Fine Line Features | Little Odesssa | James Gray On-line Conference Transcript

Transcript of Online Conference with Little Odessa Writer/Director James Gray.

(You may skip the introduction and go right to the questions and answers.)

OnlineHost: Tonight, Hollywood Online is pleased to present James Gray, writer/director for the film "Little Odessa", which received the Venice Film Festival's Silver Lion Trophy in 1994.

OnlineHost: "Little Odessa" is 25-year-old James Gray's feature film debut. A native of New York, Gray went to film school at the University of Southern California. There, his student film, "Cowboys and Angels," a dramatic thriller, got him an agent and the attention of producer Paul Webster, who encouraged him to write a script which he could produce.

Gray wanted to tell a modern American story, and he decided to set his violent family drama in a mysterious milieu that has always intrigued him, the hermetically sealed, exotic community of Little Odessa in New York's Brighton Beach.

James Gray is of Russian Jewish descent and he clearly recalls the feeling of being suspended between two cultures -- the dark, mysterious Russian of his ancestry, built on secret loyalties and the community of family, and the new tough American street reality, driven by the ethos of money and individualism.

QUESTION: How much of your own background is soaked in "Little Odessa"?

JAMES GRAY: A bit, though my own background is of limited importance because once I make the movie, it's no longer mine, it's yours.

QUESTION: What was it like working with Vanessa Redgrave?

JAMES GRAY: The greatest there is. Very few adjustments -- you'd come to work and you'd do a rehearsal and it would be ready to shoot. She's perfection.

QUESTION: James, who has been cinematical influential to you?

JAMES GRAY: Well, an homage to Francis Coppola is appropriate now. In addition, I love the films of Visconti, Kubrick, Fellini, Kurosawa and, of course, Scorsese.

QUESTION: What roles do Moira Kelly and Eddie Furlong play?

JAMES GRAY: Moira Kelly plays a neighborhood girl from Brighton Beach, a tough girl. She's Russian. She winds up involved in a relationship with Tim Roth. Edward Furlong plays Tim Roth's younger brother, a young man who watches tons of movies and likes to avoid his dad, played by Maximilian Schell.

QUESTION: How did you like working with Director of Photography, Tom Richmond?

JAMES GRAY: He's a strange character, to be sure. But incredibly talented. I gave him seventy-five watercolors that I had painted before shooting began, so that he knew what I was after. When I did that it was all shorthand afterwards. An excellent DP.

QUESTION: Little Odessa was so bleak, reminded me of Chinatown. Was that movie is the back of your mind as one you admire?

JAMES GRAY: Oh, I adore Chinatown. Funny you should mention it. I met Roman Polanski in Paris and told him how much it had meant to me. He then turned around and told me that he had thought "Little Odessa" was a great film. My life was complete.

QUESTION: Did you make an effort to include other USC grads in your production crew?

JAMES GRAY: Yes, yes. I hired everyone I could in positions as high up as I could. Your freedom in hiring people is not as great as you'd like on your first film. That being said, I'm responsible for better or for worse for employing all of my friends. It becomes almost like a gigantic party when you do that. I'm grateful to them.

QUESTION: The premise of your film reminds me of the novel "Call it Sleep" by Henry Roth. Why such an old fashioned premise as the "greenhorn" thing?

JAMES GRAY: That's a great book. I don't view that as an old-fashioned premise. I view it as timeless. In any case, I don't see that big a similarity between the Roth book and the film. I could be wrong.

QUESTION: This is an advice question. I am a "struggling director" in Va Beach and will be shooting a low!!! budget film this fall, do you have any advice for types like me after the project is completed (other than festivals)?

JAMES GRAY: When I was 15, I snuck into a banquet honoring Sidney Lumet and I went up to Sydney Pollack to ask his advice. I'm sure I was a nerdy kid, but he looked at me and he said the best piece of advice I've ever gotten. He said, "You've just gotta do." When I heard it, my reaction was, "What the hell is he talking about?" But he's right; if you keep making films, things like distribution will follow, because quality always wins. Don't let anyone tell you anything else.

QUESTION: Saw Little Odessa at the Venice Film Fest and was quite impressed. Congratulations on a fine movie. Did you feel nervous making such a film with name actors?

JAMES GRAY: Of course. Does the word terrified mean anything to you?

QUESTION: Saw your student film it looked great. Was it shot by same DP? You failed that class?????

JAMES GRAY: No, it was not. I did have trouble with the teacher because there was nudity in the film, but I won the battle. They wanted me to take the scene out of the film and ultimately I threatened to call the LA Times. Of course, I had no idea how to do that, but it sounded great and scared the heck out of them. I wound up doing all right in the class. The grade never meant anything to me anyway.

QUESTION: Are you currently working on a new project?

JAMES GRAY: Yes. It's a family epic about the people who work in the yards and tunnels of the New York subway system. I'm very influenced right now by Visconti's "Rocco and His Brothers" and "The Godfather," of course.

QUESTION: I'm a fan of Tim Roth. How would you compare his work in this film to his previous films?

JAMES GRAY: It's much more subdued, but I think just as strong. It's very subtle. It's not him yelling and dancing around with a silver gun. It's not hip, it's our attempt at neo-realism.

QUESTION: What actors would you like to work with in the future?

JAMES GRAY: My God, do we have ten hours? Let's see...there's Robert DeNiro and, of course, Al Pacino and Robert Duvall. I wouldn't mind Gena Rowlands and Sean Penn. Marlon Brando, of course. That's on the top of anyone's list. And Glenn Close is a terrific actress. There are others -- Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman. Can Meryl Streep be far behind?

QUESTION: When did you feel that you had "really" made it as a writer/director?

JAMES GRAY: What does that mean? I still haven't felt as though I've done anything so great, so I don't really feel as though I've made it. Whether I've made it or not is left for the heavens and time to decide.

QUESTION: Which came first for you--the desire to write or direct? Would you do one without the other?

JAMES GRAY: I would say that direction was my first love. It is a director's medium, no doubt. But I found myself unable to direct another person's screen-play imply because I wasn't reading anything I liked. So I wound up writing, something I thought I'd hate. And I wound up thinking it was the key to making movies. Now I love writing. I don't think I could ever abandon it.

QUESTION: What is like to now be compared to people you studied at USC and admire (i.e. Scorsese)?

JAMES GRAY: I wish I were so lucky. It's very flattering, but I honestly can't believe any of it, or else I'll become a jerk. It's like that question that just was asked about whether or not I had made it. A valid question, a good one, but I can't believe my own hype. Then the movies begin to suffer.

QUESTION: Saw "Little Odessa" at SF Film Fest. Liked the script very much. How did drafts change?

JAMES GRAY: They changed mostly for pragmatic reasons. I didn't have the money to do a lot of what I wanted to do. The movie became a muscular little thing. Very single minded and very consistent in tone. But the variety of scenes, particularly ones with Reuben on his own, which provided some levity often had to go. We just didn't have the time to shoot it.

QUESTION: What where the steps between USC and a directing deal?

JAMES GRAY: It's not like you slip into a directing deal. I wish it were. I made a short film in college, which I'm sure is a terrible little thing. But for whatever reasons it attracted attention in the Hollywood community. So I got an agent and met a producer named Paul Webster who had great faith in me. He sent me scripts, none of which I liked. So I felt compelled to write my own, which was "Little Odessa." Tim Roth read it and loved it and that was the first breakthrough. When he wanted to do it, financiers became interested. Slowly but surely the project came together and saved me from a lifetime of eating pretzels and playing video games.

QUESTION: What was your short "Cowboys and Angels" about?

JAMES GRAY: It's a very cliched story. I didn't write the script, so I re-wrote it completely. It was about a private detective who takes a Sunset Strip runaway back to her abusive father. Very corny, I just decided I would style it up and make it ambiguous, not like a TV movie.

QUESTION: Will there be a wider distribution of this film? It sounds interesting, but it is not playing near my area.

JAMES GRAY: It's going to go wider June 2 and keep an eye out for it throughout June.

QUESTION: Any advice on getting into film school? Did you like USC's program?

JAMES GRAY: It's great for some people, but Stanley Kubrick is a high school dropout. I would say if you want to get into the program to concentrate on your writing samples. That's the key. USC was interesting enough. It gave me the technical tools I needed. But you've got to do a lot of the work on your own. You've got to read a lot and see a lot of movies. There's no way around it.

QUESTION: Was there a time between college and Little Odessa where you had to take a "straight" job?

JAMES GRAY: No. I had written a screenplay called "Mecca" and when I had negative ten dollars in my bank account an executive at Universal Pictures optioned it, sparing me a year of flipping burgers.

QUESTION: I just dropped by to say "beautiful work." Congratulations. Fantastic performances by Moira Kelly and Tim Roth!

JAMES GRAY: Thank you. I don't know who you are and I can't see you, but you have no idea how much that kind of thing means to me. Thank you very much.

QUESTION: When did you decide you wanted to be a filmmaker?

JAMES GRAY: It was very early on. My father took me to see "Apocalypse Now" and I was completely blown away. I was 10. That's when I realized movies were things that were made, that they didn't just drop out of the sky. Because I was in awe of it, and I became obsessed with Francis Coppola's films, so it was early on.

QUESTION: Are there any films you really enjoy that might stand out as not the "typical influential" film?

JAMES GRAY: "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me", the David Lynch film. And I love Jerzy Skolimowski's "Deep End." I'm also fanatical about several of William Friedkin's films. I love "Two-Lane Blacktop" by Monte Hellman.

QUESTION: You have very mature way of looking at themes that can maybe classified as gen x. Do you think that you will continue to focus on different views of America or will you enter more mainstream ways of delivering your message?

JAMES GRAY: I never viewed myself as having entered or left the mainstream. I always viewed it as the mainstream leaving me. And I don't know if what I'm interested in could be classified readily as Gen X. It seems to me if Gen X is the thing, then Quentin Tarantino is the guy. That being said, thank you for your compliment.

QUESTION: What sort of research did you do into the Russian "Mafia"?

JAMES GRAY: I read every article on the subject I could find in every major newspaper, I hung out in Brighton Beach for months and met all kinds of people and I talked to police in New York about the subject. I never wanted the movie to be only a Russian Jewish Mafia movie, as such, but I hope it's accurate.

QUESTION: Do you live in NYC or LA? Do you think it's important is it to live in one or the other?

JAMES GRAY: It isn't as important as it used to be. Today, with FAX machines and modems and all that, you can really live anywhere. I live in LA, but I hope that will change soon. I miss New York very much. I think it's more important to live away from the business, actually, than near it. One can become awfully myopic living in Tinseltown, and it's dangerous.

QUESTION: Have you set any long term goals for yourself, and are you surprised that you've managed to already achieve a great reputation for being so young?

JAMES GRAY: My only long-term goal is not nearly as modest as it may sound: I'd like to be able to make the films I want to make when I want to make them and on the proper scale. That's an incredibly difficult thing As for my "great" reputation, let's just hope I'm lucky enough to have it last. People are very willing to say, "You're a cheesebag" if they don't like your follow-up film. Again, I've got to keep focused and just do what I do.

QUESTION: It's been great to have such a wonderful director come on-line. I hope you will come again.

JAMES GRAY: Thank you very much. I hope I'm invited again. You know, I have a computer at home, but I'm far too inept to use it. One of these days, perhaps I'll enter the twentieth century.

QUESTION: James - Has this been your first adventure into cyberspace?

JAMES GRAY: Yes. In fact, now that I'm doing it I'm finding it awfully cool, except that Shari Ellis' fingers are killing her. She's doing the typing, you see, here at the publicist's office. Let's blame the bad grammar on her, shall we?

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