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the banger sisters
MODERN MEN: Writer/director
Bob Dolman on set
with Sarandon.
Harry is one of those characters that all writers dream of: someone who develops an existence of his own and ends up telling the writer what to write. “What’s interesting about Harry,” says Dolman, “is that he was not planned when I was writing the script… I thought maybe if I have Suzette stop and get gas, something will happen. This character really stepped off the bus into my story, and then I didn’t know what to do with him. And the next thing I knew, he had a gun inside a typewriter case… I was just trying to keep up with what the story was telling me!”
Rush, whose comic work in the past has more often than not been contained within characters who are more disturbed than they are funny (David Helfgott in Shine and the Marquis de Sade in Quills, for instance), embraced the character of Harry with both arms - and then some.
For Hawn, playing scenes with Rush reminded her of working with Peter Sellers. “Peter left an indelible print on my mind,” she says. “His comedic genius was really unmatched until I worked with Geoffrey. I laughed the way I laughed at Peter.”
Dolman, who knows a thing or two about comedy from a couple of decades working in TV, is even more enthusiastic. “Geoffrey may be the most gifted, physical comedian I’ve ever seen,” he says.
The Banger Sisters shot on a very tight, 24-day schedule, with cinematographer Karl Walter Lindenlaub (Independence Day, The Princess Diaries) joining the crew only four days before shooting after an emergency caused the original DOP to drop out. But the shortness of the shoot, reckons Lindenlaub, was more of a boon than a disadvantage.
“You have to commit a little more, which is a nice thing,” he says. “Films are more personal that way. Twenty years ago, people didn’t have 100-day schedules all the time. They shot fast, and they played fast as well. When you have this kind of talent, you can do that: they have a great sense of timing. You don’t have to have safety nets everywhere: you can play it in one shot.”
The final element in the Banger mix is the music, some of it from the sixties (The Doors’ ‘Crystal Ship’ and Steppenwolf’s ‘Rock Me’), some of it lesser-known tracks by major artists - like Roger Daltrey’s version of ‘Child of Mine’ - and some of it specially written by Chris Robinson, who is Hawn’s son-in-law and a member of The Black Crowes.
The spread is intentional: The Banger Sisters is not a nostalgia trip, although those nostalgic for the wilder side of the sixties are likely to enjoy the moment when Suzette and Lavinia unearth their celebrity memorabilia stash, otherwise known as the ‘rock cock collection’. More than anything else, however, it is a film about two women, played by two of Hollywood’s best actresses, coming to terms with the fact that living in the past is just as bad as living for some imaginary future. It’s a film about laying ghosts, fleeing fantasies and getting on with life.
“The script was just leap-off-the-page funny,” says producer Elizabeth Cantillon, “and it was two great parts for two female actors. You don’t see very many of those scripts these days. It’s hard to get movies made with women, and these were women who had lived their lives and made choices in their lives that there was no going back on. I thought that was intriguing; I thought really great actresses would think that was intriguing; and I was right.”
“There are lots of screenplays, some of them very good, that rehash other movies or other stories,” sums up fellow producer Mark Johnson. “This… I never read anything like this before! And these women - as original as they were and as funny as they were - were also women I could understand and believe. You could make a movie based on just one of them.”
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THE BANGER SISTERS
Fox Searchlight
presents a Gran Via/
Elizabeth Cantillon
production
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Prod: Mark Johnson, Elizabeth Cantillon; Exec prod: David Bushell; Dir/Scr: Bob Dolman; Ph: Karl Walter Lindenlaub; Prod des: Maia Javan; Cost des: Jacqueline West; Ed: Aram Nigoghossian; Casting: Sheila Jaffe, Georgianne Walken; Mus: Trevor Rabin; Mus sup: Maureen Crowe, John Bissell.
With Goldie Hawn (Suzette), Susan Sarandon (Vinnie/Lavinia), Geoffrey Rush (Harry), Erika Christensen (Hannah), Robin Thomas (Raymond), Eva Amurri (Ginger), Matthew Carey (Jules).
International distribution:
Twentieth Century Fox.
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