Hue's Blog

Interview with James Wallace

"I am hardly an authority. But I think the discussion of “new distribution” actually harkens back to film’s roots. Back in the silent two-reeler days, people shot films, paid for the prints, went on the road and showed them directly to the public. Now we have festivals, and markets, and lots of people in-between, which means lots of entities that have to make their profit margins. I can’t say what the future of film will be, but my guess is that it won’t be able to support so many intermediaries, financially."

I did an interview with James Wallace, for Gordon and the Whale.  James and I discussed Saint John of Las Vegas, the pitfalls of cookbook screenplay writing, and the disintermediation of indie film.  You can read full interview here.

The San Francisco Bay Guardian

Saint John of Las Vegas got a great write-up in the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

"When their journey ends, you can't help but be disappointed because you really don't want this sweet-natured first film by director-writer and onetime Silicon Valley hotshot Hue Rhodes to end. It's such a treat to watch Buscemi work, pulling the spooky-tooth tics and rattled nerves out of his bag of mannerisms. And it's fitting that he has arrived here, because from its star to its bit players, Saint John offers a gentle Hail Mary to the usually less-than-visible guys and gals in the cameos."

Read the full review here.

Conversation with Brendon Connelly of /Film

"The film is pricked with references to Dante’s Inferno, though certainly has it’s own narrative which requires no knowledge of the Divine Comedy to understand - think how the Coen Bros. and Homer blended into O Brother Where Art Thou. And whereas the Coens’ film stood on the shoulders of Preston Sturgess, the equivalent influence on St. John would appear likely to be Ozu or Milos Forman."

I had a series of conversations with Brendon Connelly, about Saint John of Las Vegas.  We discussed career paths, film grammar, movie financing and the Bellagio Hotel.  Read the full interview on /Film here.

The Inferno

"Midway in the journey of our life
I came to myself in a dark wood,
for the straight way was lost."

- The Inferno, Canto I

The Inferno, by Dante Alighieri, was my writing inspiration for Saint John of Las Vegas.  My friend and Dante scholar Robert Hollander urged me to capture the poem's spirit, rather than to try a literal adaptation.

The Inferno is about a man who gets a brief guided tour through hell.  At each level he stops and talks to the damned.  He gives them his sincere attention, and in exchange he gets information.  At the start of the poem he is confused about how he should live.  By the end he is clear.

In the beginning of Saint John of Las Vegas, our hero John is in denial.  He meets characters who would rather live in a hell of their own making than conform to society's "heaven."  Instead of judging them, he empathizes with them, and in exchange he gets information.  At the end of the movie he is content with who he has been, all along.

The poem's influence extends deeper into the film.  The individual characters, Virgil's race, and the abruptness of John's "love" interest come from Dante.  But mapping that out seems academic.  If there is any value in highlighting The Inferno's influence on Saint John of Las Vegas, it is to draw attention to the beautiful, lyric and surreal nature of the poem itself.