Recent Stories with tag Passionada

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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