By Jake Howell jake.howell@utoronto.ca

Countdown To Cannes: James Gray

Posted Thursday, May 9th, 2013 - 1 Comment »
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JAMES GRAY

Background: American; born New York City 1969.

James Gray / Photo Ray Pride.

Known for / style: Little Odessa (1994), The Yards (2000), We Own the Night (2007), Two Lovers (2008); taking hiatuses between films; adhering to “middle-budget” filmmaking (as opposed to low-budget experiments and high-budget extravaganzas); keeping “story-telling” his number one priority; themes of solitude, violence, and opposition; working with Joaquin Phoenix.

Notable accolades: Gray’s only major award is a Venice Silver Lion, given for Little Odessa in 1994. At the Independent Spirit Awards, Gray has been nominated three times: twice for Little Odessa (Best First Feature, Best First Screenplay) and once for Two Lovers (Best Director). Gray has also been nominated for two Best Foreign Film Césars (Two Lovers and We Own the Night).

Previous Cannes appearances: Following his award-winning Venice debut with Little Odessa, Cannes jumped at the chance to program Gray in Competition, having done so a total of three times: once in 2000 (The Yards), once in 2007 (We Own the Night), and once in 2008 (Two Lovers). Gray is also the screenwriter of Blood Ties, the Guillaume Canet thriller set to play out of Competition this year (which also stars Marion Cotillard, set to play in The Immigrant). In 2009, Gray was a member of the Competition jury.

Film he’s bringing to Cannes: The Immigrant (produced under the title Lowlife), a historical drama set in early 1920s New York. When Polish immigrant Ewa (Marion Cotillard) falls in the hands of Bruno (Joaquin Phoenix), the two-faced brute forces her to become a prostitute. However, after meeting Orlando (Jeremy Renner), Bruno’s cousin and a suave magician, Eva realizes that only he can help her escape the trap she has fallen into.

Could it win the Palme? Gray’s relationship with the festival is an interesting one, having debuted each of his films since Little Odessa in Competition yet leaving empty-handed every time. That has to end eventually, right? Maybe, but, there’s no overwhelming reason to suggest that 2013 is finally Gray’s year. That said, The Immigrant could very well hit a home run: the acting talent is full-on awards-bait, with AMPAS favorites Marion Cotillard, Joaquin Phoenix and Jeremy Renner in the cast; and the film is also a period piece, which should play nicely with Steven Spielberg. The hope here is that The Immigrant is a career best for Gray, but his stellar players may distract jury members’ attention otherwise (with Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master still in recent memory, tipping Joaquin Phoenix’s performance as an early awards frontrunner is an easy call; likewise for Rust and Bone‘s Cotillard).

Why you should care: When the casting was announced, The Immigrant immediately became a film to watch on awards sonars. If the film leaves the Festival without any golden recognition, that’s okay: it’s not simply game over, as distributor Harvey Weinstein will assuredly make certain The Immigrant stays relevant come awards season.

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Posted in Cannes, Cannes Originals, MCN Originals, Movie City News | 1 Comment »

One Response to “Countdown To Cannes: James Gray”

  1. Oleg says:
    May 11, 2013 at 5:29 pm

    I hope Marion Cotillard wins Best Actress Prize!

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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