Curtis Hanson
Curtis Hanson
Curtis Lee Hansonis an American film director, film producer and screenwriter. His directing work includes the psychological thriller The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, the neo-noir crime film L.A. Confidential, the comedy Wonder Boys, the hip hop drama 8 Mile, and the romantic comedy-drama In Her Shoes...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth24 March 1945
CityReno, NV
CountryUnited States of America
long storytelling audience
Even though L.A Confidential box-office was a fraction of, say, Titanic or the Grinch movie, it finds its audience and will continue doing so for who knows how long, because of the basic thing we love about movies, which is storytelling and performances.
moving boys people
So it's discouraging and, yet, when you make a movie like Wonder Boys, in a sense it's its own reward, because it does move people, it gets great reviews, and it becomes part of that library of movies that exist out there. As time goes by, it will find its audience.
illusion
Hollywood, of course, is the city of illusion.
eye unique people
In terms of talking with my collaborators as they came onboard - Jeannine Oppewall, our production designer, Dante Spinotti, our cinematographer, and so forth - I said to them, "Let's pretend that this is a place like Honolulu. Let's ignore the fact that all these other movies have been made here for decades and try to come at it with a fresh eye, as if it were an exotic city that people aren't that familiar with. And let's present our own view of it, create a world that's unique to this movie [L.A Confidential].
character boys wonder
When I first went to Pittsburgh, I had never been there before, and we hadn't even decided to shoot there yet. I just went to see the location of Michael Chabon's novel. Once there, I became aware that Pittsburgh is a "wonder boy," in the narrow sense of the term, just as the human characters are.
compliment
A day doesn't go by when I don't get a compliment on L.A. Confidential, for example.
heart past rich
Pittsburgh has this rich industrial past, when it was the heart of the U.S. steel industry, and it burned out as the industry burned out and moved elsewhere.
couple writing attention
I wrote a couple of scripts on spec that didn't get made but got some attention, and I then got offers to write professionally.
writing horror producers
My very first professional writing credit was on a movie called The Dunwich Horror, and Roger Corman was the executive producer.
film speculation direct
I stopped doing that [photojournalism] and wrote some screenplays on speculation, because even though I wanted to direct, to direct you need a lot of money. Even for a cheap movie, you need film stock and equipment and actors.
school opportunity together
I did it [photojournalism] as something that was really rewarding to do, given the opportunity to express myself about something I cared about, and also to learn a lot by watching filmmakers I admired. In a sense, it was my film school. After doing it for a few years, I decided that the time had come to get it together and do some work of my own. So I stopped doing that and wrote some screenplays on speculation, because even though I wanted to direct, to direct you need a lot of money.
writing people journalist
I didn't look at it as a transition so much, because I never intended to have a career as a journalist, writing about people who make movies.
trying helping
It was also a new role for me as a writer, because I wanted to just be there to serve Sam. I recognized that this picture would be "a Sam Fuller movie," and I was just trying, in whatever way I could, to help him get what he wanted.
writing scene learning-experience
Roger [Corman] didn't actually hire me, though. I was hired by AIP [American International Pictures], the studio that made the picture, which was Sam Arkoff and Jim Nicholson. It was a great learning experience for me, because not only did I work on the script, but they hired me back to go on location when they were making the movie, to write new scenes and so forth.