Robyn Candyce
Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski aren’t new to the art of constructing an entertaining biopic. After writing some of the most recognized films in the genre such as “The People vs. Larry Flynt” in 1996 –for which they won a Golden Globe – and “Man on the Moon” (1999), the life story of comedian Andy Kaufman, the writing duo prepares for the release of their newest film “Big Eyes.” Produced by Alexander and Karasewski, as well as by Lynette Howell (“The Place Beyond the Pines,” “Blue Valentine”) and Tim Burton (“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” “9”) – who also directed the motion picture – “Big Eyes” chronicles the story of artist Margaret Keane (Amy Adams), best known for her waifs of children with exaggerated eyes, and her husband Walter (Christoph Waltz) who manipulated her into letting him control her, and take credit for her paintings.
The motion picture has been officially nominated for three 2015 Golden Globes including Best Actress (Amy Adams), Best Actor (Christoph Waltz) and best original song (“Big Eyes,” by Lana Del Ray). I was able to sit down with Alexander and Karaszewski while they were in New York, for a quick discussion. They talked about Tim Burton signing on to the project, how a budget of only $16,000,000.00 worked to their favor, and the placement of fictional characters in a true story.
What was it about the Keanes’ story that appealed to you, and made you both want to tell their story?
Larry: Well we love fringe pulp culture stuff, and what was great when we stumbled on to the story is that everyone knows the paintings. Everyone knows those big eyed images, but absolutely nobody knew the crazy stuff that happened behind the scenes, and I think that combination really intrigued us. The more and more research we wound up doing the crazier the personally story was, and we felt like Walter Keane totally fit in to sort of the tradition of the other films we’ve done where like he’s the leading man who sort of talks about himself in the third person, whose constantly selling. He’s very much an Ed Wood, Larry Flynt, Andy Kauffman type character, but in this project what made him interesting was he was kind of the antagonist instead of the protagonist, so we were able to sort of attack it like one of these [previous] movie, but in a totally different way.
How did you convince Margaret you could be trusted with her story?
Larry: We did a lot of prep before we met her, I mean it is acting like journalists in that we did a lot of research, we pulled up all the old newspapers and all the old magazines. We tried to find out as much about this story as we could.
Scott: We had to be able to sit down with her…and let her know we were taking this very seriously.
Larry: We also wanted to let her know that we were really interested in telling her side of the story. She was very skittish, and she also still thinks that a lot of people still think that Walter was a real painter.
Scott: I mean it’s hard to believe that now that the movie exists in 2014, but in 2003 when we went to Margaret people were still coming into her gallery asking about Walter’s paintings. Even though she won the court case it didn’t really matter because Walter was like this diabolical wizard of propaganda –
Larry: So even after she won the case he still continued to give interviews saying he was the painter, and at that point Margaret was just like the hell with it, I’m going to go off and do my painting.
Scott: But Walter would never let it go, and Margaret was so beaten down by this battle between them, and my God it had been going on for close to 50 years at that point, that when we went to her she was worried we would make this ambiguous movie where it wouldn’t be clear who was the painter. We said no, Margaret, you’re the painter, we know you’re the painter, we’re going to tell that story, and then even after we earned her trust, we got her rights, we wrote the script and then we worked up the nerve to show her a draft-
Larry: and the draft is very, very close to the final film, that draft from 2007 is 95% the movie you saw.
Scott: And she still said, but are people going to think Walter’s the painter?
Larry: There is no one else in the world that would read that script and think is it possible that Walter is the painter? She had just been through the ringer so much with Walter.
Scott: One of the ways we got her trust is that we listen to her.
Larry: We had done all this research but often the public story was Walter’s story. When we approached her we knew a lot of the facts, but we didn’t know what [was] the personal story. We didn’t know about the relationship between her and her daughter, we didn’t know about how she interacted with her friends and how she lost all of her friends because of this and so we would ask her questions she would tell us and she felt that we were sort of on the same wavelength, and you know her religion is very important to her, and we said that we would use that in the film, and we wouldn’t make fun of that, and I think that was one of the things that made her think that we were interested in her side of the story and that she could really trust us.
Speaking of friends, I thought it was really interesting that all of the characters in this movie are people that exist, or have existed in real life, except for DeeAnn (Krysten Ritter)?
Scott: Except DeeAnn and also except Ruben – Jason Schwartzman. I mean yeah they were both representative. Margaret, yeah like we were saying, we learned a lot from meeting Margaret, and the question came out, “Well your friends when they would come by the house, didn’t they know?” and she would sort of get an awkward look and say “Well, at a certain point I didn’t have any friends because Walter didn’t want them coming over the house. I did have some in the early days but then Walter would and chase them away so by the end I didn’t have any, and I was all by myself.”
Larry: And she also took the blame for some of that, she said “I’m not a particularly good liar, I don’t like to lie. So I didn’t want my friends coming over either because then I would have to put up this fraud to them…and suddenly two years would go by and I didn’t have any friends.” We thought that stuff was so rich that it had to be in the film, but it didn’t seem right to say oh that is her friend Joann, so we created one character that sort of represented them all.
Scott: Now Jason’s character Ruben isn’t based on anybody what so ever. He is just representing an idea, which is that Walter would always rent against these gatekeepers of the art world, and sort of anoint themselves and decide what’s good and not good. John Canaday (Terence Stamp) who is a real guy who was a critic for the New York Times, and then Jason who is a made up character he sort of represents the curators.
Larry: Right, because Walter’s genius is how he sort of got around these guys. It was the fact that he got rejected by people like the Jason Schwartzman character, and then of figured it out “I’ll do it myself, I’ll open up my own gallery; I’ll put out my own coffee table book.” He realized art critics are the gatekeepers for the art crowd, but what’s more important is getting yourself into a gossip column. Getting a picture in the paper of yourself giving a painting to Joan Crawford or Natalie Wood that’s going to sell way more than paintings then if “He uses color well.” is written in the New York Times.
I understand this film had a lower budget than most other films worked on, and other Tim Burton movies. How did that work to your advantage for this film?
Scott: Well it was a rapidly diminishing budget because we were trying to direct it ourselves for many years, and each time we would take a new whack at it the new budget would be a little less than the previous budget. So each time we did that we would have to cut out a few more speaking parts, and then drop a couple more locations, and so over the years the movie funneled down really to just Margaret and Walter, and we had always intended it as – there’s an old theatre term – a two hander. It’s a good part for him, and a good part for her, and by the time we got to the script that Tim shot 80% of the script was [Margaret] and [Walter] in the painting rooms, because that’s what the movie is about.
Larry: I think a way it worked to our advantage was it really invigorated Tim. Tim has been on these bigger budget movies and I think he really loved getting to roll up his sleeve. I think that this is the lowest budget film Tim has made since “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.” [This film] was shot for less money than “Ed Wood” was 20 years ago, and “Ed Wood” had twice the amount of shooting days. So, it still has that Tim Burton sense of style. I think he’s learned that he can do that and he doesn’t need a lot of money.
Scott: I think it was invigorating and he also had a comfort zone. Most his movies were shot in London sort of with the same crew every time, and I mean he had no choice on this one. When you have $16,000,000.00 you have got to shoot in a cheap place with a local crew, and it was a small crew in Vancouver. I think it was a little discombobulating for him at first, but then he really was having a good time, because the production was light on its feet and he could just sort of pic up and leave when he needed to.
So you guys approached Tim, and he was the only person you considered to direct-
Larry: Yeah we didn’t tell anybody-
Scott: We didn’t tell our agent
Larry: or our fellow producers, because here’s the thing, when Christoph was circling it we just saw Tim – his enthusiasm – with trying to get this movie made. Tim had approached us earlier about doing a low budget, a different project, so we knew Tim wanted kind of a plate cleanser kind of film. So we didn’t tell anyone because if he turned it down we didn’t want it to be like oh Scott and Larry now want another director to direct this, because we had this trust level with Tim.
We felt a certain obligation to Margaret Keane. When we approached her she was in her late 70’s, now she’s in her late 80’s, and we really wanted to see this movie made, and we knew if Tim would direct it that it could get made pretty quickly. So when we approached him, we made it very clear we weren’t offering it to other directors. If Tim would agree to make the movie right now, we would swap places, he would direct it and we would produce. Tim was like, this is your project, and I don’t want to step on any toes, and we were just like we really want you to do this.
Our experience on “Ed Wood” was fantastic. He shot our first draft; we were included all the way along. So it felt like was time to do it again.
As not just writers, but producers on the film did you have a say in casting and design?
Scott: In casting, the casting was very collaborative with Tim. Also, we’ve been working with our casting director since 2007, and so we had these conversations at nauseam about who would be a good DeeAnn. We’ve been having these conversations for six years.
Larry: for example Amy Adams had read the script before, because we approached Amy Adams before. It was one of those things where the total say was completely Tim’s, but we were definitely consulted and we were definitely consulting. We were also guys who had been in preproduction already for so many times and we could help out the production designers and the casting designers by saying we had scouting photos of all these cities they could take a look at, and understand where you could shoot this movie and where you couldn’t shoot the movie.
As writers for this did you know it was going to be so art heavy?
Scott: Yes. That was cracking us up. At some point after one of our early drafts we said oh my God, all they do is talk about art for two hours. We thought that was really fun because the whole fight between “high-art” and “low-art,” and what is good art, and who gets to say that something is trash. If people like it and take it to their hearts doesn’t that make it valid art? We think these issues are kind of really interesting and fun to talk about, and art movies are always stuffy and full of themselves. We thought that this was such an original opportunity which is [that] you can debate this stuff under the umbrella of complete absurdity. People are yelling at each other about these paintings of crying children, but they’re still having those art-talk types of conversations. So we thought it was a hoot and a way to get these ideas out there.
”Big Eyes” opens nationwide on December 25, 2014. For more information about the film visit http://bigeyesfilm.com.
