From the Archives: Exclusive interview with Alexander Payne following the success of “Sideways”
©by Leo Adam Biga
Origiinally published in The Reader (www.thereader.com)
Even before Alexander Payne’s Sideways premiered September 13 to ecstatic reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival, where he soaked up the accolades, it was hailed as a refreshing change from an artist whose previous harsh satires (Citizen Ruth, Election, About Schmidt) made you squirm as much as laugh.
Sideways, whose national release launched on October 27, marks a departure for Payne in two ways. For the first time in his feature career, he left behind Nebraska’s familiar confines to cast his sardonic gaze elsewhere. Using as a starting point Rex Pickett’s unpublished novel of the same name, Payne and writing partner Jim Taylor found the book’s central California wine country the perfect setting and context for a story about love. Yes, love. Love of wine. Love of self. Platonic love. Brotherly love. Romantic love. Ah, love. It’s something in short supply in Payne’s earlier films, where emotions are savaged and relationships discarded.
After Toronto came the New York Film Festival where Sideways was the official closing night selection on October 17. Payne said he was “very happy” with the prestigious NYFF closing night slot. A darling of the NYFF, where About Schmidt was accorded opening night honors in 2001, Payne is being feted like the star he is in the international film community. In a statement announcing the program, festival chairman and Film Society of Lincoln Center program director Richard Pena said: “Even with now just four films to his credit, Alexander Payne has established himself as a major voice in contemporary American cinema. I can’t think of another filmmaker working today who is able to create characters as complex, as contradictory and as richly human.”
The early warm reception for Sideways, a Fox Searchlight release, bodes well for its commercial potential. The Hollywood buzz says Oscar nods are in store for Payne and star Paul Giamatti. Payne thinks audiences and critics are responding to the evolutionary process he takes with his work. Having returned from the highs of Toronto and New York, he is now preparing to write a new project that promises to be “current and political.”
Humanism and Character-Driven
Leading film industry trade reviewers Todd McCarthy of Variety and Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter see in Sideways something Payne has strived for — a return to the character-driven movies he cut his teeth on. McCarthy wrote, “Moving away from his native Nebraska for the first time onto what proves to be even more fertile soil … Alexander Payne has single-handedly restored humanism as a force in American films.”
According to Honeycutt, Payne captures in his “hysterically funny yet melancholy comedy … subtle undertones of the great character movies of the 1970s and a delicate though strong finish that fills one with hope for its most forlorn characters.”
“If it’s true, that’s a nice thing for someone to say,” said Payne, whose intimate cinema explores the wreckage of ordinary people doing desperate things to reclaim their lost lives. His films are never just funny or dramatic. They are, like life, a mix.
“I aspire to a certain humanism in my films in that they’re films just about people,” he said. “I don’t need to see a gun. I don’t need to have a chase. I don’t need highly contrived situations. I just want to have situations, which will bare open, in a humorous way but also in a dramatic way, what’s going on in the hearts and souls of people. And they’re comedies. This one get huge laughs. I think, too, people like the emotion in it and the hopeful note at the end. Yet, there’s nothing sentimentalized. If feels earned and felt.
“Also what I hear is that the film is intelligent. Like hopefully my other films, too, it doesn’t talk down to the viewer. It respects the viewer. I mean, I always think an audience is smarter than I am, not dumber. So often, at least in recent American filmmaking, there’s a pressure — however spoken or unspoken — to dilute the intelligence or the sophisticated references or the quality of the jokes or something for a more general audience, and I just don’t like to do that.”
Payne’s comedic sensibilities and instincts have never been sharper. Three scenes in particular stand out, and all involve Giamatti as the lovably neurotic wine junkie Miles. In one, some bad news sends Miles careening for the nearest bottle, which he grabs like a suicide weapon and proceeds to drain while stumbling down a hill side. In another, the idiocy of winery etiquette sets him off and he loses it in a fit sure to join Jack Nicholson’s famous diner rant in Five Easy Pieces. Finally, to help his buddy Jack out of a jam, Miles retrieves some valuables left behind in a house, and nearly gets killed for his trouble.
YOU CAN READ THE REST OF THE STORY IN MY NEW BOOK-
Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film, A Reporter’s Perspective 1998-2012
A compilation of my articles about Payne and his work. Now available for pre-ordering.



Related articles
- From the Archives: A Hollywood Dispatch from the set of Alexander Payne’s Sideways – A Rare, Intimate, Inside Look at Payne and His Process (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- From the Archives: A Road Trip Sideways – Alexander Payne’s Circuitous Journey to His Wine Country Film Comedy (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- Hail, Hail ‘The Descendants’ – Alexander Payne’s First Feature Since ‘Sideways’ a Hit with Critics, and the George Clooney-starring Comedy-Drama is Sure to be an Awards Contender (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
-
October 30, 2011 at 7:47 pmImagemaking Celebrated at Joslyn: ‘The Misfits’ and Magnum Cinema « Leo Adam Biga's Blog
-
October 30, 2011 at 7:57 pmA Filming We Will Go: Gail Levin Follows Her Passion « Leo Adam Biga's Blog
-
November 5, 2011 at 8:33 pmCinematographer Phedon Papamichael, Producer Jim Burke and Actress Shailene Woodley Discuss Working with Alexander Payne on ‘The Descendants’ and Kaui Hart Hemmings Comments on the Adaptation of Her Novel « Leo Adam Biga's Blog
-
November 6, 2011 at 2:00 pmPhedon Papamichael, Jim Burke and Shailene Woodley Discuss Working with Alexander Payne on ‘The Descendants’ and Kaui Hart Hemmings Comments on the Adaptation of Her Novel « Leo Adam Biga's Blog
-
November 20, 2011 at 12:15 amJim Taylor, the Other Half of Hollywood’s Top Screenwriting Team, Talks About His Work with Alexander Payne « Leo Adam Biga's Blog
-
November 20, 2011 at 1:32 pmWhen Laura Met Alex: Laura Dern & Alexander Payne Get Deep About Collaborating on ‘Citizen Ruth’ and Their Shared Cinema Sensibilities « Leo Adam Biga's Blog
-
November 21, 2011 at 7:26 pmAlexander Payne Achieves New Heights in ‘The Descendants’ « Leo Adam Biga's Blog
-
November 24, 2011 at 1:32 pmFrom the Archives: Alexander Payne – Portrait of a Young Filmmaker « Leo Adam Biga's Blog
-
November 28, 2011 at 5:16 pmScreenwriting Adventures of Nebraska Native Jon Bokenkamp « Leo Adam Biga's Blog
-
December 8, 2011 at 1:41 pmFrom the Archives: Conquering Cannes, Alexander Payne’s Triumphant Cannes Film Festival Debut with ‘About Schmidt’ « Leo Adam Biga's Blog
-
December 11, 2011 at 4:38 amFrom the Archives: About ‘About Schmidt’: The Shoot, Editing, Working with Jack and the Film After the Cutting Room Floor « Leo Adam Biga's Blog
-
December 20, 2011 at 8:24 pmAbout Payne: Alexander Payne on ‘About Schmidt,’ Jack Nicholson and the Comedy of Deep Focus « Leo Adam Biga's Blog
-
December 21, 2011 at 3:55 pmFrom the Archives: A Hollywood Dispatch from the Set of Alexander Payne’s Sideways – A Rare, Intimate, Inside Look at Payne and His Process « Leo Adam Biga's Blog
-
December 21, 2011 at 5:02 pmFrom the Archives: A Road Trip Sideways – Alexander Payne’s Circuitous Journey to His Wine Country Film Comedy « Leo Adam Biga's Blog
-
December 26, 2011 at 10:55 pmSize Matters: The Return of Alexander Payne, Not that He was Ever Gone « Leo Adam Biga's Blog
-
January 14, 2012 at 11:59 pm‘Out of Omaha’ (‘California Dreaming’) Project Adds to Area’s Evolving Indie Filmmaking Scene « Leo Adam Biga's Blog
-
February 1, 2012 at 12:49 pmLiving the Dream: Cinema Maven Rachel Jacobson – the Woman Behind Film Streams « Leo Adam Biga's Blog
-
February 10, 2012 at 5:10 amPayne Delivers Another Screen Gem with ‘The Descendants’ and Further Enhances His Cinema Standing « Leo Adam Biga's Blog
-
February 27, 2012 at 6:32 amPhedon Papamichael, Jim Burke and Shailene Woodley Discuss Working with Oscar-winner Alexander Payne on ‘The Descendants’ and Kaui Hart Hemmings Comments on the Adaptation of Her Novel « Leo Adam Biga's Blog
-
March 3, 2012 at 2:10 pmFrom the Archives: Alexander Payne Discusses ‘About Schmidt’ Starring Jack Nicholson, Working with the Iconic Actor, Past Projects and Future Plans « Leo Adam Biga's Blog