Ellen Burstyn is in the midst of getting her first directing project off the ground, but is running into a few issues that she says epitomize how the industry has changed over the years.
The 81-year-old Burstyn is helming a character study called “Bathing Flo,” which follows an NYC man who agrees to house-sit in exchange for a place to live but discovers that his responsibilities include taking care of an elderly woman, Flo. Burstyn also plans to act in the film.
According to Deadline, progress has been slow because of Burstyn’s trouble securing financing. “Whether or not they’re going to close the deal remains to be seen,” she said.
As Deadline specifies, Burstyn believes that “so much of the development process relies upon the algorithmic calculation of risk, and much as Burstyn might appreciate the reality of that, she can barely countenance the logic of it.”
“What happens is you submit your script with an idea of what the budget might be, and the financier will offer you less than that,” Burstyn continued. “In order to do it for less, it means cutting out the art, usually. With ‘The Last Picture Show,’ Peter Bogdanovich brought the script to the company that made it, they liked it, and they gave him the money he needed to make the film. He cast it with the actors that he thought were right for the parts. Now it’s the reverse. You must get well-known actors, stars, to commit to doing it, and they want them all to work for scale. It’s ridiculous.”
New talent, she says, isn’t given any trust these days. “When we did ‘The Last Picture Show,’ the whole cast was unknowns and we all got careers from it. Well, I don’t think this could be done now.”
We hope that Burstyn eventually finds the right financing. With her extraordinary talents, there’s no doubt that she would make a phenomenal director.
