A Rose For Daniel Noah

In 2013 I was invited to join a team of filmmakers making a film called Max Rose as an associate producer. By the time I came onboard, filming was well underway, but visiting the set and watching our director Daniel Noah was an education in and of itself. Although it was Daniels first time directing a full-length feature film, on set he was poised and calm and always seemed to have things under control. Directing a legend like our star Jerry Lewis couldnt have been easy, since Lewis has written books on directing, but Daniel pulled it off brilliantly. Released theatrically last fall, the film recently made its Netflix debut and I asked Daniel who co-owns the production company SpectreVision, to answer a few questions about the experience.

Q: How did you get the idea for Max Rose?

A: Max was inspired by my grandfather, Bob Loewy , a jazz arranger and guitarist who had one hit in the 1940s before he abandoned his professional ambitions and turned his attention to his marriage to my grandmother. When she died in 2001, he entered a period of soul searching that made a strong impression on me, and led to my desire to tell his story.

Q: How closely does the character and story align with your grandfather's story?

A: The details are invented, but the general experience of identity crisis in ones late 80s is very much on point.

Q: We had such a long and winding road from completion to distribution. What do you know now that you wish you knew then?

A: Dont rush. We were in such a hurry to debut the film, we allowed it to be screened at Cannes before it was ready. If I had it to do over, Id protect the time we needed to find the film in editing before committing to any public showings.

Q: You've produced and now directed. Which do you prefer?

A: I cant say that I think of it in those terms. When I approach a new project, the question I ask myself is, How can I best serve this film? If thats producing, Ill produce. If its writing or directing, Ill do that. Ultimately, my precise role on each film doesnt matter to me as long as the film has the energy and support it needs to be fully realized.

Q: I'll never forget the day on set when you described the scene and dialogue to Jerry and he just shook his head and said "no" and just asked you to roll the camera. How did you deal with that?

A: Ha! I actually dont remember that day - selective memory, I guess! I think that when you have a star of Jerrys magnitude, youve got to be incredibly flexible. He did his very best to accomodate everything that we asked of him, but at 87, there were going to be days when his body simply wouldt allow him to meet our demands. When that happened, wed quickly adjust the scene to meet his needs. In the end, youve still got the power of that man in front of your camera - you cant lose.

Q: How hard was it to direct a guy who wrote books on directing?

A: It was easy. Because he understood that the only way it was going to work was if he respected the process. If anything, I was occasionally frustrated that he wouldnt help me more! I remember asking him once to give me his opinion on a shot, and he said, Thats not my job, kid, its yours.

Q: Did you always have Jerry in mind for the role?

A: As I was writing, I was picturing my grandfather. But as I contemplated who could fill those shoes, I continually came back to Jerry, even though, at that time, I had not met him and was unaware of how similar he was to the character. Id soon find out.

Q: How did it come about for him to take the role?

A: We were told he was formally retired from the movies and that he did not accept submissions for acting. We sent a letter anyway basically begging him to read it, which we figured would end up a piece of curio in our cabinet. So we were stunned when he called my producers Lawrence Inglee and Garrett Kelleher and asked us to send the script. A few weeks later, he called again and committed right there on the phone. We found out later why he chose to engage with us out of the apparently hundreds of offers he received each year, and it was very powerful. Our first meeting on his boat in San Diego is indelibly imprinted in my mind. As I first laid eyes on him, he was wearing a silk kimono and sharing a lollipop with his chihuauha, Paulie. I thought - Uh oh. But within 20 minutes, I felt that I was sitting with a member of my own family. As I said above, the real Jerry is strikingly similar in nature to the character Max Rose, which was a phenomenom that neither he nor I understands to this day. I remember him jokingly accusing me of having planted cameras in his home. And he understood that to play Max was to permit the real him to be seen in a way he had never before allowed. In that first meeting he said, The only way Im going to screw this up is if I try to do any acting. Which is, of course, the most elevated kind of acting that there is. To get back to why us it had a lot to do with his father, Danny Lewis, who had been a performer in the Catskills and had taken on the role of Jerrys mentor when Jerry become a star. When Danny died, Jerry felt that he had never had the chance to show his dad that he could give a performance from the deepest place inside of himself, and this had been a thing that had somewhat haunted him. When he got the script for Max Rose, he said, he knew that his father had guided it to him. He also felt that he had a responsibility to his fans to show them that they still mattered in old age. As he puts it, This country throws away its old people like garbage. He wanted to make a film for his fans that shows them, as he put it, they they do not need to be afraid at the end."

A: We had an ensemble cast. How did you get such a great group together?

Q: Once Jerry signed on, doors opened. Claire Bloom has been my favorite actress since I first saw her in The Haunting when I was a boy, and she was the first offer for Eva. I couldnt believe it when she accepted. Same with Mort Sahl. I will never again experience a casting process like this one. Along the way, I got to meet and get to know some of the most iconic figures from my childhood - Jonathan Winters, Carol Burnett, Ben Gazarra, Paul Mazursky, Peter Bogdanovich... there are more. I wish I could have cast them all!

Q: It was amazing to see how different editors came in and changed the film. What did you learn from that process?

A: Having had the benefit now of putting not just Max Rose together, but also a number of other films through my work as a producer, Ive come to understand that there are two kinds of films. In most cases, you simply stitch together the scenes as they were written, in the order that they were written. You might nip and tuck a bit, but the film is more or less a reflection of the screenplay. But other films dont work that way. These are the films that are less focused on traditional plot and more focused on the subtleties of human behavior. In other words, the story itself resides in the real, human interactions that you captured in your camera. This kind of film requires a longer process of trial and error to find the invisible threads that stitch it together. Bitch, the latest film from my company, was a similar process, and, like Max Rose, took more time.

Q: What do you hope audiences will feel after watching the film?

A: After my grandmother passed, it dawned on me that - if were lucky enough to love someone the way my grandfather loved her - inevitably, someone is left behind. There is very little in our culture to prepare us for this. Its my hope that Max Rose will help provide a little bit of preparedness - and comfort - around this natural and ultimately very beautiful stage of life.

Q: Are there any deeper messages about aging or anything else that you hope audiences will think more deeply about?

A: I wouldnt say messages so much as questions. Its my hope that Max Rose compassionately encourages viewers to look at the way theyve valued their own lives, and to ask hard but important questions about what elements of our time on earth are the ones that most matter.

Q: You've partnered with Elijah Wood. How did you guys meet and what projects have you been working on together?

A: Elijah and I met on a film I wrote that he was attached to star in, and Josh Waller was attached to direct. That film never happened, but the three of us become friends and formed SpectreVision to produce artful genre films. Weve made A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, Open Windows, Cooties, The Boy, The Greasy Strangler and, most recently, Bitch. Were currently working with Ubisoft to make a VR horror game, and were shooting four new movies in 2017.

Q: Where do you see yourself in ten years?

A: Ten years? Im just trying to make it to the end of the day!