When Rawson Thurber, author of the 2004 box office hit comedy, “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story,” sat down to write “Mysteries of Pittsburgh” he knew it would be quite a different story.
For starters, “Mysteries,” a coming-of-age drama about a college graduate who falls into a bisexual love triangle, was not exactly a “Mr. Jokey” kind of film. Characters would not be named “Peter La Fleur” or “Steve the Pirate,” and Ben Stiller would not be wearing a unitard. “Mysteries” was a risk.
“After my first film came out, it did well and there was a moment where I had to make a choice of whether or not to essentially go out and make that same movie again a romantic comedy about curling or darts players or whatever,” Thurber recalls. “My agent said very wisely that we should ‘capture the essence of the moment.’ I had a movie that was the No. 1 movie in America and made a whole bunch of money and let’s go out and do that.”
But Thurber remained adamant. “That’s very sound advice if your goal is to make a lot of money,” he concedes. “Unfortunately, my goal wasn’t that then and it isn’t now I wanted to make sure that whatever I did next, I had that same feeling for as ‘Dodgeball,’ and there was only one project that made me feel like that, and it was a bit of a 180.”
Another striking difference was that Thurber would not be cutting “Mysteries” whole cloth from his imagination as he did “Dodgeball.” “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh” is a book, a well-known book, a best-seller published in 1988 and one of Thurber’s favorite books — Thurber had wanted to make it into a screenplay for nearly a decade before lifting up a pen to write “Dodgeball.” There were some expectations: before sitting down to write, Thurber took author Michael Chabon, who had penned several other books since including “Wonder Boys” and “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and planned to deliver his screenplay for his review, since, he says, “I certainly would never do it without the seal of the crown from Michael Chabon.” They met at a Bay Area breakfast joint, Rick and Anne’s, after Thurber wrote Chabon a fan letter asking if they could discuss the possibility of an adaptation.
“People had tried to adapt it for film before Michael had attempted to and it wasn’t met with much success,” Thurber says. “I had a pretty radical approach to it I told him, ‘If you’re at all interested in hearing what I have to say, I’ll go write a five- or six- page treatment that outlines my approach and the various ways I’m going to destroy your child, the funny clothes I’m going to dress it up in, the alterations, the amputations and I’ll send it to you, and if you’re game then let’s do it.”
Thurber says he believes adaptations of stories from books to screenplays should “capture the feeling of the novel and the spirit, rather than the literal plot-point-per-plot-point translation.” There’s a massive difference between a book and a film, he says. To make the drama work, therefore, Thurber had no qualms about eliminating a significant character in the novel, Arthur Lecomte for the “Mysteries” script . “I repurposed the essential elements of Arthur’s character into Cleveland Arning,” Thurber explains. “In the book the basic engine is a love rhombus and it works beautifully, but it’s not as efficient as a love triangle on screen.”
To Thurber’s surprise, Chabon approved of the script, and in a symbiotic fashion, the script attracted the young actors that Thurber had in mind as he crafted the roles on the page: Peter Sarsgaard of “Boys Don’t Cry” and “Garden State” fame, and Sienna Miller who starred in “Factory Girl” and last year’s Sundance Film, “Interview” with Steve Buscemi. The film also stars Nick Nolte as the father of protagonist Art Bechstein, who is played by Jon Foster.
About five years ago, Thurber’s father, Marshall, a lawyer and self-described entrepreneur who “stays out of the Hollywood business” left California for Heber Utah, just one valley away from the hustle and bustle of the Sundance Film Festival’s headquarters in Park City. “He used to watch TV all the time and it drove me crazy I said, ‘Let’s get out of the house,'” Ron remembers. ” ‘He said, ‘Dad, I’m studying’ The funny part of it is, he was.”
Of Rawson’s departure from his freshman success with “Dodgeball,” Ron says, “This is as courageous an act as any young writer-director could make ‘Dodgeball’ was a big success it earned hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office, and he could have continued going that direction, but I think he’s doing (‘Mysteries of Pittsburgh) to grow as an artist.”
However, for Rawson, who has already signed on to the film version of the television series “Magnum P.I.,” it’s simple two sides of the same coin.
“I think ‘Dodgeball’ is as much me as ‘Mysteries of Pittsburgh is,'” he reflects. “I think any writer-director worth his or her salt, every film they make is part of them. I worked so hard on (‘Mysteries’) screenplay. I wrote my guts out on it. From the screenplay to the many, many drafts you write and dealing with all the physical consequences of the film and questions and troubles and then the editing, it becomes you.”
Screenings: Wednesday, Jan. 23, 11:30am, Racquet Club, Park City Thursday, Jan. 24, 3:15pm, Eccles Theatre, Park City
Tickets: Purchase tickets at the Gateway Center at the corner of Heber Ave. and Swede Alley in Old Town from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily through Jan. 26. The tickets must be paid for in cash only. For information, call (435) 776-7878.
Juliana Farrell Groundswell Productions 9350 Wilshire Blvd, Ste. 324 Suite 324 Beverly HIlls, CA 90212 (310) 385-7540 [email protected]