Allison Anders' career has been on a relentlessly upward curve since the successes of Gas Food Lodging (1992) and Mi vida loca (1994). Such is the strength of her reputation that she even managed to come out of Four Rooms relatively unscathed. According to producer Dan Hassid, her new film Grace of My Heart, is one of those projects that people have really flocked to. Allison Anders is someone that a lot of people want to work with because she's always doing something different.
The team assembled around this movie is very impressive: Illeana Douglas, John Turturro, Eric Stoltz and Matt Dillon on one side of the camera; and on the other side we have editor Thelma Schoonmaker, executive producer Martin Scorsese, with musical contributions from Elvis Costello, Burt Bacharach, Carol Bayer Sager and Gerry Goffin.
The film tells the story of Edna Buxton (Douglas), who leaves Philadelphia in 1958 to move to New York with the dream of becoming a singer. Once there, she finds a manager, Joel Milner (Turturro) who nurtures her talent as a songwriter, writing under the name of Denise Waverly. But her success as the supplier of hit tunes for other people isn't enough for Denise - she still wants to sing.
Douglas was involved in the project at a very early stage: I had seen Gas Food Lodging and thought it was terrific. Then it was screened for Martin Scorsese who loved it just as much as I did. We went to Allison and were determined to find something we could all collaborate on. And then she brought up the idea of the Brill Building [the New York home of the American music publishing business in the 50s and 60s].
As Hassid comments, I've known Allison for a number of years and she's always been passionate about music. And Marty has always had a love of this period and music in general. So it was a great meeting of minds John Adair
Prod co: Gramercy Pictures
Prods: Ruth Charny, Daniel Hassid
Dir/scr: Allison Anders
Exec prod: Martin Scorsese
Ph: Jean Yves Escoffier
Prod des: François Seguin
Cost: Susan Bertram
Music: Larry Klein
Eds: Thelma Schoonmaker, James Kwei, Harvey Rosenstock
Cast: Illeana Douglas, Matt Dillon, Eric Stoltz, John Turturro
Running time: 123 mins
Int sales: PolyGram
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