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ARTISTS AND ROLE MODELS: AN INTERVIEW WITH ATOM EGOYAN

October 12th, 2005 by Scott Marks

Atom Egoyan directs Kevin Bacon in WHERE THE TRUTH LIES (2005)

Where the Truth Lies (2005)

Directed by: Atom Egoyan
Written by: Rupert Holmes, Atom Egoyan
Cast: Kevin Bacon, Colin Firth, Alison Lohman, David Hayman, Rachel Blanchard, Maury Chaykin, Sonja Bennett, Kristin Adams, Deborah Grover, Beau Starr, Arsinée Khanjian, Gabrielle Rose, Don McKellar, David Hemblen, John Moraitis
Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1

Rating: ★★★½☆

It was your typical milky-white nine a. m. in San Diego, but Atom Egoyan, on the phone from his office in Toronto, was far from gloomy.

The director spoke passionately (and rapidly) about his latest feature Where the Truth Lies, a fictionalized account of a murder that may or may not involve showbiz royalty.

Egoyan is a brilliant independent writer/director whose cold, clinical and frequently nasty films (Calendar, Exotica, The Sweet Hereafter) reflect a similar sensibility to that of fellow countryman David Cronenberg. While Cronenberg is a master of psychological horror, Egoyan excels at dysfunctional relationships best viewed from a distance. What better subjects than Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, comedy’s most publicly divorced duo?

It’s America in the fifties and Lanny Morris (Kevin Bacon) and Vince Collins (Colin Firth) are the country’s comedic pulse. A classic duo — Lanny is the crazy schtick comic, while British Vince is his cool and collected straight man—the boys seem equally at home wetting the eyes of adoring nightclub patrons as they do Telethon viewers hooked on their pity pitch. They are at the top of their game, wealthy, powerful, and popular beyond compare until one day when a young hotel maid inexplicably turns up dead in the boys’ suite.

The project presented Egoyan with several new hurdles to conquer. Budgeted at $25 million, it’s his biggest, most commercial film to date. It is also his first film to be shot on American soil. Perhaps the leading challenge was in the production design. This is the director’s first period, make that periods, piece; half of the film takes place at the scene of the crime, a flashback to the 1959 Annual Veteran’s Day Polio Telethon. Intercut is a distanced seventies perspective where we look back on the events through the eyes of a young journalist (Alison Lohman) wanting to clear their names.

Working closely with production designer Phillip Barker and cinematographer Paul Sarossy, Egoyan had a high time “reconstructing the style of Miami’s Fontainebleau Hotel.”

“This deco-reinterpretation proved to be a lot more than just finding locations,” Egoyan said. “Most of my films keep a pretty traditional approach, but this time we wanted an enhanced feel and used a lot of diffusion.” His creativity is further sparked by a loyal stock company of crew members and the director finds “noting more gratifying than working with a team over a number of films and redefining yourself.”

When asked his earliest memory in a movie theater the moment, if not the director, was quite specific. “I went with my grandmother to see ‘The Sandpipers’ (sic),” he said. “I remember a scene where a character is crushed to death by a piston in a boat.” When told the director’s name, Egoyan hesitates and asks. “Was that Vincente Minnelli?”

During the production, Hollywood glamor was his textbook and Minnelli one of the prime authors. Through an expressionist use of light, color and art direction the film excels at recapturing the embossed Technicolor lushness of the forties and fifties. “I watched a lot of Minnelli while preparing for the film,” Egoyan recalled, “most notably his two scathing Hollywood exposes The Bad and the Beautiful and Two Weeks in Another Town.

“You have all these sections where Lanny is describing his world as he remembers it,” Egoyan continued. “When it came to putting it all on film, he would not have hired Atom Egoyan to direct that. A guy like Lanny would have hired Vincente Minnelli.” Other prime influences were All About Eve, a lot of noir and neo-noir, Vertigo, the use of voiceover in both Sunset Boulevard and A Letter to Three Wives, and Gilda, the film Egoyan calls “the most glamorous ever made.”

Having reached a point in my cinematic education where I see films weeks before they open and frequently know nothing about them going in, I approached Where the Truth Lies as I would any other Egoyan film - eager and grateful.

Little did I know this film centered around a personal deity. The closest I’ve come to Paris is French’s mustard, yet most of my adult life was spent defending Jerry Lewis over any other comedic artist. It’s been a tough road. Most Americans either hate Monsieur Jerry or they despise him.

One of life’s constants, Jerry began as the best friend a fifty-foot screen had to offer a five-year-old. As I grew so did my ability to appreciate his artistry and I am not ashamed to mention him in the same breath with the towering likes of Keaton, Groucho, Harold Lloyd, Ernie Kovacs and W. C. Fields.

On the directing side, he holds his own with Keaton, Ernst Lubitsch, Frank Tashlin, and Jacques Tati. Call me Rupert Pupkin, but for the past thirty years I have never felt the hot Labor Day sun beating down on my face because I’m indoors staying up and watching the stars come out on Jerry’s annual Love-In.

For years, Egoyan was right there on the front lines with me.

“Growing up, I was a big fan of their comedy and was one of those kids who woke up every Sunday morning and watched Martin and Lewis movies on TV,” he remembered. “And I never missed a Telethon.”

In addition to Dean & Jerry, there were other comedy pardners to plumb and Egoyan combed through hours of footage. The tension “between public mythology and private history” led him to consider the careers of Rowan and Martin and The Smothers Brothers as well. “At times there’s more Abbott & Costello in Lanny and Vince than Martin & Lewis.’ he adds “The thing that fascinates me about the entertainment industry is that it involves constructing a persona; that is, it involves representing something other than who you are. And, by doing that so well, people want to believe it. That is what’s at the heart of the story: who are these people?”

I can see Bob Hope using Bing’s Dumbo ears to pin back his ankles, or Costello bent over a sink really screaming, “Hey Abbott,” but Martin tailgating Lewis while the funnyman/humanitarian is in mid-hetero hump? Is nothing sacred?

Obviously not, because the scene in question earned the film a dreaded ‘NC-17′ rating. When asked whether the blue-noses would have been a bit more accommodating had the scene in question not involved gay sex he replied, “I’m not sure. We filmed it in a bright, traditional Hollywood style with well know actors. If this was a cast of unknowns shot with a handheld camera on grainy stock they wouldn’t have batted an eye.” The topic displeases him. “This is my biggest film to date and this move by the ratings board makes me feel condemned to be on the margins.”

How would Mr. Lewis feel were He to dignify the film with a viewing? “I hope that he wouldn’t take it personally,” he was quick to add. “I thought the relationships were really interesting. Maybe I’m naive, but I tried to construct another act, create another duo. I am fascinated by the nature of that type of marriage and how their ways of communicating were constrained. It’s a publicly celebrated and adored relationship that could not be consummated: an Ego/Id dynamic trying to control and tame each other.”

Based on a novel by Rupert Holmes, Egoyan was turned off by the author’s direct association to the legendary team. “Laying them oven an existing act was unnecessary,” he noted. Lanny became a mix of Jerry, Lenny Bruce, the “pre-Jerry Lee Lewis Elvis,” and “a lot of Louis Prima.”

Surprise and a little disappointment set in when the film strayed in the direction of a whodunit as opposed to a continued meditation on celebrity demystification. “This very public event, the Telethon,” Egoyan said, “contrasted to the murder seemed to be very strong. The world of popular entertainment and an event that everyone has access to and this thing that happened in a hotel room that no one had access to fascinated me.”

Currently Egoyan is focusing on his second love, opera. “I’m remounting a production of Wagner’s The Ring in Toronto. As for his next film, “I’m writing, but have nothing concrete yet.” He also oversees Camera, a fifty-seat cinema/media gallery with a bar. “We program independent work and art films. It’s something I wanted to do since I was a kid.” (Check it out at camerabar.ca.) He plans to exhibit a recent film of his shot on video for next to nothing. “It’s funny how I find myself balancing between the most expensive film I ever made and one with no budget at all.”

One publicist’s dream is another one’s nightmare. How serendipitous is it that the publication of “Dean and Me (A Love Story),” Jerry’s love letter to his ex-partner, coincides with the film’s release. Egoyan has yet to read it, but he did have to laugh when informed of the book’s most “did we really need to know that” moment.

Anyone who reads Lewis’s autobiography after seeing Egoyan’s film is guaranteed to glean new insight from the passage where the older, more experienced Dean checks freshman Jerry for crabs.

Egoyan asked, “Is that really in there?” After a moment he let loose his biggest laugh during the thirty-minute phoner. “That’s right up my alley!”

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