Hounddog

[MacGuffin]

Oh Good God: Dakota Does Elvis
Source: Cinematical

For you fans who have been jonesing to see the girl ever since Dreamer wandered off the screens, you've not only got Charlotte's Web coming out in December, but also a new, untitled project that is going to be a hell of a lot more exciting than a movie about a spider and a pig.

According to Variety, this new project is a doozy: It's set in the 1960s, and Fanning will star as (ready?) "a precocious girl who overcomes the negative effects of abuse by singing and dancing like Elvis." Oh. My. God. Could anything be more difficult to pull off? Seriously, this is the sort of thing that, on the 95% chance it doesn't work, could be a career killer -- within a matter of days, our Dakota could go from being the greatest child actress since Jodie Foster to "the girl in that awful Elvis movie." That said, of course, if it works we will all be bowing down and welcoming our new ruler, Queen Fanning.

Starring alongside the hopefully sideburned, jumpsuited (though I fear the 1960s is too early for that Elvis) Dakota will be Robin Wright Penn and David Morse; the movie just started filming under the direction of writer-producer Deborah Kampmeier.

[MacGuffin]

All shook up over Dakota's 'Hounddog'
Source: NY Daily News

Twelve-year-old Dakota Fanning deals with rape and child abuse in 'Hounddog.' 

Cute-as-a-button child star Dakota Fanning, who turned 12 in February, is venturing into sexually disturbing territory in a movie being filmed in North Carolina.
The screenplay for "Hounddog" - a dark story of abuse, violence and Elvis Presley adulation in the rural South, written and directed by Deborah Kampmeier - calls for Fanning's character to be raped in one explicit scene and to appear naked or clad only in "underpants" in several other horrifying moments.

Fanning's mother, Joy, and her Hollywood agent, Cindy Osbrink, see the movie as a possible Oscar vehicle for the pint-size star. But despite Fanning's status as a bankable actress - whose movies, including last year's "War of the Worlds," have earned more than half a billion dollars since 2001 - the alarming material seems to have scared off potential investors from the under-$5 million indie project.

"The two taboos in Hollywood are child abuse and the killing of animals," a source close to the situation told me. "In this movie, both things happen."

Fanning's carefully choreographed rape scene has already been filmed. But then the production - which also stars Robin Wright Penn, David Morse and Piper Laurie - was shut down for lack of funds. Penn, who's also an executive producer, gave a pep talk to the dispirited cast in the days leading up to the shutdown. The desperate producer, Jen Gatien, daughter of former club czar Peter Gatien, sent out an SOS to New York entertainment entrepreneur Lawrence Robins. Robins located emergency investors, filming resumed, and the movie is scheduled to wrap tomorrow.

"The subject matter is very tough," Robins told me, "but I was attracted to it because in the end it's a story about human understanding, about a little girl who's dealt a very bad deck of cards, but finds solace in the music of Elvis and survives."

The script requires the preteen actress to confront tougher challenges than Brooke Shields and Jodie Foster did when, at Fanning's age, they played child prostitutes.

"It's not just the rape scene - the whole story is challenging Dakota as an actress," Fanning's longtime agent, Osbrink, told me. "And I've never been so proud of her in my life. I've seen the dailies, and in every scene she gets better and better."

[grand theft sparrow]

 

Yeah, I'm never going to see this movie.  Rape scenes are disturbing and nauseating enough with grown people.  I don't need to see one with one of America's best child actors.

And how funny is it that her agent is listed as her "longtime agent"?  She's fucking 12!

[pete]

that's kinda weird, for the agent and the mom to take this movie, because the little girl's on-screen rape scene may lead to an oscar.

[MacGuffin]

The Fanning fury and now the film
Source: Los Angeles Times

PARK CITY, UTAH — By early Thursday evening, Deborah Kampmeier had arrived from New York after spending 29 straight hours putting the finishing touches on "Hounddog," perhaps the most eagerly anticipated film of this year's Sundance Film Festival. Operating on two hours of sleep, she was still smarting a bit from the criticism leveled by religious activists who had not seen her Southern gothic tale but object to the rape of the character played by 12-year-old Dakota Fanning. Mostly, though, she sounded happy to be able to share her long aborning project with the world.

"I am hoping that this film is going to touch a lot of people," she said. "When you go to a theater and you see the truth, you feel less alone in the world." As for the critics, who have tried to unleash a milder version of the opprobrium hurled at Mel Gibson before "The Passion of the Christ" came out, she has decided to turn the other cheek. "I have to say I have started to feel very sorry for these people who are out to silence this," said Kampmeier, who wrote, produced and directed the film. "These are really wounded people, just like the characters in the film."

The film is set in rural Alabama in the late 1950s. Fanning plays Lewellen, a motherless child who is obsessed with Elvis Presley and does a mean impersonation of him. Her father (David Morse) is a creepy, abusive farmer for whom Lewellen's love is so complex it borders on hatred. Her grandmother, a blowsy Piper Laurie, is an angry and suspicious woman who tosses firecrackers into her garden for pest control and is obsessed with the wickedness of the flesh.

"There's plenty of time for you to grow up and be evil," she tells Lewellen as she inspects her after a bath. "I just want you to be good while you can."

Robin Wright Penn — does anyone do wounded vulnerability better? — plays the woman who becomes Lewellen's ray of hope, and Afemo Omilami is the wise farm hand who nurses the damaged young women around him back to emotional health. A transformative history lesson is provided by jazz and blues singer Jill Scott as Big Mama Thornton, whose Leiber and Stoller-penned hit "Hound Dog" was a hit in 1953, then nearly forgotten after it was eclipsed by Elvis' recording. (In Kampmeier's view, another example of how women's voices have been silenced.)

As for the scene that has put this film on the map long before its premiere here on Monday, it is the powerful, and yes, disturbing, heart of the film, and delicately filmed. Like rape itself, it becomes a thing of transcendent violence, not just a physical violation. Fanning's victim is an ethereal child on the cusp of sexuality whose soul withers before your eyes.

"When we first met, I said to Dakota this is a difficult and dark world that she would have to enter into, but that I would be there with her every step of the way," said Kampmeier, 42. "It was not about manipulating her; she is a deeply talented and mature actor. To say she was violated to achieve her performance denies her talent. She moved very carefully and intelligently through the work. It was a heavy scene, but after we shot it, she was laughing and dancing because she knew what she had done was an incredible performance."

Though several groups, including the Christian Film & Television Commission, have objected to putting a child actor in that position, Kampmeier stressed that the rape was achieved in the edit, not on the set. "You have a child yelling 'Stop it!" and only when you put that next to an image of a boy unzipping his pants do you see that it's rape." Contrary to reports, there is no graphic nudity, but there are several scenes, carefully shot, where child actors with bare shoulders and legs are presumed to be naked.

There is no question that the rape scene, and a couple of others, particularly where Lewellen radiates a precocious (if unconscious) sexuality as she gyrates her hips and sings Elvis, make for uncomfortable viewing. When Kampmeier screened rough cuts for associates, she said, reaction was split along gender lines. Women saw the innocence and joy in Lewellen's gestures; men thought she was provoking a sexual attack.

Such moments are not without precedent — at approximately Fanning's age, Brooke Shields in Louis Malle's "Pretty Baby" and Jodie Foster in Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" played prostitutes. Those films too were met with outrage, accusations of exploitation ... and critical acclaim.

Though most of the indie filmmakers here can tell hair-raising tales about how they got their films made (let alone dealing with preemptive censorship strikes), Kampmeier's story seems more harrowing than most.

The film, which she finished writing in 1996, was originally budgeted at $6 million, then $3.75 million. (Her first and only other film, 2003's "Virgin," about a young woman who finds herself pregnant with no memory of having had sex, cost $65,000.) Along the way, financing was in place then fell out four times, always because prospective producers demanded the rape scene be cut, Kampmeier said.

After Fanning signed on in August 2005, a serious Hollywood clock began running. The young actress — who starred as Fern in "Charlotte's Web," as Tom Cruise's memorably fraught daughter in "War of the Worlds" and with Robert De Niro in the horror film "Hide and Seek" — does not lack for big budget work. (Her fee, it has been reported, has hit $3 million per film.) Each time the film's financing fell through, it became harder for her to remain committed, since she was turning down so much work. Also, to prepare for her role, she spent nine months working with a voice coach three times a week.

"Her agent finally said, 'I can't keep doing this to a 12-year-old,' " Kampmeier said. "After nine months, they said, 'This is your drop-dead date.' " Last April, with no money, Kampmeier said, she simply packed up her 5-year-old daughter and drove to Wilmington, N.C., to begin pre-production. Local casting agents put her in touch with a local producer, Sam Froelich, who tried to raise $250,000.

"At the end of the third week, I called him and said, 'You have to put money in the bank today or this isn't happening. I will give you a producer credit whether your other guys come in or not.' He said, 'How about $100,000?' " The money lasted a week.

Producer Jen Gatien had gotten involved after falling in love with the script. "It was like Faulkner and Tennessee Williams," she said Friday morning, moments after arriving in Park City. "It was so poetic and beautiful, I just had to be part of it."

When Gatien started to raise money — from male producers almost exclusively — she heard a constant refrain: "Oh. This is that rape movie. Who is gonna pay 10 bucks to watch a kid get raped? So what if you've got Dakota Fanning. None of her fans are going to come to see it anyway."

It did not matter that the movie is rated R and is geared to an adult audience. Nor did it seem to matter that women really responded to the subject matter, which ends in emotional triumph. So Gatien turned for help to some of her progressive women friends in Santa Barbara, where she lives part-time. She thought of Rebecca Cleary, someone who lives modestly, supports artists and had not been involved in a film venture such as this. Maybe, Gatien thought, Cleary could kick in $200,000. Cleary ended up investing around $2 million.

"She is into empowering women, and she really stepped up," Gatien said.

After the film was shot, however, the producers were drawn into a legal battle with a funder who was asking Kampmeier to give up her director's cut in exchange for meeting his financial commitment to the film. Kampmeier refused, struck a deal with another production company and ended up in a legal battle between the two.

That was in August, Gatien said. There was no money for post-production. So Gatien sold her car, and tapped her friends for cash, coming up with $65,000. (Though multiple producers aren't uncommon, "Hounddog" must set some kind of record: 21 people are credited as producers, co-producers and associate producers — a nod, said Kampmeier, to all those who invested in the project.)

With the Sundance deadline looming, resolving the legal issue was crucial. There was also fear the movie would become outdated if it were tied up in litigation. Over the last couple of weeks their attorney, Linda Lichter, has resolved the legal dispute, settled with vendors in North Carolina, and will be able to make a distribution deal.

"Everyone wants to see it," Gatien said. "The response has been overwhelming." Which is an irony for Kampmeier, since some of the distributors are those who turned her down for financing in the first place.

"It's not conscious, but the men who run this business don't have ears to hear our stories yet," Kampmeier said. "Our stories in fact have a huge audience. Women want to see their truths up there on the screen."

[MacGuffin]

Fanning mad at 'Hounddog' critics
Source: Reuters

Precocious 12-year-old Dakota Fanning, star of the kids movie "Charlotte's Web," is as mad as she can be and is not going to take any more criticism about her latest role -- a rape victim.

Fanning saw her newest movie "Hounddog" premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this week after months of complaints from religious groups and others who questioned whether her family and the film's maker acted responsibly when asking her to act in a rape scene.

"When it gets to the point of attacking my mother, my agent ... my teacher, who were all on the set that day, that started to make me mad," she said in an interview.

"I can let other things go, but when people start to talk about my mother, like, that's really bad in my opinion ... that's an attack, and that's not fair. They hadn't seen the movie," she added.

Since the age of six, when Fanning appeared in an episode of U.S. television program "Ally McBeal," her fan base has grown into millions of people around the world.

She has starred in Hollywood movies ranging from "The Cat in the Hat," based on the Dr. Seuss children's book about a magical cat, to Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds," in which she played a young girl on the run from space aliens.

But Fanning is now entering her teen-age years -- she'll be 13 in February -- and like any girl or boy who is growing older and maturing, she finds herself attracted to new stories and roles she finds challenging and thought-provoking.

GOING ON 13

In "Hounddog," Fanning plays 12-year-old Lewellen, who lives in a Deep South town in the 1950s. Her dysfunctional family is poor, and the household is run by her grandmother.

Lewellen loves Elvis Presley, and in order to get a ticket to his concert, she agrees to do her Elvis impersonation for an older teen-age boy. Eventually that scene leads to the rape.

"I loved the Elvis Presley story line. I loved the fact she's born of hard circumstances and is trying to survive those," Fanning said. "I like so many things about it that had nothing to do with being abused, or sexually abused."

"Hounddog" is based on director Deborah Kampmeier's personal history, and she called the criticism of Fanning's decision to take the role an insult to the young actress.

"She should be applauded to the voice she has given to so many silenced women," Kampmeier said.

Kampmeier called the Georgia-born Fanning an "old soul" who understood Lewellen's thoughts and emotions from the moment the actress and director first discussed the part.

Fanning said she would tell her friends to see "Hounddog," with their parents' approval, because it addresses many topics they will either soon face or, perhaps, already have.

"I'm going to be a freshman in high school in September, and I think it would be irresponsible of my parents not to let me know of things that happen and to try not to get yourself in uncomfortable situations," she said. "It's educational."

Fanning said she loves acting and wants to continue to into her teens and adulthood. She added that she does not pick parts with a career plan, such as making the transition from child actor to adult, which is often hard to do successfully.

As she talks, Fanning tries hard cover her teeth and hide her new braces. When told not to be shy because many adults went through the same issue with braces, she giggles. Then, she quickly brightens as she looks at Kampmeier.

"I know," she says, "let's make a movie about braces."

[polkablues]

As she talks, Fanning tries hard cover her teeth and hide her new braces.

http://xixax.com/index.php?topic=7293.msg238329#msg238329

More proof of Xixax's growing influence on the cultural zeitgeist.

[MacGuffin]

Online Petition Demands Arrest of Dakota Fanning's Mother and Agent
Source: Cinematical

Oh, it's officially on -- as if folks weren't all up in arms prior to Hounddog's screening at Sundance, now there's a petition circulating online attempting to not only block the film's release, but also asking law enforcement to arrest Dakota Fanning's mother (Joy) and agent (Cindy Osbrink). Should you be interested in signing such a petition, here's a little taste of what you'd be agreeing with: "They both are responsible, and if so they should be arrested and the film destroyed so the public doesn't witness this atrocity all in the name of an Oscar, whose name will be tarnished in the process."

Yes, apparently, the people behind this petition also feel like the only reason Dakota decided to take on the role was so she would be nominated for an Oscar. But let's back up for a minute -- is this sexually explicit rape scene featuring a 12-year-old actress against the law? Is it really kiddie porn? Slate looked into the actual law which states that things only get messy if the viewer is somehow convinced by what they see on the screen that Dakota Fanning had actual, real-life intercourse on set which, as most of us already know, rarely ever happens in a film featuring adults, let alone children. Says writer-director Deborah Kampmeier: "... you have a child yelling 'Stop it!' and only when you put that next to an image of a boy unzipping his pants do you see that it's rape."

[Both of our reviewers] both seemed to feel the same way about the rape scene -- that it wasn't nearly as bad as watching Fanning prance around in a "skimpy undershirt and panties, writing and wriggling her hips and fanny seductively as she imitates Elvis Presley's dancing style." But this is her Jodie Foster moment. This role shall define Dakota's transition from cute and cuddly to serious and thought-provoking. This is what the movies are all about -- consistently pushing the barrier and experiencing uncomfortable images all for the sake of pure entertainment and, perhaps, everyone will learn something in the process. Right?

Heck, even Dakota is down with the whole thing, she understands what's happening around her film and is pissed people are taking this all out on her mother. In a recent interview, the girl lashed back at critics saying that she didn't appreciate the things they were saying about her dear old mum. She notes, "You have to prepare your children for things that happen in the world. Everything isn't rosy." She's twelve. And she has a point.

[Pubrick]

i hope you're paying close attention, abigail. 

[bonanzataz]

the reviews i've read for this movie ain't pretty. it currently rates at 17% at rottemtomatoes. the only reason anybody gives a shit is because it's darling dakota. it makes me laugh, too, considering how many movies are out there, get good critical buzz, and are far more explicit regarding child abuse, and nobody takes any notice or starts petitions to lock up those child actors' parents (mysterious skin, anybody?). i guess, and this shouldn't have taken as much thought as it did, that nobody really wants to see a famous person, let alone a famous 12 year old girl, get "raped" on film. if the actress was some ugly kid that didn't star in war of the worlds, really nobody would give a shit and the movie would get no press.