If you love David Gordon Green's All the Real Girls as much as I do, you shouldn't miss the commentary on the DVD. David does the commentary with Paul Schneider, the co-writer and lead actor, and a few things are immediately apparent. First, David and Paul really enjoy talking about movies and telling old stories. Second, making All the Real Girls was a deeply personal experience for them. One of the movie's recurring points is that when you're young, your emotions go far past your ability to express them, and that slick Hollywood screenplays never seem to get this. And in the commentary it becomes clear that, for David, Paul, and all their friends that helped in the stages of the production, making this movie was a way (maybe the way) of expressing these emotions. As if, having made the movie, they can finally match words to feelings—but only by way of the visual and dramatic examples that they themselves created.
I have probably watched All the Real Girls ten or twelve times at intervals, maybe more. I get it out every few months when I don't have anything to do. As I've kept watching, I've started to see more ragged edges, but also more heart. Green's the kind of director where even his mistakes stick with you, who takes accidents and makes them work.
It's funny to see where these kids from NC School of the Arts have gotten to. Schneider was in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Lars and the Real Girl. David Gordon Green made Pineapple Express. And Danny McBride, who played Bust-Ass in All the Real Girls (as a first time actor!), was in Tropic Thunder.
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2 comments:
I loved that movie and will definitely have to check out the commentary. Is DGG's Snow Angels worth watching?
My favorite director's commentary is probably Werner Herzog's for Fitzcarraldo (or The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser), a close second being the one Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson did for the Criterion version of Rushmore, or Whit Stillman's on Barcelona.
I am glad I watched Snow Angels. I had read the book, so I already knew the plot… It doesn't seem as deeply personal as ATRG, or as gothically weird as Undertow, but it's got some very good stuff going. If you like Sam Rockwell, I'd say to definitely check it out. Tim Orr did the cinematography again, so it's definitely easy to watch.
Like I said, with DGG I come to find even the mistakes endearing, so I might not be the best judge.
And I'm a sucker for Nova Scotia, where Snow Angels was filmed.
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As I type, I'm having the experience of the movie unfolding in my memory. So, yes, I'd say you should probably check it out sometime, with the warning that there's a lot of pain and emotional turmoil.
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