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.
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Jim Radosta: I’m sorry to start with the
question you probably get asked most often, but
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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
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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.
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government covered it up in order to protect
It’s pure innocence, in a way.
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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
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million version. We would like to pay for the $20
soldiers?
KP: That’s a good question. I knew that we
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million version.” It was a huge lesson that things
wanted to tell the story of patriots, guys who after
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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.
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Thrilling and ferociously
inventive."
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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
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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.