I had made a short comedy in London called The Moment of Accepting Life that was invited everywhere and won awards—and on the strength of this began to plan a feature-length romantic comedy.
But every time we got to the stage of financing the project collapsed because I had never directed a feature.
When this happened for the third time I decided to pick up a home-movie camera and shoot ninety minutes of film so witty and compelling that no one would ever doubt I could do something that big. (If I were doing it today I'd shoot it with a phone.)
So I wrote a script for a minimal shoot that wouldn’t take too much lighting or propose sound problems—and as soon as I started to cast it I was approached by people eager to work for deferred payment—not only superb actors but famous technicians. The DOP on this movie, Giorgos Arvanitis, is one of the best known in Europe—and it shows in the result.
And that's how I shot Emma Blue.
DARK IN HERE, A Quick Comedy
INT. BEDROOM - DAY
A MOTHER and her LOVER are having sex. A NOISE.
INT. HALL - A SECOND LATER
Wrapping her robe on, the MOTHER meets her nine-year old SON coming in from baseball WHACKING his ball into his glove. She kisses him, hugs him and puts him into a closet.
INT. CLOSET - CONTINUOUS
Her SON stands there in the dark. SOUNDS OF SEX O.S.
INT. BEDROOM - MEANWHILE
The MOTHER and her LOVER are doing it. A NOISE. She looks out the window.
INT. HALL - A SECOND LATER
The MOTHER hurries her LOVER into the closet. Her HUSBAND COMES IN. She hugs him.
INT. CLOSET - MEANWHILE
The SON and the LOVER stand there. SOUNDS OF TALK O.S.
SON
Dark in here.
(no answer)
I have a baseball.
(no answer)
Want to buy it?
(no answer; makes to leave)
OK, I’ll ask my dad.
LOVER
(holds him there)
How much?
SON
Two hundred and fifty dollars.
Pause. The Lover takes out his money and counts it.
INT. FRONT HALL - ANOTHER DAY
The SON comes in from baseball with the glove. His MOTHER in her robe kisses him and puts him in the closet.
INT. CLOSET - MOMENTS LATER
The SON stands there. The door OPENS and his MOTHER pushes her LOVER in. They stand there. VOICES O.S.
SON
Dark in here.
(no answer)
I’ve got a glove.
(no answer)
Want to buy it?
LOVER
How much?
SON
Seven hundred and fifty dollars.
Pause. The Lover nods and reaches into his pocket.
INT. FRONT HALL - ANOTHER DAY
The SON is on his way out, his FATHER coming in.
FATHER
Want to throw the ball around?
SON
I sold it. And my glove.
FATHER
You sold them? For how much?
SON
A thousand dollars.
FATHER
That’s not honest! They’re not worth that! I hope you’re going to tell this in your next confession!
INT. CHURCH - ANOTHER DAY
The FATHER comes out of a confessional and nods at his SON, who GOES IN.
INT. CONFESSIONAL - DAY
The SON kneels by the screen.
SON
Dark in here.
The PRIEST turns his face into the light: he is the LOVER.
LOVER
Don’t start that shit again.
On YouTube:
Boccaccio’s "The Husband"
Boccaccio's "The Horse Trade"
Boccaccio's "The Stupid Friar"
Chaucer’s "The Miller's Tale"
Pretentious Pictures Presents:
CHOCOLATE AND CHAMPAGNE
So she makes do with the respectable but empty life she'd thought she needed, with her lawyer Griff—more her age, and on her success level. Griff has been in love with her for years. Now’s his chance.
A comedy with a dark center
A Beverly Hills woman wakes up "older" and finds her life with a younger man undignified. The stage version was produced in at the Creative Place Theatre in NYC.
Attached: Bo Derek
Diana, the Hamlet at the heart of this comedy, is a clothes designer with a boutique on Rodeo Drive, a house in Beverly Hills, and a younger lover, Jim, her kept man for two years now. There’s nothing she can’t handle—except getting older.
She deals with a birthday by throwing him out. They're right for each other, she regrets it immediately, but she can't take him back, because her daughter Jackie, who idolizes and competes with her, tells her Jim has seduced her, and Diana believes it.
Proposed: Michael Keaton
Proposed: Gael García Bernal
Jim is happy with a champagne-and-sports-car life, but he’s also a talented script-writer who’s postponing seriousness into a future that never comes. Together they’re fast company. They must have been brilliant at her birthday party last night.
This morning, though, even while he’s making love to her, she’s spooked. She tells him he has to go. She wants something more presentable, more—respectable—before it’s too late. Which shocks him. He takes life as it comes, but this is a bit violent.
Proposed: Jennifer Coolidge
Betsy, the suicidal widow of a husband she drove to suicide, is too scattered to pass a driving test, takes a lesson with Jim, spins the car onto a Mulholland Drive cliff and is ready to gun it and take him with her. He calms her down and she takes him home. But he can't forget Diana.
Proposed: Adelaide Clemens
Jackie, Diana’s daughter, idolizes her and so misses no chance to pick at and defy her. Inwardly shaky, she is outwardly impish and sexy. She thinks she’s in love with Jim; in fact what she needs is a father.
Proposed: Owen Teague
Proposed: Owen Teague
Betsy's son Dylan—eccentric hair, psychotic eyes, twitches constantly and rhythmically as if keeping time to music he doesn’t much enjoy—is in the same class at UCLA with Jackie, over whom he moans uncontrollably. He disgusts her.
Proposed: Rosie Perez
Maria, Diana's housekeeper, is the deadpan foil to Diana's Hamlet, secret ally to Jim, and the one person Diana doesn't dare defy.
Proposed: Amy Brenneman
GWEN is Diana's mischievous best friend and alter-ego. She'll take Jim if Diana doesn't want him! Just kidding. In an attempt to bring them back together she throws a party and invites both of them, but it turns into a confrontation....
And the final character is Beverly Hills—the tone, the climate, the village size and ambiance that make it inevitable for these people to collide.
Pretentious pictures presents
a comedy with a dark center.
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