“I’m Not There”:  An Interview with Producer Christine Vachon
Words: Michael Rabinowitz
Photos: Courtesy of The Weinstein Company

Christine Vachon and her company, Killer Films, have produced indie cinema’s greatest rock historical fictions of the last decade, including Velvet Goldmine, I Shot Andy Warhol, and Hedwig and the Angry Inch.  Often partnering with Oscar-nominated director Todd Haynes, the two first worked on Haynes’ unauthorized, all-Barbie-cast, Karen Carpenter biopic, Superstar.  The originality and obsessive details of the stop-action melodrama became Haynes' Hollywood calling card.  Now the two are on the eve of releasing what could be Haynes' and Killer Films’ biggest mainstream hit to date, I’m Not There.  The genre is, of course, music biopic, but the subject is likely the most difficult figure in American pop music to chronologize: Bob Dylan.  Absconding with the traditional three-act structure of rise, fall, and redemption, Vachon and Haynes follow six different versions of Dylan with six different actors (most notably Cate Blanchett’s portrayal of a young 1964 Zimmerman), each representing a version Dylan passed off as his “biography.’”  Vachon sat down with REAX to discuss the difficulties in producing and promoting this fractured meta-narrative.

REAX:  Did you meet Dylan to pitch the script?
Christine Vachon:  I did not.  And we haven’t met Dylan.  And when I say "we," I mean the royal “we”: me and Todd Haynes.  When Todd first conceived of the film, it was right around the time we were preparing production for Far From Heaven.  As most of your readers know, when we made Velvet Goldmine, David Bowie did not give us the rights to his music.  I actually feel, in retrospect, that kind of worked out because it forced us to be more original and in some ways—and this is my opinion—I feel it made the soundtrack more interesting.  We did things like having Radiohead cover all of this Roxy music . . . it was really cool.  If we had Bowie, we would’ve been, “Oh, we got that.”  So, we had to really stretch.  But . . . (laughs) Todd didn’t want to do that with Dylan.  He was like, “I don’t want to do this if I don’t have the rights.”  So, I started this process of, "how am I going to put the pieces of this puzzle together?"  And the road took me to Jesse Dylan, who is Bob’s son.  And Jesse turned us to Bob’s longtime business manager, Jeff Rosen.  So, I got in contact with Jeff.  Todd and I pitched it to him together.  He was like “Let me take it to Bob,” and came back and said, “Ok.”  Now, I am simplifying it a little bit but not that much.  Once we passed that hurdle, that part was relatively uncomplicated.

REAX:  With the fractured narrative of "I’m Not There" and the parody of Dewey Cox, is the traditional biopic, like "Ray" and "Walk The Line," dead?
CV:  I think there is a lot of biopic fatigue.  It's such the same journey.  And, I say this with great respect to those two movies.  But, you’re like, “Ok, here’s the scene with the flashback.” 

REAX:  Did you try and weave a common trait into each of the acting performances since each character is so different, spanning racial and age lines?
CV:  The thing is, one of the challenges in talking about the movie is it sounds so much more complicated than it really is.  It's not very challenging to watch.  I don’t believe the audience is confused.  It's very clear to them, very quickly, who the different characters are and what the thrust of their particular journey/narrative is.  So, there is not a common thread in the sense of something that literal.  But, there is a sense of the characters passing the torch from one to the other.  

REAX:  Obviously the studio is using Cate Blanchett’s performance to sell the movie because it’s the most vivid.  Can you point to your favorite non-Cate Bob Dylan performance?
CV:  Oh, there are so many moments.  From Marcus Carl Franklin, who plays the young black kid, when he sings with Richie Havens (the folk artist)…  I love a lot of the scenes between Heath Ledger and Charlotte Gainsburg.  Especially, the scene that is set to “I Want You.”  A lot of my favorite moments are musical, of course.  I love it when Christian Bale sings “Pressing On.”  And I love Richard Gere’s face when he is watching Calexico sing “Going To Acapulco.” 

REAX:  Final question, but an important one: Did you have a hand in working with Todd Haynes on his Barbie-doll epic, "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story?"
CV:  That was the film that Todd and I worked together on for the first time.  But, I didn’t produce it.  I often get credit for producing, but I didn’t.  However, we are the keepers of Superstar.  All of the elements are in our office.  Unless the Carpenters change their mind, it will continue to be an underground or downloadable work.  The thing that distresses me about that is when people download it they are seeing an inferior copy of a terrific movie.  But, it’s the only life the movie has, so there you go.

I'm Not There Official Site