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Ang Lee and James Schamus Discuss the Mistakes They Made With Taking Woodstock
Aloysius J. Gleek:
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2009/11/ang_lee_and_james_schamus_talk.html
Ang Lee and James Schamus Discuss the
Mistakes They Made With
Taking Woodstock
11/20/09 at 4:30 PM
Photo: Patrick McMullan
On Wednesday night, the National Arts Club awarded its Medal of Honor in Film to director Ang Lee and his longtime collaborator, Focus Features president James Schamus. It was, the two frankly admitted, probably the only accolade they’d get this year, given critics’ — and audiences’ — tepid reaction to Taking Woodstock, which Lee directed and Schamus wrote. The two of them spoke with Vulture in the drawing room, after the entrée, but before the dessert.
Taking Woodstock got criticized for not having the concert footage. How do you respond?
Ang Lee: We didn’t want to do the concert. We wanted to do not only the outskirts, but the spirit of Woodstock, and take that to heart. That’s what “Taking Woodstock” means, or so they explained to me. It’s cheaper that way, but it’s not the entire reason.
Was it part of the reason, though?
AL: Sure. But Woodstock was so much bigger than the concert. The concert was kind of not that great. Concert-wise, a lot of musicians went. Most of them did bad performances because conditions were really bad. Unless you’re a documentary filmmaker, not a whole lot of people see the stage very well. That’s not the experience of Woodstock. The author, he tried, he never got even close to Woodstock. So that was the story. [James Schamus joins us]
We were talking about not seeing the stage in Taking Woodstock.
James Schamus: Which is absurd, because if you were at Woodstock, you know, Janis Joplin would have been the size of a pea, you wouldn’t have heard anything anyhow, and you would have been having sex in the tent while on acid in the mud. That’s what happened.
I made two big mistakes. I put “Woodstock” in the title, and I put his name on the poster. Because, you know, everybody who goes to an Ang Lee movie, you want to be sublimely depressed by the end of the film. And if you have Woodstock in the title, you think you’re going to be seeing Joe Cocker screaming onstage. [Turns to Ang, pats his shoulder] So it was my bad. I’m sorry.
You feel like people want to come out of your films depressed?
AL: No, I mean, didn’t start out my career that way. The first full movie was very uplifiting, and three of them are comedies. [Woodstock] did better in China.
JS: It opened No. 2 in a lot of Asia. It was a big commercial film in a lot of the rest of the world.
It lost money?
JS: What can I tell ya? It didn’t do well at all. The great news is, we can actually come to the National Arts Club and get an award, and it has nothing to do with an Oscar campaign because nobody’s going to freaking vote for your movie for the Oscars, I hate to tell ya! [Slaps Ang’s back, who is laughing]
AL: It’s fine. Whatever.
But money is becoming a big issue in independent film.
JS: Oh, I’d say. Look, we’re in our eighth year at Focus. We’ve been profitable every year. We just passed the billion-dollar mark in domestic box-office. We’re making money. We’re having fun. We’re working with really cool filmmakers. So it’s stupid of me to sit around and complain. On the other hand, I live in the real world, and things are tough out there, and I’m not immune to that. We keep making movies that we believe in. Some of them work, like Brokeback. Some of them don’t work commercially, like Taking Woodstock. And you gotta take your lumps. Look, I got whooped. Honestly, it’s embarrassing. I’m the head of the studio, and then I write and produce a film. But I’ve worked in the business long enough to know that if you can’t get a good ass-kicking every once in a while, then you shouldn’t be in the business.
Aloysius J. Gleek:
Huh. Me, of all people, should have known this--but I never noticed. Anybody else?
(Unless you all do....)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Schamus
James Allan Schamus (born September 7, 1959) is an American film producer and screenwriter, noted for his work on critically acclaimed independent films such as Safe, The Brothers McMullen and the Academy Award winning film Brokeback Mountain.
(....)
Friends, acquaintances, and even rivals sometimes refer to him as James James, Schamus Schamus, or Seamus Seamus because his first and last names are etymological cognates.
Schamus is married to author Nancy Kricorian and they have two daughters, Nona and Djuna.
Aloysius J. Gleek:
Hmm. Ang had a birthday a month ago--55.
Jesus. He is six months younger than me--and looks ten years younger than me.
Academy Award winner. Good looking, too.
I give up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ang_Lee
Ang Lee
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ang Lee (Chinese: 李安; Pinyin: Lǐ Ān; born October 23, 1954) is an Academy Award-winning Taiwanese American film director. Lee has directed a diverse set of films such as Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), Sense and Sensibility (1995), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Hulk (2003), and Brokeback Mountain (2005) for which he won an Academy Award for Best Director.
Monika:
--- Quote from: jmmgallagher on November 20, 2009, 10:43:01 pm ---http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2009/11/ang_lee_and_james_schamus_talk.html
Ang Lee and James Schamus Discuss the
Mistakes They Made With
Taking Woodstock
11/20/09 at 4:30 PM
Photo: Patrick McMullan
On Wednesday night, the National Arts Club awarded its Medal of Honor in Film to director Ang Lee and his longtime collaborator, Focus Features president James Schamus. It was, the two frankly admitted, probably the only accolade they’d get this year, given critics’ — and audiences’ — tepid reaction to Taking Woodstock, which Lee directed and Schamus wrote. The two of them spoke with Vulture in the drawing room, after the entrée, but before the dessert.
Taking Woodstock got criticized for not having the concert footage. How do you respond?
Ang Lee: We didn’t want to do the concert. We wanted to do not only the outskirts, but the spirit of Woodstock, and take that to heart. That’s what “Taking Woodstock” means, or so they explained to me. It’s cheaper that way, but it’s not the entire reason.
Was it part of the reason, though?
AL: Sure. But Woodstock was so much bigger than the concert. The concert was kind of not that great. Concert-wise, a lot of musicians went. Most of them did bad performances because conditions were really bad. Unless you’re a documentary filmmaker, not a whole lot of people see the stage very well. That’s not the experience of Woodstock. The author, he tried, he never got even close to Woodstock. So that was the story. [James Schamus joins us]
We were talking about not seeing the stage in Taking Woodstock.
James Schamus: Which is absurd, because if you were at Woodstock, you know, Janis Joplin would have been the size of a pea, you wouldn’t have heard anything anyhow, and you would have been having sex in the tent while on acid in the mud. That’s what happened.
I made two big mistakes. I put “Woodstock” in the title, and I put his name on the poster. Because, you know, everybody who goes to an Ang Lee movie, you want to be sublimely depressed by the end of the film. And if you have Woodstock in the title, you think you’re going to be seeing Joe Cocker screaming onstage. [Turns to Ang, pats his shoulder] So it was my bad. I’m sorry.
You feel like people want to come out of your films depressed?
AL: No, I mean, didn’t start out my career that way. The first full movie was very uplifiting, and three of them are comedies. [Woodstock] did better in China.
JS: It opened No. 2 in a lot of Asia. It was a big commercial film in a lot of the rest of the world.
It lost money?
JS: What can I tell ya? It didn’t do well at all. The great news is, we can actually come to the National Arts Club and get an award, and it has nothing to do with an Oscar campaign because nobody’s going to freaking vote for your movie for the Oscars, I hate to tell ya! [Slaps Ang’s back, who is laughing]
AL: It’s fine. Whatever.
But money is becoming a big issue in independent film.
JS: Oh, I’d say. Look, we’re in our eighth year at Focus. We’ve been profitable every year. We just passed the billion-dollar mark in domestic box-office. We’re making money. We’re having fun. We’re working with really cool filmmakers. So it’s stupid of me to sit around and complain. On the other hand, I live in the real world, and things are tough out there, and I’m not immune to that. We keep making movies that we believe in. Some of them work, like Brokeback. Some of them don’t work commercially, like Taking Woodstock. And you gotta take your lumps. Look, I got whooped. Honestly, it’s embarrassing. I’m the head of the studio, and then I write and produce a film. But I’ve worked in the business long enough to know that if you can’t get a good ass-kicking every once in a while, then you shouldn’t be in the business.
--- End quote ---
what a fun pair they seem to be! Hopefully they´ll make many more movies together in the future.
Image sitting down with them for a cup of coffe, piece of cherry cake, or something. Dreamy.
Front-Ranger:
--- Quote from: Buffymon on November 21, 2009, 12:53:35 am --- what a fun pair they seem to be! Hopefully they´ll make many more movies together in the future.
Image sitting down with them for a cup of coffe, piece of cherry cake, or something. Dreamy.
--- End quote ---
Thanks for this fun article! Me, I hope James Shamus goes back to what he does best, producing, and leaves the writing to people like Larry McMurtry and whomever else Ang wants to work with. I did enjoy Taking Woodstock though, and saw it twice, once before going to Woodstock, NY (and White Lake where the festival took place) and once after.
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