Thom Fitzgerald.If Thom Fitzgerald's The Hanging Garden has delighted audiences at the Toronto and Sundance film festivals, his fans are no happier than Fitzgerald himself. The 29-year-old filmmaker's mystical feature debut follows a gay man (Chris Leavins) back to his rural Nova Scotia hometown, where he confronts his dysfunctional family dysfunctional family Psychology A family with multiple 'internal'–eg sibling rivalries, parent-child– conflicts, domestic violence, mental illness, single parenthood, or 'external'–eg alcohol or drug abuse, extramarital affairs, gambling, ten years after he attempted suicide. The press has speculated that the script, which has been compared to the work of Tennessee Williams, is autobiographical. But Fitzgerald insists his protagonist is simply an alter ego A doctrine used by the courts to ignore the corporate status of a group of stockholders, officers, and directors of a corporation in reference to their limited liability so that they may be held personally liable for their actions when they have acted fraudulently or unjustly or when in a universe of magical realism magical realism n. A chiefly literary style or genre originating in Latin America that combines fantastic or dreamlike elements with realism. . "When I decided I wanted to be closer to my family and make some reconnection," the writer-director explains, "I thought, What better way to do it than in my imagination? It'll all go swimmingly if I do it on paper rather than in real life." While he's flattered by the comparisons to Williams, Fitzgerald says his models in creating The Hanging Garden (which also features gay fiddler Ashley MacIsaac Ashley Dwayne MacIsaac (born February 24, 1975) is a professional fiddler born in Creignish, Nova Scotia, Canada. While MacIsaac's fiddle-playing is entirely traditional, he often sets it in contemporary rock songs with hip hop and dance elements. ) were two contemporary filmmakers. "I think Terence Davies and Peter Greenaway are amazing a·maze v. a·mazed, a·maz·ing, a·maz·es v.tr. 1. To affect with great wonder; astonish. See Synonyms at surprise. 2. Obsolete To bewilder; perplex. v.intr. ," he enthuses. "What I tried to do was incorporate some of Greenaway's structuralist style with Davies's depth of character." A self-described "mama's boy," Fitzgerald says he has no problem with the label gay filmmaker, In his case, though, it's not entirely accurate, since he's had physical relationships with both sexes. "My own Kinsey identity is pretty fucked up," he cheerfully offers. "I've never identified myself as gay. But I'm such a big fruit, everyone assumes I'm a Kinsey 6." Now working on Beefcake beef·cake n. Informal 1. Images, especially photographs, of minimally attired men with muscular physiques. 2. Attractive men with muscular physiques, such as those in these images. , a documentary for Britain's Channel Four on gay muscle magazines from the '50s, Fitzgerald admits that he dislikes the stress of the filmmaking film·mak·ing n. The making of movies. process. "The experience [of directing] really sucked," he says. "It doesn't suit my personality to be in charge of other people. With The Hanging Garden, no one really trusted me to know what I was doing, least of all me. Now I suspect everyone will presume I know what I'm doing, and I'll have a breakdown and make a crappy crap·py adj. crap·pi·er, crap·pi·est Vulgar Slang 1. Inferior; worthless. 2. Miserable; poorly. 3. Mean; contemptible. film." |
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