new video loaded: ‘The Holdovers’ | Anatomy of a Scene
transcript
transcript
‘The Holdovers’ | Anatomy of a Scene
Alexander Payne narrated a sequence from his film featuring Paul Giamatti and Dominic Sessa.
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“Hi, I’m Alexander Payne. I directed ‘The Holdovers.’” I thought Barton Men weren’t lying. Don’t get me wrong, that was fun. But you just lied through your teeth. “The story is basically about a group of students at an all-boys prep school in New England who have nowhere to go for the holidays. And ultimately, the story boils down to the relationship between the very curmudgeonly teacher who chose to stick with the boys this year, Paul Giamatti and one student in particular, played by Dominic Sessa, a new actor. There was an incident when I was at Harvard with my roommate. And? He accused me of plagiarism from his senior thesis. Plagiarizing. Well, are you? No! He stole from me. “A cook is only as good as his ingredients, and having Paul Giamatti and Dominic Sessa, both capable of learning and executing pages of talking quickly.” So you got kicked out of Harvard for cheating? No, I got kicked out of Harvard for hurting him. You hit him? What, like, punched him? Nope I hit him with a car. “It was almost three or four pages of dialogue, and I wanted to do it all at once and choreograph it on camera.” “At first, you’re fooled into thinking it’s just these two characters alone in the liquor store. But you are suddenly surprised at the end of the scene by the appearance of the liquor store clerk. That’s it, killer. “And he’s played by a guy named Joe Howell who actually works at that liquor store.”
Recent episodes on Anatomy of a Scene
Film directors guide the audience through a scene of their films, revealing the magic, motives and mistakes from behind the camera.
Film directors guide the audience through a scene of their films, revealing the magic, motives and mistakes from behind the camera.