Turning real-life tragedy into an effective vehicle for entertainment is one sure way for aspiring filmmakers to get noticed in this town.
By now, it’s an accepted fact here that truth not only is stranger than fiction, it’s also easier to green light. But while Hollywood may be fixated on the bleakness of life in flyover country–where there are no Armani outlets, and more Ford Explorers can be found on a construction site than at a mall–only a very talented person can raise cultural voyeurism to an art form.
Writer-director Kimberley Peirce certainly didn’t have candy-counter sales in mind when she set out to tell the sad, true story of Brandon Teena (a.k.a. Teena Brandon), a young Nebraskan who crossed established gender borders in pursuit of love and happiness. Instead, the University of Chicago graduate’s superb debut feature, “Boys Don’t Cry,” demonstrates how combustible a mixture intolerance, boredom and sexual naivete can be, when put under extreme pressure in the heartland.
Unknown only a couple of months ago, the 32-year-old New Yorker now is officially listed in the Hollywood buzz guide as a hot commodity. Her fact-based drama has won raves at film festivals and inspired predictions of multiple Oscar and Golden Globe nominations–for herself and co-stars Hilary Swank and Chloe Sevigny, who play the film’s star-crossed lovers.
If only Teena were still around for them to thank.
A petty thief and transsexual long before moving from Lincoln to tiny Falls City, Neb., Teena was born a woman but wanted to live her life as a straight man.
“It was April of 1994, when I first read about Teena, and I was blown away,” the filmmaker said. “I had been writing a screenplay about another woman, who was passing for a man in the Civil War, and I saw that the story of Teena’s murder was being covered sensationally in the press. Very few people understood who he was, and these articles were only repeating the brutalization.”
To find out for herself what happened, Peirce traveled to Falls City with a group of 15 politically active transsexuals from New York. They went there to monitor the murder trial, stage a vigil on Teena’s behalf and help protect Peirce.
“We retraced Brandon’s footsteps by going to the bars and homes where he hung out with his friends,” Peirce said. “After the trial, I went back to the farmhouse where he was murdered. That was so terrifying, because it was the epicenter of the loss.
“I wanted to know, Why here. . . . Why didn’t he go to New York or San Francisco? Why this farmhouse? Then, I wanted to figure out everything about the kids in the town. . . . Where they hang out, even how long it takes to drive from the town center to the farmhouse . . . all the physical details that ultimately would be re-created in the film.”
In short, Teena, who was escaping a court appearance in Lincoln, fell in with a rowdy, but amiable, group of misfits in Falls City, about an hour’s drive from home. Everyone in town believed Teena was a man–albeit an undernourished one, by Midwestern standards–including two resident ex-cons.
This benign ruse worked perfectly, until Christmas week 1993, when Teena’s real background came to light.
The truth didn’t seem to matter much to Lana (Sevigny), for whom the charismatic Teena (Swank) had become “the perfect boyfriend.” But, the revelation enraged John Lotter and Marvin “Tom” Nissen, who failed to see the irony or humor in the situation.
As a form of ritual justice, the two ex-cons took their onetime friend behind the woodshed and sexually assaulted Teena. After the attack was reported to befuddled local police, who investigated the crime at the speed of a glacier, Lotter and Nissen feared they would be sent back to prison and decided, instead, to silence Teena (and two witnesses) for good.
“I felt an overwhelming responsibility to Brandon,” insisted Peirce, who returned to Chicago for the first time in nine years when “Boys Don’t Cry” was shown as part of the Chicago Film Festival recently. “I had an immediate kinship with him. I know lots of girls like that, so I understood why he passed as a boy . . . and I understood the power of desire and imagination.
“I appreciated the fact that he came from a trailer park and had limited means. He had no role models. He fell in love with the power of his desire.”
Peirce’s passion for cinema was nurtured in Hyde Park, where she was friendly with the fellow in charge of the university’s screening room. A native of Harrisburg, Pa., she had chosen the U. of C. for a reason not often highlighted in the promotional brochures.
“You could be, like, a nerd, and study all the time,” she said. “There’s a thing in American education, where you’re condemned if you’re a little too intense. You get put down, especially if you’re a girl.
“At the university, I felt as if my brain had exploded. It was such a gift to be able to study calculus, physics, history and literature . . . and I got to do it with an intensity that I liked.”
Because of a problem with her scholarship, Peirce took two years off to live in Japan and travel Southeast Asia, taking photographs and learning about film. Upon her return to Chicago, she immersed herself in cinema.
She traveled to south Florida, Puerto Rico and, ultimately, New York, where she began making short films. In 1995, a script based on the life and death of Brandon Teena won an award from Columbia University faculty and an Astrea Production Grant.
It would take several more years before Peirce would be able to see her dream fulfilled. Besides the usual problems with money, there was the question of who would play Teena.
She finally found her female lead after rejecting dozens of other candidates for the role.
A native of Bellingham, Wash., Swank had appeared in “The Next Karate Kid” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” as well as TV’s “Beverly Hills 90210” (she played Carly Molloy) and “Camp Wilder.” Although, in person (and in makeup) she bears a slight resemblance to a young Raquel Welch, the rail-thin Swank pulled her long hair under a cap, lost the eyeliner and lipstick for a day and disguised herself a boy for the audition.
“I knew that if I got the role, I’d be challenging myself in a way that I’d never been challenged before,” she said. “That was exciting, but, at the same time, terrifying. With this movie, I was afforded this amazing opportunity.
“If they had picked someone famous, viewers would say, `Look, there’s so-and-so playing a boy’ . . . instead of being able to get lost in the story. So, I was lucky.”
For Lana, the woman whose “world was rocked” by Teena, the filmmakers went to a more recognizable actor.
They considered Reese Witherspoon and current flavor-of-the month Sarah Polley, before settling on Sevigny, whose understated talents have been put on display in such highly regarded indies as “Kids,” “Gummo,” “The Last Days of Disco” and “Trees Lounge.”
The two ex-cons, who once again are in prison, are played with frightening believability by Peter Sarsgaard and Brendan Sexton III.
“The real John said he wanted Christian Slater to play him in the movie,” Peirce said. “For him, crime meant writing yourself into American history. In our culture of violence, it’s all about the disempowered reaching out to get some kind of hold on those who are perceived as getting power, and who are different.”
Crucial to Peirce was making viewers understand how crimes such as this were becoming part of the fabric of contemporary America. After all, the murder of homosexual Matthew Shepard occurred during the shoot, and the attack on a Los Angeles Jewish community center transpired when the film was in post-production.
“This movie was born out of a hate crime, out of a society being intolerant of people who are different,” said Peirce. “The way I dealt with the pain was to bring Brandon to life and try to make sense of it. The murder of Matthew Shepard sent a wave of terror through the actors, crew . . . everybody.
“We thought, Oh, my God. This thing that we had fictionalized–that we’re living in this protected state–is totally real. So, the incident that motivated the movie was even more relevant today than when we started shooting.”
This may not be the most uplifting message conveyed during the fall movie season, but “Boys Don’t Cry” is the kind of film that invigorates the medium and shines light on important new artists and crucial issues. Audiences can send their own message by supporting such films at the box office.
