CHRYSTAL GOES TO SUNDANCE

A rough cut of CHRYSTAL was submitted and then selected for one of the sixteen coveted slots in the dramatic film competition at the Sundance Film Festival in January of 2004. After final editing was completed in May of 2004, CHRYSTAL went on to be selected to other major festivals around this country and Europe, including the influential American Film Institute’s Festival in Los Angeles, the Austin Film Festival, the Virginia Film Festival, the Savannah Film Festival, and the Stockholm International Film Festival where Ms. Blount won the Best Actress Award for her tour de force portrayal.

“With a beautifully nuanced performance, Blount gives poise and dignity to a character in physical and emotional pain.”— Jury of the Stockholm International Film Festival in awarding Ms. Blount the Best Actress Award.

THE TEAM

The creative team behind CHRYSTAL starts with a trio of filmmakers whose unique collaboration has already earned them an Academy Award for their 2001 short film THE ACCOUNTANT, a rural comedy about a farmer on the verge of bankruptcy who hires an accountant with unorthodox ideas for saving his farm.

Lisa Blount, Ray McKinnon and Walton Goggins formed the production company, Ginny Mule Pictures, to make THE ACCOUNTANT. The Ginny Mule team then joined together with producers Bruce Heller and David Koplan to create the film CHRYSTAL.

Lisa and Ray are married. They met on an airplane as they flew from Los Angeles to Vancouver to work on the film NEEDFUL THINGS and wed seven years later. Walton Goggins had met Ray several years before, on the set of a movie of the week shooting in Georgia. Later, they played fellow crack dealers on an episode of In the Heat of the Night.

Before the Oscar, Ray had already appeared in many TV shows and films, among them APOLLO 13 and O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? Blount was nominated for a Golden Globe for her role opposite Debra Winger in AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN and has appeared in countless films and TV projects. Goggins had a similarly long resume, with roles in such films as SHANGHAI NOON and Robert Duvall’s acclaimed THE APOSTLE.

THE ACCOUNTANT GOES TO THE OSCARS

McKinnon describes the formation of Ginny Mule Pictures partly as the result of Lisa's nurturing of his writing and directing talent, and describes their interest in making films as “long-simmering.” Goggins signed on to THE ACCOUNTANT as an actor, but as the team moved toward production, it soon became evident that Walton’s talent touched all aspects of the process. “He became so indispensable that we invited him to join the Ginny Mule team,” McKinnon recalls.

“We had to trust our instincts in everything -- from deciding each edit, to music, color timing. For better or worse it was truly our vision,” recalls Goggins. “From that I think we learned a language, a way of communicating to people what we really wanted. Doing the short gave us more confidence in all of the split-second decisions that have to be made when making a film. We also learned how important it is to share our enthusiasm for telling a story. It takes so many talented people to make a movie, and we try to include everyone in the process.”

Says Blount, “We learned from the first film how to create a collaborative experience. That means, regardless of my title, my job is to do whatever is needed and wanted at any given moment.”

Adds McKinnon, “I depended on Lisa and Walton greatly on THE ACCOUNTANT and for CHRYSTAL it was the same, only more so. Lisa has long been my story editor but I have grown to depend on her in other areas. Her strong sense of production design is evident in both films. Walton will one day be recognized for his filmmaking skills separately from us. I’m just glad he’s going to hang around for a while longer. In the end, I am attracted to each of their aesthetics. Lisa and Walton both have unique voices and even when I don’t agree with one or the other, they challenge me to continually clarify and distill.”

All this collaboration culminated in the absolutely unexpected Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 2002. McKinnon upon accepting the award for their film said: “We’d like to thank the Academy for this wonderful honor in a category that still allows for a person who is just burning to make a movie, to load the camera in the back of his daddy’s old truck and gather up some talented dreamers and do it. And if the stars align, and the fates conspire, that person might find themselves standing right here at the Good God Almighty Academy Awards. I want to thank everybody who helped us on our film, especially my two partners here. My true friend Walton Goggins and my dear and beautiful wife Lisa Blount.”

CHRYSTAL AND THE SOUTH

When it came time to tackle their first feature, the setting of this new Ginny Mule project would be easy to determine: Blount, McKinnon, and Goggins are all children of the South. McKinnon is a native of Adel, Georgia; Goggins was born in Alabama and raised in Georgia, while Blount is a native Arkansan.

"I was most interested in making a movie that was culturally real to me," says McKinnon. "Most films that are made about the south are of an artifice, that may contain other qualities, but the feeling of authenticity isn't one of them. Not to me anyway. In those films, I don't recognize the characters as real people. Not ones that I have met personally. They feel slightly removed or ‘almost real’. Like ‘southern Shakespeare’, replete with British actors no less. Certainly those types of movies have their own value, but I wanted to inhabit this film with people that I would recognize, accents and all."

“This story is down and dirty,” says Blount. “And heartbreakingly real. There’s sex, drugs, and rock and roll. But there’s also a lot of humor in it. Audiences get loud and rowdy! ”

CHRYSTAL has been described by some as Southern Gothic. “I don’t know,” says McKinnon. “I didn’t consciously think about it. I suppose as the Southern Gothic structure employs certain archetypal characters and settings as well as mystical notions–yeah, there are those elements in CHRYSTAL,” McKinnon says. “And though influenced by Southern writers, I drew heavily upon real people rather than previously drawn fictional characters. I grew up in a rural area. There were more than a few interesting non-fictional ‘characters’ to draw from. And there were farms and woods and dirt roads all around me. CHRYSTAL reflects that.”

Says Goggins, “The South resonates with me. It is the place of my youth. While it is no longer where I reside, it is certainly an important part of who I am: the culture, the storytellers, the seasons, the food. Along with its edges there is a soft, graceful quality about the South. It can be, at times, like moving through water. But there is also the sharp edges, too. Our movie has both.”

Says Blount, “I’m from Arkansas. I was born right up the road from where we shot this movie. I’m a true hillbilly.”

Before heading off to Arkansas, the filmmakers brought “CHRYSTAL” to producers Bruce Heller and David Koplan, who helped secure the necessary funds for making the movie. Heller and Koplan also helped Ginny Mule put together an enormously talented production and post-production team to bring their unique vision to the screen. The Ginny Mule team had never worked with outside producers before, but as Walton says, “Working with Dave and Bruce was instrumental to making this movie.”

McKinnon adds, “I guess the highest compliment I can pay Bruce and Dave is that I would work with them again in a second. They have both worked so hard for this film and still are. I shudder to think of carrying on without them.”

THE SETTING

So they all set out for Arkansas, making the town of Eureka Springs in the Ozark Mountains of northwest Arkansas their base.

Says McKinnon, “There is often such a disregard for the setting of a film these days. Place has become interchangeable and expendable. In a celebrity driven medium, place is not a part of ‘the package’. It usually becomes an accounting decision rather than an artistic one. In CHRYSTAL, the setting is one of the main characters. It instructs both the plot and the other characters. And there is no setting quite like the Ozark Mountains. It's different from the Smokies and the Rockies and it is smack dab in the middle of this country. Amazingly, only a handful of movies have ever been shot there and none of note in a great while. It is a center piece of the film.”

He continues, “Of course, we wanted to shoot there for artistic reasons but there was also the pragmatic—there was neither time nor money to create a faux-Arkansas somewhere else. So when we filmed the scenes at the ‘fictional’ catfish house, we used a real catfish house. We had locals who normally come to that catfish house, show up dressed in the same clothes that they wear when they eat catfish there when no movie company is around. We felt it was even more important to try and create an authentic representation of both people and place to play against the sometimes fantastical nature of the film’s plot.”

Adds Goggins, “This story takes place on the Arkansas side of the Ozark Mountains. It was important for us as filmmakers to capture the feeling of this fascinating place. It has a remoteness to it, an inaccessible quality that can be claustrophobic at times. One can imagine screaming and the sound never leaving the hollow.”

“Lisa and I talked a lot about the design of the film. With the help of our talented craftspeople, like our production designer Chris Jones, we tried to give it a timeless quality,” says McKinnon. “Everything from costume design to furniture. Even the cars.”

Adds producer Heller, “We wanted to ensure that the film looked and felt as authentic as possible. Even though it was difficult to shoot in and around Eureka, due to its remoteness and windy mountain roads, it was well worth the sacrifice. There is no place I’ve ever been that is quite like the mountains of Northwest Arkansas.”

The BILLY BOB THORNTON Factor

Billy Bob Thornton was the team’s first and last choice for the role of Joe. “Billy was the first (and I believe still the only) Southern filmmaker that I knew of who had made a widely released Southern film,” says McKinnon. “When I first saw SLING BLADE, I felt much like a New Yorker must have felt when seeing MEAN STREETS for the first time or a Scot upon the initial viewing of TRAINSPOTTING, in that, what I was watching and experiencing was true and honest to me. It was as if the fakery had been stripped away leaving behind a world that I personally knew. It was both exhilarating and inspiring. It validated my own experiences of who I was and where I was from, and it gave me real hope in regards to my own storytelling ambitions. It is not an over statement to say that the cinematic experience of watching Billy's movie was instrumental in changing the course of my professional life. Plus, we got him to work for cheap."

“I feel like Billy is my Arkansas brother,” says Blount of Thornton. “I almost feel like we’re more than just kindred spirits. I think we may actually be kin.” McKinnon adds, “They both have that culture in their bones. To have Billy play opposite Lisa’s ‘Chrystal’ made for the perfect reality.”

In CHRYSTAL, Thornton and McKinnon share a memorable fight scene, shocking in its realism. This is not the kind of fight scene one usually sees in the movies.

Says McKinnon, “We wanted the fight to be wild and wooly. A little out of control. Ungraceful. Like the ones I had witnessed back home. Billy knew exactly what those fights were like. So we went at it. In fact, a couple of hits actually landed. I literally saw stars once. It was crazy fun.”

At other times, the filmmakers felt it would be more effective to let audiences use their imagination in regards to disturbing aspects of the story . As Blount puts it, “The violence is necessary in telling this story, beginning with the car crash. But even if we had the money, I would never have chosen to film that, because not seeing it, just hearing it, allows for more imaginative participation.”

Blount also shares a sex scene with Thornton that may draw discussion, not for its graphic nature but for what it says about the character. “I don’t see Chrystal’s sexual behavior as good or bad,” says Blount. “I don’t judge it. I just wanted something that didn’t feel like movie sex, but something based more on female physiology.”

Another memorable scene, which is cross-cut with the fight scene, is Chrystal’s performance on Pa Da’s porch. “Yes,” says Blount, “that was me singing. Ray and I first found the song ‘Sugar Babe’ in an old timey song book. We taught ourselves the song, but to this day, I’ve never heard anyone else sing it.”

THE SOUNDTRACK—FROM ROSCOE HOLCOLMB TO THE DRIVE-BY-TRUCKERS

Music is a constant theme throughout the film. It is integral to the plot itself as well as setting the tone at various points in the story. The movie opens with the late, great Roscoe Holcomb’s a capella rendition of “Moonshiner”, and later follows with Clarence Ashley’s sublime version of “Coo Coo Bird”. “These are two of the coolest hillbilly singers ever,” says McKinnon. “They made some really great music. And it’s music still relevant today. There is some old time music that I can only listen to a few times. Not these guys. I could listen to Mr. Holcomb and Mr. Ashley all day long.” McKinnon was also interested in juxtaposing this old time music with its ever evolving 21st century descendants. From the pure authentic sounds and stories of The Drive-By Truckers to the delicate sentiment of the seminal Jay Farrar, the sound track has some great music that speaks to present day issues.

“There has been a vital musical movement in the last decade with regards to roots music and we feel lucky to have a few of the influential ones in the film,” adds Blount.

“It is a kick ass sound track,” says Goggins. “We also have a wonderful song by Harry Dean Stanton that was recorded just for this film, and Lisa’s singing in the movie still blows me away.”

Steven Trask’s film score supports the story tonally as well. McKinnon says, “We wanted the film score not only to reflect the heaviness of Chrystal and Joe’s world, but also the beauty that could be mined from that sweet sadness. I wasn’t interested in the standard ‘hillbilly score’. I wanted something more classical that would truly underscore the story. Steven was able to incorporate our desires into a beautiful score of great restraint.”

ARCHETYPE NOT STEREOTYPE

CHRYSTAL is a story that partly deals with fable and legend in 21st century America. It is also a story that uses archetypes to explore the baser, and conversely, the nobler actions of people.

McKinnon offers, "All of the characters in the story represent one ‘type’ or another. But they are archetypes not stereotypes. One character might represent innocence in the story and another evil, but every character in the film is intelligent and three dimensional, even capable of a real sense of humor about who and what they are. You know, like real people.”

He continues, “It seems that it is increasingly more difficult to create or accept new myths in an era of the 'reality based story' or the ‘literal idea’. And yet, we keep digging deeper and deeper into the archives of the ancient legends for filmable stories because we obviously still have a need for what they give us. But I believe we also desire to have mystery and mysticism inhabit our present day lives. And we need the occasional contemporary film to reflect that. CHRYSTAL is not a film to be taken literally at all times. Hopefully an audience can experience the film on other, more primitive levels. Our story explores one of humanity’s oldest fears--that of losing your child to the dark forest-- and brings it into the modern day setting.”

“CHRYSTAL also presents another age-old theme, 'Can true love overcome great tragedy?' I have to believe that it can and to bear witness to that overcoming is a great catharsis for us all. I hope so anyway."

For Bruce Heller, working with Ray, Lisa, and Walt was one of the most inspiring creative experiences of his career. “The three of them have a tireless and unforgiving eye for detail, that pushes the envelope in both cinema and storytelling. For me, this film is a piece of art that could not have been created by anyone else. Our movie was made with the true spirit of independent filmmaking.”

Koplan adds, “It sounds so corny when people talk about it, but there really is something incredible about the spirit of independent filmmaking. It all starts with the script, and Ray’s words drew all of us into wanting to see this story on screen. Everyone involved in the process gave so much of themselves to bringing the story to life.”

McKinnon concludes by observing: “Even though I wrote the script and thought that I knew the characters inside and out, Lisa supplied me with some wonderfully eccentric takes on this hillbilly heroine. But in the end, it was her boldness and refusal to water down certain aspects of the character that I admire most. Without her inspiration, encouragement, cajoling, prodding, pushing, and loving, this story never would have been written. And without her ‘never-give-up’ attitude this movie would never have been made. She is my muse. I’m so grateful.”