Carnahan Talks the 'State' of 'White Jazz'
Part two of our interview goes deeper into future films
I have to now ask about White Jazz. Joe wrote on his blog that the script is done, 121 pages and casting is underway. Now, I have to ask how you go about adapting a James Ellroy novel? His writing is so unique there are just so many ways you can go about it. De Palma's Black Dahlia didn't turn out so well and I think it was all in the adapting.
MC: Yeah, well Ellroy is on the short list as one of my heroes, just his writing style, there's something about that clipped – it's almost like modern art – just this clipped, sentence fragment after sentence fragment. All kinds of ‘50s slang thrown in and he forces you to almost ponder every word.
Oh yeah, it takes serious dedication to read his books.
MC: Absolutely, I tell yah, I loved adapting that because it is so twisted. It is such a twisted and ugly story. The hero of the movie – I mean Clooney is going to throw a vaguely retarded boxer out of the ninth story window of the Ambassador Hotel, and that's in the first seven minutes. It's just this dark, mean look at what is otherwise thought of as a gilded age in Los Angeles. It's the 50s, the Dodgers coming to town, Chavez Ravine getting the new name Dodger Stadium and it turns it on its head and I love it. You'd be surprised, that book is written in the first person and I just took that to the script. The scene breaks and scene descriptions – I jump into the car, I start my car – it's all written as though the reader is Dave Klein.
So will the film be narrated the entire way through?
MC: There are bits of voice over the entire way through, but the voice over is the older version of – because if you remember the book starts with him in Brazil staring at a mirror and it is twenty years later. I took that because that is one of the things that gave me chills when I finished that book, is that the whole story is memory. The whole story is him looking in a mirror going through everything that happened in preparation for getting up, grabbing a plane ticket and going back, going back twenty years later and trying to find this Brenda Bledsoe, this woman he was in love with. Trying to force these people he had known in his previous life to admit their guilt and he is going to try and make right on all these things he had just remembered. I love that about it.
It's Ulysses, the great old warrior that comes back and still has this great skill and that really resonated with me. I just took that bookend and the first person narrative and tried to pick out the most valiant storylines, which was for us the Chavez Ravine and the Dodger Stadium bit because that is a great little piece of Los Angeles history that nobody knows and this love affair that he has with this B-movie actress who Howard Hughes has hired him on to find her in violation of her service contract. So there are these great beats that were actually fairly easy to lift from the book and make centerpieces of the story.
 |
White Jazz concept art from Joe Carnahan's Blog, click it for the hi-res version. |
Have you and Joe talked about the look and design of the film?
MC: Just looking at his work as a template I would say it is going to be a lot closer to Narc in terms of its pacing and even its look. When you think of the 1950s L.A. you think of the Gilded Age, bright colors, big beautiful aero dynamic cars and I think Joe wants to turn that on its ear a little bit the same way Ellroy, in his story, has turned that on its ear just visually.
Now do you ever see directing in your future or are you just having too much fun writing right now?
MC: Yeah, that's the thing, at some point I think it is inevitable because I think I am too much of a control freak to not want to do it, but my goal is to continue to write and write the best stuff I can. Hopefully I can establish myself as someone who people want to have write their things, someone people want to come to. I hope to establish myself on a short list of people that can do it and do it well.
So you're saying you're satisfied with people like Robert Redford, Peter Berg, your brother and Kevin Macdonald directing your stuff? I would say that would work for me.
MC: [laughing] Exactly, it's not like I have had any horrible experience where suddenly a director wants to put an animatronic bear in there…
To check out part one of the interview click here and to also check out what Matt told me he is working on right now for DreamWorks click here.
The Kingdom hits theaters this Friday, September 28 get more here. Lions for Lambs hits
theaters on November 9th, for more on that one click here.
Links from Other Sites You May Like
Comments
~ PLEASE NOTE ~
If, in any way, your comment is an attack on the author of this post or a previous commenter, your comment will be deleted without question.
Add a New Comment |
Click to Read Our Commenting Rules & Guidelines
Join the conversation!
Got something to say? Scroll down and post the first comment.