'A Certain Bit of Optimism'
Director Cameron Crowe doesn't apologize for avoiding cynicism in his films, including his latest, Elizabethtown, which he says he hopes "encourages people to be truly alive."
by Lisa Ann Cockrel | posted 10/13/2005
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Elizabethtown, opening nationwide Friday, is what writer-director Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous, Jerry Maguire, Say Anything) wants to call a "folk tale."
Director Cameron Crowe on the set of 'Elizabethtown'
Loosely inspired by his own father's death, it tells the story of Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom), who has just become a colossal professional flop and is on the brink of suicide the day he learns his father has died. Since his father was visiting family in Kentucky at the time of his death, his grieving mother and sister dispatch Drew to bring back the body. And then things get interesting, as Drew travels to the hometown he never really knew, grapples with success and failure, and manages to revive his will to live.
In this interview with Christianity Today Movies—conducted in two parts, at a roundtable in LA and, later, over the phone—the affable and gracious Crowe talked about this love letter to Kentucky, avoiding cynicism, and what it means to create a well-lived life.
A recent New York Times story explores how movies can be interpreted from different places on the political spectrum—left or right. But Elizabethtown feels like a concerted effort to present a story that people from all over—red state or blue state—can connect with. Was that kind of universal appeal your intent when writing the script?
Cameron Crowe: A little bit. It's a love letter to my dad. And to Kentucky for sure. I thought, Let's really go to that part of the country and celebrate it. I don't think we would have made the movie if the studio had said you cannot go to Kentucky. They did try and say that. But we cut the budget, and some of us cut our salaries, and we went to Kentucky because that was the way to make the movie. And it does feel different. There is no place in Pasadena that looks like Kentucky.
Several years ago I attended my grandfather's funeral in his Kentucky hometown, and I thought you did a good job of capturing the way people there really gather round to celebrate a person's life, even after his death.
Crowe: Thanks. Yeah, people did that for me when my dad died there. I wasn't used to that kind of love and celebration and elaborate and beautiful way they wanted to say goodbye to my dad. That was a real surprise and I just wanted to tip my hat.
Over the years your work has taken a fair amount of flack for its lack of cynicism. What feeds the optimism in your movies?
Crowe: I think in the case of Elizabethtown, it's the story itself. When I tried to put in a "bad guy," it just didn't want to be part of this story. In Jerry Maguire, it was really fun and natural to put a black hat in there. And it will probably be natural for the next one. But this story is a folk tale about embracing life. And yeah, the dad was a good guy, the mother did have her own way of grieving, Kirsten Dunst was a little bit of an angel sent at a terrible time to this guy. And Drew may find success at the end. And sometimes the story kind of writes itself in that way.
Orlando Bloom and Crowe discuss a scene from the film
I think it's good to provide people with a certain bit of optimism, to tell stories that say "greatness is attainable," as opposed to, "the world is messed up, what's the use?" And I do sometimes get slammed in the face with a pie because of that perspective—someone I believed in or trusted just turns out to be laughing at me for being a "Pollyanna." But I take that and move on.
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