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Putting a There There: Phil Kaufman in Oakland by Noah Sanders
At the old West Oakland train station, the gaffers of 'Hemingway and Gellhorh' seemed ready to create their own sunshine. photo: D. Blair
Philip Kaufman’s new film, the bio-pic “Hemingway and Gellhorn,” wrapped shooting at the West Oakland train station in late March. Starring Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman, it follows the turbulent relationship between Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn, his third wife and one of the 20th century's greatest war correspondents.
"I think it was a fantastic experience," noted Oakland Film Commissioner Ami Zins. "I know the film director and producer were very happy with the look they got at the train station. I think spectacular was the word most often heard when people walked on set. It was very good for the city of Oakland."
It was also very good for a slew of local grips, casting agents, techs, and light truck providers as well as for CineSource. Not only was our beautiful little ‘burg once again the setting for some serious Hollywood North cinema but, after months of publishing snippets and rumors, shooting was taking place a hop, skip and jump from CineSource's West Oakland office. Alas, although CineSource contacted HBO and the local production company for permission to cover the story, repeatedly, the film is a closed set.
That’s when they turned to me. To say I know Philip and Peter Kaufman, the director and producer, respectively, behind films like “Quills” and “Henry & June,” is a stretch. Nevertheless, I do have the great luck to be employed in these turbulent times and it happens to be at a coffee shop where Philip and/or Peter meander in on a semi-regular basis for an afternoon caffination. Although both father and son shine with a sort of good-natured charm, inevitably, I would sit nervously behind the counter trying to muster up the courage to say something above and beyond “Non-fat latte?” or “Here’s your change.”
Philip Kaufman checks a tricky car shot. photo courtesy: P. Kaufman
Questions about the opening shot of “The Right Stuff” or how to translate the heady texts of Milan Kunderas to film would linger on the tip of my tongue but simply not come out. How does one make the leap from chatting about the weather to discussing the writing altercations which must have occurred during the making of “Rising Sun?” Slowly though, strangely even, conversation arose and connections, however small, were made. For example, at one point, my girlfriend almost became the nanny for their family.
Similarly oddly, in the wake of the passing of Rose Kaufman, the director's beloved wife and creative partner, last year after a lengthy battle with cancer, the family needed a place to dispose of her clothes. Trying to offer condolences and help in any way, my girlfriend and I took on a considerable portion. I still cherish a weather-beaten brown leather jacket that the film nerd in me hopes once inspired a certain whip-slinging archaeologist—Kaufman was the original writer of “Indiana Jones and The Raiders of the Lost Ark,” after all. As a devoted Kaufman fan, I feel lucky to have been in a similar circle, even peripherally.
Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway with unidentified Chinese military officers, Chungking, China, 1941. photo: JFK Presidential Library
That said, when HBO Television green-lit “Hemingway & Gelhorn,” and news broke that production would take place almost entirely in the Bay Area, my interest was peaked. In some way, I sort of know these people. Plus, I had already been pestering CineSource to assign me a suitable story. The possibility of a ground-breaking interview about the Bay Area film scene with one of the great directors of the last half-century suddenly seemed within reach.
Alas, secrecy on set, in these days of the all-consuming 24-hour internet news cycles, isn’t anything new. From the sun-dappled palms of Hollywood to the shadow-drenched streets of New York, directors often allow actors to see only "sides," sections of the film in which they appear. To prevent stars from accidentally revealing important plot elements, television directors of tent-pole properties like “Lost” or “24” release only the pages of script being filmed that day, all of which warrants a closed set.
Undoubtedly some of these rules are meant to protect the project and personnel, especially in a place with a reputation like Oakland's, and to keep insurance from going through the roof. But some of it also comes from our culture of celebrity.
"Celebrity rubs me the wrong way. In one sense, we feel it should all be open," noted Celik Kayalar, an East Bay acting/directing teacher as well as director ["Moonlight Sonata," 2009], who CineSource contacted to weigh in on the issue. A high ranking scientist in his previous incarnation, Kayalar has a proclivity for philosophy. "But we don't know where it is coming from. HBO might have that policy."
"Kidman herself doesn't strike me as a celebrity who wants attention. There are attention seeking celebrities—perhaps the least talented. Publicly, they complain about it but, privately, they welcome it, since their numbers go up and they get paid more."
Nicole Kidman has made a speciality of pouring her intensity and beauty into historical figures, notably donning a prosthetic nose to play Virginia Woolf in 'The Hours,' but, in this case, she's a ringer for Gellhorn photo courtesy: N. Kidman
"If I were to become a celebrity—stranger things have happened!" Kayalar continued, "I think I would rather be left alone. I imagine these great actors—who are great artists, after all—are the same. But to the tabloids and the hundreds of little TV shows, it is a big business. It is one thing to report on someone's art and creativity, another to take their picture when they are going to grocery store—but millions of people are fascinated."
"I guess it is because some one has to play the hero, and if you play one on TV or the big screen, well, you are half way there," mused Kayalar. "Some people put it to good use, of course. We love our celebrities but we also like to see them fall. After a while, George Clooney doing good deeds becomes boring but, god forbid, he gets caught with, say, a transvestite—we would be hearing about that for a long, long time. Indeed, we would cherish him being brought to down to earth—but then we would need a new celebrity."
"I think Andy Warhol said it best, 'Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.' That is what our society wants: we don't want royalty, celebrities for life, we want to keep recycling them. In that way, we are saying, 'They are not that special. We could be one of them.'"
Hence, it came as only a mild surprise when my attempts to reach Peter and/or Philip Kaufman outside of the coffee shop setting were met with the polite but simple: "'Hemingway & Gellhorn' is a closed set." Powered by two of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Clive Owen, who recently did "Children of Men" (2006), and "The International" (2009), and Nicole Kidman, who was Virginia Woolf in "The Hours," (2002) and the photographer Diane Arbus in "Fur" (2006 ), HBO is not allowing loose lips or intruders to intrude on production. In recent years, Kaufman himself has had to struggle mightily to bring a handful of productions to the big screen and a sealed set seems like an understandable caution to keep this large-scale period piece on track.
A provocative scene from one of Kaufman's most acclaimed films, 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being,' 1988. photo courtesy: P. Kaufman
Indeed, "Hemingway and Gellhorn" is his first outing since the poorly received thriller "Twisted," (2004); moreover, it is a piece that not only stars celebrities but is about them: the great American writer and renowned war correspondent.
Although they explored an often dangerous globe side-by-side, Hemingway balked at Gellhorn's independence, famously remarkng “Are you a reporter or my wife in bed?” Considering what is now known about Hem's sexual proclivities, a certain fearlessness would have been de riguer. Gellhorn equally famously divorced him in 1945, wounding the author but inspiring him to compose “For Whom The Bell Tolls,” which features strong women characters among the guerillas.
"Hemingway and Gellhorn" also featured Tony Shaloub, Robert Duvall, Parker Posey, David Strathairn and Rodrigo Garcia, as well as local luminaries Diane Baker and Peter Coyote. Not to mention, it is the brainchild of another well-known actor, James Gandolfini (of “The Sopranos” fame), who as a producer has been attempting to get it made for six years.
Ironically, San Francisco never appears in the film which has scenes from the Spanish Civil War to Shanghai, Key West, and Havana. In reference to that international laundry list, Kaufman recently quipped about Oakland, "We are going to put a there there."
Kaufman had long insisted he would film the entire picture around the Bay Area, his home base. “It is our understanding that they will remain entirely in the Bay Area,” noted SF Film Commission Permit Coordinator Laurel Barsotti, a testament to the versatility of our terrain and architecture as well as the genius of Kaufman's art director and production designer, Nanci Noblett and Geoffrey Kirkland, respectively.
Filming began in February at Pier 80, off of Caesar Chavez in The City, which was turned in to a massive studio set. But in line with the shroud of silence, no information about what exactly they are filming there has been released. In the weeks preceding the Oakland station shoot, the Oakland Film Office posted an open call for “Spanish looking men with fair to medium complexions, dark hair and eyes,” spurring rumors that Kaufman was shooting a Spanish Civil War scene, a fact confirmed by contact of CineSource.
"As soon as you walked in your were transported," that person said, on the condition of anonymity, due to the rather real threat that they might never work on a closed set feature again. "Some poeple seemed like they had just stepped out of time machine. The art department turned the station into a 1930s hotel with a smoke machine in the corner, everyone in period dress, even down to the little props. They had a magazine rack with the covers of that time period but inside it was the East Bay Express."
"It was very exciting to watch up close. Kaufman keeps to himself but focuses a lot of attention on his actors. After every take, there were long detailed discussions. Phil would ask Clive [Owens] how he interpreted a certain emotion and say, 'This is how I am seeing it.' Clive seemed pretty open to that."
With HBO budgeting the production at an estimated 40 million dollars, and as this great director breaks his long silence, one can hope for a return to a lavish period pieces he is known for. Kaufman’s greatest films have always been those that gave free reign to exploring the dynamics of a certain period. His work on “The Right Stuff,” based on Tom Wolfe’s novel of the same name, followed the men behind Project Mercury, America’s first attempt at manned flight, and it completely captured the brash personalities of the space mission and the idiosyncrasies of the 1950s.
“The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” my favorite Kaufman film, wrestled Milas Kundera’s philosophically dense text into an ethereal and romantic exploration of Prague's late-60s political and cultural revolution. And let us not forget Kaufman’s writerly contribution to the first “Indiana Jones” film, a job that allowed him pull from pulps one of the great adventure films of all time.
From grips and light trucks supplied by DTC in Emeryville to the casting offices of Beau Bonneau in San Francisco to the waves of assistants, electricians, and extras that streamed in from across North California, “Hemingway & Gellhorn” has been a uniquely Bay Area film. Here’s hoping that behind the veil of secrecy, Kaufman is quietly cobbling together another great film.