A Few Words with Bill Paxton
Bill Paxton made his directorial debut with 2002's critically acclaimed Frailty. He has chosen to follow that up with the heart-warming movie, The Greatest Game Ever Played. As an actor, he’s been in various movies, ranging from Apollo 13, Twister, and Titantic to smaller movies such as One False Move and Sam Raimi’s A Simple Plan (a favorite of mine).
Recently, some members of the press had an opportunity to sit down and talk to the soft-spoken actor/director about The Greatest Game Ever Played.
Can you tell us what drew you to the story of Francis Ouimet?
Francis Ouimet is a guy from another era. He came from very modest circumstances. He was a very genteel man, just born with a natural gentility. The movie is really about class, about character. It’s not really about golf even. I wasn’t interested in making a golf movie. I was more interested in making a film about character, about people, about overcoming social boundaries and personal limitations. That’s what we were going for. I had to lift it out of being a biographical sports story and make it something more. And it had all these great themes.
This movie has an interesting visual style and a surprising amount of CGI shots. What went into deciding how to handle making golf interesting to watch?
In Frailty, I shot that in a very classical way. I’ve always been very wary of people who call attention to the camera. Because to me it destroys that illusion that you try so carefully to create in a film. But in this movie, I [decided to] make the camera a character and really take a chance. I’ve seen it done the other way and I’ve seen it fail so I thought “what do I have to lose?�
I storyboarded a lot of the movie ahead of time. I thought that it’d be fun to see what an ant sees when the ball’s rolling across the green or fly with the ball almost like an astral projection. A Superman shot. So I thought this thing needed it all. This movie is sort of a pastiche. It’s got about every film technique known to cinema in it. I wanted to celebrate the game, celebrate it as a movie.
What influences did you draw on as you approached this movie?
I wanted to create as much of a subjective experience for the audience too and what was great cause you could do that visually. So, obviously, I was greatly influenced by Alfred Hitchcock, by Sergio Leone, and this is kind of a Sam Raimi golf film in a way. It’s super inspired by Sam and I wanted to create these moments like [Francis Ouimet’s] the cowboy who’s never been in a gunfight or the knight who’s never been to his first tournament or battle. So to create this vertigo moment when he’s in the zone, we pull that pin right up to him but when he’s in front of the crowd he can’t hold it and it shoots away from him. You hear him swallow. You really feel “Oh God, that must be terrible� to have to be in front of all those people. And then to contrast that with the organic terminator, Harry Vardon.
I had to talk Stephen Dillane into doing the movie. The thing was driving Harry Vardon ... usually people that are overachievers in life were denied in their younger lives and they spend their lives overcompensating. Vardon was a guy like that. He wanted respect, he became the best player in the world. He won respect, but you got to remember that he was a golf professional. Even though they were looked up to as sports heroes, it was an amateur's game. It was played for the love of it by an elite class of people. They found it vulgar and gross to play for money. I found a different way to tell the class struggle of these two guys. That’s what makes the movie unique too. Most sports films vilify the opponent or the opposing team. In this movie you have as much empathy for Vardon as you do Ouimet. And Ted Ray. Who’s gonna win? So, trying to get Stephen to do the thing, I said “Hey, you’re Alan Ladd in Shane as far as I’m concerned.�
When you take on a project like this, do you think ahead to ‘How can I market this?’ ‘Will this be marketed right?’
That’s out of my hands. I can only hope that I can be here and support it, but you make a movie and your real hope is that it can stand up to the test of time. That’s what’s killing our business: the make it or break it opening weekend. When I was a kid growing up, films had a chance to breathe, to find an audience, and word of mouth. So to that end, [Disney’s] going to give us a little bit of a shot here. We’re doing a national sneak. The company feels that the best marketing tool for the movie is the movie and once people see it, they’ll tell their friends “you got to see this.�
What are some of the big themes that draw you to a given project? Frailty to The Greatest Game Ever Played seems like a pretty big jump.
Frailty, to me, seemed to me to be a tragedy kind of about lost love; to see the disintegration of this beautiful family, even though it was a single parent family. These two boys, this descent into hell because this father had had this vision ... it was kind of this tragic love story.
[The Greatest Game Ever Played] is an unlikely buddy movie in some ways. This has great themes. This has triumph over social barriers. It’s got ... you see a guy suffer humiliations with dignity. You see courage. Desire. Determination. Perseverance. The three ingredients that makes anyone’s dreams come true. They are universal themes, timeless themes. If you can connect with a timeless theme, you have a chance to make a timeless movie. And both with Frailty and with this movie, I think that I have been able to tap that and that’s what I look for as a film-maker. Not as an actor, but as a film-maker, I’m looking for timeless themes that will make timeless classics.
Recently, some members of the press had an opportunity to sit down and talk to the soft-spoken actor/director about The Greatest Game Ever Played.
Can you tell us what drew you to the story of Francis Ouimet?
Francis Ouimet is a guy from another era. He came from very modest circumstances. He was a very genteel man, just born with a natural gentility. The movie is really about class, about character. It’s not really about golf even. I wasn’t interested in making a golf movie. I was more interested in making a film about character, about people, about overcoming social boundaries and personal limitations. That’s what we were going for. I had to lift it out of being a biographical sports story and make it something more. And it had all these great themes.
This movie has an interesting visual style and a surprising amount of CGI shots. What went into deciding how to handle making golf interesting to watch?
In Frailty, I shot that in a very classical way. I’ve always been very wary of people who call attention to the camera. Because to me it destroys that illusion that you try so carefully to create in a film. But in this movie, I [decided to] make the camera a character and really take a chance. I’ve seen it done the other way and I’ve seen it fail so I thought “what do I have to lose?�
I storyboarded a lot of the movie ahead of time. I thought that it’d be fun to see what an ant sees when the ball’s rolling across the green or fly with the ball almost like an astral projection. A Superman shot. So I thought this thing needed it all. This movie is sort of a pastiche. It’s got about every film technique known to cinema in it. I wanted to celebrate the game, celebrate it as a movie.
What influences did you draw on as you approached this movie?
I wanted to create as much of a subjective experience for the audience too and what was great cause you could do that visually. So, obviously, I was greatly influenced by Alfred Hitchcock, by Sergio Leone, and this is kind of a Sam Raimi golf film in a way. It’s super inspired by Sam and I wanted to create these moments like [Francis Ouimet’s] the cowboy who’s never been in a gunfight or the knight who’s never been to his first tournament or battle. So to create this vertigo moment when he’s in the zone, we pull that pin right up to him but when he’s in front of the crowd he can’t hold it and it shoots away from him. You hear him swallow. You really feel “Oh God, that must be terrible� to have to be in front of all those people. And then to contrast that with the organic terminator, Harry Vardon.
I had to talk Stephen Dillane into doing the movie. The thing was driving Harry Vardon ... usually people that are overachievers in life were denied in their younger lives and they spend their lives overcompensating. Vardon was a guy like that. He wanted respect, he became the best player in the world. He won respect, but you got to remember that he was a golf professional. Even though they were looked up to as sports heroes, it was an amateur's game. It was played for the love of it by an elite class of people. They found it vulgar and gross to play for money. I found a different way to tell the class struggle of these two guys. That’s what makes the movie unique too. Most sports films vilify the opponent or the opposing team. In this movie you have as much empathy for Vardon as you do Ouimet. And Ted Ray. Who’s gonna win? So, trying to get Stephen to do the thing, I said “Hey, you’re Alan Ladd in Shane as far as I’m concerned.�
When you take on a project like this, do you think ahead to ‘How can I market this?’ ‘Will this be marketed right?’
That’s out of my hands. I can only hope that I can be here and support it, but you make a movie and your real hope is that it can stand up to the test of time. That’s what’s killing our business: the make it or break it opening weekend. When I was a kid growing up, films had a chance to breathe, to find an audience, and word of mouth. So to that end, [Disney’s] going to give us a little bit of a shot here. We’re doing a national sneak. The company feels that the best marketing tool for the movie is the movie and once people see it, they’ll tell their friends “you got to see this.�
What are some of the big themes that draw you to a given project? Frailty to The Greatest Game Ever Played seems like a pretty big jump.
Frailty, to me, seemed to me to be a tragedy kind of about lost love; to see the disintegration of this beautiful family, even though it was a single parent family. These two boys, this descent into hell because this father had had this vision ... it was kind of this tragic love story.
[The Greatest Game Ever Played] is an unlikely buddy movie in some ways. This has great themes. This has triumph over social barriers. It’s got ... you see a guy suffer humiliations with dignity. You see courage. Desire. Determination. Perseverance. The three ingredients that makes anyone’s dreams come true. They are universal themes, timeless themes. If you can connect with a timeless theme, you have a chance to make a timeless movie. And both with Frailty and with this movie, I think that I have been able to tap that and that’s what I look for as a film-maker. Not as an actor, but as a film-maker, I’m looking for timeless themes that will make timeless classics.
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