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For more than a decade, the artist Margaret Keane reluctantly allowed her husband, Walter, to claim credit for her widely successful — if not just a little bit tacky — paintings of kids with giant, big eyes. She never told anyone, not even her own daughter, who was the real author of the art works.
“Big Eyes” tells the story from Margaret’s perspective. It includes her meeting Walter Keane, and concludes with a ridiculous legal battle where Margaret and her then estranged husband each had to prove his or her artistic talent by painting in a federal courtroom. Needless to say, only one of them could, and it’s funnier than anything you’ve ever seen on "Judge Judy."
When the Screenwriters Larry Karaszewki and Scott Alexander came to The Frame studios, they talked about why it was important to get Margaret on board with the film, what attracts them to making films about underdogs and how they kept the project going after working on it for over 10 years.
Why was it important to get Margaret Keane on board with the film, aside from getting permission to use her paintings?
Alexander: Looking at the story now from a post-feminist point of view, the tale makes no sense. I mean, when we would talk to people they'd say, 'How long did this go on?' We'd say 10 years. People go, 'I don't understand. Why would she have done this for 10 years?' And then even more crazy, after they get divorced, she'd continued to paint for him. And so, we had talk with Margaret to understand why she made all these choices.
How do maintain the creative independence you want as filmmakers while still including Margaret in the process?
Alexander: We had to say that to her straight up. We said, 'Margaret, we want to make a movie about your life. We wanna get your rights. We want you to tell us as many stories as you're willing to tell us.' And she said, 'I'll need creative control,' and we said, 'No. That's where we have to draw the line. You will have to trust us and we take your side of the story. We do not believe Walter is the painter and you just got to go with us on this one.'
Karaszewski: Yeah, she was actually really worried that maybe the movie would be half on Walter's side or 'he said she said' kind of thing and so we really had to convince her that we believe, because people still come into her gallery asking to buy a Walter Keane. And so, even after all these years she still a very skittish... And for us, it was an interesting decision to tell the movie from Margaret's point of view because Walter is the guy with most of the lines. Walter is the guy running the plot. He's the guy who would usually be the lead in our story -- the Larry Flint or the Andy Kaufman -- but she is the person that we decided to make the protagonist because she's the one with the journey and she's a very quiet, passive character. And I think particularly getting Amy Adams to play the part -- Amy can do so much with those soulful looks. It's almost like silent movie acting sometimes.
You guys have been working on this movie for more than 10 years. How did you keep going forward on this film?
Alexander: There was a lot of despair along the way. There was a lot of, 'Okay kids, daddy's going to be spending the spring in Buenos Aires. Okay kids! We're all going to be living in New Orleans next summer.'
Karaszewski: Where here's the thing -- we both have kids who are 18 and 19 years old -- for them, dad's been working on this project since they actually said things.
Alexander: Well I got a daughter who's 14 and I'm now realizing that ever since she was cognizant and understood speech, she's had a dad who would come home every night talking about his new movie, 'Big Eyes,' and daddy was a crazy person. I mean, when the Christoph opportunity appeared, we got really excited and then we just started doing this Charlie Brown -- worrying about that little black rain cloud that's gonna come over and pour on us. We started saying, 'Okay, we're gonna get Christoph. Then what's gonna go wrong?'
Karaszewski: Right. So we really felt an obligation to get the movie made and get it off our plate because our careers sort of suffer. You know, we worked on other films and we got other films made during the time period, but we were so committed to this project that it kind of became our career.
What attracts you to making films about people who are not quite there?
Karaszewski: Well, we like the idea of people that society looks down upon. I've had a lot of filmmakers come talk to us where, even though they're acclaimed filmmakers, they feel like Ed Wood is one of the best movies about moviemaking because by talking about the guys having the worst time, you're actually able to talk about film in a way that you wouldn't if you were making a film about Hitchcock. And the same thing about Margaret and Walter, where you're able to talk about art issues and the debate between high art and low art and commerce vs. art and all those things. It becomes a more fascinating tale and there's the whole man vs. society of it all, is that if you have a character who's going in the opposite direction, there's constant conflict and I think we really like these... they're tales from the fringe that we really embrace.
Alexander: Yeah, as Larry was talking, I just remember that over the last 10 years, we had a few submissions with different producers who had different rights to Salvador Dali and people are always coming to us wanting for us to write a Salvador Dali movie. And we passed on this idea over and over — maybe it's because Dali is successful.
Karaszewski: Also, I think people who that -- if you know their story, you're able to look at their art a little differently. I think you're comparing 'Ed Wood' and 'Big Eyes,' I mean Ed Wood made a movie called 'Glen or Glenda,' where he was a transvestite and if you -- back when we were growing up, people would watch that movie, they'd hoot and holler and they would have a good time and laugh at this movie. But once you knew that that was actually the real Ed Wood and he was telling his personal story, the movie has a strange and different feeling to it. It feels like personal experimental filmmaking.
I think, with the Keanes, it was easy to put down that arc. And now that you know that those eyes with the sadness and the tear and coming from a sincere place, that these are coming from this woman who is full of sadness, you can look at those paintings in a different kind of way. They're very kitschy if you just know that this masculine Walter Keane was the painter with this crazy backstory or if you just stumbled upon them in Woolworths, but if you know that they come from a place of sincerity, it's gonna be interesting to see if the art world does any kind of reevaluation.
Big Eyes hits theaters on Christmas day.