Jake Gyllenhaal helps Santa Barbara to honour David Fincher (on Scripter Award night)

It's party night! David Fincher is being toasted by the Santa Barbara International Film Festival at 8pm this evening and - as if anyone ever needed to have an excuse to go to such a fabulous town as Santa Barbara - Jake Gyllenhaal is on the guestlist. No doubt, David Fincher is bursting to tell Jake all the details about his rendezvous with me (and a few other people) in London a couple of weeks ago.


So here is the official announcement: 'On Friday, January 30, SBIFF will present “A Celebration of David Fincher,” where he will be joined by Jake Gyllenhaal, Academy Award-nominated actress Taraji P. Henson and a few special friends. The evening, sponsored by Macys and moderated by film historian and critic Pete Hammond, will highlight one of cinema’s most dazzling visual stylists. Fincher established himself in the world of commercials and music videos before becoming one of Hollywood’s most respected talents. He made his mark with the unforgettable thriller “Se7en” and has since gone on to create such critically-acclaimed films as “Fight Club,” “The Game,” “Panic Room,” and “Zodiac” before venturing on to the challenge of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” which has garnered 13 Oscar nominations! He’s a unique and refreshingly honest filmmaker worthy of considerable praise.'


SBIFF? I must say that I'm relieved Barbara begins with B. I also appreciate a film festival which has an award named after David Attenborough.


But Jake may have a dilemma on his hands because, not too far away, the Scripter Award will be announced and the head of the panel is none other than Jake's mother, Naomi Foner. Amongst the nominees are screenwriters for Benjamin Button, Iron Man, The Reader and Revolutionary Road - in fact, only 'Slumdog Millionaire' is without a Jake connection (as far as I'm aware).


Here's hoping that Jake has a great evening with old friends while we get great pictures of Jake and David. For a reminder of Jake's experience of working on Zodiac, watch this video, which features a pleasingly dishevelled and relaxed Jake. Rather fortuitously, Zodiac was released on Blu-Ray this week to a very receptive welcome.



Includes pictures from IHJ.

Jake talks about Canada, Naomi and the Scripter Award, and a skateboarding Joker

I've been having a Brokeback evening and it's because of all of the comments on the previous thread - the emotion of seeing this film for the very first time and how many of you, myself included, only have to hear the guitar as long-legged Ennis leaps out of the truck, right at the very beginning of the film, and that's it. Two hours of pure cathartic indulgence are ahead. So I've been listening to the soundtrack and watching the film this evening - it's paused as I speak! - and enjoying some of that fine country air.


Jake Gyllenhaal is well aware of the affect this film of his and Heath's has had on audiences - he's seen it first hand. He recalled watching the film at the Venice Film Festival with Ang and Heath - Maggie was in the row behind. When Jake turned to look at his sister at the end (for approval, one wonders) “all I could see in her face were two swollen eyes. She’d been crying that hard... When the lights came up after the screening in Venice you could sense just how deeply the film had affected people... The same was true at the screening at the Toronto Film Festival.” To be an actor and to have that affect on people and witness it - that has to be special and hopefully counteracts that whole Oscar thing.



In the same Canadian interview, Jake talked about filming Brokeback in the glorious remote mountain wilderness of Alberta: “Heath and I came to Calgary early to rehearse with Ang. The first place he took us was a campground (near Fort Macleod)... There was a trailer for me, one for Heath, another for Ang and a fourth for (producer) Michael Houseman. We were living in the trailers and it was spectacularly beautiful country, but it was also really lonely. It really began to affect Heath and I, but that’s exactly what Ang wanted. He wanted us to experience the loneliness our characters felt... Just looking at the Alberta landscapes as Ang filmed them, you get a real sense that it’s being so lonely that brings them together... Straight or gay, everyone understands the concept of loneliness and how it makes you search out someone to help fill that void for you.”


Later on in the filming, they were all relocated to Canyon Creek and Sheep Mountain. “We rehearsed our scenes in these really remote mountain locations when there was still snow on the ground... I had just got my dog before we did the movie. He was running and jumping through the snow, just loving it.” The locations were “so remote that we rode our horses up a trail each day.” Filming also took place in Cowley, Carsland and Rockyford. “Cowley is the windiest place I’ve ever been to in my life. The wind never stopped blowing. People told us it’s the windiest place in the province and maybe one of the windiest places in the world. I can vouch for that.” Jake drove from Calgary to Rockyford down “the straightest road I’ve ever driven on. There wasn’t even a bend in the road."

“Alberta has remarkable country and remarkable people. Everyone was so good to us from the crew to the people in the towns. You really had the sense everyone wanted us there and that they embraced the story we were trying to tell.”


Naomi's honour - 20th Scripter Award

A press release today announced that Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal is to chair the selection committee for the 20th annual USC (University of Southern California) Scripter Award. This award, presented in February, honours the screenwriter and the author of the book or short story on which the screenplay is based. 'Scripter producer Toni Miller said that nearly four dozen films — ranging from the highly anticipated cinematic versions of “The Golden Compass” and “Love in the Time of Cholera” to recent hits “300” and “1408” — are in contention for the award. To be eligible, films must be adapted from an English-language book and be exhibited in theaters on or before Dec. 31.'


It's interesting to hear the reason for Naomi's selection: “Naomi is an experienced screenwriter of adapted material, and she brings the stories to life with great creative skill and an authentic voice and sensibility,” said Miller. “We are thrilled to work with her as selection-committee chair for this special twentieth-anniversary celebration of literature and film.”

Naomi herself has said that “When I read a book I want to adapt, I ask myself ‘Why is there a movie around these characters that would make the rest of us want to watch it?... If you are doing your job, you are creating something new. There can be another story within a book that needs to be explored.” Naom's next project is an adaptation of Marijane Meaker’s Shockproof Sydney Skate for Fox 2000. “It’s a story about an unusual relationship between a boy, his mother and what real love is."


“Observing family allows you to use a small intimate palette to comment on the greater culture... Family contains the best of us and the worst. And we can all relate to it, as we’re all part of some kind of family. If our job as writers is to affect the culture in a larger way — to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed — it’s the way in.”

Joker on a skateboard

Meanwhile, Heath Ledger has been spotted skateboarding around Chicago with green hair. Talk about standing out... Whether or not he or the cast of The Dark Knight have had any time to enjoy the city's Lollapalooza festival isn't known. Heath has also been captured filming a scene for the movie. You can see it here.


Includes pictures from IHJ.