Tavernier and the fraught story of "In The Electric Mist"

John Goodman and Tommy Lee Jones, In The Electric Mist, Tavernier, 2009.

Bertrand Tavernier, who died today at age 79 ("So young," gasped this 61-year-old) had a long, distinguished, and honorable career, one difficult to sum up quickly, in no small part because a good deal of his substantial filmography is unjustly obscure in the States. I met and interviewed him in 2011, when he was in New York promoting his exceptional, vivid historical film The Princess of Montpensier. By now you've probably read this before, but he was a great interview, warm, erudite, good-humored, always eager to talk cinema. 

Aside from Montpensier, we discussed his prior picture, one of his infrequent English-language pictures, In the Electric Mist. When word got out in 2007 or so that Tavernier was making it, cinephiles and fans of hard-boiled literature were pretty excited, as I mention below. The U.S. release of the movie befuddled more than a few viewers. So, for feature package the interview yielded — this was for a e-magazine startup named Nomad (you remember startups) for which I was the editor of the movie organ, called "Wide Screen," I wrote a piece comparing the U.S. cut with Tavernier's own version of the movie, which he put together in France surreptitiously, and which was put out on French DVD.

In Bertrand's memory, I reproduce the piece below. And after that, as he is no longer with us and no longer bound by whatever egregious contractual enjoinment prevented him from talking about the film on the record, I include a section of the transcript of our conversation, lightly edited. 

When it was announced a few years back that the French director Bertrand Tavernier would be returning to English-language filmmaking with an adaptation of James Lee Burke’s crime novel In The Electric Mist With The Confederate Dead, several different breeds of enthusiasts started drooling. Fans of the crime writer Burke had to be stoked that one of his works was about to be tackled by Tavernier had to have been excited that their man was getting a film treatment from a director who clearly appreciated genre material—Tavernier’s terrific Coup de Torchon was an excellent transposition of a novel by Jim Thompson, one of Burke’s acknowledged antecedents. Fans of Tavernier were tickled by the notion of the director working in the U.S. for the first time since his very well regarded Round Midnight. Fans of actor Tommy Lee Jones were excited that the actor was going to be embodying Burke’s recovering-alcoholic-lawman Dave Robicheaux. (The character was last portrayed on film by Alec Baldwin, in the not-entirely successful Burke adaptation Heaven’s Prisoners, directed by Phil Joanou.) Especially coming after Jones’ superb portrayal of Texas lawman Ed Tom Bell in the Coen brothers’ 2007 No Country For Old Men. In the Electric Mist, as the title was shortened to, looked like it had a shot at being a very worthy quasi-successor to that excellent film.

But the picture didn’t even wind up having a theatrical release in the United States, coming out straight to DVD in spring of 2009. Hardly an event picture, as it happens. What happened? As Chris Mosey explains in an interview with Tavernier that was a web exclusive for Cineaste magazine in the 2010,  “Tavernier and both his American producer, Michael Fitzgerald, and editor, Roberto Silvi [had a conflict] concerning the cutting of the movie. When their disagreements proved impossible to resolve, the only solution was to release two versions of the same film, one for either side of the Atlantic. Fitzgerald, head of Ithaca Pictures, supervised Silvi on the cutting of the shorter, faster-paced film for the U.S. market. Tavernier, with the help of editor Thierry Derocles, completed his own cut." If you are lucky enough to own a multi-region DVD player (foreign-manufactured DVDs are often embedded with a “region code” that makes them impossible to play on domestic machines), it’s possible to make a comparison between the two versions.

The initial difference is pretty stark and immediately discernible just by looking at the information on the respective box covers. My Image Entertainment domestic DVD lists a running time of 102 minutes; the French-issued TFI  Video Blu-ray disc shows “1h57,” or 117 minutes. So we’re talking about an American issue that is a full fifteen minutes shorter than the American one.

The differences start at the very beginning. In Tavernier’s version, there are atmospheric slow-lateral-dollying shots of the titular mist sitting in a gray swamp. Tommy Lee Jones’ unmistakable voice comes on the soundtrack: “In the ancient world, people placed heavy stones on the graves of their dead, so their souls would not wander…” The American opening is a little more “on the nose,” as it were: a shot of Jones sitting at a bar, a bartender pouring him a shot of whiskey, and Jones getting up and walking away without taking the shot. The voiceover here: “My name’s Dave Robicheaux. I’m an alcoholic. Sometimes I’m tempted to have a drink. But I never do.”

This kind of encapsulates the essential difference between the two versions: the American cut is rather more direct and literal minded, while Tavernier’s cut has more emphasis on atmosphere, mood, and so on. It might therefore follow that the American version is brisker, more story-driven, more conventionally entertaining. It actually isn’t. It’s just more literal-minded, is all. As it happens, Tavernier’s version, after its atmospheric beginning, kicks off with Robicheaux’s investigation of the grisly murder of a part-time prostitute, the uneasiness of the shady characters he’s interrogating creating an absorbing tension that seeps into the film as a whole. The restructuring imposed by Fitzgerald and American editor Silvi introduces the movie-actor characters played by Peter Sarsgaard and Kelly MacDonald earlier on, for no real reason except to maybe bring more recognizable faces into the picture sooner than later. One excised scene, of Robicheaux attending an AA meeting, doesn’t advance the story all that much, but does do a better and subtler job of enhancing the characterization of Robicheaux than the above-cited opening shots and narration achieve. Another excised scene showing the malevolent local big-shot played by John Goodman deliberately beaning Robicheaux with a baseball represents an even dumber cut, as it’s a great showcase for both Goodman and Jones and it gives Goodman’s character more of the sinister “he’s-not-bluffing” sense that makes the viewer eventually feel more empathy for the fix Robicheaux finds himself in at the film’s climax.

Some of the footage from that excised scene does find its way into the ending of the American version, in a way the most egregious of the many egregious changes. A shot of Goodman swatting a baseball is included in a “where are they now” montage, narrated by Jones, detailing the fates of all the characters in the scenario. Needless to say Tavernier’s ending is both far more evocative and emotionally/narratively satisfying, I won’t give it away here. But I will say that while Tavernier’s cut of the film DOES represent a worthy quasi-successor to No Country For Old Men, the American cut plays like a better-than-average thing you might have caught in the wee hours on Court TV back in the day. A no doubt very frustrating state of affairs, not just for Tavernier (who I believe is contractually enjoined from discussing the matter in any detail), but for American film lovers as well.

 

And here's a portion of that interview. 

 

WIDE SCREEN:  I want to talk a little bit about In the Electric Mist.

TAVERNIER:  Yeah.

WIDE SCREEN:  Because of working in America after you worked intermittently throughout your career with American actors and American themes, American writers.  And I wasn't able to read the journal you kept of the film, but there was an interesting thing in an article about it about working with an editor who always wanted to do transitions through close-ups.  And it seems interesting when you're looking at your written work and looking at the films that inspired you and getting to the point where American or Hollywood film grammar has gotten to the point where it's almost split off into something different than what inspired you.

TAVERNIER:  And from the grammar in Hollywood and some of the directors I admire.

WIDE SCREEN:  Yeah.

TAVERNIER:  I mean because when I was told that I was doing too-long takes and not enough coverage I was thinking of Otto Preminger and many, many brilliant directors.  On the whole I find the contribution of Tommy Lee Jones invaluable.  I found him brilliant, very, very respectful of the other actors.  Very.  I've never seen an actor so polite, so respectful of his colleagues.  I mean he could be...he could come on the set and not say good morning to anybody.  And some people on the crew hated him.  But I mean with Levon Helm or with Ned Beatty, with John Goodman, or with Mary Steenburgen, everybody, he was always trying to help.  With Kelly Macdonald he was--he says, Kelly, I want to help you so we can see you better.  We'll turn you there.  So I've never seen somebody so refined, so attentive, so full of admiration for the others.  I never see.  And for me the real Tommy Lee Jones is there, is not the guy who can be a bit rocky and sometimes a bit difficult, is somebody  who  — a person who contributed in the writing, to some of the best lines of the movie.  And the best scene, the fishing scene, is a scene which he himself wrote during the shooting.  I thought I was missing a scene between him and Bootsie [Steenburgen], and he said to me, 'Bertrand, what the scene should be about?'  And I said, 'About understanding.'  And two days after, he came with that scene.  On the salamander, does she know she's a salamander.  And does she understand--I mean beautiful scene.  Lovely scene. 

But the problem I had, I lost...I had a total moment of despair and I could not — I was not getting along with the editor, to a point that I didn't want to provide any ideas.  I was dry.  I became dead.  I just wanted to leave the editing room to see my friends.  There was no pleasure.  That was the first time that happened in my whole life.  And then when I went to Paris and I could have an agreement with the producer, Michael Fitzgerald, and I could start the editing of the version that is called the French version, then suddenly in four weeks — I mean it took very little time — and suddenly I found enthusiasm.  I was working with a crew which was enthusiastic, who loved what they saw.  And all the ideas which I kept every time I was trying a few of them in New Orleans and I was facing a crisis and I was...I decided to fight.  I recorded all the voiceover I'd been writing. I was listening on the phone to Tommy Lee recording it.  And Tommy Lee was like that first stage.  I've never seen somebody so good with voiceover.  The control he has of his voice, of the music of his voice.  And that was so important, the voice, because Burke's book are told in the first person and they have a rhythmic melody. 

What I found difficult in America, I found the crew are very big, I found some of the rules are so strange that it's becoming embarrassing.  I found that you have a hierarchy where people do not talk to each other, so sometimes you have a conflict because two different or two different kind of people are working on the same thing and they are not communicating.

But speaking of talent, I had some of the best people I've ever worked with. I had the best person on sound, Paul Ledford, who is a genius of sound, has been working with Stephen Soderbergh on many films. Paul is a genius.  And a lovely man. When they learned I was editing the film in Paris they sent me hours of wild sounds for me, to help me.  And when I wanted to pay them, they said 'No, Bertrand, because we had so much love working with you, so much fun, we are giving it to you' so I had wonderful people.  Wonderful.  And I gave Paul a credit, a main credit, as sound mixer. and that's a typical kind of thing when suddenly becomes something with the union. 

I mean for instance I wanted to to start my version with the credit 'This film is dedicated to Philip Noiret who loved so much the novels of James Lee Burke.'  So the WGA calls me and says, 'Bertrand, we cannot put that there; you named somebody from the WGA before your own credit.'  And all those calls, I was in Paris, were taking place between 2 and 4 in the morning.  And after 15 days I said, let's forget about that.  And that's what I found rigid.  That system, very rigid.  

Comments

[Andy]

Do you recall where his film diary you refer to was published? Was it for a magazine or something?

[Andy]

Ah--figured it out. Book called "Pas à pas dans la brume électrique" for anyone wondering.

[Titch]

Hadn't read this interview - thanks Glenn. I've now pulled out his 8 hour documentary on French cinema, which I've been meaning to watch for three years.

[Oliver C]

Andrei Konchalovsky said he had less film-making freedom in Hollywood than in Brezhnev's Russia. Just let that sink in.