An Interview with Griffin Dunne, director of Fierce People

A fixture on the New York film scene for more than two decades, Griffin Dunne brought his last feature, Fierce People, to the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival for its world premiere. On Sept. 7, the film -- adapted from Dirk Wittenborn's novel and starring Diane Lane, Donald Sutherland and Anton Yelchin – finally hits a theater near you. Dunne lives and works in New York, but we caught up with him by phone from the LA press junket for the movie.

Tribeca : It's been two years since Fierce People premiered at Tribeca. What's been happening with film, and how does it feel to finally see it released?

Griffin Dunne : Well, I've been shooting a picture in New York called The Accidental Husband, and I've been acting in a couple of movies. But, you know, a part of me has also felt, in a way, the way that Ronald Reagan felt in Kings Row when he wakes up with his leg cut off going, "Where's the rest of me?" because this hadn't come out, you know? So much love and effort and care went in to the production. I'm here doing a junket with the cast. They've all come back after all this time to support the film. It's just such an endorsement for the picture. There was never anything wrong. It was just finding the right time to release it and who should release it.

What's special and attracted me to it is it's tough unpredictable quality in the story; the change of tones and the dysfunction in the relationships; the love and the brutality. Those are also the very things that make people say, "How do we sell this?"

How did you come to this project? Were you familiar with the book ahead of time?

I had known the writer as an acquaintance. He had given me an incomplete manuscript and asked if I would read it. He did it with several other writers, kind of like the way filmmakers show rough cuts of their pictures to peers to get feedback. I loved it. I was just so engrossed. I loved the central character so much, but I asked, "How the hell does this end?" And he said, "That's why I gave it to you. I'm not quite sure." So I said, "I'm not sure how it ends either, but I want to option it, and let's just make this." A couple years later we had the script and Diane [Lane], and off we went.

Since you started working with writer Dirk Wittenborn (who adapted his own novel) so early in the process, can you discuss the decision to make some very noticeable changes from the book to film?

The story takes place over two time periods: there's a winter, and there's a summer, and there's an encounter that takes place on an ice rink on a pond, and all these things that were just physically impossible to do with the budget. Also, if I did shoot everything that was in it, it would have all been too much. There were all these extraordinary things that were completely engrossing on the page, but if you put it all in a movie, it just becomes too much.

The language of film is a different animal and a different dialect. I think the sign of a successful adaptation, for people who read the book and love it is not, "Oh that's my favorite scene, and they did it just right." It's if it tastes and feels like the book that they read. Then you can have scenes in it that weren't even in the book, and they'll go, "Oh my god, I loved that scene," and they'll think it was actually in the book.

You know one of the best adaptations that ever lined up was George Roy Hill's adaptation of [John Irving's] The World According to Garp. When I saw the colors and the feeling and the performances and the casting, that felt just like the book. He had to part with so much, but he kept what he needed. So it had a story and a through-line, and it made you feel like you'd been through a lot, which is what I hope I've attained with this movie.

Each of the films you've directed seem to be focused on a single character observing a social structure that he or she doesn't belong to and then struggling internally as to whether or not to assimilate. Do you consider yourself a bit of a sociologist?

"I like to watch," as [Chance the] Gardner [played by Peter Sellers in Being There ] said. I noticed that as a trait I had as an actor. I'm a very good listener and reactor, and I'm like that in life. I notice a lot, and I'm detail-oriented. It's not so much face –against-the-window-pane, but sort of a falling-down-the-rabbit-hole sort of thing I'm attracted to: being in an environment that you're not sure what's going to happen next. I do think that life is unpredictable and unbelievably beautiful and then incredibly unfair just a moment latter without any warning. Those sort of feelings reflect in my films somehow without me thinking about it too much.

Do you find yourself attracted to those kind of stories? Or do you find yourself working on a story that then turns into this kind of examination?

Probably the latter. I like stories that deal with how events effect someone. The picture that I'm working on next is called The Position, and it's got a very funny premise. It's about the children whose parents had appeared in the illustrations of The Joy of Sex. It's set in the two time periods: the day they first saw the book and then what their lives are like now with the book being reissued. It's a funny premise, but once I worked on it, it really became more of a human drama where the stuff that's funny is funny because the characters are actually in torment or pain. I think life is funny and sad at the same time.

You do it all – acting, producing, directing -- but you're not one of those people who always has to do everything at once. Do you have a preference?

I prefer to direct, and I'm attracted to story. I'm always waiting for and have my eye out for the acting parts -- no matter how big or small -- that play to my strengths, but as far as being a director, it's sort of the culmination of everything I feel I've been doing over the past couple decades, where I'm able to apply everything I've learned as an actor and as a producer and use both sides of my brain.

You're going to be one of the jurors for Tropfest@Tribeca on Sept. 23. What's your thinking about short films?

It's short film that made it possible to direct features. I was very fortunate the first time out like all great first experiences, they always seem to be the easiest. The easiest thing I ever got made was my first short [Duke of Groove ]. It got nominated for an Academy Award, and I became a director. Being able to tell a story and tell it in a short period of time, it tells people a lot as to whether you can tell it in long form as well.

You’re very connected to New York. You shot part of Fierce People here in Tribeca? Did premiering it at the festival hold any special significance for you?

Actually I remember saying when I introduced the picture [at the festival] how much it meant to me. It's a downtown movie, and it's showing in my hometown. It was a very emotional and satisfying experience to show the movie at Tribeca first. It just all made sense. New York really is my town, and that festival was born out of great tragedy. That neighborhood is also where I shot After Hours, so it wasn't an opening I took lightly. And there's a line in the movie in Fierce People -- "Out of bad comes good" -- and the festival is one of those. It speaks to that.

After Hours is the quintessential '80s downtown New York movie, and you produced it, starred in it, and worked with the prototypical downtown New York director. How have you seen the city -- and especially downtown Manhattan -- change in those 20 years?

It's almost unrecognizable. When I was shooting that movie, the whole point was that it was an area that nobody knew anything about. You would see rats just walking across the street, in the middle of the night, as if they were going off to have a cigarette or get a drink in one of those shady bars. It has changed a lot, but you know, New York is a work in progress, and I've accepted that for a long time. You can't cling to, "Wow, they put a Gap store here. There goes the neighborhood." I think it was Waldo Emerson who described that when they tore down his favorite Elm tree on Broadway, everyone said, "Well, there goes the neighborhood. They just ruined New York." So, of course it's going to change.

Do you ever watch After Hours now and then walk around Tribeca and SoHo thinking about how it's changed?

I've had an office right on the corner where we shot the punk club, and I pass that everyday. That's what's so great about New York. Every street is connected to some kind of memory.