasikowska and falls in love. By comparison with the downer material on display so far at the Palais, this was a fun time at the movies.

Actually, it’s a sweet dissertation on life and death beautifully acted by Hopper and Wasikowska. Originally it was going to premiere at Sundance and then be released by Columbia Pictures, but things changed as the major studio’s sister specialty division, Sony Pictures Classics, grabbed it from the mother ship, cancelled that Sundance screening and submitted it to Cannes, where fest director Thierry Fremaux decided to put it in as the opening-night slot of Un Certain Regard. It was a bit of a surprising decision since Van Sant, a former Palme d’Or winner for Elephant, is a favorite of the main division.

Click here to view the embedded video.

But the two competitions are becoming almost interchangeable in terms of quality pictures, and the engaging Restless was well received by the full house at tonight’s premiere screening. Van Sant, a man of few words, and his screenwriter Jason Lew and producer Bryce Dallas Howard (Dad Ron’s Imagine was the production company) were joined by Wasikowska and Hopper in the packed Claude Debussy auditorium.

At the elegant after-party dinner at Le Cote, Van Sant told me his horror story of how he almost didn’t even make it to the South of France. He was shooting his first-ever TV show (as exec producer) Boss in Chicago for the Starz cable channel and was going to fly to London and then here. One problem though: He forgot his passport back in hometown Portland, Ore. The oversight was just discovered yesterday and so a friend grabbed it, flew cross-country to give it to Van Sant and accompanied him to France. The frazzled publicists had to postpone all his interviews until Friday, but he DID make it barely in time for his premiere.

Is there something about Oregon’s geographic isolation which inspires artists to dumpster dive and recycle art? Nevermind the Bronx beginnings of remix culture in hip hop; there is plenty of repurposing going on here in the Northern Left Coast.

Witness Bobby “Fatboy” Roberts, Portland radio wit and sometime film critic, who has remixed ” a decade’s worth of ruined pop-culture memories”.

Witness Bruce Conkle’s and Marne Lucas’ Warlord Sun King:  The Genesis of Eco Baroque.

Yes, that’s Marne and Bruce, surrounded by flattened tin foil and a thrift store frame.

And now witness the permission Gus Van Sant gave James Franco to cut together outlakes, deleted scenes, alternate takes and behind the scenes footage from My Own Private Idaho to create a 12 hour installation, Endless Idaho, which is up until April 9 at Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles.

Also in the gallery: paintings by Gus Van Sant, and a second remix of My Own Private Idaho footage by Franco, titled My Own Private River, which concentrates on River Phoenix.

Endless Idaho/My Own Private River is Franco’s third Van Sant collaboration.  Van Sant directed him in Milk, he starred in Howl, which Gus Van Sant executive produced, and now Franco has emerged from the editing room,where he had locked himself up, like Rumplestilskin, with all the parts of My Own Private Idaho we never saw.

How fitting because My Own Private Idaho is itself a magpie’s nest of appropriation and repurposing. Drawing on the B-52’s for his title and Shakespeare for his plot, Van Sant remixed two of his own unproduced screenplays into one heartbreaking romantic tragedy. Shawn Levy marvels at Van Sant’s eye for location as he peopled an imagined city with a mix of real Portlanders (including Tom Peterson, Tom Cramer and some real street hustlers), and Hollywood leading men, one of whom was giving the performance of his career.

Call it remix or collaboration: Gus likes it. It is his secret weapon as a director.  The work of Fatboy, Bruce Conkle and Marne Lucas indicates he may be expressing a regional tendency.

]]> http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2011/02/my-own-private-remix-culturefatboy-roberts-gus-van-sant-and-james-franco/feed/ 0 http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2010/12/courtney-taylor-taylor-reveals-he-like-all-oregonians-is-secretly-french/ http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2010/12/courtney-taylor-taylor-reveals-he-like-all-oregonians-is-secretly-french/#comments Sat, 11 Dec 2010 02:03:45 +0000 Anne Richardson http://www.talltalestruetales.com/?p=11010

Ed Condran’s recent interview with Dandy Warhols’ frontman, Courtney Taylor-Taylor, contains the revelation that Taylor-Taylor has remained in Portland all these years not because of the indie music scene, which he helped create, or because of the weather, the strip clubs or microbreweries. No, it is because of the local availability of authentic French baked goods.

Courtney sez: St. Honoré Boulangerie…. is the most … amazing bakery in the world. I’ve been around the world. That place is better than what you find in France. You can’t beat it for the texture and flavor. I love it. It helps make Portland great. How can I leave a city with a bakery like that?

Spoken as a true Oregonian, deeply in touch with what makes him secretly French.

Jean Auel has an international following so devout that a previous post about her on Oregon Movies, A to Z was rewarded with hundreds and hundreds of hits.

Jean Auel’s next book, The Land Of Painted Caves, is the last installment in her Earth’s Children series. It will come out in March 2011.

As Jeff Baker notes in the Oregonian, Jean Auel is a home grown artist.

1. researched her first book at the Multnomah County library

2. worked a day job at Tektronix

3. met her agent at Willamette Writers Conference

Proponents of the theory that Oregonians are secretly French can point to Auel, who, without changing her Oregon address, chose to live her imaginative life in the caves of pre-historic France. Millions of readers the world over joined her there, as did  John Sayles, Michael Chapmen and Darryl Hannah, who brought one novel in the series to the big screen in Clan of the Cave Bear.

Maybe we will see that happen again for The Land Of Painted Caves. Congratulations, Jean!

I began suspecting  Oregon artists Marne Lucas and Bruce Conkle of being secretly French when they invented Eco Baroque. But here’s a few reasons to entertain the theory that all Oregon shares their hidden dual identity:

1. Wine

2. Food

3. Movies

4. Mass transit

5. Public spaces (beaches, parks, Pioneer Square)

6. Focus on quality of life (see above)

How French is Oregon?

The first ever Palme d’Or (as adjudged in 2003) went to a film based on work by an Oregon author.

In 1939, a brand new film festival on the French Riviera at Cannes was cancelled due to Hitler’s invasion of Poland. In 2003, Cannes went back and revisited the list of films that would have competed that year. That jury awarded the Palme d’Or to Union Pacific (above), directed by Cecil B. DeMille and based on a novel by Portland author Ernest Haycox.

Currently, four Oregon directors are much beloved in France.

#1: James Ivory (Klamath Falls), 6 nominations for the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Winner of Cannes 45th Anniversary Special Award for Howard’s End(1992).

#2: Gus Van Sant (Portland), 3 nominations for the Palme D’Or at Cannes. Winner forElephant(2003). Winner of the Cannes 60th Anniversary Special Award for Paranoid Park(2007).

#3: Bill Plympton (Oregon City), 2 nominations for the Palme d’Or at Cannes. His latest feature, Idiots and Angels (2009), received theatrical release in France, and was seen all across that country.

#4: Penny Allen (Portland), whose latest film,The Soldier’s Tale (2007), has been seen by more filmgoers in France than America. It was a recent hit at the Nyon Festival Visions du Reel.

Oregon is so French, Bill Plympton says that everyone in France accepts without question the immediate assumption that Pink Martini is a French band.

In 1962, novelist Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, a German born British citizen married to a New Dehli architect, hangs out with her three children and American documentary filmmaker, James Ivory.

In 2007, three time Oscar nominee James Ivory escorts two time Oscar winner Ruth Prawer Jhabvala to the Alliance Francaise in New York City. Later that evening, the Alliance presents Ivory with the Trophee des Arts.

Their citation: For more than 40 years, Mr. Ivory at the head of Merchant-Ivory Productions, has created an unparalleled collection of independent films esteemed world wide for their beauty and quality.

Mel Blanc provided the voice of Pepe Le Pew in the original cartoon. In this mashup, his contribution to the soundtrack has been replaced with AC/DC. But in the original, you would have heard Mel.

Penny Allen’s award winning film closely documents her encounter with an American soldier on his way home from Iraq. Sitting next to her on a plane, he struck up a revealing, anguished conversation that she turned into The Soldier’s Tale.

Allen is a seminal figure in Portland film history – her first film, Property, gave two recent art school graduates named Gus Van Sant and Eric Edwards their first professional exposure to low budget, entirely independent filmmaking.

Allen worked again with Edwards on The Soldier’s Tale. Catch it on the big screen if you go to Paris this spring. Or buy the DVD straight from Allen.

……

Shawn Levy snapped this picture on his phone of Gus Van Sant, James Ivory and Bill Plympton, posing with Mike Rich at the Oregon Sesquicentennial Film Festival. For whatever it says about Oregon, Gus Van Sant, James Ivory, and Bill Plympton are all highly regarded in France. Who knows? With enough time, they could feel that way about Mike Rich.

Stagecoach (1939), based on story by Ernest Haycox, nominated for 7 Oscars, including Best Picture

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), based on Ken Kesey’s novel, nominated for 9 Oscars, won the top five, including Best Picture

Room With A View (1985), James Ivory nominated for Best Director

Howard’s End (1992), James Ivory nominated for Best Director

Remains of the Day (1993), James Ivory nominated for Best Director

Good Will Hunting (1997), Gus Van Sant nominated for Best Director

Iraq In Fragments (2006) James Longley nominated for Best Documentary, Feature

Milk (2008), Gus Van Sant nominated for Best Director

Director Eric Mitchell thanks Oregon actor Duncan Smith in his opening remarks at the 2009 Museum of Modern Art screening of his 1980 film, Underground, USA.

Duncan Smith was a writer (Age of Oil, Private Elvis), conceptual artist, and performance artist from Portland who emigrated to the East Village in the late 70’s. In Mitchell’s Underground USA, he played a self absorbed psychiatrist; in Tim Smith and Matt Groening’s  Drugs: Killers and Dillers (1972), he plays the ecstatic wandering beatnik who flies off the Vista Bridge.