Posted by NRRD at babc275-0301-123.bu.edu on November 03, 2000 at 17:17:00:
In Reply to: Kevin q (of the repost from previous board verity) posted by NRRD on November 03, 2000 at 17:14:24:
Director detects hunger for something different
by Nolan Reese
For the Daily News
"The 'Blair Witch' guys should run with fear since we're gonna kick their butts at the box office," director Miguel Arteta said jokingly. His film "Chuck & Buck" is Artisan Entertainment's first Sundance pickup since last year's marketing phenomenon "The Blair Witch Project," yet to Arteta, that doesn't translate to pressure. "These people at Artisan take chances and they're really creative in the way they market their movies," he said.
"They seem to know that there's an audience out there for movies that are kind of edgy and far out. They know how to go
out there and find an audience."
Arteta is confident that an audience is out there for his film, which centers on Buck, an obsessive man-child who attempts to
reunite with his childhood best friend. "My generation, more than any other generation, is obsessed with the idea of not
growing up. You have all these rich young millionaires running companies who are wearing tennis shoes, sucking on
lollipops and believing that if you look like a grownup you're a loser. I think 'Chuck & Buck' has a chance because this is
really the first time we're commenting on this kind of phenomenon."
Arteta first met writer/star Mike White, who has recently done scripts for Hollywood players like Adam Sandler and Tim
Burton, through a network of graduates from Wesleyan University in Connecticut. White had a small part in Arteta's first film,
"Star Maps," and during that film's editing, he showed him a script he'd written.
"A lot of the impetus for making 'Chuck & Buck' came from Mike living in Hollywood, being kind of a misfit, trying to get jobs
and having to put the Chuck persona out. The movie kind of works as his alter ego.
"There's a Chuck and a Buck in all of us - the Chuck is the person we're putting out there to the world, the composed and
successful, handsome person. Buck is the person we hide or deep down we're afraid we are, needy and compulsive. So I
think Mike was sick and tired of having to portray himself as Chuck so he created this movie about the real person that won't
go away."
After deciding that they didn't want to fill the film with name actors, Arteta and White chose to make it on digital video with a
small, 15-member crew.
"It was a really long, difficult battle to get the financing with full artistic control," Arteta said. "People were like, 'If you want to
put a famous person in here, we'll give you the money.' We contemplated doing the 'name game,' as they call it, for a little
while and then we realized it's not going to be right for this movie. We need to have a fresh face. The story's so unusual
that we felt like the story had to be the star.
"The digital video puts the focus where it should be, on the performances. When you're making an indie movie of this size,
the performances are the most important thing. Nobody takes this five-pound plastic camera all that seriously."
Now, on the eve of its national release, Arteta is confident that they've made something special. "I think it will have a big
art-house audience and perhaps a little more. People are starved for something different, so that makes me hopeful."
"It's a movie about someone who's really damaged and as a result he's very obsessed and he's very inappropriate with
people.. . .Anytime Hollywood deals with obsession it always ends up in a bloodbath of some sort. It deals with it very
bluntly. I like that this script dealt with obsession in a compassionate way and the character was able to work out his
obsession without hurting himself or hurting anybody else.
"I find it very beautiful that while pursuing his obsession, he meets these people who are able to help him learn how to
relate to people more appropriately."
Since completing "Chuck & Buck," Arteta has directed some TV, including the now-canceled "Freaks and Geeks" and a
pilot for Martin Scorsese, and is contemplating his next project.
"I'm pursuing a script Mike wrote called 'The Good Girl' and we're trying to set it up. It's another amazing, far-out script, kind
of a lower-class 'American Beauty.' It's about a woman trying to get pregnant who lives in Texas and works at a discount
store. At the same time, USA Films bought a script that I co-wrote called 'Stealing Christmas,' that's a more accessible
movie.
"So I don't want to be typecast. This is why I admire the careers of someone like Jonathan Demme or Steven Soderbergh.
They do darker work and more accessible work, but they always seem to get by with some level of integrity."