PRINCE AVALANCHE — David Gordon Green Interview

I always like to get the obvious questions out of the way as soon as possible, so the first thing I asked David Gordon Green on May 6, 2013 was about his move from his recent studio films (PINEAPPLE EXPRESS) back to his roots with PRINCE AVALANCHE, a work reminiscent of his stunning debut, GEORGE WASHINGTON, and its follow-up, ALL THE REAL GIRLS.  His answer was as measured and as thoughtful as those early films, and as piquant as the later ones. Based on Iceland’s Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurosson’s  EITHER WAY, and Green’s adaptation, which moves Iceland to Texas, won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Our conversation covered that transition, the meditative quality of repetitive tasks, and how working fast to take advantage of a burned-out forest provided some other, unexpected, advantages, too. I waited until the end to ask about whether or no my favorite novel about my home town of New Orleans was ever going to make it to the big screen. Summing up the film itself is not easy, as there is so much going on under the surface,  It’s an unusual take on male-bonding set in the those burned-out Texas woods that follows two characters, Alvin (Paul Rudd) and Lance (Emile Hirsch), as they spruce up the highway and get on each other’s nerves before seeing each other in a more sympathetic life.  Alvin is living with Alvin’s sister, and their extended stay in the woods, leaving for civilization only on the weekends, is the result of Alvin doing that sister a favor in trying to whip Lance into shape. As they discuss Lance’s partying, and Alvin’s choice of taped entertainment, they reveal more about each other than they imagine to both each other and the audience, and also, each in his own way, have a brush with the mystical as well as the mundane.

Click on the link to listen to the interview (8:27)  PRINCE AVALANCHE — David Gordon Green Interview.