image obsessed
by nicole mcewan

mark romanek loves robin williams. always has. always did. a fan from the early mork from ork days, the director possesses what he calls "an encyclopedic knowledge" of the frantic funny-man's oeuvre. he's seen it all, from popeye and the world according to garp to the fisher King and awakenings to good will hunting and yes, even patch adams—a film he freely admits "moved me to tears".

yet it was the little-seen seize the day, a saul bellows adaptation which lingered in romanek's memory as williams finest hour. in the 1986 made-for-pbs movie, the julliard-trained actor plays tommy, a loser on a downward spiral. broke, abandoned by friends and misunderstood by family, williams convincingly takes the character to the edge of sanity. "this was the most extreme, raw and naked thing robin had ever done," romanek insists.

so it was this obscure gem which ignited romanek's imagination when he learned that the a-list actor was interested in one-hour photo, the highly-stylized suspense thriller which marks the much-ballyhooed video director's transition to the big screen.

via telephone from new york, the soft-spoken, even genteel filmmaker described his reaction to this casting coup: "wow. that's a really left -field intriguing idea," he recalls thinking. no hand-stands, no high-fives—just a sense of wonder.

then again, a dozen years of working with rock and pop royalty does tend to take the edge off being star-struck.

though romanek is not yet a household name, there's little doubt that the chicago native's work has invaded your living room at one time or another. his ground-breaking music videos include fiona apple's 'criminal;' beck's 'devil's haircut' (his personal fave) and michael jackson's 'scream,' a $7 million space-themed pop extravaganza co-starring janet jackson.
two other stand-outs, madonna's 'bedtime stories' and nine inch nails' 'closer' are now part of moma's permanent collection—an achievement particularly resonant for a photo-geek whose la home is wallpapered with original works by diane arbus, robert frank and richard avedon.

instead of being nervous, romanek found himself in a state of bemused excitement. because his script emulated the great "lonely man" movies of the 70s like polanski's the tenant and scorsese's taxi driver, romanek assumed at best he would cast a great indie actor or a prominent character actor, then bump him up to a lead role a la hackman in coppola's the conversation.

instead, he got williams who was looking for more challenging material after a string of what many critics deemed maudlin misfires. movies like what dreams may come, jakob the liar and the a-aforementioned patch adams had earned the oscar-winner the worst reviews of his long and mostly illustrious career.

ultimately, one hour photo was the perfect vehicle for a makeover. after all, the nebbish-y role of "sy" parrish, a detail-oriented photo clerk with a peculiar obsession would require both robin williams personae—the sensitive everyman and the manic stream-of-consciousness comedian—to disappear.

miraculously, the film works. "i'm very lucky robin gave me the endorsement of starring in my first film," romanek acknowledges.
williams should be equally grateful. the phrase "career performance" has been uttered in more than a few reviews. released the same year as insomnia and death to smoochy, it is one hour photo that best showcases the fact that williams can be a truly mesmerizing actor. chubbed out, clad in schlumpy polyester duds and sensible shoes and sporting goggle-like glasses and an ash-blond crew cut, the actor fully inhabits sy, a truly disturbed character. still, a few nay-sayers have criticized williams for exposing this darker side—viewing it more as a calculated move to regain lost luster than a simple case of an artist stretching his wings.

romanek bristles. "at the time it wasn't a career choice," he explains. robin's involvement in one hour photo pre-dated insomnia and smoochy. "those films didn't even exist to be discussed. i was just meeting robin about this very interesting idea of him playing this really strange creepy guy."

though photo wrapped first, thirteen months of editing and a few more months of jockeying for a release date resulted in photo hitting theaters last. "i felt like i wanted to be the guy to introduce robin in this new mode, " romanek opines. he admits to irritation at the minor backlash accompanying william's self-prescribed re-invention. to him it's a classic "damned-if-you-do; damned-if-you-don't" situation.

"if you ask robin he'll tell you this: he'd done 40 to 50 movies and he was looking for some new challenges. he wanted to do something he hadn't done before. really, he's running out of options. then came my script. a bad guy that in some ways is the crystallization of a lot of the types of roles that he plays. look at awakenings, fisher king, good will hunting, good morning vietnam. he plays lonely people who are socially-awkward and that are obsessed usually with one thing in particular and are often very academic."

romanek continues. "[new york times scribe] elvis mitchell said today that he plays a lot of characters who are defined by their profession. so, it makes a lot of sense that he would relate to this character. then smoochy comes along and its a sicko funny black comedy. if you thinks that's a departure just check out Robins recent hbo special. and insomnia was a chance to work with christopher nolan (memento) and al pacino. who's going to turn that down?"

good point.

if romanek seems passionate, it might have something to do with the fact that one hour photo marks the realization of a goal established nearly twenty-odd years ago.

the son of a prominent chicago real estate developer, romanek grew up in a household of shutterbugs. by twelve, he had his own basement darkroom. a few years later he was using his uncle's super-8 camera to make short films. an unusual program at new trier, the progressive high school he attended, literally sealed his fate.

"it was the mid-70s and they had a four-year film theory program," romanek muses. "they recruited their teachers from the art institute of chicago. so those teachers chose to teach kids independent, non-narrative, cinema. stan brakhage, kenneth anger, michael snow, maya daren. really, really mind-expanding cinema. on the weekend i would go to the movies. i was lucky enough to be a teenager when the whole seventies golden era was hitting the screens. kubrick, altman, polanski and much, much more. basically in any given week I would go from stan brakhage to steven spielberg. i was exposed to the full spectrum of what you could do with film—which was very liberating and exciting."

suffice to say, romanek set his sights on directing. in 1985 he helmed the quirky static (starring amanda plummer). the film focused on a crucifix factory worker in the bible belt who invents a machine he claims can show pictures of heaven.

when that film failed to garnish attention, romanek turned to video-directing which he describes as "a graduate school in the craft of filmmaking".

his runaway success in that realm led to an mtv video vanguard lifetime achievement award in 1997. still, romanek, like his contemporaries david fincher and spike jonze, was itching to break out of the video format and make a feature film.

arbus, a bio-pic he scripted about the life and death of the iconoclastic photographer diane arbus failed to get sufficient funding. an admirer of the tiny, intense woman best remembered for her confrontational portraits of circus freaks and other marginalized people, romanek considers her a virtual pioneer in the field of documentary-style photo journalism.

interestingly, a famous arbus quote sums up the essence of one hour photo. arbus wrote: "a photograph is a secret about a secret. the more it tells you the less you know." "the movie,” says romanek “is really all about how pictures can be deceptive."

in the film, sy (williams) develops an obsessive relationship toward the yorkins, a literally picture-perfect yuppie family whose photos he has developed for nine years. the snapshots suggest familial harmony so radiant that sy, an inveterate loner, hungers to join in.

"his vision of this family is one-dimensional and completely idealized. that's why I cast such achingly attractive actors," the director laughs. "they're almost like greek gods."
the film concept came to him in a flash during a visit to a typical mega-discount department store a few years back. "i've always found these places to be visually striking. to me their sterility and sameness says a lot about the american suburb and this disposable consumerist lifestyle they espouse."

more than anything romanek was cautious about falling into a genre trap. sure the film is about obsession, but the filmmaker wanted to avoid cliché at all costs. as a result sy is more rupert pupkin than travis bickle.

"at the end of the day it's more a creepy love story than a psycho-thriller. I saw sy from a very sympathetic point of view. i sort of labeled him as a creepy saint. i knew that he meant well. and as soon as i saw that he was really working out his own past as much as he was trying to correct this flawed family, literal violence seemed inept. to me the emotional violence was just too potent a choice to resist."

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