Paul Zaentz in Karlovy Vary

Source: KVIFF

Paul Zaentz in Karlovy Vary

EXCLUSIVE: Producer Paul Zaentz and director Devin Adair are working on a feature adaptation of Luke Barr’s nonfiction book Provence, 1970: M.F.K Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, And The Reinvention Of American Taste.

Adair is writing a script for the film. Set in Provence, France, during Christmas in 1970, the 2013 book follows a gathering between six acclaimed culinary figures, who cooked, ate, argued, and talked about the future of food in the US, the meaning of taste, and the limits of snobbery.

“It’ll be a small dinner movie like My Dinner With Andre or Babette’s Feast,” Zaentz told Screen at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Zaentz presented a 50th anniversary restoration of Milos Forman’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest at the festival, alongside Michael Douglas, who produced the film with Zaentz’s uncle Saul Zaentz.

No cast or shoot dates are confirmed yet for Provence, 1970, but Zaentz said he will look to shoot on location in France, instead of moving the film to the US. “Why would I take a movie that takes place in Provence, to shoot it in the US?” laughed Zaentz, who said that he has only filmed in the US for three weeks across his 50-year career.

Adair has produced features including Break Point, documentary Betting On Zero, and 2018 romantic comedy Grace, which she also wrote and directed. “I have a lot of faith in her,” said Zaentz.

Next up for Zaentz will be border patrol film Backyard/Desert starring Eric Roberts, based on Nancy Irene Kelly’s play, directed by Ethan Felizzari-Castillo and from a screenplay by Felizzari-Castillo and Kelly.

Zaentz says the film is hoping to shoot “this fall, when the weather’s a little cooler in Arizona”, and that half of the $1m budget is in place.

Series updates

The producer also gave updates on two series adaptations of acclaimed films on his slate: One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, and The English Patient, the film of which he was an associate producer on in 1996.

An agreement was signed shortly before Cannes in May with the family of Ken Kesey, author of the 1962 book One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, to make a series. The project is in very early stages, Zaentz emphasised.

“We have a list of writers and showrunners that we’re debating who we want to talk to, but that’s it,” he said. “As Michael Douglas said to me yesterday, good luck with casting the Chief [Chief Bromden, the character from whose perspective Kesey’s original novel was told].” Earlier this month Zaentz told filmmaking podcast CK Café that the new series will take on the Chief’s perspective in the first season; and beyond that will see what happens to him after he escapes the psychiatric hospital in which the 1975 film was set.

Zaentz has partnered with Miramax TV and the BBC on The English Patient series, which the producer says has gained recent momentum after being turned down by “all the streamers” two years ago. “We came to a mutual decision [to] wait for two years – it’s so good, things change, and we’re not in any rush to make it,” said Zaentz.

“Then just a few weeks ago, the writer [Emily Ballou] said ‘I know a way I could rewrite things that won’t be so expensive’. So we told her to go ahead and do it.”

Zaentz also worked on Forman’s 1984 film Amadeus; but is not involved in the upcoming Sky miniseries of the same name. “They said it is just based on the play [from 1979, by Peter Shaffer], nothing to do with the movie,” said Zaentz. “I said OK – but nobody better say ‘too many notes’!” [a key line from Forman’s film].

Harvey Weinstein

Zaentz holds fond memories of working with the late Anthony Minghella on 1999’s The Talented Mr. Ripley. “Anthony said ‘I want to write something that disturbs the audience. When [Ripley] kills Peter Smith-Kingsley, a man who truly loved him, I want the audience to go – what?!’,” said Zaentz.

The producer has far less fondness for producer Harvey Weinstein, whom Zaentz says wanted to change the end of the film. “Harvey wanted us to reshoot the ending, so Ripley was caught in Venice before he gets on the boat, because some test audiences were disturbed by him,” said Zaentz. “Anthony and I told Harvey ‘no, we’re not doing it. If you want to reshoot it, you talk to Matt and Gwyneth [Damon and Paltrow, stars in the film], but that’s not the movie they signed up to make either.”

Zaentz said Weinstein was so annoyed at losing that battle that he withdrew awards backing for the film. “He put all his support behind The Cider House Rules,” said Zaentz. “I’m certain that if he didn’t get so personally upset, there would have been another best picture nomination [after The English Patient] – probably would have won.”

Weinstein is currently serving a 16-year prison sentence in California having been found guilty of three of seven charges of rape, forced oral copulation and third-degree sexual misconduct; while a separate case in New York last month returned a mixed verdict following a mistrial.

“Even if he had never touched a woman improperly – the way he treated people, he deserves to get what he’s got,” said Zaentz, who acknowledged that The English Patient would not have been made without Weinstein, “even though he is a total piece of shit.”

Karlovy Vary continues until July 12.

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