Fay Grim

[MacGuffin]

Trailer here.

Release Date: May 18th, 2007 (limited)

Starring: Parker Posey, Thomas Jay Ryan, James Urbaniak, Jeff Goldblum, Liam Aiken 

Directed by: Hal Hartley (Henry Fool; Flirt)

Premise: Fay Grim is a single Mom from Woodside, Queens, New York, manically preoccupied with raising her 14 year old son, Ned, so he won't grow up to be like his father. His father, Henry, is missing. Seven years earlier, he accidentally killed a vicious neighbor and fled-- never to be seen or heard from again.

[john]

II'm in love with that poster.

'm really excited about this one. I've got my ticket to see it at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley in a couple weeks.

[MacGuffin]

indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "Fay Grim" director Hal Hartley

Picking up over seven years after "Henry Fool", Hal Hartley brings us his version of the sequel. In "Fay Grim" Parker Posey again plays Fay, struggling with her son who is turning out to be much like his arrogant father Henry, missing now for seven years. When she's sent by the CIA to Paris to get her husband's belongings, she's thrust into international espionage as she begins to uncover the truth about Henry. To Hartley fans everywhere, new work from the indie film maven is something to celebrate. Toronto Film Festival programmer Noah Cowan wrote: "Hartley's films trade on rhythm and this requires an enormous command of tone by both actors and director. 'Fay Grim' is a perfect example of how a film can be dramatically elevated by a wildly successful collaboration in this area..." "Fay Grim" opens May 19th from Magnolia Pictures.

What initially attracted you to filmmaking?

Stories, I think. I thought stories were amazing. Then, I discovered how exciting moving pictures could be. I don't think anything has really changed, ultimately.

Are there other aspects of filmmaking that you would still like to explore?

I've made music for other people's movies and that was great. I might do that again.

How did how the initial idea for this film came about?

I was inspired to make a film with Parker Posey as the lead as a result of directing her in "Henry Fool" in 1996. When we were making "Henry Fool", we all fell in love with the characters and felt we could use them as a vehicle to treat all sorts of subjects. So, the idea of a sequel, or a series, arose...

It was about looking at the earlier film and wondering what could have happened to these people in the time that has transpired. It's as much to do with how the world has changed as with the characters. My overall goal is always to make a film about how we are now in this place. Only, in this case, Fay stands in for a certain type of excellent American - non-partisan, honest, brave, charitable, and terribly sexy.

What are some of the creative influences?

When I was younger, it was a lot more music; I wanted to make movies that were like what I admire about The Talking Heads and Elvis Costello - entertainment that was light but not trivial, and in some cases pretty thought provoking. Richard Lester's film with the Beatles, A Hard Day's Night, has always been central to whatever I do. I still refer to it and try to steal things from it whenever I can. It was a film I grew up with as a child.

These days I'm more influenced by just being a person in the world trying to get by. When I was younger, it was about looking out at the world and following things that excited me - and those things would influence my own work. Now, it's about looking out at the world and trying to figure out what's the right thing to do - and that becomes the basis of what I write about. But, I guess, I have been encouraged to pursue this path by the example of others who have come before me: Godard, the songwriter David Byrne, the novelist Don Delillo, my composer friend Louis Andriessen...

What other genres or stories would you like to explore as a filmmaker?

My aim for the past year or so, which I think feels like a long term thing, is to make movies only about what comes to me from daily experience. Not autobiography, but building stories out of the experiences of each day - which I'm sure are totally universal. Some examples being: living in a foreign country, learning a new language, going to visit my wife's family in Japan, discussing World War II with my uncles, being a small business man, purchasing health insurance, friends dying, arguing about politics, worrying about friends who become religious... All that stuff.

My next film might be something called "The Business of Living", which is about the friendship between a young artisan and an older business man and the various people they each take care of and depend upon. Or, it might be something called "The Current Crisis", which is about an American porno-film producer in Berlin trying to break into the art-film business.

What is your definition of "independent film"?

I have never known what an independent film is exactly. Even if I said I did when I was younger, I must have been trying to conform to some popular conception of these things. I have always made the kinds of films I wanted to see in the way I wanted to make them. I've always felt like I'm a lot like other people. Maybe not like ALL people, but like a lot of people. I've always felt like I was making the films people like me would see if they had the chance.

What are some of your all-time favorite films, and why? What are some of your recent favorite films?

"McCabe & Mrs. Miller" "A Hard Day's Night" "The Wizard of Oz" "Prenom Carmen/Book of Mary" "Red River" Recent films... "The New World", "Notre Music", "Brown Bunny"...

What are your interests outside of film?

Novels, History, Architecture, and Music Composition.

What general advice would you impart to emerging filmmakers?

Know what it is that's important to you and protect it.

What are you most proud of about your career?

Still being in business after twenty years. I have not had to file for bankruptcy.

[clerkguy23]

I saw Fay Grim at Sundance and I thought it was really great. It's very similar in style to Henry Fool, but its 10x more ridiculous. The scenes with Parker Posey and Jeff Goldblum are fucking hilarious too--the dialogue is just so perfectly written. I also should note though that this was the only movie no one clapped after while I was at Sundance. By the end of its 2 hour run, most people were pretty worn down. I think it's easy to get frustrated trying to follow the insane international-spy-espionage plot, when really it's not even about that. If you got the humor in Henry Fool and loved it, just be ready to take it one step further with Fay Grim. It's really wonderful if you let it be.

[Reinhold]

it must be good. just look at all of those dutch myspace angles.

[grand theft sparrow]

I've been waiting for this one for about a year now, maybe more.  I was nervous because, after loving everything Hal Hartley had done up to that point, I was so monumentally let down by No Such Thing.  Plus, I was afraid a sequel to his most successful film was putting him in Kevin Smith desperation territory (which Hartley is precisely the filmmaker that we all hoped Smith was going to be after Clerks.  And I don't remember him ever using as many dutch angles in any of his previous films as in the trailer for Fay Grim alone.

But five minutes into it, I was reminded of what I love about Hartley's films, and it's all in there.  I think Parker Posey has only been better in Henry Fool.  The espionage angle that the film has taken hits for seems to be going over a lot of people's heads.  Fay Grim isn't Hartley's attempt at the spy film.  It's a flat-out parody of the spy film; the convolution is undoubtedly intentional because I've seen when Hartley makes a mess and this isn't that.  But then again, this isn't his best work either.  Hartley misses a few chances for some really great trademark moments, unless he's saving them for a third part (Ned Fool, perhaps?).

I'm of the opinion that Martin Donovan and Elina Lowensohn deliver Hartley's dialogue better than anyone, but Jeff Goldblum is a close third.  It didn't hit me until his first scene in the film that they would be a good match.  And just how he overacts the FBI agent role, it just works.  "Carl, go take a walk in the rain."  Perfect.

But the thing is that this movie kind of undoes the wonderful simpleness of Henry Fool. [HENRY FOOL/FAY GRIM MINOR SPOILERS] The idea that his grand confession was such a piece of shit was great.  He can turn a practically mute garbageman into a Nobel prize winning poet, yet he himself lacks the skill to turn out something on par with that, despite his ambition.  The idea that the confession is now the most important encrypted document in the world somewhat taints the first film.[END SPOILERS]  And much like 28 Weeks Later, the beginning of Fay Grim sets up a different film than we get.

Overall, I like the different direction that this film takes over the first one, and it's better than I was anticipating but I would much rather have seen a sequel where Fay is just raising their kid in Queens.