The Cinema Lounge

An Interview with John Madden, Director of Proof

By Leslie Weisman, DC Film Society Member

I represented the DC Film Society in interviewing award-winning director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Ethan Frome), whose latest film opens soon in the Washington, DC area. Proof, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins, Jake Gyllenhaal and Hope Davis, is based on its theatrical counterpart, which has the distinction of being the longest-running Broadway play since Amadeus, and in which Madden directed Paltrow in her London theater debut. Madden was an enthusiastic and engaging interviewee who was never at a loss for words, revealing a love for the play, the film, the characters, the actors who play them, and the intensely human story they tell.

Leslie Weisman: The acting in Proof is, of course, superb. I was surprised, though, at the exchange between Catherine and her father at the beginning, which seemed a little strained--not only within the film, but it seemed as if even the actors were holding back a bit. Was this deliberate? Was it your decision to kind of clue the audience in, to let them know there were going to be ambiguities strewn throughout the film?
John Madden: It's an odd conversation, is the truth of it. I don't want to say too much, because it gives away why that conversation is slightly odd. There is something kind of intimate, yet distant about the conversation. You notice they never actually touch, which is what you expect to happen in the scene. And I'm very ready for, and used to the idea that people feel slightly uneasy at that point and say, "Gosh, this feels a bit odd." But of course it's odd for a reason. I won't say it was a conscious choice, I won't say I said, "Actually you acted that too well; do it a little less well" (laughs) or anything like that. It's in the nature of the piece. And she's saying his lines and he's saying her lines, for obvious reasons, when you know. Just to see what that means. The point is that he is the way she's remembering him, of course. She also remembers him as both sort of controlling and reassuring at the same time. So there are all kinds of interesting things going on there.

Leslie Weisman: That can be said of the entire film, though--that it's seen from her POV.
John Madden: Very much so, and that was one of the things I wanted to come to the surface in transferring the story to cinema, because there is a submerged narrative in the play which has to do with her own view of herself, whether she's lost her sense of self. Because she's sublimated so much of herself into her father, trying to be his mathematical kind of soul in some way, but also taking care of him, and the effort to convince him that he's still doing meaningful work has obviously meant that she's lost the boundaries between herself and him. But what I felt was really interesting was to what extent is she a reliable witness of her own experience. When she remembers something, does that mean it's true, or is she remembering it because she wants it to be true? And that's the idea the whole story is getting at. Ambiguity is crucial; everything is ambiguous. The music is ambiguous; we made sure that the score never went into a major key because it's always unresolved. It's unresolved because she's in a state of doubt, and the doubt actually increases as she's subjected to the forces of the story: a sister who wants her to go in one direction, a boy--a young guy--who wants her to go in another direction, a father who wants her to go in another direction still. So it was interesting in the film to be able to utilize that subjectivity, in the way the film moves backwards and forwards in time, disorients the audience as well--intentionally--so that you're left thinking, "Oh, I see, it's that," and then the next minute, you think, "No, wait a minute, it isn't--it might be that." That's part of the pleasure of the story, I think: it's sort of a mystery story and you're trying to make up your mind what is the true version. The title of the film resonates with that idea--can you know something verifiably to be true--and in human experience, of course, you can't. You have to believe something is true.

Leslie Weisman: One final follow-up, if I may. Is the happy ending, then, also questionable?
John Madden: Well, you know, "happy ending" is such a dangerous term, which always sounds as if it's engineered, rather than earned.

Leslie Weisman: Exactly. Which is why I asked.
John Madden: I think that it's happy in the sense that she begins to claim her own life. And she claims her own life with all the implications that that means. It's contained in that very, very rich little exchange between the Gwyneth Paltrow character and the Jake Gyllenhall character at the end of the movie. So, deliberately, there is some ambiguity there.

Leslie Weisman: As it is with creativity in any manifestation.
John Madden: Yes. Hopefully, that's what makes it provocative.
Leslie Weisman: Yes, that's why I asked.
John Madden: You obviously get it completely! And so I'm thrilled.

Question: I read somewhere that when you first got the play, you enjoyed the writing quite intensely, but you didn't see it as a movie.
John Madden: Yes. Actually I got a screenplay first, so that is why I was thinking about it in those terms. And that's exactly right. It was a very particular piece that needed, from my point of view, to find a very particular form in film. Then some time later I met David [Auburn], the writer, because I thought the characters and the writing, and the conceptual sort of world of it, was very interesting.

Question: So to work it out, is that why you took on the task of directing it onstage?
John Madden: Well, yes, but that sort of happened over time, really. I met David, saw the play--didn't really think anything more about it except to think "what a terrific play"--and then on a completely separate track, I'd been talking about doing a play at the Donmar in London [the Donmar Warehouse theater, where Madden had produced Proof with Gwyneth Paltrow in her London stage debut]--Sam Mendes and I had been talking about doing something, He said: "We just got the rights to Proof. Is that something you'd be interested in doing?" I had been thinking of doing a revival, or a modern play or something, and I thought, "no, I'll do that," because I thought it was very interesting. And then, because Miramax by this time had--unbeknownst to me--acquired the rights, they asked me to do the film, and I said, "Y'know, wait a minute--I'm doing the play, so just don't confuse the issue here." But I did think, "Do I want somebody else to do a film of this? No, I don't; I'm doing a play now, so I'd like to think about it." And then I started to keep it in the back of my head; it didn't get in the way at all when I was directing the play. It was only when I started watching the play, that I made a lot of discoveries about the material while rehearsing.

Question: Were you cognizant of, "this would work in a movie, this wouldn't work in a movie..."
John Madden: I did start to think that--it sort of raised that subjective element of the story much closer to the surface. And I was really rather fascinated by the idea that she did not herself want to believe that it was her work. Because she was terrified about what that would say about her. And in a sense, I think she is terrified about this thing that she's hidden; she dare not look at it again, she doesn't know what it says about her; she wouldn't trust herself to read it, and think that it would make any sense. So, all of those ideas started to lead me to think that there was an interesting way in which you could use them cinematically, and that the solution to making a film had to do with the structure of the narrative, as much as to do with the more conventional approach, which also one wants to do in opening it.

Question: You brought up the topic of opening. Mike Nichols' production of Closer last year was so dialogue-driven, that here you actually had action. Was that action not in the original stage version? The church scene?
John Madden: No, the funeral and the party were both offstage events in the play. The play does not deal with her life at Northwestern at all...

Question: Did you talk to the screenwriter, who's also the playwright, to fill in those holes?
John Madden: David had already explored some of those things, for example, the idea that the funeral would be a part of it; other things arrived much later in the process. And most particularly is the process where you are cross-cutting between the verification of the proof in present time, the sister's deconstruction of the house in present time, and the writing of the proof in past time--except that we're not able to interpret who is the author of that proof. And when that sequence comes together and arrives at a sort of resolution, is the exact moment you think, "Wait a minute, I didn't think that was what was happening, I thought the opposite was happening," and then it explodes into a sort of convulsion reaction in present time. None of that, obviously, was in the play. And that's one of the things that you could develop cinematically.

Question: Could you talk about the uses of the actual math in the film?
John Madden: Yes, math does present a particularly difficult problem in dramatic terms because it's a self-enclosed system, a self-enclosed language. It's not susceptible to articulation in any other form that we could comprehend it. Also, what exactly the proof is, is not the point of the story. It's simply the idea that something utterly extraordinary has been stumbled upon. Nevertheless the principles of mathematical deduction throws up certain analogies of human behavior. For example, the exchange between the father and the daughter you referred to in the first question is a kind of deductive logic, or exercise in philosophical logic that is very peculiar when you hear it the first time. So math is a sort of metaphor in the story; one of the incidental pleasures is that you get a different view of mathematicians at work than what might be thought of as the norm--mathematical "geeks"--the competitiveness, the feeling you're over the hill at 25. A lot of rather startling revelations, but nevertheless true--and the incredible passion that the subject generates, of which Hal is the most obvious exponent in the film.

Leslie Weisman: We talked about how the film shifts back and forth in time without warning, and at first it is very disconcerting for the viewer, who doesn't know where he or she is. But once you get used to it, you become more prepared for it. Now, is this another kind of example of a cinematic illustration of the elusiveness of the mathematical proof itself, and also the elusiveness of reality?
John Madden: Yes, certainly--the idea I think that you can get lost--that she is adrift and doesn't have anything to fasten onto. Structurally, the principle behind the movement through time is rooted in a psychological reality, which is that in some way, her mind is drifting back to a particular point which she feels is crucial, just as a mathematician at a certain point may say, "I don't understand how I've been led up this tributary here; I must work my way back to this; I knew this was true then," is sort of what she's doing, and she keeps going back to that point where she thinks the big mistake was made, when she left her father to be on his own. Which makes sense, retrospectively. There wasn't a lot of talk when we were doing it because when the script was done, the scenes in the present were in normal print and the scenes in the past were italicized so the people didn't get lost in the script. So everybody assumed I was going to treat the past scenes photographically in some way that set them off. And I didn't--the whole point is the ambiguity; which is why the first time it happens it's very startling, you know: somebody bumps into somebody and then, that transforms into her jumping out of her skin--because her father is there, just as the father later jumps out of his skin because she's behind him, and all of this kind of thing. It has a sort of analogy with the mathematical world. I didn't want to push it too hard because in the end, it's a story about human interaction. And it's important for me to emphasize when I'm talking about it, because otherwise, it can sound so forbidding to people, that it isn't really about math, it's about people, and because it's about someone who's fearful of losing her sanity, it's not somehow depressing, I think it's actually funny and other things besides.

Leslie Weisman: That's why I was wondering, because the proof itself is so elusive, and sometimes reality seems to be slipping between the cracks, and reality is as elusive as the mathematical proof.
John Madden: Yes. Well and also, there are competing versions, aren't there? That's the other thing, which is true of life, generally speaking--whose version will you choose to believe? Quite an interesting development.

Question: You've had what many would claim was considerable critical or box-office success. As a director yourself, how would you define a successful movie?
John Madden: Well, a movie that people go to see. That's a stupid answer in way. (laughs). The kind of movies I tend to make are the kind of movies that have to sort of earn their audience. The common factor in my work is character, generally speaking. But I can find satisfaction in having made a movie; it's obviously gratifying if my satisfaction is reflected in the satisfaction that other people find.

Question: Well, let me ask you then: Do you find Captain Corelli's Mandolin a successful movie?
John Madden: If you're asking me, am I unhappy about it or would I apologize for it, I wouldn't. On its own terms I think yes. I feel that that film had two problems. One of them called for an audience to accept a convention which was probably hard for them to accept; plus Nick Cage was in a role in which the audience wasn't necessarily prepared to see him. But because it was a multi-linguistic environment, unless you told the story in subtitles, you pretty much have to tell the story in accented English, which I think was for a lot of people initially a barrier. And I was asked, "Why did you decide to do the movie with accents?" I said, "Well let me turn the question back to you. How could you have done this movie without accents?" Which is not a defense, but it's a truth. The other thing is that it possibly too ambitious to think that you could compress that very very complex, huge book into a very small screenplay.

Question: That's what I mean--you're faced with converting Proof from the stage to the screen.
John Madden: No, I think that has to do with the scale of a project to a film; big, sprawling epics don't necessarily benefit from compression. There was so much about the book in the level of incident and the level of character and the level of setting; I loved the idea that it was a war and what was happening over the horizon somewhere would eventually engulf the characters. And it was about intoxication, in a similar way to Shakespeare in Love, in a way of being in a sort of suspended zone where the normal rules didn't apply. So there's a lot in the film I'm very proud of. Of course I have to accept the fact that it didn't work for an audience in quite the way that I would have hoped. But that's in the nature of what I do; you win some and you lose some (laughs). It's true, and having won so hugely and so gratifyingly I suppose with Shakespeare, I had it coming. (laughter all around).

Question: How do you think it will do in the Oscar considerations? I know you don't like to talk about it beforehand, and I know it was talked about a lot for last year's Oscars. Why was it pushed ahead?
John Madden: There are a couple of reasons, actually, none of them to do with the film. There was a sort of feeling that we had finished it late--it was the end of October and we weren't even sure we would finish it then. The only reason for releasing it on December 31 was as a sort of Oscar bait. It is, however, the kind of film that is appropriate for the fall, because it's a thoughtful film which offers some pleasure in retrospect as you start to kind of go through the movie again. Your hope only is that people will go to see the film, and I rely on you guys for that--it's a tough sell because it's about a depressed girl who's wondering if she's going insane, and it's about mathematics, which makes people run in the opposite direction.

Leslie Weisman: But look at the smash run it had on Broadway.
John Madden: Well, that's absolutely true, and so my hope is that the movie will kind of do critically well enough to hold its place in the marketplace, long enough for word of mouth to build on it. It's a platform release similar to Closer--with which it shares the provenance of a play; but I think it's a very different kind of film. I think Gwyneth gives a completely phenomenal performance in it; so does Hope Davis. All the acting is amazing. The important thing for me is that people see it. It's a good time for it to be coming out: it's the end of a summer where obviously, the fare is very, very different. And actually, it's circumstantial, it has to do with how many films were in a position to be released last year. But it is not something I'd particularly care to talk about, because it's as if one's making the movie for that purpose, and it isn't. But do I think Gwyneth’s performance is outstanding, as a lead performance? I absolutely do. Do I think Hope’s is outstanding, and Tony’s, and Jake’s? I absolutely do; Jake’s got two other movies coming out this year, that show his range of —

Question: One of which you’re directing. Do you think — (laughter all around)
John Madden: Well, it’s a modest film, it’s a much more modest film, and you know, comparisons are so odious, really; I was up against Steven Spielberg last time, and (more laughter) —
Question: But you won the big one!
John Madden: Yes, I won the big one, it’s true.

Even More Movie Quotes

Page to Screen: Everything Is Illuminated

By Jean Williams, DC Film Society Member

[Warning: there are some spoilers in this story]

In a recent Washington Post article, Stephen Hunter posed three questions: “Should you read the book before you see the movie? Does it matter if they change the book? If you know how it ends, what’s the point in seeing it?” His answers were: “Maybe. No. If you think this way, you’re an idiot.” I partly agree and partly disagree with his conclusions.

Whether inspired by novels, plays, short stories or even comic books--I generally believe everyone ought to read more. Reading is an art; and through the art of reading, we discover what we believe. There are many different levels of “reading”--but they all share the same core elements: Reflect Enjoy Analyze Discuss. Films can be “read”. So can dance performances, museum exhibitions and people engaged in ordinary daily activities like walking down the street.

In page to screen adaptations, while differences are unavoidable, a close reading of them can be a valuable exercise. Certainly novels and films “signify” differently. “How” they mean is a much more interesting question than “what” they mean. Therefore, it matters greatly how and why “they” changed the book! The question is what consequences do alterations to the “hinge points” of the narrative have on the development of the story.

Film adaptations can be insightful and innovative interpretations. But even overly simplistic cinematic interpretations can help underscore what is unique about source text and what makes it good literature. Thus, a failed film adaptation can “make” a book: unskilled readers can be moved beyond mere plot and characterization; and skilled readers may be challenged to interpret the source material in new ways.

Jonathan Safran Foer’s approach to the raw material of the Holocaust in Everything is Illuminated is that “Humorous is the only truthful way to tell a sad story.” And his dazzling narrative style--set up as a written correspondence between a young Ukrainian “interpreter”, Alexander Perchov, and his young American heritage tour “client”, Jonathan Safran Foer is laugh out loud funny. The English language has not been so fractured since Richard Sheridan's Mrs. Malaprop in the play The Rivals (1775). And Foer goes back to approximately that date for his “B” story arc--the fairy tale “history” of the lusty, eccentric villagers of Trachimbrod, which serves as hilarious social commentary on the development of the Jewish faith (the Upright congregation versus the Slouchers) which is interspersed with Alex’s contemporary narrative.

One of the greatest challenges in adapting a story like Everything is Illuminated to the screen is temporal. American viewing audiences seemingly have a preference for having their visual stories told in 90 minutes flat. A novel like Everything is Illuminated is all about point of view and slow revelation of character. While there is a plot, it is as meandering as the Brod river. In his screen writing and directorial debut, Liev Schreiber has so radically reworked the underlying structure of the critically acclaimed novel (by completely eliminating Jonathan’s Trachimbrod “history”) that it is less “illuminating” of the source material as it is significant reinterpretation--and something is definitely lost in the translation.

The film is never quite as smartly funny or as devastatingly horrifying as the edge put on the tale by its more leisurely spinning out in written form. Part of the reason may also be that Elijah Wood is simply no Bill Murray. His Jonathan is less bemused than befuddled and neurotic on his trip to the “Old Country” to discover his roots. The oversized magnifying spectacles Wood is forced to wear throughout much of the film give him a goofy bug-eyed look that contrasts dramatically with the cocky, over-compensating Alex, played to much greater effect by Eugene Hutz. Hutz’s Alex inhabits a Ukraine entirely contemporaneous with the America of his imagination--at least in his own mind.

In film adaptation, there are clearly transferable elements such as the logic and linear chronology, as well as those more “vertical” in nature such as psychology and identity--which influence our reading of narrative. Informational concepts such as character and atmosphere, names, ages, and professions of characters are often quite amenable to screen transfer. But when they are deleted or altered it can lead to audience dissatisfaction. Unfortunately, Everything is Illuminated is plagued with these variances.

The film begins promisingly enough. Jonathan’s paranoia about the situation into which he has placed himself does not seem unreasonable given Schreiber’s visual examples of generational domestic violence in Alex’s home and the continual threat of the unknown--unknown people and places, customs, language, lifestyle, etc. Jonathan is repeatedly objectified as “the Jew”, his difference highlighted in myriad not-so-subtle ways, and the menace is palpable that in the Ukraine, just like in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific: “You've got to be taught to hate and fear; You've got to be taught from year to year; It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear; You've got to be carefully taught...”

Ultimately Everything is Illuminated is about secrets and betrayals. And here, at the critical juncture, Schreiber seems to take his foot off the dramatic gas pedal. His grandfather Alex betrays not his best friend, a Jew--but himself. Schreiber transforms the gentile Ukrainian--who, in Foer’s story, fingered his best friend in a line-up- into a Jew who miraculously survives a mass execution only to escape, hide and deny his religious heritage for the next 50 years.

Thus, on this cinematic heritage tour, rather than Jonathan’s immigrant grandmother’s worst observation being confirmed--that the Nazis were originally believed by the Jews to be preferable to the Ukrainians--grandson Alex discovers that he and Jonathan have more in common than either of them previously thought. Alex the grandfather kills himself, not out of guilt over betrayal of his best friend--but over the betrayal of his own identity. Alex’s family is at last able to acknowledge and embrace its Jewish heritage closing the historical gap between the Ukrainians and Jonathan’s family in the US.

This is underscored by the addition of a coda in which Jonathan, returning from his trip and passing through a major airport, comes to recognize the faces of many of those who had frightened and intimidated him in the Ukraine in the ordinary benign faces of a flight attendant, security screener, etc. Jonathan gives each an imperceptible nod and smile--seemingly acknowledging that “we are all the same” and that somehow he no longer has anything to fear being freed from the secrets of the past. This ideology is so fundamentally different from that contained in the novel (providing a relatively happy rather than a somber ending) that it is both unsatisfying AND unilluminating.

Reeling with Laughter at Slapsticon 2005

By Annette Graham, DC Film Society Member

The Slapsticon film festival, now in its third year, made its second appearance in the Washington DC area during the last weekend of July. As you might guess from the name, this festival is devoted to comedy, both silent and sound, with an emphasis on little-known comedians and rare films. The films are supplied mostly by collectors (dedicated fanatics); many are "orphans," quite obscure and not available on home video or DVD. Of course, that is what we as film buffs seek out. About half the attendees at Slapsticon were from out of town. Other festivals similar to this--although not devoted to comedy--are held in Syracuse, New York (Cinefest), Los Angeles (Cinecon), and Columbus, Ohio (Cinevent) to name just three, making Slapsticon a welcome addition since we can just ride over on the subway and go home to eat. And if you didn't come because you thought it would be full of Three Stooges films, then make a note to come next year. Not a single Stooge film was shown this year, nor two years ago at the first Slapsticon. (I can't speak for the second year Slapsticon because it was held in Boston and I didn't go.)

The purpose of the festival as stated by the founder: "It's our hope that the weekend will demonstrate the incredible richness and variety that comprised the Golden Age of American Film Comedy between 1910 and 1945. Even the most serious film history texts gloss over the era with paeans to the undisputed masters like Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd. Thus the work of hundreds of brilliant comedians are expunged from the American memory. This weekend's screenings will hopefully add a few more names to the comedy pantheon and perhaps inspire established or budding film historians to mine this rich vein of gold." The organizers are all film historians, archivists, or involved in film preservation and presentation. Although she wasn't one of the organizers, I was pleased to meet Eileen Bowser who formerly ran MoMA's film program.

What sort of films were shown? About half were silent and half sound. Almost all were short--1 or 2 reelers--with a few features. Piano accompaniment for the silent films was provided by the same three experts as the first Slapsticon: Dr. Phillip Carli, Ben Model and Mark Kotishion. Phil and Ben alternated, doing most of the hard work; it was a toss-up as to who was better. Phil plays at the Pordenone festival in Italy, so I had heard him more than the others. Interestingly, most accompanists report that playing for comedy films is far more difficult than for dramas. Some of the lesser-known comics were represented by Matt McHugh, Billy Bevan, Louise Fazenda, Lloyd Hamilton, Ford Sterling, Harry Langdon, Larry Semon, Mabel Normand, John Bunny, Charley Chase, Max Davidson, Snub Pollard, Raymond Griffith, and Johnny Hines, just to name a few. As far as the bigger names go, we saw rare films with W.C. Fields, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, and an almost unrecognizable pre-glasses Harold Lloyd. Some of the programs: a tribute to W.C. Fields with Harriet Fields, W.C.'s granddaughter in attendance, a tribute to Danny Kaye, Mabel Norman films, and "Stan or Ollie"--i.e. films with Stan Laurel or Oliver Hardy before they were a team, presented by Rob Stone, author of the book Laurel or Hardy: The Solo Films of Stan Laurel and Oliver "Babe" Hardy. Quite a few bonus films not on the original program were also thrown in. The total number of films was over 100. My favorites were Should Second Husbands Come First? (Leo McCarey, 1927) which was similar in construction to Pass the Gravy, the hit of Slapsticon 2003 according to my laugh-o-meter, both with Max Davidson and Spec O'Donnell; and With Love and Hisses (Fred Guiol, 1927) which was one of the bonus films.

Except for the fieldtrip down to the National Gallery, Slapsticon's films were 100% 16mm the first year and all were supplied by collectors. This year a portable 35mm projector was brought in which gave the organizers access to far more films and more archives. Quality of projection is excellent--the films may be old and some may be creaky but the projectionists/collectors pay attention to what they are doing. A buddy of mine went up to the projection booth and found them having a fight over which print to show of a film. They actually care about giving the audience their best. Did I mention they are dedicated fanatics?

Comedy has to be seen with an audience on a big screen. I was reminded of this well-known truism when looking at one of the small-screen TVs set up in the lobby area that ran videos before the program. I had seen this particular film before with a howling-with-laughter audience and told someone else standing nearby that it was hilariously funny. We watched for a while but it seemed dull, not funny at all. To quote Wes Gehrig, "When watching a comedy the sound of the audience can be almost as important as the sounds on the film. That's why the same film or routine that seems feeble on TV may seem sharp and hilarious in a movie theater. People who made those comedies intended them to be a public experience. Seeing a smart comedy with a smart responsive audience--where everybody's perception seems to sharpen and heighten everyone else's, where the intelligence as well as the hysteria becomes infectious--is an experience like nothing else." See you at next year's Slapsticon.

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