we watched silver city some nights ago. it was interesting enough but pitched almost entirely like a lecture meets low-key agit-prop. sayles still writes interesting dialog but his films are growing increasingly tedious. it is almost like he doesn’t trust his audience to connect the dots anymore. and the principal casting is seriously off in this film. whatever happened to the man who wrote and directed passion fish, matewan, lone star and men with guns? even the flawed limbo was much better than this–actually i quite liked that movie.
does anyone know how he finances his films? i think it might have been the much maligned roger ebert who once noted that sayles’ career, quietly, regularly making interesting movies for 20 years now, makes you look askance at scorcese and lee’s complaints about hollywood not allowing room for interesting films.
He drums up financing with his co-producers (including his wife, Maggie Renzi) from non-traditional sources–businesspeople, etc. This usually works out well; he has a track record, and even when he “misfires” the film’s certain to earn its keep. But occasionally he has real trouble getting things together–read _Matewan_, his account of putting together an independent film. (He actually had to set that film aside for a while and go shoot the cheaper “Brother from Another Planet”….)
As to his recent films, I wasn’t a huge fan but I still enjoyed “Silver City.” I liked Danny Huston, and Daryl Hannah in particular. And I find that if I try to define a trend–’cause I didn’t much care for Casa de Los Babys, although it had one stunning scene with Susan Lynch and (I think) Vanessa Martinez–it doesn’t work too well. I really loved “Limbo” and “Men with Guns,” for instance, despite being less impressed with the hugely-lauded “Lone Star” and the generally-dismissed “Sunshine State”. And even when I’m less impressed, as with LS, SS, or SC, I still find them smart, thoughtful, and entertaining…. just less so than typical Sayles.
I think Mike is referring to Sayles’s book _Thinking in Pictures: the Making of Matewan_
This is what I got from a chapter entitled “A Note on Fund-raising”: his earliest films were financed in different ways. Two of them were paid for with money he got from writing scripts (presumably “Aligator,” “Piranha,” “The Howling,” etc.). One was funded through a public offering, another with distributor’s money, a fourth (“Baby, It’s You”) with Paramount’s backing, and “Matewan” was funded with money cobbled together from a bunch of sources (the producers, the distributor, home video presales, etc.).
The American Studies program here ran a John Sayles film series last semester, which is why I have some of this info handy. I didn’t know this until i started reading more about him: Sayles got his start working for Roger Corman. Check out this site if you’re interested in learning more:
http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/41/sayles.htm
I really like “Aligator” and “Piranha.” Didn’t like “The Howling” as much as Michael Wadleigh’s “Wolfen,” which came out at right roughly the same time. By the way, what else has Michael Wadleigh done, besides “Wolfen” and “Woodstock”?
Wadleigh’s done nothing else.
I much prefer “The Howling”. John Carradine, Patrick Macnee, Slim Pickens, Dick Miller…. Sayles pops up as a morgue attendant, too.