Todd Solondz celebrated the 20th anniversary of his Venice premiere ”Palindrams“On Metrogent In New York City on Sunday 6 April with a 4K restoration show, accompanied by a question and answers with actors Tyler Maynard and Shayna Levine, costume designer Vicki Farrell, and moderated by producer Mike S. Ryan. His disturbing comedy follows 13-year-old Aviva who is desperate after becoming a mother. When she became pregnant, her mother, played by Ellen Barkin, forces her to have an abortion, which ultimately ends up in sterilizing the teenage girl. The aftermath follows Aviva is produced by eight different actresses.
“Whoever tries to make a movie, it never turns out as you predict, but you are lucky (it) it turns out better,” Solondz told the audience. “It was really difficult, 18-hour days; the highlight was our last day, which was a 27-hour day as we did. Now I do not recommend this to anyone. I avoid so many bullets in my career, especially on this movie. But now that it’s over, and I’m not in prison, that’s good.”
Ryan asked Solondz about this film was inspired by 9/11 and added that he “often thought of this as really the first type of movie on 9/11 in this answer.” This refers to a sequence when one of the Aviva portraits, by Sharon Wilkins, says her parents died during one of September 11 air crashes. “I was not aware of it,” Solondz replied.
“I don’t know what went to my head,” Solondz continued. “I have to be moved by my characters in order to put myself through the hell of making a movie, and they have to have an emotional pull on me. It was funny back then. It was during the george w. bush administration, and we though. Were Nuts, But Those Were Interesting Times. There are a lot of subjects that are out there in the news and for debate and so forth, but for me, it always comes down on a personnel emotional level to the way in which I know these characters and what I put through them.
Ryan continued to share how Ellen Barkin at one time caused some of the crew to cry on set. “I said: ‘Ellen, you scream at some of the crew, they are trainees and make them cry, and some of them leave. They thought they could be on the Riviera with their family, during the summer, and they work here, and you scream at them, and they cry and leave. You have to stop screaming at the students.’ And she said, “Ok, you give me a list of who I can scream at.
When it comes to Solondz, he said that Barkin “was wonderful to work with. I had a fantastic experience working with her. She really paid to be in the movie, in the end, because at that time she was married to the billionaire Ron Perelman, and so that she would be in the movie, she was the arrangement that she was flying (in) on her hers (in) On her Helicopter with her hair and so she could be in the movie, she made the arrangement that she flies (in) on her Helicopter with her hair and so we had done it on Friday. Helicopter was more than the cost of the movie.
Solondz recently talked to IndieWire About to direct children in sex scenes. “I like working with children. I like to work with adults. Some are nicer and easier to work with than others, but somehow it works this way,” he said. “It is true that my young actors are never old enough to really understand or be allowed to watch the movies they act in. I remember” Palindromes “screening, each of the children, I think they all showed up, with their families. Who knows what they understood or did not understand.”
“I saw some of the little ones whispered into their parents’ ears at different points in the film, but the children can do it even when watching a Disney movie. It is difficult to know what they were doing or did not understand, but surely, none of these children would be in the films if these parents not just approved without supporting the whole process.”
