Coming Soon: ‘Queer’

via Unsung Films:

Very rarely does Steve Buscemi get behind the camera, but when he does he makes it as exciting as when he is in front of it. After a few episodes for The Sopranos and 30 Rock, and interesting films such as Interview, Animal Factory and Trees Lounge, Buscemi gets into the director’s chair once again, this time for… Queer.

The film he’ll be bringing us is written by Oren Moverman (I’m Not There, The Messenger, Rampart) and tells the story of the Beat Generation’s father figure, William S. Burroughs. The plot will mainly focus on the events described in the author’s famous first ever novels Queer and Junkie and it will revolve mostly around the time that the writer spent in Mexico City in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The movie will be produced by Buscemi and Moverman alongside Wren Arthur. A distributor has not been found yet as filming is only about to begin and a release date has not been announced but the project is expected to get to us early 2013.

Ben’s production partnership with Oren Moverman

Oren Moverman to Collider:

You mentioned bringing the gang back together: Ben Foster is also fantastic in the film. Was that another situation where you had this part and you immediately thought of him?

MOVERMAN: No, with him it was different because Ben and I have a company together and this was our first film as a production company. He really worked his ass off as a producer. He was really a very present, very creative producer and partner in making the movie. But I couldn’t stand the idea of having Ben Foster on set and not putting him in front of the camera because he is such an enormously gifted actor; again, one of my favorites. We talked about who he could play and then we looked at this homeless guy and thought, “Hmm. That could be a nice little thing for him to take a stab at,” and we started developing that role for him from that.

You two are collaborating again with the movie Queerbased off the William S. Burroughs’ novel, correct?

MOVERMAN: Yeah, what happened there was I wrote the script and Steve Buscemi is the director of that one. Steve’s an old friend of mine and Ben is attached to play one of the parts and our company is also producing that with Steve’s company, Olive. Yeah, there’s a lot of cross-pollination going on in New York City these days.

You mentioned your production company. Has that given you more freedom in those responsibilities? How has that affected you as a writer and director, that new element to your career?

MOVERMAN: It gives it a home, it gives it a center. It gives me another chance for collaboration with Ben [Foster] that is something that we crave and we want to continue to do. It gave me a partner who’s someone I trust absolutely and believe in and who’s an incredible talent, not just as an actor and producer, but as a writer and a future director. He’s just really, really a Renaissance man in that way and I think that having that is very grounding; you always have somebody to give you a counterpoint or another way of looking at things. It just focused all of it into one place.

Ben denies ‘Prometheus,’ gained weight for ‘Gotti,’ and will co-produce ‘Queer’

Ben Foster’s character Sebastian in the new film “Contraband” is partially based on a producer the actor once worked with, and it’s someone who inspired him by teaching him exactly what not to do — a lesson especially handy now that he’s become a producer himself. Since starting a production company called Third Mind Pictures with Oren Moverman, his director from “The Messenger,” Foster has his first title on the way and another in pre-production, to shoot later this fall.

“Rampart,” is out later this month, and while Foster has a small role in the film — as a wheelchair-bound homeless vet — his main role was being a constant collaborator for director Moverman: “I was on set every day. I was there on prep. I was there in camera. I was working on the shot listing. I was in the edit room,” Foster told The Playlist. “I was just there not to lie to Oren, to be straight with him and ask questions.”

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More on Foster, Buscemi and Tucci reading “Queer” screenplay

Below is a journalist’s account of the Queer reading - an Oren Moverman script based on William Burroughs’ novella - at the 2010 Sarasota Film Fest. Ben forgot he was indoors and nearly lit a Marlboro inside the theater. (Pic via source.)

Steve Persall | Reeling in the Years:

The reading of Queer [was] a fascinating two  hours of not quite acting yet not merely reciting Moverman’s script. Queer is a barely veiled acccount of Burroughs’ experiences in Mexico in the 1950’s, coming to grips with his homosexual leanings, drug adddiction and misguided marriage.

Buscemi began by recalling a meeting with Burroughs in 1997, around six weeks before his death, in Lawrence, Kan. where he lived his final 15 years. It was a long, funny story involving the unpredictable behavior and fascination with firearms propelling the Queer screenplay.

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Ben Foster Reads “Queer” with Buscemi

At the Sarasota Film Festival, recent co-stars Ben Foster and Steve Buscemi participated in a staged reading of the script for Queer, based on the novel by William Burroughs and written by Oren Moverman. Buscemi hopes to someday direct the film. Gothamist recently asked Buscemi about the project.

Do you want to say anything about Queer? Queer is a film that I’m hoping to direct someday… it’s based on a novel by William Burroughs and written by Oren Moverman, who directed The Messenger. I imagine you’re asking me about it because you just read that I did a staged reading of it at the Sarasota Film Festival. It went really well, and it was the first time we’d ever read it out loud, and it was really satisfying to do it, especially at Sarasota. We had a lot of sympathetic audience members who were there because it was Burroughs, but there were a lot of people who didn’t know anything about the book. It’s pretty rough material sometimes, but it was great bringing a work like that to people, especially some of the audience who I know maybe came to see me or Ben Foster or Stanley Tucci or John Ventimiglia—we were reading it—but then came away knowing something about Burroughs too.

by John Del Signore for Gothamist, published May 27, 2010