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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (March 21, 2008)
li'JnertOl’i ; MARCH 21, 2008 Boys Do Cry Queer filmmaker dramatizes untold soldier stories or a filmmaker missing in action since tl999’s Oscar-winning Boys Don’t Cry, it seems appropriate that her follow-up is about an Iraq war soldier who goes multichannel arcade AWOL. Kimberly Peirce, 40, visited Portland on huge selection a publicity tour for Stop-Loss, which opens March 28. Turn to Page 47 for a review. magazines clothing • lingerie Jim Radosta: I’m sorry to start with the question you probably get asked most often, but gift certificates available why has it been so long since your last film? Kimberly Peirce: You know, [Boys] was such an extraordinary experience. 1 was in my second Taboo Vancouver 4811 ME 94(6 Ave. VaKomr WA (380)254-1126 year of grad school; I was supposed to make a 10- the 1544th Transportation Unit—the highest minute film. I was very fortunate; I learned how number of combat hours, the highest casualty rate, a community is being devastated. A few weeks after that, my little brother told to become a filmmaker while making that. It set the artistic bar really high. I fell in love with another story, the William us that he was signing up. I was old enough to Desmond Taylor murder mystery, about a director bring him home from the hospital with my family, 82nd Ave. Taboo who’s killed in Hollywood [in 1922] and the so this is a major challenge to everything I know. Updated Store with the Latest Videos & Toys government covered it up in order to protect It’s pure innocence, in a way. 2330 5E82W Ave. PorMOR (503) 777-6033 America’s innocence. I ended up writing it; I got Hugh Jackman, Annette Bening, Evan Rachel Wood, Ben Kingsley. The studio ran the numbers, and they said: “We would like to see the $30 JR: What would you say is the biggest misconception among the public about the MLK Blvd. Taboo million version. We would like to pay for the $20 soldiers? KP: That’s a good question. I knew that we Now Totally Remodeled million version.” It was a huge lesson that things wanted to tell the story of patriots, guys who after Io Accommodate Your Desires! that you love may not always be considered as 237 SE MLK Blvd. Pertlnd OR (503) 239-1673 commercially viable as they need to be to justify 9/11 felt compelled to defend their country. Over and over and over, almost every interview I did, soldiers said to me: “That’s not what I care about. I care about one thing, and that’s making them. JR: Both of your films started out as documentaries. "ONE HELLUVA SHOW! Thrilling and ferociously inventive." THE GREATEST MUSICAL ÜF THE PAST HALE-CENTURY’ How does that approach influence your filmmaking? survival. But even more important than my own life is the life of the guy that I fight with.” And that was amazing to me. Now that gets you into KP: Well, the great thing for me is it allows me much bigger, interesting issues of masculinity, of to be utterly pure. In this case, I was in New York camaraderie, of the bonding between men, of the for 9/11. It was one of the most devastating days of love between men, of what happens when men my life. All my friends came over; we watched the are in combat together. towers fall. We were in Lower Manhattan, so you Who are these guys? Why do they love each couldn’t leave. The next day we went to the vigil other so much, and what does that mean? What’s in Union Square; it was a vigil for victims, and New York was in a state of mourning. You know, people were walking the streets not knowing if missing in modem society that they need to go to their loved ones were dead or alive. war to get this experience with other men? In some ways, if there wasn’t this judgment about male bonding and love, and if it didn’t run the risk of being called something negative, I think men would probably be a lot closer and it would be a lot healthier for them. ADDICTIVELY DELICIOUS JR: Were you surprised by the success of Boys Don’t Cry? KP: I was most surprised that it crossed over, but that is ultimately what good drama good should do. and ongoing characterization There debate an was about how much “butch lesbian” and how much Kimberly Peirce directs Ryan Phillippe on the set of Stop-Loss “transsexual” Brandon was...so, for me, the best thing I could do was.. .making Brandon APRIL 8-13 KELLER AV S t< pin ti ’ < A UM '■■■■■» 5O3-79O-ARTS • 503-241-1802 BroadwayAcrossAmerica com • sweeneytoddtour.com KATU 2 O fidelity Then America was declaring a war, and that Teena somebody who was universally true. The was very different than the mood in New York. So most amazing moment was when I had these big I immediately knew that I needed to tell the story straight guys coming up to me saying, “I love of the soldiers: who they were, why they were signing up, what their experience in combat was and what their experience coming home was. Brandon!” That, to me, was the moment that the movie was successful. © I pick up a video camera. I fly to Paris, Ill. A thousand soldiers are coming home from Arts and Culture Editor J im R adosta needs your feedback. E-mail him at jim@justout.com.
