Day four of the Memphis International Film Festival 4 began with a phone call from “Kwik Stop” director Michael Gilio. He’s heading for the airport. I guess I’ll have to interview him by phone. I’ve overslept. I had hoped to hook up with several filmmakers I’d met this weekend, but fate would have it otherwise. Instead, I stumbled upon a young man who amazed me with his talent, vision and sense of history. Jeffrey Goodman is someone we will all hear from in the future, if there is any justice in the world.

A MATTER OF PRINCIPAL

After a look-see at the Malco’s Studio on the Square, I headed south to the Congo Theater to see if anyone was still in town. There were a number of films still scheduled to be shown before the Festival closed at 6 PM. I walked into the theater just as a cool little Film Noir short began.

“A Matter of Principal” is a compact short written by Max Allan Collins, author of “Road to Perdition.” “Principal” opens in a mountain resort country store. Quarry (William Makozak) is a retired hitman with insomnia. Quarry is doing some midnight shopping when he sees a person from his past. Quarry’s sleep deprived mind races with anxiety as he wonders if someone has discovered his hide out. Is there a hit out on him? Quarry follows the man back to a cabin where he stumbles onto a kidnapping. Quarry is in no danger. Can’t say the same thing for the other guys.

About 17 minutes into “A Matter of Principal” the title card “A FILM BY JEFFREY GOODMAN” appears. “All right!” I thought. For a split second I thought that “A Matter of Principal” was going to be a feature length film. The placement of the Title Card hooked me. I was wrong. Instead, the titles ran over the film’s ironic and completely satisfying ending. “Damn, I want more of this,” was my next thought.

Shot on film, “A Matter of Principal” is a well-directed short which draws on the great classics of Film Noir and the vibrant freshness of the French New Wave. I was reminded of Jacques Tourneur’s “Out of the Past.” “Principal” is sexy, ironic, darkly funny, well acted, written and directed. “Somebody needs to bank roll this guy!” was my final thought as I walked out of the theater.

THE PASSION OF JEFFREY GOODMAN

I made a beeline to Lisa Bobal to find out if the director was around. I got lucky. Jeffrey Goodman was speaking to a number of well wishers. I waited my turn. After the crowd cleared, Jeffery and I went outside to talk. For the first time during the entire weekend, I wished I had brought a tape recorder. I have been able to develop a great short-term memory through my law school and courtroom training. Two minutes into my conversation with Jeffrey Goodman, I realized that I had made a huge mistake not bringing a tape recorder. I write much better than I talk. Jeffrey Goodman talks much better than most folks write! I walked away from my conversation with Mr. Goodman very optimistic about the future of filmmaking.

Goodman hails from Shreveport Louisiana. He attended Washington University in St. Louis majoring in French. He spent his junior year in Caen, Normandy. “That’s when I saw my first films by Godard and discovered the rich history of cinema. That year, I saw my first Bresson, my first Vigo, my first Hawks, my first Lubitsch, and my first two great film noirs: “Kiss Me Deadly” and “The Big Heat.” Goodman was hooked. He returned to St. Louis for his senior year where he began a French Film series and landed a Fulbright teaching fellowship for the following year. Before taking that job, he headed back to Paris for the summer.

In Paris, Goodman interned at Éclair, one of the oldest French film labs, as a color timer. He returned to America and began teaching. He spent another summer working on a theater production of “Funny Girl” as an assistant director. In 1998 it was off to LA where Goodman spent two years in freelance production of commercials and music videos. During that time, he worked as a production assistant, loader and camera assistant. “I've made six short films and am now ready to make my first feature.” I’m ready to see Goodman’s first feature. Hopefully, it shouldn’t be long.

I told Jeffrey that I got excited when the “A Film By Jeffrey Goodman” title card came on the screen…that I thought a feature was about to start. Turns out that Goodman and writer Max Allan Collins hope to turn “A Matter of Principal” into a feature. Goodman spent two years convincing Collins that the short story would make a great movie, and that Goodman was the man to do it. Collins finally said yes and wrote the script. The result convinced both Goodman and Collins that this was something that would make a great feature.

JG: “Max is writing the script. With the Oscar nominations for “Road to Perdition,” the time is right to strike. I have a contract with Collins attaching me to the project. If the script sells, I’m going to direct. This could turn into a franchise. There are five books featuring Quarry.”

EI: Who do you have in mind to play the part? (I wrote down a name to see if my vision was the same as his.)

JG: I have three guys in mind. I’ve always loved Chris Cooper’s work. I think Clive Owen, the driver in the BMW films would be great. My other choice would be Dennis Quaid. He was outstanding in “Far From Heaven.”

I show Goodman my guess: Ed Harris.

JG: He would be great also. Wonderful actor.

Being a horror movie fan, I ask if the character’s name: Quarry has anything to do with 70’s horror icon Robert Quarry.

JG: The name Quarry refers to all the hitman's victims. He's not the prey, the rest of the world is.

Mr. Goodman and I talk about things in general. I mention the obituary column I write at EI, that I began it when Pauline Kael died.

JG: She had such passion for film. I was in contact with her people toward the end of her life. I wanted to translate her books into French. I never got to meet her, but her manager said she was very interested in the idea. Of course, she was very ill, in the last stages of her Parkinson’s Disease, so nothing ever came from it. I’d still love to do it though. Who writes reviews like that now? No one. Critics have no outlook. They aren’t out to shape anything. Pauline did. She was out to push the medium as much as the filmmaker.

EI: I have to agree with you on that. Tell me a little more about your experiences in France. It seems to have brought your love of film to life.

JG: I got into film because of the New Wave. I was reluctant because I’m not tech-oriented. Godard said you don’t need film school, you just need experiences. In France I joined several Cine-Clubs. You would go to the movies and then spend hours talking about the film. Cine-clubs were very formative for me, as it was the first time I ever heard people debate movies. I was so enamored by the idea that I actually came back to America for my senior year of college and ran a French film series on campus. And, it's still one of my dreams to start an active cine-club in LA or wherever I end up. A truly engaged arthouse---good movies, intelligent conversation, passion. It's hard to find this sort of thing in America while in France, they're all over the place.

Yes, the French New Wave inspired me because it was the first movement to say, "it's OK not to be too technical. You don't have to go to school to be a director. To make movies, all you have to do is watch them carefully."

Plus, the people who were making movies in the early nineties, the James Cameron-types, their passion for me was hard to understand. It's hard for me to get excited about a new gadget or device. But, I could relate to people like Godard, raving about a new direction for the medium.

Along these lines, I think it's important as an American filmmaker, to understand the history of our cinema. I aspire to be a progressive filmmaker, not only to comment on my time, but also to move the medium forward. I think (and it's only my humble opinion) that an artist has two responsibilities: to his world and to his craft.

The only way I think somebody can move the craft forward (or in other words, break the rules) is to begin by knowing all the rules. Tarantino is aware of his place in history. He refers to Hawks, Lubitsch and others. Kevin Smith, Paul Thomas Anderson and others never refer to Fritz Lang or Lubitsch. Because Tarantino has a grasp of film history, he can be aware of what he is doing within the craft and its relationship to the developments that came before it. Most other American filmmakers cannot possibly make these sort of advances.

And, I think, if you look at “Pulp Fiction,” you see a logical new direction for the cinema. One that takes Godard's ironic sense and adds to it a dose of American auteurism that came out of the American New Wave with Malick, Scorsese, DePalma and Altman for example. It's history building on itself. But, I also believe, as much as it was a new direction, it was also a dead end, or the end of the line. After “Pulp Fiction,” you couldn't get any more graphic, more stylish, or more ironic. Ordered chaos had reached its peak, and the only way forward was backwards.

I believe that art and the world move in cycles. Order/chaos, or in other words, the society/individual. I think “Pulp Fiction” signaled the "chaotic" threshold for cinema, and that it was time to put a little order back in the craft. Order, for me, means a strong narrative structure, less graphic sex and violence, characters whose lives matter, a sense of narrative space, and editing and camera movements that flow and are steady. This is the direction in which I'm trying to take my work. The New Wave was about more style and less about story. I’m looking for strong stories, like Hitchcock and Hawks. I want to combine that with what the French rejected.

I don't think that "we've lost the idea of director as artist." Rather, I think the most talented artist-directors in this country have simply lost their way. They're not offering up any new directions. They don't know where to go, it seems, except more and more into their own style. That's how we end up with a “Punch-Drunk Love,” “The Man Who Wasn’t There,” Spike Lee's work of the last ten years, or even though I love David Lynch, “Lost Highway.”

I think it's important to understand that progress isn't always doing something NEW. It can also mean an improvement. And for me, it means looking back and trying to reverse the cycle---slow things down and to make life once again meaningful.

Mr. Goodman is approached by several other filmmakers who want to talk to him about his work. It is almost 2 PM. My conversation with Jeffrey Goodman has sparked me. Godard’s New Wave classic, “Breathless” is about to start at the Studio on the Square. I decide to do something purely selfish: go see a movie and the hell with interviews. I couldn’t top the one I just had.

Anyone interested in contacting Mr. Goodman by e-mail to discuss his ideas may CLICK HERE. Jeffrey loves to talk about film and would love to talk with you.

END OF THE DAY

I headed back to the Congo Theater following “Breathless.” Lisa Bobal and Malcolm Pratt of the Memphis Film Forum were lazing exhausted in the lobby. It was a good sort of tired. Lisa said she didn’t have the final figures yet, but that this year’s festival was bigger than the prior year. I got the impression that everyone was ready to hibernate for a while. A year or planning resulted in a wonderful, four-day celebration of the past, present and future of film. See ya next year!

MIFF4 Intro
MIFF4 DAY ONE
MIFF4 DAY TWO
MIFF4 DAY THREE
MIFF4 DAY FOUR

Rusty White