A
boyish 39 year old, in jeans and sneakers, with a pouch bag slung
across his jacket, clubber-style… first-time filmmaker Andrew Litvack
projects “French Touch” cool, yet turns out to be an archetypal “New
Yorker in Paris.” In the “City of Light” since 1987, he came here
“after graduating from college, in literature… to learn the language,”
and made a name for himself subtitling films by the likes of Jean-Luc
Godard, “I did all kinds of pictures, really, even “Les Visiteurs!”.
Further down the road, he did a stint with James Ivory: “I wasn’t his
First Assistant. But, I helped the French actors rehearse, and once he
let me direct a scene.” Why Paris? “Because it’s unusual, wonderful,
different! Otherwise, to make movies, I suppose I’d have had to head
for LA, and I can’t envision that!”
Andy Litvack
appears to live in a world in which “anything can happen,” and his film
“Merci… Dr Rey!” — a Merchant Ivory production, to be released here
during the first week of December — reflects that.
“Merci… Dr Rey!” won’t be translated as “Thank you… Dr Rey!” — in
English, the title will be “Merci, Dr Rey!” with a comma, instead of
the dots — “because it shouldn’t just sound like someone’s thanking
their doctor.” In fact, there’s more to this “spoof on psychoanalysis”
than meets the eye. Set in Paris, it’s “part thriller, part comedy…
with a whiff of Frenchness” as the protagonists “slip in and out of
French depending on where they’re from and who they’re talking to,”
much as Litvack does with Jane Birkin (so “droll” in the role of a
gawky “adulescent older woman”). As he points out — “She and I are the
same, we’ve left our country behind, and adopted another… sometimes we
speak to each other in French.”
The protagonist of “Merci… ” is a gay young man (Stanislas Merhar) who
lives alone in a big apartment with his mom, an ageing soprano (Dianne
Wiest) who’s hysterical at the prospect of singing in “Turandot” at
Paris’ Opéra Bastille. Is this “a gay movie”? Yes and no. But,
not in
the sense that might be described as “rue des Archives attitude.” There
are no “pecs” and “butts” in this “odd ball” whodunit murder mystery.
According to Andrew Litvack, who claims he’s “not into labels,” even
the initial references to gay “phone sex” are brought in “as a way of
explaining the crime, that gets the plot going.” In his opinion, are
all “queen moms” detrimental diva’s like Wiest’s character, or is that
just a stereotype? “It’s not a stereotype, it’s an archetype,” says
Andy who’s “very up on psychoanalysis — je suis très calé
en
psychanalyse — you know…,” adding that after a decade of analysis, he’s
not quite ready to “cut off” yet.
If anything, in this “you’ll love it or hate it” movie, homosexuality
is just used as an “extended metaphor” for a string of “hang-ups.”
However, both Litvack and Birkin agree that the audience’s response is
“something else” at gay and lesbian film fests. “On one occasion the
laughter was so uproarious that we couldn’t hear the lines. I’m glad
James Ivory was in the room to witness it, because I could hardly
believe it myself!”
