John “This Is What True Self Acceptance Looks Like” Waters came out of the closet as a fan of Oregon filmmaking in his Top Ten For 2011 film list in Artforum.

Three of his ten are Oregon films.

#2 on Water’s list: Mildred Pierce

Qualifying criteria: Portland screenwriter Jon Raymond’s first collaboration with Portland director Todd Haynes.

#6 on Waters’ list: If A Tree Falls: The Story Of Earth Liberation Front

Qualifying criteria: Brooklyn filmmakers Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman followed their subject, an environmental activist, to Oregon.

#9 on Waters’ list: We Were Here

Qualifying criteria:  Like Todd Haynes, David Weissman is now a Portland director. Up until We Were Here, he was based in San Francisco. (Perhaps he maintains dual citizenship.) He co-directed We Were Here with Bill Weber.

John Waters is obviously begging for a invitation to come out to the Rose City and see what’s going on – let’s invite him!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Mayor Sam Adams added to his collection of original portraits of Portland filmmakers last week, unveiling a brand new painting of Todd Haynes by Jasper Marks.

City Hall custodians grumbled about the amount of work they face – Portland’s active film scene means the entire wall will soon be filled. The Mayor did not announce whether Marks, who moonlights in another profession under the name Steven Cohn, would be asked to paint the entire series. Some people believe Arnold Pander may be approached to help out.

Here are the names of some of the directors who, taken in conglomerate, represent Portland’s cinematic wealth:

Aaron Katz

Brian Lindstrom

Chel White

David Weissman

Donal Mosher

Gus Van Sant

Irene Taylor Brodsky

Jacob & Arnold Pander

James Westby

Jim Blashfield

Joan Gratz

Joanna Priestley

Lance Bangs

Larry Johnson

Marilyn Zornado

Matt McCormick

Michael Palmieri

Mike Shiley

Peter D. Richardson

Rose Bond

Sue Arbuthnot

Vanessa Renwick

Will Vinton

It is because Sam Adams is only Mayor of Portland, and not Governor of the State of Oregon that the following filmmakers will escape inclusion on his Hall of Fame:

Alex Cox

Bruce Campbell

Bill Plympton

Chris Eyre

Matthew Lessner

James Ivory

James Longley

Shelley Jordon

Susan Saladoff

An Indian came to us, pointed out the course to [The Dalles] to which he said it was 5 days journey, and so far from refusing to follow the advise of the Indian, at my request he was employed by Mr. Meek to pilot us to Crooked River, which he did for a blanket. Solomon Tetherow, 1845 pioneer

Kelly Reichardt, Jon Raymond and Neil Kopp tell the story of a wagon train which misplaced itself in Harney County. Paul Dano and Michelle Williams star.

Willamette Week let the cat out of the bag last year:

Meek’s Cutoff … is based on the true story of an ill-fated wagon train that attempted a shortcut on the Oregon Trail……the tale includes starvation, a legendary lost gold mine and a Native American scout who might or might not be inclined to save the day. Neil Kopp confirmed that the screenplay, written by Portland’s Jon Raymond, is “loosely based on Stephen Meek…who basically becomes lost.”

Adam Yauch, head of Oscilloscope, the distributor of Meek’s Cutoff has an interesting theory.

“As a side note,” Yauch continued. “‘Meek’s Cutoff’ is so real feeling and looking that I suspect Kelly may have completed work on a time-machine…. and ….‘Meek’s’ is actually a documentary that she went back and shot in 1845. If anyone has any evidence to that effect, please contact me directly ASAP.”

Faithful readers of Oregon Movies, A to Z recognize that the wagon train genre has intersected with the documentary genre at least once before.  James Cruze’s The Covered Wagon had meticulous art direction, far beyond the call of narrative duty, faithfully recreating the living conditions aboard the Oregon Trail prairie schooners. Cruze did this because it was 1923, and some of his audience had actually been in covered wagons, as children, themselves.

Kelly Reichardt was under no such pressure. Yet attention to historic accuracy seems to have been a source of artistic inspiration for herself and for Jonathan Raymond, the screenwriter.

Shot in Oregon, based on real life Oregonians, written by an Oregonian, produced by an Oregonian – not hard to preemptively declare Meek’s Cutoff as an Oregon film.

Todd Haynes moved to Portland from Brooklyn to write Far From Heaven (2002). He’s still here. Why not? As a friend once observed to me, “Brooklyn is Portland, only Portland does it better.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Todd Haynes’ mini series is reputed to the closer to the source material, a James M. Cain novel, than the 1945 Mildred Pierce, directed by Michael Curtiz.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I hereby claim Mildred Pierce (2011) as an Oregon film, based on the Oregon citizenship of director  Todd Haynes and screenwriter Jon Raymond.

The genius of Ridley Scott’s direction and Callie Khouri’s groundbreaking screenplay is that they allow the film to flirt with standard archetypal conventions, all the while upending conventional notions of women — particularly women in the sort of situation Thelma and Louise find themselves in. Jason McKiernan

Callie Khouri came to Portland to finish her Oscar winning screenplay for Thelma and Louise, taking a break from her secretarial job in the music video business to do so. It was her first script.

Other screenplays written in the rain: Todd Haynes came here  to write Far From Heaven (2002), leaving behind the fleshpots of Brooklyn. Miranda July’s Me, You And Everyone We Know ( 2005) was written in Portland. I am guessing that Gus Van Sant wrote Mala Noche (1985), Drugstore Cowboy (1989) and My Own Private Idaho (1991) in Portland.

I hereby claim Thelma and Louise as an Oregon film on the basis of Callie Kouri’s decision to use Portland as a writer’s colony.

For people who missed it on Sunday, here’s Jeff Baker’s profile of Jon Raymond in the Oregonian.

My favorite part:

“Wendy and Lucy” is the second movie filmed in the same location Raymond used in a short story. The first, “Old Joy,” mostly takes place at Bagby Hot Springs, where Raymond and the gang from Plazm magazine once took photos of Bigfoot, with director Todd Haynes playing the lead role in a furry suit.

I’m trying to think of a New York magazine that would have thrown Todd into a furry suit and taken him to a hot springs. No wonder he moved to Portland!

Jon Raymond joins Ernest Haycox, Walt Morey, Ken Kesey, Walt Curtis, Jean Auel, John Varley and Chuck Palahniuk – all Oregon writers whose work has been adapted to the big screen.

Read more about Wendy and Lucy, which has replenished the spiritual stores of lots of hardened film critics, or better yet, go see it at Cinema 21.

Shawn Levy, no pushover for praise, raves about Wendy and Lucy, which opens at Cinema 21 today.

Wendy and Lucy was written by Portland author Jonathan Raymond, produced by Portland producer Neil Kopp, and executive produced by newly minted Oregonian Todd Haynes.

Here’s Todd Haynes’ take on what is really hard about filmmaking.

I mean, making a film is so scary and there’s such a kind of void that you’re working from initially. I mean, you can have all the ideas and be as prepared as possible, but you’re also still bringing people together and saying, “Trust me”, even when you don’t necessarily trust every element. You’re making something out of nothing and it requires so many people’s collaborative efforts and participation that it seems like at any moment it could just fall through the cracks and be gone forever.

Todd Haynes, wearing Portland filmmaker Vanessa Renwick’s Oregon Department of Kick Ass t shirt, as he schmoozes with Mark Tusk, the producer of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

To petition Vanessa for your own t shirt, visit her website.

Which is by way of saying I was equally astonished to read in this Bright Lights essay about Robert Mitchum that Nicholas Ray credits Mitchum with writing scenes in The Lusty Men.

I don’t understand actors. What little I do understand about them tells me that maybe for both River Phoenix and Robert Mitchum these stories of wounded, transient men looking for a home may have been parables of the inner life of an actor, waiting by the phone, not really alive until he/she is in company with other players.

I am amazed to learn that Mitchum’s contribution to The Lusty Men included writing scenes.

Both My Own Private Idaho and The Lusty Men contain scenes shot in Eastern Oregon: Wasco County and Umatilla County, respectively.

I hereby  claim The Lusty Men as an Oregon film on the basis of its location shooting.