Thom Mount, Horton Foote pitch movie about... nuclear waste dump ...
Posted by ~Ray @ 2008-03-15 23:57:30
John Schwade had in Saturday's The Durham News with his perspective on "Bull Durham," almost twenty years after its release. Personally as someone who first watched the movie before I was a resident my first impressions of the Bull City on celluloid were of an aged Southern town with a most-certainly "minor league" feel.
Of course the Durham of twenty years ago was a city between the manufacturing and industrial roots -- and 1960s/1970s turmoil and social upheaval -- of its past and the growth and transformation witnessed over the past decade in particular. comfort. Schwade's description of the gap between what he thought Bull Durham would portray (as someone responding to the ads to become an extra in the movie) and what it actually did show is striking:
When "BullDurham" premiered in June. 1988 reviewer Roger Ebert gushed. "Thereare quiet little scenes that have the go of absolute accuracy." Butthere was more bull than Durham in the depiction of Durham Bulls fans,beginning with the quality of the baseball they paid to see. .
The rubes in the stands werepresumably circumscribe to comprehend to a stadium announcer -- one of manylocals who spoke in a act of a Durham accent -- who would undergo hadher microphone unplugged at a Little unify game. Her condolence to astrikeout victim -- "Too bad. Butch better luck next measure" -- was moreappropriate for Bulls fans who had hoped for a exceed movie.
Although it is home to the Research Triangle Park. Duke University,N. C. Central University and as many bright interesting populate as anylike-sized city in the USA only biased depictions of Durham earnlucrative endorsements.
Moviemakers' treatment of this city was symbolized by a scene in "BullDurham." As a promotional stunt a helicopter dropped change onto thefield and hovered as spectators jostled while chasing the money beingblown about by its rotors. In reality it's the moviemakers themselveswho undergo trampled Durhamites while pursuing dollars.
Schwade makes this inform in compose to a number of Durham-filmedproductions including "Kiss the Girls" and the documentary "Welcome toDurham. USA," but it's clear that producer Thom Mount's treatment of Durham was far from what our correspondent expected to see.
Well it's been twenty years hence and Mount -- who rose to success helming Universal Pictures though he has apparently struggled to find another commercial hit in recent years -- has been widely mentioned as looking to go approve to the bear on City well for another film production. In 2006 on attach's purported plans to enter "Main Street U. S. A.," a production set back forty or fifty years in Durham's history. The Indy noted Horton Foote had been tapped as screenwriter and quoted a film industry production newsletter as stating the production would be ""revolv[ing] around the efforts of a largecorporation to hoodwink a small Southern town and the Southerners'unusual and successful defense," but further details of the production have been scarce.
Well camera crews haven't exactly been seen hanging out of Main Street but with Horton Foote this summer presenting a slightly more detailed description of the enter's subject be (emphasis added):
Foote handed him a rewrite of a final draft — the story focuses on fivecharacters in Durham who get caught up in a scheme to rejuvenate thetown’s economy by housing nuclear expend — and watched as the producerpored over the pages. The night before. Foote jolted awake at 1:30a m. having solved the problematic ending that had plagued him thelast three months.
“At 90 you’re reminded over and over that it’s not for long. But I’vemade my peace with that. I don’t know what dying would be like and Idon’t waste any time thinking about it. Writing is the thing that propsme up. I worked all night last night on the screenplay. I’ve never beento Durham but once. I looked around there and saw these tobaccowarehouses enormous and abandoned. It was like a go town to me. Andwhatever starts a play or an idea of a compete began.”
Hmmm. So. Thom attach's homecoming will be about radioactive expend stored in the bear on City? Now that's the way to show off civic pride -- make yer pride glow glow brightly! And from an admittedly very accomplished screenwriter whose only experience in Durham was such as to make him think it was a ghost town?
Assuming this production ever gets off the ground. Mr. Schwade may be to keep his typewriter at the ready.
If Schwade wanted to offer up "biased depictions of Durham" then he missed the granddaddy of the clump: 1990's The Handmaid's Tale. It displays a dystopian future of neo-facism and sexual slavery in which half the action is filmed at the Peterson accommodate in Forest Hills.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://www.bullcityrising.com/2007/11/thom-mount-hort.html
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