“A Production Miracle” | Alex Thompson, Ghostlight
Courtesy of IFC Films.
The sophomore feature from Alex Thompson and Kelly O’Sullivan, following their critically acclaimed Saint Frances, Ghostlight stars a real-life family of actors, as well as Golden Globe nominee Dolly De Leon (Triangle of Sadness).
Dan (Keith Kupferer), a melancholic middle-aged construction worker grieving a family tragedy. Cut off from his devoted wife, Sharon (Tara Mallen), and talented but troubled daughter, Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer), Dan finds comfort and community in a misfit company of amateur actors. While moonlighting in a low-rent production of Shakespeare’s most protean tragedy, Dan is forced to confront his buried emotions.
Screening Thursday, May 9, at 8:30 p.m, as a closing-night title for the Chicago Critics Film Festival (get tickets now), this Chicago-made feature was a breakout hit at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Ahead of Ghostlight screening at the Chicago Critics Film Festival, writer-director Alex Thompson graciously took the time to answer this year’s CCFF filmmaker questionnaire. Below, his individual responses.
Courtesy of IFC Films
How did you first become interested in filmmaking? What was your path toward directing your first film?
I was making “movies” from around eight years old with the family camcorder, and I had my hands on a non-linear editing software called Pinnacle from early middle school, thanks to my parents. I really credit them with figuring out what I needed without going overboard. A lot was based on what was available in the TV/Radio class at school: a rolling tripod attachment, a Panasonic DVX-100a, editing software (eventually Final Cut Pro) and time — to run around, to play, and to write, as much writing as a kid does. A lot of freedom, though. Filmmaking was one of two activities I was never not-doing, along with capture the flag.
This passion was nonstop through high school, and through college at DePauw University. I studied abroad at FAMU in Prague, Czech Republic, and became fixated by the idea of visual language. Missing pieces began to fill in as I studied structuralism at DePauw in undergrad, studied abroad at FAMU and became fixated by the idea of visual language, and got on sets during summers working in LA as a casting intern and then assistant. Finally, opening the black box of casting allowed me the confidence to direct my first proper short film, Irene and Marie.
What inspired you to make the film you're bringing to the festival?
Kelly's script. It's really good, and is obviously cinematic; and it offered an opportunity to work with a lot of great performances. And she said I could.
Tell us about a film that you consider a guiding influence (whether it has informed your overarching vision as a filmmaker, directly informed the title you're bringing to the festival, or both).
Moonstruck and It’s a Wonderful Life are two touchstones for me. I often played “Muzetta’s Waltz,” from Dick Hyman’s Puccini-inflected score to Moonstruck, on set. It has a melancholy and a longing that is playful and timeless, and maybe flirts with some cheese. We wanted the actors and the camera to feel comfortable going as close to sentiment as possible when necessary, because so much of the movie is people keeping themselves hidden.
It’s a Wonderful Life is another one for similar reasons: the devastation of George Bailey and the redemption of George Bailey. Both contain extended sequences of celebration, and similarly exultant camerawork.
Both end with images that place the stories that preceded them in a different light. In Moonstruck, an image of the old world, the chosen family of a husband and wife; in the other, a simple but profound note from Clarence reads, in part: “No man is a failure who has friends.” These are not typical conventions to end movies with, and for movies that love big emotion, big performances, faces and movement, the simple devices feel sort of radical.
Keith did something at the end of Ghostlight that was very small but, after seeing it in camera, I thought, “Well, that’s it.” The story is over now. It reminded me of the bell ringing on the tree in It’s a Wonderful Life, the acknowledgement of some other current in the story that can go unsaid. I liked that. And, pretty soon after that thing Keith did, the movie ends.
Courtesy of IFC Films
Tell us about a location that's held significance to the film you're bringing to the festival: a setting where filming took place, a geographic area that provided a source of inspiration, or another type of space that comes to mind for you in thinking about the film. What made this place so special?
The theater space was incredibly specific in terms of the script. Its storefront needed to be adjacent from an active construction site, which we would create from scratch; a live street that could be closed off for stunt work; and a bar, which our character would need to enter and exit and walk from, in real time in a single shot, to the storefront. It needed big windows with an anteroom and curtains that contained an inner sanctum, which would feel isolated from the street. It was a lot to ask for.
We could only achieve this through finding either the perfect location or through faking it all, with a pray-for-a-match one-liner that would put shot and reverse shot in different cities on different days, praying the weather cooperated. Luckily, we achieved the former, and Linda Lee, our production designer, married it all with aplomb.
To top it off, we were near some active construction sites that seemed more than happy to look the other way as we shot Keith in their world. Waukegan's Dave Motley was unbelievably open to finding solutions for our stunt work, and our construction site was able to live nearby for many days at a time, acting as a surprise background for scenes we assumed would need to shoot around its emptiness.
Best of all, Josh Beadle at Three Brothers Theatre allowed us to use their big theater space as holding for all of our exteriors and interiors, including days that had nothing to do with the theater at all. That meant we could live on that street, return to it over and over, and even turn their lobby into a therapist's office for reshoots in another instance of production-design (PD) inspiration. The stage set was 10 minutes away as well, so, like a real theater company, we used the rehearsal space to paint flats, stage crafty props and costumes, and load and unload dressing that couldn't be stored at the school, which was active. It was a production miracle, and it allowed us to do good work and pivot when the work was un-ideal.
The theatrical experience brings us together to celebrate artistic experience and expand our horizons as human beings. Tell us about a memorable theatrical experience from your life.
One summer afternoon when I was in middle school, my grandmother from Michigan was in town, and The Passenger was playing on film at the Kentucky Theater. I knew Antonioni from Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" book and had the feeling he was important.
The matinee was nearly empty. It was a very scratchy print, with horrible, blown-out sound. We sat through what felt like a lot more than two hours. It was an incredibly grown-up experience, a film not even a little bit made for children. My grandmother would occasionally make a small sound of encouragement when something would happen, reassuring me that she was having a good time (two of her favorite movies, to give context, were An Affair to Remember, and Air Force One). When it was over, we walked out into the dusk, and I felt like I had been someplace else. I understood that, despite being almost unbearably bored, I was also entranced.