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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.

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