The Broken Hearts Club: An Interview With Greg Berlanti and Mickey Liddel
by Lindsay Marsak
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PlanetOut's Lindsay Marsak tracked down Broken Hearts Club
writer/director Greg Berlanti and producer Mickey Liddell at the 2000
Sundance Film Festival to talk about West Hollywood shallowness, the
need for gay romantic movies, and what it's like making indie movies in Los
Angeles.
PlanetOut: So, there's not a lot of sex in this film. There's a
real focus on
romance. Do you think that fact is going to make this more of a
mainstream film?
Greg Berlanti: I ultimately think that it probably will help make
the film a more mainstream film, but that really wasn't the purpose of it.
The intention of it being more focused on romance was that that just
spoke more about what my experience was. When I recognized the fact that
I was gay, it came more from the fact that I was having romantic feelings
toward men, and less sexual feelings. Does that make sense?
Mickey Liddell: Yeah. And I would just say for me, it
was the first gay script I had read that actually had all the things
you would want out of real relationships. Whereas other gay movies that
I've read, it was either a coming-out story or, OK, we want to see
those two people come together.
GB: Artistically speaking, it's easier to play levels of comedy
when you're dealing with romance and sort of romantic intention and
mis-intention. With sex, it's more farcical. If you look at the films of
Blake Edwards, that's when it works, when they deal with sex and it's
farcical. A lot of times, gay films, in trying to sort of be gay films,
focus too much on the fact that [sex] is what differentiates them. As
opposed to just saying, let's forget about all that, and what's
going to be the funniest kind of scene I can write here? And for my
money, it's going to come more from misperception, and from dialogue and
language. Those elements tend to lend themselves more to romantic scenes
than sexual scenes.
PlanetOut: It seems like there's a real need in this film to
portray gay people as being just like straight people -- same relationships, same
friendships, same issues, same problems, same struggles. Was that what you were going
for?
GB: Yeah, it's what I was going for and it's what my experience
was. It's
why I didn't think I was gay for a long time. I was sort of looking for
myself. You're looking for that piece of you that's out there in the
world, and I certainly hadn't seen a movie about it. I was 23 years old
when I moved to Los Angeles. I was invited to a party by a friend, and
there was a group of guys that were just like I was in a lot of ways. The film
was autobiographical in that way. It wasn't as much the intention to try
to portray gay people as just like straight people. It was just to try
to portray my experience.
PlanetOut: Do you have a critique of the West Hollywood scene,
beyond a
critique of the gym culture?
GB: I smile at it, but it's the same critique that I have of a
lot of Los
Angeles. A lot of Los Angeles is shallow in a lot of ways, and glossy,
and focused on the wrong things. But what I try to get
at in the film is that there will be moments in your life that force you
to look beyond that, or look deeper than that, and if you're smart
you'll
follow them, and you'll rise above whatever the populous is in your
city.
Had I written a film about a group of gay men in New York, it would be
different, but there would be just as many areas that I could critique.
I just try to find what's joyful about it all, and happiness.
PlanetOut: What does the term "independent film" mean to you?
GB: From my experience in making it, an independent film is just
a really fucking hard film to get made. And it just was nearly impossible.
PlanetOut: Because of the subject matter?
GB: Because of the subject matter. I mean, try and shoot 114
pages in 20 days. The budget was small -- I mean, really, really small.
These actors worked for low-budget scale. I didn't get paid. I mean, that's
independent film to me. You sacrifice everything, and you cram it all
in, and at the end of the day you see what you got and you put it together.
And it either works or it doesn't. Because of the level of talent that
we had involved, I think what's so magical and great about the film is that
it looks like a 10-million-dollar film, and we really had nothing.
ML: Yeah, I've made lots of other independent films, and this was
definitely one of them. I would say an independent film is when you get
together a group of people, and it's really outside of the studio
system.
Once you're in the studio system, you're working with a large group of
people. We got some money from them, but they basically said, "We don't
want to know anything, just call us when you're finished." When we had
trouble, and we didn't have any money, we were really on our own. You
just make those sacrifices, and he [Greg] pulled it off.
PlanetOut: Is there anything you saw in The Boys in the
Band that you
particularly wanted to stay away from?
ML: Bitter old queens. Everything.
PlanetOut: It's a similar idea with a different approach. A
different ...
ML: ... time.
GB: A different time. Everyone gets off on saying just how angry
and bitter Boys in the Band was, and I completely agree. Though it
was so sort of groundbreaking in the fact that it presented gay men on screen.
That identification process has changed completely.
PlanetOut: How do you plan to market this film? How do you plan
to reach all those happy mainstream gay people?
ML: Last night [the premiere] was almost a test screening for us.
I was really trying to see who it affected. My gut feeling is that there is a
core gay audience, as there is to most gay films, because of the cast
and the interest. I think that's a great place to start. But I really do
believe that we can expand. I saw a lot of women crying and really
feeling it, and saying, "These are my girlfriends." And even some
straight guys. I don't think we would probably hit every straight guy, but
there are some straight guys ...
GB: ... If their girlfriends brought them ...
ML: ... who are sensitive to this. There are a lot of similar
things, and I think they really related to a lot of that.
PlanetOut: So, word of mouth?
ML: Yeah.
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