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Show Wed/Thurs/Fri, January 18-20, 2017 A-17 The Park Record Rock has roots in‘Rumble’ Beth Dubber / Courtesy of The Sundance Institute Sam Elliott appears in “The Hero” by Brett Haley, an official selection of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Elliott stars in ‘The Hero’ The iconic actor leads the feature film’s cast Angelique McNaughton The Park Record When director Brett Haley saw an opportunity to “give the world 90 minutes of Sam Elliott” in his new feature film “The Hero,” that’s what he did. “I think he is an icon and I think he is someone that is beloved. But I also don’t really think he has gotten his due or had the opportunities that other men in his generation have gotten,” Haley said in a telephone interview with The Park Record from Los Angeles. “But I do think he is a leading man, so Mark Basch and I decided we are just going to write something for Sam. “This movie really came about as me, a fan of Sam, just wanting to see him perform,” he said. “The Hero” follows Elliott’s character Lee Hayden, an aging Western actor forced to reexamine the legacy of his career, or lack thereof, and his interactions with those around him. The film also stars Elliott’s real-life wife Katherine Ross, Laura Prepon, Krysten Ritter and Nick Offerman, as his best friend and drug dealer. “The film is about legacy and it is about what kind of a mark you leave in this world and what people say about you after you are gone,” Haley said. “I think all ac- tors, artists, and writers, are thinking about that to some degree. “And even though the film is about a stoner ex-Hollywood aging actor who is kind of looking back on his life, I think everyone can relate,” he said. Haley, along with co-writer Mark Basch, said he wanted to create a movie that contained the perfect trifecta: comedy, emotion and affirmation. He described Elliott’s character’s journey as “exciting, funny, weird and sad.” “It is a great ride and people will get engaged in those universal themes,” Haley said. After watching Offerman and Elliott’s “bromance” on the TV drama “Parks and Recreation,” Haley said he was inspired to get the actors together again. “What’s great about Nick is he would say he stumbled into the comedy world, but he is actually an actor’s actor and he is phenomenal,” Haley said. “When “Parks and Rec” put them together so beautifully, there is something to be said about great pairs. Seeing him and Sam Elliott smoke joints together is pretty enjoyable.” Like Elliott, Haley said the rest of the film’s actors were cast in the exact roles he envisioned for them. Haley said Prepon was the only actress who could stand up to Elliott, adding “I think she will really surprise people with this role.” “She has a very unique and singular role that I don’t think many other actors could have pulled off,” Haley said. “She has to play opposite of Sam Elliott and they have an interesting, odd, loving and contentious relationship. It has a lot of movements and I needed a woman who could do that.” Haley said the scenes between Ritter and Elliott are some of the most emotional interactions in the film. However, he said the chemistry between Elliott and Ross is palpable. “You have to remember that Katherine Ross is from “The Graduate” and “Butch Cassidy.” She is an icon in her own right and they have been married for a really long time. When I say they don’t have to say anything in a scene it’s obviously there,” Haley said. “I’m really excited to just have Katherine back. She is an icon and someone I respect so much.” Haley commended the entire cast on their performance in the film, but said “Sam’s performance has to carry it.” “I wanted to give him something that I think was missing in this world. Sam will have a legacy, he already does have one because he is already an icon,” Haley said. “But he has never been given a vehicle where he is the driver. Where he is everything and I love doing that for actors.” “The Hero” is the 32-year-old director’s second feature film to appear at the Sundance Film Festival. His film “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” starring Blythe Danner, premiered in 2015. “The Hero” is being screened in the Sundance Film Festival’s U.S. Dramatic Competition category. It will be shown: • Saturday, Jan. 21, 9 p.m. at the Library Center Theatre • Sunday, Jan. 22, 9 p.m. at the Sundance Mountain Resort Screening Room • Monday, Jan. 23, 8:30 a.m. at the Prospector Square Theatre • Thursday, Jan. 26, 3:15 p.m. at the Eccles Theatre • Friday, Jan. 27, 9:15 p.m. at The Grand Theatre • Saturday, Jan. 28, 4 p.m. at the Redstone Cinema 2 Pedro Ruiz / Courtesy of The Sundance Institute Stevie Van Zandt appears in “Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World” by Catherine Bainbridge and Alfonso Maiorana, an official selection of the World Cinema Competition at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. It shows roles of Native American musicians By Jay Meehan The Park Record So, you consider yourself culturally erudite? Connecting all the musical dots from Congo Square to the jazz and blues of Storyville and the Mississippi Delta to the refinements of Chicago and New York has long been in your musical wheelhouse, right? And you’ve got your British Isles and Appalachian ducks simmering in a similar gumbo and you can combine them at the drop of some “roux?” Well, have I got a Sundance film for you. Are you ready to RUMBLE? What’s going to really smack you in the face when watching this extraordinary documentary about indigenous influences in the evolution of American popular music is that, no matter how long you’ve been a part of the tribe, I’m pretty sure your quiver is an arrow or two short. How did you miss it the first time around? Well, as it turns out, it was probably a glitch in both your auditory perception and pattern recognition centers. Not to worry. It’s nothing an ‘Unrest’ tells stories of ME patients The doc shows their struggles By Frances Moody The Park Record Trying to ignore bouts of excruciating muscle pain, Jennifer Brea forced herself to walk home after a doctor diagnosed her with myalgic encephalomyelitis, commonly called chronic fatigue syndrome. During her walk, Brea tried to believe what her doctor said: Her condition was psychosomatic and most likely caused by a past trauma she would never remember. Brea, then a Harvard PhD student, thought she could fight the autoimmune disease with symptoms that include muscle pain and sensitivity to light and sound by telling herself what she had was merely “in her head.” But despite her willpower, Brea collapsed once she made it to the door. Since Brea was diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis, or ME, she has realized there are several misconceptions surrounding the illness many identify as a made-up condition. Hoping to fight ME’s stigmas and to push for a more medical description of the disease, Brea completed her first film, “Unrest,” which will premiere Friday at the Sundance Film Festival. “I went online and found this whole community of people who had the same symptoms and had the same experience with medicine,” Brea told The Park Record. “Oftentimes, they were being blamed for having this illness. “I think understanding that there were thousands, actually millions of people in the same boat, was when I started to say there is a bigger story.” Brea, who found it painful to write about her illness, instead recorded her Skype chats with other ME patients, even before she set out to make “Unrest,” one of 16 films included in the festival’s U.S. Documentary Competition. Many of those conversations are included in the documentary, along with scenes of the day-today struggles ME patients experience, struggles that show the illness is not about constantly being tired, Brea said. The opening shot shows Brea filming herself crawling from the floor to her bed. The lights are turned off, and she is making quiet sounds of pain while attempting to lift herself. Brea later introduces the audience to the drive behind the documentary. “I know you’d be saying to yourself, ‘If I really couldn’t stand up, why would I be filming it?’” Brea said. “Well, I kind of think that someone should see this.” Brea’s “Unrest” not only chronicles the pains ME patients have. It also depicts social justice issues. The film questions if there are sexist stereotypes attached to the illness. “I hear from women all of the time, who were later diagnosed with fibromyalgia, lime disease and lupus, who were initially told they were hypochondriacs,” Brea said in the film. “Eighty percent of autoimmune patients are women. I can’t help wonder if that’s why we’re disbelieved.” “Unrest,” however, does more than question motives behind particular viewpoints in the medical world, Brea said. It also epiphany couldn’t fix. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it! Even for those of us who haunted local Powwows, completely immersed in and hypnotized by the heartbeat of drums, rhythm of dance, and wail of songs, to not hear and recognize the same in the delta blues of the seminally influential Charlie Patton confounds the sensibilities. Obviously, we had yet to learn to listen. Hanging their cultural war bonnets on the distorted power chords and in-your-face guitar riffs of Link Wray’s classic 1958 instrumental hit “Rumble,” filmmakers Catherine Bainbridge, Hell, Yeah, I play guitar! You know who taught me how to play? Charley Patton! Charley Patton was an Indian and he was the baddest mother*****r in the world!” Howling Wolf Alfonso Maiorana, and Producer Stevie Salas (Apache) make their case both forwards and backwards from Dockery Plantation with archival film and photos, interviews, and, most especially, concert footage, which will flatout blow you away! While speaking to The Park Record from his beach chair on the Kona Coast of Hawaii, Salas, an advisor for Contemporary Music at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and co-creator of the exhibit “ Up Where We Belong: Native Musicians In Popular Culture,” reminisced about the four-years it took to make the film. “It was a hard movie to make! There’s a story here that’s never been told and putting all the people together, both native and not, who wanted, and needed, to play a part in it, wasn’t easy,” Salas recalled. Writer/Director Catherine Bainbridge, who brought her love and devotion to music, history, politics, and the importance of Indigenous stories to the film, put it this way: “We are so honored to be able to tell this story about the influence of iconic Native American musicians like Link Wray (Shawnee), Charley Patton (Choctaw/African American), Mildred Bailey (Couer d’Alene), Robbie Robertson (Mohawk), Jimi Hendrix (Cherokee), Buffy Sainte-Marie (Cree), Jesse Ed Davis (Kiowa), Redbone (Yaqui/Shoshone), Randy Castillo (Isleta Pueblo/ Apache) and Taboo (Shoshone).” (Tribal affiliations have been added by the writer.) The Jesse Ed Davis and Jimi Hendrix segments are going to floor you. And when you hear Taj Mahal, Rhiannon Giddens, Slash, Stevie Van Zandt, Buddy Guy, Martin Scorsese, Tony Bennett, Jackson Browne, and Steven Tyler speak about how these icons were an influence, you’ll buy in. And that’s not even the half of it. Native activists and poet/ musicians Joy Harjo (Muscogee) and John Trudell (Santee Dakota), as usual, mesmerize while drawing their own pointed lines in the sand. And longtime music writer David Fricke, while drawing different parallels, is equally, or nearly so, illuminating. What can I say? That a film with such an important, timely, and profound message would also be so beautifully paced and lit and Please see Rock ‘n’ roll, A-18 Winter Skin Therapy Courtesy of shella Films Jennifer Brea’s husband, Omar, left, is featured throughout the documentary “Unrest.” Many of the scenes show Omar comforting Brea, whose film chronicles her experience with myalgic encephalomyelitis, commonly called chronic fatigue syndrome. introduces people to what the first-time filmmaker calls “the missing.” “One million people in the U.S. have this disease,” Brea said. “There are 17 million with it around the world. I think 25 percent of those people literally can’t leave their homes. Brea said the fact that people with ME, who are often bedridden, are unable to go out makes it difficult to bring attention to the illness that has no cure or proven treatment. She also said the term “missing” alludes to ME’s lack of research funding. ME only receives $5.6 million a year for research, making it the lowest funded major disease. “It’s also about the missing dollars for research funding,” Brea said. “There is actually a limited amount of dollars for research funding, even though it is a common disease.” Brea said she also used the film’s cinematography to show how trapped ME patients can often feel. And although she was unable to be on location to film the ME patients and landscape scenes shown in “Unrest,” Brea did guide her crew by being present through Skype. “Some of the scenes in the film are sort of saying goodbye to my past life,” Brea said. “I also want to convey that I recognize how vivid and precious the world is, which is why there are so many beautiful shots of the outdoors.” Brea said understanding that life is precious is mixed with the idea that there are people who suffer from what she calls “invisible disabilities.” She hopes more people with disabilities will feel comfortable telling their stories after watching “Unrest.” “Unrest” is in Sundance’s U.S. Documentary Competition and will screen at the following times: • Friday, Jan. 20, 9 p.m. at Temple Theatre, Park City • Saturday, Jan. 21, noon at Redstone Cinema 7, Park City • Monday, Jan. 23, 3:30 p.m. at Broadway Centre 3, Salt Lake City • Wednesday, Jan. 25, 3 p.m. at the Sundance Mountain Resort Screening Room, Sundance • Thursday, Jan. 26, 9 a.m. at Library Center Theatre, Park City 30 minutes to feed your skin what it needs! 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