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By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

Posted Thursday, July 17th, 2008 - Comments Off on The unlikeliest film tie-in of the day: The Exiles skateboards
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The unlikeliest film tie-in of the day: The Exiles skateboards

Milestone Films’ The Exiles, presented by Charles Burnett and Sherman Alexie, a restoration of Kent McKenzie’s 1961 fiction film in film noir tradition, the story of Native Americans in Los Angeles’ Bunker Hill District as they struggle during the Bureau of Indian Affairs “relocation period,” boasts the most unlikely but strangely thrilling product tie-in in an age. Writes Milestone’s Dennis Doros, “Possibly the very first tribute of its kind for any classic film release, we are particularly pleased that The Exiles has struck a chord with Native Americans throughout the US and Canada. It is interesting to note the coincidence that it was Douglas Miles’ own San Carlos Apache Reservation in Gobe, Arizona where Kent Mackenzie first conceived the idea of The Exiles when he visited in 1957. Mackenzie’s stark vision serves as the template for the (often misunderstood) stark artistic vision(s) of Douglas Miles as he re-creates scenes from the film… Using spraypaint, exacto knives and found objects, imagery from The Exiles comes to life via Miles’ singular vision. His guerilla art method provides the backdrop for the collision of two works of art/artists exploring the so-called native experience. A perfect combination. The results being a one-two punch that builds interest and respect for The Exiles film, director, music and cast.” To cite two of the many celebrations of the film, here’s Manohla Dargis at NYTimes: “The restoration and long-delayed commercial release of The Exiles, a 1961 film about a largely forgotten corner of that deceptively bright city, is nothing less than a welcome act of defiant remembrance…” And Richard Brody at the New Yorker; “[T]he night photography alone would make the film immortal.” The film’s website. The site for Miles’ Apache Skateboards. Coverage of his work here. [Below: a clip from The Exiles.]

Trailer for The Exiles.]

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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