Photo by Moe Inaki/AmPav

Eli Roth at Cannes

Inglourious Basterds co-star Eli Roth spoke to a standing-room-only crowd during his talk with Fantastic Fest founder Tim League at the American Pavilion. The director of Cabin Fever and Hostel began his career through a deep appreciation of low-budget splatter films. Once a struggling filmmaker (like many of those in the audience), Roth emphasized the importance of instinct, friends in high places, and mused on his next moves.

--  After Lionsgate acquired his eventual breakout hit, Cabin Fever Roth said the testing nightmare began. "They showed it to a market research group in Westwood, a bunch of film students that were all ready to be like 'Fuck this guy.' They weren't horror fans, they weren't average people, they were film students. Lionsgate prepped as a David Lynch-type movie, which was wrong. It was like Evil Dead, a splatter movie. So Cabin Fever ended up testing at 19. Just to put it in perspective, Cheaper by the Dozen tested at 96 out of 100. It's like getting a 19 on a test. It was the single lowest scoring movie in the history of Lionsgate and still is to this day."

--  Roth grew up with animation, which focused his style. "I made about 20 animated shorts. Animation forced me to look at every frame like a painting. You have to fill the frame and create the sound. It's a blank page and you really have to think."

--  Roth refused to back down when an employer took issue with the cursing in his short film, Rotten Fruit. "I instantly got the reputation of being difficult. But once your movies make money, then it's no problem."

--  When Quentin Tarantino approached Roth to direct the fake trailer for Grindhouse, the idea for Thanksgiving popped right into his head. "It's my dream slasher movie. They made Mother's Day, they made April Fool's Day, they made Friday the 13th and My Bloody Valentine. Why not a Thanksgiving slasher movie? We shot it for two days and it was the best. We didn't care about anything. And there was something about doing it at that speed, making it up as we went along. It gave it an energy. And now people say it's the best thing I've done. The best movie I've ever made is the movie that doesn't exist."

Photo by Moe Inaki/AmPav

Eli Roth

--  That speed and off-the-cuff style Roth used again for a propaganda film he shot for Inglourious Basterds. "There is something to over-thinking things. At a faster speed, you're not self conscious. You're just going on adrenaline and instinct. You don't have time to second guess yourself. I planned the shots before so I knew the pieces I needed. Afterwards, I saw that it had great, fun energy to it."

--  Roth says he's committed to making the full version of Thanksgiving:  "I want to do a sci-fi movie next. Something like Transformers or Cloverfield.  $60 million budget, lots of mass destruction and total chaos. But I want to add two weeks to the schedule and shoot the feature version of Thanksgiving. I would love to release it on Thanksgiving. I want to ruin that holiday. I want people, while their eating their Thanksgiving dinner, to say 'Goddamit, Eli Roth. I can't eat this turkey without thinking of that slasher movie. You really ruined it for me.'  That's my goal, to truly ruin an American tradition."

--  Quentin and Eli met after a screening of Cabin Fever at the Los Angeles Film Festival. "He had heard about it because we used the same special effects guys. He loved the movie and invited me over to his house to watch movies. So I did and we got high and watched War of the Gargantuas. We were joking around about it and I had this out-of-body experience: I was with Quentin Tarantino at his house watching movies. I was stoned and was living this fantasy I had had for years."

--  "There was point when Warner Brothers offered me a movie. A $40 million budget. I turned it down because I could stomach the thought of doing that everyday and having to appease executives. But I was broke. Quentin asked what other ideas I had. I told him I had one but it was really sick. I told him the idea of Hostel. He said 'You've got to do that. Get $3 million bucks and do it. Make it NC-17. Then if it makes $10 million it's a home run."

--  When Tarantino offered to put his name on Hostel, Roth wrote it in ten days. Tarantino, famous for writing scripts in long-hand, told Roth not to write it on a computer: "My pen is my antenna to god," Tarantino told Roth. "On a computer it's too easy to erase stuff. Have someone type it up later."  Roth went off the grid. No internet. No computer. He said he was shaking like an addict as he wrote. "I changed my answering message to say 'I'm writing. Don't leave a message. I won't return your call. '"

--  In the Bush years, Roth said people needed a venue to scream in. "You're not allowed to scream in your home. You can't scream at your job. You go to a horror movie it's socially accepted to be terrified and scream and people get it out of their system. Thanks to Dick Cheney, George Bush, and Donald Rumsfeld, people want to scream. You didn't see a lot of horror movies in the Clinton administration."

--  "I was 25 and broke and working as a PA on movies. I had a giant mouse infestation in my apartment. All my friends were married, had health insurance, 401K plans. There I was with 200 bucks in my bank account cleaning up dead mice in a walk-up on 25th Street. But my brother said 'Yeah, but you're pursuing your dream and you're not going to be here forever.'  And he was right. And a lot of my friends who took a job that they really didn't want are unhappy. They ask me 'What's it like making movies? You must be really happy.'  You got to be willing to eat shit in your twenties to get to where you want to be. And I'll tell you, it's fucking worth it."

--  Parting advice to room's film student majority: "Make sure your first movie is commercial. Don't fuck around with an art film. Because if it doesn't sell, you're finished. Studios would sooner hire a director that's never made a movie than one who's movie didn't sell. I'm not saying sell-out. I'm saying make it for an audience."

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Talking with indieWIRE's Eugene Hernandez at the Cannes 2009 American Pavilion, directors Lynn Shelton and Lee Daniels spoke about their festival films, their career, and what's next.

Shelton's alt-buddy comedy Humpday opens July 10 while Daniels inner city drama Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire debuts November 10.

-- As an excited young producer (before hitting it big producing Monsters Ball), Lee Daniels courted unknown African American actors, including Morgan Freeman. "I know you from the Electric Company, man!  We can rock this town!" Daniels told Freeman. "Let's make some money!" Daniels said he loves actors and is not satisfied with the word no.  "No don't work for me. So I do things on my own.  I decided to produce because I was tired of telling all my African American actors no."

-- Shelton firmly believes a comment she once overheard: "The sub-culture knows more about the dominant culture than the dominant culture knows about itself.  Gays know more about straight people.  Black people know more about white people."  With this in mind, Shelton has "always been fascinated by observing people, finding out what makes them tick."

-- Despite Scott Rudin's advice to him to only worry about film, Daniels is working on a drag queen musical with Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, and Beyoncé. "I wanna show how versatile I am," he said, but it's not easy. "Theater is a motherfucking beast. You have no control.  But I'm a control freak.  I'm also a masochist."

-- Daniels mused on the circle of his career: "I started in theater, now I'm back in it. I started with Lionsgate, now I'm back with them."  He said picking his film's distributor, Lionsgate, was about letting go of his film.  "I have a problem letting go.  But you have to let go. I'm blessed to say they do get it.  They'll do everything they can to get out the word, even if it's illegal."

-- Lynn Shelton also mused on her trajectory.  When Lynn's second film My Effortless Brilliance screened at SXSW, the director was her own press agent, sales rep, and entourage.  "When Humpday got into Sundance, it all became a lot more business like.  "And what is it about signing a deal at midnight?  Are these people teenagers?  I was told 'Don't go to bed! It'll sign at 4am!"  For two nights she stayed up, waiting.  Her sales rep, Submarine, finally signed the deal with Magnolia Pictures -- at 10am.  "A perfectly reasonable time to sign a deal."  Too bad she lost two nights.

-- "You live your life to make your mom happy," said Daniels.  "She would always tell me 'Why don't you want to be Tyler Perry?'  So I had him see the film.  And now I know my mom will see it."  It also helped that as Daniels took the stage to receive his Sundance award, he got a call from Oprah, whom he mistook for his friend "who does a great Oprah impression."  "I said, what do you want, bitch?" said an embarrassed Daniels. "Or something like that." 

-- While the author Sapphire had many offers for her book, Daniels scored the prize through sheer persistence.  "Everybody wanted the book. She gave it to me for a dollar.  I stalked her.  She was just tired of me calling."  When she saw the film, she fell into his arms, crying.  "I'm most happy to have served her."

-- Shelton began as an actress in New York, but the lifestyle didn't suit her.  "I had a falling out with acting.  Directing has been a beautiful way of reuniting with it." 

-- Up next for Daniels:  "I'm being offered sci-fi and horror projects, which I'm really excited about.  But next I'm working on getting my kids to love me.  They're 13.  People tell me you got 4 years to go before they start loving you again."  Obviously, that's not going to work for Daniels.

-- Up next for Shelton:  "I'm learning how to deal with an agent and manager.  I'm worried about my world getting bigger than I can handle.  I know I'm shooting something this fall -- a project modeled on My Dinner with Andre.  It'll star Sean Nelson and author Sherman Alexie."

-- Instead of giving advice to the audience, moderator Eugene Hernandez had each director give a bit of advice to the other.  "Don't worry about your agent and manager," Daniels advised Shelton. "Do your thing.  Be a fierce bitch.  Don't let them mind fuck you."

-- After that, and clearly enamored with Daniels, Shelton's only advice was "Keep on keeping on, Lee. I've loved being on this with you."

This entry can be found cross-posted on Mike Jones' blog.

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