FILMMAKER WEARS HIS HEART ON HIS SCENES.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Staff Writer

There's a rest stop on Interstate 40 just outside of Winston-Salem, N.C., and filmmaker David Gordon Green says if you look closely enough at the fences, you'll find a lot of bloody knuckle stains.

It's the place where Green and his college buddies from the North Carolina School of the Arts would go every time a relationship went kablooey. Gordon's friend, Paul Schneider, would grab a bunch of music - everything from Leonard Cohen to the Deftones - and the boys would sit on the hood of Schneider's car, occasionally punch the fence in frustration and try to make sense of it all.

``It lessens the suicide rate if you've got people that know what you're going through,'' says Green, who wowed critics and festival audiences two years ago with his first feature, ``George Washington.''

Out of those late-night and early-morning therapy sessions came the seeds of Green's latest movie, ``All the Real Girls,'' a profoundly moving examination of the thrills and heartbreak of first love. The film stars Schneider and celebrated up-and-comer Zooey Deschanel as small-town young adults who fall hard for each other and then watch, almost helplessly, as differing sets of needs test their love past the breaking point.

``Real Girls'' possesses the same unhurried pace, dreamy contemplation and soul-stirring authenticity that marked ``George Washington'' and sets the 27-year-old Green apart from his contemporaries. Sundance Film Festival jurors gave ``Real Girls'' a special award for ``emotional truth'' when the film screened there last month and, while Green jokes he'd rather receive the Audacity Award that David Cronenberg won years ago for ``Crash,'' he's appreciative.

``I'll take emotional truth any day of the week,'' he says.

There's an abundance of that in ``Real Girls,'' so much so, in fact, that viewers conditioned to watching typical glossed-over, cosmetic Hollywood romances might be put off by Green's artlessness. Green makes no apologies. He'll risk being called precious if it translates into something that's achingly honest and vulnerable on screen.

``I always ask people if the movie was awkward enough for them,'' Schneider says. ``Because if people know what they're going to say in love, are they really in love? If they're comfortable and not confused and awkward, are they really putting their hearts out there? I would venture to say no. What about love is studied and conventional and smooth? Nothing.''

Deschanel calls Green and Schneider her ``sensitive guys,'' and the tag fits. The boyish Green will probably be carded at bars for another 20 years, and speaks with a polite Southern gentility - provided the subject's not Hollywood's current studio system. Schneider is pricklier by comparison, but he wasn't above papering the borders of his ``Real Girls'' script with pictures of ex-girlfriends for inspiration.

Deschanel ended up calling her mom, asking her to send photos of her exes, just so she wouldn't feel left out. Rehearsals for the film turned into extended bull sessions with cast and crew (most of whom worked on ``George Washington'') sharing their war stories of lost love.

``I wanted to make this movie now, while it seems fresh, rather than waiting and being older and cynical and looking back with nostalgia at first love,'' Green says. ``Better to do it now while it still hurts.''

Judging from his films and his sincere demeanor, it's hard to imagine finding a cynical bone in Green's body. He recently snagged the choice (or foolhardy) assignment of directing a film version of John Kennedy Toole's ``A Confederacy of Dunces,'' a novel that has resisted decades of attempts to bring it to the big screen.

Green's unaffected take: ``I'm just bringing what I can to the table to make an authentic, Southern, New Orleans '60s piece. I can't remember a movie ever getting New Orleans right. Usually it's just an excuse to show the Mardis Gras.''

Before beginning ``Dunces'' in the fall, Green will head to the Georgia swamps to make a low-budget movie that he describes, rather tenuously, as a ``thriller, only not a thriller. I get to do all the action and stunt work and gore, but it's not really about that.''

Schneider helpfully chimes in: ``It's `Night of the Hunter' meets 'The Journey of Natty Gann.' ''

Given his uncommon fondness for dreamy naturalism, maybe we should just call it a David Gordon Green film and leave it at that.

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``I wanted to make this movie now ... (rather than) looking back with nostalgia at first love,'' says David Gordon Green, director of ``All the Real Girls.'' ``Better to do it now while it still hurts.''