Director Stephan Elliott scored a quirky smash with his 1994 comedy “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.”
The movie business hasn’t been kind to him since then. His 1999 film “Eye of the Beholder” “bankrupted” him, he says.
But that was nothing compared to the 2004 skiing accident which nearly killed him.
The brush with death put his film woes in perspective.
“After learning how to walk again I said, ‘I can get through anything,“ Elliott told WWTW. “Now, I have a real sense of urgency. I move very, very fast. I‘m not frightened of cracking the whip now.”
“Easy Virtue,” his first film made since the accident, found him in familiar territory. Promises were made – and not kept, he says.
“We had no time, no money,” he says, adding all the actors didn’t arrive on the set until the ninth day of shooting. “Here we go again.”
But the joy of making movies made up for the usual complications. He recalls shooting the film‘s fox hunt scene, he says, “and a little smile crept over my face. This is really cool.”
The struggle to make films today extends to the marketing of the finished product.
“Easy Virtue” co-screenwriter Sheridan Jobbins says they had little control over how the film was disseminated.
“The blurb, the taglines. It’s different in every country,” Jobbins says. “Easy Virtue” ended up with 19 separate posters meant to lure audiences into theaters to see it.
Elliott and Jobbins hope younger audiences give “Easy Virtue” a chance, in part because they did all they could to shake up the creakiest of genres – the period picture.
And, Jobbins argues, the film has plenty to say to modern audiences despite its ‘20s era setting.
“It’s about being true to yourself and true to your own nature,” she says.
(Photo: Jessica Biel plays an independent woman who marries a well-to-do British man in “Easy Virtue.” Photo credit: Giles Keyte, Sony Pictures Classics)
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The movie business hasn’t been kind to him? What, by not funding him to make another piece of tortuous crap like Eye of the Beholder? In that case, the movie business has been VERY kind to moviegoers, who do not deserve to be subjected to awful films like that which are boastfully made with no plot, no character identification, no rhyme or reason, and no sense.
If you never saw Eye of the Beholder, count yourself lucky — and don’t even read up on the plot and say, “Oh, that sounds okay.” Because you won’t get any of that plot in the actual movie. You watch it and you have no idea who the hell is who and what is going on. I saw the movie for free and felt cheated. Everyone in the Times Square theater was laughing throughout the film and mocking it, and at the end, my friend said, “Thank God!” and everyone burst out laughing again.
It was torture, sheer torture — and intentional, because “Director” Stephan Elliott decided it’d be fun to make a movie that made no sense. Kubrick? PLEASE. You can’t just put whatever the heck you want up on the screen and call it Kubrick. A movie is like a car, and if it’s going to go, there are certain things it must have like a steering wheel and tires and a means of propulsion.
I hope he has learned from his mistakes, and that his next film will be dedicated “To all those moviegoers who went to see Eye of the Beholder and suffered through it. I’m truly sorry.”
If he makes another Eye of the Beholder, I’m going to start rooting for the ski slope the next time he goes downhill.
So … what did you really think of “Eye of the Beholder?”
I missed “Beholder” when it first came out, and to be fair to Elliott he said to me during our chat that “there’s a good movie in there waiting to come out.” So even he acknowledged its flaws, which is something filmmakers too rarely do.
It’s something people in general rarely do, so he deserves greater credit than that. The movie left me scarred. I hope to see the new one and have it be good. I just felt it wasn’t merely a bad movie, but made frustratingly and purposefully so. Good luck to him in his next film, indeed.