|
Filming 'that Coupland world'
Gen X slackers. Grow-ops. A new feature film attempts to bring the surreal Vancouver of author Douglas Coupland to the screen, writes ALEXANDRA GILL
By ALEXANDRA GILL
Saturday, July 2, 2005 Page R6Key
As the sun beats down on an empty Vancouver parking lot, Douglas Coupland -- author, visual artist and now screenwriter -- tells one of his film producers from Toronto that they are standing on a toxic wasteland.
"Profoundly toxic," says Coupland, who seems mischievously delighted by the producer's shocked reaction. The ever-peripatetic writer goes on to explain why this abandoned stretch of industrial warehouses and work yards in southeast False Creek remains the city's last piece of undeveloped waterfront property. The banter leads into an amusing anecdote that, much like his screenplay for Everything's Gone Green, puts a surreal Coupland-esque spin on a seemingly benign Vancouver cliché.
It was a balmy December day in 1981, so the story goes. Coupland and two friends from art school decided to rent a sailboat, in the depths of winter, to celebrate his 20th birthday. They sailed down False Creek. And this being 1981, before the tracts of land west and north of here had been reclaimed by the city for Expo '86, there was absolutely nothing around. When his friend tried to tack the boat, they got wedged in a wall of sludge. The trio had to walk to shore and call the coast guard to rescue the boat.
"Honestly, the sludge went right up past the knee," Coupland laughs. "The next day, my legs were all red and blistered."
Advertisements
click here
So even though Coupland is now nearly melting into the asphalt while the rest of the production crew is out on the water filming a breezy office-party cruise-ship scene, he's perfectly content to be here, thank you very much. Besides, the office-party cruise, or at least the one he's written, is a particularly nasty form of purgatory, even worse than being trapped in sludge on your birthday. And right now, the film's protagonist, played by Paulo Costanzo (otherwise known as Michael from the TV sitcom Joey) is leaping overboard to escape.
"We tend to glamourize the water," says Coupland. "But when it comes down to it, it's all seasickness and boredom. I just don't get the boat thing."
Everything's Gone Green, Coupland's first screenplay to be produced, is a joint venture by Toronto-based Radke Films and Saltspring Island's True West Films (the Canadian half of the international co-production team behind the critically acclaimed It's All Gone Pete Tong). It's a dry comedy about a good-natured slacker who is tempted into a money-laundering scheme while struggling with the travails of turning 30.
Coupland, who wrote the script several years ago, says he's always wanted to make a movie that was proudly set in Vancouver, after watching his beloved hometown stand in for Seattle or San Francisco time and time again. And even though he calls the story a "love letter" to this city, his take on grow-ops, Grouse Mountain and other city-specific stereotypes is hardly what you'd call romantic.
"Yesterday, we were driving past the General Paint Factory," says Coupland, launching into yet another telling anecdote. Chris Nanos, the Toronto producer from Radke Films, said the factory looked weird for some reason.
"Yeah, that's because they actually make stuff there," Coupland replied. "We don't make anything in Vancouver," he now elaborates. "No one knows what anyone actually does here for a living. We push electrons around with a stick. We're a bedroom community for global pirates. Nothing's ever quite what it seems here. It's not that everything's a scam, but the city's official sport is real estate. At the same time, what I like about it is that, as a city, we're not complete yet. Ten years from now, it could well be a very different place. I don't think you can say that about most places."
The money-laundering piece of the film is an obvious fit for Vancouver. "Let's just say I think there's a lot of it going on and a lot of it's connected to drugs," Coupland says. The horror of turning 30, on the other hand, would seem a distorted reflection of him. For Ryan, the film's main character, 30 is an ominous age when the doors of opportunity start slamming shut. But for Coupland, now a frisky Renaissance man at 43, life has never been more fruitful.
In addition to his novels, non-fiction books, academic writing and a play that he wrote and performed last year for the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-on-Avon, England, Coupland is an acclaimed sculptor and visual artist. Later today, he'll be going back to his studio to pack up Retranslation, a new group of conceptual paintings that will be shown at the Monte Clark Gallery in Toronto beginning Aug. 4.
"The turning-30 part is a bit more complex," says Coupland, explaining that it's really a metaphor for Vancouver's growing pains. As for his own prodigious creativity, "I have to have six irons in the fire at any given time or else I get the shakes," he says with a laugh.
Coupland has had previous stabs at the film industry. Years ago, he and a friend, video-game developer Ian Verchere, co-wrote a script called Mom's Cookies. It was bought by Disney, but never developed. Sofia Coppola's company acquired the rights to Coupland's book Generation X in 2001, but the project is in limbo now that the one-year option has expired. DreamWorks Pictures is going ahead with the adaptation of his novel All Families Are Psychotic, but another writer has written the screenplay.
"I lucked out with these guys," says Coupland, who has been on-call since shooting began on June 5. "Everyone's being nice to me. That's not something that often happens to writers, I don't think. Also, every word in the script is mine. Statistically, I think the odds of that are phantasmagorical."
Well, almost every word. "I'm not too thrilled with the title," he playfully growls under his breath. The film was originally titled Scratch 'n' Win. It needed to be changed, Coupland admits. Everything's Gone Green, the name of a New Order song, came from the script. And even though Coupland is a fan, he estimates that only about "0.003 per cent" of the world's population has ever heard of the band. "Titles are funny," says Coupland. "Ask Chris about that. See if he squirms."
Nanos doesn't squirm, but he does laugh. "I just hate the word scratch," he says, going on to explain how name generation is indeed a very weird job, but one that he's had lots of experience with as a former ad man who worked on new products and business development.
This is a first feature film for both Radke Film Group, a respected TV-advertising production company, and Nanos, who joined the company to head up its nascent feature-film division. And the title, like every other aspect of the $2-million project, has been very precisely planned.
"It's all very strategic," says Nanos, tossing out his favourite buzzword for the umpteenth time and sounding every bit the Toronto businessman.
When starting up the feature-film division, Nanos and his partners didn't want to just open up the doors and wait for scripts to come in. They wanted something fresh. So they compiled a list of people who had been successful in other creative fields and started cold-calling them. Coupland was on their list. And he just happened to have a screenplay in his drawer.
Once they had decided on Coupland's script for their first project, the producers realized they needed a Vancouver partner. Enter True West Films, the upstart West Coast transplant with a strong international sensibility, which was already earning early buzz on It's All Gone Pete Tong, the production company's feature debut.
The choice of Paul Fox as director, says Nanos, was another "strategic" move. "Our company has access to some of the best directors in the world. We interviewed Brits, Americans, Canadians, you name it. But when we asked Paul to come into the office, he nailed it. He was the only person who understood the comedy we were going for. It's not silly. It's not laugh-out-loud. It's very dry."
A fan of Coupland's writing for many years, Fox says it's a thrill to be his first director. "I really wanted to make a film that was the equivalent of that Coupland world. It's a very particular world. It seemed the best way to do that was to keep Douglas involved."
_________________
Are you kidding? I have no talents. Nothing. I was very well educated to be an idiot. And I was a very good student.
|
