A morning with Jeremy Levin

So Karla and I kick off SIFF by doing another tag-team interview, and meet at the Hotel W痴 press suite bright and early (9 am!) to chat with Jeremy Levin, screenwriter of the opening night film, The Notebook. I was introduced to Jeremy on arrival, as he was being escorted upstairs in the elevator, Starbucks in hand. A most pleasant chap, attired in a dark blue blazer, checked shirt, tan trousers. Gray hair and beard.

Then Karla and I are taken upstairs to the interview room � a room adjoining the renowned hospitality suite, where there痴 food (this morning they had doughnuts!) and in the evening, drinkies, though not for us lowly journos (yet, anyway). We did spend a few minutes in there, where I brought up the blog on the iMacs that were there.

So there we are with Jeremy, who痴 fresh from a morning radio interview where the Djs made rude comments about what could be read into the word 鉄iff.� You won稚 get any such lowbrow commentary from us of course�I start out by asking how The Notebook got into the festival. 的 don稚 have a clue!� he says. 的 just know that I got a call saying The Notebook is opening the Seattle Film Festival. I wasn稚 sure I was going to come or not, and then my son, who痴 an independent filmmaker, said 前h, you致e gotta go! I had my film there a couple years ago and it痴 one of the top six film festivals in the world. It痴 an amazing film festival and you致e gotta go.� So I called 粗m up and said 全ign me up, I知 on my way!樗 The son痴 film was a short called Slo-Mo, by the way.

He痴 just as straight forward when asked how he got involved in the project. 典hey hired me!� he says. He read an earlier version of the script, then read the book, by Nicholas Sparks. He admits to being a little worried, as 甜Spark痴] stuff can get pretty schmaltzy. So the question was, how to do it and make it real. And actually, I think I made it, in a way, a little more schmaltzy, at the end 祖ause I changed the ending. But by then I thought that I could get away with it.� Without giving anything away, it痴 less a 田hange� then an addition, to bring things to more of a conclusion. Though I think it would致e worked well with the original ending too.

As it happens, Notebook has been tagged as schmaltzy in some of the coverage I致e read. And I have to admit I found it kind of corny at times�but it was also a relief to see a character driven piece, with strong performances, a short role by an old favorite of mine, Sam Shepard, and moments of sweetness, as when Noah (Ryan Gosling) and Allie (Rachel McAdams) are getting to know each other in small-town America right before WWII. Love that痴 true, devoted, and lasts through the ages. What one dreams of, right?

How will that fare against all the summer blockbusters, with their lavish budgets, explosions, etc.? 展ell, of course it痴 what they call 祖ounter-programming,樗 Levin notes wryly. 展ith all of the big slam-bang summer movies coming out, [the studios] thought those are not 租ate movies.� And they felt they would counter-program with a chick flick date movie.� The Spider-Man sequel opens a few days after The Notebook, which is set to open June 25, providing some stiff competition (chicks dig Toby Maguire too!), but I think, as Levin put it, this is definitely more an 殿udience film� and not a 田ritic痴 film.�

We talked about other stuff (such as Levin痴 next project, Time Traveler痴 Wife, which will star Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston), but I知 sure Karla wants to get her two cents in too. I enjoy talking to anybody about their film, and a morning with Jeremy Levin was a nice way to get the ball rolling. We値l be looking for him tonight at the opening night party!