I’m excited to have been asked by Ivan Wiener, executive director of the Albuquerque Film and Music Experience, to moderate a conversation with wonderful actor Wes Studi on April 23rd, at 11:00 a.m. That’s the same day, incidentally, that my film July and Half of August will be premiering, a couple of hours later, so please remind me to take a moment on that day and murmur to myself, in the midst of all of the excitement, “Sheila. Please just acknowledge that, for this day anyway, you are having it all.” Critic in the morning, screenwriter in the afternoon, boo-yah. Life is full of rough road. You have to remind yourself to at least NOTICE when things are good.)
Wes Studi’s career is long and fascinating, and I really look forward to meeting him, hearing him talk about his work, and how he thinks about his work. Gearing up with questions. Wes Studi fans: anything you think I should ask him about?
Can’t think of anything, but watch the last 10-15 minutes of Last of the Mohicans again before you interview him, I bet something will come to mind. That look he has after the suicide, I wonder how he came up with that response, it seems perfect, but how would the actor know…..
(Not meaning to suggest you don’t already have stuff in mind to ask.)
No I appreciate it! That’s why I asked!
Will re-watch Mohicans and look for that moment. Thanks!
I just watched that part I mentioned in Last of the Mohicans a few weeks ago, probably why it came immediately to mind, exceptionally well done, heartbreaking, hard to watch in a way, but so good at the same time.
And this, exactly so, you are a wise woman –
“Sheila. Please just acknowledge that, for this day anyway, you are having it all.” Critic in the morning, screenwriter in the afternoon, boo-yah. Life is full of rough road. You have to remind yourself to at least NOTICE when things are good.)
I know, I’m too busy right now to even realize that life is going pretty good. I wish I could just lie around and think, “Man, life is good” but hahahaha that’s not how life works, and that would actually mean that life WASN’T good, if I had time to sit around and ponder the wonder of it all.
looking forward to Last of the Mohicans.
I would like to get actor-process on him – I’m really interested in all that stuff.
if you’ll permit me to go lowbrow on this guy’s amazing career for a moment, I lOVE him in Mystery Men as the not-wise wise man. He has great comic timing. Awesome gig Sheila! Go you!
Thanks! I’m excited and honored!
Low-brow is awesome, Jessie! I haven’t seen Mystery Men – I’ll try to squeeze it in before I meet up with him.
I’ll second Mystery Men, it’s a very under-rated and under appreciated comedy, I forgot about that one. I could have done without the Paul Reubens character, otherwise very funny, great cast too. I don’t really get why this one isn’t better known, and Studi is good in it, very different from Mohicans (needless to say probably). Your homework is starting to pile up…..
// Your homework is starting to pile up….. //
Bah! I know! But I’m looking forward to it – putting Mystery Men on the list.
Plus Penny Dreadful, The Heat, Dances with Wolves, Mohicans … I’ve seen most of these already – and he’s wonderful – but should re-watch. Never seen Avatar so I probably should try to see that one too.
It is a good sort of homework to have….
Oh absolutely.
Oh Patrick, that cast!! Reubens isn’t my favourite member of it, but I do have to say I wouldn’t give up his sewing reaction shot for the world.
I get the impression Studi may have enjoyed playing around with the “mystically sagacious person of colour” role.
Interesting! I definitely look forward to talking with him about how consciously he went after the stereotypes – how engrained those stereotypes were, mainly because of movies and Westerns.
Chris Rock has a joke about this – not Studi – but he says something like, “You know who’s REALLY oppressed? Native Americans. Have you ever seen more than one Native American at a time?” Something like that … a commentary on just how “erased” they have been.
So I really admire that aspect of Studi’s career!
It looks like he’s only been in Penny Dreadful this past season. I have two days off between Ebertfest and Albuquerque so I’ll have to do some catching up then.
His season of Penny Dreadful hasn’t actually started yet — it starts in May and I am so excited! But if you are interested to watch Eva Green SLAY all comers — she has to be seen to be believed — and Josh Harnett be a shockingly sensitive and thoughtful love interest I highly recommend it.
I have so been meaning to catch up with it, it seems right up my alley. I LOVE Eva Green.
So you’re saying that the Wes Studi episodes have not aired yet? And I can cross it off my list of homework for now?
Yes, you can postpone Penny Dreadful for now! But do keep it on your radar — any of the superlatives you’ve heard about Green’s performance honestly can’t help but undersell it.
I imagine Studi will mostly be working with Hartnett but I have my fingers crossed they get some time together!
There’s a shot of Eva Green in Bertolucci’s Dreamers, where she leans against a padlocked fence, beret on her head, flat-affect eyes, cigarette dangling – and she’s like a wet dream of the French New Wave. Anna Karina for the new generation.
I think she’s fabulous, and an erotic presence just by walking into a room.
Can’t wait!
and I like Hartnett too. Glad he found a good spot for himself – it was touch and go there for a while – but I always liked him.
I know exactly what you mean about The Dreamers! Almost like eroticism without sexualisation.
the way she uses her sexuality and physicality in PD is amazing. She’s all bound up, Victorian, clipped consonants, but you get the impression that there’s something powerful under there – and then it gets out and it’s feral and ravenous and deeply dangerous and her but not-her (there are some Sam parallels!). And at the same time there is a very sweet and caring romance developing with Hartnett. I just love them together.
And that doesn’t even touch on the distinct relationships she creates with Timothy Dalton and other actors that are all very specifically calibrated between eroticism and friendship and filiation. She is a marvel. And so much of her work is done with her full body and her voice — but the camera also LOVES her huge eyes and she is able to project everything with them, too.
// Almost like eroticism without sexualisation. //
That’s such a great observation. There’s kind of a funny story behind my review of Sin City 2 – Sin City 2, granted, was not as good as the first – but the problems a lot of people had with it (objectification of women being the main one) was one of the reasons I loved it. I alREADY “objectify” someone like Eva Green, in the same way I “objectified” Angelina Jolie in By the Sea and Brigitte Bardot in Contempt – because so much a part of those movies is the director saying, “My GOD I love filming this woman.” So it’s hilarious/great that Jolie would direct herself in that way too. Not vain at all. But exploring how women are treated, and participating in it willingly.
In the case of Sin City 2 (and the other movies too) “objectifying” means that I actually discern reality and I too appreciate how gloriously gorgeous and riveting Eva Green is onscreen – her beauty is so intense and so yeah, I thought seeing her nude – in all of these fantastically stylized ways – was so much fun. There was a bit of back and forth with one of the editors, who thought I should address the controversy about how objectified women are in the director’s films (the controversy about Sin City 2, had heated up before anyone saw the film – one of my biggest pet peeves on the planet). I said to him that the reason I didn’t address the controversy or “call out” the director for his sexism, was that I had no problem with that aspect of the film – and actually enjoyed it on the level that other people hated it. Ha. It was interesting: he was a man, I was a woman. Long live bucking expectations!! I ended up addressing the controversy because maybe yes, the review would seem incomplete if I didn’t acknowledge the buzz around it. But I was like, “No. I will not cave to that view of cinema. Objectification and the Male Gaze gave us Marlene Dietrich. And Rodriguez is filming Eva Green like Von Sternberg filmed Dietrich.” I thought EG could take her place beside Barbara Stanwyck as a femme fatale. Some of her nude scenes were so gorgeous and 70s-trashy and 40s-chic that they were like velvet-paintings done by Degas. There’s one where she dives into a backyard pool, and the image mirrors – like something out of Busby Berkeley and yes, she is naked, but my God, it was beautiful to look at.
Not a popular opinion I guess, and of course there is a kind of objectification that is reductive and shaming and gross – and I will call that out if I see it – but I don’t think the Sin City movies qualify at all.
// and then it gets out and it’s feral and ravenous and deeply dangerous and her but not-her (there are some Sam parallels!). And at the same time there is a very sweet and caring romance developing with Hartnett. I just love them together. //
Wow, it sounds like a vehicle really MADE for her. “Hollywood” as an entity has seemed a little baffled as to what to do with her. The 1940s directors like Howard Hawks or William Wyler would have been chomping at the bit to work with her and photograph her. In our more “enlightened” age, people don’t seem to know what to do with that kind of female power/beauty – that also someone refuses to be dominated. You always feel like she is a participant as opposed to an object. That crazy sex scene on the kitchen floor in TheDreamers … So often I get worried about actresses when they’re nude and doing an explicit sex scene – and of course they are required to show all while penises are respected and hidden from view (bah.) But I never worry about Eva Green. She seems totally in charge (as an actress, I mean) even in a moment such as that.
// She is a marvel. And so much of her work is done with her full body and her voice — but the camera also LOVES her huge eyes and she is able to project everything with them, too. //
Yes!! That being aware of your body thing is almost a lost art in our age of close-ups and quick cutting. (One of the reasons why I love all the “legs” stuff on SPN – because they’re both so good with their bodies too.)
Her pose against that gate in Dreamers. Her awareness of “shape”. Her awareness of the fact that she was supposed to be representative of Jeanne Moreau, Brigitte Bardot, Anna Karina – all those gloriously deadpan intimidatingly gorgeous New Wave actresses – practically sociopathic in their anti-social tendencies and the split between their beauty and how much they didn’t give a shit about it.
I will definitely be catching up with this series. Thanks for the push!
ha ha, mission accomplished! Well then I shan’t muddy the Penny Dreadful waters any more except to say that her total control over her body and voice at all times is almost unnerving.
And this is why I think she is so electric and why she can work so well in what people might call trashy or silly movies — Sin City 2, Dark Shadows, The 300 sequel — because like you say she knows genre, she shows what kind of performance to give and she is absolutely unafraid to go huge, and give the big middle finger to reality and being “grounded”, and yet there is something so solid and powerful about her that she feels, I dunno, out of this world but of it. She believes in the power of her characters, she doesn’t condescend to them, and so when that power is in her naked body there’s nothing strange or shameful or embarrassed about it. If it’s meant to be erotic it’s erotic, and if it’s meant to be something else it’s something else.
I totally agree with everything you said about her and can’t improve upon it.
Perhaps like you say – it is her understanding of “genre” – that helps her be what she is. It’s a tough thing: put you in a totally un-realistic context, where the “style” seems dominant – and then make it seem real and … better than real. Big and profound. So few people can do this now!! I mean, that WAS the acting style in the 40s.
Very happy that Eva Green has found unique bizarre vehicles that let her shine. She might have been lost in forgettable rom-coms otherwise.
Woah, so amazed by that conversation about Eva Green. I don’t know her career very well, I just watch Penny Dreadful.
So true, what you say, Jessie. Her performance in PD was one of the moments of acting I saw last year that stayed in my mind. Done halfway or badly, it would have been absolutely ridiculous. But then, what she did with it was otherworldly, and the whole season rested on it. Can’t wait to watch season 2!
I think you’re gonna love season 2, Lyrie, I look forward to hearing your thoughts!
Totally agree Sheila, so glad that people seem to see in Eva Green something magnificent and keep finding venues for her talent! She cannot be boring.
Such a clever movie, such good performances. After that clip, the auto-play feature at Youtube brought up another scene with a kind of mock-Crispin’s Day speech from William Macy. Good movie to bring up here, since most don’t know of it (seemingly).
Sheila – hope the homework aspect doesn’t detract from the watching-these-as-entertainment part of seeing these. I’m sure that won’t be an issue.
I love homework like this! It happens all the time if I’m assigned a movie by a director where I realize, “Oops. Haven’t been paying attention to him/her. Must rectify.” We all have gaps in our knowledge.
I wish I had a bit more time to devote to this homework – and that I wasn’t covering Tribeca and also going to Ebertfest all in the next week and a half – but I’ll squeeze it in. Thankfully I’ve seen a lot of it already.
Oh my god yes, Macy is so good in this! I can’t garden without muttering to myself: “I shovel well. I shovel very well.” I wish the direction of Mystery Men was as zippy as its actors and production design but there is so much good in it, I’m so pleased to run into another fan!
I’m definitely putting it on my list – something that totally wouldn’t be on my radar otherwise. Thank you both!
Higbrow: anything about Last of the Mohicans.
Lowbrow: Streetfighter. Nothing specific but I have to imagine that if you do a movie with Raul Julia and Jean-Claude Van Damme there’s gotta be some stories!
His work in Mohicans is so complex – that character could have been seen as just another Big Villainous “Other.” But honestly you could see where he was coming from.
The Dreamers is awesome, great movie for people who love movies. Yes, Eva Green is reasonably attractive.
I would love to hear Wes Studi talk about working with Michael Mann (and Pacino of course) on Heat, which I think is probably the best cops and robbers movie ever made. I’m really fascinated by how Mann creates his style, even a movie like Blackhat instantly identifies itself as a Mann movie, but I have a hard time defining the style even though I know it when I set it.
If I “recognize” a Tarantino movie through the use of dialogue, and perhaps a Scorcese through the fluid camera and classic rock, whatever is going on in a Mann movie is more elusive, there’s a mesmerising, hypnotic quality to them that’s pretty unique. I’d love to hear thoughts on that.
Have fun!
Todd – thanks! And he worked with Michael Mann twice – maybe more? I’ll have to check. I definitely want to talk with him about that – as well as his feelings about directors, in general.
I’ll be writing about this eventually but want to thank all of you for this discussion – it helped me put together what I wanted to talk about with him.
I asked about:
— the last scene in Mohicans
— working with Malick/Michael Mann
— Penny Dreadful
And then we talked about all kinds of other things too – and at one point he said, “Enough about me, what about you” and he asked me questions about my life – and my writing – and the film I had in the festival (we both had films in the festival!)- and I was not prepared to be interviewed by Wes Studi at all but I went with it and that just gives one example of the kind of man he is. Humble, funny, generous.
My mother also bonded with him at one of the after-parties.
So, you know, it all went really really well. Very happy to have been asked to moderate that discussion with him!