Familiar filmmaker: the director Richard Gere said “can’t make a normal movie”
In the broadest sense, there’s really no such thing as a ‘normal’ movie when every filmmaker approaches each script they encounter in their own way. Richard Gere seems to disagree, however, after naming one of them as being incapable of doing anything conventionally.
At least it was intended as a compliment, because it would be a real kick in the teeth to hear a distinguished veteran like Gere call a director a weirdo just for the sake of it. It’s not even anyone associated with experimental, avant-garde, or particularly existential material, either, and they didn’t even direct the film he was talking about.
Initially beginning his career as a screenwriter, Oren Mooverman sojourned into directing and quickly found a kindred spirit in Woody Harrelson. For a time, at least. His feature-length debut The Messenger won them both Academy Award nominations for ‘Best Original Screenplay’ and ‘Best Supporting Actor’ respectively, leading them to quickly re-team on corrupt cop drama Rampart.
Unfortunately, Harrelson was so disaffected by the film that emerged on the other side of post-production that he was left depressed beyond words, and they’ve never worked together since. Fortunately, when one door closes another one tends to open, and it was Gere who was happy to walk on through.
He played the lead role in Moverman’s next two movies Time Out of Mind and The Dinner, which starred him as a homeless man trying to repair a damaged relationship with his daughter and a history teacher sitting down for a particularly contentious meal. The latter marked the director’s last narrative feature, but the professional partnership remained strong.
Moverman produced writer and director Joseph Cedar’s political drama Norman, with Gere heading up the cast as a New York City fixer who welcomes an Israeli dignitary to town. When they end up becoming prime minister his title character finds himself in a position of power like never before, only for a bribery scandal to engulf both of them.
Describing it as “another quirky movie” to Hey U Guys, Gere pointed to Moverman and said “Oren can’t make a normal movie.” Not that he viewed it as a negative, when his prior experience with the filmmaker had already prepared him for what was to come.
“It’s not an easy movie,” he admitted of Norman. “It has its own rhythms and has its own narrative style, but if you work with Oren it’s going to be unusual. I think he wishes he could make a normal movie, but he just can’t.”
He kind of did in a way, with Moverman’s return to directing for the first time since The Dinner coming when he took the reins on Willie Nelson & Family, the first fully-authorised documentary exploring the life and times of the musician’s legendary career, and things don’t get much more normal than a retrospective doc made with the blessing of its subject.
