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Interview: Scott Teems on That Evening Sun

Teems discusses the intricacies of That Evening Sun’s characters and the difficulties of raising money for a small, character-driven film.

Interview: Scott Teems on That Evening Sun

“Making drama for the cinema is really becoming more and more difficult, and when you’re able to cut through, people begin to notice,” comments first-time director Scott Teems on the wide acclaim of his award-winning film That Evening Sun, which is based on William Gay’s short story I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down. Starring 84-year-old actor Hal Holbrook, the film is a quietly forceful, nuanced portrait of a Tennessee man, Abner Meecham, still clinging to the past. Teems points out, “A lot of [the attention] has to do with Hal and his amazing performance. I also think it’s because the film is not your typical Hollywood product and people are sitting up and taking notice.” It might be a difficult time for independent, distinctively crafted cinema, but The Evening Sun is a clear example of quality material with complex characters successfully breaking through. Approaching the L.A. theatrical release of the film on November 20, Slant caught up with Teems to discuss the intricacies of the film’s characters, how Holbrook got involved, and the difficulties of raising money for a small, character-driven film.

The first thing that struck me after watching the film was how the characters came off in an even light, neither good nor bad. Was that your intention?

Absolutely. That’s a big part of the story, because that’s truer to the world I know. We’ve got to be careful to differentiate between the protagonist and the hero; I think too often [an audience] is looking for a hero, but I’m looking for an interesting protagonist, and that, for me, is someone who you can get behind because they have qualities you respect. And for Abner, he’s got this tremendous resolve and strength and dignity and set of principles—and you empathize with his plight: He comes back to his house and somebody is living there. You understand his point of view, but he also is incredibly callous and stubborn and won’t listen to anyone else, and won’t see any other point of view but his own. So that creates great tragedy; there is beauty and tragedy inherent in all these characters. I hope this film causes you to constantly reevaluate these characters.

At what point did you decide this was going to be the first feature you wanted to make?

I think it was when I read the short story; I had been looking for a great story. I had written several scripts, you know, but nothing was great. I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down was a classic story I could sink my teeth into. The short story is really Abner-Lonzo-centric; it’s very much about that conflict, and that was great because it provided a real strong structure—a beginning, middle, and end—but it also provided a lot of room to write. What was missing from the story were all the relationships: Abner and the young girl, the husband and the wife, and Abner and son. All the relationships were tangentially talked about in the story, but for the most part they didn’t exist, and so I was able to bring myself into it and be creative. I was just compelled to make this film; it was either naïveté, or ignorance, or brilliance—I prefer the latter—which is to think that someone would put money up for a movie about an 80-year-old Tennessee farmer. It took about three years to find the financing, but eventually we did. We just persevered because we believed in the story.

As a first-time director, what was the most difficult part during production?

I’m a pretty calm guy, and it was imperative for me to keep things calm on set. [The shoot] was very rushed, and it was a very intense process, but for me it was crucial that everyone kept a level head. Because everyday something is going to go wrong on a film set. It’s just the nature of the process, and that’s when people’s true colors come out. You really get to know someone when you see how they react to stress. I was very fortunate on this movie because the people that worked on this film had super attitudes and [the crew] was really team-oriented, which you have to be like when you’re working on an independent film; you’re always stretched with time and money. When you have the right people, those limitations can become an asset, and they can drive people to do better work, and collaborate better. I believe in creativity through limitation, and it’s important to push yourself and have boundaries, and if you have the right people working together, it can be a great thing.

How did Hal Holbrook get involved?

We had been looking for a couple years, and as the story and script developed, we were wondering who could play this part. There’s only a handful of actors you could even begin to think could play this role, and now having made the movie, there’s only one. Part of it is playing the role, but the other part is the physical toll of shooting a film in Knoxville, Tennessee during the summer in August when it’s 100 degrees everyday. Hal is virtually in every scene, and we had long days and a very compressed time frame to shoot the movie. I’m convinced that very few, if anyone, would have been able to survive, and literally just make it through. If Hal had gotten sick, if he had missed a day, if he had to take a break, leave early or come late, the film would have been screwed. Hal bore that burden himself, and carried the production on his shoulders, and it was very important that we had someone that could do that. Finally the producers and I saw Into the Wild in the fall of 2007, and in that movie Hal has a perfect combination of strength and fragility that I had been looking for—so we approached him after that.

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What was the process of casting the supporting roles in the film?

I really wanted this film to be authentic, and it begins with the accent and builds from there. If you could cast someone that already speaks the dialect, then the actor doesn’t have to worry about getting the accent down and can focus on the character. I was adamant about casting the entire cast with native Southerners, except two key roles. One of which is Hal, who is not from the South but is married to Dixie Carter so she’s Southern enough for both of them; plus he’s lived in Tennessee for 25 years—so he understands the culture. But we also cast this girl Mia Wasikowska who’s from Australia. She’s fantastic, she proved me wrong. I was really doubtful that anyone who wasn’t from the South could really be authentic to the location. The characters were unapologetically Southern; these were country folk. Mia’s character is going to be in scenes with Ray McKinnon, Carrie Preston, Barry Corbin—all these people with rich, Southern native accents. My casting director was insistent that I meet Mia, and I finally did. Her ear for dialect is so phenomenal and she just got the Southern tongue down. She was also very open to being corrected, and she wanted nothing more than to get it perfectly right. She said, “Stop me if it’s not right. You’re not going to hurt my feelings; there’s no ego here.” It was true, she wanted to get it right, because she knew it was a big deal if she did. She really does have this uncanny ability to do dialogue, whether it’s a California accent in In Treatment, a British accent she’s doing as Alice [in Tim Burton’s upcoming Alice in Wonderland], or the one in the film. She’s just astute at that kind of stuff. It’s a gift; she’s really talented.

What was the location scouting like? Had you considered shooting in other states than Tennessee?

I was determined to shoot in Tennessee. We considered [shooting in other states] only because there are tax incentives in other places that are maybe a little bit better than Tennessee. But I was really determined to make it work in Tennessee because that’s where the story took place. And I just wanted to make a Tennessee movie; I wanted to keep the story true to its setting, and not try to shoot it in North Carolina and call it Tennessee. I wanted to really be true to the location. Fortunately, the company we found to fund the film, Dogwood, their parent company is based in Knoxville, and so it was really important to them to shoot a movie in Tennessee too. We found that common ground, and we were all committed to make it work in Tennessee. Once we decided to shoot there, then we had to find the farm. It took about two weeks driving around all day, every day. I spent hours in the car with my production designer, and we just drove around looking for [Abner’s] house. We couldn’t find it. We couldn’t find it. And then one day we got lost driving around Knoxville, and we just came over this hill, and I was like, “That’s it.”

What kind of films did you refer to while writing the script?

Everybody was asking, “What’s the tone of the movie?” What I told people—what I was looking for was a combination of Tender Mercies meets Affliction. That was our model. For me, Tender Mercies is beautifully sparse; it’s the best screenplay ever written in my point of view, because it’s so minimalistic yet so powerful. It is simple, and doesn’t waste time—so therefore, you could have a more contemplative approach, which is how I like to shoot: observing character, not trying to push the story forward through technique, using music, or using editing. If you have a tight, simple story, you could have a more restrained approach without being boring. At the same time, I wanted this slow-burn building up of tension, and then rising like it does in Affliction.

What was it like taking the film through the festival circuit?

Often that’s your theatrical run, the festival circuit. It’s been great, we have been very fortunate to have won several awards and gotten great reviews out there in the festivals. Of course it’s always nice when people say kind things about your work, and it’s been cool to see how the movie plays with different audiences. For example, at SXSW, the film won the Audience Award from an audience made up primarily of twenty- and thirtysomething filmgoers, and then immediately went to the Sarasota Film Festival and won the Audience Award there from an audience made up primarily of 60-year-old retirees. We have had a nice balance of jury and audience awards validating the film. It’s been good.

How would you describe the struggles of today’s rocky climate for independent film, especially with a product more unique and character-driven like That Evening Sun?

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It’s not easy, I’m sure you know, and we probably just made it under the gun. We got the financing for this movie in May of last year. If it had been three or four more months, we probably would have lost it due to the economy; that’s when it went south, toward the end of the summer. We were very fortunate to put it together. But even then, we had to really pare down our budgets significantly to be able to work within the confines of what was available to us. It took three years to even find that money; we had been beating on doors for three years. The smaller the [economic] market gets the more and more people are unwilling to take risk. They’re afraid, and they want a proven commodity, and that means you get a lot of genre movies. On the studio side, that means you get a lot of super heroes and comic books and preexisting, pre-branded material. You usually look to independent film for great drama, but now the drama has moved to television.

What do you hope an audience takes away from the film?

I hope the audience sees real people. I hope they’re challenged to think a little bit about what happens when you put material things above human relationships, and the beauty and tragedy of strength and pride—the kind of great resolve this character Abner Meecham has. I just want people to have a human experience and maybe see some of themselves in other characters, not just Abner. I’d be really happy if men could see some of themselves in Lonzo; I think we all have a little bit of Lonzo in us. We are all very capable of good and bad. Certainly I am. We shouldn’t have movies that try to [paint people as either good or bad], because that’s not the way life is. That might make films a little more uncomfortable perhaps, because they may get conflicted on where their allegiance should be. To me that seems to be more reflective of the experiences I’ve had as I’ve lived it.

Adam Keleman

Adam Keleman is a filmmaker living in Los Angeles.

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