Rutland native's film bound for Oscars
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Rutland native Lawrence Inglee co-produced “The Messenger,” which has been nominated for two Acadamy Awards. Photo Provided |
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By Gordon Dritschilo STAFF WRITER - Published: February 4, 2010
To describe what a movie producer does, Lawrence Inglee recalled a cook from a children's story.
"You're the guy with the pot that's empty and you start stirring," he said. "You assemble the team … you manage the money, you manage the people … You work on a script the way a book editor might work on a manuscript."
The job continues when filming starts.
"The most important, unwritten job of a producer is to make sure everyone's making the same movie, to keep the tone in line with the story," he said.
Inglee, 36, who spent his formative years in Rutland and Springfield, is one of the producers of "The Messenger," a feature film nominated Tuesday for two Academy Awards — best original screenplay and best supporting actor for Woody Harrelson.
The movie stars Ben Foster as a soldier assigned to a unit that notifies the families of soldiers who have just been killed. Harrelson plays Foster's superior officer.
Inglee said funding "The Messenger" took effort.
"It was at a time when the movie business did not want a movie like this," Inglee said during a telephone interview last week. "The subject matter was too controversial, too morbid, maybe, too bold, and came after a slew of Iraq movies did not do too well at the box office."
However, Inglee said, the script was strong enough to convince people.
"The Messenger" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and has been in theaters since November. Boxofficemojo.com put its gross at $770,208 from 50 theaters.
"We're not exactly cutting into the box office of 'Avatar,' but for a little film like ours, we're making a decent showing," he said. "We're still in theaters."
"The Messenger" won awards from the Berlin International Film Festival, National Board of Review and San Diego Film Critics Society. Critics from National Public Radio, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Hollywood Reporter and The New York Times placed it on their "Top 10" lists for 2009.
"It's one of those films that has what we call legs," he said. "It wasn't blasted into the marketplace with giant postered advertising."
Inglee said he was born in Rutland and that his family moved to Springfield when he was nine and San Diego, Calif., when he was 15. He said he tries to visit Vermont whenever he can.
"The landscape of my imagination and my art is Vermont," he said.
His love of movies also started in Vermont.
"My dad owned a video store in Springfield," he said. "Movies were a major part of my life when I was a kid, but I wouldn't say it stayed in my consciousness through high school."
Inglee tried acting, but got interested in storytelling, studying French literature while in college at Syracuse. After college he eventually returned to California and got a job at Imagine Entertainment.
"I came to L.A. — I didn't have any connections," he said. "I didn't even have a car. I heard about this aspect of the business where stories are developed. I thought that was something I could do, so I went after that job like my life depended on it."
Inglee's credits include a couple of small films and one big one — 2004's "The Day After Tomorrow." He said he doesn't have a preference between big and small movies.
"To me, the story comes first," he said. "Every story has its own requirements. 'The Messenger' is right where it should be. It's an intimate film about human beings. … 'The Day After Tomorrow' was a spectacle that has its own requirements."
Inglee called Ben Foster an "actor's actor."
"You'll be seeing him a lot," he said. "Woody's a ball of sunshine. He is exactly — what you see is what you get. Nobody's ever disappointed to see Woody Harrelson."
Inglee's next film, which he said he hopes to release later this year, is titled "Max Rose" and stars Jerry Lewis. It deals with love, marriage and family from the perspective of an elderly man.
"It does something that not a lot of films are doing," Inglee said. "It has a protagonist who's 84 years old. It's the most dignified story I've come across that covers that period of life."
The Internet Movie Database also lists Inglee as having a biopic on Beach Boys frontman Brian Wilson in the works.
"It's a little early to talk about that," he said. "I'm laying the foundations for that."
gordon.dritschilo@rutlandherald.com
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