Going All The Way received a limited theatrical in the late-1990s, establishing a passionate cult following among fans of Dan Wakefield’s seminal coming-of-age novel, but there is the sense that it never got a fair shake from audiences. With the support of Oscilloscope Laboratories, director Mark Pellington has pieced together a definitive director’s cut offering a clearer portrait of his ambitions for the project. The director’s cut released in theatres back on November 10th, with additional screenings set to follow.
I was recently given the opportunity to sit down with Pellington and discuss the alterations that he made to the film while putting together this director’s cut.
What was it like, looking back on your first film, after all these years?
It was a real gift to be able to do it and to, ultimately, have a new cut come out into the world. I have always felt as though the theatrical cut wasn’t properly released. The version that came out 25 years ago was fine but, in revisiting it, I realized just how much my life had changed. I have made seven films since then, lived a lot of life, gone through tragedy and beauty and become a father. You’re a different person at 58-years-old than you are at 33. When I looked back on it, I kept thinking “wow, that was a very simple shot set-up.” At that time, I didn’t think I needed to do six takes with three cameras. You eventually learn that it’s important to trust the material. There’s a trust in your actors and their ability to perform that allows you to put together three and a half hours of usable material. The first version that we put out was a 99-minute cut of the material that we were working with. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the best, or the most complete, adaptation of a book that I had treasured for many years.
This new film is really a better interpretation of the book. The tone, and the new score are more complete and we were able to feature the voice overlays throughout. There’s more of a frame around the painting, as opposed to, say, a photo illustration of a bunch of scenes chopped together. This cut is a little more mature, a little more complete. No studio executive or anybody in Hollywood is ever going to tell you to produce a longer cut. They’re always going to ask you to make it shorter. In 1997, I didn’t have the experience or the time time to properly fight for artistic control and I just didn’t have enough time to noddle around in the edit room. This director’s cut is only two hours and four minutes long. It’s not like it’s a three-hour epic. Still, it was nice to have the time to balance different tones in the editing room. It was a wonderful opportunity to revisit it. I’m just grateful that a company like Oscilloscope Laboratories looks at this as a new movie. For people who didn’t see it when it first came out, it’s like a new movie. There are tons of people that weren’t even born when this movie came out. I’m excited for them to finally see it.
Did the post-war melodramas of the 1950s influence the film’s visual aesthetics?
Both Thérèse DePrez, our dearly departed production designer and Rem Phillips, our brilliant costume designer, worked on this film at very early points in their careers. Rem has been nominated for three Academy Awards and recently worked on Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling. They put a lot of effort into researching the time period and that had an impact on the color palette that we used. I still have all my boxes of the Life magazines that we flipped through while doing research, Magazine spreads in the 1950s were very idealistic and there was a very presentational quality to them. You could tell that they were putting a veneer up. The movie is about the veneer of suburban comfort that these guys want to escape from. We shot it in Indianapolis in order to capture that level of authenticity. I watched Rebel Without a Cause for the color palette and I think Thérèse was a Minnelli fan. I really admired her sense of color. To this day, I trust production designers to just kind of do their thing. I think the look of the film is very realistic. Thérèse was a brilliant designer because she was good at making the visuals and the psychology of the characters come to life through her set design.
It’s so difficult to capture authenticity when making a 1950s period piece because the decade was defined by its artifice. How did you ride the line between producing a social satire and hitting on deeper emotional truths?
We made the movie in the 1990s and I grew up in the 1970s. That’s when that’s when I first read the book, so the 1950s were less than 20 years away from it. I grew up in Baltimore in the 1950s, so the sensibilities and affectations of the 1950s weren’t exactly buried in the past. You could still walk around and visit diners and buildings that had been constructed during that period. There was a masculine comfort that these men had, sitting in bars and reading the newspaper at home. Everything looks so stylized now because we’re peering back at it with seventy years hindsight. I was closer to it, so it didn’t feel so far removed for me. I didn’t view it through a fetishistic lens. I looked at the trailer for Don’t Worry Darling and it appeared to have been inspired by Mad Men. And I saw the trailer for in his 50s. Everything looks so chic and classy. I guess that reflects the way that Lesley Ann Warren decorates her home but the Burns family operate in a completely different sphere. They’re very uptight and conservative. Thérèse ensured that the production design reflected that dichotomy.
The film also prompts discussion about the harmful stereotypes that surround shy, sensitive young men. Why do you think that people struggle to understand that not all men are macho?
I think that the post-World War Two era was the most optimistic period in America history. This was before the Vietnam War, before the assassination of John F. Kennedy. You men were told to go to the GI Bill in order to get free college education and were assured that they could get a good job and buy a house. That’s where the American Dream was born. The poster to boom economic boom in the 50s. That myth propagated the idea that women should stay home and have babies, which was the societal expectation at the time. Somebody like Rachel Weisz’s character, who is a free-spirited bohemian, would have been a complete social anomaly during that time period. She doesn’t need a man to make her feel whole. In many ways, the female characters in the film are stronger than the male characters. Sonny is just trying to find his way in life but the women around him control all of the major shifts that his life takes.
Several future movie stars appear in the film. What was the casting process like?
At the time, none of them were stars. Jill Clayburgh was the biggest star in the cast and Lesley Ann Warren was a very highly regarded actress within the industry. The rest of them were all unknowns. They had all appeared in smaller roles. Ben had appeared in Dazed and Confused. Jeremy had been in Spanking the Monkey and Rachel Weisz was about to be in this Keanu Reeves vehicle called Chain Reaction. Rose McGowan hadn’t even appeared in The Doom Generation yet. This was Nick Offerman’s first film. Amy Locane, who had just starred in Melrose Place, might have actually been the most notable young actor in the film. I had the freedom to cast actors who weren’t stars. We had the opportunity audition so many different actors for these roles. As soon as I met Ben, I knew that he had to play Gunner. He has that manly confidence that makes him attractive to women but he’s not so intimidating that guys don’t want to be friends with him. With each character, we were kind of able to fall in love with them as actors, and as people. To see them become successful in later years has been a real treat.
You mentioned the fact that you greatly admired the novel that the film was based on. Were you nervous about adapting it for the screen?
When you’re so desperate to make your first film, nothing can stop you from doing it. You feel this burning passion to make your first film and, over time, you develop this unquenchable thirst for cinema. When it was released, it was so thankful that it finally came out because it was so difficult to get it made. Coming back to it years later, I can only compare it to the experience of returning to a long-lost love and realizing that the fire between you still burns. The spark is still there and you’re able to pick up 25 years later and fall in love for the second time with the same person. That’s kind of what it feels like.
Going All The Way: The Director’s Edit is now in in theatres in Los Angeles with a national rollout to follow
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I am passionate about screwball comedies from the 1930s and certain actresses from the Golden Age of Hollywood. I’ll aim to review new Netflix releases and write features, so expect a lot of romantic comedies and cult favourites.
