interviews Richard LaGraveneseTHIS PAGE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY PICPAL.COM THE PICTURE PALACE
interviews Richard LaGraveneseRichard LaGravenese's movie career began with his original screenplay, The Fisher King, but lately, he's been known as the writer who carves honorable drama out of unlikely books, such as Bridges of Madison County, The Horse Whisperer, and Beloved. Returning to writing his own material for his directorial debut, Living Out Loud, LaGravenese made an appealing, often marvelous story about loneliness in the big city, and the tentative gestures his characters make toward some kind of contact. Holly Hunter is magnificent in the central role, giving a tactile, forceful performance as Judith, the divorced wife of a wealthy doctor who must now scrape by despite her Fifth Avenue address.
RP - What came from the Chekhov stories, "The Kiss" and "Misery"?
RL - Loneliness was one of the main themes. Isolation and the need for connection that we all have, the need to be connected to someone else. The need to be seen. I find it an empowering experience. I usually have this with strangers. Like at parties, when you connect with somebody, you have this incredible conversation and you never see them again the rest of your life.
RP - You have the big scene, let's call it the sapphic dance interlude, we see Judith in the women's dance club, and she fantasizes this lovely, choreographed dance number. Some filmmakers might have taken it farther for titillation, but for you, it's a payoff for her growing confidence, the private fantasies she's been allowed.
RL - That dance said what I wanted to say. It evolved as images in my head that I would write down. I had that dance in my head for two years. Every time I would go to the gym, I would have my headphones on on the treadmill and I would hear that Brownstone song ["If You Love Me"] and I would choreograph this scene in my head over and over and over. Then as the script was writing itself, this transitional scene for her was already worked out.
RP - Is there a danger in having so many scenes with alcohol allowing the characters to reveal feelings?
RL - Yes. I was conscious of that more in the editing and I pulled back a lot. Again, these are the things you learn. It's easy to write a character making a confession and have them drunk. These are the things I'm learning, how to find deeper ways of doing that, of communicating that.
RP - Why have you worked with so many actor-directors?
RL - I don't know. Five of the ten scripts I've done have been with actor-directors. When I was a kid, the reason I loved movies was because of the actors. I love watching actors do great things. When I writed, I like to give actors great parts.
RP - Why are you so close to women characters?
RL - I had two older sisters and a mother. I think that had something to do with it, growing up in a house of women. I listened a lot. And I was also the youngest. I listened to a lot of older women. As a writer, I don't know why, I always thought when I wrote female characters, I had more possibilities. I could go more places. Maybe because I like to write emotional things and women twill tend to go there more. But as far as a character that has fantasies and outbursts, which I like doing, I find a female can take me there. I'd like to write a male character with that spirit, that kind of imagination and adventure that I sense in women.
