Directors Chris and Paul Weitz
Their film, About a Boy, is based on the novel by Nick Hornby and has just been released on DVD and video. The Weitz brothers, born to fashion designer John Weitz and Oscar-nominated actress Susan Kohner, first became famous for directing the 1999 teen comedy American Pie. They also wrote the screenplay for the animated movie Antz and directed the Chris Rock movie Down to Earth. They live in New York. This interview first aired June 5, 2002.
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DATE January 24, 2003 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A⨠TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A⨠NETWORK NPR⨠PROGRAM Fresh Airâ¨â¨Interview: Chris and Paul Weitz discuss films they have directedâ¨BARBATA BOGAEV, host:â¨â¨This is FRESH AIR. I'm Barbara Bogaev, in for Terry Gross.â¨â¨"About a Boy" starring Hugh Grant is a relatively small-budget Hollywood movieâ¨that has made a big impression. Last year, Time magazine film critic Richardâ¨Schickel called it `the smartest, funniest and most winsome big-studio releaseâ¨of a so-far dismal year,' and the film earned Grant a Golden Globe nominationâ¨for best actor. It's now out on video and DVD.â¨â¨Chris and Paul Weitz directed "About a Boy," which they adapted from a novelâ¨of the same name by Nick Hornby, who also wrote "High Fidelity." The Weitzâ¨brothers seem like an unlikely pair to take on this sophisticated comedyâ¨since they were best known for directing the teen comedy "American Pie." Theyâ¨also wrote the screenplay for the animated film "Antz." Terry spoke withâ¨Chris and Paul Weitz last June.â¨â¨"About a Boy" stars Hugh Grant as a single guy living on the royalties of hisâ¨late father's hit novelty Christmas song. He enjoys the uncommitted life--noâ¨job, no family--but he does like having relationships with women as long asâ¨they don't require a deep commitment. He's figured out that single mothersâ¨are easier to score with. So he pretends to be a single father, which is hisâ¨ticket into a single parents' group, where he hopes to meet women. Here he isâ¨at a meeting, putting on his act.â¨â¨(Soundbite of "About a Boy")â¨â¨Mr. HUGH GRANT: I have a two-year-old, Ned. He's got blue eyes and sort ofâ¨sandy-colored hair and he's about 2'3". Um--and his mum left.â¨â¨Unidentified Woman #1: Really?â¨â¨Mr. GRANT: Yeah. Yeah. I mean obviously, it was a very big shock because weâ¨were so happy. Sandra's neurology practice was just up and running, and thenâ¨one day her bags were packed and my best friend was waiting outside in hisâ¨Ferrari. Yeah. You know the Moderna, the one with the supercharged engine,â¨where you can actually see the engine through the back window?â¨â¨Unidentified Woman #2: May I ask, does your ex see Ned at all?â¨â¨Mr. GRANT: Well, sorry, I didn't catch your name.â¨â¨Unidentified Woman #2: Susie.â¨â¨Mr. GRANT: Susie. She doesn't see much of him, no. No.â¨â¨Unidentified Woman #2: How does he cope without her?â¨â¨Mr. GRANT: Well, you know, he's a very good little boy, very brave. They'veâ¨got amazing resources, don't they? Just the other day I was thinking about myâ¨ex, and he came crawling up and put his little pudgy arms around my neck andâ¨he said, `You hang in there, Dad.'â¨â¨Unidentified Woman #2: God, that's amazing for a two-year-old.â¨â¨Mr. GRANT: Is it?â¨â¨Group: Yes.â¨â¨GROSS: Chris and Paul Weitz, welcome to FRESH AIR.â¨â¨Mr. CHRIS WEITZ and Mr. PAUL WEITZ (Directors, "About a Boy"): (In unison)â¨Thank you for having us.â¨â¨GROSS: Is there anything that you related about the scheme of this single guyâ¨to create an imaginary kid so he can make it with single mothers?â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: The fact that we've done that before, I think, really...â¨â¨GROSS: I knew it.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: Yeah. They're method actors, we're method directors.â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: Well, I think that every man at some point or other has come upâ¨with some cockamamy scheme to meet women, whether it be a haircut or a muchâ¨larger kind of con. So I suppose I could sympathize with that, but more soâ¨with the character who essentially does nothing because he can afford to doâ¨nothing and is trying to occupy his time on the way to the grave asâ¨entertainingly as possible.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: I think, I mean, in a larger sense, I certainly can identifyâ¨with the idea that you pretend to be something before you actually are thatâ¨thing. I mean, when we first were getting the chance to direct, we had noâ¨idea what we were doing, and we actually didn't pretend all that much. Weâ¨pretty much told people we didn't know what we were doing, and this is a guyâ¨who pretends to have a child, and during the course of the movie he actuallyâ¨finds that the one thing that he's pretty good at is being a mentor, or fatherâ¨figure. He's not particularly good at anything else.â¨â¨GROSS: Did you read this book when it was first published?â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: We didn't actually, no. It had already been published forâ¨three years by the time I got around to reading it, and I read it on vacation.â¨And Paul and I had been looking for a book or a movie idea with a kind ofâ¨Billy Wilderesque theme to pursue, and I thought this was the one.â¨Unfortunately, it had already been bought by Robert De Niro's productionâ¨company, by New Line Studios. So it had been knocking around for a whileâ¨before we came to it.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: There was another director attached, which was the unfortunateâ¨part, and there was another script which had changed the character to be anâ¨American living in London. We read it and we thought that Hugh Grant would beâ¨perfect for it, because it was supposed to be somebody who's sort of gotten byâ¨on their charm through much of their life, and I think you can really believeâ¨that with Hugh. And it was also incredibly funny in a very verbal way, andâ¨Hugh's great at that kind of thing, so we just sort of hovered around likeâ¨vultures until the project fell apart, actually.â¨â¨GROSS: And how did you convince the people you needed to convince, who Iâ¨imagine included De Niro's production company and Nick Hornby, the author ofâ¨the book, that you were the guys?â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: I don't know that we ever did convince Nick Hornby, soâ¨hopefully once he saw the film--no, he's been very kind about the film, and Iâ¨think that he feels like we were really true to the spirit of the book.â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: But I think that both he and Hugh had their doubts aboutâ¨whether the directors of "American Pie" could make this kind of book into theâ¨kind of movie that it is. I think they were so rabid about getting a chanceâ¨to do it that eventually they just gave up on trying to put us off.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: I mean, how...â¨â¨GROSS: Well, I can understand that they would think that the directors ofâ¨"American Pie" are the wrong guys to do this, so what did you do? I mean, didâ¨you show up and say, `Well, we made that movie and it did really well, butâ¨that's not who we really are'?â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: Well, not really. I mean, just by being mildly articulate, youâ¨know, you get a lot of credit. I mean, the lower the bar is, in a certainâ¨way, it was as if they were dealing with a talking chimp, you know--the factâ¨that we directed "American Pie," but, you know, had some degree ofâ¨sensitivity. I mean, the thing is that our approach to "American Pie" wasâ¨pretty much to try to make it as humanistic a telling of that genre piece asâ¨possible.â¨â¨But no, we also stuck around. I mean, the project didn't get made for aâ¨little while, and I think that we could clearly articulate what we wanted itâ¨to be like, which helped the studio get its head around it. And we said weâ¨wanted to try to make a movie that is akin to "The Apartment," whichâ¨actually--I mean, the character in "The Apartment" has a similarly ludicrousâ¨scheme to get ahead, which is that he thinks he's going to get ahead in theâ¨corporate world by loaning his boss the keys to his flat so his boss can haveâ¨affairs, you know--not a particularly wise, you know, way of climbing up theâ¨corporate ladder. But that's a movie that also has some really dark sort ofâ¨things happening in the middle of a very funny comedy, so I think that ifâ¨you're able to articulate the tone of what you're trying to do, then you'reâ¨ahead of the game.â¨â¨GROSS: Nick Hornby's novels are filled with pop culture references. He wroteâ¨"High Fidelity," and even in "About a Boy," I mean, one of the ways in whichâ¨the main character mentors the boy in his life is by giving him the right CDsâ¨and buying him the right sneakers...â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: Yeah.â¨â¨GROSS: ...and it's just a lot of pop culture stuff. How did you find aâ¨visual language that you thought would work with the kind of pop style of Nickâ¨Hornby?â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: I mean, for one thing, when you're following Hugh at first, weâ¨shot it sort of like a very slick commercial, and the color tone is all blue,â¨and when you're seeing the kid, the camera's fairly static and there's a lotâ¨of sort of warm earth colors. I mean, the other thing we did...â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: So there's a distinction, initially, between the kinds ofâ¨worlds in which these two people operate. The first sequence, you never seeâ¨Hugh's face in the credit sequence. You just see things. You know, weâ¨decided his apartment was very much about the things in it, so it's a lot ofâ¨shots of very glossy, shiny objects that people might like to have, so when weâ¨do see him in the trappings of pop culture, it's often in a, you know,â¨gigantic record store or a superstore.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: Yeah. And in the movie, we tried to put him in as many sort ofâ¨gigantic consumer venues as we possibly could. I mean, the other thing, too,â¨is that, I mean, when he buys the kid these sneakers in the movie--because theâ¨kid is dressed horribly by his mother and given a horrible haircut--he buysâ¨the kid these sort of cool sneakers, but, I mean, in the usual way you'dâ¨handle that, the kid would be transformed and there'd be some sort of, youâ¨know, musical montage where he's making the kid look cool. In this version,â¨the next thing you see is the kid's standing barefoot in the rain because theâ¨kids at his school have stolen the sneakers that Hugh Grant has given him.â¨â¨I think that going back also to "The Apartment," there's this fantastic shotâ¨of Jack Lemmon at the insurance company where he works, surrounded by tons andâ¨tons of uniform desks, which is actually, I think, a quote of a film calledâ¨"The Crowd," which was a great silent film about sort of the American Dream.â¨But nowadays I think that, to intellectualize somewhat, we've gone from beingâ¨a manufacturing culture to a consumer culture, so in this case we were tryingâ¨to put him in these sort of gigantic consumer venues that would depersonalizeâ¨him.â¨â¨BOGAEV: Chris and Paul Weitz, directors of the film "About a Boy." It's nowâ¨out on video and DVD. We'll continue Terry's interview with them after thisâ¨break. This is FRESH AIR.â¨â¨(Soundbite of music)â¨â¨BOGAEV: Let's get back to Terry Gross' interview with Chris and Paul Weitz.â¨They directed the film adaptation of Nick Hornby's novel "About a Boy." It'sâ¨just been released on video and DVD.â¨â¨The first movie they directed was the hit teen comedy "American Pie" about aâ¨group of boys in their senior year of high school who vow to lose theirâ¨virginity by the end of the senior prom. The film starred Jason Biggs.â¨Eugene Levy played his well-meaning but clueless father. In this scene, Levyâ¨goes into Biggs' room for a father-son talk about the facts of life.â¨â¨(Soundbite of "American Pie")â¨â¨Mr. EUGENE LEVY: (As Jim's father) Oh, I almost forgot. I bought someâ¨magazines. You want to just flip to the center section? Well, this is theâ¨female form, and they have focused on the breasts, which are used primarily toâ¨feed young infants, and also in foreplay.â¨â¨Mr. JASON BIGGS: (As Jim) Right.â¨â¨Mr. LEVY: This is Hustler, and this is a much more exotic magazine. Now theyâ¨have decided to focus more on the pubic region, the whole groin area.â¨â¨Mr. BIGGS: Right. Uh-huh.â¨â¨Mr. LEVY: Look at the expression on her face. You see that? See what she'sâ¨doing? She's kind of looking right into your eyes, saying, `Hey, big boy.â¨Hey, how you doing?' You see?â¨â¨Mr. BIGGS: Right.â¨â¨GROSS: Now this is a teen movie about several guys who kind of make this pactâ¨that they'll lose their virginity before college, hopefully by the time of theâ¨senior prom. And the movie is their adventures in virginity losing.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: Yeah.â¨â¨GROSS: I mean, is that the kind of movie you felt like, `Yeah, this is it.â¨This is what I really wanted to direct'?â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: Well, the thing is, to me, it was a very human contained story.â¨To us, what it was really about was guys going through a rite of passage--notâ¨the rite of passage of losing their virginity, but the rite of passage ofâ¨graduating from high school. And they have this incredibly close friendship,â¨and they all sort of know that they're not really going to be able to be thatâ¨kind of friends anymore, so in order to not dwell on that, they becomeâ¨obsessed with losing their virginity. And also what we were consciouslyâ¨trying to do was to make the film less misogynistic than most of the films ofâ¨that genre tend to be.â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: Yeah. I think there are a few genre conventions that we had toâ¨satisfy. There have to be some breasts on display at some point or other, andâ¨people have to be caught in compromising positions. But that seemed to be theâ¨easy thing to do, all the gross-out humor. What felt harder was to portray aâ¨kind of updating of certain what had been stereotypes in teen sex comedies andâ¨to realize that a film like "Porky's" was, in fact, incredibly misogynisticâ¨and ugly, and to try to put women a bit more in control of the situations inâ¨this film.â¨â¨GROSS: I thought it was interesting. Most of the guys in "American Pie" areâ¨actually revealed to be very vulnerable, even though they're putting on thisâ¨big front.â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: Yeah.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: Yeah. No. It's a film where pretty much everybody is tryingâ¨to be nice to each other and--yeah, so I agree.â¨â¨GROSS: Well, now I have to ask you about the actual title scene, the pieâ¨scene. And for listeners who haven't seen it, you know, a friend who claimsâ¨to have lost his virginity says--when asked what it feels like, he compares itâ¨to the feeling of an apple pie. So the Jason Biggs character tests this outâ¨by getting intimate with a pie and, of course, his father, played by Eugeneâ¨Levy, walks in as this is happening. What went through your mind inâ¨considering how you should shoot that whole sequence?â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: Well, the first thing that we said to the studio is, `Look, youâ¨know, we're going to be very delicate. It's going to lose the comedy of thisâ¨if you see too much.' And then we got there and we said, you know, `What theâ¨hell? Let's just shoot as much as we can.'â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: Well, it's not just `What the hell?' There's actually no wayâ¨to show someone...â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: That's true.â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: ...having sex with a pie without showing someone having sexâ¨with a pie. I think to us, the important thing was more the interactionâ¨between the kid and his father afterwards than the gag itself, which isâ¨fairly--you know, if you're willing to do that on film, then you've achievedâ¨the strength of that gross-out gag, but the more important stuff is that hisâ¨father is actually willing to cover up for him and, in some way, is actuallyâ¨trying to deal with his son's--what seems to him is his perversion.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: The film was interesting in terms of when it came out, becauseâ¨it actually came out right after the Columbine shootings. And so theâ¨Columbine shootings led to a huge questioning of the role of the R rating inâ¨society, and our film got sort of swept up in the question of, you know,â¨should kids be allowed to go see films that are perhaps violent? So to me,â¨you know, the idea that America sweeps in sort of sexuality with violence andâ¨lumps them together in terms of how it deals with them in terms of itsâ¨entertainment was interesting. And in retrospect, you know, you have thisâ¨image of American as apple pie, and so I thought there were a few interestingâ¨aspects to that being a central image of the film.â¨â¨GROSS: What were some of the issues surrounding, like, what kind of ratingâ¨you wanted to get for the film, whether you wanted a PG or an R or...â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: Well, at first we had a...â¨â¨GROSS: Yeah.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: No. Well, we wanted an R...â¨â¨GROSS: Why did you want an R?â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: ...as opposed to an NC-17.â¨â¨GROSS: Oh, I see. Right, yeah.â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: We knew that it would never get a PG-13, just because...â¨â¨GROSS: Well, it's about virginity, so how are you going to do that? Yeah.â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: Yeah.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: Yeah.â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: It's about sex. But at the same time, we didn't want an NC-17,â¨which is--if you haven't heard of it, it's because films that get an NC-17â¨rating never get seen. It's the rating above R, between R and X. And forâ¨about four cuts of the film, we were stuck in that kind of middle territory.â¨And, you know, you get involved in these rather bizarre horse trading momentsâ¨with the MPAA, in which you say, `You know, well, I'll take out one F-word ifâ¨you give us this extra thrust on the pie.' And so we went through a ratherâ¨surreal period of watering down the film without watering it down too much.â¨â¨GROSS: Now, so, you know, your two best-known films are a teen comedy, a teenâ¨kind of, like, sex and gross-out comedy that is much more--I don'tâ¨know--sensitive is the right word than a lot of other films in that genre, andâ¨your other big film is "About a Boy," which is a much more kind of, like,â¨sophisticated, witty story about adults.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: Yeah. And I...â¨â¨GROSS: So compare for us how both of those films were tested and marketedâ¨before they were set forth into movie theaters.â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: The system for testing a film, any studio film, is the sameâ¨nowadays. There's a research company called NRG and they run a kind of marketâ¨testing thing in which you invite what's supposed to be an arbitrarilyâ¨selected audience to watch the film and grade it, and they have these cards onâ¨which they score the film in various ways and list their favorite scenes andâ¨the scenes they liked least and that sort of thing. You try, as filmmakers,â¨to bias the selected audience as much towards, you know, what you think isâ¨your hard-core demographic. So, of course, we only wanted teen-agers to comeâ¨to the "American Pie" test screening, and I think we only wanted bourgeoisâ¨mid-30s people to come to this one. And then you wait for this score, whichâ¨is a kind of strange compilation of numbers. And on that score rests, to someâ¨extent, how avidly the studio is going to market your picture.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: And luckily, they both tested really well. I mean, "Americanâ¨Pie" is--you know, it was as if they'd had a religious experience orâ¨something, these kids. You know, they'd probably never seen a film before.â¨But I think filmmakers tend to fear those events, the test screenings. Forâ¨us, we were a little lucky because there were a couple of really edgy, youâ¨know, comedic things in the film that the studio wasn't so sure would go over,â¨but the test audience sort of singled a couple of those things out asâ¨everybody liked.â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: This is in "About a Boy." There were...â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: It's "About a Boy," yeah.â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: ...moments where Hugh Grant's character seemed, to the studio,â¨to be on the verge of detestable, which audiences actually rather enjoyed. Soâ¨we actually found ourselves benefiting from the process, whereas I think inâ¨certain cases, it could damage a film or at least damage the integrity of theâ¨film, because you start catering to the imagined sympathies of an imaginedâ¨audience.â¨â¨GROSS: "American Pie," which you directed--it was one of the most popularâ¨teen comedies of the late '90s. What kind of teen movies did you grow upâ¨with? Did you go to the teen movies or did you just watch, you know, more...â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: We were watching Bergman in our teens.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: "Wild Strawberries" is hot.â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: Well, I was mostly about science fiction, "Star Wars," theâ¨first "Star Wars" trilogy, which, of course, in its own way, was a teen movie.â¨Luke Skywalker's a kind of space teen, although I guess less hormonal thanâ¨Earth teens.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: And I remember going to see "Porky's," although I don'tâ¨remember anything about it. The film...â¨â¨GROSS: Did you like it?â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: As a kid, it didn't really stick with me, so maybe I didn'tâ¨love it that much.â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: I liked it a lot at the time. I thought it was, you know, theâ¨Second Coming. But I...â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: But essentially, I mean, the actors were all in their mid-30sâ¨playing 17-year-olds.â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: That was the amazing thing.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: I think I was frightened by it. But "Fast Times at Ridgemontâ¨High" is a wonderful film that deals from a female point of view with a lot ofâ¨the issues and is a really funny comedy. And so I think that that was more ofâ¨an influence. And also, "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" introduced a lot ofâ¨wonderful young actors to the mainstream. So that was also the thing we'reâ¨trying to do, is take unknowns and, you know, bring them to the fore.â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: Yeah. I remember seeing "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and notâ¨understanding why the two cute girls holding surfboards in the ads weren'tâ¨actually in the film. It was my first experience with disappointment withâ¨marketing, because they looked really great. That was a terrific film. Goingâ¨back to "Porky's" now, I think, is a pretty mortifying experience because theâ¨actors are in their late 30s to early 40s, have beer bellies and are losingâ¨their hair, and also because the attitude towards women expressed in theâ¨script of that film is so odious.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: I mean, just to go back to marketing "About a Boy," I mean, theâ¨thing is, it's a little hard because people are now used to sort ofâ¨classifying their comedies. There's romantic comedies. There's sort of teenâ¨genre comedies. But they don't really have that kind of category of filmsâ¨that, you know, for instance, Billy Wilder used to make. I mean, occasionallyâ¨you get one--like, "Jerry Maguire" is a wonderful film or "As Good As Itâ¨Gets"--that actually manages to be a comedy for adults. But I think that it'sâ¨a real trick as to how to market that kind of film.â¨â¨BOGAEV: Directors Chris and Paul Weitz speaking with Terry Gross. We'll hearâ¨more of their conversation in the second half of the show. He's "Above You,â¨Below Me" from the soundtrack of "About a Boy." I'm Barbara Bogaev and thisâ¨is FRESH AIR.â¨â¨(Soundbite of Above You, Below Me")â¨â¨Unidentified Singer: Don't wanna give. Don't wanna steer. Don't wanna beâ¨anything I'm not. You take answers. I give questions like some rollingâ¨monologue. Wanna be the one to say that today could be the day. A pity toâ¨believe in what you know is what you know. I will take you as you are.â¨Please accept me as I am. Find your lonely life bizarre. Know it's aboveâ¨you, know it's below me.â¨â¨(Announcements)â¨â¨BOGAEV: Coming up, choreographer Garth Fagan. He's been leading his ownâ¨dance troupe for over 30 years and has created a distinctive dance vocabularyâ¨which draws on African and Caribbean influences. Also, David Edelsteinâ¨reviews the new film "City of God," and more of our interview with filmmakersâ¨Chris and Paul Weitz.â¨â¨(Soundbite of music)â¨â¨BOGAEV: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Barbara Bogaev, in for Terry Gross.â¨â¨Let's return now to Terry's interview with Chris and Paul Weitz. Theyâ¨directed the film "About a Boy," starring Hugh Grant, which is now out onâ¨video and DVD. The Weitz brothers' other directing credits include "Americanâ¨Pie" and the animated film "Antz."â¨â¨GROSS: Your working together, it sounds like a mother's dream come true, youâ¨know. Every mother hopes that their children will actually get along whenâ¨they become adults, but working together, that's great. Is your motherâ¨thrilled that you work together?â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: I think our parents are thrilled that we work, period, becauseâ¨it was touch and go there for a while. But, yeah, they're pleased. It's theâ¨opposite of the old Cain and Abel scenario. But she doesn't get to see us inâ¨the editing room.â¨â¨GROSS: I want to ask you a little bit about your family. You come from aâ¨really interesting family. Your grandfather was an agent who representedâ¨Billy Wilder, who you've referred to, and who else?â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: William Wilder, John Huston.â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: Ingmar Bergman.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: Charles Bronson, oddly. And pretty much anybody who came intoâ¨town with a funny accent had to stop at the Paul Kohner Agency and play ginâ¨rummy and have apple strudel or something. Yeah. So our grandfather hadâ¨these great clients. Our grandmother was a Mexican film actress who starredâ¨in the first talking picture in Mexico called ...(unintelligible).â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: And who's on a Mexican stamp actually.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: And then I...â¨â¨GROSS: Wait, I read that she was in the Mexican version of "Dracula"?â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: Yeah.â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: She was. Yes.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: At the...â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: It was shot on the same sets as the Tod Browning version, butâ¨from midnight on after the English language crew had finished their dayâ¨shooting. It was a really scheme by my grandfather to keep my grandmother inâ¨the country, because talking pictures had just come around, and she had anâ¨incredibly thick accent. And what with the end of the silent era looked likeâ¨she wasn't going to get too many more jobs.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: So he came up with the scheme of let's shoot Spanish-languageâ¨versions of American films at night when they're not using the sets. And...â¨â¨GROSS: That was his idea?â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: Yeah. Yeah.â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: Yeah.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: As a ruse to keep my grandmother from going back to Mexico.â¨And then our mother, Susan Kohner, was an actress. She was nominated for anâ¨Academy Award in a film called "Imitation of Life," which was an old Douglasâ¨Sirk tearjerker.â¨â¨GROSS: Where she plays a very light-skinned...â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: Yes.â¨â¨GROSS: ...African-American woman passing for white.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: Yeah. Yeah.â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: Mm-hmm.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: And our dad was a fashion designer. In the '50s he and, Iâ¨think, Hardy Amies and Pierre Cardin--I'm probably leaving out a couple ofâ¨people--were the first people to put their names on the clothing they wereâ¨selling and to make it--the whole idea of licensing and of the designer nameâ¨for men...â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: But then he turned basically to writing biographies ofâ¨prominent Nazis because he had worked in intelligence in the OSS during theâ¨Second World War. So we've got a strange family, in other words, to cut aâ¨long story short.â¨â¨GROSS: So you in your family you had two actresses, an agent, a fashionâ¨designer. What was it like when you watched movies with your family? Whatâ¨would they point out to you? What were they looking for?â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: Really nothing. No, no. I mean, I think they all had theirâ¨own predilections. My grandfather was still--I mean, my grandfather startedâ¨out as a producer, so towards the end of his life in his 80s he decided, `I'mâ¨going to produce again,' so he was really looking for properties to produce.â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: But he had--I mean, in his time, making films was an extensionâ¨of a larger sense of being cultured, which had to do with literature and, youâ¨know, a lot of the great films of his time were made from books.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: I think that actually our mother instilled more of a love ofâ¨the theater. And maybe on our part, as opposed to I think most directors whoâ¨come from a very visual perspective and maybe come up through doing MTV videosâ¨or commercials or something, we, like the old filmmakers of the '40s and '30s,â¨were really looking to theater and to the written word a lot more for ourâ¨inspiration.â¨â¨GROSS: So what were your teen-age years like? Maybe you can compare yourâ¨teen-age years to the teen-age years in "American Pie," where the issues areâ¨going to the prom and losing your virginity and...â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: Well...â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: Well, I was in high school in London. There was no such thingâ¨as a prom. I wore--my school had been in mourning for Queen Victoria forâ¨about a hundred years so the uniform was black and gray and white. It was aâ¨very different scenario. I don't think I met a girl until I was about 18.â¨And I played a lot of rugby and cricket. So not very similar to "Americanâ¨Pie."â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: Well, maybe I could...â¨â¨GROSS: So do you know what kind of film you will be doing next or that youâ¨would like to do next?â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: Not really. It's going to have to be ambitious in that I thinkâ¨that it can be either ambitious on the level of just being truthful orâ¨ambitious on the level of scope and sort of the visual task set before us.â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: I mean, I think that--well, I've certainly decided that theâ¨process of making a film is so incredibly draining that you may as wellâ¨overreach yourself slightly; otherwise you're sort of wasting your time. Theâ¨last thing we want to do is another version of what we've just done. I canâ¨never understand the position of a sort of jobbing director. And fortunatelyâ¨we don't have to be because we can kind of write to keep body and soulâ¨together while we're waiting for the next thing to direct. So it's reallyâ¨hard to say exactly what. I only know it would be interesting if it were someâ¨kind of leap in genre. It would be amazing to do a science fiction film or aâ¨thriller. I think the only thing we wouldn't do is an action film, since Iâ¨think there are enough things blowing up in real life without blowing them upâ¨on screen.â¨â¨GROSS: Well, I want to thank you both so much for talking with us.â¨â¨Mr. P. WEITZ: Thank you very much.â¨â¨Mr. C. WEITZ: Well, thanks for having us.â¨â¨BOGAEV: Chris and Paul Weitz directed "About a Boy." It's now out on videoâ¨and DVD. From the soundtrack, here's "Something to Talk About."â¨â¨(Soundbite of "Something To Talk About")â¨â¨Unidentified Group: (Singing) I've been dreaming of the things I learnedâ¨about a boy who's bleeding, celebrate to elevate. The joy is not the sameâ¨without the tears. Ooh. Ipso facto, using up your oxygen, you know I shall,â¨calling out for extra help. You've got to let me in or let me out. Ooh,â¨something to talk about. And something to talk about.â¨â¨BOGAEV: Coming up, we meet choreographer Garth Fagan. This is FRESH AIR.â¨â¨(Soundbite of music)â¨â¨* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *â¨â¨Interview: Choreographer Garth Fagan discusses his dancing careerâ¨and dance-teaching styleâ¨BARBARA BOGAEV, host:â¨â¨My guest, Garth Fagan, founded the Garth Fagan Dance company 33 years ago, andâ¨ever since, his work has challenged assumptions about gender, race andâ¨political correctness. A native of Jamaica, Fagan incorporates African andâ¨Caribbean dance, extreme athleticism, hip-hop and balletic movements into hisâ¨choreography. Fagan Fagan has also worked on Broadway. He won numerousâ¨awards, including a Tony and Britain's Laurence Olivier Award for hisâ¨choreography for the Disney musical "The Lion King."â¨â¨The Garth Fagan Dance company is currently on a national tour. When I spokeâ¨with Garth Fagan in 2001, I asked him what is earliest dance memory was fromâ¨his childhood in Jamaica.â¨â¨Professor GARTH FAGAN (State University of New York): My first dance memoryâ¨was really like party dancing, you know. I come from a family of 13 aunts andâ¨uncles on one side and seven on the other side, so there were always parties,â¨you know. Somebody's always having a birthday or a graduation or whatever.â¨And everybody danced. Right up to my grandparents, everybody danced. And weâ¨didn't have the age-specific parties that are so trendy now. We had partiesâ¨where you had from children through grandparents, and everyone danced. Butâ¨the idea of concert dance or professional dancing never occurred to me. Itâ¨was just a fun thing that you did.â¨â¨And Iva Baxter, who was--directed Iva Baxter Dance Company and who forgedâ¨Caribbean dance and modern dance into a nice synthesis, she saw me in highâ¨school. And I had to fill in for someone who had sprained his ankle orâ¨something. And I did it on an outrageous dare. And I knew it would upset myâ¨father because he was an Oxford graduate, a very British gentleman and Fagansâ¨just didn't do things like that. You know...â¨â¨BOGAEV: So someone hurt their ankle and you, who had no dance experience,â¨said you'd fill in for them?â¨â¨Prof. FAGAN: Well, I was very athletic and was quite the party dancer, youâ¨know. I had won awards in cha-cha and mambas and what have you. So...â¨â¨BOGAEV: At dance contests.â¨â¨Prof. FAGAN: Yeah, dance contests. So, I mean, it was the thing to do. Andâ¨just on a dare I did it. And all I did was I listened to what this lady toldâ¨me to do and totally unbeknownst to me, I went out there and did it, andâ¨people said, `You were great.' And I said, `I was what?' You know, 'cause itâ¨didn't feel great to me, 'cause what do I do next, you know, blah, blah, blah?â¨And she invited me to come to her studio and start taking classes. And sheâ¨also showed my Martha Graham's "A Dancer's World," which is one of the mostâ¨beautiful films on dance and that art. And Martha--well, you know, what canâ¨we say? What an amazing artist and person. And that showed me Mary Hinkson,â¨who became one of my teachers and still my mentor and priestess, and justâ¨showed me the possibilities of concert dance. And I also saw men dancing in aâ¨very manly way, because as a teen-ager back then I didn't want to be a swanâ¨prince or anything like that. Now that I'm an adult, I understand the valueâ¨of swan princes, but as a kid, you know, I wanted a--more athletic stuff. Andâ¨she had wonderful dancers.â¨â¨BOGAEV: You founded your first dance troupe here--your--now your only danceâ¨troupe, Garth Fagan Dance, 30 years ago.â¨â¨Prof. FAGAN: Mm-hmm.â¨â¨BOGAEV: And back then, you picked untrained dancers for the troupe.â¨â¨Prof. FAGAN: Mm-hmm.â¨â¨BOGAEV: Why'd you do that? These are people who had no contact with dance...â¨â¨Prof. FAGAN: Right. They were...â¨â¨BOGAEV: ...I guess, as you did when you were young.â¨â¨Prof. FAGAN: Right. They were people that I saw at parties who had thisâ¨really wonderful sense of movement and rhythm, and people on the soccer fieldâ¨or the basketball court, you know. And I wanted to come up with Faganâ¨technique and I wanted to break the mold. And I didn't want to spend timeâ¨untraining people who had had, you know, classical training or major modernâ¨dance training. I just wanted to do something new. And I wanted the speedâ¨and precision of ballet, the love of weight, and the flow of modern dance, andâ¨the polyrhythm and the use of the torso that you find in African and Caribbeanâ¨dance. And I wanted to forge that into a new blend.â¨â¨BOGAEV: I think you see a lot of modern dance and it looks like dancers areâ¨trying to look like real people while they're dancing.â¨â¨Prof. FAGAN: Yeah.â¨â¨BOGAEV: And it strikes that false note, but watching your company, theâ¨dancers look more like real people dancing.â¨â¨Prof. FAGAN: Yes.â¨â¨BOGAEV: Is that at result of the technique or your philosophical infusion toâ¨your dancers?â¨â¨Prof. FAGAN: It's a result of the technique and the philosophy because fromâ¨day one I didn't want them to do the self-congratulatory thing, you know. Aâ¨dancer does some fabulous turns and then looks out at the audience forâ¨applause--you know, that kind of vulgarity I found boring and tedious. Iâ¨mean, it is understood that you are professional people, got baby-sitters, gotâ¨on the train and came to see you perform, so now do it. And it was veryâ¨important to me that you get the sense of people dancing, as opposed toâ¨hybrid-mannered dancers trying to be people.â¨â¨BOGAEV: I love how the women in your company dance. They are so, so equalâ¨to the men. They're just as athletic, just as fast, but they don't--they doâ¨it without sacrificing the sensuality of their movement or their femininity.â¨Could you talk about creating that? Was that a political decision on yourâ¨part...â¨â¨Prof. FAGAN: That was a poli...â¨â¨BOGAEV: ...that reaction to that girly, princess status of the ballerinas?â¨â¨Prof. FAGAN: Yes. Yeah, that was a decision that I made, A, to celebrate myâ¨daughter; B, because the women that I know and respect are not waiting for anyâ¨prince to carry them off or tell them what to do. They have a good idea ofâ¨what they can do and what they ought to be doing. And the whole girl-boyâ¨thing annoyed me. These are adults who are dancing and if the men can turnâ¨that fast, well, why can't the women? If the men can leap that way, why can'tâ¨the women? And by the same token--my women are strong and erect and fabulous,â¨but by the same token, my men are so--are not just macho, you know, soullessâ¨beasts. They have to be vulnerable and open, also, but I consciously wantedâ¨to do that so that you had this sense of humanity, and then gender and raceâ¨came down the road, you know, after you'd enjoyed the dancing.â¨â¨BOGAEV: I'd like to talk about your work on "The Lion King." Youâ¨choreographed the Disney Broadway musical, directed by Julie Taymor, and won aâ¨Tony Award for your work and, also, the Laurence Olivier. Now in a musical,â¨dance is not the focal point. It's just part of the whole. How do you adaptâ¨your choreography to not stand out too much?â¨â¨Prof. FAGAN: Well, you need a seamless whole. You know, you need theâ¨evening to be a seamless whole. And there are moments when the music isâ¨numero uno, and then there are moments when the dancing is numero uno, andâ¨there are moments when the entire parade flows before your eye. And thisâ¨involves music, costumes, lights and dancing. And you listen carefully to theâ¨director--in this case, Julie Taymor--and hear what her ideas are. And thenâ¨you go ahead and you forge your own ideas.â¨â¨I had decided and told Julie and everyone that I wanted all types of dance inâ¨this musical, because I wanted children who came in to see, you know, modernâ¨dance, ballet, hip-hop, African dance, jazz. I wanted them to experience asâ¨many of the dance forms as exist--and just kids fooling around. Like in "Iâ¨Just Can't Wait To Be King," it's just kids fooling around the way kids wouldâ¨do in a bedroom in a pillow fight, you know.â¨â¨For me, the newest thing was the use of Julie's wonderful puppets andâ¨elaborate costumes, which, in concert dance I like clothes as minimal asâ¨possible, so the human body, which is the dancer's instrument, is seen withoutâ¨much distraction. So I had to use those and use them well. And I had toâ¨realize that people were hyenas in this section and then they were lionessesâ¨in the next section. Then they were giraffes. Anyway, it was an amazingâ¨experience and I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was quite enriching for me.â¨â¨BOGAEV: Did you try and play against people dancing too much like theâ¨animals that they're supposed to embody?â¨â¨Prof. FAGAN: Oh, yes. No, I--it wasn't a stuffed-suit show, you know.â¨They--Julie always wanted the human beings to be seen within the costumes ofâ¨the animals. So, like, the lioness dances like--a beautiful feminist toneâ¨that shows, I mean, all the wonderful range of womanhood. I mean--and, youâ¨know, if the lionesses don't hunt, nobody eats, you know. So let's get a gripâ¨on that one. And you have all the femininity in the world out there, butâ¨still, they kill the gazelle so that people can have a meal. And sometimesâ¨we're not comfortable with the two perspectives of that being in one personâ¨and in one woman. And, likewise, the hyenas are horrible, terrible people,â¨but there is some humanity to them, so that was important that it just wasn'tâ¨stuffed suits trying to look like an animal. No, it was the way that theâ¨lions use their shoulders. I used a lot of that, you know, essence--theâ¨essence of being the animal.â¨â¨BOGAEV: So in choreographing hip-hop for "The Lion King," where did youâ¨learn hip-hop or what were you drawing on? Your an older gentleman now. Iâ¨don't imagine you're doing it in the club.â¨â¨Prof. FAGAN: Mature, Barbara. Not older yet, just mature.â¨â¨BOGAEV: Very good. Very good.â¨â¨Prof. FAGAN: Yeah. I go to a lot of parties, you know, so I see it in myâ¨grandkids and the dancers, you know. The dancers--I have company requirementsâ¨for the dancers to see certain shows, certain galleries and they haveâ¨requirements for me, too, you know. And...â¨â¨BOGAEV: What does that mean? You have a list of things that--ways in whichâ¨they should enrich their lives?â¨â¨Prof. FAGAN: Oh, absolutely. When we're on tour in foreign countries we goâ¨to the art galleries. We go and see their national dance or whatever they'reâ¨most famous for, you know. And it expands the consciousness. And we callâ¨those company requirements. I mean, when we have company requirements, youâ¨have to go. There's no debate, no whatever, you just go. And they love that.â¨And then they give me company requirements, too, you know. I mean, singers orâ¨dancers that I wouldn't know of in my general field--they'll tell me.â¨â¨BOGAEV: Garth Fagan, I want to thank you very much for talking with me.â¨â¨Prof. FAGAN: Thank you ever so much, Barbara.â¨â¨BOGAEV: Garth Fagan. His Garth Fagan Dance company is currently on tourâ¨performing in cities along the East Coast. In March, they travel to England,â¨France and Germany.â¨â¨Coming up, a review of the new Brazilian film "City of God." This is FRESHâ¨AIR.â¨â¨(Soundbite of music)â¨â¨* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *â¨â¨Review: New film from Brazil, "City of God"â¨BARBARA BOGAEV, host:â¨â¨The Brazilian film "City of God" was a runaway hit in Brazil, and it's thatâ¨country's entry for an Academy Award. Critic David Edelstein says that theâ¨film has elements of great storytelling, but it left him cold.â¨â¨DAVID EDELSTEIN reporting:â¨â¨The Brazilian melodrama "City of God" takes its title from the notorious slumâ¨on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. According to the movie, the community wasâ¨thrown up in the '60s to keep poor people as far as possible from the swankyâ¨beaches and resorts. That name, Cidade de Deus in Portuguese, is a sort of aâ¨sour joke, like calling LA the City of Angels. And the corpses pile up, theâ¨narrator says it over and over to drive home the irony.â¨â¨I've heard the M-word, masterpiece, invoked about "City of God," along withâ¨comparisons to great juvenile crime tragedies like Bunuel's "Los Olvidades"â¨and Hector Babenco's "Pixote." But the movie isn't slanted as a tragedy ofâ¨lost youth, and despite that title, it's not really about the absence of God.â¨It's basically a blowout gangster picture about a psychotic new breed of urbanâ¨capitalist. It's like "Scarface" or "New Jack City" or "Menace II Society,"â¨but with the jazzy syntax of "Pulp Fiction" and "GoodFellas." I'm mentioningâ¨a lot of other movies here, which should tell you something. This is one ofâ¨those foreign films that once you get past the unfamiliar landscape and actorsâ¨isn't really so foreign. "City of God" speaks the international language ofâ¨splattery action pictures.â¨â¨OK, brilliant, splattery action pictures. This is a sensational piece ofâ¨filmmaking. It's fast and hopped up, it's packed with mayhem, yet the framingâ¨is detached so the bloodshed isn't shoved down your throat. The director,â¨Fernando Meirelles, has done a lot of commercials in Brazil, and I bet they'reâ¨high-end ones because you've never seen a movie about violence and povertyâ¨that's quite this sleek. It's rife with flashbacks, digressions, theâ¨narrator's commentary. The seems are all on show, but it still moves like aâ¨rocket.â¨â¨That's the nickname of the narrator, by the way, Rocket, placed by Alexandreâ¨Rodrigues. He's meant to be the film's protagonist, but he's really just anâ¨observer. His big brother, Goose, was at the center of things in the '60s,â¨one of a trio of high-spirited rogues who rob a gas truck then throw handfulsâ¨of money in the air for little children. The early scenes in the '60s takeâ¨place on brown earth that's not yet paved, and the lighting bronzes theseâ¨beautiful robbers. They're stupid but sexy; they're hungry for life. Theyâ¨aren't brought down by the cops, but by a little kid who goes by the name Li'lâ¨Dice. He gives the trio the idea for a motel robbery that ends in a massacre.â¨Then Li'l Dice grows up in the '70s to be Li'l Ze--that's like Little Joe--andâ¨becomes the teen-age Scarface of the city of God.â¨â¨As played by Firmino da Hora, he holds the screen with his huge front teethâ¨and a grin like a storybook wolf. He wants to swallow the world. He wipesâ¨out the rival drug dealers and anyone else in the way, including little kids,â¨whose robberies or muggings would bring more police in the slum. This is whenâ¨the movie gets bluer and colder and much, much bloodier. In its final third,â¨the now-crazed drug lord, who's upset because he can't get a date, picks aâ¨pointless fight with a handsome straight arrow known as Knockout Ned. Thatâ¨doesn't mean throwing a few punches. It means firing several hundred roundsâ¨into the guy's house and killing a large percentage of his family. The movieâ¨builds to a full-scale gang war, which goes uncovered by fearful Rioâ¨photojournalists, which creates an unprecedented opportunity for our narrator,â¨Rocket, who dreams of becoming a photographer.â¨â¨"City of God" might have justified that M-word if Rocket had learned from hisâ¨new vocation, if he'd been able to see something through the lens of hisâ¨camera that he couldn't as a mere bystander. But Rocket doesn't seem to thinkâ¨about the horror of the violence that he shoots, which suggests that theâ¨director, Meirelles, didn't think about it much, either. The violence isn'tâ¨glorified, but it almost never gets under your skin, which is odd when youâ¨consider the sociopolitical trappings and how many little kids end up eatingâ¨bullets. Photographing the carnage is a way for Rocket to get out of the cityâ¨of God and a way for the director to get a big US release, an Oscarâ¨nomination, a calling card in Hollywood. The movie is like a high-tonedâ¨commercial for youth violence: `Come to Rio for the rush, and don't forgetâ¨your bullet-proof vest.'â¨â¨BOGAEV: David Edelstein is film critic for the online magazine Slate.â¨â¨(Credits)â¨â¨BOGAEV: For Terry Gross, I'm Barbara Bogaev.