ABOUT
THE PRODUCTION
It’s
always gratifying to a filmmaker when others share his dream...and
in attempting to bring his original screenplay of Levity to the
screen, Ed Solomon discovered that many other talented people, both
in front of and behind the camera, were willing to take a risk on
a smaller non-Hollywood film.
Executive producer Lori McCreary, who’s partnered with Morgan
Freeman in Revelations Entertainment, knew Solomon long before she
had the opportunity to discover his script for Levity: “I’ve
known Ed for quite a few years,” she notes, “because
we went to UCLA at the same time. Some years back, Ed brought us
the script, in particular for Morgan to play a role. We really liked
it, and about a year ago Ed brought it back to us saying that he
was ready to go out with it.”
McCreary had been impressed over the years with Solomon’s
considerable accomplishments as a screenwriter, and the tenacity
with which he clung onto the desire to bring Levity to the screen.
“It’s a labor of love for Ed,” she says, “that
he’s been carrying around for years, and wouldn’t stop
until he made it happen.”
“I think Ed was very smart to wait a long time before deciding
to direct a film,” declares producer Richard N. Gladstein.
“I’m sure he had opportunities earlier, but he waited
until he had a story that he really wanted to tell, and until he
had the right actors.
Notes Solomon, “Levity is something that I fought for, for
years, hoping that others would be willing to take a chance not
just on the project, but also on me as a first-time director.”
 Billy
Bob Thornton had absolutely no reluctance to “take a chance”
on the first-time director. “I think that Levity can be a
very powerful independent film, and much of the reason is that Ed’s
so passionate about it. I tend to play a lot of characters who have
more going on inside than they appear to, and I also seem to play
loners and outsiders. What I liked about Manual Jordan is that he’s
obsessed with getting forgiveness, yet he doesn’t know if
it’s possible to find redemption.”
Thornton was drawn to the power and mysteriousness of Manual Jordan,
and even felt a kinship to the character’s sense of alienation.
“I related to the idea of being someone who doesn’t
really know how to fit into society, because I feel that way, particularly
in the film business. I don’t really participate much in the
Hollywood world, and I don’t know much about it. I work and
I stay home. Those are the things I do.
“So in that sense,” Thornton continues, “I feel
like Manual, just walking around the streets, not knowing exactly
where to go or what to do. I feel a little bit lost in those circumstances,
just like he does.”
“What makes Billy Bob unique,” notes Richard Gladstein,
“is that he’s a leading man who has a chameleon-like
quality to reinvent himself for each film. He can do a huge action
movie, and then segue right into a quiet story like Levity. And
he always finds something in his characters that connect to him
personally, and where he can live inside the character’s skin.
 Morgan
Freeman, who like Billy Bob Thornton has always combined star magnetism
with an extraordinary ability to breathe life into a panoply of
diverse characters, was drawn to the role of Miles because of the
role’s enigmatic qualities. “I like the mystery of Miles,”
Freeman notes, “because you don’t really know who he
is. You don’t really know what’s driving him, or even
what he’s after. It’s a challenge, because an actor
must plumb the character, get to know who he is. But if you admit
that you don’t, that you really are going moment to moment
for the character, it makes it all edgy, which is good.”
 Holly
Hunter concurs with Freeman’s attraction to the more unexplained
elements of the script. “I think that one of the things that
attracted me most to the script, in general, is a kind of mystery
that I think revolves around the character of Adele,” she
notes, “and the story as a whole. Generally, all questions
are answered in most scripts, all things are made very clear. I
think that Ed Solomon was very comfortable with inventing a kind
of unknown quality about his characters.
“I thought the script was beautifully and subtly written,
and that Ed has a great eye and ear for detail,” Hunter continues.
“It’s a small story, and Ed was very happy for it to
be a small, intimate story. And of course, the idea of being in
a film with Billy Bob Thornton and Morgan Freeman drew me in as
well, because they are both wonderful actors.
 Kirsten
Dunst was drawn to the project because she felt that Levity represented
another opportunity to diversify her talents. “I can barely
believe that Kirsten is only 19,” says Lori McCreary, “because
she has the wisdom of someone much older.” Adds Richard Gladstein,
“Kirsten is a great addition to the movie because she adds
a young, wild vigor to this story. A lot of young actors get trapped
playing high school forever, but Kirsten has moved on to playing
young adults in adult movies.”
“I’ve been so lucky,” says Dunst, “because
I’ve been getting some good scripts lately, so it’s
all about what you do with them. After Spider-Man, I really wanted
to do a smaller, independent kind of film, and Ed’s script
was great. It was the perfect movie for me to do after something
so big. And, of course, it’s amazing to be part of this cast.”
Like her co-stars, Dunst was intrigued by the characters’
multi-dimensional qualities. “Sofia just kind of floats through
life,” Dunst notes of her role. “She doesn’t really
care. She lives with her nutcase mother, who used to be a singer
and is now just a drunk, in a house with no furniture. Sofia parties
every night, and lives a very promiscuous life. She’s a lost
soul, until Manual shakes some reality into her. What I like is
the fact that you know that after the story is over, Sofia still
has a tough road ahead of her, that it’s not a conventional
‘happy ending.’ But she’s being awakened into
trying to figure things out and work towards some goal, instead
of just wasting her life.”
Along with his remarkable group of actors, Ed Solomon was also successful
in attracting some of film’s most respected artists, including
director of photography Roger Deakins, a four-time Academy Award
nominee perhaps best known for the six films he’s shot for
Joel and Ethan Coen. “Levity truly is an independent film
that wasn’t backed by a studio or financing entity when we
put the movie together,” notes producer Adam Merims. “Ed
always had a vision of Billy Bob Thornton and Morgan Freeman when
he wrote the script, and despite the fact that many people said
that he would never get them to agree to do it, Ed got both of them
to commit to the project on the strength of the script and his passion.
And since Billy Bob and Morgan are two of the best and most talented
people working today, Ed was able to attract the likes of Holly
Hunter and Kirsten Dunst to the movie as well.
“Another big piece of this movie--and I’d call him the
fifth star, if you will--is Roger Deakins,” adds Merims, “which
was a huge coup for a movie of this size. Then, Ed was also able
to bring production designer Francois Seguin and costume designer
Marie-Sylvie Deveau into the movie, and they’re two of the
best artists that the Quebec film industry has to offer. And in
post we were joined by Pietro Scalia, which was especially exciting
for us, because not only had he just won his second Oscar (for editing
Black Hawk Down), but he read Ed’s script and really got behind
the small character driven independent film we were trying to make.”
“I’ve known Ed for a number of years,” notes Deakins,
“and we’ve kept in touch on and off. I really liked
the script of Levity, the way the characters are woven together.
It’s not a direct, straight, driven narrative. It’s
interesting the way one character relates to another, to tell you
about the main character. I like doing smaller films. I think you’ve
actually got more freedom and have to be very focused on what you’re
doing. Whereas, often on a big picture, it’s more sprawling
and the cinematographer’s job is kind of like organizing a
battle, really. You have to kind of hang on to the reins of the
thing before it gets away from you. And sometimes, creatively, I
don’t think you’ve got as much freedom as on a small
film with a smaller crew.”
Also a key member of the creative team, the film was scored by Mark
Oliver Everett (Eels front man E), who was attracted to the project
because of the script. “I’ve been asked to (write scores)
over the past several years,” Everett says. “The requests
come in fairly regularly and it’s almost always something
I’m not interested in doing because of the story. But this
one I thought, ‘alright, I’m gonna give it a whack.”
“Having these actors and creative artists involved with Levity
is like being given a Ferrari for your first car,” says Solomon.
“When it came to really putting the film together, one of
the greatest thrills for me was sitting down with Roger Deakins
and developing the visual style for the movie. He has such an evolved
way of looking at not just film, but at life. Coming up with shot
lists or ideas of how the movie would look, was just amazing.”
Part of that visual design, of course, would be determined by the
filmmaker’s locations in Montreal, one of the most unique
cities on the American continent. In a sense, Montreal belongs to
two worlds, as a typical North American big city, but with strong
architectural and cultural links to Europe. This was entirely suitable
for Levity’s amorphous urban setting, in an unnamed “everycity.”
“I never identified the city in the script,” says Solomon,
“but I had originally written the film to take place during
the summer. But when circumstances demanded that we film in Montreal
in winter, it gave a whole different look and feel to the story.
Montreal in winter is not a city where people are out in the streets
walking all the time, so Manual Jordan became a much more isolated
character. In the original conception, Manual was isolated amongst
crowds of people, but in the final version he’s more like
a ghost haunting a more desolate city.”
“The story’s simple but it needs to be done in bold
strokes,” declares Roger Deakins. “I’m using less
light sources than I normally do, utilizing more direct light than
I did on A Beautiful Mind, which had big, soft, naturalistic sources.
This is much more directional light, and we’re using color
a lot more. Sometimes the colors are almost garish, like a scene
in which Billy Bob Thornton’s Manual is at the phone outside
the convenience store. The store is a kind of off-color green, with
florescent tubes, and the phone booth has this sort of very warm
orange glow to it. We’re doing things like that quite a bit,
and it’s great to go for a sort of surrealistic take.
Ultimately, all parties, both in front of and behind the camera,
were satisfied with the entire process. “I had great fun working
with Billy Bob,” says Morgan Freeman. “He likes to try
things, he’s edgy, and he’s an emotional gambler.”
“I’m so honored to be working with this great cast,”
adds Kirsten Dunst. “Since Billy Bob is also a writer and
director, he has a way of making things as truthful and simple as
possible, which is always the best. And he likes to do things on
the first take, with usually no rehearsal, which is great because
it’s more spontaneous.”
Holly Hunter found that Ed Solomon remained absolutely true to his
original vision for Levity: “What I love about this movie
is its intimacy. It’s very small, and doesn’t make any
pretension about being anything else. There are no action scenes
thrown in to reach a certain kind of audience. It’s written
by one guy, Ed Solomon, so it has the voice of a single person.
He has a fantastic ear, a wonderful sense of dialogue, and is also
very funny. I think that Ed’s writing has an inherent sense
of what is truly comic in how people behave.
“And then, Ed directing it as well as having written it, gives
a wholeness to the entire project,” continues Hunter. “Ed
is a very giving, generous person, so he’s been a great collaborator
on this movie and it’s been a great experience for me from
beginning to end.”
“It’s important that everyone share a vision of what’s
important about the film,” concludes Ed Solomon. “But
in terms of achieving that final goal, I think that if you have
really talented people around you, you’re a fool not to let
them do their art and their craft.
“A movie that you create and then make in collaboration with
other people is never what you imagine it to be. There is the movie
you thought of. There is the movie you were actually able to write.
There is the movie you designed. There is the movie that you shot.
Then there is the movie that you edit. They are all different films,
and hopefully, at each stage, it becomes better.” |
