Anatomy of Production

The movie business; a unique drug that gets under your skin, permeates your spirit and often usurps your soul.

Where else can you erect the sacred wall of work, block out the rest of the world, have an instant family - with all the ups and downs that come with shared jeopardy and instant intimacy - and have the opportunity to see the world, eat and live well and be creative?

Which brings us to The Deal, a film by filmmakers about filmmaking.I can attest to the seductive and addicting lure of filmmaking. I have regrettably missed much of the childhoods of two of my three children because I was traveling, working and consumed by the film industry. When my wife was pregnant with our third she had to call me in L.A. and say “My water has broken. Get on a the red-eye…now!” Although I made it to New York in time for the delivery, I was back on a plane two days later, leaving my wife, two young children and the newborn. The show must go on.

The Deal is about personal redemption and restored integrity, about ultimately choosing something for a right rather than a wrong reason. Recently, I have given up the adrenaline rush of 24/7 crisis management to teach at Emerson College. I no longer want to be the matador in the ring who risks his life, sanity and serenity to entertain certain injury. There is great satisfaction in training the next generation of filmmakers, for whom the seductive addiction (and redemptive glory) has just begun. I am like a retired matador who sits in the stands, hollering down, “Watch out for that bull! Here, look at my scars! Let me teach you how to avoid getting gored!”

Charlie (William H. Macy) has been gored so often that he is suicidal.. He is as down and out as we all become at some time in our free-lance careers. He becomes so desperate to make a movie that he lies, manipulates, and schemes to produce a script he hasn’t even read. He distorts his nephew’s sincere screenplay about Disraeli into an action vehicle for an African-America star who recently converted to Judaism (LL Cool J) and is looking for material with Jewish content. Clearly, this is an extreme case of overt rationalization, where any means to an end is acceptable.

But this is not a film about the Jewish condition, even though the first laugh comes late in the film during the destruction of a temple. For Charlie, his redemption comes in the form of Deidre (Meg Ryan), the kidnapping of his lead actor, and the decision to make the film as originally written even if it means hiding the production from the studio. Moviemaking then becomes a labor of love rather than a get-rich-quick scheme that plays into the jaded hands of the industry.

Just as it takes no longer to walk onto a set and choose a bad angle as a good one, it takes no longer than a moment to choose material that can illuminate the human condition, rather than to degrade it. In The Deal William H. Macy and his directing partner Stephen Schacter have made a film where the main character finds a way to redeem himself and find integrity, as does the film itself.