With Sidney Lumet and Arthur Penn, Ulu Grosbard was among the most promising of the New York theater directors whose shift to moviemaking in the 1960s brought a new brand of aggressive, grainy realism. These ambitious films represented a vigorous alternative to the impersonal, large-scale Hollywood films inundating American movie houses.
By the 1970s, artistic power shifted to the producers. And Hollywood felt another seismic shift with studios falling under the control of large conglomerates and the emergence of the blockbuster phenomenon (exemplified by Francis Coppola’s “Godfather” films, Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” and George Lucas’ “Star Wars”) that crowded out smaller, personal or commercially risky films.
In this climate Grosbard managed to survive, even deepening and enlarging upon his skills. He turned out some beguiling works that managed to satisfy his personal expression while proving himself commercially viable enough to continue working within the system. His 1978 “Straight Time,” with Dustin Hoffman and Theresa Russell, was a harrowing examination of a career criminal who couldn’t be rehabilitated. Grosbard’s next film, the 1981 “True Confessions,” was an evocative period drama about the conflicted relationship of two radically different brothers played by Robert De Niro and Robert Duvall. “Falling in Love,” released in 1984, dealt with the personal and emotional consequences of an affair between two Long Island commuters played by De Niro and Meryl Streep.
“Falling in Love” received an ambivalent critical response and was a commercial failure, complicating Grosbard’s ability to finance subsequent projects.
“I could have done another picture within a year,” Grosbard, 66, recalls. He is sitting in his Manhattan office, the walls adorned with photographs and reminders of his past accomplishments. “I worked on the screenplay for a year. It was a comedy. I liked the premise. I just thought there were problems with the script. Eventually the producer and I parted company. The studio realized the script had problems. Eventually it was made a couple of years later.”
What Grosbard could not have foreseen was that more than 10 years would pass before he would direct another film.
“I always thought directing a film that you really connected with and having it be commercial was having your cake and eating it too. It rarely turned out that way. Or it was an either or proposition. When you’re offered something to direct that is clearly a commercial property, there’s never a guarantee to its outcome,” Grosbard says.
His new film, “Georgia” (opening Wednesday), is cause for rejoice. Like Mike Figgis’ “Leaving Las Vegas,” the raw, unvarnished work was financed wholly with French money, from the production company CIBY 2000. Grosbard says no American independent company would even consider financing the film.
“Georgia” is strong and distinctive, bearing most of Grosbard’s trademark gifts: virtuoso acting, a stark and foreboding realism and sureness of time and milieu. Written by Barbara Turner, the mother of lead actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, “Georgia” is a dark and uncompromising portrait of the complex relationship between two sisters who operate within different spectrums of the Seattle music scene.
Georgia (Mare Winningham) is an accomplished and popular singer who performs in large arenas.
Her younger sister, Sadie Frost (Leigh), is an untrained singer who ekes out a forlorn existence singing in seedy bars and coffee houses. Georgia is measured, cold, thoroughly in control; her life grounded by solidity and responsibility, compete with brilliant children and a supportive, caring husband (a laconic, shaded turn by Chicago actor Ted Levine).
Sadie’s life is one of binges and self-annihilation, destructive sexual relationships and monstrous bouts of alcohol and drug addiction. She is unprepared to deal with the one person who supports her unconditionally, her kind and overwhelmed husband (Max Perlich). The collision of these two forces provides the film’s emotional core.
“Most of the scripts I read contain what I call a movie reality,” Grosbard says. “The individual writing might be good, the craft is decent, but they’re retreats. They’re not about real people. I enjoy watching these kind of films, action movies and a certain kind of thriller. But as a director I keep looking for something else. In order to propel me to action, I’m looking for something that I’m able to connect to my own life or the lives of friends of mine. When I read this script, I made that connection. Specifically the theme of the relationship between the two sisters, the act of somebody being blessed and not asking for it and somebody struggling and wanting to have the one thing they will never get, the gift that hasn’t been given to them,” he says.
The film explores the peculiar and mostly unresolved tensions between the sisters, examining the divide between meaning and self-expression, worth and self-definition. Music becomes the film’s emotional linchpin, its rhythms and textures parallel the complicated movements of each sister’s life. The music is a powerful and telling aural subtext to the visual and dramatic information revealed. Grosbard’s insistence the songs be played and shot in their entirety provides a full, kaleidoscopic portrait. The film’s most galvanizing moment comes during Leigh’s astonishing 8 1/2-minute cover of Van Morrison’s “Take Me Back,” a moment of sustained revelation and heartbreak.
“The key decision I made, at Barbara Turner’s urging, was to record the music live,” Grosbard says. “All except one of the 14 music supervisors I spoke with told me I was crazy. The music is so much a part of the characters and the storytelling, with the story of the relationship between the sisters, the hidden meanings of the story, I knew the life of it was very much dependent upon revealing it live. Despite the problems posed by recording the music live, I made the commitment to doing it that way. I spoke with (Robert) Altman, who had recorded the music live for `Nashville’ and `Short Cuts,’ and he said to make sure I shot my close-ups early.
“On the Van Morrison song, when I heard it on record, I said I wasn’t sure if this would hold for 8 1/2 minutes. When I saw (Leigh) do it I knew instantly. She rehearsed on her own for a few days to get her footing. When we shot the scene, we used four cameras. We went through the first take, it wasn’t quite there. We talked very briefly, and then we went into the second take. I knew in the first 10 seconds of the second take we were home. We just went for broke. That song was very important about what it revealed as the reality of the character,” he says.
Grosbard was born in 1929 in Antwerp, Belgium. When World War II erupted, his father tried desperately to immigrate to the United States. “Pearl Harbor had just broken out, and there was a very severe quota. We were denied entrance, so we went to Havana, Cuba. I was 12 and we lived in Cuba for the next six years. I started learning English in Cuba . . . so I could read Hemingway,” Grosbard says. The family was finally allowed entrance into the United States, and settled in New York City in 1947.
Grosbard came to the Midwest in 1948 and earned his bachelor of arts and master of fine arts degrees at the University of Chicago (his wife, the actress Rose Gregorino, grew up in Chicago). In 1952 he studied directing at the Yale Drama School for a year before he was inducted into the Army near the end of the Korean War. Following his discharge in the mid-1950s, while pursuing a career as a theater director, Grosbard was hired by a stock footage company that led to his working at the apprentice level in film production. In the 1960s, Grosbard worked as an assistant director on a series of major works: Elia Kazan’s “Splendor in the Grass,” Penn’s “The Miracle Worker,” Robert Rossen’s “The Hustler” and Lumet’s “The Pawnbroker.”
His first major theater director credit came in 1964, with Frank Gilroy’s “The Subject Was Roses,” the work that four years later he adapted into his feature film debut; Grosbard won an Obie (an off-Broadway award) for directing Arthur Miller’s 1965 “A View From the Bridge,” and also staged Miller’s “The Price.”
His other major theater directing credits include David Mamet’s 1977 “American Buffalo” and Woody Allen’s 1981 “The Floating Light Bulb.”
At the moment, he says he has no idea what he will do next. He refuses to lament on missed opportunities. “I’m philosophical about it. Ideally I would have made movies in the last nine or 10 years, but it’s not the way it’s worked out. I would much rather have worked because you pay a price for it. Directing is a craft, the more you practice it, the more you learn. Luck plays a factor, not only character. You make your choice and you live with it,” he says.
