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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Wednesday, July 26th, 2006 - Comments Off on 'Brothers of the Head": The Treadaways Take New York
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'Brothers of the Head": The Treadaways Take New York

The way it usually works is that IFC will premiere one of its films in plush mini-gala style at IFC Center, and afterward the guests will pile into the adjoining café for hours of deabauched gaiety. But Tuesday’s premiere of the conjoined-twin rock saga Brothers of the Head was so stylish and so debauched that party proceedings had to be relocated a few blocks south to Don Hill’s, lest the indignity of hipster bacchanalia forever sully the joint’s classy appeal.

Brothers in arms: (L-R) Harry Treadaway, Louis Pepe, John Cameron Mitchell, Keith Fulton and Luke Treadaway pile on after Tuesday’s Brothers of the Head premiere (Photos: STV)
Which is not to say that the gathering deteriorated into some convention of trash; quite the opposite, in fact. Sure, the Misshapes DJ’d the whole thing, and servers cruised the room wielding plastic shot cups held down with Jameson. For the most part, however, the company was good, most notably Brothers directors Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe and their film’s twin leading men, Luke and Harry Treadaway.
“I don’t think it’s started yet, to be honest,” Luke Treadaway told The Reeler when asked how his night was going. “We need a few more beers and well be on it, really.”
“Yeah, I’m kind of pissed,” Harry said. “I’ve been awake for 30 hours; I need to wake up and I might realize what I’m doing. But I enjoyed it, I haven’t seen the film for ages, so I enjoyed watching it quite a bit. Every time you watch it with a different audience, there’s a different reaction. Different laughs, different silences. That’s when you start to understand what a film is about more, I think, because you start to be able to see it through an audience’s eyes–the way a fresh audience sees it.”
“The first time was in Toronto, and it was the most sort-of horrific experiece of my life,” Luke said. “I mean, we sat in this huge fucking IMAX theater and it was the first time I’d seen it on a bg screen at all. And I remember gripping onto Lou (Pepe) and–”
“It’s fucking good, you know?” Harry said. “The favorite part for me is seeing the band and the people we know and the little looks, and…” Harry hesitated. He twisted his body and convulsed slightly. “Joy Division’s just come on.” He flattened his palms and began playing the drum part for “Transmission” on his thighs. He stood up and exorcised a series of halting dance moves.


A moment later I learned Harry is portraying Joy Division drummer Stephen Morris in Anton Corbijn’s long-awaited Control. “It’s amazing,” he said. “I was filming last night at 8 o’clock, and now I’m here. So that’s pretty fucking weird. Anyway, Joy Division is incredible–”
Wait, wait, wait, wait — he was shooting Control last night? In England?
“Yeah, in England,” he said. “But the music is incredible, and… and… I can’t start talking about it yet, because I haven’t even fucking done it.”
The rest of the conversation comprised more Joy Division-geek bonding than you could possibly want to imagine, let alone read, so I am sorry to let you down once again. I did not even take the opportunity I should have taken to congratulate John Cameron Mitchell (who arrived just in time for the medium-drunk photo-op above) on Shortbus, which I glimpsed last week and am glad to say I was wrong in dreading, even if his high-minded sophistry at the time continues to rankle me. Of course, his own film’s depraved afterparty will be here before we know it. I expect to have swallowed enough of my pride by then to feel better about showing my face. If not, I’ll always have those plastic cups of whiskey.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon