By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

FSLC TO HOST WORLD PREMIERE OF THE CANYONS

Posted Tuesday, July 9th, 2013 - Comments Off on FSLC TO HOST WORLD PREMIERE OF THE CANYONS
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 AS PART OF An Evening with Paul Schrader FEATURING A CONVERSATION WITH THE DIRECTOR

AN IN-DEPTH EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH SCHRADER CAN BE FOUND on FILMCOMMENT.COM, AND in the JULY/AUGUST FILM COMMENT ISSUE  

 New York, NY (July 9, 2013) – The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced today it will host An Evening with Paul Schrader on Monday, July 29. The evening will include the World Premiere of Schrader’s drama THE CANYONS, the highly anticipated first public screening of the film, which will then be followed by a conversation between Schrader and the New York Film Festival Program Director, Kent Jones.

Additionally, the upcoming July/August issue of Film Comment Magazine features an in-depth exclusive interview with Paul Schrader, as well as an essay discussing and commenting on the DIY effort he, screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis and producer Braxton Pope undertook to make the film, the struggles and rewards of working with Lindsay Lohan, the decision to cast adult film star James Deen to star opposite her, and the film and potentially career transforming performance from Lohan that resulted from it all. The article can also be found on FilmComment.com.

Kent Jones, the New York Film Festival Program Director, said, “On one level, THE CANYONS is a visually and tonally precise, acid-etched horror story of souls wandering through a hyper-materialist hell, with a fearless and, I think, stunning performance by Lindsay Lohan at its center; on another level, it’s an inspiration and an example to us all: it’s difficult for me to imagine another filmmaker of Paul Schrader’s stature diving into the world of crowd-sourced moviemaking, let alone with such fervor, dedication and rigor.”

Directed by Paul Schrader from Easton Ellis’ script, THE CANYONS focuses on a calculating young movie producer Christian (James Deen) who makes films to keep his trust fund intact, and his actress girlfriend, Tara (Lindsay Lohan), who tries to hide an affair with an actor from her past. However, Christian discovers the truth and the couple is soon thrust into a violent, sexually-charged tour through the dark side of human nature.

Schrader addresses many subjects frankly and thoroughly in the July/August Film Comment Magazine. Some excerpts included below, and the full interview and essay can be found at: http://www.filmcomment.com/article/the-noise-factor and http://www.filmcomment.com/article/shooting-stars.

Discussing THE CANYONS as cinema for the post-theatrical era:  “We’re making art out of the remains of our empire. The junk that’s left over. And this idea of a film that was crowdfunded, cast online, with one actor from a celebrity culture, one actor from adult-film culture, a writer and director who have gotten beat up in the past—felt like a post-Empire thing. And then everything I was afraid of with Lindsay and James started to become a positive. I was afraid we wouldn’t be taken seriously and people would think it was a joke. My son and daughter didn’t want me to do it. That just shows you how conservative young kids are.”

 Schrader talks about Lohan’s initial discomfort with adult film star James Deen being cast as her co-star: “When we first met with her. In fact, she was trying to get him out. The first read-through, I looked over at her notepad and she was making a list of other actors who could play these roles. I said, ‘Lindsay, I’m not gonna let you recast this movie.’ She was always wary of Deen. A little bit because of the porn thing, but also her fear was that he would steal her thunder.”

And the ultimate rewards of working with Lohan:  “From a selfish point of view, from a director’s point of view, that is, from my point of view, it was a treat to work with Lindsay. All the drama, the mishegas, all the stress—that means little. A director can shoot around misbehavior. He can’t shoot around lack of charisma. I just wish it were easier for Lindsay.”

Tickets for An Evening with Paul Schrader are now on sale for Film Society of Lincoln Center Members and Film Comment Magazine subscribers. Tickets for the General Public will go on sale on Thursday, July 11.  Tickets are $15. Visit www.FilmLinc.com for additional information.

For information regarding Film Comment Magazine subscriptions go to: http://www.filmcomment.com/pages/subscribe-to-film-comment-magazine

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international cinema, the Film Society of Lincoln Center works to recognize and support new directors, and to enhance the awareness, accessibility and understanding of film. Among its yearly programming of film festivals, film series and special events, the Film Society presents two film festivals in particular that annually attract global attention: the New York Film Festival, which will soon present its 51st edition, and New Directors/New Films which, since its founding in 1972, has been produced in collaboration with MoMA. The Film Society also publishes the award-winning Film Comment Magazine, and for over three decades has given an annual award—now named “The Chaplin Award”—to a major figure in world cinema. Past recipients of this award include Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sidney Poitier, and most recently – Barbra Streisand. FSLC presents its year-round calendar of programming, panels, lectures, educational and transmedia programs and specialty film releases at the famous Walter Reade Theater and the state-of-the-art Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center.

The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from Royal Bank of Canada, Jaeger-LeCoultre, American Airlines, The New York Times, Stonehenge Partners, Stella Artois, the Kobal Collection, the National Endowment for the Arts and New York State Council on the Arts. For more information, visit www.filmlinc.com and follow @filmlinc on Twitter.

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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