Schlockmeister Brian Trenchard-Smith
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ENGLISH SECTION Festival Daily SPECIAL EDITION OF THE OFFICIAL ENGLISH DAILY OF THE 45TH KARLOVY VARY INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Friday, July 9, 2010 free • page 1 ENG day Bilingual program Crystal Globe recipient Schlockmeister Brian DIVÁCKÁ CENA / AUDIENCE AWARD for tomorrow DENÍKU Juraj Herz Trenchard-Smith Vote for the best film of the 45th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival! (Czech Section: pages 6, 7, 8) page 3 8 page 4 (Czech Section: page 2) THE LOWDOWN Thursday’s crowded Master Loving the alien Class, with Brian Trenchard- Smith, the master director of the films that make up the John Wells on the positive influence of television Ozploitation! section, and pro- ducer colleague Richard Brennan, amazed and amused Cóilín O’Connor, would say to me “I put the the crowds with stories of sleaze, Veronika Bednářová bumper on that truck,” when one slashers and the seventies. drove by, or “I could show you Ratings were always an issue Writer, producer and director the house that I built.” They in the race to make the most John Wells has come to KVIFF could show you something they money for the lowest budget, this week to present his film The did. But upper middle class especially when the rules of the Company Men starring Ben workers had no physical sense of genre Trenchard-Smith favored Affleck and Tommy Lee Jones. what they actually did. The only called for car chases, gore and This hard-hitting look at the way they could represent what topless women in abundance. impact of the economic crisis on they did to others was the money But Brennan recounted that the US middle class marks some- they had for the possessions they he once found a way to capital- thing of a new departure for the owned. “This is the car that ize on one of his film’s release affable American, who has previ- I drive, this is the clothing that dates at school break time, actu- ously made a name for himself I wear…” All this stuff… And ally managing to score a G rat- as the leading creative force as they lost that, they completely ing so as to maximize teen coin. behind hit TV shows such as ER lost their identities. I There were “a lot of bullets fly- and The West Wing. Was it easier to get ing,” he said, but “not a drop of a stellar cast for your first fea- blood.” I The election of a Hispanic ture because of your success By some amazing coinci- candidate as president at the with things like ER and The dence, it seemed that none of end of The West Wing was eeri- West Wing? the characters in that ly similar to the real-life elec- Well that helped. People sort Ozploitation flick ever man- tion of Barack Obama. Was of knew my work and I had the aged to hit each other in all their that purely coincidental? advantage of not being a first- many gun battles. “We per- I try very hard to have a lot of time director to the actors I was formed better than the second research done for the shows we working with… But the cast King Kong,” he recalled with work on. When we were trying actually came together to a large pride. to decide who that candidate degree because of the extraordi- Not quite so fortunate this would be, we asked the question: narily difficult economic times year was Prague-based pro- “If a minority figure were to in the United States. Usually, ducer Jefe Brown, who, in come through and win the presi- those actors would have had Photo: Jan Handrejch a bizarre arm wrestling acci- dency, would it be a woman, more options of things for them dent, managed to break his right a black character or a Hispanic TV supremo John Wells is presenting his debut feature The Company Men. to do. It was partly down to arm shortly after granting character?” Interestingly, all of there being very little work that a short interview to the Festival our consultants said that we were advance. I don’t ever want to of the fear out of the equation for interviews [for the script] we didn’t involve being in Daily. Another Prague-based much more likely to get take credit for anything in the reasonable people in the middle, found that the people who were a superhero movie. I’m not say- producer, John Riley, who was a handsome, articulate Hispanic real world, but I think we can who are just afraid because they most damaged, not necessarily ing that to be funny – action on hand to help get Brown to or black elected than a woman in make things which seem unlike- don’t know any different. I think economically, but emotionally, movies, horror movies, romantic the hospital, said this sort of the US – that we were still anoth- ly or unusual to the viewing that is a way in which we can be were not the blue-collar workers. comedies and superhero movies thing seems to happen to him er generation away from that audience much more acceptable, influential, particularly in televi- They had a real sense that they are the only movies that have all too often at film fests. “I’m being able to happen. And that’s because they feel emotionally sion, which comes into people’s had done something and that been made in the US in the last not spending another festival why we went in that direction. that they have seen it and they’re homes every day. There were they had a skill. They were year and a half… To give you an night at a hospital,” he swore. I Do you think you might not frightened by it. In the same African-American, Hispanic, pissed but they were not example, Tommy Lee [Jones] [email protected] have helped sow the idea of way, I think that entertainment in and gay characters on TV years unmoored, they weren’t lost. The was fitting the movie in between a minority president in many the US in the fifties and sixties before many people saw them in people who were lost were these offers to do Captain America people’s minds? was very important to the ulti- their own lives. men whose only way of seeing and Men in Black 3. Very few One thing we can do in enter- mate acceptance by the middle I For The Company Men, what they did was how much more serious films have been NOTICE: There will be two tainment and take credit for is class of racial changes in the did you deliberately set out to money they made. Because they made in the US in the last year unscheduled extra screenings making the alien and extraordi- country – because they saw in tell it from the point of view of had no connection with what and a half… We haven’t been today: Katka (1pm, Congress Teenage nary seem more likely and possi- film and television things that people who would have been they did. They pushed paper, making the American movies Hall, Thermal), and Paparazzo ble to people by showing them they weren’t able to experience quite affluent before the crisis? they were in insurance or in that are going to come and play (10:30pm, Karlovy Vary Theatre). I what things would be like in in their lives, and that took some When I went out and did the finance. The blue collar workers in your cinemas. I EXPLAINER SEE YOU THERE So how did the Pupp become so Grand? Patrick Demers The sumptuous pad ed artisans of the 18th that is home to KVIFF’s century, commanding Director of Suspicions stars during the festival exorbitant prices and con- has been over 300 years siderable social respect. I would recommend seeing Of Gods and Men in the making. This mag- So, back to Mr. Pop in by Xavier Beauvois, one of my favorite French nificent pile has changed 1760. Pop came to directors. He has made some great films. As both name and shape as it Karlovy Vary to join the a fan, I would encourage people to go see his changed hands. The orig- renowned Mitterbach movies. I’d also recommend My Joy (by Sergei inal structure was family business, having Loznitsa), a Russian film which I’ve seen Burgomaster Deiml’s gained a reputation as already. I liked it because it touched me and the “Saxony Hall” from Count Chotek’s confec- themes it expresses are very clear and effective. 1701. Several years later, tioner. Business thrived, You cannot come out of this film without being The Grandhotel Pupp – home to the stars. the new mayor of and Pop, having fashion- swept away by the fact that the people in control “Carlsbad,” by the name of Becher (sound famil- ably Germanized his name to Johann Georg Pupp, in Russia have been abusing their power for iar?), built his Lusthaus (pleasure house) next door, married Mitterbach’s daughter in 1775. a long time. soon known as “Bohemia Hall.” Burgomaster Becher’s widow sold them a third of Then, in 1760, the promising young confectioner Bohemia Hall, and the following year the newly- Of Gods and Men screens today at 2pm in Jan Jiří Pop came to Karlovy Vary. To understand weds bought the rest. the Thermal’s Grand Hall. My Joy also the next part of the story, we need to know what it The new Pupp family prospered.