film reviews

Crazy Heart has been enjoying critical success, as well as receiving awards for its music and the acting by Jeff Bridges. This week I had the chance to sit down with the film’s writer/director Scott Cooper. The film open in San Antonio this Friday 1/29/10

Brian: This your directorial debut, what made you choose this material?

Scott: I always wanted to tell Merle Haggard’s life story, but I couldn’t because he had too many ex wives. I couldn’t get the rights and didn’t have the money to, and I felt I should tell a very personal story. I grew up listening to this kind of music, I knew these guys well, and I knew the world they lived in well. I felt like if I am going to write a movie, I should write one about something I know and that’s exactly what this is.

Brian: How do you feel about the reaction the film is getting?

Scott: We are so gratified, because Jeff has given many Oscar worthy performances and he and I both think that is probably his best performance. It’s a confluence of a perfect role and the perfect actor, which is rare and I couldn’t be happier of all his acclaim and I hope it continues, because he is a great guy and I really care for him and it means a lot to him.

Brian: When you were writing the screenplay did you always have in your mind who would play the characters?

Scott: Well I wrote the role of Bad Blake for Jeff Bridges, he was my first choice and only choice, I wasn’t going to make it if I didn’t get him. Then I came to Maggie a little while later and Colin too, but Colin was inspired casting. I thought I hadn’t seen him play a role like this, he is a really good actor and he looks like a movie star and I could easily see him playing this role, so it turned out beautifully.

Brian: I thought the landscape played a vital part in the film. What made you choose the locations you filmed at?

Scott: Yeah critical, the American southwest is the place that I love and it has a stark beauty and loneness to it, that I felt like the character needed, and the music needed and would help inform the story. People wanted to finance the film sooner, but shooting it up in Canada, I just felt like that wouldn’t be the right way to tell that story.

Brian: I have read that you are a big music fan. Who are some of your favorite artist and what influence did they have on you wanting to make this film?

Scott: Oh I would say Tom York from Radiohead is one if my favorites, Michael Stipe from R.E.M, I love Eddie Vedder, I love Miles Davis and John Coltrane of course Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, I love what Jack White is doing now with The White Stripes and the Raconteurs. I love Cash; Ron Sexsmith is a great singer/songwriter from Canada. They all have kind of an influenced my work, a very ecliptic bunch.

Brian: When it comes to your style of directing, what directors influenced you?

Scott: Guys for the 70’s, Peter Bogdanovich, Terrence Malick, Robert Duvall, Sean Penn, and Frances Coppola. They all really influenced me and I would watch a lot of films from the 70;s with the sound off to see how they would tell the story with the frame and the lens and the performer, because I wanted it to feel invisibly directed. I didn’t want you to see my fingerprints all over it.

Brian: The music is such an important part of the movie. How did you and T-Bone Burnett come together?

Scott: Well its important, the music is vital and critical and once Robert Duvall asked me what I needed to get the movie mode. I said I needed two people, Jeff Bridged and T Bone Burnett and T Bone is peerless and what he does with Americana roots music, he understands it’s a very honest place. He knows tis world inside and out and I gave him a lot of my musical influences and he helped shape that world view and help it tell a story, because that’s what it does. Great songs, country or not tell a story.

Brian: Did you shoot any of the music scenes in the movie live?

Scott: I did, I shot the big sequence, the big concert sequence with Colin and Jeff live in front of 12,000 people, in New Mexico, in-between a Toby Keith concert and a Montgomery Gentry show, and I had to do it in about 10 minutes.

Brian: How many days did it actually take you to shoot the film?

Scott: about 24 days, shot in Texas, New Mexico and California.

Brian: The movie open at a bowling alley and the first thing I thought of was “The Big Lebowski” was that the intent?

Scott: I didn’t because I had never seen the film, it’s the only Coen brothers film I have never seen and sadly, because they are among my favorite filmmakers and I eventually will see it, but a lot of people have brought that to my attention and I didn’t know it and I have to say it’s a homage by accident, but I will take it.

Brian: Did you ever go to film school or take a screenwriting class?

Scott: I never directed a commercial or a high school play, or a musical. I am primarily an actor and I came out of an acting and behavior background, yeah it helped because I won’t be directing anything with flying blue people or robots that is for sure.

Brian: What does Thomas Cobb think of your finished product?

Scott: He cried, at first I said were you crying for joy or pain? He said, well I was happy, he said because it far exceeded his expectations, which I am sure were low, because I was a first time director. He probably didn’t know who I was, he loved it, absolutely loved it, and now his book is being reissued, next week. It’s been out of print for 20 years.

Brian: When Paramount Vantage disintegrated, were you ever worried the film wouldn’t find a distributor?

Scott: No, not when I knew what I had in the can, a performance like Jeff Bridge’s and the music and not with that powerful group of people, it was never a concern.

Brian: What was the most challenging scene to shoot in this film?

Scott: The concert sequence in 10 minutes, shooting that concert sequence live in 10 min, in front of 12,000 people and with 5 cameras, remarkable experience and a logistical nightmare, but we pulled it off. That’s what happens when you have a great crew and guys who can just bring it take in and take out, they are the best actors in the world.

Brian Taylor