Wednesday, March 4, 1998
Director contemplates aging in newest work
FILM: Robert Benton explores difficulties
of characters entering twilight of their lives
By Lonnie Harris
Daily Bruin Contributor
Celebrities seem to age gracefully, at least more than the
average person. When most Americans are beginning to lose their
hair, stoop when they walk and become fitted for that first pair of
dentures, the average Hollywood starlet is still trying out thong
bikinis.
Such is the cast of "Twilight," a noir-ish thriller about the
perils and intrigue which ensue when the beautiful people get older
and can’t get by on looks alone any more. "Twilight" features such
senior celebrities as Paul Newman, Gene Hackman and James Garner.
The film centers around a Hollywood couple (Hackman and Susan
Sarandon) whose mysterious past comes back to haunt them just as
one of them is diagnosed with cancer.
To aid him in covering up this past tragedy, Hackman hires his
best friend/personal private detective Paul Newman, and all sorts
of film noir style shenanigans ensue.
The film’s writer/director, Robert Benton, an older man who,
unlike the characters in his movies, seems comfortable with his
years, tries to explain to a room full of young reporters just what
"Twilight" says about aging and maintaining one’s dignity.
Benton opts to use this simple detective story to explore how
people deal with the trauma of watching their youth fade away, as
well as explore how wisdom, especially about love, increases with
age.
"I wanted to write a film about how complicated love is," Benton
says. "That is one of the things I’ve become aware of over the
years, especially the last few years. Love is extremely
complicated, and in some cases a really dangerous activity."
In order to express these ideas through decidedly unsympathetic
characters, Benton needed some creative casting. He hired Newman
and Hackman, both of whom he’d worked with previously in "Nobody’s
Fool."
"What I like about Paul is that he has a tremendous sense of
sympathy," Benton says. "What started with ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ and
continues right through to ‘Twilight’ is that there are people in
these pictures who blackmail and do all sorts of bad things, but I
sympathize with them."
Benton feels that Newman is very much in touch with his
directorial style. Benton prefers to work in conjunction with his
actors, discussing scenes and getting input before shooting them,
an approach he feels makes the work both more personal and more
intuitive. This style, though helpful for Benton in showing the
deeper subtext of his films, is not adopted by all directors.
"I’m a pushover," Benton says. "I’m not a mean son of a bitch. I
work with the people that I enjoy, that I like. I’m very careful to
hire people that I like, and I do my best to listen. I’m not a
dictator. Directors like James Cameron, and I don’t know him, but I
hear that he’s a dictator.
"Believe me, it works being a dictator," Benton continues.
"Making a movie is like building a house. Let’s say you’re laying
the foundation, and there’s a well in the way. What do you do?
Directors like James Cameron blow it up. John Ford blows it up.
Victor Fleming blows it up. Or, you build around it. Some directors
treat what happens as part of the film. That’s what I do."
Benton has applied his signature directorial style to such films
as "Billy Bathgate," "Bad Company," "Kramer vs. Kramer" and
"Nobody’s Fool," but he primarily considers himself a writer. After
receiving criticism for "Billy Bathgate," one of the few films he
directed which was not self-scripted, Benton decided that he would
no longer direct films which he hadn’t penned himself.
With "Twilight," Benton comes to terms with getting older
himself by creating characters who are trying to ease into their
golden years. As with his previous works, Benton writes films based
on what’s going on in his personal life.
"Some screenplays are paid jobs. In that case you use whatever
sense of craft you have to tell a good story," Benton explains. "I
put those films outside of my general body of work. Some of my
films, like ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ and ‘Bad Company,’ were things that
I cared about. Those pictures have a tone that came out of my
experiences.
"My movies, including ‘Twilight’ have really been governed by
the interests that I have at the time," he continues. "When I was
20, I was looking for answers. Now I realize I’m looking at a
mystery that I will never solve. That mystery seems so beautiful
and so inexhaustible that it’s worth studying."
FILM: "Twilight" opens Friday.