Post by petrolino on Jul 15, 2017 0:42:57 GMT
Ken Wiederhorn's dark thriller 'Eyes Of A Stranger' is an intelligent slasher picture that's been frequently praised by other horror directors, perhaps most notably Brian De Palma who said he was greatly impressed by the technical filmmaking on display after seeing it during its initial release. I find it's almost like a silent movie at times, such is the plot and its unusual devices. The focal point of the film is the relationship between two sisters, feminist journalist Jane (Lauren Tewes) and her troubled younger sibling Tracy (Jennifer Jason Leigh) who's been left traumatised and housebound by a terrible incident that occurred during childhood. Trained reporter Jane takes the controversial step to call out her fellow news anchor Roger England (Ted Richert) during a live broadcast and warn viewers directly that there's a sick serial rapist-murderer stalking the streets.
Director Ken Wiederhorn raised a few eyebrows with his ambitious low budget horror feature 'Shock Waves' (1977) and he then raised a few temperatures with the anarchic college comedy 'King Frat' (1979). For 'Eyes Of A Stranger', he was able to obtain the services of make-up effects maestro Tom Savini whose work around this time was second to none. Lauren Tewes had a degree of television experience coming in but this was her feature film debut. It was the second film for Jennifer Jason Leigh who'd also been working in television. Their intuitive relationship is integral to the plot and helps generate the strange ambience of this atmospheric picture which becomes more and more like a bad dream as it's progressing. The unsettling music is composed by genre specialist Richard Einhorn. Editor Rick Shaine does fine work maintaining tension and he'd soon see Leigh again on the set of the Rodney Dangerfield comedy vehicle 'Easy Money' (1983).
'Eyes Of A Stranger' is a taut terror tract that deals with side-issues of media intrusion and press manipulation. It also posits the controversial idea that news could be a precious commodity of the rich bankrolled by criminal activity, bringing it into line with such provocative, politicised works as Woody Allen's 'Bananas' (1971), Michael Ritchie's 'The Candidate' (1972), Sidney Lumet's 'Network' (1976) and Albert Brooks' 'Real Life' (1979).
Lauren Tewes
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Director Ken Wiederhorn raised a few eyebrows with his ambitious low budget horror feature 'Shock Waves' (1977) and he then raised a few temperatures with the anarchic college comedy 'King Frat' (1979). For 'Eyes Of A Stranger', he was able to obtain the services of make-up effects maestro Tom Savini whose work around this time was second to none. Lauren Tewes had a degree of television experience coming in but this was her feature film debut. It was the second film for Jennifer Jason Leigh who'd also been working in television. Their intuitive relationship is integral to the plot and helps generate the strange ambience of this atmospheric picture which becomes more and more like a bad dream as it's progressing. The unsettling music is composed by genre specialist Richard Einhorn. Editor Rick Shaine does fine work maintaining tension and he'd soon see Leigh again on the set of the Rodney Dangerfield comedy vehicle 'Easy Money' (1983).
'Eyes Of A Stranger' is a taut terror tract that deals with side-issues of media intrusion and press manipulation. It also posits the controversial idea that news could be a precious commodity of the rich bankrolled by criminal activity, bringing it into line with such provocative, politicised works as Woody Allen's 'Bananas' (1971), Michael Ritchie's 'The Candidate' (1972), Sidney Lumet's 'Network' (1976) and Albert Brooks' 'Real Life' (1979).
Jennifer Jason Leigh
"Her late stepfather was the prolific television director Reza Badiyi, whose credits include many famous TV-show opening-title sequences. It was his idea to have Mary Tyler Moore toss her tam-o’-shanter into the air. She knew from an early age that she would be an actress, never contemplating, she says, that it was “something hard to crack into. It just seemed that’s what people did when they grew up.” She cites Sidney Lumet’s 'Dog Day Afternoon' as the movie that shook her to her core. Though she was only 13 when it came out, she managed to see it multiple times. She has vague memories of Robert Altman as a presence in her household, since her stepfather, Badiyi, was a friend and protégé of the director’s. (She later appeared in two Altman movies, 'Short Cuts' and 'Kansas City', and her mother wrote the screenplay for a late-period Altman movie, 'The Company'.)"
- David Kamp, Vanity Fair
Jennifer Jason Leigh in Matthew Chapman's 'Heart Of Midnight' (1988)
"I like as much time as I can get and I'll do whatever I think is helpful. Sometimes it's practical research, meaning if I had to write shorthand, I'd learn how to write shorthand. Or if I have to know how to dance a certain way, I would learn that. And then there's just research of talking to people similar to the characters I'm playing. And there's stuff that I just feel is inspiring, whether it be music or a painting or a photograph. I've used a lot of Nan Goldin's photos in the past to inspire me. I use certain paintings and pieces of music. I think Robert Altman could see things in me that I didn't know I possessed, which is really exciting. He also instilled a tremendous amount of confidence, because he would say things like, "These are the bare bones, but I want you to go fill it out. You find the character. You bring it to me. You write whatever you want." And if you had an idea, he wouldn't want to hear about it. He's want you to show it to him. So there's so much confidence and freedom that comes from that way of doing things. And he and Alan Rudolph make the set the place to be. It's fun. It's a kind of creative freedom that's really inspiring. [Altman] loved actors so much. Everyone came to dailies—this is when dailies used to be projected—and there would be food and wine. You had to come. It was like required reading or something. [Laughs.] If you didn't come, you were in trouble. But it was so much fun. They could be endlessly long, the dailies, but you know. He was a great mentor for me, really."
- Jennifer Jason Leigh, The A.V. Club
Jennifer Jason Leigh & Philip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie Kaufman's 'Synecdoche, New York' (2008)
"A reviewer once remarked that Jennifer Jason Leigh makes even the most mainstream film seem arthouse just by being in it, and she has much the same effect on real life. Whatever she's talking about, you have the sense that something importantly weird is about to happen, or maybe just did. As she sits down — we're at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles, not her kind of place at all — she sees some chips rush past in the arms of a waiter. She eyes them intensely. "Look at those fries. It's nice when you see something, and then you want to eat it. It's a good feeling. Especially when you can ... just ... order ... it." No ghost of a smile — truly, this is arthouse lunch-ordering. We're here to discuss two films, The Machinist and Palindromes. The first is eerie, brilliant and unfathomable for about three-quarters of its length. Christian Bale plays a man who has not slept in a year — strange things happen to him, constantly. Strange allegiances are forged, and then evaporate. Impossibly gruesome accidents occur in the factory where he works. Jason Leigh plays a kind and complicated hooker, pulling off a masterful balance of trust and wary fragility. In the business of creating a cinematic atmosphere, she really is peerless. She seems pleased with the film. "I think it does engage you. I like a movie that the audience actively has to participate in, and not just casually observe. Whatever my part in it, just as an audience member, I find that exciting. Plus [The Machinist] has an interesting look. There's a lot of green in it." This preference (for interesting films, not films with a greenish tinge) shows up in her CV — there's little schlock in it, a marked leaning towards Hollywood's most interesting directors (Altman, Cronenberg, the Coen brothers), and no repetition, although she has played an awful lot of prostitutes: Tralala in Last Exit To Brooklyn, Susie Waggoner in Miami Blues, Lois Kaiser, the phone-sex worker in Short Cuts (not strictly a prostitute) and now Stevie in The Machinist. It's not gone unnoticed. "My manager at the time was going, 'No, you shouldn't do this part, you have done it, you have played prostitutes before. But I thought Stevie was a different kind of prostitute ... " She has said before that she finds acting a good way to discover and vent emotions that she would not want to have in real life. I wonder if her predilection for playing prostitutes represents the sexual dimension of that. She thinks on this for a second. "It's like Sartre. His most typical story that represents existentialism — a woman in the window watches the prostitutes outside, and the only thing that separates her from them is going outside. You know, you really do choose your existence in a way. If that stuff appeals to you, which it does to me, you can have a very existential experience in acting." I find, as ever, that the introduction of Jean-Paul Sartre into an answer makes you forget what the question was. But her take on the catharsis her job offers is more straightforward. "It's pretty liberating not to be afraid to get angry, or afraid to feel jealousy. So you get to experience all these things in life that you would normally try to suppress, or be more graceful with." The curious contention here is that acting an emotion is the same as living it. She is not, she says, a "dark person". "People can have so many ill-conceived ideas about me based on the parts that I play. I've had guys, when I've been single, come out of the woodwork to date me and I've found out very quickly that they were expecting some kind of whirlwind, some dramatic crazy person — and that's just not me." Jennifer Jason Leigh is one actor who is rarely chosen for a part because it reflects her personality. The only other I can think of who is, like her, a different person in every film is Gary Oldman."
- Zoe Williams, The Guardian
Jennifer Jason Leigh & Noah Baumbach at the Toronto Film Festival
Jennifer Jason Leigh & Quentin Tarantino in New York
"I am well over 40. I feel like the door was closed, and I had made my peace with it and I was fine. I worried a little bit about money. “Am I going to work again … Maybe I’ll go more into writing.” But I’m very happy being a mom. I just thought I had a great run and that’s that. 'Anomalisa' we voiced two years ago! We did that two years ago, they lost the financing; or not “lost”: they ran out of money. I didn’t know if the movie was ever going to be completed. Charlie [Kaufman] didn’t know. To have that and then getting 'The Hateful Eight' was beyond surreal. A lot of times, this town, or this business, really only looks at your last three projects. Quentin Tarantino is the exception to that. He looks at your whole body of work. He would talk to me about moments I had in 'Flesh + Blood' as though they were yesterday. He’s that thorough and that’s just how his brain works. When he looks at you, he doesn’t see just what you did the last two years and he doesn’t think you’re not that person you were in, whatever, 1985. He just sees you and what you’re capable of. That’s such a blessing, and it really made me remember who I was as an actress; I just had forgotten. Not in a bitter or sad way; it was just like I didn’t feel particularly meaningful or relevant right now. I was OK with it, I had other things going on and that’s fine. It’s just the way things go. This is really remarkable for me. Honestly, I still look at the poster for 'The Hateful Eight' and I can’t believe I’m in the movie. I love it so much and the experience was so grand. It really was exceptional."
- Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Guardian
"Her late stepfather was the prolific television director Reza Badiyi, whose credits include many famous TV-show opening-title sequences. It was his idea to have Mary Tyler Moore toss her tam-o’-shanter into the air. She knew from an early age that she would be an actress, never contemplating, she says, that it was “something hard to crack into. It just seemed that’s what people did when they grew up.” She cites Sidney Lumet’s 'Dog Day Afternoon' as the movie that shook her to her core. Though she was only 13 when it came out, she managed to see it multiple times. She has vague memories of Robert Altman as a presence in her household, since her stepfather, Badiyi, was a friend and protégé of the director’s. (She later appeared in two Altman movies, 'Short Cuts' and 'Kansas City', and her mother wrote the screenplay for a late-period Altman movie, 'The Company'.)"
- David Kamp, Vanity Fair
Jennifer Jason Leigh in Matthew Chapman's 'Heart Of Midnight' (1988)
"I like as much time as I can get and I'll do whatever I think is helpful. Sometimes it's practical research, meaning if I had to write shorthand, I'd learn how to write shorthand. Or if I have to know how to dance a certain way, I would learn that. And then there's just research of talking to people similar to the characters I'm playing. And there's stuff that I just feel is inspiring, whether it be music or a painting or a photograph. I've used a lot of Nan Goldin's photos in the past to inspire me. I use certain paintings and pieces of music. I think Robert Altman could see things in me that I didn't know I possessed, which is really exciting. He also instilled a tremendous amount of confidence, because he would say things like, "These are the bare bones, but I want you to go fill it out. You find the character. You bring it to me. You write whatever you want." And if you had an idea, he wouldn't want to hear about it. He's want you to show it to him. So there's so much confidence and freedom that comes from that way of doing things. And he and Alan Rudolph make the set the place to be. It's fun. It's a kind of creative freedom that's really inspiring. [Altman] loved actors so much. Everyone came to dailies—this is when dailies used to be projected—and there would be food and wine. You had to come. It was like required reading or something. [Laughs.] If you didn't come, you were in trouble. But it was so much fun. They could be endlessly long, the dailies, but you know. He was a great mentor for me, really."
- Jennifer Jason Leigh, The A.V. Club
Jennifer Jason Leigh & Philip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie Kaufman's 'Synecdoche, New York' (2008)
"A reviewer once remarked that Jennifer Jason Leigh makes even the most mainstream film seem arthouse just by being in it, and she has much the same effect on real life. Whatever she's talking about, you have the sense that something importantly weird is about to happen, or maybe just did. As she sits down — we're at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles, not her kind of place at all — she sees some chips rush past in the arms of a waiter. She eyes them intensely. "Look at those fries. It's nice when you see something, and then you want to eat it. It's a good feeling. Especially when you can ... just ... order ... it." No ghost of a smile — truly, this is arthouse lunch-ordering. We're here to discuss two films, The Machinist and Palindromes. The first is eerie, brilliant and unfathomable for about three-quarters of its length. Christian Bale plays a man who has not slept in a year — strange things happen to him, constantly. Strange allegiances are forged, and then evaporate. Impossibly gruesome accidents occur in the factory where he works. Jason Leigh plays a kind and complicated hooker, pulling off a masterful balance of trust and wary fragility. In the business of creating a cinematic atmosphere, she really is peerless. She seems pleased with the film. "I think it does engage you. I like a movie that the audience actively has to participate in, and not just casually observe. Whatever my part in it, just as an audience member, I find that exciting. Plus [The Machinist] has an interesting look. There's a lot of green in it." This preference (for interesting films, not films with a greenish tinge) shows up in her CV — there's little schlock in it, a marked leaning towards Hollywood's most interesting directors (Altman, Cronenberg, the Coen brothers), and no repetition, although she has played an awful lot of prostitutes: Tralala in Last Exit To Brooklyn, Susie Waggoner in Miami Blues, Lois Kaiser, the phone-sex worker in Short Cuts (not strictly a prostitute) and now Stevie in The Machinist. It's not gone unnoticed. "My manager at the time was going, 'No, you shouldn't do this part, you have done it, you have played prostitutes before. But I thought Stevie was a different kind of prostitute ... " She has said before that she finds acting a good way to discover and vent emotions that she would not want to have in real life. I wonder if her predilection for playing prostitutes represents the sexual dimension of that. She thinks on this for a second. "It's like Sartre. His most typical story that represents existentialism — a woman in the window watches the prostitutes outside, and the only thing that separates her from them is going outside. You know, you really do choose your existence in a way. If that stuff appeals to you, which it does to me, you can have a very existential experience in acting." I find, as ever, that the introduction of Jean-Paul Sartre into an answer makes you forget what the question was. But her take on the catharsis her job offers is more straightforward. "It's pretty liberating not to be afraid to get angry, or afraid to feel jealousy. So you get to experience all these things in life that you would normally try to suppress, or be more graceful with." The curious contention here is that acting an emotion is the same as living it. She is not, she says, a "dark person". "People can have so many ill-conceived ideas about me based on the parts that I play. I've had guys, when I've been single, come out of the woodwork to date me and I've found out very quickly that they were expecting some kind of whirlwind, some dramatic crazy person — and that's just not me." Jennifer Jason Leigh is one actor who is rarely chosen for a part because it reflects her personality. The only other I can think of who is, like her, a different person in every film is Gary Oldman."
- Zoe Williams, The Guardian
Jennifer Jason Leigh & Noah Baumbach at the Toronto Film Festival
Jennifer Jason Leigh & Quentin Tarantino in New York
"I am well over 40. I feel like the door was closed, and I had made my peace with it and I was fine. I worried a little bit about money. “Am I going to work again … Maybe I’ll go more into writing.” But I’m very happy being a mom. I just thought I had a great run and that’s that. 'Anomalisa' we voiced two years ago! We did that two years ago, they lost the financing; or not “lost”: they ran out of money. I didn’t know if the movie was ever going to be completed. Charlie [Kaufman] didn’t know. To have that and then getting 'The Hateful Eight' was beyond surreal. A lot of times, this town, or this business, really only looks at your last three projects. Quentin Tarantino is the exception to that. He looks at your whole body of work. He would talk to me about moments I had in 'Flesh + Blood' as though they were yesterday. He’s that thorough and that’s just how his brain works. When he looks at you, he doesn’t see just what you did the last two years and he doesn’t think you’re not that person you were in, whatever, 1985. He just sees you and what you’re capable of. That’s such a blessing, and it really made me remember who I was as an actress; I just had forgotten. Not in a bitter or sad way; it was just like I didn’t feel particularly meaningful or relevant right now. I was OK with it, I had other things going on and that’s fine. It’s just the way things go. This is really remarkable for me. Honestly, I still look at the poster for 'The Hateful Eight' and I can’t believe I’m in the movie. I love it so much and the experience was so grand. It really was exceptional."
- Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Guardian
