The fight scene in Alan Rudolph`s new film, ”Trouble in Mind,” was so carefully rehearsed that nobody could say why, when the cameras rolled, Kris Kristofferson`s left hook landed squarely on Keith Carradine`s mouth instead of slicing the air around it. But the thwacking sound of contact and the look of real blood were unmistakable.
Rushed to the emergency room in full punk regalia, Carradine took nine stitches in his lip. A few days later, Kristofferson was hospitalized with a seriously infected hand, an injury that he later assured everyone ”would have killed a normal man.” The crew teased Carradine for failing to receive distemper shots, while leading lady Lori Singer moaned in mock distress, ”And I`ve been kissing him!”
With two stars incapacitated halfway through filming on location in Seattle, everything ground to a halt for two weeks. Such an interruption could have sabotaged a low-budget ($2.8 million) production like ”Trouble.” Which explains why the real victim here was Alan Rudolph, who spent the break in a barely concealed panic, desperate to find out what would happen next in this new-wave Bogart movie of his.
Oh, he had a script, all right–a clearly plotted love story with gangstermen and bimbos lurking at the edges. ”You`ve finally written one that makes sense,” an old friend told him. ”Don`t screw it up.”
But for Rudolph, whose cinematic function appears to be that of a public dreamer, scripts are departure points. As a director, he is forever taking liberties with himself as a screenwriter, creating a collaborative atmosphere with name actors whose respect for Rudolph is such that they accept comparatively low salaries to work for him.
”What makes Alan`s films so special,” says Carradine, a veteran of several, ”are all the layers that get put on in the process.”
By the time shooting resumes, Rudolph is busily densing things up again.
”I`m the only one so far who knows what the ending will be,” he grins, relieved to be back at work. ”That`s the fun of making movies at this level. You get to make your own film.”
With his stew back on the burner, he proceeds to toss in a touch of
”Chinatown” here and a dash of ”Hellzapoppin` ” there, amusing himself immensely with the contradictory flavors.
After years of making distinctive but neglected films, Alan Rudolph is, at 42, just now emerging as a brilliantly assured, poetic voice, one of the few young American directors whose work is likely to endure. His darkly humorous obsession with romance flowered unmistakably in 1984 with ”Choose Me,” a lush, decidedly contemporary farce that deftly suggests mysteries of the heart beyond the reach of psychobabbled cliches. Skilled at bending genres to accommodate his flair for woozy sensuality, Rudolph dips into film noir with ”Trouble” (opening here Friday) and comes up with a vaguely futuristic world that has an atmosphere and moods all its own.
Kristofferson is Hawk, an ex-con and ex-cop vying with Carradine`s Coop for the affections of Singer, who plays Georgia, an innocent waitress working in the cafe run by Genevieve Bujold`s worldly wise Wanda. In his first male role, the transvestite actor Divine is Hilly Blue, the gangster kingpin of Rudolph`s fictitious Rain City.
More a fan of mystery than explanations, Rudolph claims to never know what his films are about until they`re finished, ”and only then when someone else tells me.”
Pressed for a descriptions of ”Trouble`s” true meaning, he comes up with this typically loopy summary: ”It`s about a Hawk who flies the Coop and Wandas through the Hilly Blues of Georgia.” But Rudolph has a pretty good idea of what he`s up to. By his definition, movies are a lie on reality.
”As soon as you turn on a camera,” he says, ”you`re trying to transmit a recollection of reality. I guess I`m interested in distorting that reality to the point where it becomes understandable.”
It first appears that Rudolph chose Seattle as the location for
”Trouble” because that city`s avid, independent-minded filmgoing population has always supported his films. ”That`s part of it,” he says, scanning the city`s nighttime skyline from the penthouse bar of the hotel where his film`s crew is headquartered. ”But I`ve always chased the rain. I was born in Los Angeles, so I was stuck with that weather, but I used to look at the weather map in the paper and want to be wherever there were hash marks. On really blue days, I would get in the car and drive up here.”
Rudolph might have come to Seattle for the rain, but during production of ”Trouble,” Seattle had one of its driest seasons on record, forcing Rudolph to ”lay in” the weather in the editing room. ”Trouble” lived up to its name in other ways, too. A generator exploded late one night during shooting at the Seattle Art Museum, which served as Hilly Blue`s sumptuous estate. Island Alive, the budding independent production company that distributed ”Choose Me,” broke up just when it appeared Rudolph might finally benefit from its successes. ”I`m never going to make a movie again with `Trouble` in the title,” Rudolph vows.
A second-generation director, Rudolph`s career bears little resemblance to that of his father, Oscar Rudolph, who directed such television sitcoms as ”Batman” and ”My Favorite Martian.” Among the feature films directed by the senior Rudolph is ”The Rocket Man,” a 1954 sci-fi movie in which young Alan made his only screen appearance, speaking a single line: ”Look out, Captain Zar, it`s the planet pirates!”
Soon after becoming one of Hollywood`s youngest assistant directors, Rudolph quit, uninspired by the directors with whom he worked. Left to his own devices, he thought in terms of ”filmosophy” and ”cinemagination”–perfect qualifications for becoming a disciple of Robert Altman`s.
”Bob did things the way I thought I might try, but couldn`t quite articulate,” says Rudolph, still pegged by critics as Altman`s protege.
”It`s a great association and I`ve never run from it, but Bob and I are totally different. I look at things more emotionally, and I think I`m more interested in details that add up, as opposed to the overview looking in. As stylists, we don`t shoot anything alike. There are strong similarities, too, but it`s really presumptuous for me to consider myself an equal. I mean, the guy`s got 20 films on me.”
Rudolph worked with Altman on ”The Long Goodbye,” ”California Split,” ”Buffalo Bill and the Indians” and ”Nashville,” a critical and box office success that Altman gives Rudolph a lot of credit for shaping. In turn, Altman produced Rudolph`s first two films: the 1976 ”Welcome to L.A.,” a stylish look at free-form urban relationships that left a genuinely thrilled Oscar Rudolph saying, ”I`m proud of you, son, but I don`t know what for”;
and the 1978 ”Remember My Name,” a spooky riff on love and revenge starring Geraldine Chaplin.
In the films that Rudolph has both written and directed, plots are hinged on emotions and music plays a prominent role. ”Trouble in Mind” takes its title from the unusually optimistic old blues song that promises, ”The sun`s gonna shine in my back door some day.” Rudolph`s characters tend to emanate excess, just as likely to be knocked off balance by purity as by a twisted past. But perhaps the most consistent threads running through his diverse work are poor distribution and problems with studios.
The three studio movies he has directed, ”Roadie,” ”Endangered Species” and ”Songwriter,” all received stingy releases that practically guaranteed they would never find their audiences. Indeed, one critic has suggested that a raven once perched upon Rudolph`s bassinet, casting a long shadow of bad luck.
Certainly the biggest mystery is Tri-Star`s burial of the 1984
”Songwriter,” a wonderfully loose and funny movie starring Kristofferson and Willie Nelson. Although he receives no script credit, some of the best lines are obvious Rudolphisms. Trying to impress a gum-cracking cutie reading headlines from the National Enquirer aloud, a hustling musician muses, ”I think it was Camus who said truth is secondary to existence.”
”Camoo the jungle boy?” inquires the cutie.
In raving about ”Songwriter,” which was promptly relegated to the cable and videocassette markets, movie critic Pauline Kael speculated that the film`s send-up of smarmy music-business executives struck too close at Tri-Star, a company that Rudolph refers to as ”Tri-Stooge–you know, Larry, Moe and Curly.”
Rudolph took on ”Songwriter” for two compelling reasons: He had a hole in the postproduction schedule for ”Choose Me,” and the bank was about to foreclose on his mortgage. But the raven`s curse seems to be lifting. With
”Choose Me,” a deceptively expensive-looking movie budgeted at just $835,000, Rudolph was finally in complete control, beyond the subtle restrictions entailed by having a prominent mentor and above the interference of studio moguls.
Although he has never been one to hold hands with Hollywood, Rudolph`s place between its cracks as a bankable artist now seems unusually secure. His agent, Jim Wiatt, has been fielding studio offers ever since ”Choose Me.”
Meanwhile, Rudolph, true to his vow, is directing Timothy Hutton in a more cheerfully titled movie, ”Made in Heaven,” for Lorimar. Then, in a move even truer to his quirky vision, he plans to plunge into an independent production of his screenplay for ”The Far Side,” based on Gary Larson`s cartoon strip. Still, Rudolph scoffs at the idea, currently gaining credence, that he`s
”hot.” After screening a rough cut of ”Trouble” for a select audience in Los Angeles last summer, he squelched his agent`s compliments by saying,
”It`s not going to be a hit, you know.”
”It`s your version of a hit, Alan,” Wiatt told him.
For someone who thrives on making movies as risky and original as Rudolph`s, it`s probably merely part of the lunch to be momentarily amazed when one of those movies opens and strangers begin flocking to see it. Three months ago, when ”Trouble In Mind” played for a week in Los Angeles in order to qualify for Academy Award consideration, a ”Trouble” crew member joining the line for tickets spotted Rudolph sitting alone in his Honda across the street, drinking a beer and watching the line. Rudolph motioned him into the car.
”I don`t know any of these people,” Rudolph marveled, handing him a beer. ”Do you?”
