screenplay-writers-in-the-news

Alan Sillitoe - RIP

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 09:41:51 +0100

‘Angry’ British Novelist, Dies at 82

By BRUCE WEBER in NYTimes April 26, 2010

Alan Sillitoe, a British writer whose two early works — a novel, “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning,” and a short story, “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner” — drew attention to the seething alienation of the postwar working class in England, died on Sunday in London. He was 82.

Mr. Sillitoe, who grew up desperately poor and left school at 14, had a long and prolific career, and he spent much of it plumbing the privations of his childhood for material. He published more than 50 books — including poetry, essays, travel writing and fiction for both adults and children — along with a handful of plays and screenplays. But he never repeated the acclaim or the influence that accrued to his first works of fiction, which were published in the late 1950s and led critics to group him with the so-called angry young men, writers like Kingsley Amis, John Braine, John Wain and the playwright John Osborne who were also describing characters in revolt against the British class system.

Unlike some of his contemporaries, however, Mr. Sillitoe wrote about people who were more concerned with defying the elite class than joining it. Arthur Seaton, the frequently drunk, amorally libidinous 22-year-old factory worker in “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning” (1958), sees the world as an us-against-them proposition. His strategy for living is to hoard the pleasures of the moment, to turn life into a perpetual Saturday night in a barroom and a bedroom and fend off the responsibilities of Sunday morning. (The 1960 film was a star-making vehicle for Albert Finney.)

Smith, the narrator of “Loneliness,” a 17-year-old thief who had been sent to a reformatory, is similarly opposed to the straight and narrow. When he proves to have a gift for cross-country running and becomes a favorite of the institution’s governor, he continues his rebellion by purposely losing a race, stopping just short of the finish line as the flummoxed and appalled governor looks on. The moment — later captured in a 1962 film directed by Tony Richardson and starring Tom Courtenay and Michael Redgrave — was a perfect symbol of the divide between the classes. The governor thinks he has lost; the runner thinks he has won.

“Cunning is what counts in life, and even that you’ve got to use in the slyest way you can,” Smith says at one point. “I’m telling you straight: they’re cunning, and I’m cunning. If only ‘them’ and ‘us’ had the same ideas, we’d get on like a house on fire, but they don’t see eye to eye with us, and we don’t see eye to eye with them, so that’s how it stands and how it will always stand.”

Alan Sillitoe was born in Nottingham, England, on March 4, 1928. His father was a laborer, often unemployed, and frequently violent. The family often moved to avoid the rent collector.

As a teenager he worked in a bicycle factory and as an air traffic control assistant. In the Royal Air Force he served as a radio operator in Malaya. He began to write during a recuperation from tuberculosis.

“I was 20 years old when I first tried to write, and it took 10 years before I learned how to do it,” he once said.

His survivors include his wife, Ruth Fainlight, a poet; a son, David; and a daughter, Susan.

Mr. Sillitoe often wrote with a political outlook sympathetic to the working poor, and much of the criticism of his work after “Saturday Night” and “Loneliness” complained of its being bogged down in philosophical heavy-handedness. He spent much of his life traveling, and his novels frequently contrived to transport working-class Englishmen to foreign lands.

In “Key to the Door” (1961) the lead character (Arthur Seaton’s brother) joins the military and is sent to Malaya, and in “The Death of William Posters” (1965) a man escaping the drudgery of a marriage finds his way to Algeria, where he becomes a gun smuggler. More recently, Mr. Sillitoe published “Gadfly in Russia” (2007), a collection of four decades of writing about Russia.

Mr. Sillitoe’s other books include several forays into far-flung literary genres. One, “The General” (1960), is an allegory about art and war that concerns a symphony orchestra on a train that is seized by an enemy army; “A Start in Life” (1970) is a pastiche melding the grit of modern Nottingham with the picaresque tradition of the 18th century; and “Travels in Nihilon” (1971) is a satirical fantasy set in a fictional nation where self-indulgence and self-expression are lionized.

In 1995, he published an autobiography, “Life Without Armour.”

"Heavy Seven" by screenwriter Robert Azevedo

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 07:52:45 +0100

For the Azevedo family, “Heavy Seven” was a labor of love.

from Boston.com

The film, set entirely in Melrose, took two years to produce and screenwriter Robert Azevedo said the going wasn't always easy.

“It's a slow, tedious process,” he said of filming the movie, which was inspired by a short story he wrote for Farmhouse Magazine.

Luckily, Azevedo was working with a crew of family members in a city he's known for 35 years. His father, Robert, plays the leading role in the film, which debuts on Sunday at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge.

“I always saw him as the main character,” said Azevedo. “I was really happy to have him do it.”

Robert plays a 67-year-old funeral parlor usher named Bobby Merlot, whose troubled past forces him on a personal journey for love, redemption, answers, and purpose. The film tests the theory that there are seven significant moments that make up every life, Azevedo said.

“What are 'my' Heavy Seven? That’s the question I want people to be asking themselves on the way out of the theater,” he said. “What are the moments in my life that that define who I am and the path that I follow?”

Boston-based director Paul Serafini said he chose the project because of its compelling storyline and strong characters.

“Rob’s script had all that and this fantastic edge that brings ordinary life occurrences into razor sharp focus,” he said.

The group filmed mainly on nights and weekends at various locations throughout Melrose. Viewers will recognize a local cemetery and spots around the downtown in front of Turner's Seafood and the Melrose Police Department. Gately Funeral Home is used during scenes when Merlot is at work.

In addition to Azevedo's father, his sister Laura helped produce the film. His brother, Michael, helped write the screenplay and a “slew” of nephews and nieces got small roles.

“We had a lot of fun,” Azevedo said.

"Heavy Seven" will premiere at 2 p.m. on Sunday, April 11 at the Brattle Theatre at 40 Brattle St., Cambridge.

The screening is free and open to the public and will be following by a question and answer session with the cast and crew.

Peter Morgan - "The Damned United"

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:24:32 +0100

by Paul Matwychul on Fast Forward Weekly, November 19th 2009

Peter Morgan is one of the few screenwriters who appears to have no ambitions to become a director, but his scripts have such consistent themes that he practically qualifies as an auteur anyway. A typical Morgan script will dramatize a little-known footnote of ’70s history and use that story as a springboard for pitting a cocky, callow, but likable young hero against a faded but still formidable legend. In The Queen, Tony Blair faced off against Queen Elizabeth, in The Last King of Scotland, a young doctor had to square off against Idi Amin, and in Frost/Nixon... well, that one’s right there in the title.

In his latest film, The Damned United (and it feels right to call it a Peter Morgan film, even though Tom Hooper directed it), the two main characters will be less familiar to North Americans than to Brits. The cocky hero this time is football manager Brian Clough (Michael Sheen), whose leadership transformed Derby County from a laughingstock to a contender for the First Division title. His rival is Don Revie, the beloved manager of Leeds United, whose brutal style of play made the team the dominant force in British football in the early ’70s. He also snubbed Clough during their first match against each other and Clough has dreamed of revenge ever since. And so, when he’s hired as Revie’s replacement, Clough is more interested in repudiating Revie’s legacy than in winning games or endearing himself to his new team.

So the stage is set for one of the great fiascos in the history of British sport. Clough lasted a mere 44 days as Leeds’s manager before his poisonous relationship with his players and the Leeds fans resulted in his ouster and cost him not just his friendship with his invaluable right-hand man, Peter Taylor, but almost his entire sports career.

You don’t have to know anything about British football — God knows I sure don’t — to enjoy The Damned United. Morgan has always been more interested in character than setting, and he makes the film less a sports story than a study in bad management techniques. Michael Sheen, Morgan’s favourite leading man, is terrific as usual, especially in the scenes where Clough’s blinkered overconfidence gets the better of him. And with Timothy Spall as Peter Taylor, Colm Meaney as Don Revie and Jim Broadbent as Derby’s tightwad team owner, the cast is practically an all-star team of ruddy-faced Irish and British character actors. Minor, but very entertaining.

Get your Script Sold

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:58:04 +0100

From the Filmmakers, Actors and Writers Unite Blog

18th Novelber 2009

I've been receiving a lot of emails from aspiring writers who are eager to submit their work and get started, so I will go ahead and update my blog.

If you are writing or have written a script(s) and want to get it sold, then listen up. Now's your chance to get your name out. Our company is currently accepting work from aspiring new writers on a continuous basis. There is no deadline, but it is to your benefit to send your scripts in early. And there is no limit on how many scripts you can submit. I'd also like to see a synopsis to help us in your evaluation. If you prefer not to send your scripts, you can simply send us a query letter and synopsis without the script.

We'd prefer the script and synopsis so that we can save ourselves an extra step.

Once you submit your work, at least one of us from the company will read it and get back to you. If we like your script, we'll go from there. If we like your query/synopsis, we'll ask for your script.

You can submit your work to the following email: independentfilmmaker75@yahoo.com

Please submit one of the following:

Script and Synopsis (you may also include a query letter so we can get a better idea of what your script is about but its not required)

Query Letter/Synopsis Only

We accept scripts in the following formats: Final Draft, PDF, Word Document

If you have any questions, feel free to send me a message or leave a comment, and I'll be glad to get back to you.

Roman Polanski

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 07:26:58 +0100

From : The Telegraph, UK
28 Septmeber 2009

Roman Polanski arrested and facing extradition over sex with under-age girl

The film director Roman Polanski was last night in custody in Switzerland and facing extradition to the United States in connection with a 32-year-old case in which he admitted sexual intercourse with an under-age girl. Polanski, 76, whose films have included Rosemary's Baby and Chinatown, was being held at a police station in Zurich under a 1978 arrest warrant issued in Los Angeles.

He fled the US on the eve of being sentenced after admitting unlawful sexual intercourse with 13-year-old Samantha Geimer in 1977, plying the aspiring model with sedative drugs and champagne during a hot tub photoshoot at the Hollywood home of Jack Nicholson.

Polanksi flew to London and then on to his home city of Paris, where he has lived and worked ever since. He has never returned to America, even to collect an Oscar he won in 2003 for The Pianist.

Under a treaty with the US, France can refuse to extradite its own citizens even if they face criminal charges.

But on Saturday, Polanski went to Zurich, where he was on Monday due to pick up a lifetime achievement award at the city's annual film festival.

Swiss detectives approached him as soon as he entered the country, serving him with the 1978 arrest warrant.

A spokesman for the Swiss justice ministry said the US had been seeking Polanski’s arrest around the world since 2005, adding: "There was a valid arrest request and we knew when he was coming. That is why he was taken into custody."

But friends of the director said on Sunday they were shocked by his sudden arrest, saying that he had previously travelled back and forth to Switzerland, and other countries such as Germany, without being apprehended by the authorities.

Robert Harris, the British author who had recently collaborated with Polanski on film versions of two of his books, said the director spent most of July and August at a house he owns in the Swiss resort of Gstaad.

"It must have been known to the Swiss authorities. If he was such a wanted criminal why did they let him own a house and travel back and forth freely?" he said. "Something must lie behind this. It's a monstrous way for the authorities to have behaved."

Swiss police said the director had not resisted arrest and had offered to cooperate. He was now in "provisional detention with view to extradition", said the justice ministry spokesman.

America has a far stricter extradition treaty with Switzerland than it has with France, and Polanski could face a lengthy prison sentence for the crime of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.

The US will now be given time to make a formal extradition request. Polanski will be able to appeal both against his arrest and an extradition at the Swiss federal penal court of justice. Its decisions could be contested in the federal court of justice.

Meanwhile, Polanski’s arrest looked set to spark a diplomatic row. Frederic Mitterand, the French culture minister, said he was "deeply shocked" by the sudden arrest and had already discussed the matter with President Sarkozy.

Mr Mitterand said he learned of the director’s apprehension "with astonishment " and that he regretted "in the strongest way that a new ordeal has been inflicted on someone who has already gone through so much".

The Swiss Directors’ Association branded Polanski’s arrest "not only a grotesque farce of justice but also an immense cultural scandal".

Although his position would have been stronger if he had voluntarily returned to America, Polanski may still be able to have the case against him dropped even if he is extradited.

The director has claimed that "closure" on the case is "long overdue" but successive requests over the years by his lawyers for this to happen to have fallen down because of his refusal to come back to the US and testify in person.

In rejecting his lawyers’ request in February this year, Peter Espinoza, a Los Angeles judge, did however make clear he had some sympathy with Polanski’s claims that his original prosecution was flawed.

Mr Espinoza mentioned a new documentary film that claimed prosecutors colluded with the judge and that the latter – now dead - was about to renege on their plea deal, worried about damage to his public image if he did not send Polanski to prison.

"It's hard to contest some of the behaviour in the documentary was misconduct," said Mr Espinoza.

Geimer herself has indicated she does not believe Polanski should be jailed, saying he has already paid for making a "terrible mistake".

Polanski had originally been charged with far more serious charges including rape and sodomy but they were dismissed following plea bargaining.

Polanksi, who was born in Paris to Polish parents, lost his pregnant wife, the actress Sharon Tate, in 1969 after she was murdered in their Hollywood home by cult followers of Charles Manson.

He has claimed that the horror of the killing affected him psychologically and was partly responsible for his treatment of Miss Geimer.

Under Californian law, unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor where the other person is more than three years older is a felony punishable by up four years in prison. Polanski could receive further jail time for becoming a fugitive from justice.

Polanski's lawyers claim his judge in 1978 had agreed he would only serve the 42 days he had spent in prison undergoing evaluation, but was about to renege on that agreement.

Frank Deasy, RIP

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:32:02 +0100

Award winning screenwriter dies

The award winning screenwriter Frank Deasy, who had been campaigning for more organ donations, has died in hospital in Edinburgh.

From BBC News, 21 September 2009

Mr Deasy, 49, died on Thursday in Edinburgh's Royal Infirmary, where he had been due to get a liver transplant.

The screenwriter, whose screen credits include Prime Suspect, appealed at the weekend for more organ donors especially those with blood group B.

Mr Deasy is survived by his wife Marie and three young children.

Only organs from a donor with the B blood group, which is shared by just 10% of the population, can be used in transplants for people such as Mr Deasy who had the rare blood group.

He persuaded actors who had appeared in his hit dramas to join the campaign. Among those who did was Scots actor Dougray Scott, who starred in his screenplay Father and Son.

Planning work

Mr Deasy's his most obvious success in his campaign followed an appeal in his native Ireland last week. The day after the show was aired a record number of people applied for organ donor cards.

His agent, Anthony Jones, confirmed the news of his death and said it had shocked friends and colleagues. He said: "I spoke to him only yesterday afternoon.

"He was fine and already planning when he could start work again on the drama he's making for the BBC.

"It was the third time he'd been called about a new liver; the first two times turned out to be false alarms and he was delighted that this time it would happen.

"He was so proud of the impact he'd made, particularly in Ireland where the health minister had come onto the same radio show the next day and announced she was considering legislation for presumed consent.

"That meant a lot to him. I just hope that people will continue what he started."

Mr Deasy's latest project was a BBC drama called Gaza, about a secular Jewish doctor in the Middle East. Helen Mirren was due to play the central role.

Scott Moore : 'Hangover' writer

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:28:36 +0100

From Dscriber.com by Brad Weismann
Friday, 18 September 2009

Life is good for Scott Moore. Well, life would be good for anyone who helped create the top-grossing R-rated comedy in film history. Yeah.

That's bigger than "Borat." Bigger than "There's Something About Mary." Bigger than "Animal House," for chrissake!

Scott Moore loves it.

"It's so great," he says via phone. He's getting ready to visit Boulder for a screening of his film, the summer's big smash hit "The Hangover," which he wrote with his long-time writing partner Jon Lucas, on Saturday, Sept. 19 and he'll stick around for a Q-and-A session afterwards.

"It's both rewarding on a personal and a professional level, after nine years of doing lots of good work without seeing our names on it," he says.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Moore graduated from CU-Boulder in 1989, with a degree in economics. Huh?

"Actually, I started off with an engineering major," he says. "And it was very boring. One day in statics class, I realized that I was studying . . . concrete."

So he switched. Economics sounds fairly frivolous after that.

He took a lot of film classes, too. There was no film studies major at CU at the time, but the small size of the department was a boon for him, as it allowed him much more hands-on experience.

"If you wanted to write, you wrote," he said. "If you wanted to shoot, you shot. It was a lot of fun, very close-knit - it was a great place to learn about filmmaking."

He never really joined a comedy scene, either. "We'd rather write the jokes down and have someone else deliver them," he says. Right out of school, Moore went to work as a intern at Disney.

"I started by trying to be a producer, but that was no fun," he says. "It was a lot more fun to write," and he "scratched and clawed" his way into the business.

Along the way, he bumped into Jon Lucas.

"We were both working for one of the guys who was responsible for ‘Beverly Hills Cop," says Moore. "Each of us was writing on the side, with minimal success. We started working together, and we have such a great dynamic - it really paid off."

Soon the duo was known around town as go-to guys for punching up a script, performing uncredited rewrites on properties such as "Wedding Crashers," "27 Dresses," "Chicken Little" and "Mr. Woodcock."

"A pretty typical Hollywood writer's career is, when you're writing, you're writing on spec," he says. "But there always scripts in development out there - people are needed to rewrite and develop them further. Especially in the comedy world, people say, ‘This needs to be a little funnier.' So we did that, meanwhile always trying to pitch originals."

The genesis of "Hangover" came from the two thinking about the conventions of the "bachelor party" film genre.

"It's been done a lot," he says, "and a lot of them are terrible. The thing is, a party is fun to watch for about five minutes. Talking about it the next day is funnier, a lot funnier. Think about ‘Jaws' or horror movies, too - it's better if you don't see the monster. The audience can paint a picture in their heads of what happened that's more extreme than anything we could film.

"Most people can really relate to the next morning, too - ‘Oh God. I did that. Didn't I?' And we've all been that person looking on, saying, ‘I'm glad I'm not you!' Half-a-dozen people we know think it's based directly on their lives."

"Plus, we've always liked stupid detectives. We love ‘The Big Lebowski.' So we hit on the idea of amnesia as kind of a neat way to tell it."

A sequel is already in the works, although Moore and Lucas aren't in on it.

"(‘Hangover' director) Todd Phillips is great," Moore says. "He's a well-respected writer himself. He did some work on our script as filming progressed. He wants to push the characters forward, so they're going to start filming next fall, I think. Already he's got Scot Armstrong (Phillips' co-writer on ‘Old School') on it, and Jeremy Garelick (‘The Break-Up')."

Meanwhile, More and Lucas are on to the next challenge - what they term a "body-switching" comedy titled "Change Up."

Moore begins to talk about the body-switching subgenre. Even my movie-minutiae mind balks - "There is?" I blurt.

"There is a canon," he asserts. He starts reeling off titles: "Freaky Friday," "Face/Off."

"Actually, ‘Face/Off' is so good that at times you stop thinking about Travolta and Cage and really get into it," he says. (For completists, I will throw a list of titles at the end of this story.)

"A lot of them are cheesy," he says. "But when they're well done, they're entertaining. We're thinking about it in a really fun way - the two who switch are a married guy and a single guy. Jon and I are both married, and I think everyone who is married definitely thinks about being single again. There's that ‘I wish I had your life' thing. And the single guy is a total slacker, he sees the guy with a wife and kids and thinks, ‘What would that be like?'"

David Dobkin ("Wedding Crashers") is attached to direct.

Moore's sitting pretty, and as I type this up, I think - hey, he didn't have to talk to me. He doesn't have a product to pimp, he's got no reason to give me his time. Plus it was 7 a.m. where he was when I called him. That's pretty cool. He's a nice guy.

I stick him with one more question: what was the unexplained chicken doing in the hotel room in "Hangover"?

"There is actually a reason the chicken is there," he admits. "I'm not I'm sure allowed to talk about it."

Scott Moore will appear on Saturday, Sept. Sept. 19 at the International Film Series in Boulder, Colorado at a showing of "The Hangover" at 8 p.m. in Muenzinger Auditorium on the CU-Boulder campus. For tickets and information, please visit the site by clicking on te link above.

Michael Moore - 'Capitalism: A Love Story'

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:17:38 +0100

'Capitalism: A Love Story' won't be a 'Sicko'

Michael Moore's film on the economy is getting a big push and should fare better than his previous healthcare documentary.

The country is polarized, Michael Moore is Hollywood's most polarizing filmmaker, and almost everybody is agitated about the economy. Put it all together, and the timing for Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story" couldn't be any more provocative.

Moore's latest nonfiction jeremiad -- about the incestuous relationship between government and corporate America -- premieres in Los Angeles and New York on Wednesday with the kind of build-up usually reserved for "Spider-Man" sequels. On the heels of the film's raucous, ovation-filled screenings at the Venice and Toronto International film festivals, Moore will continue a high-profile publicity tour that includes appearances on "The Tonight Show," "The Oprah Winfrey Show," "The View" and one of television's stranger stops for an anti-consumption crusader, "The Martha Stewart Show."

But for all the flattering attention (and name-calling loathing) that Moore generates, his movies are typically less popular at the box office than some people might imagine. "Capitalism," in other words, will be talked about and seen by a lot of moviegoers -- but will still need a special, extra something to explode into a true blockbuster.

Among documentary directors, Moore has utterly no equal -- 2004's "Fahrenheit 9/11," with domestic ticket sales of nearly $120 million, is by far the highest-grossing non-nature documentary of all time. And even though his other movies -- 2007's "Sicko," 2002's "Bowling for Columbine" and 1989's "Roger & Me" -- sold many more tickets than almost every other non-Imax documentary, they grossed on average $17.6 million, just a bit more than this summer's Eddie Murphy flop "Imagine That."

"Capitalism," Moore's take-no-prisoners look at the financial crisis and the power Wall Street exercises in Washington, seems poised to do a lot better.

"The movie is really good and we're getting a lot of buzz," says Peter Adee, the marketing chief for Overture Films, which co-financed and is releasing "Capitalism" domestically, with production partner Paramount Vantage handling the documentary overseas. "He's incredibly entertaining and articulate about his point of view."

Overture's plan is to carry the early enthusiasm generated in the New York and L.A. screenings into the film's national release on Oct. 2, when "Capitalism" will expand to approximately 1,000 locations. It's twice as fast an expansion than "Sicko," which moved into 441 locations its second weekend, but slower than "Fahrenheit," which grew to 1,725 locations in its second weekend.

"We think it's going to create great word of mouth in New York and Los Angeles," says Chris McGurk, Overture's chief executive.

Part of Overture's challenge is bringing younger and red state moviegoers into the "Capitalism" fold. Documentaries, including Moore's, tend to play to older adults, and the filmmaker's liberal politics have made him a preferred target for conservatives.

Though Overture is not yet buying commercial time on Fox News ("You'd be talking into the wind," Adee says), the mini studio is advertising "Capitalism" during NFL games and mass-appeal series such as "Law & Order," "Big Brother" and "Dancing With the Stars."

McGurk believes "Capitalism" is an equal-opportunity offender, noting that among Moore's villains are former President Bill Clinton, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.). "People will be surprised at how many people he calls out," McGurk says. "It's both sides of the aisle. The basic idea that Wall Street is running the country is not a left-wing idea."

McGurk says that weighing "Capitalism" against "Fahrenheit" is unfair, as the latter movie is the "Titanic" of documentaries. "It's not a good comparison," he says.

Moore says he knows the subject matter is not inherently cinematic.

"To make a movie about an economic theory? How are you going to make that something people would actually want to see on a Friday night?" he says.

"At the end," Moore says, "to come out and say that I believe capitalism is evil, and that you can't regulate evil . . . that's putting it out there. People know my politics, and it's important to let the audience think some of this out for themselves, come to some of their own conclusions. But I just thought: If I had to say one thing only -- if all my films from this point on are going to be fiction films, or whatever -- what would I say? And that's what I wanted to say.

"I'll get criticized for saying it, I'm sure, because people are OK with me criticizing the system, but to say the system has to be eliminated -- that makes people scared."

From John Horn in theL.A.Times, September 17 2009

Ricky Gervais' honest 'invention'

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 08:41:33 +0100

Source : The L.A. Times, September 13 2009

Make 'em laugh but get 'em to care. Ricky Gervais lives by that precept. With 'The Invention of Lying,' he's found a like minded young collaborator. Reporting from Lowell, Mass. - The scene being filmed called for Ricky Gervais to clear up the question of whether or not he was the Messiah.

Despite the weighty confusion, the British comedian looked every bit himself -- barrel-waisted, sheepish and wearing a dark suit -- as he stood on the stoop of an apartment building in this Industrial Revolution-era city northwest of Boston.

Though "The Invention of Lying," which opens Oct. 2, is technically not a comedic period piece, it stars Gervais (of "The Office" and "Extras" fame) as a significant historical figure -- a man who discovers the ability to lie in a world where humankind has evolved without producing a single fibber or serial fabricator (hold your sarcasm until the end, please).

On the one hand, the repercussions of this deceit-less world are chilling. Without lying, there is no art, no literature, no music (at least not the kind with lyrics or stories). Most important for this movie, films are not willful entertainments; instead, they're lectures, spoken by actors who read dry, provable facts to a camera, written by screenwriters who have credits like "The History of Nuclear Weapons."

Gervais' character, Mark, is one such lecture writer, and when we meet him he's down in the dumps. He's out of favor at work, where he's mocked by his (brutally honest, of course) secretary ( Tina Fey). Soon he's on the verge of going broke. Meanwhile, his big crush ( Jennifer Garner) is (to be honest) way out of his league.

Then Gervais utters a lie, a small one, and soon he's like Bill Murray with his déjà vu all over again in "Groundhog Day" -- both elated and plagued by the God-like status his special talent confers upon him.

As with Murray, Gervais has a sneakily expressive face that tends to set itself in deadpan; much of the joy in watching him comes from observing the way he can subtly modulate his eyes and mouth, as if seeking out the precise volume at which his comedy should be played.

And unlike his more daredevil fellow Brit Sacha Baron Cohen, Gervais allows himself, in his comedy, to wade into true sentiment. As much as making people laugh at David Brent in "The Office" or Andy Millman in HBO's "Extras," Gervais believes the audience has to care what will happen to them.

And so it is in "The Invention of Lying," where Gervais sees his character as influenced not just by Woody Allen in "Sleeper" but also by Jack Lemmon in "The Apartment." An Everyman, acting normally in a world that's otherwise gone strange -- but not so strange that the audience is overwhelmed.

"What you want [the audience] to do, once they get it, is forget about it," Gervais was saying in his trailer during a lunch break from filming. "Once they know 'The Office' is a fake documentary, forget about it. Follow the drama, and if they know it and they've understood, they never have to question it again. We have to make sure that jokes don't keep happening. Then people are just watching everything, thinking, 'Is that a joke?' They've just got to relax."

Gervais was sitting on adjoining loungers with his co-writer and co-director, Matt Robinson.

They did not know each other when Robinson, a 31-year-old, L.A.-based screenwriter who grew up in Westwood and went to Santa Monica's Crossroads School, wrote the initial draft of "The Invention of Lying."

In the shotgun marriage that developed, Robinson gave "The Invention of Lying" to veteran Hollywood producer Lynda Obst, the mother of Robinson's college roommate at Sarah Lawrence College. Obst in turn got it to Gervais, and the next thing Robinson knew he was boarding a plane for London to write a script with one of his comedic heroes.

"It feels like I won the Make-a-Wish Foundation," Robinson said, "without having to have that annoying cancer."

Hearing this, Gervais cracked up. He laughs easily and generally has the air of a comedian unburdened by the vagaries of the Hollywood machine.

"Don't let him write that; stand up for yourself," Gervais said when Robinson readily agreed that their collaboration could be subtitled " Obsessed Comedy Nerd Writes Script, Gets to Work With Hero."

"He's got other influences as well," Gervais insisted merrily.

He proceeded to heap praise on the script, perhaps to further emphasize that he wouldn't be here had the material not grabbed him the way it did.

"I loved it [by] Page 10," Gervais said of the script. "I felt at home." So he called Robinson right away. "Then I read the scene [in which Mark] invents religion -- gotta do this. Gotta do this film."

Though he starred in the 2008 film "Ghost World" and has been in both "Night at the Museum" comedies, Gervais maintained that he is not one who casts around for other people's material (his next film is "Cemetery Junction," set in 1970s England, which he is making with his regular collaborator and "Office" costar, Stephen Merchant).

"The Invention of Lying" costars Garner and comedian Louis C.K., but its cast sprawls to include Fey, Christopher Guest, Rob Lowe, Jonah Hill and Jason Bateman (with cameos by Edward Norton and Philip Seymour Hoffman).

Garner, as the apple-cheeked love interest, has a memorable first line, delivered when Gervais picks her up for their first date.

"Hi," she greets him at the door, unable to lie, "you're early. I was masturbating."

Garner, relaxing in a nearby trailer filled with scented candles and children's toys, said she'd had to practice the line a few thousand times before getting comfortable with it.

Growing up, she said, she had not been exposed to much edgy comedy.

"We weren't allowed to watch Carol Burnett because my mom thought it would encourage us to be loud," she said.

September 13 2009 : From The Los Angeles Times