Entertainment :: Movies
Director Lee Daniels :: on ’Precious,’ Oprah and Mo’Nique by Padraic Maroney
EDGE ContributorThursday Nov 5, 2009
Adapting a book about an obese African-American, illiterate teenager dealing with physical and sexual abuse isn’t an easy sell to film audiences. Nevertheless, director Lee Daniels has taken the book Push by Sapphire and turned into one of the most talked about films of the year. The buzz for Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphirebegan last January when the film played Sundance, winning a numerous awards in the process; Cannes followed, then Toronto; now it is receiving rave reviews as it comes into theaters in limited release.
Recently Daniels returned to his hometown of Philadelphia for a special screening of the film and EDGE caught up with him to talk about the whirlwind year he has had.
At Sundance Precious... took home both the audience and grand jury prizes, as well as a special award for acting for Mo’Nique. At the Toronto Film Festival it earned the People’s Choice award - a first for any film to receive the audience awards at both festivals.
On top of these honors there is already Oscar buzz building about the film, which is currently showing in limited release. Don’t ask Daniels about it because he is his hardest critic.
"I’m in my bubble. I know I have another job. I know my agents are taking my calls. I don’t read reviews and the minute I am brought into it I will have a fucking breakdown. I will look for the one word that says this movie sucks. No one is harder on themselves than me," Daniels explains as to why he distances himself from the hype.
Finding an audience
The novel first came to the director’s attention through actress Ally Sheedy’s mother, an agent, who passed the novel to him prior to being producer on Monster’s Ball. The book had an effect on him that he couldn’t shake, which led him to pursue adapting it.
"The book stayed with me. It stuck to me like hot grits. It was just one of those things that left me gasping. I was gasping with my mouth open. Every other page was like what the fuck did I just read and I wanted to see it on the screen," Daniels said. He wasn’t worried about trying to adapt it because, "I knew it would translate well to screen."
Unfortunately there were multiple hurdles in bringing it to the screen. The first was taken over by screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher. As Lee explains, the book had to be toned down in order to receive an MPAA rating that would allow it to be shown in theaters. Some of the things and language in the book would not have made it able to be seen in mainstream cinemas. Fletcher was also tasked with trying to create a script that would be able to deal with such difficult issues as molestation, obesity, homosexuality, illiteracy, and living in the projects of New York City in such a way that the film would be able to find an audience.
To test how well the film would play with audiences, Daniels took the film out of the cocoon of Sundance and took it to it to Salt Lake City where it was screened before "just normal, white Middle America." How did they respond? "They ran out of the theater like their hair was on fire, like, ’what am I seeing?’" he recalled.
"But I think you can’t help be affected by the truth," he said. Nonetheless, Daniels leaves the marketing the film to others.
"How do you get people into the theaters, I don’t know. I’m not an expert at that. I don’t know how to do that... (But) I think Precious... is not a black story. I originally told it for a black audience and I am a black filmmaker - a black, gay filmmaker... It’s a universal story. It goes beyond sex and culture. It’s universal."
Trying to find a girl to play Precious was another problem because the openly gay filmmaker had to walk the line between finding someone authentic - someone who was living the life -- while not trying to exploit them. After auditioning hundreds of girls, Daniels found his lead actress in newcomer Gabourey Sidibe.
"The thing with Gaby, she talks like a white girl. It really wasn’t her talking (in the film). She is acting. Gaby is not Precious. If I had used one of the girls that was Precious, who really was Precious, I would have been exploiting that girl and that is not something I wanted to do. Gaby is acting the character. The other girls really were the character," the Philadelphia native explained. "We were diligently searching, but Gabby came in and just after she did this gut wrenching, breathtaking rendition, she broke out and said ’I totally love Shadowboxer’ (Daniels’ first film). It was magic." Story continues on following page.
Watch the trailer for Precious...>/i>
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