Actor-turned-director John Carroll Lynch talks about making "Lucky" with Stanton, who died earlier this month; the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is moving toward a 2019 opening; after Sofia Maldonado finished a mural in Long Beach, her return home was canceled by Hurricane Maria.
'Lucky': A tribute to Harry Dean Stanton that he never saw
The legendary character actor Harry Dean Stanton died this month at the age of 91.
He had incredible range — playing everything from a singing inmate called “Tramp” in the 1967 film, “Cool Hand Luke,” to a loving, hard-on-his-luck dad in “Pretty in Pink.”
Stanton was also one of the few character actors to move on to leading man status, with acclaimed, starring roles in “Paris, Texas” and “Repo Man."
In the new film, “Lucky” (opening Sept. 29), Stanton stars in the title role as an elderly, chain-smoking, rough-around-the-edges Navy veteran who's coming to terms with his own mortality after a fall in his kitchen.
If the character bears more than a slight resemblance to Stanton himself, that's because the movie was written — by Logan Sparks and Drago Sumonja — with Stanton specifically in mind. "Lucky" is directed by another veteran character actor, John Carroll Lynch. The film is Lynch's first turn as a director.
Lynch and Stanton both had roles in the HBO series, “Big Love,” but that’s not how they met. Instead, they first came across one another at the bar at Dan Tana’s, the West Hollywood restaurant where Stanton was a regular.
John Carroll Lynch stopped by The Frame studios recently to talk with John Horn about "Lucky" and about Harry Dean Stanton's legacy.
Interview highlights:
On how he and the writers negotiated with Stanton about how much of his own story he wanted to include in "Lucky":
I think there was an ongoing set of negotiations with that. I think for a long time, as [Logan Sparks and Drago Sumonja] were writing, they were certainly being inspired by him and they told him all about it. They would tell him about scenes they were writing. And in the pre-production stage, we would go over every Sunday and we would talk about the script. And he approached it as any actor would. He would negate sentences to wonder what they were about. Like he'd go, 'What if I didn't say that?' or 'I don't think I need that' or 'Why am I saying this?' Those questions, which actors do all the time. But the cross-current was always that much of what he talks about in the movie is autobiographical. He did serve in WWII, he did have moments as a child where he had existential fears ... So those things were in the movie and it was only during those times that I began to realize that some of the reticence wasn't just about negating the material just to see what the stories were that you need to tell, but also because it was, How much am I going to reveal of myself?
On whether he thinks Stanton knew on some level that this could be his last, if not one of his last, films:
I really couldn't say what it meant to him to make this movie as a last coda to his career. But I do know that the things that were said in the movie, the things that he talked about, were important to him to say.
On the scene in the film where Stanton breaks out into song at a party, singing "Volver, Volver" with a mariachi band:
The character is searching for some way to get over this fall that he's had, emotionally. And while there's nothing technically wrong with him, he's trying to figure out what to do with this sudden feeling at his age that he's not going to get over his fear of death, he's not going to get over that sense of mortality that he's suddenly face-to-face with. And the singing does that for him in the film. It starts the process. But that's the structural issue and the story issue and that's all true.
My experience of him is that while he was always feted as an actor, and should have been, I think he self-identified more — in my experience with him, I never asked him — as a musician first. And it was the only thing in the movie that he was precious about. About making sure that it was beautiful. When we were getting ready to do that [scene], he wanted to make sure that he was in good voice on the day, he wanted to make sure it was going to be good. In all the acting he was willing to let it fly and just see what happened. But in that, he wanted to make sure it was good.
On what he learned about acting from directing Stanton:
One is a willingness to be simply present and to wait for those things to happen and not worry about the doing of things. So many actors I know — myself [included] — there will come a time when the lens is on you and you feel the need to do something and you stop the process of listening and being. And he never did. Never. The other thing is he made it look effortless, in every single role. People don't want to work with [kids] and animals cause they're too real, they create a sense of falseness in whoever’s around them. That’s one of the reasons why they’re so aggravating as acting partners because they show your falseness so grossly and it’s embarrassing. Acting with Harry Dean could be like that, because he's going to be so real that you better come ready to be true. 'Cause if you're not, you're going to look really false ... Harry Dean made everybody better by doing that.
On the fact that Stanton never got to see the film and what he hoped he would have said about it:
He wanted to see it on the big screen, we wanted to show it to him that way ... and the opportunity just never happened ... The thing I would have wanted him to say is, 'So, we going over to [Dan] Tana's now?' That would have been great. He would have had notes, of course he would've. He would have had thoughts about it. And I know he saw pieces of the movie, but I think as an actor, he had done his work and you were just going to do with it what you do. And after he was finished, he didn't really have any ownership of it. He even said at some point somewhere that I saw in print: "I don't really see myself in this character." (laughs) Which I just love.
Behind the scenes at the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is being built at the corner of Fairfax Ave. and Wilshire Blvd., just west of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
The museum’s opening has been delayed several times, and won’t open until 2019. Museum officials just announced a $50 million gift from TV producer Haim Saban, but the academy still needs to raise about $100 million to meet the museum's $388 million cost.
Below are some renderings of the museum:
The museum, designed by architect Renzo Piano, features a massive sphere-shaped theater and is a combination of new construction and a renovation of the 1939 May Company building.
The museum will be dedicated to exploring the art and science of movies and filmmaking. Its collection has items representing elements of motion picture technology, costume design, production design, makeup and hairstyling, promotional materials, memorabilia and awards.
This include everything from Shirley Temple's tap shoes and Oscar trophy to the typewriter used to write the script for Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho."
Lucasfilm producer Kathleen Kennedy said in her opening remarks at the tour that the film community of Los Angeles has been eagerly awaiting a world-class museum dedicated to the medium that put the city on the map:
"I think I share with many of you in this room, that we're all kind of incredulous that this could be a company town and we don't have a motion picture museum," Kennedy said. "We should have the world's most preeminent motion picture museum and now we have the opportunity to have that."
Below are excerpts from John Horn's interview with museum director Kerry Brougher, on a morning when journalists were given a tour of the site. To listen to the full piece, click on the player above. For photos, click on the slideshow above.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS:
How to build a museum dedicated to film:
The Academy is made up of all these great artists. And these artists collaborate together to make these films. So what I wanted to do was actually create a permanent exhibition which took a look at the moviemaking process, all the way from the 19th Century to the present. That is the heart of the museum. Then it's important to have temporary exhibitions just like it is in any museum, in which you're constantly rotating and doing deep dives into certain directors, retrospectives, or even various social issues or thematic exhibitions.
On the Academy Museum's sphere:
I think the idea of a sphere is actually something that Renzo [Piano] wanted to do that comes out of a thinking process about what a movie theater is ... A theater is a machine that you climb into. And that machine then takes you somewhere else. It's a transportation machine, a vehicle for getting you one place to somewhere else. So in a movie theater you sit down and you're launched into some other time, some other exotic location, destination, other people's lives. And I think he wanted to actually create a kind of machine that looked like it would take you somewhere else.
Designing the museum to work with its exhibitions:
I've had some great talks with Renzo about this. And I think we have a kind of nice understanding of one another in what our needs have been. I actually feel like we need to think about the architecture when we're actually creating the exhibitions. One of the great things is that Renzo's sensibility with architecture just naturally lends itself to a kind of cinematic concept. Because what he likes to do is to work with light and shadow a lot and that's what we like to do with these exhibitions as well. Light and shadow is even a subject that we can tackle here at this museum. He also works with compression and expansion. Small intimate moments and then bursts out with big landscapes. And film is very much that way too. You have quiet moments and you have very exciting scenes that then happen.
How touring the museum will be like a movie:
You'll be on a journey. You'll be a little bit like Dorothy in the "Wizard of Oz." You want to go off on an adventure and you'll come back with better knowledge about yourself and everyone else and about film when you come out of the museum. The whole museum is the Yellow Brick Road, I think.
To hear John Horn's full interview with Kerry Brougher, click on the player above. View photos from the tour and the museum collection in the slideshow above.
Puerto Rican artist Sofia Maldonado on her homeland's humanitarian crisis
Sofia Maldonado is an artist whose outdoor mural, “Promesa,” is currently in "Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago" — the Pacific Standard Time exhibition at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach.
Maldonado is a native of Puerto Rico and she was creating her mural in Long Beach as Hurricane Maria made its way to her homeland.
She was due to return to Puerto Rico on the day the storm hit. She instead made her way to her brother’s home in New York, where they’ve been trying to keep up with events on the island in the devastating wake of the hurricane.
Maldonado says her parents are safe, but communication has been sparse due to limited cellphone reception. Her studio in the Miramar neighborhood of San Juan did not suffer much damage. There are yet to be reports about damages to cultural institutions on the island.
When The Frame's John Horn spoke with Maldonado by phone, she talked about how she and others in the Puerto Rican diaspora are helping with relief efforts.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS:
On the situation on the ground in Puerto Rico:
We already had the Irma hurricane that hit us. There were people already with no light and water. And then, a week later, Maria came and it was a hurricane that gained velocity very fast. When it hit, I know the island shut down. It was not until two days after that some people started to get their cellphones and we were able to see how bad it hit the island. There were areas that were totally flooded. Mostly all the trees are gone. If you had a wooden house, forget about it. That's also gone.
On limited communication on the island:
My parents are okay. They reached [me] after almost four days. I didn't have communication with them, but luckily they live in old San Juan and I was able to reach out through different neighbors. It's a very united community. It's not easy to communicate. You have to wait until your loved ones call you. I have a lot of friends that haven't been able to contact their parents or family yet. Basically, they have to wait until they have a signal or they have access to a landline or a neighbor.
How the Jones Act affects aid:
Puerto Rico has The Jones Act, imposed by the United States after the first world war. We can only receive ships that are U.S.-based. So if France or like Germany wants to help us, they can't really bring supplies. If that act will be removed from our constitution that would be great because we can definitely get help from different countries. I think this also puts another thing on the table: the difficulties that we have as a territory and not only with the crisis — the debt crisis — but now we have a humanitarian crisis. [Editor's note: The Trump Administration has waived The Jones Act.]
When she thinks she will return:
It's going to be maybe until mid-October. I remain here in New York. Most of the Puerto Ricans in the diaspora, we've been helping as much as we can. While I'm here, I'm trying to help out with different initiatives, keeping the viral media and the viral information of Puerto Rico going both ways. From donations that you can do, to different texts I get from neighbors. If there's a bank open or restaurant open or if there's a gas station open, I go both ways with the communication for the people that are on the island and for the people that are outside of the island and can help.
To hear John Horn's full interview with Sofia Maldonado, click on the player above.