Ethan Hawke la Festivalul Filmului independent american

*Filme bune, mai mult sau mai puțin independente (P III) 

Ethan Hawke had a whole section of the festival dedicated to him. Maudie, Born to Be Blue, Boyhood and the recent Sidney Lumet Before the Devil Knows You're Dead benefited from his charming introduction. When stepping on to the stage, before Born to be Blue, charismatic and full of energy, he told the audience the story of the inception of the film, prompted by the host's, film critic Ionuț Mareș insightful questions: 

Ethan Hawke la American Independent Film Festival, 
Bucharest (foto Ionut Dobre)

Probably fifteen-sixteen-seventeen years ago, Brad Pitt was signed up to do a bio pick of Chet Baker and he dropped out of the film.  I had just made Before Sunrise with Richard Linklater and so I called him up and I said: „Hey Rick, do you think it is a good idea to make a film about Chet Baker?”. He said: „What is interesting about Chet Baker?” „What's interesting about Chet Baker is that he defines cool.” What is cool? Cool is detachment, not caring one way or the other. Detachment is passive, detachment is negative, detachment is what happened to America in the fifties. He was eager on this whole idea about Chet Baker and we worked on the script for a couple of years. I was supposed to play Chet Baker. 

The whole movie was set in a single day of his life - the day before he first tried heroin. That was the idea of the movie. We tried to get finance, we went to every studio around, we couldn't get the money to make the movie and it was really sad. One day we were going for a walk, I had just turned thirty and I said: „I have a new idea for that Chet Baker movie, for some financiers.” And Rick said: „Yeah, I've been meaning to talk to you about it”, he said. „Yeah, well, you are getting kinda old”. Chet Baker was a junkie by the time he was 25 or something. I was getting too old for that part. I was heartbroken. I invested this time and energy for so many years, we worked with this writer writing it. I put  a lot in this project. I had to let it go. 


Fifteen years went by and I was making a movie in Canada and I got this letter from a young film maker, Robert Boudreau, saying: „I heard that once you were making a movie about Chet Baker. It is my dream. Could you, please, read the script.” I felt like somebody was offering me the sequel to a film I never made.  Boudreau's movie starts when Chet was around forty and he was already washed up. But he was putting his life back together. It was a very similar idea of a film taking a moment of his life, instead of showing a person's whole life story. This script centers around an amazing idea. It happened to Elvis, it happened to Eminem, it happened to a lot of musicians. Somebody approached them to play their own life. What wrote this director is not factually accurate, it is more of a jazz impro. In truth, Chet had the opportunity to do a come back in a movie playing himself, but ruined it in pre-production, it never happened. 

There are aspects of playing a real character which are quite challenging. Like talking  to a person's loved ones. They were a real  and you can never do a real person, because nobody is one thing. There was a certain spirit at Chet Baker. If you close your eyes one night, lay on the floor and play his record, what would be the story you would hear in your head? What would be the images that you see? This is how we wanted this movie to be. It would be deeply romantic, it would be deeply lonely. 

Two of the biggest influences on my acting life were River Phoenix and Philip Seymour-Hoffman, both of them, were lost to heroin. It is a pretty serious thing in my life, watching people, beautiful people that you know, lost. You know them, you know how much more complicated it is. I got offered this in the wake of Phil's death, So the production was colored by that. I wasn't really setting out to define who Chet Baker was, I was trying to talk about a spirit, a personality, a type that I know well and I felt I had some insight into. I tried to read and learn everything I could about him, and you can google him tonight and see his beautiful self in an interview. Doing an impersonation wasn't interesting for me, trying to make a movie that had something to say about what is life, was more to me.





I approached playing this part, the same way you do everything: you gotta love it. If you love something it is easy, if you look at it as work, it is hard. If you really enjoy a character, learning about their relationship to music it is easy. I am sure that a lot of you are musicians, or know musicians and are aware that music is a part of somebody's personality. One of Chet's friends said that the best parts of him were present through his music and through the love of the trumpet.There are shots from the fifties of him and he always personified cool. And as I grew up, seeing how movie actors are idealized, I would never trust someone who personifies cool, as I know how phony it is. Usually somebody whose looks are really cool is probably quite insecure. As they are putting so much energy into looking cool. that was a good starting place for me. 

There is no rule, no usual way when choosing a film. Take Boyhood for instance. Imagine this friend of mine came to me and said „I have an idea about making a movie about a childhood. We are going to shoot  a movie once a week for 12 years, we will cast some five year old kid and we will watch him grow up.” Sounds like fun. it is completely different. Maudie, the film showed a couple of nights ago. That film is, for me, about Sally Hawkins. She is an amazing actress. I guess you have seen her in Mike Leigh's Happy Go Lucky, or in the Shape of Water that is coming out now. She is just a brilliant, brilliant performer. Every now and then, I see another actor performing and I really want to work with them to understand how. I want to be near. The last film showing, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, is a special project. Phil and I grew up in New York. Credit goes to Philip for that movie. He had just won the Oscar and he could do anything. Usually, the first thing people do when they win the Oscar, is go play Batman. They cash out, they reap the casino. Phil, first thing, he called me up and said „Remember that old script Sidney Lumet wanted to make, let's make it. I can get anything greenlit now. ” And he could! So here is this 83 year old master and Phil used his power in that moment to get his final film made. and it is a great film, I am really proud of it. There is no rule. This movie you are going to see tonight (Born to Be Blue) is really personal to me, I poured a lot in it. I knew that this subject matter was something I could put into it. I spent my life around people like them. I understand the world, I wanted to play the part since I was in my twenties. 

Born to Blue , with Ethan Hawke as Chet Baker

People do not need to be blue to be artists. People like to tell themselves that. But I do think that how we navigate depression and insecurity, is a huge challenge of our life. If you look at the life of an artist, the world make it so hard for you to fulfill your dreams. But if you look at the life of artists who didn't fulfill their dreams it is usually themselves who are the biggest problem. Giving ourselves permission to succeed. Overcoming our own disappointment in our selves, I think there is something that Chet was struggling with. It is something I have some knowledge about. One of the characters in the movie is Dizzy Gillespie. And Dizzy played better than Chet, and Dizzy had a happy life, married his whole life. He helped so many jazz musicians, never came into addiction, apparently a great guy and he was every bit as talented as Chet Baker, for sure. Miles and Coltrane. To understand the Chet Baker story you have to understand how much drugs were a part of the culture and the identity of the jazz musicians. Chet's biggest hero was Charlie Parker. So he wanted to be just like him. So... Deal with the Devil.

Born to Blue , with Ethan Hawke as Chet Baker

In the end, he wished the audience to 


Have fun! Try to pretend your are stoned, if you are not already.