NEWS/
SCOOP DU JOUR:
TUESDAY, 1 MAY
Catch the video edition of Scoop du Jour, featuring the Castro screening of Fog City Mavericks, with guests Nancy Pelosi, George Lucas and more.
Who's in Town?
Arriving today are directors Im Sang-Soo (The Old Garden) and Jeffrey Blitz (Rocket Science); screenwriter Pavel Jech (Grandhotel); producer Sean Welch (Rocket Science); musician Jason Lytle (Notes to a Toon Underground); and Spike Lee interviewer Wesley Morris.
Maverick Mayhem
A loud cry of “Omigod!” broke through the applause and screams from the audience at the Castro Theatre Sunday night, when the filmmakers profiled in the documentary Fog City Mavericks, an inspiring chronicle of the San Francisco film scene, rose to the stage. George Lucas, Saul Zaentz, Walter Murch, Peter Coyote, Chris Columbus, John Lasseter, Robin Williams and others appeared with Mavericks director Gary Leva. Even Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi returned to her home district to catch the screening. It was an emotionally charged event; the audience cheered every time local filmmakers received their Oscars or their films won big at the box office, in spite of gloomy predictions by the Hollywood studio bosses. Gary Leva was impressed by the heartfelt responses of the audience. “I don’t think the film will play this way in Hollywood,” he joked. During the Q&A, the guests were asked to offer some advice to young filmmakers. George Lucas recommended being persistent; John Lasseter said not to get caught up in technology and forget about the story. Chris Columbus advised young filmmakers to stay hungry and determined to do better work. He can relate; as one of the youngest of the Mavericks crowd, Columbus admitted that being in a film with Lucas, Spielberg and Coppola “was really scary.”
Reinventing the Myth
Ricardo Elias’s The 12 Labors may be a modern adaptation of the Hercules myth situated in Brazil, but the director was not shy about making changes to the original story. When queried about the lack of a traditionally tragic ending to his film, he explained, “Fate is a type of solution—whether pessimistic or optimistic—and I have no solution to Heracles’ problem.” Not that Elias dismisses the notion of fate altogether (the story’s central figure claims, “Depending on where you were born, your story is written even before it starts”), but he does caution against a blind belief in it. The inspiration for the entire picture comes from the notion that there is a way out of the prescribed mess of favela life: “Brazilian TV shows people from the slums with a lot of prejudice, assuming that a poor boy must be a criminal; I just wanted to show another view.”
It’s All Greek to Him
At the close of Peter Sellars’ State of Cinema address Sunday, in which he masterfully connected globalization, Greek theater, Mozart and aboriginal film movements, the Kabuki audience was on its feet. Sellars began by addressing “the state of the state,” asserting that “governments are the problem, not the solution” and artists must “create a new set of states which we can believe in.” From there, the theater director went backwards in time, noting that it was “the Greeks who realized democracy doesn’t work by itself—it requires culture.” So, “If you voted in Athens, you had to go to the theater—it was mandated.” In this Athenian theater, “Every play was about what was missing in the official discourse—the story of someone who could not speak.” Moving to modern globalization, Sellars argued that today “Cinema is turning a page to a new possibility of hope—the ability to hold the images and say, ‘This is where we’re going. Let’s not stop. Let’s keep going.’”
A Day at the Opera
“You guys made the right choice today,” a grinning Sellars enthused earlier that day when he introduced Opera Jawa at the Castro, telling the audience to prepare for “an overwhelming, mind-boggling erotic treat.” Mentioning eroticism to an audience barely past noon on a Sunday was a good ploy to provoke viewers out of the morning haze, and the film took its cue from there. After the screening, celebrated Javanese choreographer Eko Supriyanto, who stars as a dangerous seducer who tears apart a marriage, took the stage to deliver the director Garin Nugroho’s message, pleading to protect the rich cultural heritage of Indonesia that is vanishing with globalization. “He said, ‘Be careful,’” the dancer recalled, “because the film is very fragile.” Supriyanto went on to remind the audience of last year’s earthquake in Indonesia, which devastated the Javanese city of Yogyakarta. “I feel sad when I watch this film now, because where we filmed, everything is gone.” Thankfully, Opera Jawa will live on as a loving document of the now devastated region.
Today's Best Bets
At the Kabuki today, Tuesday May 1, you can still buy tickets for Rocket Science, a comedy about a high school debate team, featuring a Q&A with director Jeffrey Blitz at 4:00 pm; Forever, a documentary by Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award recipient Heddy Honigmann at 8:00 pm; and After This Our Exile, a Malaysian film about a complex father-son relationship at 8:30 pm, with a Q&A by director Patrick Tam.