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Samuel
L Jackson as Jessica’s
mentor, Police
Commissioner John Mills.
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The script - by former rock musician Sarah Thorp, whose directorial debut, See Jane Run, will go on release in the US in April - provided just the kind of canvas with which director Kaufman likes to work: a tightly wound story with hidden depths and a wide range of themes. Which is why, although he had originally planned to shoot the film in the Mission district of San Francisco, Kaufman responded so strongly to a location-scouting trip to Fisherman’s Wharf.
“The water gave a theme to the picture that wasn’t in anybody’s mind at first,” he says. “But down at the wharf, a crime scene can take on a whole new feel and become even eerier and colder than in a lot of other areas of San Francisco often seen in films.”
Thus a scene in which the body of one of the killer’s victims is discovered was shot on some waterside rocks right behind Pacific Bell Park, where a Giants night game with 40,000 fans was being held at the time (thus providing the shoot with 40,000 unwitting extras). Giving the location an added edge was the fact that a real murder victim had been found at the same spot a year earlier.
Twisted was also able to shoot at Pier 39, where a colony of sea lions took up residence following the 1989 earthquake. Getting permission to film there took a call from former SF Mayor Willie Brown, not to mention finding ways of coping with the behaviour of the single-minded creatures.
“It’s tricky,” admits location manager Rory Enke. “You’re asking wild animals to hang around and perform in an urban setting. One day, they got all upset by a seagull with a fishing-line wrapped around its leg. Another time, just as the sun went down and the second unit was set to roll, a huge sea lion chased all the others off, turned toward the camera and began to perform, just as if he knew it was time for his close-up!”
For Kaufman - who shot his unforgettable horror movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers in and around San Francisco - location has always been an important way of adding impact to a film, taking advantage of the response to an unusual backdrop to ratchet up the tension and focus additional attention on the characters’ dilemmas.
“Philip creates worlds that are always intriguing,” says production designer Dennis Washington, who has worked with Twisted’s producer Arnold Kopelson before (on The Fugitive), but is collaborating here for the first time with Kaufman. “With each of his films, he takes a piece and keeps evolving it into something that becomes more and more interesting. He has a film noir background, and he uses his knowledge of older movies of that style and gives them a contemporary twist.”
And indeed, the world into which Judd finds herself thrust - a kind of living nightmare, in which familiar things become threatening and friends begin to look like enemies - has a lot in common with classic Hollywood crime tales. This, moreover, is an element in Twisted which appealed to Kopelson the first time he came across the project. “Twisted is one of those Hitchcock-like murder mysteries that will surprise audiences and keep them guessing until the very end,” he says. “That’s what a good movie is all about.”
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