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ABOUT
THE STORY
Darabont's new film celebrates and salutes
the Hollywood of yesterday, a bygone era where audiences marveled
at Fred and Ginger?Bogart and Bacall?and Tracy and Hepburn.
At the same time, "The Majestic" unveils a bleak era in that
heyday of Hollywood, a dark period dominated by the investigation
by the United States government into Communist infiltration in the
movie industry. It was a time defined by a group of filmmakers branded
as "The Hollywood Ten," whose defiant refusal to testify
brought them contempt citations, grand jury indictments and, finally,
imprisonment. Those ten artists and citizens were screenwriters
Alvah Bessie, Lester Cole, Ring Lardner, Jr., John Howard Lawson,
Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott and Dalton Trumbo, and
directors Edward Dmytryk and Herbert Biberman.
"The perception now is that those individuals
brought before the committee who did not name names were the heroes
of that era," screenwriter Michael Sloane says. "And
those that did name names were the villains. At the time, it was
just the opposite. Dalton Trumbo was one of the Hollywood Ten. He
was given an award by the Writers Guild in 1970, and in his acceptance
speech, he said the only true thing that was probably ever said
about the blacklist -- there were no villains, there were no heroes,
there were only victims."
The
blacklist and that era have long fascinated Sloane. The development
of the script eventually evolved into a story about a small town
movie theater and the blacklist. After finishing the script for
"The Majestic," Sloane dropped it off one night on the porch
of his longtime friend and colleague, Frank Darabont.
"Michael and I have known each other for many
years, and we swap reads," the filmmaker says. "In
other words, it's important to have trusted critics, people who
will read your work and give you honest feedback. Michael's been
a trusted critic of mine for years, and I his. So, he handed me
this script. And, my reaction was, 'Gosh, I'd really like to make
this movie.' I really loved the story that much."
Peter
Appleton has just celebrated the opening of his first produced script,
"Sand Pirates of the Sahara," when the House Un-American
Activities Committee suddenly accuses him of being a Communist sympathizer
and calls him to testify. After an all night drive up the California
coast, he crashes his car, develops amnesia and finds himself in
the small town of Lawson, where his sudden appearance touches the
hearts of many of the local residents. The town has been virtually
paralyzed with grief since the war, in which they lost 62 of their
young sons to battle. Appleton shares a remarkable resemblance to
Luke Trimble, one of Lawson's long-lost World War II heroes who
was reported missing in action after the D-Day battle of June 1944.
The person most touched by his arrival is Luke's father Harry Trimble,
the owner of the shuttered, crumbling Majestic movie palace. Having
lost his zest for life, the elderly Trimble closed his theater after
his wife died and his son failed to return from military service.
Appleton, however, is a dead ringer for that missing soldier, Albert
'Luke' Trimble. The overjoyed father proceeds to reintroduce his
"son" to the life he left behind.
In addition to Harry, the whole town rejoices upon Luke's return,
along with Luke's old flame, Adele Stanton, the beautiful daughter
of the town physician. Inspired by his son's return, Harry decides
to refurbish and reopen The Majestic-- much to the delight of the
townsfolk.
Appleton, still suffering from amnesia and unsure as to who he really
is, finds comfort among Lawson's citizens, and begins to accept
the fact that maybe he really is this war hero, Luke Trimble. He
joins his "father" Harry in restoring the old movie palace, and
mans the ticket booth upon its glorious reopening for the premiere
of Vincente Minnelli's musical, "An American in Paris."
As weeks go by, The Majestic's marquee displays the popular movie
titles of the era -- "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "The
Day the Earth Stood Still." One fateful day, Harry books a minor
desert epic entitled "Sand Pirates of the Sahara," penned by a writer
named Peter Appleton.
Suddenly his memory returns and Appleton must confront much bigger
dilemmas. Now that he's lived the life of someone he's not, will
he find the courage to confess to the citizens of Lawson that he
is not the hero they all believed he was? Will he return to Hollywood
to face his accusers, the members of H.U.A.C., especially with the
F.B.I. closing in on his trail in Lawson?
Sloane calls his story "an affectionate nod,
a love letter to the movies, being such a huge movie fan myself.
On many levels this film encapsulates in a very simple way a very
strong belief of mine - how remarkably special this art form is.
There is nothing in the world like watching a movie with an audience,
being in a room with a lot of other people, and experiencing something
together as an audience."
Concurring
with Sloane, director Darabont adds, "The love
of films creeps into all of my work. In 'Shawshank',
there was the Rita Hayworth film, 'Gilda', playing in the
prison. In 'The Green Mile',
the motive for the old Tom Hanks character telling his story was
seeing 'Top Hat' on television, which triggers his memory. There's
always that love of film that creeps into it, none more so than
this film, where we've got a few really good ones that we're saluting."
Writer Sloane adds, "It's also about what it
means to be an American, without being overly patriotic or waving
a flag. The story addresses the First Amendment because the larger
issue is censorship, which as a writer, I fear the most."
Turning serious, Darabont adds, "I always avoid
the, 'what am I trying to say with this film' thing. It's art, you
figure it out. You take what you will from it. However, being an
immigrant of Hungarian descent and a naturalized American citizen,
Michael's story is something I believe in strongly. It deals with
basic principles of what the country stands for, ideals that are
constantly being corrupted by people in power."
On a lighter note, the award-winning director adds, "If
one could consider Frank Capra a genre, then you can say I've always
wanted to make a Capra film. And this is Capraesque, an old-fashioned
Capraesque piece."
Jim Carrey describes the story for "The Majestic" as having "a
lot of complexities to it. It's a story about what it takes to be
a man. What it takes to be a hero. What it takes to stand up to
be your authentic self in the world. It's also a story about love
and the choices that you make in life."
Martin Landau was "moved by this script, so warm
and positive and charming. It moved me emotionally numbers of times
on the page, I couldn't put it down. It's such a positive movie
in this age of cynicism. It also deals intelligently with that awful
time of blacklisting in Hollywood. I knew some people who were badly
affected by it. This picture touches on that subject without proselytizing."
Actor David Ogden Stiers also remembers a moment, as a youngster,
watching the McCarthy hearings on television in his hometown of
Urbana, Illinois. "The beginning of my political
awareness was watching the McCarthy hearings on TV. I can see what
drew Frank to this project," Stiers adds. "A great theme and how
it affects people. Like with 'Shawshank',
injustice. What he hangs his incredible view of humanity on is embracing
and tolerant and exuberant and genuinely loving. I think that is
the greatness of this project and his run of films."
Laurie Holden considered herself "blessed to
have been given the opportunity to be part of this beautiful story
and to bring the role of 'Adele' to life. This is such a heartfelt
story - one that touched me on so many levels," says Holden.
"One of the many themes that particularly grabbed
me was that of loss: loss of identity, loss of ideals and, in Adele's
case, the loss of the love of one's life. I loved the 'what if'
aspect of this story. What does one do? What course of action does
one take if presented with something new, different and unknown?
Do you embrace it or turn away out of fear and uncertainty? Do you
confine yourself to playing it safe or be bold and face the great
unknown with courage and dignity? It's an interesting human exploration
that is profoundly universal and true."
ABOUT THE CAST AND CHARACTERS
Like his two previous features, director Darabont once again gathered
a talented and eclectic ensemble to populate the small town story
portrayed in "The Majestic." "I had an amazing
cast," the filmmaker enthuses. "Really,
it's a marvelous ensemble. I felt so blessed to be working with
actors who meshed so well and became part of a fabric, a tapestry.
I think there was definitely an ensemble tapestry here as there
was in 'The Green Mile', maybe
even more so."
"The texture of these people in this small town
is going to be very comforting and very familiar in that way the
Capra films were," Darabont continues. "So,
getting guys like Martin Landau and James Whitmore and David Ogden
Stiers and Jeff DeMunn into this...you may not know those names,
but you will know their faces. And when Jim's character arrives
in this town, it's going to feel like a homecoming for the audience.
It hopefully will feel like a small town that they know on some
subliminal level."
"When Frank told me he wanted to make this film,
he asked me who I had in mind for the cast," Sloane recalls.
"And I said that's easy -- Jimmy Stewart
and Carole Lombard! Jim Carrey is so evocative of the Pete
Appleton that I had in mind. He's the embodiment of that everyman
that Jimmy Stewart played so brilliantly. Jim's unbelievable, remarkable,
amazing. This is so different from anything he's ever done, and
he was born to the task." Darabont chose Carrey for the role
because "the script spoke to his heart. It turned
out that Jim is a fan of Capra films. He has that easygoing integrity,
that homespun honesty that Jimmy Stewart had, and he really vibed
with the sensibilities of the script."
Carrey appreciated Darabont's "purity and vision.
Frank was incredibly supportive and was a very positive influence.
He's a person who really cares about the movie, the writing and
the performances."
Carrey
comes to "The Majestic" fresh from his acclaimed role in "Dr.
Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas," last year's highest
grossing film release. Carrey comments that this role "is
like nothing else I've ever done, not even 'The
Truman Show'. That's what I look for -- new roles, never
repeating or doing the same thing twice. And this character was
a blast, something fresh and new."
"We
clearly needed a fabulous actor to pull this off, and that is how
we arrived at Jim," says casting director Deborah Aquila, who reunited
with Darabont on the film after casting his freshman effort, "The
Shawshank Redemption." "We modeled a
lot of our ideas after movie stars of the late '40s and early '50s,
Jimmy Stewart and Carole Lombard. Jim was so right and brilliant
for the part."
Actor Landau explains, "Jim's virtually playing
two different characters, two very disparate kinds of characters,
with many layers within each of them. It's challenging, not an easy
character to play, and he made it look seamless. He did an amazing
job, and I think he's going to raise a lot of eyebrows."
In choosing Holden for the demanding role, casting director Aquila
gives much of the credit to Darabont's President of Production,
Anna Gardu?, who is also an actress and is another Hollywood High
alumnus. "Anna would talk to us about Laurie's
work in acting class. When we read Laurie the first time, she did
very, very good work. We chose five of the toughest scenes in the
movie to audition with," Aquila reports. "Laurie
has confidence, and when you're acting opposite someone with the
kind of charisma and energy that Jim has, if you can't hold your
own in that environment, it's not going to work."
"I was thrilled at the prospect of presenting
a fresh face like Laurie's to the moviegoing audience," Darabont
remarks. "She beat out a lot of people for this
role, and I think she will capture a lot of hearts and, hopefully,
acclaim for her work in this movie. She's got stunning chops as
an actor, and miles of star charisma."
Once Darabont and Aquila chose the film's leads, the pair prepared
to populate the remainder of their cast. Addressing the casting
of Academy Award® winner Landau, Aquila remarks, "This
was a hard role to cast. Martin is a wonderful actor. His performance
in the film further demonstrates the caliber of actor that so many
others aspire to emulate."
Carrey enjoyed working with Landau on the film. "I
love to find people who are excited about what they do. That was
what was so wonderful about working with Martin," Carrey
explains. "He loves every take and he enters
every scene with that enthusiasm, that child-like Christmas-morning
'let's open the gifts' kind of feeling. And you can't just help
but be inspired by that." Carrey concludes, "I'm
just glad that this film has all of these wonderful, incredibly
talented and seasoned character actors. You get to know all of them.
Everybody is important to the story."
Darabont also wanted veteran performer David Ogden Stiers for the
role of Doc Stanton, Lawson's town physician. He knew Stiers' work,
and initially met the actor when he and Aquila were casting "The
Shawshank Redemption" back in 1993.
Stiers found working on the film a pleasure. "As
an actor rarely are you considered a collaborator. But, that's the
ground we walk on in this movie," says Stiers.
Whitmore, a World War II veteran, reunited with director Darabont
on the film because there was a particular scene in the film that
he felt strongly about. Whitmore explains, "In
response to what the House Un-American Activities Committee was
doing, my character remarks that the men who died serving their
country don't deserve this type of treatment. I liked that line,
because they did deserve better."
The
film also marked a reunion for co-star Jeffrey DeMunn, back for
his fifth project (most recently, "The
Green Mile") with Darabont as Lawson's Mayor, Ernie Cole.
"I play Ernie Cole, the mayor of this small town
in Northern California," DeMunn relates. "It's
a town that lost an enormous number of young men in the war. This
town is one of those places where they basically lost a generation
of young men and have not quite recovered from that loss."
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
Darabont created the atmosphere of a high school class reunion by
bringing together the collective talents of thirteen fellow graduates
and friends from Hollywood High School in the making of the film.
In addition to writer Michael Sloane (class of '76), production
designer Gregory Melton ('77) and costume designer Karyn Wagner
('78), Darabont (class of '77), recruited veteran hairstylists NINA
PASKOWITZ ('77) and Emmy winner KATHERINE REES ('77), L.A. location
managers JOHN GRANT ('78) and STEVE RINGEL ('78), Melton's art director,
TOM WALSH ('74), actress APRIL ORTIZ ('76), transportation co-captain
CRAIG LIETZKE ('78), set dressers SHANNON WADE ('80) and CHARLIE
NICHOLSON ('77) and President of Production at Darkwoods Productions
(his film banner), ANNA GARDUÑO('77).
"The Majestic" was filmed entirely in the state of California, utilizing
several locales in-and-around Los Angeles (Grauman's Chinese
Theater, the Formosa Cafe) before traveling to the northern
California communities of Ferndale, Mendocino and Ft.
Bragg to create the fictional village of Lawson. Interiors were
designed at the former Goldwyn Studios lot (now known as
"The Lot") in West Hollywood.
Darabont
filmed a good portion of his enchanting homage to the cinema in
a charming northern California town that actually has no movie theater
-- Ferndale, the Victorian Village nestled in the Redwood
Forest area on the state's Lost Coast some 20 miles south of Eureka.
The vintage enclave (known for its fertile dairyland and for being
the first community to process sweet cream butter around 1900) was
founded in 1852, incorporated in 1893 and is now populated by 1400+
residents. The homey community is distinguished as being the only
town recognized by California's register of historical landmarks.
Darabont singled out Ferndale after visiting the tiny tourist spot
by chance a decade ago. "I remember driving up
the coast to visit my brother in Seattle. I pulled off the freeway
to check this little town out. I fell in love with its look, and
recall thinking that this would make a wonderful place to shoot
a movie, if you had the material to suit it. When I read Michael's
script, I immediately thought of this town. Ferndale has maintained
its old-fashioned character, and has been kept pristine over the
years, kept very much in its period character."
"Other than the weather, which defines capricious,
it was the perfect place to shoot," says the director. "This
is one of those rare towns where you look up and down Main Street
and there's no McDonald's on every corner. As a main character,
this town was very, very vital."
Commencing
talks with the town early on helped veteran location manager Rory
Enke pave the way for the film company to begin production in the
Spring. Ferndale had hosted Hollywood twice before -- the 1978 Stephen
King miniseries, "Salem's Lot," and the 1995 medical thriller, "Outbreak."
Construction began under the supervision of production designer
Gregory Melton. Darabont and Melton realized they would have to
build an entire building to simulate the aging movie palace of the
film's title. The company took over Ferndale's public parking lot
and erected an entire theater featuring a unique, dazzling marquee.
"This parking lot seemed like the perfect place
to just plop our theater," Darabont notes. "Greg
Melton, a brilliant production designer, and his construction and
decorating crews, designed this marvelous, marvelous piece. It was
quite breathtaking. It put me in a good mood every time we lit it
up. I wished we could have taken it back to L.A. and use that marquee
to open up a (real) movie theater. It's just fantastic!"
"It was interesting, because I designed the theater before I knew
we would shoot in Ferndale," Melton recalls.
"There was this parking lot right in the center of Ferndale, which
we took over, building the theater right there. It just fit like
a glove. We never changed anything on the theater to make it fit.
It just fit perfectly."
Melton approached his movie palace design "from
the standpoint of knowing it should have been in this fictional
town for fifty years. Many of the movie theaters built around the
time of our story, 1951, were more art deco, like those that you
see in the neighboring towns of Arcata and Fortuna. I wanted a look
from the 1890's. A theater that would have first served as an opera
house, then became a nickelodeon or vaudeville palace before becoming
the small town movie theater."
When Sloane began penning his screenplay, he described The Majestic
"as a Dadaesque grab-bag of building styles."
The idea was to have an amalgam of all these styles all shoved together
that somehow made sense and could somehow still be beautiful.
Melton scoured numerous bookstores for as many books on old theaters
that he could find. "It's a hodgepodge of styles.
I kept layering it, starting with Victorian elements. In the early
1920's, the Egyptian mania started in movie theaters, and theaters
became more exotic. They were trying to transport you to another
world. So, we added those elements."
The Majestic's elaborate neon designs were created by a company
in Los Angeles called "Heaven or Las Vegas," run by a craftsman
named Kip Smith, whose crew spent many weeks in Ferndale hand-blowing
glass tubing that would become the elements of the theater's spectacular
neon tower and marquee.
In addition to the dazzling, ornate title character (which the art
department transformed from its dilapidated, neglected incarnation
to the refurbished version as the story unfolds), Melton and his
talented artisans (led by industry veteran Tom Walsh), constructed
two other key sets in downtown Ferndale -- Mabel's Diner, a chic,
moderne, 1940's eatery, and Mayor Cole's Town Hall.
Set decorator Natali Pope, propmaster Maureen Farley, costume designer
Karyn Wagner and picture car coordinator Michael Price lent an air
of period authenticity to the entire production. In plying their
individual trades, Ferndale was magically transported back in time
to an idyllic hamlet, with its picture-postcard perfection.
Maureen Farley and Natali Pope contributed to the authenticity of
the storefront displays by providing gold star flags to accompany
the set dressers' vintage military photos. The seasoned craftsperson
contacted History for Hire, a movie prophouse in North Hollywood,
California, which assisted in the manufacture of these flags.
History for Hire (which also provided the antique movie projectors
for the interior sets of The Majestic) contacted the Gold Star Mothers
group in Long Beach, California, for the special gold stars that
would adorn the flags. The Gold Star Mothers organization is a group
of women who have tragically lost sons in various war efforts over
the years. They pay tribute to their lost kin by manufacturing these
flags on which these gold stars represent those lost in battle.
To clothe the extras that appeared during the film's shoot, costume
designer Karyn Wagner "went to every rental house
in Los Angeles, rented from general rental houses on the East Coast,
and rented costumes from 'Angels' in London. We swatched fabric
in New York and Los Angeles and had samples sent from London."
Though the film is set in 1951, Wagner says the styles were "much
closer to 'The New York' originated by Dior in 1947. We tried to
reflect what was current in our Hollywood pieces, while our small
town reflects a more war time look. This is both an emotional and
practical note. Our small town is a little further behind the times
than a big city and people living here would not throw things out
until they were used up. This isn't a community that believes in
waste. Grandmothers might still be wearing dresses from the thirties."
Darabont staged one of the film's most colorful sequences at Warner
Bros. Studios -- an introductory shot to establish a bustling studio
backlot (doubling for the fictional HHS Studios). Wagner cast all
the extras to portray various actors and filmmakers of the period
roaming around the backlot. She carefully picked faces to reflect
the scenes and towns they portrayed. "Extras
don't speak, so their faces and costumes have to tell the whole
story."
Wagner dressed the extras in vintage wardrobes to simulate the thriving
film community at the fictional studio. To reflect the various movies
that might have been filming at the time, Wagner refurbished and
constructed many different genre costumes for these background performers.
Because director Darabont salutes movies in his films, one could
assume titles like "Top Hat" and "Gilda" would adorn
the marquee of his own Majestic movie palace.
Darabont adds, "the real answer would probably
be 'It's A Wonderful Life' and 'Casablanca.' The following week
would be 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' and 'Invasion
of the Bodysnatchers.' The week after that, 'The Third Man'
and Hitchcock's 'Saboteur' (with Bob Cummings and Priscilla
Lane). Then we'd do 'Forbidden Planet' and 'War of the
Worlds.' Then 'Sullivan's Travels' and 'It Happened
One Night.' In this story, we've been able to go crazy with
that motif, because this is all about the love of movies."
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