 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
August 3, 1999 film diary 11 p.m. The sky is lighting up with this peculiar silent lightning tonight, our first night in Butte on our trip to make this film that we have been planning for years. The entire sky flashes light for a second, then it returns to black, lit only by the city lights around us. This morning we were in Bozeman, Montana and sat outside at the Daily Coffee Shop across the street from the Montana State University campus. We had scheduled three interviews with three prospective actresses for the part of Irene. We had three very strong candidates and picked the actress who seemed the most enthusiastic about the role. At 9 a.m. we met Katie Goodman, who was a very experienced actress and probably the most qualified of all those we talked to. She is the daughter of syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman, who had written a piece about Butte last summer. We talked with each actress about the part and our filming plans, asked them to read some passages from the script, and asked them to talk about their geneaology. We videotaped this genealogy interview so that it could act as a screen test, and also so that we could include it as part of the film -- as some of the interviews that Irene has captured that fill so much of the first part of the film.
The sky has flashed again, and out of the corner of my eyes I see it flash once more. Finally I hear the huge sound of thunder, after so many flashes of silent lightning. A storm seems to be trying to make its way over the mountains and to us, and all of its first approaches are taking a silent movie form. We interviewed two more actresses, and were a bit intimidated by the responsibility of picking one over the others. In just about every other film project I've worked on, casting is based on who might be right for the part and if they can make it to the shoot. This time we had three very qualified actresses who we met in person, and a fourth even more qualified whose husband dropped by a resume and tape. The lightning has stopped but a hard rain has begun to fall, something surprising in Butte, which, after more than ten years living in the midwest, seems to me, at least in legend, to be such a dry place. The streets of Butte are shining with the rain -- the rain is pouring under the streetlights. After the interviews we had lunch with our friend Megan and her housemate Michelle. After the lunch we went to Dan and Susan Glenn's architecture office to make the phone calls to our actresses. We had made up our minds and had to tell both the actress we picked that we had chosen her for the part, and also had to tell the ones we didn't choose that this was so. Sam Farmer, the actress we did pick, seemed to be right for the part, though why this was the case was hard to pin point. She certainly had the most enthusiasm for the project. She moved with a slowness that seemed to signifiy who Irene was to us, and had a softness to her voice and bearing that kept me leaning forward, an effect that I think will be very important in the quiet film that we aim to create. We dropped off a copy of the script to Sam and she gave us some raspberries. We hit the road from Bozeman to Butte. We passed through Homestake pass, past the hundreds of faces of rock, and down the mountainside to the red and yellow city of Butte. We drove down Harrison Street, lined with both chain and local interesting shops, and went straight to the Finlen Hotel in uptown and got a double room -- not just a room with two beds but basically two sperate rooms with one bed each and bathrooms. The second room had a refrigerator and sink, enough space to make some simple food for the film shoot we plan next week. There was one shower between the two shared rooms. All this cost $50 a night. Our minds were made up immediately that this was the place we needed to keep our cast and us while we made the film. The Finlen was a grand 1920's hotel, the showplace for this city in the mountains. Today there was a motor hotel next to it and apartments in most of the original hotel rooms. Two floors of the 1920's hotel are open for nightly lodging, and while we stayed there we watched work go on down in the lobby. The lobby was being restored to its original glamour, with details painted copper, and a big clock re-installed. We felt like kings in this grand hotel. We settled ourselves in our room and then went out to investigate thrift stores. Because we planned to begin shooting in only a few days, we were a little frightened of the scene where Emily leads Irene through her house and Irene sees all the madonna figures and pictures in Emily's collection. We bought a couple more Madonnas at the Salvation Army (they had many, but most of them were going for $10, so we played it safe) and then went to the Blue Venus coffee shop, imagining that it would be the site of our restaurant scenes. We walked into it and Rob's first coment was on how dark it was. It was dark, and would be very difficult to shoot in with our no extra lights, Dogma 95, aesthetic. We stood at the counter to order our coffees and I felt a strange feeling over my left shoulder. I turned to the left and saw a young woman holding a Sony VX1000 digital video camera with a large professional shotgun mic clipped on top. Although I turned to look back at the counter I felt the camera pan over and get a shot of me. I thought immediately that we were getting a taste of our own medicine, or that we were just joining the club. After she left the woman at the counter explained that she was from Germany and was making a documentary about the motorcyle event that was taking place around the Dumas bordello the coming weekend. We sat down to drink our drinks a little overwhelmed by all the filmmaking activity that seemed to be happening in this city. Our film was one of several we knew were being made in Butte this summer. We talked about locations. Lately the Blue Venus had been the only candidate we had considered for the restaurant scene and yet now sitting in it, it seemed completely wrong. It was part of the emerging new hip Butte, but we needed something that said more about old Butte, historic Butte. Up the block was the restaurant that inspired the scene on our trip here three years ago, the little Mexican restaurant in the basement of the Metals Bank building. We went there for dinner, with the idea that we were going to approach the people there about using it for a location. We ate our dinner. Our waitress came back several times, asking if we needed anything. When this happened to us to years ago when we ate there it inspired the scene where Emily keeps coming back and asking Irene if she needs anything. Throughout dinner I was thinking about how do we ask, how do we ask if this can be our location. When we paid our bill at the cash register I told the waitress that we had an odd request, and that we wanted to shoot a scene for our film here. She went to mention it to the man in the kitchen, who was immediately excited. He was John, who called his brother, the owner of the restaurant, and got his OK. We had lined up an important location faster and easier than either of us imagined. We went back to our hotel room and I did some calling. Last night I had flown in from Minneapolis. Dan Glenn and Rob met me at the Bozeman airport and we went immediately from there to the Haufrau, our old hangout when we all lived in Bozeman a decade or more ago. I walked in and immediately heard a "Hi John," even tho it was fourteen years since I had lived in this city. Paul Rose was saying hi to me. I told him about the movie and he had recommended a friend of his in Butte that I should contact. I called Frank, this friend of Paul's, and he told us to come over to his house. We needed a house for Emily, a place that we could line with Madonnas. Frank told me that he had a few Madonnas himself. We went over to the house, across the street from the empty and decaying old St. James hospital, and knocked on the door. Frank met us there and we walked through his amazing house. It was everything we imagined and more, with the porch we had pictured, and woodwork that was impossible in its intricacy. Frank showed us his basement, where he had a collection of figures and candles, a shine to elvis and many other saints. All that we saw, tho, were the Madonna candles. It looked like there were dozens of them. He said we could use them. There was a large Madonna print hanging right near the door when you entered the house. With one visit we found the house of our dreams, and Frank was as open to us filming there and moving Madonnas around as anyone could possibly be. We then went to Club 13 to celebrate with a couple beers. The third set of beers was a gift from the bartender, and because of that gift this diary entry of our first day in Butte is a little more scattered than I would like it to be. What a day this was! This project, this film is underway, and things are looking very promising! The rain continues to pitter patter outside. A highly unusual but very fertile day for our first day in Butte This page last updated 21 August 1999 http://www.sloppyfilms.com/buttemagic/diary83.html
|
