The ANNOTICO Report
Anthony LaPaglia in "Winter Solstice" as Jim Winters,
a father and widower,
is struggling against his inability to adequately communicate
his feelings
to his sons, who are maturing quickly and moving beyond
their father's
grasp.
LaPaglia, 46, a Tony- and Emmy-winning stage, screen and
television actor
(currently in his third season of "Without a Trace"),
was attracted to the
sparseness of the script, which he says "was more about
what was between
the lines than what was on the page."
The script "resonated" nonetheless for LaPaglia, who recalled
his own
father's shadow looming large. The actor says his father
"is a particularly
strong character, has his own presence, and as a kid
I always felt that
presence. But there comes a time when you have to say,
'I'm gonna do what I
want to do,' and I related to that very much [in the
script]. And I think a
lot of guys relate to that, especially if they come from
kind of old-school
families — you know, working class, blue collar or families
where the major
focus was the parents want their kids to have a better
life than the life
they had."
LaPaglia's father, Eddie, emigrated from Italy to start
a new life in
Australia (where LaPaglia was born, and over the phone
for this interview
the son's slight Aussie accent is still detectable).
Eddie began as an
automobile mechanic and now owns a successful car dealership.
"He wanted his kids to have an education, and therefore
he had certain
aspirations for us that we may not have had for ourselves,"
LaPaglia says
with a laugh. "And you know, because of that, there just
came a moment in
my life where I had to kind of stiffen up and say, 'You
know what, I
appreciate what you want, but it's not what I want, and
I gotta go my own
way.' It happens a lot. It happens a lot, especially
between fathers and
sons."
The filmmaker and star talk about 'Winter Solstice'
and their efforts to tell of grief, courage and love
in a quiet way.
Los Angeles Times
By Lydia Marcus
Special to The Times
April 11, 2005
Generations have celebrated the winter solstice — the
shortest day of the
year — because they understood that each day that followed
would mean
longer hours of sunlight to warm their climates, nourish
their harvests and
sustain life.
For first-time feature filmmaker Josh Sternfeld, 32, this
annual event
provides the metaphor for the emotional state of the
characters in his new
film "Winter Solstice," which opened Friday in Los Angeles.
It follows a
father and his two sons "coming out of the grief of the
past and having the
courage to face the future" after the untimely death
of the family's
matriarch.
Jim Winters, a father and widower (Anthony LaPaglia),
is struggling against
his inability to adequately communicate his feelings
to his sons, who are
maturing quickly and moving beyond their father's grasp.
His elder son, Gabe (Aaron Stanford), announces the snap
decision to move
to another state, while younger son, Pete (Mark Webber),
is barely getting
through high school. Winters wobbles in the difficult
role of sole parent,
trying to find the delicate balance between telling his
kids what to do and
nurturing their choices. And when a new woman (Allison
Janney) comes into
his life, he must confront his own deeply buried need
for the companionship
of a woman.
Writer-director Sternfeld says he "became obsessed with
this idea of a
family of men without a feminine presence and what that
might do to the
emotional communication of the three guys ... how would
they be able to
express themselves to each other and show love and support
for each other."
He also wanted to show the "feminine power" and "the
vitality that women
bring to men's lives, but I wanted to do it with its
absence and not with
its presence."
LaPaglia, 46, a Tony- and Emmy-winning stage, screen and
television actor
(currently in his third season of "Without a Trace"),
was attracted to the
sparseness of the script, which he says "was more about
what was between
the lines than what was on the page."
As the father of a 2-year-old daughter, LaPaglia won't
have to deal with a
father-son struggle. But the script "resonated" nonetheless
for LaPaglia,
who recalled his own father's shadow looming large. The
actor says his
father "is a particularly strong character, has his own
presence, and as a
kid I always felt that presence. But there comes a time
when you have to
say, 'I'm gonna do what I want to do,' and I related
to that very much [in
the script]. And I think a lot of guys relate to that,
especially if they
come from kind of old-school families — you know, working
class, blue
collar or families where the major focus was the parents
want their kids to
have a better life than the life they had."
LaPaglia's father, Eddie, emigrated from Italy to start
a new life in
Australia (where LaPaglia was born, and over the phone
for this interview
the son's slight Aussie accent is still detectable).
Eddie began as an
automobile mechanic and now owns a successful car dealership.
"He wanted his kids to have an education, and therefore
he had certain
aspirations for us that we may not have had for ourselves,"
LaPaglia says
with a laugh. "And you know, because of that, there just
came a moment in
my life where I had to kind of stiffen up and say, 'You
know what, I
appreciate what you want, but it's not what I want, and
I gotta go my own
way.' It happens a lot. It happens a lot, especially
between fathers and
sons."...
In "Winter Solstice," Winters works as a landscaper in
suburban New Jersey
— two details that sprang from Sternfeld's past growing
up in the Garden
State and working as a landscaper in upstate New York
as a young man. It's
a profession that Sternfeld still feels is "very peaceful
and dignified."
LaPaglia, who is also one of the film's executive producers,
says that his
character's job was something that drew him into the
script. "It's at the
same time very physical, and also it's a very gentle
occupation."
Landscaping represents the perfect metaphor for Winters,
a character who is
"able to take care of everybody's house but his own,
which I think is
something that is very sort of endemic to the human heart."
He laughs. "You
know, we're all so good at solving everyone's problems
... but rarely are
we as good about making ourselves feel good."
American family dramas of the 1970s and early 1980s, such
as "Kramer vs.
Kramer," "Tender Mercies," "Ordinary People," "Rocky"
and "Five Easy
Pieces," were on Sternfeld's mind throughout the process
of writing the
script and during production. They're all films he connected
with because
of their "visceral, emotional immediacy to characters."
But will today's audiences — used to fast-paced, bang-'em-up
flicks — be
ready or willing to sit through a slower-paced film like
"Winter Solstice,"
in which the moments of revelation and change are minute
but ultimately
significant?
"Regardless of the pace, I think that audiences will connect
with it
because I think people want to see stories of real sincerity.
I think
people want to see movies about people that really make
them think of
themselves in every way, not just in the commercially
convenient ways,"
says the filmmaker.
LaPaglia adds, "We're bombarded with visual images, audio,
everything, and
this movie is the complete antithesis to that — it's
like taking a vacation
in the country. You get to go to the theater and sit
back and just let the
movie wash over you, if that's what you want. And I hope
people enjoy that
experience if they can. Some people have said, 'Not a
lot happens,' and I
go, 'Well, depends on how you look at it.' "
In the early days of his film career, LaPaglia was pigeonholed
in a series
of Mafioso-type roles, but now he's known more for his
ability to exude a
rare and commanding mix of vulnerability and strength
in films such as
"Lantana" and "The Guys."
In "Winter Solstice" he continues to convey those qualities,
but does
tapping into all that emotion (both bottled up and expressed)
come with a
long-term effect that's hard to slough off at the end
of the day?
LaPaglia gives quick assurance that he doesn't take his
character's baggage
home with him. "I always say that acting is the world's
cheapest therapy.
You get paid to actually work your problems out on screen,
and that's kinda
how I treat it. Acting somehow allows me to kind of go
to the places and
experience things on film that I might not do in life,
in fact I often
don't do in life."
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