The Pitters' Place

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainmen ... ce/472107/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks for linking. I've read a few other articles on this but this one puts it together well.

IIRC though, the director sued(?) the studios for apparently diverting from her original vision, so I'm not sure if she approves of the final film.

Coates is such a great writer. He has a way of breaking shit down so precisely...saying exactly what we feel but couldn't quite articulate. He's a goddamn surgeon with words.

Yeah.

I also didn't realise that Zoe declined the role for a year and other more appropriate actresses had also turned it down. It's still not right, but it's not as bad as when it was presented as though she snapped up the role because she had the hubris to think she was the best for it. Her words about taking the job because she wanted this story to be told make more sense in that light, if she thought it was the only way the movie would get made.

Yeah. I didn't realize that either. However, she was still dismissive of the public(including her family) saying they thought the casting was disrespectful. How are you gonna try to make a biopic to "honor" someone and not consult with their family?

The family was against the whole film from the start, not just the casting. So I don't know how the filmmakers even thought it was a good idea to go ahead. But given the internal conflicts between even the director and studios, I don't think there was much agreement going on behind the scenes, and who knows how messed up it might have been. Maybe there had been contracts signed and obligations to various financiers and all sorts of red tape.

I've meanwhile grown sceptical of celebrity quotes in interviews, because from running a Keanu fansite I've seen how often context gets left out or distorted (e.g. repeating a celebrity quoting or satirizing someone as their own words, leaving out such crucial phrases as "I'm kidding", providing their answers as answers to wholly different questions, or not providing the full quote that might affect its overall meaning.) So while for convenience I assume that they did in fact say those things, it's with the awareness that celebrity journalism also edits things for maximum drama.

Do you have the quote where she dismissed the family's concerns? IIRC it was one where her answer didn't seem suited to the question, talking about how she'd thought it was a story worth telling because Nina meant a lot to her, which might have been from another part of the interview, but it's been a while since I read that.

I don't have a quote. Is her continuing to make the film after hearing the issues not dismissive enough?

Ah, okay.