Sacha

I'm trying to find info on this movie, but I'm not having much luck. IMDb has it listed as post-production, but thats it.

Director: Steve Buscemi
Cast: Casey Affleck, Liv Tyler
Overview: The story follows 28-year-old Jim (Affleck), who returns to his Indiana hometown and is forced to move back in with his parents after failing to make it on his own. While dealing with crippling family obligations, he meets a woman (Tyler) in a local bar and becomes a father figure to her young son.

(from caseyaffleck.com)

Anyone else have any info?

Pav

I have no idea what's new around Lonesome Jim at all. The longest article I've read is here, I recommend it for reading.

Sacha

Thanks for the link! I'm sure we'll hear something else soon, once it gets a release date.

Pav

You're welcome!

older articles from Liv-Tyler.com

Liv Tyler's new film "Lonesome Jim" which will be directed by Steve Buscemi (Armageddon). Casey Affleck (Ocean's Eleven) is also in the cast who is the brother of Ben Affleck (Armageddon) and good friend of Joaquin Phoenix (Gladiator - ex-boyfriend of Liv Tyler).

Steve Buscemi will undertake his third feature stint behind the camera with Lonesome Jim, a dysfunctional family comedy drama starring Liv Tyler and Casey Affleck. The story follows the return of 28-year-old Jim (Affleck) to his hometown in Indiana, where he is forced, after failing to make it on his own, to move back in with his parents and deal with crippling family obligations. Tyler plays a woman Jim meets in a local bar, whose young son begins treating him like a father. Shooting is scheduled for February.

***

Stars Tyler, Affleck to film Maple City movie

Marcia Fulmer
Entertainment Editor
Thursday, February 19, 2004

GOSHEN - "Lonesome Jim" is heading for Goshen, and the folks at Goshen Community Theatre, among others, are getting ready.

The office area in the Sixth Street Theatre tentatively is scheduled to become, however briefly, the office area for the team from Plum Pictures, producer of the independent film penned by former Goshenite Jim Strouse, starring Liv Tyler and Casey Affleck and directed by Steve Buscemi.

The team will begin three weeks of pre-production -- finding locations, assembling production crews and staff -- on Monday under the direction of another former Goshen resident, Julian Kauffmann.

Much of the production personnel will come from film and communication students at Goshen College and the hero's home may bear a striking resemblance -- inside and out -- to that of Jim Strouse's parents.

Julian, a classmate of Strouse's from Bethany Christian High School and Goshen College, was hired very recently to scout locations and set up production headquarters.

He is on "sabbatical" from New York's Irish Repertory Company, where he has been for three years. He serves as box office associate and does "basically anything."

Julian's dad, Joel Kauffmann, has more than a nodding acquaintance with the film business. He and writing partner Don Yost have penned two successful TV scripts for the Disney organization. This weekend, they will be in Los Angeles for the Writer's Guild of America Awards. Their "Full Court Miracle" is a nominee in the Children's Script category.

"Lonesome Jim," which requires winter exteriors, will be shot on high-definition video. Filming is to start March 15 and go through April 3.

Because of a series of circumstances, the budget is less than a million dollars, a fact that doesn't seem to faze the filmmakers.

How could the film attract big names with a minimal budget?

The immediate answer: "Some actors are attracted to smaller productions because they like the script or the role."

Note to aspiring actors: No one is being cast locally. There is the possibility of extra work but that remains indefinite at the present time.

groovyk1

Thanks for the info!

Pav

No problem! I wish I could bring more info.

groovyk1

I'm sure we can find some more soon.

Cari

I love what I've seen of Casey Affleck's work, but I haven't seen much. He's hilarious in Ocean's 11 and Good Will Hunting I'm looking forward to this pairing

groovyk1

I like Casey Affleck...he's really good.

Pav

Better than Ben?

from an interview

groovyk1

I prefer him to Ben sometimes.

Sacha

I prefer him to Ben too.

Thanks for all the info! I suppose we just play the waiting game and see what happens with it's release.

Pav

Waiting game is fun. New info is here!

As Catherine in François Truffaut’s story of a lifelong menage a trois between two friends and their lover, Jeanne Moreau set a precedent. Never before and rarely since Jules et Jim – a film which has belonged to each successive generation as much as it did to 1962 – has a woman been portrayed with such richness or depth. Indeed, Truffaut’s own narrator struggles to describe her. Catherine, who for decades flits between Jules and Jim, is not, he says, especially beautiful, nor intelligent or sincere. But she is a real woman, and a force of nature. Catherine does indeed appear in free fall, with all the entailing exhilaration and terror. Who else, ignored by Jules and Jim as they argue about a play, would throw herself into the Seine? Orson Welles called Moreau “the greatest actress in the world”, while Truffaut said of her performance in Jules et Jim: “She brought Catherine to life before our eyes. She was plausible, crazy, unforgivable, passionate, and above all, adorable, by which I mean, worthy of being adored.” An established stage actor and rising film star, Moreau defied convention to work first with Louis Malle on Les Amants and then the young Truffaut. And with her earnings from a previous film she even bankrolled Jules et Jim when the production ran out of money. In a career that has spanned five decades, Moreau has always resisted the easy choices. She was the beauty who was valued for that other than her beauty, the actor who has also written and directed, and above all the icon who has refused to give in to nostalgia.

BY LIV TYLER

Another Magazine: When did you first see Jules et Jim?

LIV TYLER: I came across Jules et Jim when I was about 18, after I worked with Bertolucci on Stealing Beauty. I was getting more interested in European cinema and wanted to see as much of it as I could. The film completely blew me away. Even that early scene when Jules and Jim pick up a girl and she goes home with Jim, walking around puffing on a cigarette and blowing the smoke out like she’s a locomotive train. Never in my life had I seen anything like that in a film. It floored me. I got so excited that I kept rewinding that same scene over and over again. I had that innocence you have at that age, when you think you have just discovered something that nobody else knows about. It’s just all so effortless, with a real joy of life that made me feel alive. What was it about Jeanne Moreau as Catherine that you found so captivating? My favourite performances are always the ones that are so real that you forget you’re watching an actor in a film. With Catherine you don’t feel like Moreau is an actor at all. More that Truffaut plucked her off the street, and that’s who she is. You get the sense that she was meant to play this part. How can you describe her? You just can’t. She’s unpredictable, like human beings are. She lives totally in the moment. She gets depressed, and she’s beyond narcissistic, a total spoiled brat. She’s acting up in those ways, yet it’s not over the top. It’s very subtle.

How important is subtlety to the performance?

LIV TYLER: Totally. Don’t you just love the way that you can imagine all their feelings – not just hers, but Jules and Jim’s as well – because they’re not thrust at you? Subtlety is my favourite thing in cinema. It lets you dream. When everything is on the nail and on show, it leaves no questions in your mind. I find that so boring. The subtlety you get in Jules et Jim reminds me of Bertolucci, who is my other favourite director. When I did Stealing Beauty I was just a kid. I’d done a couple of movies, but I’d never been to an acting class in my life. But what I took away from it more than anything was the sense that, even though I was the central character, it was my job to get completely lost in the film. I had a real awareness of Bernardo as a filmmaker – not just a director – painting a canvas in which I was just one element. The thing that is most touching about Jules et Jim is that all three of their performances balance out brilliantly. It’s not one of them, but all three who make the film.

And yet it’s Moreau, right down to her style and her look, who has become a cinematic icon.

LIV TYLER: She’s got such an outrageous style, hasn’t she? It’s like she belongs in those clothes. There wasn’t much money for the wardrobe, so I think they are mostly all Moreau’s own clothes. When she dresses like a man, near the start, she has this sweater on which is too big for her, and she’s not wearing a bra. It’s so hip and ahead of its time. Clothes have become too important and films are saturated with fashion. So you find yourself wearing designer clothes that aren’t relevant to your character. I’m always so intrigued by Christopher Guest and his movies, like Best in Show and A Mighty Wind. He hires the actors and they all come up with the story and the concept, improvise. And they are all responsible for their own hair and make-up. They buy their own clothes, are in control of creating their characters. I would love to do that.

There are so many memorable scenes in Jules et Jim. Which stand out for you?

LIV TYLER: There is a really moving moment later in the film, when they are all older. Catherine finally realises that she can’t have Jim, that it’s not going to work. So she goes from Jim’s bedroom next door to Jules’s bedroom. They talk and they find comfort in the fact that they will always have each other. They cry and hold each other’s faces, and just lie there. Jules is tortured because he can’t have her completely, but he’s satisfied to have her then, in her misery. He will always be there for her, no matter what. It’s outrageous that he lets her go off and do all those things. It’s not politically correct in any way, is it? Like when she jumps off the bridge to get attention. If you were reading that script today and trying to get the film made in Hollywood, it couldn’t happen. The characters are so all over the place. You see so many sides to them, their weaknesses. Like her evil little smile at the end. She is so alive and completely authentic. The film is so inspiring it makes me want to be part of cinema.

groovyk1

Cool. Thanks for sharing!

Pav

I believe that Lonesome Jim will be one of such movies.