CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
Andrew Davis' L ride to movie success
April 13, 2003
BY MIKE THOMAS Staff Reporter
"When he was 46, it was a very good year--1993, late summer, to be precise. His directorial masterpiece "The Fugitive," was all the rage and, as a result, Andrew Davis' filmmaking career took a massive leap forward. The Rogers Park-born, South Side-bred middle child of an actor father and a schoolteacher mother was at last a top-shelf Hollywood big shot.
He'd been kicking with increasing success around the biz for decades before that, beginning with an assistant gig on local cinematographer Haskell Wexler's critically lauded '60s quasi-documentary "Medium Cool." Davis, a photography enthusiast not long out of journalism undergraduate studies at the University of Illinois, served as Wexler's assistant, frequently putting himself in harm's way to help capture groundbreaking footage of the chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Early on, Davis made extra dough shooting national commercials. One of the spots, for Zenith stereo systems, featured a septuagenarian Duke Ellington, in town to perform at Grant Park. Davis couldn't believe his luck. Where else but Chicago could he have basked in such legendary greatness--and gotten paid for it to boot? Nowhere, that's where.
"Starting in Chicago when I did was really great, because I was able to get jobs, and people would take chances with me that probably wouldn't have happened in New York or L.A.," says Davis, over a late lunch at Harry Caray's. In the midst of a speedy, multicity promotional tour to pump his latest big-screen adventure, Walt Disney Pictures' "Holes," he orders fancily-bottled Grolsch beer, a man-size salad, a fat rib-eye steak and sauteed spinach with garlic. For dessert, he has lemon ice and regular coffee. Also, he enjoys some buttered bread sprinkled with salt. No sushi, no soy, no infused anything. It's good to be home.
Before making his directorial debut with 1978's "Stony Island," which he co-wrote and produced, Davis acted as cameraman on 15 features and television productions. "Stony" a locally shot street musical featuring Davis' younger brother Richie, a musician who still lives in the city, and, in a much smaller role, their father Nate, a part-time thespian and World War II vet, marked the first of many times Davis would use his native city as a cinematic backdrop.
"It's funny," Davis muses. "[Sun-Times film critic Roger] Ebert, in one of his earliest reviews of my work, talked about how the city became a character in the movies I make here. And that's how I feel about it. The environment comments on the people and vice versa."
After the death of Mayor Richard J. Daley, who ran a notoriously tight ship when it came to allowing his city (and it was his city) to appear in films as anything but squeaky clean (i.e., no gangsters, no corruption), doors opened. Little by little, movie production burgeoned. Eventually, Davis took full advantage.
Though nowadays he enjoys international renown as an A-list crafter of action flicks (he prefers to call them "political action" flicks) set in locales the country and world over, Chicagoans most appreciate him for his unflagging hometown loyalty. If he can shoot here, he does. Over the past quarter century, he has set six films in Chicago, including "Stony," "Code of Silence," "Above the Law," "The Package," "The Fugitive" and, most recently, "Chain Reaction," starring Keanu Reeves and Morgan Freeman. Each of them, to varying degrees, makes the place sparkle. Or at least subtly shimmer, particularly if you live or walk or work amid the urban grit that Davis so deftly manipulates onscreen.
"[Davis] does Chicago locations better than anyone alive," assesses Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert, citing "Code of Silence" as a prime example. In his most glowing critique of Davis' work to date, Ebert hailed "The Fugitive" as "pure filmmaking on a master scale," doling out four stars in print and, on television, a presumably enthusiastic Thumbs-Up.
Post-"Fugitive" projects, the majority of them shot outside Chicago, proved less commercially and critically successful. It's not that Davis has stopped trying. On the contrary. He's just unconcerned with replicating success for success' sake. Would he mind scoring another stratospheric blockbuster? Hell no. He's just not fixated on it. Because if he were, he surely wouldn't have made "Holes," a funny and poignant (two terms heretofore little associated with the Davisian ouvre) tale of boyhood bonding and self-discovery at a desert juvenile detention outpost called Camp Green Lake. No explosions, no hostage crises, no urban car chases.
"I think it's maybe the 'Catcher in the Rye' of its generation," Davis says of author Louis Sachar's best-selling novel, upon which the movie is based. "It's not a simplistic book, and the movie's very close to the book. .... It's got some great human themes in it and a sense of history. And it doesn't talk down to kids. It was an opportunity to do something that was fresh and different and still you felt good about it."
Davis' dad Nate, a longtime Chicago resident who has appeared in several of his son's films and gets substantial screen-time in this latest production, recalls, " 'Holes' was a particularly joyful set. It was a fun shoot, and I got the grand treatment. They treated me like I was the director's father."
What strikes him most about seeing his boy in action, the elder Davis says, is "the kind of relationship [Andy] has with all the people he works with. There's a mutual admiration society that goes on. I think they appreciate his ability and his relationship to working actors and craftspeople. So he's a decent guy besides being skilled."
With miles to go before he sleeps well, Davis has limited time to spend with family and pals (including some from grade school) before jetting off to other far less familiar locales. Queried about his next project, Davis, while gulping his lemon ice at head-rush-inflicting speed, claims to have nothing solid on deck, saying only that it will be something with a message, something with depth. And if he can shoot it in Chicago, you'd better believe he will. It's just a matter of finding the right script and, perhaps more important, the right budget.
"I would do everything I could, if I really cared about something, to shoot it here before I would go to Canada," Davis says. "But if you're gonna do a tiny little movie, and you can save $3 million out of an $8 million budget [by filming in Canada], you can't say not to that. And yet, I have no desire to go there and make a movie that's set in Chicago.
"I'm looking at a lot of different things. I would prefer to do things that are funnier, broader-based in terms of their audiences."
What he'd really like to do, he says, is a movie "that talks about how it could be, how we could live together. Without being preachy and corny. As a spoof, you know? The only way we're gonna learn to get along is to have a good common enemy. So create some kind of fictional enemy coming from outer space ... "
He goes on to describe a scenario that seems kind of far-fetched, but his intense enthusiasm is a good indicator that somehow, it will get made. If not precisely the way he now envisions, then close.
[SIZE=large] As for the big-bang "political action" thrillers on which he has built his reputation, they'll be back. Maybe not soon, and, one hopes against hope, minus Steven Seagal, but someday. [/SIZE]
"The action genre today has taken on a whole other quality," he explains, "which is effects that are totally unreal, characters that are unreal. They're comic books, they're cartoons. And unless that comic book or cartoon has something to say, I'm not interested in spending my life showing how I can make somebody fly through the sky and land on their feet coolly. Other people can do that."
Lunch over, Davis strolls, doggie-bag in hand (he's toting half the ribeye back for his brother), to the restaurant's lobby, where management persons greet him warmly and attempt to snap his mug shot for their wall of fame. Muttering some jokey, self-deprecating remarks, he poses gamely before a large bust of the joint's namesake, Harry Caray, and grins a wide grin. The digital camera attempting to capture his image fails a half dozen times, but Davis remains gracious and unflustered. Finally, it is decided that his famous face will be procured by other means.
Once outside, unshielded from a slowly building drizzle, he ducks into a shiny black limo, idling curbside, and is whisked off for photographic purposes to the State and Lake L platform, to a picture-perfect perch staring south down State Street. Davis knows Ls, has used them onscreen many a time. And so, as he has on countless other occasions, he dons the director's hat (today a salmon-colored baseball model), happily strikes poses, suggests shots, helps steer the process, making sure all the while that his beloved town, rain-swept and dreary but beautiful still, is ready for its closeup. "
link is here !!
chicago sun times
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today April 2003
Artical date April 13, 2003 ??????????
[SIZE=large]" As for the big-bang "political action" thrillers on which he has built his reputation, they'll be back. Maybe not soon, and, one hopes against hope, minus Steven Seagal, but someday. "[/SIZE]
I can not understand !!!!!
in oneness
I'm well happy
Sounds darn dangerous, my goodness! I hope he at least wears one of those surgical masks when he's out and about...I'm worried....
