Sayles On Sayles

Haastattelumonografia anerikkalaisen indie-elokuvan merkittävästä ohjaajasta ja käsikirjoittajasta. Faber and Faber 1998, 277 sivua. Ennen indie-draamoja Sayles oli hanttikäsikirjoittaja Roger Cormanille ja muille: hänen tuotantoaan ovat mm. Piranha, Howling ja Battle Beyond the Stars

John Sayles is a filmmaker of many faces: the writer/director of authentically independent films rooted in good talk, character study and social reflection (The Return of the Secaucus Seven, Baby, It's You, Brother from Another Planet, Matewan, and Passion Fish). He has also crafted vibrant, sardonic projects for Roger Corman (Piranha, Alligator and The Lady in Red), as well as working as a screenwriter-for-hire (The Hollowing, Apollo 13).

Recent films such as City of Hope and Lone Star exhibit his great gifts as he follows his characters' complex journeys towards self-honesty and personal truth.

Twice nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, he has also written novels, short stories, a book on low-budget film-making, and created the television series Shannon's Deal.

In Sayles on Sayles, Gavin Smith takes Sayles step by step through the trajectory of his career and film-making practice, and in the process illuminates the work of the one of the truly authentic US independent film-makers.

If the U.S. were to boast one great independent film director, he would be John Sayles. Since 1979, more than 10 years before the new wave of Indie pictures challenged the conventions of Hollywood moviemaking, Sayles has been creating magnificent and utterly original films. Even more remarkably, they differ radically from one another. Who could guess that the director of The Return of the Secaucus Seven and Baby It's You could turn around and make The Brother from Another Planet, that the man behind the fabulous Secret of Roan Inish was capable also of the socially conscious Matewan, City of Hope, and Lone Star?

This interview book, another in Faber and Faber's remarkable series devoted to filmmakers on their work, is published to coincide with the release of Men with Guns, Sayles's film for 1998. The director speaks about the way he works ("I wrote The Brother from Another Planet in about a week."), the themes of his films ("There is a fantasy children's movie in The Secret of Roan Inish, but finally there is also this realistic core to it."), and his political sensibilities