Hellman: It was exactly that, and everybody there was family, including Steve.
It seemed like you were ignoring any outside pressures and simply relishing the experience of making the movie. There’s a kind of sense of freedom about that – it was wonderful when she actually did it.įilmmaker: When I was watching it, my feeling was that this was made by a filmmaker who wasn’t trying to prove anything, but was just enjoying himself. Not only did I like it, but my daughter and son liked it, and my daughter just decided that we were going to do this whatever, and not wait for somebody to wait to give us permission. God bless Steven Gaydos, because he had this idea and, as he said, it’s the first one of his ideas that I’ve liked in 40 years! And so, we were off to a good start. Hellman: Well, it’s the first of my own projects. So lots of almost-rans.įilmmaker: It must be hugely satisfying to have made this movie, for it to have received such a great reception, and now to be getting ready for its release. With Buffalo ’66, I actually raised the money and was ready to make the movie, and then Vincent Gallo decided that he was going to do it. Pretty much the same thing happened with Freaky Deaky and a number of other projects like that, as well as things that came my way, and then disappeared. With Francis, we literally had a go-ahead from Warner Bros., but he was never satisfied with the script, so it never got made.
I was involved in a number of projects that, for various reasons, the other people involved just couldn’t let go of them and wouldn’t let us actually make the movie. I’ve always been developing my own projects and I’ve never been able to get them on before, but we got close a number of times, and also I did get hired a number of times by Coppola, and by Tarantino to do Freaky Deaky. So those calls started coming in less and less frequently.
#ROAD TO NOWHERE MOVIE MOVIE#
Literally every movie I made before Road to Nowhere has been work for hire, it’s been somebody else’s idea, not mine. Hellman: I started getting into more of my own personal projects about that time, and that’s always harder. Was it a self-imposed hiatus, or were you trying to get projects off the ground this whole time? In advance of Road to Nowhere‘s screening at SXSW, Filmmaker sat down with Hellman to discuss his long-awaited return to directing.įilmmaker: First off, I have to say that it’s so great that you are back making movies. As Hellman builds layer upon layer and takes meta to a new level, one can tell that this was as fun for him to make as it is for audiences to watch. Of course, it’s not that simple: Road to Nowhere is not just about the art and craft of making films, it’s also a movie-within-a-movie and, raising the stakes, actors Shannyn Sossamon and Cliff De Young not only play the femme fatale and the rich older man with whom she was involved, but also the actors who play those same characters in Haven’s production. (The creative partnership is clearly based on Hellman and his longtime collaborator Steven Gaydos). It’s a deliriously enjoyable film about filmmaking, centering on a director, Mitchell Haven (Tygh Runyan) and screenwriter, Steven Gates (Rob Kolar), who set out to make a movie based on a recent crime story involving murder, suicide and embezzlement. Last fall, Hellman unveiled Road to Nowhere at the Venice Film Festival – where he won a Jury Award Special Lion for Career Achievement – and declared the movie his first truly personal work. It was as far back as 1988 when Hellman made Iguana, his last “proper” film, but now the director of such cult classics as Two Lane Blacktop and Cockfighter has happily returned to filmmaking.
Terrence Malick was MIA for 20 years between Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line, but Monte Hellman’s time away from feature filmmaking has been even more prolonged.
There’s little better at restoring one’s faith in cinema then when a great director returns from the wilderness. Monte Hellman, movie-within-a-movie, Road to Nowhere, SXSW Film Festival 2011