Recent Stories with tag Dan Ireland

Seattle is the #2 big city for people with asthma, says Health magazine, thanks in part to our 2008 heat wave pollution, which meant the city had to work even harder to maintain clean air. And Bicycling magazine rated us the #4 best city for bicycling, after Minneapolis, Portland, and Boulder. That's thanks to our bike master plan.

Costco and Nordstrom had a good March, while Boeing reported almost an eleven percent drop in first quarter deliveries compared to last year. Starbucks was trying to get us drunk and show us a movie. Techflash reported on a UW study claiming 8.4 percent of Washington jobs rely on Microsoft. In Olympia, a sales tax increase didn't pass muster, but mass-market beer got tagged. The City Council may be near agreeing with Mayor McGinn for the first time.

Down in South Lake Union, Amazon started moving into its new digs. One Seattle real estate investor bought an infamous Orange County resort, while on top of Queen Anne, a developer put a substantial chunk of property up for sale. Over on Capitol Hill, a protest against police brutality got a little out of hand, and Sen. Patty Murray visited Cupcake Royale. In Ballard, a car accident claimed three young lives. My Wallingford was gearing up for work on the Aurora Bridge. As usual, nothing happened in Wedgwood....

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A few days after interviewing director Dan Ireland (see Part One here), I attend the SIFF Twelve-Hour Marathon on March 21. The director's in attendance to introduce the screening of his beloved debut, The Whole Wide World. I introduce myself, and sure enough, in person he's as gregarious, focused, and cheerful as he was on the phone. He thanks me profusely for the interview, and enthuses about introducing the night's final film, Trouble in Mind.

Then he buzzes into the auditorium to usher in this screening of his baby. Ireland's hearty and infectious laugh resonates through the auditorium as he speaks passionately about the rigors of making The Whole Wide World, and about his pride in the director's cut he's brought.

The movie screens to a sizable and engrossed audience. It holds up incredibly well as an unforced evocation of its period setting, as an incredibly astute mirror to the creative process, and as an affecting love story.

At one point I turn away from its ambling beauty to glance to my left. The director's sitting in the center of the theater watching his work, and the expression on his face reflects not so much the scrutinizing perfectionist or the gloating egotist so much as the enchanted movie fan. It's taken him years to be able to watch The Whole Wide World with the non-critical eye of an audience member, and he--like the rest of the crowd--is allowing himself to be captivated.

That expression revisits his face again during the screening of Trouble in Mind, and it's not too much of a stretch envisioning this grown man as a kid in Vancouver, drinking in the magic of cinema on the proceeds scraped from the inside of his mom's purse.

In Part Two of his interview with the SunBreak, Ireland speaks in detail about the rest of his body of work, about the pleasures and pains of being a truly independent moviemaker, and about the role his mother played in forming his passion for cinema.

I wanted to ask you about the development of The Velocity of Gary...was that another situation where D'Onofrio had a lot of input?...

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In an age when even the most idiosyncratic film directors allow their visions to be diluted by the tsunami that is corporate-sponsored modern cinema, Dan Ireland has defiantly crafted subtle, engrossing, and fiercely-independent character studies for fifteen years.

Ireland studied directing at the figurative feet of masters as co-founder (with Darryl MacDonald) of the Seattle International Film Festival, purchased and renovated Seattle's beloved Egyptian Theater, and segued into film production with Vestron Pictures in the mid-1980s before taking the director's chair on The Whole Wide World in 1996. With that kind of trajectory, it's no surprise that Dan Ireland's rife with great stories about every phase of his journey to date.

Informed by the arthouse features he championed at SIFF as a programmer, Ireland's own films cover a wide swath of subject matter--from a romantic triangle involving a bisexual porn star, a male hustler, and a waitress (The Velocity of Gary), to a vividly-observed portrayal of Massachusetts-based Portugese-Americans (Passionada), to a bravura showcase for the legendary Joan Plowright (Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont), to his award-winning E.L. Doctorow adaptation Jolene. The trademarks of his style: an emphasis on characterization and a unique eye for spotting up-and-coming actors, as well as bringing out the best in already-established ones.

SIFF's prodigal father returns to Seattle on Sunday to present a director's cut of The Whole Wide World, his affecting drama detailing the relationship between pulp author Robert E. Howard (Vincent D'Onofrio) and schoolteacher Novalyne Price (Renee Zellweger, in her film debut). It's a perfect opening film for SIFF Cinema's Twelve-Hour Movie Marathon, an innovative fundraiser showcasing a stellar lineup of films significant to SIFF's history. The movie stands, in its own quiet way, as one of the best films of the '90s, and one of the Fest's most cherished progeny.

Ireland talked to The SunBreak in detail about the many hats he's worn over the years (stay tuned for part two of this interview next week). But the first portion of our conversation orbited around his acclaimed first feature, its impact on his life and career, and how the director's cut of The Whole Wide World differs from the original theatrical release....

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