EDGE OF SANITY 'CAVEMAN' VALENTINE' DIRECTOR, STAR GET INSIDE MENTAL ILLNESS.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

About a year ago, director Kasi Lemmons began finding moths in the kitchen cupboards of her Hollywood Hills home. A lot of moths.

Most people would immediately try to get rid of them, but not Lemmons. Moths, or rather moth seraphs, are significant images in her new film, ``The Caveman's Valentine,'' which opens Friday, and she figured it might be bad luck to smash the creatures right before filming began.

``I have a superstitious streak,'' she said. ``It's not always completely active, but right around preproduction of the movie, I was very superstitious.

``It was weird. It was freaky,'' she said. ``My cabinets all of a sudden got filled with moths. And I thought, maybe they're moth seraphs - I can't kill them.''

It's not a surprising admission from the writer and director of ``Eve's Bayou,'' a 1997 critical favorite set in 1960s New Orleans that touches on voodoo and other occult practices.

Whether or not sparing the moths at home had anything to do with it, Lemmons seems to have another successful film with ``Caveman's Valentine.'' The film, which in another bit of superstition Lemmons began filming on Valentine's Day last year, stars Samuel L. Jackson as a schizophrenic genius who could have had a brilliant composing career if it weren't for the menacing voices and images that keep interrupting his normal mental function. It opened the Sundance Film Festival in January and received very good early notices.

Romulus Ledbetter earned his Caveman nickname from his Manhattan park neighbors because he lives in a rocky enclosure. One winter morning he finds the frozen corpse of a young drifter perched in a tree near his cave.

The police are sure Romulus didn't do it. His daughter, Lulu (Aunjanue Ellis) is a cop herself and can vouch for his nonviolent nature.

But Romulus has a hard time persuading them that he knows who the murderer is, probably because he identifies him as an evil spirit he calls Cornelius Gould Stuyvesant. Stuyvesant, Rom tells them, malevolently controls everything from the spire of the Chrysler Building.

In a more lucid moment, Rom gets a tip about the killer's identity from a young homeless friend. After determining that the police aren't making the case a high priority, Romulus sets out to solve it, with a Columbo-style approach in his questions and an overcoat even Columbo wouldn't wear.

``The Caveman's Valentine'' is based on the 1994 book by George Dawes Green, who won the Edgar Award for best first novel and also wrote the screenplay.

Jackson had read the book and brought it up during a meeting about another project with Jersey Shore partners Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher. Scott Frank of Jersey also liked the book's movie potential, so they optioned it with Jackson as executive producer and star.

Lemmons said she was very flattered to be chosen but that Shamberg and Sher made a ``big leap of faith'' to hire her based solely on ``Eve's Bayou,'' her feature debut.

The producers disagreed.

``Kasi's exactly the kind of person you want to work with on a film like this,'' Shamberg said.

Sher agreed, saying Lemmons' vision was the key. ``It was a really compelling character story, and Kasi had a really amazing vision for a pop Gothic thriller, what it's like to be inside a schizophrenic's mind when he's trying to hold it together to solve a crime,'' Sher added.

It's the protagonist's particular mental illness and his rare genius that set the story apart from run-of-the-mill TV movies. Romulus fearlessly confronts the man he believes is the actual killer, art photographer David Leppenraub (Colm Feore), but he cowers in schizophrenic paranoia at any manifestation of Stuyvesant, such as green rays and swirling clouds around the Chrysler tower.

``The most fun about it is it's a very unreliable point of view,'' Lemmons said. ``Having a schizophrenic point of view for a movie is fun.''

Lemmons, 39, grew up around the study of mental illness. Her mother was a clinical psychologist who practiced in a mental hospital, and her sister, Cheryl Lemmons, is a psychiatrist in a mental hospital and consulted with Jackson about his characterization.

That exposure had a lot to do with Lemmons' ability to humanize a man who most people would avoid.

``The exciting thing really is to try to get next to that person, to look in that direction,'' she said. ``I lived in New York for 15 years, and you do look the other way.''

Lemmons said her first project in film school in 1987 was a documentary on the multitude of homeless people she saw, many of them freshly released from mental institutions.

``I photographed them with a long lens. I would ask their permission first, make them lunch, and then they would kind of forget about me,'' she said. ``And I have this little short film of many, many people talking to themselves, and involved in some sort of inner conflict or dialogue that is extremely vivid and dynamic. But you can't get inside. ('Caveman') is an opportunity to get inside that, so it wasn't going to be a caricature. I felt very strongly about that.''

Lemmons said even if Jackson was not already committed for the leading role, she couldn't have chosen better. She was a fan of his long before he played the father in ``Eve's Bayou.''

``That is the only choice I could think of. I think he is the Caveman. You want someone who is big and off-putting and a little bit frightening, but has such humanity and intelligence and soul that you go with him on this ride. And Sam is one of those actors who, even if he's playing a hitman, you see some humanity. You kind of like him, you know?''

Jackson wasn't the only one playing the Caveman, in Lemmons' view. Composer Terence Blanchard made up the piano pieces that play inside Rom's head as well as one he performs for Leppenraub, supposedly inspired by the photographer's S&M-tinged angel images.

``It's such a great opportunity for a composer because it's a character in the movie,'' the director said. ``He actually has to play Romulus Ledbetter.

``We knew we wanted jazz Americana with classical overtones, but basically what I said to him is here's a guy who's been on the street for 17 years, he grew up on jazz and blues, he's from Harlem and he went to Juilliard and was classically trained, and he's a genius.

``We wanted it to be gorgeous and off-putting at the same time, and a little bit old-fashioned. And Terence nailed it. I'm thrilled with the score.''

Much of Blanchard's music sets the scene for the moth seraphs Rom perceives in his mind, these masculine hybrids of angels and insects that loom in the background of his internal piano recital.

Those scenes were the most difficult part of the film to pull off with its $13.5 million budget. Lemmons said production designer Robin Standefer built that ruined basilica-like set and choreographer Otis Sallid worked with a group of athletes on their movement while the rest of the film was under way.

``It was the last two days that we shot,'' she said. ``It was something we barely pulled off, and by then end of the shoot, which had been a very long and hard shoot, to have the moth seraphs come in on that structure that Robin had built - it was really spectacular, really rewarding.''

The director, who is married to actor Vondie Curtis-Hall, said the moths left her kitchen cupboards while she was away filming, and they haven't come back.

CAPTION(S):

5 photos

Photo: (1 -- 2 -- cover -- color) Solving the mystery

Director Kasi Lemmons knew what she needed for the thriller `Caveman's Valentine' - Samuel L. Jackson and a bunch of moths

(3 -- 4) Samuel L. Jackson, above, portrays a musical genius haunted by paranoied schizophrenic delusions in ``The Caveman's Valentine,'' directed by Kasi Lemmons, below.

(5) When Romulus (Samuel L. Jackson) is suspected of murdering a homeless man, his police officer daughter, Lulu (Aujanue Ellis), comes to his defense in ``The Caveman's Valentine.''