Press Kit: Taking Tiger Mountain Revisited 12/26/18
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PRESS KIT: TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN REVISITED 12/26/18 TO KILL OR NOT TO KILL Logline: In the future, militant feminists brainwash an American draft dodger to assassinate the Welsh minister of prostitution. Synopsis: In a dystopian future, American draft dodger Billy Hampton, 19, is brainwashed and programmed by militant feminists to assassinate the Welsh minister of prostitution. Lurching unwittingly toward his goal, he makes a series of furtive connections with outsiders like himself, including a feral child, a gentle prostitute, a sadomasochistic delinquent, a lovelorn androgyne, a hippie dope dealer, and a mute nymphomaniac, while at the same time fending off predators who would sell him into sex slavery. Eventually, he is forced to focus on his mission and face the dreadful dilemma tormenting his psyche: to kill or not to kill. Bill Paxton plays “Billy Hampton” in Taking Tiger Mountain Revisited, directed by Tom Huckabee and Kent Smith, co-written by William S. Burroughs. PRESS KIT: TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN REVISITED 12/26/18 DIRECTOR’S STATMENT In 1974 Kent Smith, 29, and Bill Paxton, 19, fledgling filmmakers based in Los Angeles, produced approximately half of a feature film in Wales with an amateur cast and crew. The script by Smith was based on the 1973 kidnapping of John Paul Getty III. Their stash of 35mm B&W negative was comprised of “short ends” from Bob Fosse’s Lenny. Their camera was an old Arriflex adapted for Techniscope, a wide screen format that required half as much stock as normal 35mm. They intended to shoot in Morocco, as dictated by the script, which was informed by the works of Paul Bowles, Albert Camus, and William S. Burroughs, complete with illicit drugs, polymorphous perversity, international intrigue, and existential paranoia. The duo flew to Spain, where they rented a car and ferried across the sea to Tangier, where they were arrested for attempting to make a movie without government permission. Kent secured their release with a bribe. Back in Spain, Bill remembered he had friends in Wales on whom he could rely. The intrepid duo spent the next six weeks in rural Carmarthenshire province, casting and crewing among the locals, adapting the script to fit the locale, and shooting from the hip. Influenced by Italian cinema, they recorded no sound, intending to dub the dialogue with professional voice actors in Hollywood. After money ran out, they returned to LA, where I was privileged to see all ten hours of their impressive dailies. Shortly thereafter, Bill moved to Manhattan to study acting with Stella Adler at NYU, while Kent attempted to raise finishing funds for Tiger Mountain to no avail. Four years later in 1979, during my last year of film school at UT Austin, I persuaded Kent to lease me the material, from which I culled 50 to 60 minutes of highlights and shaped them into a narrative flow. After assembling a small team of students and faculty, including writer Paul Cullum, dramaturge Ray Layton editor Lorrie Oshatz, professor Tom Schatz, and sound designer Brian Hansen, we rewrote the story, setting it in a dystopian future and adding themes of radical feminism, geo-political catastrophe, sex slavery, mind control, government propaganda, and assassination. New scenes were shot, and all the sounds— dialogue, music, and effects— were created from scratch. The influence of William Burroughs, known for his ideological misogyny, grew more pronounced, to which we added the counterbalance of Valerie Solanas, author of the SCUM Manifesto. (SCUM stands for Society for Cutting Up Men.) From Burroughs, I secured the use of text from his novella, Blade Runner (a movie), the title of which had already been leased by Ridley Scott. Completed in 1983, Taking Tiger Mountain was briefly distributed by Horizon Films and exhibited In the US by the Landmark theater chain. Despite some positive notices, quite a few reviews asserted that the story behind the making of the film was better than the thing itself. At the time, my inner critic agreed with the naysayers. But through the decades, I held the belief that there was a better movie longing to be born from the source material. In 2016, Etiquette Pictures acquired the digital rights and transferred the Techniscope original to 4K. This inspired me to revisit the project with the aim of creating a version as compelling as the story of its making. To the extent this was achieved, the film warrants consideration as a new entity. - Tom Huckabee, 12/18/18, Fort Worth, TX PRESS KIT: TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN REVISITED 12/26/18 CAST BILL PAXTON (Billy Hampton) One of the most beloved and versatile actors of his generation, Paxton was also a prolific filmmaker. Born and raised in Fort Worth, Tx, he moved to Hollywood after high school, where he worked as a set dresser and made his professional acting debut with a bit part in Jonathan Demme’s Crazy Mama (1975). After two years studying performance with Stella Adler at NYU, he scored notable supporting parts in Weird Science, The Terminator, Aliens, Near Dark, Tombstone, True Lies, Titanic, and Apollo 13, while producing numerous short films and music videos. In 1992, he proved his viability as a leading man in Carl Franklin’s One False Move and went on to star in Twister, A Bright Shining Lie, A Simple Plan, Vertical Limit, Mighty Joe Young, etc. In 1997 he produced Traveller, co-starring with Julianna Margulies and Mark Wahlberg, which won two thumbs up from Siskell and Ebert. He made his feature directing debut with the critically-acclaimed thriller Frailty, co-starring himself and fellow Texans, Matthew McConaughey and Powers Boothe. His sophomore directorial effort was the underrated Disney sports film, The Greatest Game Ever Played, written by Mark Frost, starring Shia LaBoeuf. From 2006 to 2011, he headlined the popular HBO series Big Love. He died on Feb. 25, 2017, after suffering a stroke during heart surgery. Taking Tiger Mountain was his first leading roll in a feature. OTHER CAST MEMBERS Due to the unusual genesis of Taking Tiger Mountain Revisited, the rest of the cast consists of four groups of people, mostly non-professionals, working many years and many miles apart from each other. All but a handful have not performed in a film before or since. They are listed at the end of this press kit and on IMDB. CREW TOM HUCKABEE, Director/Writer/Producer/Editor Huckabee is a multi-disciplined artist, filmmaker, and educator. A frequent partner with the late Bill Paxton, their collaborations included Martini Ranch’s “Reach,” directed by James Cameron, Traveller, Frailty, and the first annual Lone Star Film Festival. His semi- autobiographical sophomore feature, Carried Away (2010), won three first place film festival awards and is available for streaming on Amazon Prime. He is the co-director of “Death of a Rock Star,” one of six shorts in Jonathan Demme Presents Made In Texas, distributed by the University of Texas Press. Upcoming projects include documentaries Picasso’s Christ and Legalize Crime; a stage play, Dr. Zombi, PhD; and ReCharge!, a Utopian art car musical set in Houston one hundred years from now.. PRESS KIT: TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN REVISITED 12/26/18 KENT SMITH, Director, Writer, Producer, DP A graduate of UCLA film school, Smith is a composer, filmmaker, novelist and IT specialist based in Thailand. His organ pieces have been published and performed in LA, Boston and New York. He has been a staff director at Universal/MCA, Encyclopedia Britannica Films, and CBS Educational Media. WILLIAM SEWARD BURROUGHS, Writer William S. Burroughs was an American writer and visual artist of international renown and immeasurable influence. A primary figure of the Beat Movement, his experimental, sardonic and transgressive novels featured graphic depictions of sex, violence, mind control, and drug abuse. He published eighteen novels and novellas, six collections of short stories, four collections of essays, and five books of interviews and correspondences. He often collaborated with others, co-creating works in sundry media and appeared as a performer in radio, film and television, e.g. Drugstore Cowboy and Saturday Night Live. He produced and exhibited thousands of paintings and other visual art works, including his celebrated gunshot paintings. PAUL CULLUM, Writer A graduate of the UT Austin School of Communications, Cullum is an award-winning journalist who has written for L.A. Weekly, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Salon, Daily Beast, Huffington Post, The L.A. Review of Books and Texas Monthly, among many others. He was the managing editor of Film Threat Magazine, a columnist for Arthur, and included in The Best American Sports Writing of 2007. His songs have been recorded by the Golden Palominos (featuring Jack Bruce), the Wild Seeds, Kris McKay and have appeared in several films. RADIO FREE EUROPE, Music and Soundscapes RFE was a 70’s, punk-inspired, experimental sound ensemble from Austin, Texas, comprised of Brian Hansen, Dave Maya, Stephen Miller, Dan Puckett, and Neil Ruttenberg. Banned from every club at which they played, their three releases on vinyl—one single, one EP, and one LP—feature a dynamic stylIstic range, from infectious techno pop to mellow ambient soundscapes to industrial cacophony. PRESS KIT: TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN REVISITED 12/26/18 CALDER (CADE) CLEAVLIN, Digital Editor and Effects Cade Cleavelin is a Dallas-based photographer, editor, and motion designer working primarily in commercial media production. He draws on his background in journalism to help craft compelling narratives across all forms of media. LOGAN GILPIN, Digital Editor and Effects Based in Fort Worth, Texas Logan is a writer, director, and producer with vast experience in diverse forms of production and post-production, including features, documentaries, virtual reality, planetarium shows, and web series.