DGA Monthly

1 8 I D G A M O N T H L Y In Alexander Payne's comedy Sideways, struggling author and wine aficionado, Miles (Paul Giamatti), road-trips with his soon-to-be-married friend, Jack (Thomas Haden Church) to California wine country for a celebratory getaway. Miles's life has been circling the drain since he sabotaged his marriage, and his appreciation for fine wine has devolved into an untenable drinking habit. He was hoping for a lowkey excursion of wine and golf, but Jack has far more debaucherous intentions before tying the knot. Jack picks up a vineyard wine-pourer, Stephanie (Sandra Oh), and corners Miles into double dating with Maya (Virginia Madsen), who waitresses at a restaurant Miles frequents. The nine-minute date scene—mostly over a dining table—evolves over a series of bottles into a subjective representation of Miles's troubled and increasingly inebriated mind. He's interested in Maya, who shares his sensitivities and interests, but Miles is too much of a mess to follow through—especially after learning of his ex-wife's recent marriage. As Jack and Stephanie flirt on one side of the table, Miles floats in and out of engaged conversation with Maya, ultimately losing to his depression and fixation on his ex-wife's marriage until he leaves the table to call her from a pay phone. Payne faced the challenges of keeping his audience's eye refreshed with variety, while bringing it deep into Miles's abstracted experience. The camera floats naturally with a succession of lengthening lenses, and shots dissolve fluidly into each other as Miles's own mind swims. "I can do all the cinematic tricks I want," says Payne, "but it's Giamatti's performance that anchors the audience and anchored me as a Director. All you need to make a movie is a camera, a tape recorder, and the right Actor. Even twenty years later, when we did The Holdovers, my respect for his talent continued to skyrocket." SCR E E N PU LLS: TWE NTI ETH CE NTU RY FOX HOM E E NTE RTAI N M E NT Date Night IN HIS DGA AWARD-NOMINATED FILM SIDEWAYS, ALEXANDER PAYNE FACED THE CHALLENGES OF KEEPING HIS AUDIENCE'S EYE REFRESHED WITH VARIETY DURING A NINE-MINUTE DATE SCENE HE CALLS "THE CENTERPIECE OF THIS MODEST LITTLE PICTURE." | BY ROB FELD 13 14 2 14 1 S H O T T O R E M E M B E R Miles is going on a double date against his better judgment, and you can see it in him. He's still smarting from a divorce he didn't want and simply wants to be spending time with his friend. This was my fourth feature with Production Designer Jane Ann Stewart, and we spent months scouting in Santa Barbara County. I'm all about shooting locations—I hate sound stages. So, this is the Los Olivos Café, in Los Olivos, California. I like to have something of a documentary approach to fiction filmmaking—as much as possible, I want to show reality, or a version of reality, and what you see in Sideways is very accurate to Santa Barbara County in 2003. My idea for the movie was to replicate the rhythm and energy of an early-'60s Italian comedy but with the visual language of a '70s American film. We shot on 35mm and used Pearl Mist filters, which gave a blossoming to the highlights and a softness to the warmth of all that sunshine in a beautiful autumn in South-Central California. 1 We changed very little in the restaurant but put up the wall of wines behind them—the movie's about wine, after all. As we shot the intimacy of the double-date in one direction, we could spice up the frame a little with all those bottles and later reveal the cafe in the other direction. We located the table such that, when Miles later rises to make a drunken phone call to his ex-wife, we can still feel the table in the background down the long chute of the room. Miles is conflicted in that he has harbored a suppressed interest in Maya. She is farther along in repairing herself after a difficult divorce and is more open. She doesn't necessarily have a romantic idea about Miles, but she wouldn't dismiss it either. Meanwhile, the other two across the table are hot to trot. It was pretty improv-y. The dialogue between Maya and Miles about their shared interest in wine was loosely scripted, while the banalities between Jack and Stephanie were largely improvised. 2 CELEBRATING THE CRAFT

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