Show Taking a new turn as director might help career careers career Patrick Goldstein Los Angeles Times Ben Affleck is musing b about why Clint Eastwood and Warren WaITen Beatty are such gods to a younger generation of actors especially actors trying their hand at directing as Affleck has just done with the new film Gone Baby Gone when he gets to the nub of things Of course Eastwood and Beatty Beatly are wise talented men who've consistently made personal films but Affleck knows theres there's something more compelling about their choices in life What really sets them apart he says is that they dont don't seem to need to please other people That last observation is accompanied by a rueful smile since Affleck is self self- self self-f aware enough to know that trying to please people has played a large role in his own fall from grace a fall hastened by the poisonous tabloid exploitation of his brief engagement to Jennifer Lopez Over the thelast thelast thelast last decade hes he's boxed the compass going from baby- baby faced Sundance sensation Chasing Amy to Oscar- Oscar winning screenwriter Good Will Hunting to Michael Bay blockbuster movie star Pearl Harbor to tabloid era subject of derision Gigli After several office box-office duds his last film Man About Town never got a theatrical release You know times are hard when the Onion runs a photo of a forlorn Affleck with the headline Ben Affleck Affleck- Hoping Jason Bourne Has Sidekick in Next Movie It is not uncommon to sit down with Hollywood talent who seem entirely clueless about how damaging their choices have been Far from being in denial Affleck has the air of someone who has spent many a night brooding about how things have gone awry For him the whole painful experience can be boiled down to a mantra- mantra like life lesson What you do speaks for you That seems to be the guiding principle behind tackling Gone Baby Gone a dark disturbing thriller about the search for fora a missing child that is far more a wrenching morality tale than a pleasing crowd-pleasing entertainment Shot in blue- blue collar Boston and adorned with a stellar cast that includes Ed Harris Morgan Freeman and Amy Ryan the film cost 19 million not much more than what Affleck used to get for his superstar roles Amon Among Hollywood cogno Affleck's determination to direct a gritty Dennis Lehane novel has a high degree of difficulty starting with the fact that when it comes to Lehane territory Affleck is following Eastwoods Eastwood's Mystic River which is sort of like following the Philadelphia Phillies' Phillies Ryan Howard in a run home-run hitting contest Just to up the ante Affleck cast his little brother Casey Affleck in the films film's leading role playing Patrick Kenzie the dogged private investigator who refuses to give up his search for the missing hissing child no matter where it might lead Affleck a admits mits that he was scared the first day he strode onto the set My chest was tight as a drum It was like being in class where youre you're thinking What if I get getup getup getup up to the lectern and have nothing to say But I knew I wanted to get up to the lectern Id I'd argue that his faith has been rewarded The movie showcases Affleck's gift for coaxing great performances out of his actors most notably Casey who has won raves for his role as asan asan asan an easily underestimated investigator But the film also has earned praise for forthe the unstinting way it grapples with difficult moral choices reminding us that doing the right thing is often a true test of character The early reviews have been full of praise Lauding its rich gallery of vivid characters The Hollywood Reporters Reporter's Stephen Farber said Gone Baby Gone will be remembered as one of the best crime movies of this decade The rights to the key characters in Gone Baby Gone were owned by Alan Ladd Jr who'd gotten then-Paramount then chief Sherry Lansing to buy them when he had a deal at the studio Affleck approached Ladd and expressed interest in writing the script The veteran producer was eager to work with him but became impatient when Affleck Afleck who wrote co-wrote the screenplay with an old Boston pal Aaron Stockard was too busy acting to finish it I kept saying Wheres the screenplay and he kept procrastinating Ladd recalls Id see him himon on weekends when I was producing a film An Unfinished Life with Jennifer Lopez and hed he'd say Oh the script is in inthe inthe inthe the car Ill I'll go get it And the next thing I knew hed he'd be driving off in the car waving goodbye By the time Affleck and Stockard finished the script Lansing had left Paramount and the studio had put her projects in turnaround Affleck called Disney chief Dick Cook who agreed to back the film which is being relea released ed through the studios studio's Miramax subsidiary Affleck admits it took a long time to get the script right but as he puts it It was time to try something new Id I'd spent a alot alot alot lot of time feeling frustrated standing around a movie set thinking I wish we could try the scene this way or do the shot that way I just felt like maybe this is a way to have havea a sense of authorship about what I was doing without having to stick my face out there Its It's not hard to see why Affleck identified with the way Lehane portrayed the like circus-like atmosphere that surrounded the childs child's kidnapping As he puts it Its really about how people get whipped into a frenzy over the headlines about a little girl being abducted instead of people looking around at what's going on in their own living rooms which felt to me like an indictment of the media and our culture today Affleck tries to avoid sounding a note of self- self pity when discussing his own tabloid troubles but occasionally he drops his guard It actually got to the point where a comic came up to me and said I want to do a bit about how you actually got worse press than convicted murderer Scott Peterson Of course I wouldn't want to do it if it would make you mad Its It's hard to imagine anyone being so considerate if you can call it that of Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan But in Hollywood Affleck has garnered more sympathy than most tabloid targets perhaps because of his resilience hes he's taken the hits and hes he's still standing or because hes he's hardly a vapid celebrity diva When we spoke hed he'd just returned from a trip to Tanzania in support of the theOne theOne theOne One campaign that works to combat preventable diseases and extreme poverty Unlike most celebrities Affleck not only had a finn firm grasp of where hed he'd gone and what hed he'd seen but understood his true value as a spokesman saying that instead of holing button-holing congressmen he was trying to influence the electorate a special interest group to whom the politicians have no choice but to listen Most people who hear Affleck talk come away impressed As John Powers recently wrote in Los I Angeles magazine when Affleck was interviewed during the 2004 Democratic National Convention his analysis was was' every bit as penetrating as that of The New York Times' Times David Brooks Its It's telling that Morgan Freeman says he took a apart apart apart part in Gone Baby Gone not just because he liked the script but because he enjoyed Affleck's company I just really like Ben Freeman explains I know what hes he's gone through but hes he's really come out the theother theother theother other side glowing Hes He's always been a guy with a good head on his shoulders so when he had a good story to tell I was eager to be a apart apart apart part of it Affleck is so well-studied well that irony of all ironies he offers what is perhaps the most trenchant analysis of how he became a media target The first half of the media cycle was fascination the second half of the cycle was rejection he says What I never realized was that the public doesn't end up blaming the magazines that write every insane untrue story fanning them marketing them and foisting them unceasingly on people who began feeling as though they couldn't escape it So they blame the subjects of the story who they believe are pushing themselves in their face all the time rather than the manufacturers Affleck sighs That turned out to be me even though by that point I wasn't pushing anything I was wad hiding in the basement r rl l s f fi i f jr jrr r j Los Lo Angeles Times photo by My M ling ung J. J Chun Ben Affleck's up-and-down up career could be headed up again with the crime drama Gone Baby Gone which he directed Affleck isn't trying to let himself off the hook He took pains to say that when it came to his career choices only the mistakes are mine What seems different about his new film is that as a director not an actor he has found a subject close to his soul When he talks about his work to help fund AIDS programs in Africa or bemoans what he says is Americas America's use of torture in the war on terror he begins to resemble the obsessive investigator in Gone Baby Gone Like Dennis Lehane Affleck is a moralist someone who can agonize over the wrongs in the world long into the night As he attempts a new chapter in his career he heis heis heis is determined to avoid trying to please people His mistakes as he sees it were basing decisions on what I imagined others might think versus my own personal sense of direction the simple gut level Do I think this is a good idea |