"I'm going to be doing a contemporary film noir written by Matt Murphy," Landau explains during an interview with FilmStew from the offices of publicist Dick Guttman. "The title changes by the hour, so right now, it's just known as the Untitled Martin Landau Project. It's got lots of twists and turns; just when you think you've figured it out, it takes you in another direction. Steven Spielberg's protege James Moll, who has done a lot of documentaries, is going to direct."
In the past few years, Landau has worked with a number of novice filmmakers under the glare of the independent lens - Andrew Chan for Ivory, Lucius Kuert for Mysteria, Daniel Davila for Harris Montgomery and Nikolas Fackler for Lovely, Still, which opens in limited release September 10th. The 82-year-old Brooklyn native says the biggest difference between the current grassroots independent film movement and his early days of doing live television in the 1950s is that in the latter case, distribution was assured.
On set with young talent Fackler
"The live television era was one of pioneering and experimentation," comments Landau. "I don't think what's going on now with independent film is pioneering. The thing that makes it difficult today is that everybody and their brother can buy a high-definition camera and make a movie. It's hard to make a good movie, on any level, so what you're getting is tons and tons of terrible movies."
Landau says that even though Lovely, Still was another project written specifically with him in mind, it's a miracle the script actually got to him after being initially handled by another agency, William Morris, and their independent film department. Over a five-hour lunch in Beverly Hills with Omaha, Nebraska based writer-director Fackler, the actor addressed his screenplay concerns.
"I liked it, but it was bumpy," Landau recalls. "Bumpy in the sense that the film had interesting problems that interested me. I told him what was wrong with the first act; there were scenes that didn't need to be there, and scenes that did need to be there to build to a certain point in the second and third acts. I said, 'If you're willing to work with me, I'll do your movie.'"
"So he did a rewrite and after that, for a couple of months, we would talk on the phone, five or six pages at a time," he continues. "Then when the screenplay was about 90% there, I said, send it to Ellen Burstyn, who was the top actress on our list to play opposite me. Several days later, Ellen called me and said, 'Marty, what the heck are we going to do in Omaha for seven weeks?'"
Still working on his career achievements
Landau recently returned from a luxury resort in Sicily's Aeolian Islands, where he was not on vacation but rather traveling alongside girlfriend Gretchen Becker on behalf of the short film Finding Grandma. Written after her mother passed away, the debut directing effort starring Landau and her son snagged an award alongside a separate Career Achievement medallion for Landau.
When asked, the busy and lively, still octogenarian says the toolkit of a method actor comes into play no more often on an independent film set than it does on that of a big-budget, mainstream effort. In order for any actor with raw talent to maintain their performance level beyond the first few takes of laughter, tears, drunkenness or any other narrative task, touchstones such as the 'Magic If' and 'Objects' training of the Actor's Studio remain key. "There's nothing as terrible as false laughter in a close-up," Landau cautions.
[Lovely, Still]
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