Dallas Buyers Club hasn’t lost direction
Vallée sees the bigger picture when looking at his film’s Oscar nods
There are two ways of looking at Jean-Marc Vallée and the Oscars. If you’re a grumbler, you’ll suggest it’s an outrage that the Montreal filmmaker isn’t nominated as best director, given that his film Dallas Buyers Club is up for six Academy Awards Sunday night, including the most prestigious statuette of the bunch, best picture.
But if you’re a half-full kind of guy — and let me tell you, Vallée is very much a half-full kind of guy right around now — then you look at the nominations and quite rightly note that this is a watershed moment for the Quebec film milieu. This is the first time in the history of the Oscars that a Quebec director’s movie has been nominated for best picture.
“Écoute! Injustice!” Vallée shouted this week at a meeting with a handful of journalists.
“I’m joking,” he quickly added. “I was recently asked: ‘Which of the six nominations gives you the most pleasure?’ And I replied: ‘The one that gives me the most pleasure is not there.’ Look, I’m happy the film is nominated, that the actors are nominated. And we all know the director has something to do with the film, with the actors’ performances. I’m not mad at anyone. I know the competition is ferocious. There are a lot of films out there, and there are only five spots in the directing category.”
Matthew McConaughey — he is stunning as Ron Woodroof, a Texan rodeo Lothario who contracts AIDS in the mid-’80s — is nominated for best actor, and co-star Jared Leto — who plays Woodroof ’s transgender business partner — is up for best supporting actor. Both are heavy favourites to win, given that they’ve already won hardware for the roles at the Golden Globes and at a bunch of Hollywood industry awards ceremonies.
Vallée actually did receive an Academy Award nomination, for editing, but under the pseudonym John Mac McMurphy. He is nominated along with the film’s other editor, Montrealer Martin Pensa. Dallas Buyers Club is also nominated for best original screenplay (by Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack).
It was that screenplay that sold Vallée on the project. The director of C.R.A.Z.Y., The Young Victoria and Café de Flore read it and was incredibly moved by this drama — based on a true story — about a homophobic party-animal cowboy who was diagnosed with AIDS, discovered many of the drugs to treat the disease were not available in the U.S., and started illegally importing them and selling them himself.
Vallée talks of how Dallas Buyers Club’s theatrical life was almost over when the nominations came out — and changed everything. Now it has made $25 million at the ticket wicket in the U.S., and this for a film that cost $4.9 million to make — less than the budget of many Québécois movies.
“I make movies to tell stories that touch me, and when the movie touches the public, you wonder why. Because I feel that way about every film I make, but that doesn’t always happen.”
Vallée is underselling himself here. He hasn’t struck out often. His 2005 film C.R.A.Z.Y. is one of the most successful Quebec movies of the past couple of decades. He went on to make his Hollywood debut with The Young Victoria before returning to his franco Quebec roots with the acclaimed Café de Flore in 2011.
The Oscar nods haven’t had much of an effect on his career so far because he’s simply too busy to take up any new offers. He’s already shot another American film, Fox Searchlight’s Wild, starring Reese Witherspoon. He’s deep into editing the film in Montreal, which is why he was only able to fly out to Los Angeles for the Oscars this weekend. And he’ll be right back ici Monday to return to the editing suite. He’s signed to shoot yet another U.S. film after Wild. Demolition is an independent flick based on a buzzed-about script centred on a young investment banker who faces an existential crisis after the death of his wife.
Vallée also has a European project he’s writing with noted French author Tonino Benacquista. After that, the plan is to finally make another Quebec film.
“I’m booked until 2016/2017. And now I’ll have a new film every year for the next two or three years. I don’t know how Woody Allen does it.”