‘Prince Avalanche’ a touching meditation on the comfort of friendship
‘Pineapple Express’ director David Gordon Green returns to his indie roots with this ‘absurd, hilarious and strangely moving’ minimalist film.
David Gordon Green had a dream last year. In it appeared the name of his next movie, “Prince Avalanche.”
He didn’t know the story he’d tell. But the Austin-based filmmaker had a title.
A director dreaming up his next movie ... it may sound a little precious. But talk with the filmmaker who has made eight feature films in the last dozen years and you quickly lose any sense of that notion. The hardworking multi-hyphenate has no interest in creating a cute backstory with a hook. Green’s mind moves as fast as his mouth. And in January 2012, it was working on a subconscious level.
With the title in place, Green started working backward to arrive at the minimalist film that makes its regional premiere Saturday night at the Paramount Theatre as part of South by Southwest.
Green was watching last year’s Super Bowl with his friends from the Austin band Explosions in the Sky. Then that beautiful and stirring Chrysler two-minute commercial starring Clint Eastwood, “Halftime in America,” aired. Green directed that. The filmmaker told his friends that the soonto-be-famous commercial came from an intimate shoot with a small crew.
“We were out making this very epic thing very quietly, and it was a really awesome experience,” Green said recently over coffee on the same day he was putting the finishing touches on his next movie, “Joe,” starring Nicolas Cage.
Green wanted to replicate the experience from the commercial shoot on his next movie. He now had a title and a style of filmmaking. When Explosions drummer Chris Hrasky suggested the director shoot in the haunting burnt remains of the state park in Bastrop, Green had a location.
He still needed a story. A friend proposed a recent Icelandic film, “Either Way,” that his buddy had worked on.
“Is it any good?” Green asked him.
“I don’t know, I haven’t seen it,” his friend responded. “But it sounds exactly like what you’re talking about.”
The movie had a cSontainable story that took place in one location and featured only a couple of actors. Sounded perfect. Green tracked the movie down, prepared to remake it before even seeing a frame. He loved it. It was exactly the kind of movie he had envisioned making. And, for the small-world file, “Either Way” had actually won the same prize Green’s feature debut, “George Washington,” won 11 years earlier at the Torino International Festival of Young Cinema in Italy.
The only thing left was casting. Green called his friend Paul Rudd, who jumped on board. After flipping through his Rolodex trying to find a good fit for Rudd, Green settled on another friend, Emile Hirsch. He knew the two actors would understand the strippeddown process and not need trailers or any of the fancy trappings that come with big-budget movies. They filmed “Prince Avalanche” in 16 days in Bastrop in May of last year, four months after the dream that inspired the title.
The movie tells the story of two friends working on a road crew during the summer of 1988. Rudd plays Alvin, a type-A guy who takes himself too seriously and bristles at Lance (Hirsch), a fun-loving dimwit with a sex-addled brain who also happens to be the brother