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Big Blue Disk 49
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MANNMOON.CMP
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1990-09-18
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4KB
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53 lines
-- START OF TEXT --
The feature film Man in the Moon is shooting. It's hot. Humid.
Dusty. Film crew members alternate between setting up cameras among the trees
and shrubs of an incline and checking out the field above. Director Robert
Mulligan, an Academy Award nominee for helming 1962's To Kill a Mockingbird,
occasionally confers with cinematographer Freddie Francis, who picked up an
Oscar at the last ceremonies for photographing Glory. "Things are going very
well," says Mulligan. "We're blessed with good weather, a fine cast, a good
script . . . and good people." One crew member drives a tractor, stirring up
dust that hangs in the air. Others sit under umbrellas at the edge of the
field, taking respite from the heat. Among them is lanky Jason London, a film
newcomer portraying a 17-year old boy at the center of the film's love story.
Wearing sunglasses and a cowboy-styled hat, London slouches in his canvas
chair, intently watching the camera set up across the way. His twin brother
and stand-in, Jeremy, sits next to him. They are from DeSoto, Texas.
Today's filming involves an accident that happens in the field and is
crucial to the Jenny Wingfield script. The story is based on true incidents
that happened to Wingfield in her youth. She once lived in Robeline and now
lives in the country near Gladewater, Texas. Man in the Moon is about two
teen-aged sisters falling for the same boy. It's the 1950's. Wingfield's
real-life occurrences happened in the same area. Actors Sam Waterston and
Tess Harper, not filming this day, portray the girl's parents. Reese
Witherspoon as the younger daughter wanders about the set until heading for an
air-conditioned trailer. The other daughter is being played by Emily
Warfield. Actress Gail Strickland, portraying London's screen mother, has
already left the field for a large, open hay barn being used as a make-do
dining area for the crew. The lunch menu includes shrimp and beef kabobs,
eggplant with goat cheese, tabouli, hoummas, baba ghanoush and yogurt with
honey. Watermelon is there too, as well as salad and fixings.
Film trucks, trailers and cars line the road, which runs behind
Robeline proper. A house on the farm, normally inhabited has been made to
look weatherbeaten with peeling paint. To give it a ramshackle look, a
rickety, screen porch has been built onto it. There are no sightseers.
Robeline goes about its afternoon business undisturbed, seemingly little
curious about the filming. Mulligan, taking a short after-lunch break, says
he doesn't have the same feeling with this picture as he did with To Kill a
Mockingbird, another small-town Southern story. To him, each story is
different. "This is about the changing life of three kids," he says. "They're
moving from childhood to adulthood and trying to learn how to handle that.
This is about good country people." The director says period pieces raise
their own problems. "There has to be more attention to detail." Mulligan
pauses, and there's the hint of a smile. "Beyond that, making movies is
difficult, period." Things are going along at the set. As one leaves the
area, Mulligan is giving instructions to the camera crew. Actors are drifting
back to the set after lunch. Dust still hangs in the air. It's still hot and
humid. A movie is being made.
*** From The (Shreveport) Times, Shreveport, LA ***
-- END OF TEXT --