Alan and Gabe Polsky have an interesting cinematic history as producers with films such as Werner Herzog’s “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” and the documentary about producer mogul Jerry Weintraub “His Way.” They have finally arrived with their own creative debut of “The Motel Life” with Emile Hirsch and Stephen Dorff as two brothers living life as a pair of hard drinking vagrants.
The Eagle’s David Kahen-Kashi spoke to Alan and Gabe Polsky about the making of “The Motel Life.”
Eagle: You started out producing films. How did you get into that? Was there a natural transition?
Alan Polsky: I think you just have to really decide that you’re gonna get into the movie-making business. We started out developing material, and Gabe and I… really looked at different intellectual property, a lot of books and articles and short stories for inspiration and for the meat of the stories, and we really started off that way. Developing stuff from scratch, primarily intellectual property, and that’s how we came across “The Motel Life.” It’s based on a book and it’s something we really responded to and we decided that it was the right opportunity to make it on as directors.
E: So how did you eventually find the novel “The Motel Life” and decide to develop it into a film?
AP: We found it actually from the writer of the screenplay. The novel was under option to someone else and Noah Harpster told me about this book that was about to come out of option, and he said it’s really great and gave it to me and I read it, and Gabe read it, and we said ‘Wow, this is great.’ So when it freed up, we went after it. Got the book, developed the screenplay and did the movie.
E: What’s the the transition like from producing to directing? Was it strange or did you take to it?
Gabe Polsky: On the surface, it’s two different positions and directing is way more hands on creatively. It’s kind of obvious, but the key is just preparation, especially with two directors like Alan and I. Although we’ve worked together as producers, directing is much more creatively intense. There’s a lot more decisions to make in a fast amount of time so we made sure we were very prepared and that we broke the script down together. We worked on all aspects beforehand so once we got on set there wasn’t going to be too many surprises. There’s always surprises, but limit those surprises so that we’re prepared. But obviously once you get there, the first day on set… is nerveracking, especially because this is the first film we’ve ever made, but that was kind of intense.
E: What is it like when you work on your first film? Do you use influences from films you’ve seen over the years? What’s that first day like?
GP: You’re asking a little bit of a tough question because it’s like asking where do you get your taste from? It just kind of comes from everywhere. I think that other films have definitely influenced us and everything you see sort of goes into that. And I think when you’re on set trying to tell the story, you’ve got a screenplay and you’re trying to tell it as authentically as you can. I don’t think too much about trying to make it your own, it just kind of becomes your own.
E: Since you and your brother are working as a team, what was the debate between you two of making creative decisions?
AP: It’s hard because you got to create as a team. No two people are the same. You have to make a lot of compromises and at the same time making sure that the vision is consistent. We are two different people and we both bring our strengths creatively. We have different kinds of ideas which enrich the material even further if you’re able to have agreements and find the right solutions and putting that creative energy together.
E: James Franco was originally reported to be attached to the film. How did you come to casting Emile Hirsch and Stephen Dorff?
GP: Emile was someone that we sort of had in mind to play Frank based on stuff we’ve seen him in and “Into the Wild” and he actually delivered an amazing performance. You know, it wasn’t that verbal and this character Frank, he’s not a very verbal guy too and you got to follow the whole movie through his eyes. It’s his story so Emile has kind of had the necessary ability to do that. We got him on board right away and he sort of wanted to do it and then we were reading people and Stephen came in the room and there was some chemistry there. They sort of were a similar size and they sort of looked like brothers naturally. So Stephen brought a nice sensitivity to the character and he became very dedicated and it felt like a good match.
“The Motel Life” is in theatres now.
