Knowing that the odds were stacked against me, I resorted to witchcraft.
Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau deals with the Troubled Production of The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996) as Richard Stanley tries to bring his vision of HG Well's story to the screen and the forces that went against him.
The movie was directed by David Gregory and it featured Fairuza Balk, Michael Gingold, Macro Hofschneider, and Rob Morrow.
The film premiered on August 24, 2014 at the London FrightFest Film Festival and was released on February 27, 2015 in the United States.
Tropes for the film:
- Boring, but Practical: Discussed in the context of having an assistant director, and especially one that's on the board with the whole production. That guy that rarely gets much credit, but is responsible for all the logistics and organising the set and how shots are being made. Without him, no vision, no matter how great, will ever materialise into a movie.
- Bowdlerise: Even the pre-prodution required to heavily cut down on explicit sexual and violent content that was originally intended as part of the movie. And it only went further and further down the line, until securing a PG-13 rating out of a project that was evisioned as an R-rated horror.
- Broken Pedestal: At least some of the cast members ended up disillusioned when confronted with Marlon Brando as a person, rather than an icon.James Sbardelatti: John referred to Brando as a genius. After the movie, he didn't.
- Creator Breakdown:
- Richard Stanley was increasingly feeling the pressure, had a nervous breakdown and was eventually fired from the project and replaced by John Frankenheimer.
- Val Kilmer was going through a divorce and Marlon Brando was dealing with his daughter's suicide, making the production a hostile working place.
- Fix Fic: Invoked and discussed as the initial vision Stanley had for the whole movie, trying to "fix" things from previous adaptations. Including adding elements that aren't in the book nor said adaptations, but were part of the marketing that left Stanley bitter as a child for never being on screen.
- Groin Attack: Nelson de la Rosa, the 2'4" actor who Brando promoted to his sidekick over Marco Hofschneider, punched Hofschneider in the balls to taunt him over losing his role to him.
- Hostility on the Set: Probably the chief reason why the production was such a disaster and pain to finish. Val Kilmer was butting heads with pretty much everyone else: Stanlney, Brando, Thewlis, various other actors and of course the film crew - to the point where discussing his antics take almost half of the documentary. His obnoxious behaviour was enough to first get Rob Morrow hired and then Morrow left on his own in just two days, simply to not have to deal with Kilmer anymore.
- It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: Getting Marlon Brando to play Dr. Moreau, which seemed like a great way to add a big star to it and increase interest in the production by media. Plus the added splendor of having a chance to work with the man on set. Everyone ends up admitting this might be one of the worst ideas they had.
- Jerkass Has a Point: John Frankenheimer might be an obtuse, old-fashioned tyranical director, but he still managed to put both Kilmer and Brando in their places and force them to work with his harsh behaviour, something neither Stanley could do nor other crewmembers and actors.
- Mis-blamed: Invoked as the core premise. The documentary tries to present Stanley from the first minute as this great artistic visionary that has been wronged by the heartless studio execs and cast out on drummed up charges. This contrasts with the mundane reality of him being unable to control his own crew or contain Val Kilmer's ego in any way whatsoever and thus being fired for failing to do his job - direct.
- Money, Dear Boy:
- While it's not said openly, Richard Stanley himself admits he was in a pretty tight spot financially. So being an errand boy for a studio seemed like a great way to bounce back from the red and make a dream project in the same time.
- At least according to Fairuza Balk, this was why (and how) Marlon Brando ultimately arrived to the set and stayed in the production, not giving a single damn about it once he realised it's a sinking ship anyway.
- Only Sane Man: Robert Shaye comes off as the only voice of cold, calculating reason, foreseeing various problems before they even happened. It's hard to tell how much of it is him presenting himself as such and how much of simply being a seasoned producer - or maybe even both.
- Outside-Context Problem: The production and casting had their issues, but various cast and production members still considered them possible to overcome, as part of regular film-making process. Then Cheyenne Brando committed suicide, plunging Marlon Brando, her father, into depression and resulting in his general lack of cooperation from that moment on. And since Brando was the main reason why Stanley had enough clout to be the director at all...
- Prima Donna Director:
- The execs involved in the film paint Stanley himself as a case, where he was only doing things he found exciting or interesting - and not much else.
- John Frankenheimer comes off as this, with many describing him as blunt, temperamental and old-fashioned in contrast to the more easy-going Richard Stanley.
- Sarcasm Mode: Various actors and crew members involved in making The Island... have nothing but the most sarcastic jabs toward the whole production, particularly when handling "praises".
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
- Rob Morrow found himself unable to bear the tension and hostility on set any longer, so he telephoned New Line Cinema chairman Rob Shaye in Hollywood and tearfully begged to be let go. Shaye agreed.
- Fairuza Balk attempted to do this in protest at Richard Stanley's firing. She stormed off the set after a heated exchange with New Line executives and then had a production assistant drive her all the way from Cairns to Sydney - a distance of some 2,500 km - in a rented limousine. However, by her own account, Balk's agent then warned her in blunt terms that the studio would ruin her and that she would never work in films again if she broke her contract, so she was soon forced to return to the set.
- Smoking Is Cool: Invoked toward Val Kilmer's chain-smoking, which was apparently more done to look cool, rather than addiction or anything else.
- Speak Ill of the Dead: John Frankenheimer was dead for over a decade when the documentry was made. Still, everyone has nothing, but harsh words about him and the experience they went through under his direction. This is further contrasted with Marlon Brando being given more even leeway and recalled by cast and crewmembers both in positives and negatives.
- Sweet Tooth: Robert Shaye, President of New Line Cinema, recalls Richard Stanley taking four sugars in his coffee. Stanley denies this ever happening.
- Troubled Production:
- Everyone had to deal with the egos of Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer. Kilmer in particular demanded 40% less work to try to have a personal life and the role of Douglas went to Rob Morrow, but he only lasted two days due to how much Hostility on the Set, which led him to being replaced by David Thewlis.
- Frankenheimer himself did not have anything good to say about Kilmer and vowed to never work with him again.
- Tyrant Takes the Helm: John Frankenheimer's gruff, dictatorial approach was radically different from Richard Stanley's and he soon alienated many of the cast and crew.
- Unreliable Expositor: While various situations are described by different people (and often from different perspective), some are presented just through the lense of a single person and with a single account, making them questionable every time those accounts get mixed with personal animosities.
- Wag the Director: While Val Kilmer's attempts to direct Richard Stanley didn't went far and ultimately being one of the reasons why Stanley was fired early on, Marlon Brando used all his power to play notoriously dictatorial John Frankenheimer to do all his biddings and significantly rework the script to his whims.
- What Could Have Been: Invoked part of the premise. First act of the film is list of various design, casting and plot choices as evisioned by Stanley, with not so subtle implication that the finished product is worse. There is also execs input, who also saw it a different movie than the bloated final production ended up being.
- Writer on Board: The big problem of the whole documentary is that David Gregory, who wrote and made it, is a big fan of Richard Stanley. As a result, he is trying to lionize Stanley into a role of a martyr for art - and at times it's not even very subtle about it. This creates a rather one-sided portrayal of the infamously problematic production and just as one-dimensional portray of Stanley himself.
- Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Discussed and invoked. Since Stanley's original notes were destroyed by him, while his script thrown away once he was fired, the new script was written at the pace of filming, with new scenes written sometimes less than a day before filming. Further complications came from extensive case of Wag the Director by Marlon Brando.
