A loose-limbed caper comedy that lovingly mashes
Hollywood screwball conventions with Brooklyn relationship drama, Lawrence
Michael Levine’s sophomore picture, Wild Canaries, tries two things most
independent films don’t, and largely succeeds. It’s narratively complex — maybe
not Inherent Vice-level, but this mystery thriller about an engaged pair of
armchair detectives investigating a possible murder in a rent-controlled
apartment is strewn with crosses, double-crosses, disguises and clues. Even
more impressively, Wild Canaries shoots for a quality that is often a byproduct
of independent cinema but not a goal: entertainment. Inspired, says actor/writer/director
Levine, by the “Nick and Nora” Thin Man movies he watched early in his
relationship with co-star and producer (and Green director) Sophia Takal — also
his wife — Wild Canaries contains car chases, slapstick humor, shoot-outs and
plenty of skulking up and down fire escapes while wearing wide-brimmed hats.
It’s all quite charming even as the two leads hit deeper notes about the
interpersonal challenges and struggles to maintain identity within young
relationships.
Wild Canaries follows up Levine’s debut, 2010’s
independent ensemble comedy/drama, Gabi on the Roof in July, a film also
dealing, somewhat, with real estate and twenty-something anxieties. For his new
film, Levine has multiplied his budget ten-fold and surrounded himself and
Takal with name actors (Jason Ritter, Alia Shawkat, Kevin Corrigan and,
particularly good as Levine’s character’s ex and business partner, Annie
Parrisse). Still, Wild Canaries‘ $300,000 budget is a fraction of what a
mini-major would spend on a picture like this, and Levine faced recognizable
stresses when he premiered his film for both audiences and distributors at SXSW
last year. As in the film itself, there were some nail-biting moments, but
things worked out in the end. In the wide-ranging interview below, Levine and
Takal discuss many things, including complicated storylines, fundraising,
working out a shooting style with DP Mark Schwartzbard, walking away from
Austin without a deal and why you shouldn’t pack your festival premiere with
acquisitions folk. But I flick on my tape recorder mid-conversation, as we talk
about 50 Shades of Grey and Levine tells me why Wild Canaries isn’t entirely
dissimilar.
An IFC release, Wild Canaries is currently playing at
the IFC Center and is available on digital platforms like iTunes.
1.
Levine: It’s about similar themes. You’re
laughing, but it is. I mean, [Wild Canaries] is not about sex. But it is about
how when a couple’s about to get married, everything gets really, really
heightened. The decision to spend a life with somebody makes you examine them
very critically. You’re watching them [thinking], “This is the person I’m going
to spend my life with.” And you’re also trying to work out who’s going to set
the tone, who’s going to be in charge. [You’re thinking], what parts of myself
will I have to give up [to be in this marriage], and then you cling more
desperately to those parts. When I was writing Wild Canaries, those were the
kinds of things [Sophia and I] were going through because we were planning our
wedding. So it is kind of about dominance and submission — this couple is
fighting to maintain whatever parts of themselves they like but the other
person doesn’t really like.
2.
Filmmaker: How do you feel the specifics of your
relationship is reflected in these two characters you’ve created?
3.
Levine: [Our relationship] is reflected [in the
film], a lot. I feel like their’s is a dynamic that Sophia and I have. I tend
to be more circumspect, more even keeled, less enthusiastic, but also maybe
less—
4.
Takal: Devastated.
5.
Levine: Less devastated when bad things happen.
And she’s more ebullient, more far out.
6.
Takal: More fun.
7.
Levine: More wacky.
8.
Takal: Funnier. More exciting to be around.
[Laughs]
9.
Levine: I wanted to take a look at these things
and laugh about our fears of each other. My character is a parody of what I
imagine Sophia thinks of me when she’s pissed at me. And her character is a
parody of what I think she must think of me.
10.
Filmmaker: Wild Canaries, with its suspense
storyline, comedy, car chases, multiple locations, is on a different scale than
your first feature, Gaby on the Roof in July. How did you wind up coming up
with not just the story but the scale at which you worked this time?
11.
Levine: Well, I knew I was going to be making a
movie with other people’s money, and I wanted to do something that was just
more appealing to a larger audience. I thought, what genres do I like the most?
I love Hitchcock, I love old screwball comedies and Woody Allen. So, I wrote
the screenplay, and I was hoping, naively, that Sophia and I could be [the
leads] and that we’d attach actors for the other roles and I won’t have any
trouble raising the money. I thought maybe we had done enough in the indie film
world that people would let us do that, and I was totally wrong. I went to
production companies, and they were like, “Maybe we’ll give you the money, but
it’s not going to be that much. And you can’t be in the film.” Production
companies were offering us the same kind of money that we raised privately. So,
they would’ve given us all the money, and we wouldn’t have had to do all that
work to get investors, but we couldn’t have been in the film. It was like,
“We’ll give you $300,000 but you have to cast Mark Duplass and Aubrey Plaza.”
12.
Takal: A lot of the actors they were suggesting
were people who had put themselves in their own movies.
13.
Levine: I was like, “You’re only telling me to
cast Mark Duplass in my film because he put himself in his and proved himself,
which is what I wanted to do.” There were two weeks when we were wondering if
that was the right decision [to star in the film ourselves]. Production
companies kept telling us “no one is going to be in your movie with you guys as
the leads. They don’t know who you are.”
14.Takal: That’s the other
big industry thing: you’re never going to get someone more famous to play a
supporting part than the leads.
15.
Filmmaker: So when you
say you made it with other people’s money, you mean private investors?
16.
Levine: Yes. Our other
movies, we paid for. They were made for very little money, but that money was
all ours. And then, of course, we had complete control.
17.
Filmmaker: What were the budgets of the other
films?
18.
Levine: Gabi ended up
being $30,000 at the end of the day, and we made Green for, maybe, $15,000.
19.
Filmmaker: Can you say what this one was?
20.
Takal: I think it will end up at $300,000.
21.
Levine: Really? That much?
22.
Takal: We shot it for a
little under $200,000, and then, between the festival expenses and all of
that….
23.
Levine: Okay, so it was ten times as much as
Gabi. But, anyway, when we were done with those first two films, our savings
were gone. We had sold everything.
24.
Takal: We sold our CDs.
25.
Filmmaker: You sold your CDs?
26.
Takal: Yeah, on Amazon. We raised money for our
movies by selling our CDs.
27.
Filmmaker: It’s hard to sell CDs these days.
28.
Levine: It was easier, then, seven years ago.
And we had savings. Sophia got cast in a
commercial. She made $28,000 for that, so that was a big chunk of Gaby. I had
some money saved up from working as a teacher. I have this apartment that I own
that we moved out of and rented out. We lived someplace way cheaper.
29.
Takal: With a roommate.
30.
Levine: We did all sorts of crazy stuff that was
totally disruptive to our lives. So, I knew that my next film, whatever it was
going to be, I wanted to go ask other people for money.
31.
Filmmaker: How did you
find or connect to your investors?
32.
Takal: A lot of them
were people Larry had grown up with, who became bankers or entrepreneurs and
had money.
33.
Levine: Real estate
people.
34.
Takal: A few people came
through a couple of our other producers. People gave little chunks, but they
all added up.
35.
Filmmaker: And how did having these outside
investors impact your process?
36.
Levine: One way they impacted our process was
that we brought a casting director on. When we decided to be [the leads], that
meant that in order to go to these supporters of Larry’s and show that we were
doing something different, we had to approach more recognizable actors [for the
supporting parts] — actors we thought were really good and who were on TV.
These investors had nothing to do with film, but they watched TV. That’s
something I found really interesting: the idea of who is recognizable is so
different for each investor.
37.
Filmmaker: I think the charm of the film is that
you guys are in it.
38.
Levine: That’s what I thought.
39.
Filmmaker: The movie feels personal because of
that. If you weren’t in it, I think the distance between the form of the film
and your own personal themes might have been too much.
40.
Levine: It might’ve ended up being a film that
was more popular.
41.
Filmmaker: I’m not sure it would have been.
That’s what I’m saying.
42.
Levine: I’m not either. And that was my argument
at the beginning: it’s not going to be special if we’re not in it. The whole
thing is about us. If we had Jake Johnson and Anna Kendrick playing our parts,
maybe it would’ve played Sundance and maybe somebody would’ve bought it
[there], but I wouldn’t have been happy with that film because I wrote it for
Sophia and me to do. We were lying in bed, watching
The Thin Man, and I was just like, “We should do a movie like this.”
43.
Filmmaker: I think you guys do a good job of
pulling off screwball comedy, which is hard. What were the challenges of
hitting those rhythms, those beats, that timing?
44.
Takal: I thought it was really difficult.
[Larry] was always telling me to talk faster and to keep my eyes wide open when
I was scared, and I just felt like I was being a bad actor. I was really
attached to the idea that my strength as an actor is that I’m really natural,
and that I’m doing a good job when I really feel it. But holding a [fake] dead
person’s head and acting in this very theatrical way, that was very, very
difficult for me. I ended up getting really frustrated with myself, with having
to do so many takes. And the notes I was getting from Larry, they weren’t about
actions, about the scenes. They were like, “You need to open your eyes way
wider. You need to look really scared.” I was so resistant to these notes, but
then, when I was watching the footage, I saw what [he was doing].
45.
Levine: Pretty much every time we did coverage
of Sophia, I would be like, “Okay, now do one that you think is the wildest,
most horrible, most exaggerated, worst acting that you could ever do.” And
then, she would do it, and that would be the one we would use. Her idea of the
most terrible overacting worked for the kind of life and death comedic
situations we were in.
46.
Filmmaker: I was struck by the amount of
physical humor in the film, which, Larry, is something I don’t associate with
your work as an actor.
47.
Levine: I really enjoy that kind of acting, and
I’ve had a lot of stage improv experience. I was very, very serious about
improv comedy for about two years. I did a lot of shows. When you’re on stage
in that improv context, if you don’t really commit to something — if, the
audience feels that you’re joking or half-assing or putting quotes around
something — it’s not funny anymore. The audience doesn’t laugh, which is a
mortifying, humiliating feeling. But, if you commit, they start to feel the
energy and laugh. So, I just brought that [experience] to the movie.
48.
Filmmaker: What about the issue of narrative
complexity? Wild Canaries has a much denser plot than many independent films.
There’s a point in the film where you could have been done with the narrative
material you had, but then in the third act you take it even further.
49.
Levine: Handling the complexity of the story and
the suspense was the thing I was most concerned with. It’s difficult to do a
mystery. If you don’t reveal things in a very specific way, the audience will
feel like you either tipped them off too much or not enough. You have to make
things clear for people so that they know what’s being talked about. And
[audiences] don’t absorb things just by hearing — you have to show them.
50.
Filmmaker: What types of things were you worried
audiences would be confused by?
51.
Levine: In test
screenings, it took a long time for people to understand that everybody lived
in the same building, which totally surprised me because [as a director] you know
everything. It’s very hard to put yourself in the position of an audience member
who knows nothing. People would struggle to understand that Kevin’s character
wasn’t the landlord of the building, which to me was perfectly obvious. So,
we had to do all this stuff in post, like adding ADR and doing a reshoot just
to establish very basic things that seemed to be super fundamental.
52.
Takal: But also, I thought that we made the
mystery a little overly complex, on purpose, almost as if we were poking fun
[at the genre]. We’ve been reading a lot of Hammett, where you finish the book
and you don’t really understand the mystery. And I thought that’s what we were
doing.
53.
Levine: It was. It’s like a joke about how these
movies traditionally leave you with your head spinning. I wanted everybody to
be with it and then to [be thrown] a bit of a confusing twist at the end that
would leave them feeling a little dizzy. But, if they think about it for a
second, it all makes sense, which it does. I mean, it’s not like I don’t know what’s
going on, and it’s not like the information isn’t there in the movie. It’s just
that it comes at you really fast.
54.
Filmmaker: Tell me about how you worked with
your DP.
55.
Levine: Aside from Sophia, the person I worked
with the most was Mark
[Schwartzbard, the DP]. He was the most invested person in the film
besides the two of us. Maybe that’s just because of the way he is. He really
cared about the film and cared about his work.
56.
Takal: Mark is very much like a DP/producer. He
talked to me a lot about logistical concerns like crew size, and not just about
his own crew, and not in a way that felt bad, but in a way that felt really
helpful. Because he has experience working on bigger movies, not only as a DP,
but as an AC, he had a lot of suggestions for how to arrange the production
that I found it really helpful.
57.
Levine: Because I was acting in the film, and
because I really wanted to do something that was suspenseful, I knew that the
camera was going to be way more important than it was in the previous stuff we
had done. Mark came out about three and a half weeks before we started
shooting, and we would get together almost every day, like a normal work day,
eight hours. Oftentimes, we would be in the locations: my roof, my apartment,
my hallway and the streets near our house make up the majority of where we shot
the film. So, we were able to scout the locations and think about logistical
concerns and shot list. We were able to storyboard a lot of the action and
suspense stuff. I wanted to be prepared because I knew that when I got on set,
I wanted to basically give the camera department to Mark and not micromanage
him at all. I had enough on my plate with my performance, the other actors and
the other department heads. So we decided very specifically how to shoot this
movie beforehand.
58.
Filmmaker: As compared to Gabi, were there
certain rules of coverage you adopted due to the more complicated storyline?
59.
Levine: Well, we just had so many more tools
this time. We had a Steadicam and a dolly.
60.
Takal: We had a zoom lens.
61.
Levine: We had a zoom lens, which we used a lot.
So, there were fewer limitations, and we were trying to get the most out the
tools that we had, especially during the suspense sequences.
62.
Takal: Gabi was just on a tripod, moving around.
63.
Levine: Gabi had two or three setups per scene —
basically a roving tripod head.
64.
Takal: I remember you sitting there one night
watching Stolen Kisses and talking about trying to do things in [Wild Canaries]
in as few shots as possible. But then, once you got on set, you realized that
wasn’t right for comedy. I remember you would always add shots as the day went
by. You’d always be like, “We need this insert shot of this thing and it’s not
going to cut together unless we have it.”
65.
Levine: I do that on every movie. I did that on
Gaby, too. I was [originally] like, “We’re just going to play out these long,
fluid, roving tripod shots.” And then there are jump cuts all over the movie.
With this one, I was like, “Yeah, we’ll try and do amazing masters and that
way, we won’t need this other coverage.” And then when I was watching it
actually happen, I was like, “It’s not going to be funny enough.” A lot of
scenes that were supposed to be done in one shot ended up being 12.
66.
Filmmaker: What about all the zooms, which
harken back not to ’30s screwballs but to ’60s and ’70s films by Altman,
Lester, Roeg. The zoom seems to be having a resurgence in independent films
today.
67.
Levine: I was excited about using them. I think
[that resurgence] might have to do with an appreciation for Altman that people
are having. We were also watching a lot of 1970s suspense and action films,
like The French Connection, Bullit and The Getaway, and they all had a lot of
zooms. I thought it would be funny to see Sophia and I running around in
footage like you’d see in The French Connection.
68.
Filmmaker: What was the hardest part of the
production?
69.
Levine: It wasn’t that hard, right?
70.
Takal: I found it really difficult.
71.
Levine: Emotionally.
72.
Takal: [Laughs] I had a really hard time letting
go. We brought on a few people to lighten our load so we could focus on
performing, but I found it really hard to let go.
73.
Filmmaker: Because you were producing too.
74.
Takal: Because I was producing. It was also the
biggest crew we’d worked with — there were 30 people, and sometimes, things
weren’t properly communicated to everyone, and that was really frustrating.
There were a lot of production, logistical things that were really difficult
for me, and I think it might have been because I have a lot of anxiety, and I
have a hard time letting go. For example, I would notice that the PAs weren’t
giving people water when [the crew was] in the middle of working, so I would do
that. And then, rather than asking the PAs to do it, I’d be grouchy that I was
doing it. And then I would come to Larry with my anxiety, and he would be like,
“I don’t want to deal with your anxiety.”
75.
Levine: She’s much more sensitive, observant,
and competent than I am. She’s aware of things — problems with production —
that I am just not even perceiving. She’s very sensitive to people’s vibes. We
each have nicknames for each other, and my nickname is “Space,” because a lot
of times I’m just out there on my own trip. Sometimes it really serves me
because I’ll just have one thing to do, which is act in this movie. Because I’d
done all that prep work with Mark, I was basically acting and paying attention
to other people’s performances, and that was it. I’m just able to
compartmentalize a little bit better.
76.
Filmmaker: So, Larry, for you, the split between
acting and directing wasn’t a problem?
77.
Levine: My only problem with this shoot was that
when you’re an actor in the movie, some people almost feel like the movie has
no director. I don’t like to micromanage people on set. I only talk to the
actors if they need something because I feel that they’re competent and know
what they’re doing. If they have an issue, I’m very prepared to answer.
78.
Takal: And there were some nights when there
were logistical issues, and all of a sudden the AD was chiming in, the DP was
chiming in, and the actors are chiming in, and the script supervisor….
79.
Levine: Yeah, and then I’d pop out of the scene
and be like, “Guys. This is what we’re doing!”
80.
Filmmaker: Was it difficult to adapt your way of
working from Gaby and Green to this larger scale — with crew members who were
used to even bigger budgets than what you were working with here?
81.
Takal: A lot of the crew had made tiny movies before,
and they were great. But there were some people on the crew who didn’t have as
much experience making small movies, and their idea of the way things are
supposed to be done really conflicted [with ours]. I feel like there were days
when the tone of the set was off because they thought we didn’t know what we
were doing but it was actually just that we have a way that works for us. But
then, on days like the ones with the car stunts, where we had to block off
entire streets or handle of a bunch of PAs, it was really helpful to have those
people.
82.
Levine: I just feel like people [on film sets]
complain, and you felt like this was your production and maybe you took it
personally since you were at the top of the food chain in terms of the
production. And you’re a young woman, too, and some of these people were older
men who were not necessarily the most respectful.
83.
Takal: Yeah, I guess. I wanted everything to be
cool. I wanted everyone to be happy. I forgot that, no matter what, they’ll
complain.
84.
Levine: I actually think they were happy. I
think you did a great job.
85.
Takal: Yeah, there was just a little bit more
chaos than I would’ve liked, sometimes. Everyone was
crammed outside in our hallway while we were shooting inside. They didn’t have
space. And people were on their cell phones a lot, sending Snapchats to
each other, or being in our eyeline while we were acting. Stuff like that
bothered me. [Accurate.]
86.
Filmmaker: That’s Film
Set Etiquette 101: Get out of the actor’s eyeline.
87.
Levine: I don’t even notice those kinds of
things. I feel like if people aren’t paying attention, the more free I can be.
88.
Takal: But I felt like there was something wrong
that I was paying so much attention, and I didn’t have anyone to bring my
anxiety to. I kept asking Larry to take care of things for me because I don’t
like confronting people. I’d be like, “It’s really annoying that this guy’s
texting on his phone. Tell him not to.” And Larry would be like, “You tell him
not to, you’re the producer.”
89.
Levine: I’d be like, “I don’t give a shit what
he’s doing.” So it was kind of an interesting dynamic. I think we both had a point.
90.
Takal: I learned a lot. The next time, I’ll be
comfortable being more of a boss. And if I don’t think certain people are
helping us make the movie, I won’t be afraid to tell them to go away.
91.
Levine: The bottom line is that the most
challenging part of the shoot was how much we took on. She was the lead
producer of the movie, the one with the most answers, and she was the star of
the movie, so it was a lot. And I was directing and acting, and that was a lot,
and I had to conserve my energy, which is why I was reluctant to take on the
anxiety that she had.
92.
Filmmaker: So let’s cut to the film being
finished. You premiered it at SXSW, and you went there with certain
expectations based on making a more commercial film. Or, at least, you were
conscious of the fact you had investors to try and repay. Now, a year later,
how do you think it went? Were your expectations met?
93.
Levine: I have one big regret, and one that I
would really caution other filmmakers to take seriously, and that is, if you’re
lucky enough to play at a big festival, pay attention to the audience at your
premiere. Our premiere was 90 percent industry, and that ended up hurting us
because it was a very jaded audience who was doing a job. Out on the street,
there was a line around the block of fans [who couldn’t get in] and they just
wanted to see the first narrative competition film play at South By. It was an
unruly situation, but I blame myself.
94.
Takal: I think it’s a South By particular thing,
because they don’t have press and industry screenings, and that’s really cool,
but the sales reps and publicists do feel some pressure.
95.
Filmmaker: And the rooms at the Alamo Ritz are
small. I wasn’t at the first screening; I saw it at the Rollins Theater.
96.
Takal: That was a good screening. People were
laughing. But no one seemed to realize [at that first screening] that everyone
[there] was industry. It just seemed like a weak premiere, which shook our
confidence a lot.
97.
Levine: It shook our confidence, and I think it
also had negative consequences for selling the film because all of those people
didn’t have a real gauge of how the movie was going to do [with a regular
audience], and nobody recommended it to their companies to watch. Cinetic had
to fight to get [IFC’s] Jonathan Sehring to watch the movie [after the
festival].
98.
Filmmaker: What’s the solution, though? You want
buyers to get in, and, as you say, SXSW doesn’t have press and industry
screenings.
99.
Levine: I feel like I should’ve been more
perceptive and watched [the line] and said, “Do we need 10 people from the
Weinstein Company when the Weinstein Company is not going to buy this movie?
Can we have just four? Or one? We just needed one person from IFC, one from
Oscilloscope and the rest fans. Cinetic was doing their job getting industry in
there. Brigade was doing their job getting press in there. But, whoever was
running the theater was maybe inexperienced and got a little steamrolled so no
fans got in. But, like I said, it was on me. I should have paid more attention
and made sure fans were getting in.
100.
Filmmaker: What were your thoughts when you
returned to New York, then?
101.
Levine: Well, I was hearing things from people
that if it didn’t sell out of South By, it’s not going to. So, I basically
prepared myself for the worst, that even though I had asked all these people
for money and made all these decisions like casting known people and making a
comedy, that I had made no career advancement from Gaby. It was just going to
be another movie that had a marginal sort of release. I had to accept that, and
it was very humbling, and it made me more grateful when this [IFC deal]
happened because I had already accepted that I was a total failure. You know, when you make a film, you get obsessed with it,
and you almost act like what happens to it is the exact same thing as what’s
happening to you. Like, my movie’s getting passed on, so I’m a loser. I had to
learn how to separate myself from what I did and be like, “I’m all right. I’ve
got a great wife. I’ve got a loving family. I have all these blessings. Just
because the movie didn’t do well, that doesn’t mean that I’m a complete
nonentity.”
102.
Filmmaker: But it all worked out in the end.
103.
Levine: I am happy with what happened to the
film. I’m thrilled that it’s coming out on IFC. We ended up getting what we
wanted out of the film. We wanted to play better festivals, we wanted to find
more of an audience, and we wanted to have the movie distributed by a really
good company, and all of those things happened.
104.
Takal: It just took a little longer than you
thought.
105.
Levine: It took longer.
106.
Filmmaker: Going forward both as individuals and
as a filmmaking couple, where have you landed after this movie?
107.
Takal: Well, with my new movie, we tried to cast
famous people.
108.
Levine: We had no choice, really.
109.
Takal: Yeah, I guess.
110.
Levine: Or we could’ve done an $800 movie.
111.
Takal: I’m really glad I didn’t act in that
movie. But, I really want to act in another movie, and I want to direct myself
in some other thing. But, right now, I think the idea is just maybe thinking
about things less as immediate gratification — like, “I want to make a movie
that I’m in because I feel anxious about time passing” — and more [accept that]
every project is a different thing, and that everyone’s path is different. I
don’t need to constantly be comparing myself to other people and their
processes, or how quickly they are producing things.
112.
Levine: I’m very interested in working with
Sophia again. I’m interested in directing her in a movie I’m not in. And, I’m
interested in acting with her in stuff again, and I’m also interested in doing
something that neither of us are in.
113.
Takal: I think it’d be fun to just produce
another movie.
114.
Levine: Every time I do a film, it’s a reaction
to the last one. So, okay, I did a really funny movie, I’d love to do a dark
thriller now, something like Claude Chabrol.
115.
Takal: But also, he has a bigger script.
116.
Levine: Oh, right, I always forget about that.
It’s so much bigger. It’s one of those where it’s like out of our hands.
117.
Takal: We also keep talking about not wanting to
get sucked into some sort of industry thing, where we’re waiting for permission
to make a movie. In general, we always want to have something we can
make for no money if we have to.
118.
Levine: I think both of us have lost a lot of time fretting about whether
our movie’s going to get made, and that anxiety can eat you up and make you
unproductive. We’re not likely to go down that road again. If something’s going
to happen, it’s going to happen, but in the meantime, we’re just going to keep
working.
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