The Holdoversdirector isnt sure, but hell admitDownsizingmight have been a TV series.
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
(And as it turns out, 2023s addition to the great holiday-movie canon.)
Its been a while since you released a new film.
A filmmakers brain is always working, like,Could that be a movie?
Like Mervyn LeRoy, just cranking them out.Michael Curtiz and Raoul Walsh and Lloyd Bacon.
Those guys, just constant craft.
Thats a long-winded way of saying I wish I were doing it all the time.
But another part of me wants to speak only when it has something to say.
I worked with the writers for a while, and I thought I could really do something with that.
And finally, I bailed.
There was something in it that I couldnt find within myself.
Again, there was only so far we could get with it.
We hadnt quite cracked Act Three of the screenplay.
Amazon thought,Well, maybe we should give somebody else a try.So we parted friends.
Its a bit less hard when I have George Clooney in a lead.
Its harder when I have no major star in a lead and its in black-and-white.
But I keep my budgets low.Sideways, yeah, okay, I was riding the wave there.
Those first three films had some momentum.
Its like, Oh, this is a sexy script.
But it became hard because I didnt want any big movie stars in it.
Then you take less money with which to make the film.
By the way, interestingly, because directors are always asked, What about TV?
Arent you going to get into streaming and do a series?
So, finally, were ready.
We had a pitch meeting with them, and then the strike happened.
I said to the producers and my agents, So, let me get this straight.
After all this work and the money, if this buyer doesnt buy it, the projects basically dead?
And they said, Yes, at least for a while.
I said, Im sticking with features, man.
This TV thing, I dont know, its not my world.
Do you have to go into pitch meetings?I write.
I write and then send the script.
I have nothing against the idea of doing something improvisatory, but Ive just never worked that way.
The one exception was working with Thomas Haden Church onSidewaysbecause he just has these comic ejaculations that are hilarious.
But hes the only exception.
Shes too young for you and were too old for that.
And he says, Speak for yourself.
Ive got chicks looking at me all the time.
He added, Dudes too.
Its a great line.
And it also gives insight into his character.
Its not just a throwaway bit.Thats what Im saying.
So Ive never seen the Marcel Pagnol film thatThe Holdoverswas inspired by.Its rarely seen.
Tell me about how you came to it.They showedMerlusse, this 1935 Pagnol film, at Telluride.
I was then and remain a little bit underseen in Pagnol.
I walked out thinking,Thats a good idea for a movie.
Simplicity is very complicated.
Then I sat on that idea for years and didnt do a damn thing with it.
Thought Id have to get around to researching it one day.
Then I read David Hemingsons TV pilot, which took place at a boarding school.
Was Giamatti your first choice?Yes.
Who else could play that part?
I can think in film history, but not now.
Who could do it in film history?Edward G. Robinson.
I mean, they would be different.
But Edward G. Robinson and Charles Laughton.
Each would be a different interpretation, but youd still have a movie with those guys.
Maybe Albert Finney could have done a version of it.
What do you mean?
Its like if you remove him from the world, that hole doesnt get filled.Right.
I felt it with Marcello Mastroianni.
I felt it when Paul Newman died.
I felt it a little bit when dear Monica Vitti died a couple of years ago.
In that space she occupied, she was so brilliant and shined so brightly and will forever …
I mean, Monica Vitti, wow.
When he is just right in a part, you cant imagine anyone else doing it.
On the eve of the L.A. premiere, he texted me.
He said, I wish I were there.
I feel like Achilles brooding in my tent.
Penis cancer in human form.
Which is something crude and funny a kid would say.
That was a great way of showing the character changing and maybe even growing.Thats Hemingson.
And then he says to Angus, Its this one.
This is the eye.
Jim read the script and he said, Oh, its pretty good.
Right here, he should say, This is the eye you should look at.
And handed it back to me.
David Hemingsons pilot, calledStonehaven, was set in 1980.
Id even forgotten about that.
When we thought, Well, when isthisstory going to take place?
we settled on 1970.
I think David thought the political winds blowing through 1970 would just give him some material to work with.
As unspoken as it largely remains in the film, the Vietnam War is still affecting these three characters.
It underlines the fragility of these characters.
Its a love story.
Within the society, here are three very different people flung together.
They find ways to love each other, despite the individual cells that society has placed them in.
The womans lost her son.
Its possible its because of the war that the teacher falls on his own sword.
So youve got the individuals coming together within the larger context of whats going on behind them.
We used period mics, almost no lavaliers.
Movies today sound more like radio shows than movies to me.
Obviously, period lenses.
But weve always had dissolves in our movies.
They just maybe are standing out more here.
And then allowing a movie to take its time to get started.
People still hold upThe ExorcistandThe French Connectionas such landmark films.
Every time you watch them, youre astonished to see that its about an hour before anything exciting happens.
You couldnt get away with that nowadays.
Im still trying to master classical style.
EvenThe Glenn Miller Story which, by the way, is a wonderful film you see old L.A. there.
He has a wonderful sense of location.
They said, Oh, hes mocking them for having the dinner at Tony Romas.Well, guilty.
But its also accurate.
That stuff felt to me like it came from a place of love.And comedy.
Love and comedy and accurate depiction.
I dont know what to say.
We just thought it was accurate and funny.
Part of me thinks each story has its own requirements.
Some screenplays are more satiric than others.
I watchedAbout Schmidtprojected in August for the first time in years.
Its pretty good but slightly tonally uneven.
I thought it satirizes a midwestern pop in a little bit too much.
I found it in the scripting of the guy who replaces Warren Schmidt.
The casting is very good.
But his dialogue was a little too full of midwestern idiom.
I dont want to guide anyones viewing or say Im trying to do this or that, honestly.
I also dont want to limit myself by myself, like, Oh, this is what Im doing.
Its got to be instinctive.
Oh, Im going to make a canvas.
Im going to make a painting today.
Let me put it on a canvas.
And then what comes out?
Later, I could say, Oh, I was interested in that then.
People are saying that with this one, especially sinceDownsizingfelt a bit like a departure.
But now its, Oh, yeah, its a real Alexander Payne film.Which means what?
I dont know.Thank you.
I think the key is to switch genres.
Still bring who you are because that never changes.
Hemingson and I are now conceiving a western.
Ive long thought my true trajectory is toward a western or westerns.
So many westerns are effectively road movies, which is sort of your subgenre.Can I recommend one?
Its about the transporting of 150 women from Chicago to California to become wives.
Its an unbelievably good movie.
I havent seen it.
Whats your earliest movie memory?Oh, maybeKing Kongon TV.
I took it literally.
I thought, I want to see a boy who is ten feet tall.
As a kid, I sawThe Sound of Musicprobably six times in a month.
Then I discovered Chaplin andModern Times.
Id never laughed as hard in my life as the forced eating scene inModern Times.
I just couldnt believe that you could re-create the past that vividly.
I didnt know a movie could be that ferocious.
Thats where I also sawLaDolce Vitafor the first time, in Spain, on its first release in 1981.
And then, of course,City Lights, which has that sublime ending.
Later,8 12, just the brilliance.
For me, thats the ItalianCitizen Kane.
And then more recently, I keep returning to Michael CurtizsThe Breaking Point, 1950.Westward the Women, 1951.
I was interviewed for a Frank Capra documentary last year, so I revisited a bunch of Capra.
Couldnt get overIt Happened One Nightyet again.
Smith Goes to Washington.
We knowIts a Wonderful Lifeis a towering masterpiece.
Meet John Doeis the one that I keep gravitating to.
Every time you see a movie of his, its the first time all over again.
Smithhas become such a cliche.
When she sends him that rule book and she writes in it, Do this.
And he looks up and she goes …
I wanted to actually jump back toThe Holdovers.Which one is that again?
The one with Giamatti.Yeah, whatever.
He even screwed up his first couple of auditions that way because hed never auditioned for anything before.
Youve got to roll with the vibes that day, and each take is different.
So once we broke that pony of those bad habits, then he was fine.
I cant actually imagine seeing him on the street here in 2023.
He even moves like somebody from 1970.Gangly and weird.
That physicality, that attention to the way the characters move, is present in all your films.
Famously, for example, with Clooneys goofy run inThe Descendants.
Is that something you work on?Yeah, 100 percent.
Well, again, watching old movies, watching Chaplin, watching Fred Astaire.
I like to shoot in full frame and get a sense of their bodies.
Kurosawa put an emphasis on gesture.
So, yeah, you want physical things.
And I like directing comedy.
I wish I had been a comedy director in the 20s, working for Hal Roach or Mack Sennett.
I got to film school not knowing if Id be a director.
Quite frankly, I just wanted to go to film school.
If Im a director, great.
An editor, great.
If Im in screenwriting, great.
Its a big and generous umbrella.
The Passion of Martin.
And that got you through the door?Big-time.
That was my experience.
I mean, there I was in my early 30s, still living like a student.
My fathers saying, I didnt send you to Stanford to be a waiter.
My mothers saying, Just get a real job.
Whats your backup plan?
I didnt have one.
I didnt make any money onCitizen Ruth.
I was 39 when Jim and I got the Oscar nomination forElection.
Then I thought: Okay, maybe I can keep going.
I do want to ask aboutDownsizing.
What do you think happened there?
I didnt catch it in theaters.
Whats going on?Thats the way to see a movie, by the way.
I never sawOne From the Heartuntil ten years later.
I thought it was wonderful.
I sawDownsizingagain in Greece in June.
I hadnt seen it since 2017.
I was curious to see it projected after all those years.
I was wondering what was wrong with it.
Jim and I had such faith in the idea.
It was a fun experience to make it.
I loved casting Hong Chau and seeing her give that performance.
But in hindsight, its probably an idea that wouldve been better served in a limited series.
Look at this episode.
I never could have seen that coming.
It has the packaging of a big-concept, high-concept satire.
But, in fact, the filmmaker is more interested in the humanity of the characters.
So its like, Whens the big satiric stuff going to …
Wait, why are we watching an old Mexican woman die?
But its somehow still an Alexander Payne movie.For better or worse.
