‘Sideways’ Writer-Director Alexander Payne on What Makes a Good Film and What’s Missing in American Cinema
variety.comLise Pedersen Two-time Oscar-winning filmmaker Alexander Payne shared his passion for film and his thoughts on contemporary American cinema with the audience at the Lumière Film Festival in Lyon where he is premiering his eighth feature film, “The Holdovers,” under the French title “Winter Break,” on October 15th.
In a conversation skilfully led and translated by Los Angeles-based French film journalist Didier Allouch, Payne drew laughs from the Lumière crowd when he explained that the secret to making good films was “keeping your budgets low.” “John Huston approached Luis Buñuel one day and asked him, ‘How is it that you make these wonderful films, like “Viridiana” and “The Exterminating Angel”?’ And Buñuel replied, ‘How much money do you make and how much money do you think I make?’” said Payne with a smile.
While he made no secret of his distaste for Hollywood blockbusters and said it was still possible to make movies like “Sideways,” which earned him his first Academy Award for best adapted screenplay in 2005, Payne noted the growing absence of what he described as “mid-range films” in American cinema. “One thing with these lower budget, humanist, anthropocentric – whatever what you want to call them – comedy dramas [they make now], is that I miss the mid-range, more expensive adult dramas with visual scope. “Where is “Out of Africa,” where is “The English Patient” today?” he asked, adding: “Of course, the most difficult thing is always the screenplay.
We can criticize financiers and studios and distributors for not making those movies anymore, but I criticize [American] directors and writers for not making them.” During the one-and-a-half-hour conversation, Payne, whose second Oscar was also for best adapted.
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