 "Photo: Photo courtesy of Tarsem Singh")
"Twenty-eight countries I shot in," he said with a sly smile of pride sweeping across his face.
Tarsem (born Tarsem Singh) has made a living as an acclaimed music video and commercial director. He's responsible for R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" video as well as ads for Nike, Miller Lite and Lexus. In 2000, he made his first foray into film with "The Cell," starring Jennifer Lopez and Vincent D'Onofrio. It polarized critics, leading Kenneth Turan to say, "It's enervating to see cinematic skill put to such meretricious uses," while Roger Ebert called it "one of the year's best films."
After eight years, the 47-year-old director is releasing his next film, "The Fall," another cinematic endeavor filled with sumptuous visuals and lush scenery. But that's not to say he hasn't been trying to get the film shown sooner rather than later.
"It's been 23 years I've been putting this thing together," he said. "Seventeen years of location scouting. I was always waiting for this boy or girl to show up, and the moment I found the person, I knew it was the film I wanted to make. I had it all for a long time and kept looking for the child. Then I found [Catinca Untaru]. I didn't care if it was a boy or girl; I pulled the trigger and that was it."
Once Tarsem found newcomer Untaru, he set out to find his male lead. He needed an unknown actor to play Roy, the paralyzed stuntman who befriends Untaru's Alexandria. Tarsem wanted an actor pretending to be paralyzed for the 12-week hospital shoot to keep Untaru's performance as grounded as possible.
"I didn't think anyone else needed to know that he could walk," he said. "The camera man didn't know, the production designer didn't know, none of the actors knew, nobody knew. Nobody needs to know on the set."
He found that actor in Lee Pace, a Golden Globe nominee for his role in "Soldier's Girl" where he played a transgender nightclub performer.
"Someone showed me a tape [of "Soldier's Girl"] and I said, 'What am I looking at? The guy?' They said, 'No, the girl [played by Pace].' And I thought, 'Great.' So I went to him and told him it was going to be very difficult, for 12 weeks you won't be able to walk. It's not going to be the character-actor cliche," Tarsem said. "It's going to be for the other people. It's going to be depressing. And he was game for everything."
The script, written by Tarsem, Dan Gilroy and co-producing partner Nico Soultanakis, laid a loose structure for Pace and Untaru to work with. Their scenes, on the whole, were improvised, leading to a very natural chemistry between the two actors.
"Everything [in the hospital] was shot in sequence, and I would only give her a little bit of information, and then we'd work it out," Tarsem said. "There was nothing concrete, and she could do whatever she wanted. There had to be a structure for it to go where it needed to go. But I said, 'Don't worry, you can change what you want.'"
After the hospital storyline, shot in South Africa, wrapped up, Tarsem let the cast and crew in on his and Pace's secret. "Some people cried. Some were angry. Some were pissed. Some understood," he said. "It was a very strained atmosphere. But I said, 'It wasn't for you. It was for the child.'"
"The Fall" premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. Again, his film was met with a decidedly split audience. No studio would touch the picture, and Tarsem was left with his labor of love in his lap. After spending time refining the film, two famous friends lent a helping hand. David Fincher and Spike Jonze endorsed the film with a "presents" credit.
"David and Spike have been supportive for a very long time," he said. "They gave their name for nothing. Let's say I don't take advice very well, but they're the only two people I listen to. Other people would talk and I'd say, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' but when they talked, I listened."
After Tarsem struck a deal with Roadside Attractions, "The Fall" was released in theaters. This time the reception was more favorable. Tarsem's film received another glowing review from Roger Ebert, who gave it a four star out of four rating. The film expanded to 108 screens last weekend.
Tarsem hopes the film continues to find its audience, preferably in the theater rather than at home since "it's not going to work on an iPod," he said, referring to the film's striking visuals. Though pegged as a visual director, it's non-visual films that he's come to truly appreciate.
"I've always been a visual person," Tasem said. "I went to a Buddhist school in the Himalayas. When school would get snowed in, we used to go to our dad's, who lived in Iran. I was never really exposed to cinema or films in the Himalayas, we maybe saw a movie a month, and then going to Iran and always seeing American television dubbed into Persian, the language we didn't understand. The visuals had to tell the story. And now, over the years, I actually like non-visual films a lot more than visual films. It just comes to me so naturally that I had to exorcise it, and if there's one thing that will let me blow my brains out, ["The Fall"] would be it. Then I said, 'Hey, it's done. Now let's make 'My Dinner With Andre.' Just two guys sitting at a table talking."
