January 18, 2004
By Karine Cohen and Ron Dicker, Special to The Courant
New York - When some of your best film credits take on numerals at the end,
you'd better dig deep if you want artistic credibility. Neve Campbell, of
"Scream" and its sequels 2 and 3, turned to famed auteur Robert Altman
to realize her long-planned ballet movie, "The
Company."
Altman agreed to do the film - a loose narrative that threads
through the real Joffrey Ballet Company - but would not defer to her, even
though she was the creator, producer and lead actress. On the first day of
production, he put Campbell in her place as the dancers gathered round.
"You're one of them," he said he told Campbell,
pointing to the corps, "and I'm me. So go out and sit on the floor with
them." Altman prohibited Campbell from star touches such as a trailer,
makeup artist and an assistant "to bring you juice."
"It validated what we were doing, cause she was one of
them," he said.
Still, this was Campbell's baby and Altman adopted it, points
made clear as they touted their collaboration in an interview at a Central Park
hotel last week. The film began its staggered release on Christmas Day,
culminating a dream that has been seven years in the making for Campbell.
She performed with the National Ballet School of Canada until
age 14 and continued to harbor hopes of joining an elite company. Then
television came calling when she was 20. She played Julia Salinger on the hit
series "Party of Five" (1994 through 2000), about an orphaned family
growing up fast.
But she never gave up her dance aspirations. As her celebrity
status soared, she began to shop her idea for a ballet movie. A stingy climate
for strong female roles after a threatened actors' strike and the Sept. 11
attacks accelerated her resolve.
"I'd rather go out and make things that mean something
to me than sit back and read a lot of bad scripts," she said.
How about no script? Barbara Turner ("Pollock")
made a draft of "The Company" that Altman, an inveterate improviser,
promptly threw to the wind except for stretches involving Malcolm McDowell, who
plays the company director.
One story that emerges is Campbell's relationship with a sous
chef, played by James Franco ("Spider-Man"). But nothing, including
the dance pieces, is tied up in a neat package.
"I wanted to look under the rocks, see if there was
maggots or a piece of gold there," Altman said. "I wasn't trying to
make great dance or to criticize the dance. That's somebody else's
problem."
Despite a lack of creature comforts, "The Company"
was not without perks for Campbell. She reportedly took a $5 million salary, her
biggest payday for a film. And she got to perform with elite dancers and have it
recorded for a much wider audience than would usually see ballet.
"I actually got to choose the pieces I wanted to be in
and the choreographers I wanted to work with," she said. "It's a
dancer's dream."
Campbell has been conspicuously absent from high-profile
films the past few years. And Altman, despite a fifth Oscar nomination for best
director for "Gosford Park" (2001), said with a spike of sarcasm,
"None of the major studios called and said, `Here, do "Cold
Mountain" for us.'"
They seemed a good fit, the former television darling
reinventing herself as an actress-auteur and the auteur who always was an
auteur.
Altman bragged that he has not been without a movie for 40
years, and said retirement will probably be death if he has any say. Campbell
said Altman is the best creator of worlds, and Altman, after some convincing
from Campbell, realized he needed a world he had yet to explore.
He came away with conflicted admiration for dance. "It
makes me melancholy," he said. "I have such a feeling for these
dancers. By 18 they walk like a duck. The social arena they conduct their lives
in is very narrow."
Campbell had her own problems re-entering her old life. She
worked the entire movie with a cracked rib, courtesy of a practice partner who
lifted her by her sternum. The healed wound calcified, so she carried the pain
into her next project, "When Will I Be Loved?", a James Toback project
shot in 12 days off a 35-page script. She also will appear with Christian Slater
in "Churchill: The Hollywood Years" and "Blind Horizon" with
Val Kilmer.
Altman is already planning a Cain and Abel story set against
the New York art world for his next film, "Paint," starring Franco and
Salma Hayek.
© 2004 Courant
Archived 2004-08 by Alex D. Thrawn for www.MalcolmMcDowell.net