Peter Bogdanovich at Venice: 'I lost my mind, then I lost my shirt'
The 71st Venice film festival might bill itself as a “festival of discovery”
but it can still find some space for the lions of yesterday. Missing
believed defunct, the veteran director Peter Bogdanovich rode into town
like the ancient mariner. He arrived via water taxi, trailing clouds of
glory.
Few film-makers enjoyed such an early run of success as Bogdanovich, whose hit movies The Last Picture Show, What’s Up, Doc? and Paper Moon established him as one of the leading lights of 1970s American cinema. Few, too, suffered such an ignominious fall from grace. “Looking back, I’m sure there are a lot of things I’d have done differently,” he said ruefully.
She’s Funny That Way is Bogdanovich’s first feature in 13 years, partly bankrolled by his proteges Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach and starring Owen Wilson as a feckless theatre director. The film is an amiable, antiquated farce in which all the characters are constantly bumping into one another at the same hotel or restaurant. The Venice audience adored it and applauded like thunder.
“Comedy is the hardest thing to get right,” explained the 75-year-old director. “I remember a joke we did in What’s Up, Doc? that didn’t get a single laugh. So we moved the shot a foot-and-a-half to one side and all of a sudden the laugh was there. It drives you crazy, the balance is so delicate. Drama is easy. Comedy’s hard.”
For younger audiences, Bogdanovich remains best known for his supporting turn as a disapproving therapist in the TV drama The Sopranos. But his film-making career was stung by a string of high-profile flops and an off-screen tragedy. By the early 1980s Bogdanovich’s charmed and brilliant life had taken an altogether darker turn.
Also playing at Venice the documentary One Day Since Yesterday charts the director’s experiences on the 1981 romantic-comedy They All Laughed, which starred his partner, the model Dorothy Stratten. Shortly after filming her role, Stratten was murdered by her estranged husband. Bogdanovich subsequently spent a reported $5m of his own money to complete the movie.
“On They All Laughed I lost my mind, because Dorothy Stratten was murdered,” he recalled. “I lost my mind and then I lost my shirt. I tried to distribute the film myself and that was a big mistake. I ended up in a very bad situation.”
During his 1970s heyday, Bogdanovich befriended Cary Grant and invited Orson Welles to live in his Los Angeles home. Today he regards himself as one of the few surviving links to the golden age of US cinema.
“When I was younger, all my friends were older,” he said. “John Ford, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant. I loved talking to those people. And now they all have passed away. I’ve mourned a lot of friends, much more than I should have at this point in my life. It was a different world. It was a better world.”
Few film-makers enjoyed such an early run of success as Bogdanovich, whose hit movies The Last Picture Show, What’s Up, Doc? and Paper Moon established him as one of the leading lights of 1970s American cinema. Few, too, suffered such an ignominious fall from grace. “Looking back, I’m sure there are a lot of things I’d have done differently,” he said ruefully.
She’s Funny That Way is Bogdanovich’s first feature in 13 years, partly bankrolled by his proteges Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach and starring Owen Wilson as a feckless theatre director. The film is an amiable, antiquated farce in which all the characters are constantly bumping into one another at the same hotel or restaurant. The Venice audience adored it and applauded like thunder.
“Comedy is the hardest thing to get right,” explained the 75-year-old director. “I remember a joke we did in What’s Up, Doc? that didn’t get a single laugh. So we moved the shot a foot-and-a-half to one side and all of a sudden the laugh was there. It drives you crazy, the balance is so delicate. Drama is easy. Comedy’s hard.”
For younger audiences, Bogdanovich remains best known for his supporting turn as a disapproving therapist in the TV drama The Sopranos. But his film-making career was stung by a string of high-profile flops and an off-screen tragedy. By the early 1980s Bogdanovich’s charmed and brilliant life had taken an altogether darker turn.
Also playing at Venice the documentary One Day Since Yesterday charts the director’s experiences on the 1981 romantic-comedy They All Laughed, which starred his partner, the model Dorothy Stratten. Shortly after filming her role, Stratten was murdered by her estranged husband. Bogdanovich subsequently spent a reported $5m of his own money to complete the movie.
“On They All Laughed I lost my mind, because Dorothy Stratten was murdered,” he recalled. “I lost my mind and then I lost my shirt. I tried to distribute the film myself and that was a big mistake. I ended up in a very bad situation.”
During his 1970s heyday, Bogdanovich befriended Cary Grant and invited Orson Welles to live in his Los Angeles home. Today he regards himself as one of the few surviving links to the golden age of US cinema.
“When I was younger, all my friends were older,” he said. “John Ford, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant. I loved talking to those people. And now they all have passed away. I’ve mourned a lot of friends, much more than I should have at this point in my life. It was a different world. It was a better world.”
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