Interview

In Cyrus, John C. Reilly plays John, a dejected, idle, middle-aged divorcee on the verge of withdrawing completely from the world. Still strangely close to his ex-wife (Catherine Keener), love for him is a belated, bad joke. Invited to a party that initially offers little relief from his miserable life, he quickly drinks, over shares, and becomes exceedingly vulnerable with women. Through the powers of spirited desperation and The Human League's "Don't You Want Me," he meets Molly (Marisa Tomei), with whom he has an immediate, punch-drunk connection. But, just as things appear to be making sense, Cyrus (Jonah Hill), Molly's twenty-one-year-old son, upsets the harmony with his unyielding manner and troubling, sometimes threatening sense of humor. Under the direction of Mark and Jay Duplass (The Puffy Chair, Humpday), the sparring and riotously paranoid Cold War that erupts between John and Cyrus blends comedy and candor. Varying in pitch and largely intuitive, Cyrus revels in the genuine breakdown and wonder of new relationships. I spoke with stars John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill after the film's SxSW premiere:

DURGA CHEW-BOSE: Cyrus was very well received last night at the Paramount, how did that feel?

JOHN C. REILLY: It felt great! And you know, the movie plays really well and I think it's surprising people with its honesty. The dialogue in the movie is very much like the way real people talk, which turns out to be kind of revolutionary compared to a lot of movies. But also Austin, like Sundance was, is a real movie lover town. No matter what kind of movie it is, Austin audiences go crazy for it! Plus Mark and Jay are local heroes, so there was a lot of love there for that reason.

CHEW-BOSE: You've expressed an interest in spreading the "Duplassian" method of shedding the storyboard way of filmmaking. Can you elaborate on how that worked on set for you both as actors?

JONAH HILL: My background from Judd Apatow and friends like Greg Mottola–great filmmakers who I love and have worked with–were pretty good about letting us open up and try and find something new and different. But it was never to this degree, on this film. Mark and Jay created a beautiful platform and we just had to walk on it without falling off. That's why their films are unique because something so bizarre and tone shifting can happen and no one knows it's going to happen...

REILLY: Including them you know...

HILL: And you can see them getting excited about it and us being shocked, or John saying something that I am completely unaware is going to happen. I appreciate Mark and Jay for embracing that.

CHEW-BOSE: In the movie, Marisa Tomei is a very convincing...

REILLY:...dysfunctional hippie mom?

CHEW-BOSE: Yes!

HILL: Yeah.

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In the wake of a project that fell through, Metal Gods, writer and director Matt Porterfield pieced together his original cast and crew, and returned to many of the same locations, to develop a new story: Putty Hill, which will have its North American premiere this week at Austin's South by Southwest festival. What began as a five-page treatment about a young man's heroin overdose and the eve of his funeral was soon cultivated into an interlace of fiction and non-fiction that observes, as well as unfastens, from the genre of unscripted narrative realism. At times, the film's stripped-down manner appears strained, as though expecting ruined beauty to creep from the cracks of a weathered street, or simply materialize in the dim lit mess of a teenager's dirty room. But, for the most part, Jeremy Saulnier's photography captures Porterfield's childhood Baltimore neighborhoods–swimming pools, bars, skate parks, churches and overgrown yards–and anchors the story of a community on the brink. Largely improvised, Putty Hill's documentary-style interviews depict characters broken by an untimely death, speaking with veteran candor and foregone absence.

I spoke with the film's lead, Sky Ferreira, about her initial involvement and role as Jenny in Metal Gods, and the eventual transition to Putty Hill.

DURGA CHEW-BOSE: For the initial Jenny, written for Metal Gods, you wrote journal entries in order to prepare for the role. How did you prepare for this younger, more vulnerable version of Jenny?

SKY FERREIRA: I didn't. I just had to jump into the situation and watch my surroundings for a week. I watched the people around me, their manners...The guy playing my father, I had never met him. I just watched some footage of him.

CHEW-BOSE: Spike [Sauers]?

FERREIRA: Yeah, met him only the day of.

CHEW-BOSE: What was your immediate reaction to your surroundings?

FERREIRA: I just sat in Baltimore and didn't talk to anyone and just watched. I'd only been once to do a screen test. I was very intimidated. It's very different from LA. I mean certain parts of LA are like that, everywhere is a bit like that but...It was a culture shock. I mean, I'd never been to trailer park before!

CHEW-BOSE: Since this film is done in documentary style, was it difficult to integrate yourself with other teenagers your age? Was it at all seamless?

FERREIRA: Kind of. It was always a bit awkward. I got into a fight once; that was scary.  I was in the car with Matt's [Porterfield] wife and I was on my way to the trailer park just stopping by, just to get a feel for what's around, and we drove like maybe forty-five minutes outside the city. There was a group of girls in this park and they saw me in the car and just started screaming so much shit at me. I got some pretty dirty looks some of the time.

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Coolly imparting character to highway rest stops and everyday people is a hallmark of great American road movies. In Bob Rafelson's 1970 Five Easy Pieces–the 40th anniversary of which will be celebrated with a run at Manhattan's Film Forum starting tomorrow–that fugitive spirit is met with hitchhikers and waitresses, rambling from diners to motels.

In his first starring role, Jack Nicholson plays Bobby Dupea, a hardened and callous roustabout who works on an oilrig in California. He treats his girlfriend, Rayette (Karen Black), like nothing more than a bad bowling partner, refusing her any tenderness or charm. Musing over a life she's imagined, Rayette listens to Tammy Wynette over and over with the tragic devotion of a teenager in love. As "Stand By Your Man" peaks in the background, Bobby, whose musical wunderkind is at first alluded to, halfheartedly drinks a beer and belittles her taste: "You play that thing one more time, I'm gonna melt it down into hair spay!"

Dupea's restless temper is both seeded in his past but also piqued by the landscape's slow and plaintive pace. At once burdened and indifferent toward his own musical genius, Bobby's distractions and subsequent new life offers little pleasure, and his friends–Elton, Stoney, Betty, Twinky–little attraction. Still, he remains perversely sharp as a malcontent. Unfulfilled and yet alive, he's ready to throw punches, sing songs, or abandon his car in the middle of traffic and jump onto a flatbed truck, merrily playing the piano on board. In that brief and wanton moment, Bobby Dupea is possessed by a revived energy as he bangs wildly on the piano keys. Around him cars honk and drivers yell.

But when news arrives of his father's declining health, the story's mood and manner shifts. On an island up the coast in Washington, Bobby's siblings and father live in isolation, nurturing their virtuoso talent. No more working-class America, no more cranky, metal machinery, dirt, dust, and hard hats, no more snap-button shirts, and trailer homes. Certainly no more Tammy Wynette. In black turtlenecks and tan suede blazers, even Bobby looks different. Conversation at the dinner table is quiet, courtly, and restrained, and class divide as well as other more intimate and familial tensions adopt the landscape's chilly and solemn climate.

At its center, the newly restored Five Easy Pieces recalls the autonomous immortality of the open road. With some cursory yet vital performances, the film, like its protagonist, offers a simple story whose only resolve is the need to keep moving: "Most of [my life] doesn't add up to much...things tend to get bad when I stay."

Five Easy Pieces opens at Film Forum February 26. Film Forum is located at 209 West Houston Street in New York.

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Synonymous with literary, turn of the century stories about class distinction, inheritance, duplicity, and circumstance, the name Merchant Ivory generates images of lofty and intricate dramas set against lush, slow paced Edwardian England. Despite the production company’s Academy Award-winning successes, the films were criticized their formulaic nature and absolute loyalty to original sources; Forster, Henry James, and long time screenwriting collaborator Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, to name a few. While ever prolific, the company’s cinematic range was often charged with being too stuffy and sedate, and the performances strained and one note. 

Thirty years after their original collaboration, Ismail Merchant and James Ivory finally succeeded in countering the naysayers with their 1992 adaptation of the EM Forster novel Howards End, starring Vanessa Redgrave, Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, and Helena Bohnam Carter. The film was celebrated for compelling performances by Redgrave, whose shadowlike rendering of the ashen Ruth Wilcox opens the film, and Thompson, whose poised portrayal of Margaret Schlegel evokes the nervous versatility of a woman caught trying to mediate divided worlds. Redgrave's passion is startlingly contained in her departed, nostalgic stare, whereas Thompson as Margaret is steadfast and alert, involved in London’s cultural and intellectual discourse. She is chatty and inquiring, offering tea and scones, delighting in the company of her two siblings. (Bonham Carter and Adrian Ross Magenty). However, she is exposed and often on the brink, subtly grasping at the sides of her dress as she struggles to quiet her tears, offering more jelly to avoid rising tension. 

The Criterion Collection's DVD release of the film includes a discussion with both director and producer; a long-time collaboration that recalls Odd Couple repartee and jousting. But more interesting are the interviews with costume designer Jenny Beavan and production designer Luciana Arrighi, who were confined by an eight million dollar budget, and yet managed to fashion an elaborate and historically accurate world. Included in the special features are the designers' watercolor visions and interpretations, as well as insight into their process and improvisations. In one enchanting scene, a sea of vibrant bluebells bewitches a field. Here, the film's sometimes oppressive air vanishes and a cool, dreamy moment comes alive. Arrighi describes the research and ingenuity involved in designing Howards End, but also remembers the serendipitous nature of scenes, like the final one, where one afternoon, she simply stumbled upon a meadow that perfectly matched the vision in Forster's classic novel.

Howards End is available today on Criterion Blu-Ray and DVD.

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