For his role in "The Florida Project" Willem Dafoe immersed himself into the world of the "hidden homeless;" A new website called Rotten Apples allows users to search TV shows and movies to see if anyone on the projects was accused of sexual misconduct; Italian filmmaker Marta Savina revisits a landmark rape case from 1965 in her short film “Viola, Franca."
Willem Dafoe says the first-time actors on 'The Florida Project' had a leg up on him
Willem Dafoe has played a wide range of characters in his nearly four decade long acting career.
He’s probably best known for taking on darker, edgy roles— and more than a few villains. But in "The Florida Project," directed and co-written by Sean Baker, Dafoe plays a tough but compassionate manager of a budget motel.
Part enforcer, part father figure, almost full-time social worker, Dafoe’s character Bobby watches over the motel’s many long-term residents, most of whom can’t afford permanent housing.
The story centers on a six-year-old girl named Moonee, played by Brooklynn Prince, and her mother Halley, played by first-time actress Bria Vinaite.
Willem Dafoe stopped by The Frame studios recently to talk with host John Horn about "The Florida Project."
Interview Highlights
On what it was like working with first-time actors in "The Florida Project":
When Bria and Brooklynn were cast, Sean's partner Samantha Quan worked with them, and also Sean [Baker]— they did a little acting workshop to create their relationship also make their room and stuff like that. So they were kind of ahead of me on the game, so when I got down there, they had their room in the motel all fixed up and I remember the first time I met Bria and Brooklynn, their room was all set up, and Bria was so inhabiting this character that I thought Who is this woman? Does she live here? And it's not that Bria has that life, but she has a parallel life that she could apply to be this woman, and she did it in a really deep way. The other thing is, people that aren't used to performing, they're all in. They have nothing to compare it to and there's no careerism or ego. This is an adventure for them. So with someone, a skillful director like Sean, who creates an environment and a way of shooting that makes them feel comfortable, they can go real deep, they can be really present.
On Sean Baker's investigative, almost documentary-style approach to making the film:
There's also a parallel for actors. They sort of do the same thing. I go down there, I do my research, I start living with those people and hearing their stories. With time, they become me. And of course I'm encouraging that. But it's just natural. You learn things, and as you learn them not only does it give you a kind of authority to do the pretending of the fiction that you're making, it also guides the thing that you're making.
JH: When you go down and start that part of the process are you a blank slate? Do you have assumptions that need to be challenged?
You always have assumptions, you always have too much garbage. But the process is to try and get rid of it. But you got to start somewhere. So you may start with prejudices or an idea, but you do things to correct those or challenge them.
On receiving character insights from real-life motel managers before shooting:
I talked to some motel managers. One in particular, who actually worked once upon a time at the motel that we were working at. And I didn't do wildly extensive research with him, but I did talk to him to hear stories, to look at him, see what he looks like, what kind of jewelry he's wearing. All those things you kind of clock and you think, Does this point me in a direction, does this direct where I'm going to take this character? You know, What's he wearing around his neck? What's the story behind that? Can I get behind that, do I need that? What's with the watch, why is that watch so chunky? That tells me about who this guy may be. And he was very helpful.
The biggest thing was that I was really taken by his pride in his work. He really was a believer. That was his place and he was going to make it a better place. And he was able to do that. He wasn't all love and light though, he was tough. There was a part of him that was really tough, and he even had some judgements about the people. But he had been through a lot and had seen a little bit of everything and he somewhere believed that if you cut people slack and give them some room, you help them. They can find their way and then everybody's better off.
On what 'The Florida Project' has to say about hidden homelessness:
It points to lots of problems. Some of the people that were living there had two or three jobs. And they just couldn't make it. It points to certain kinds of problems about the social welfare system and minimum wage and all these things. This movie doesn't point fingers. I think more deeply, it talks about our social responsibility to each other. It kind of suggests, or at least from my point of view, that we're better off taking care of each other. And you have the choice. Do you spend your energy or your resources on education and helping other people? Or do you spend it on prisons and cops? It comes down to that sometimes.
Rotten Apples: 'What if there was an IMDb for sexual misconduct allegations?'
You’ve likely heard of the movie review site Rotten Tomatoes, but how about Rotten Apples?
It’s a new online database that allows you to search if anyone associated with a TV show or a movie has been accused of sexual harassment or assault. The site, which only launched last week, is far from comprehensive and is a work in progress.
Rotten Apples is the brainchild of a group working at the Los Angeles-based advertising agency, Zambezi. Bekah Nutt, a co-creator of the site, told The Frame how they came up with the idea.
We were just chatting and someone said, what if there was an IMDb for sexual misconduct allegations? It felt like there were going to be more allegations that came out and it felt like it might be interesting and potentially useful to people to be able to have an easy way to track those.
Due to the flood of sexual misconduct allegations within the entertainment industry, keeping the website up-to-date has proved to be a challenge for Nutt and her team.
It's actually been a little harder to keep up with than I think any of us anticipated. What we do is just keep a running spreadsheet of people who allegations come up against along with links to reputable third party sources that have reported on those allegations. As those come up, we add them to the site. That is then cross-checked against a credits database — an open-source movie and TV credits database.
Nutt says Rotten Apples isn't a call for people to boycott movies. Instead, she hopes it will spark conversation.
It starts to make you think about what do you want to do? Do you want to continue watching? Is there a point where you are penalizing other people who worked on the project who don't have allegations against them who are innocent bystanders? I think that discussion has been a really great byproduct of the whole thing.
Italian filmmaker Marta Savina finds modern relevance in Franca Viola's 1965 rape case
The U.S. is going through a reckoning over issues of sexual assault and harassment against women. But, in the words of Italian actress Asia Argento: “This historic moment doesn’t mean much to Italy, sadly.”
Argento, who is among the women who have come forward with allegations of sexual assaults committed by Harvey Weinstein, has had to flee Italy for Germany because of a widespread backlash against her.
Italy does not have a great history of supporting victims of alleged sex crimes. For generations, women who were raped were shunned by society for no longer being a virgin unless they married their actual rapists. There was even an article in the law that said a “reparatory marriage” protects a rapist from being charged with a crime which was in place until 1981.
The woman who first successfully challenged that custom was 18-year-old Franca Viola.
Her story is told in the 2017 short film “Viola, Franca” by Italian filmmaker Marta Savina which premiered at the Tribeca Film Fest this year. Savina is now turning it into a feature-length film.
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In 1965, Viola was kidnapped and raped by a man who she had previously rejected. Instead of marrying him, she risked being deemed a pariah and insisted that he be tried for his crimes. With her family’s support, she won and the man was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
But society was slow to catch up. The law where a rapist could be protected from prosecution if he married his victim was not overturned until 1981.
The Frame's John Horn recently connected with Savina in Italy where she's working on the feature film version of 'Viola, Franca' to talk about the modern day importance of the story.
Interview Highlights:
Why was what happened to Franca Viola so common in Sicily at this time?
There was a very common thing called "fuitina," which is basically when a couple would elope, so they just disappear for a couple days then they come back and have to be married. So this was sometimes consensual, but sometimes it just wasn't, so the girl was forced to forced to marry her rapist. It was unfortunately very common and she was the first one that refused to go through with the wedding, which was completely unthinkable at the time.
What was the role of her family in the case?
Her family was always very supportive and very clearly defended her and supported her decisions. They endured threats and it wasn't just the public shaming that she was now "dishonerata," which means dishonored, because she had lost the only value that society attributed to her, her virginity, but also she was going against this very powerful family, so it was a very brave thing that her family did in supporting her throughout the court case and never turning their backs to her.
It seems as if the penalty that Franca faced is not dissimilar to the penalty that women faced in Hollywood for so long.
It's exactly the same, which is why it makes me so angry that we're still facing this and why I really want to make this movie at this time. It's crazy that it's still relevant to a story that happened in Sicily in 1965 in Los Angeles, it's literally happening right now in 2017. I think what really drove me to tell the story is we used to think of people that shape history and speak out as incredibly strong people and leaders, because it does take an enormous amount of courage and strength to sustain the backlash that comes from speaking out. Here is this small, very soft spoken young girl that no matter what stands up for her own right. It was just an incredible character for me. I'm 30 years old and sometimes it's really hard to stand up for who I am and who I think I want to be and the fact that this woman did it when she was 18 years old is incredibly inspiring to me.
And then you have today, with Asia Argento saying she had to leave Italy because of the backlash against her:
The backlash was brutal, I was furious and embarrassed. There was a magazine titled "Asia Argento, Madonna or whore?" they came out with this headline and I was just so infuriated because it's exactly the same choice that was granted to Franca 50-odd years ago. You have this binary choice as a woman, you can either be a Madonna or you can be a whore and it's incredible that this is still the truth in 2017, I think this needs to change right now.