Steve Buscemi Vision In Film
An extra on the In The Soup has an extra called Steve Buscemi – Vision In Film. It is an interview with Steve Buscemi and fellow cast members on the set of Animal Factory. It regards Buscemi’s life in film, talking of his influences and directorial style, whilst the cast memebers talk of Buscemi as a director and why they are on board with projects with him.
It begins with Steve Buscemi reminiscing of his first encounters with the moving image and events that fully emersed him in the cinematic world. Buscemi’s earliest memories of film come in the form of going to drive-in movies with his brother, Michael, and father, John Buscemi. Buscemi and brother would go with their dad to watch films that were slightly too adult for their youthful eyes, but it was this almost illicit encounters with cinema that showed the young Steve the power of film. Watching films such as Bonnie and Clyde and The Godfather stirred in him a passion to be in movies.
As a kid growing up, Steve Buscemi admits to having an active fantasy life and big imagination, closing himself off to entertain himself. He was a man of dreams in regards to wanting to be in movies; he had no true beliefs in his abilities. These fearful, unhopeful stirrings are the artists curse. Every time a disbelief in your abilities occurs, the bulk of people give in. It is this willingness to see the possibilities in truly chasing dreams – the struggle and determination – that I wish to explore in Finding Steve Buscemi. Steve Buscemi himself states that he loves to watch films about people who are struggling. This can be from people who feel they do not fit in and are looking for their place in society, to people trying something where the results are unpredictable – a searching for their dreams, place and time. Buscemi relates to these themes due to his feelings of always being on the outside looking in, searching for his place as a person. He always saw acting in a ‘if I don’t act, then what will I do’ kind of thing. There was never a true back up; it would always be acting or searching for a slot to fill. When Buscemi makes a film, he says he does not want to say anything; he just wants to see the result on screen. The results of him finally finding his place in the world – the place of the moving image. He hopes to apeal to those outside the mainstream of similar tastes to his. He’s not after the money or the fame; he just wishes to survive with his movies.
The documentary then moves on to see Willem Dafoe on the set of Animal Factory looking scary as shit. Despite this fucking freaky bald look he’s rocking, he has some wonderful things on Buscemi as an actor director. Willem Defoe admits to being surprised with Steve Buscemi’s abilities in directing concerning his technical abilities. Defoe first saw Buscemi as a fireman doing stand up in New York City. Steve Buscemi talks of his life as a stand up comic in New York. He describes it as a fiercely competitive tight circle of people. Occasionaly communities would grow in the comic scene, but mostly it was these little insular circles.
Steve Buscemi was trained at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute but believes his true training came from teaching himself by working with others, especially his long term friend Mark Boone Junior who was his fellow stand up.
Early on his career Steve Buscemi had a fair few fallings out with his then agent. The agent kept getting Buscemi small roles in big films rather than big roles in little films. The main reason for the agent was money, which Steve Buscemi was not after. His passion remains in independent films and his respects go out to Jim Jarmusch, Alexandre Rockwell and Tom DiCillo who Buscemi worked with many times in the nineties and still does to this day. Despite Buscemi’s growing successes as a major Hollywood extra, Buscemi still goes back to the little guy and performs wonders in tiny
independent features. Buscemi loves what great directors can do with miniscule budgets. It is this wonderment in the power of small screen cinema which lead to Buscemi wishing to make his own movies.
Steve Buscemi first scanned for scripts to direct, rather than write and direct. He realised the bulk of script writers he admired, directed their own scripts. He realised if he was to truly direct his own film he’d have to write it himself. Before beginning work on Trees Lounge, he decided to write and direct a short first, to make sure he was up for the challenge of writing, directing and staring in his own film. The short starred Seymour Cassel who had just worked with Steve on In The Soup and the crew consisted largely of the people who worked on Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. Buscemi found the entire ordeal stressful, yet seeing the vision up on screen gave him to drive to work on a feature length film. During the making of Trees Lounge, Buscemi’s overriding feeling was, once more, stress. However, the end product is always worth the struggle in achieving your vision. Good moments in filming are always lucky occurences; some will be lost due to practice ones and some may never occur, but as soon as everything adds up and is finally put together, it instills the necessary drive to keep on making movies.
During the making of Animal Factory, Edward Bunker – one of the stars, became an unofficial advisor on set. After playing Mr Blue in Reservoir Dogs, Bunker was interested in working with Buscemi on a film project and saw Animal Factory as a role he could truly get in to, due to the bulk of his childhood and early adolescence being in and out of prison. Bunker was extremely impressed by Trees Lounge and believed Buscemi would be great at directing a prison movie. Due to the low budget nature of Animal Factory, Buscemi did have to rush when filming, but combining talents and allowing others to voice their views and opinions, helped lead to a well received film.
In the final notes of the documentary, Dafoe talks of Steve being a very loyal guy to the people he works with. Buscemi believes one of the best things about filmmaking is working with others – “There is nothing like film”. Buscemi ends with an inspiring message to budding filmmakers – no matter what you shoot your film on, no matter how low the budget, the fact you have something out there to show, is wonderful.
Mike Bridges 