USA,
2004, 105 min
Shown in 2005
CREDITS
- dir
-
Craig Lucas
- prod
-
Campbell Scott, George Van Buskirk
- scr
-
Craig Lucas
- cam
-
Bobby Bukowski
- editor
-
Andy Keir
- mus
-
Steve Reich
- cast
-
Patricia Clarkson, Campbell Scott, Peter Sarsgaard
- source
-
Holedigger Studios, 535 W. 23rd St, Suite S3N, New York, NY 10011. EMAIL: george.vanbuskirk@verizon.net.
-
COMMENTS
Closing Night film in 2005. Craig Lucas, Patricia Clarkson and George Van Buskirk in attendance.
OTHER
A screenwriter mourning his lover’s death is plunged into a Faustian bargain with a studio executive in this deliciously wicked Hollywood noir, adapted by playwright-turned-director Craig Lucas from his successful play of the same name. Starring indie icons Patricia Clarkson, Campbell Scott and Peter Sarsgaard, The Dying Gaul turns the detritus of modern Los Angeles—cell phones, Internet addicts, sleazy executives—into Greek tragedy, albeit with enough psychological thrills and humorous asides to play like The Player for the 21st century. Robert (Sarsgaard), a fledgling screenwriter, has been offered a million dollars for his new script, which chronicles the death of his lover from AIDS. The only catch? Jeffrey (Scott), the slick studio executive who made the offer, wants the male character made into a woman. Turning on the well-oiled charm, Jeffrey escorts Robert into his high-powered world of cocktail parties and Malibu villas, and introduces him to wife Elaine (Clarkson), an ex-screenwriter herself. Attracted to Robert’s struggles, she contrives to “seduce” him through the Internet, using an online guise who speaks to him as his dead lover would. Taking a more hands-on approach, the bisexual Jeffrey merely seduces Robert in person, turning this business relationship into a suddenly sexual and increasingly dangerous threesome. Director Lucas spins this web of lost and mistaken love across a lovingly realized pit of Hollywood sleaze (Jeffrey’s villa is a pièce de resistance of android architecture, while he and Robert’s meetings take place on the actual Paramount lot), well accompanied by Steve Reich’s suitably chilled score and a compelling, courageous cast.
FACTOID #176
Hordes of screaming teenagers were fascinated with the Rolling Stones, but so were influential imagemakers Jean-Luc Godard and Robert Frank. The SFIFF has screened three different films with the Rolling Stones as the main subject: Godard’s Sympathy for the Devil (SFIFF 1972), Frank’s Cocksucker Blues (SFIFF 1998) and the IMAX documentary At the Max (SFIFF 1991).
