Meg Ryan’s new few Ithaca, based on the novel The Human Comedy by William Saroyan, is a World War II drama set in a fictional American everytown, and follows the coming-of-age of a 14-year-old boy named Homer who resolves to be the world’s best bike messenger. Homer initially doesn’t realize, of course, that the telegrams he’s delivering are rife with heartbreak and tragedy and news of dead soldiers. Homer, played by Alex Neustaeder, wrestles with his discoveries with the aging dispatcher played by Sam Shepard, and his would-be mentor played by an excellent Hamish Linklater. Ryan herself appears in the film as Homer’s mother, and Tom Hanks appears in flashbacks as Homer’s father.
The film is a halcyon vision of an idealized American 1940s, and the story so inspired Ryan that she opted to direct for the very first time, drawing inspiration from a simpler time in Hollywood. Ryan recently had an in-depth talk with Crave to discuss that inspiration, her fondness for Saroyan’s work, and what she does to ensure there is an air of warmth on her set.
Ithaca opens in theaters today, September 9th.
CraveOnline: What brought you to directing?
Meg Ryan: It was really this story. I love this story, and I felt like I could – because it was a simple story about complicated things – I felt like I had the chops to tell it. [laugh] Because it was simple. We only had a week to shoot it. We didn’t have a big budget. And we were not going to have a lot of cranes and toys and extras and CGI or anything like that. And I felt like that if I could cut my teeth on something, it would be this. And I love the story. And I love the little protagonist. I love that our hero wants to keep pain from the people he loves, and that is impossible. I just love that that is the driving desire of our little protagonist.
How intimate did you become with the original novel? I know you did an audiobook version.
I’ve been involved with this thing off-and-on for ten years, and in the middle of all that, I did the audiobook. Just because I was already aware of the book, and I felt that… Saroyan is such an interesting writer. He’s so poetic, he so fun. He’s also so realistic and optimistic. Things can turn on a dime in his stories. Tragic and comic at the same time. I always have enjoyed him.
And there’s stuff in his books; there’s a mom that I love so much. There’s just times when the penny drops that you’re not going to be able to protect your kids from everything. And Saroyan, in that book, has some soothing answers about that. And also, none of the adults in his books have all the answers. They’re all guessing at it, but they’re doing their best. The whole spirit of the book I thought was beautiful.
The book is set in Ithaca, of course, but I have learned that it was supposed to be a fictionalized version of Fresno, CA where Saroyan grew up…
That’s right, yeah. That’s literally the truth. But beyond that, in his writing, Ithaca really means an idea. It’s the real idea of an ideal home. It’s the Homeric reference. From The Odyssey. It’s just so multi-faceted. Ithaca is the journey home. It’s the ideal of home. In this movie, Marcus says, in his little voiceover, Ithaca is his country. It’s a set of values that he believes in. Complicated title, actually.
Saroyan wrote about the Armenian experience. Was there ever a time you considered casting Armenian actors?
No. I mean, he writes about the immigrant experience in that book. The book is about so many thing. And we, as well as the original – there was another movie made of this in 1942 called The Human Comedy starring Mickey Rooney – so we took a lot of liberties. We focused the movie much more down on the narrative drive behind three telegrams. That’s not true of the book. And we changed the end. He never delivers that telegram in the book. We took a lot of different liberties.
Momentum Pictures
It’s a sweet and warm film, and the characters all react to one another in a familiar, familial way. I don’t see that in too many movies. Is there a directorial secret to getting your actors to be so familiar with one another?
I guess I’m so lucky because the grownups who were there – the pros – loved the story. Sam Shepard loved being that guy. When you get that, there’s a kind of DNA in the movie that you feel once it’s projected. When you’re in there making it, you can feel it being projected. The movie is allowed to be… someone once said to me that sentimentality is the denial of death. Our movie is about death. Our movie marches toward death. We keep on telling you what’s going to happen. It can’t possibly be sentimental by that measure. But nor is it cynical. It’s the same with the book. The book is not a cynical book about death, nor is it overly sentimental because of the nature of what the story is.
So we felt like we could create an Ithaca that was visually idealized. We stole a lot from the American realist painters. We created what is often – in my mind anyway – this time in American history that was pretty idealized, and this time that I associate – rightly or wrongly – with American innocence. So we got to have the warmth of all of that, because really it’s sad. [laugh] It’s a movie that’s about tough things. It’s about transcending tragedy, it’s about needing to say to tough things no matter what comes your way. I know that did not answer your question [laugh].
Ithaca takes place in the 1940s, but your direction seemed to take a lot of pacing and visual cues from films of the 1940s. Did you take inspiration from certain films of the ’40s?
100%. The pace of the movie, for sure. This wouldn’t be the movie to do that modern, cutty thing. Other movies do that well, but this was not at all about that. This was about diving in, making sure the story is quiet, the story is gentle, the story is rough. It’s all of that. Even how the music flows through the movie – both source and score, there’s very little music – but not only is in the characters mouth, they’re singing it, but it’s also in the score. That’s a very old-fashioned thing. How it’s lit. How the camera moves. All of those things were very particularly of the time. We told the time. We told the story as if we told it at that time.
Any films in particular you drew from?
Yes. So many. I watched so many. You know, a couple movies that really inspired me were some Orson Welles movie. Paper Moon. Obviously not a movie from the ’40s, but it had a lot of similar simplicity of storytelling there. And Bogdonavich was very inspired by Orson Welles. But also To Kill a Mockingbird. Obviously, this is a very flawed movie by someone who is just starting out, but I got influenced by the depth of that story. There’s all these kids in it, but it’s very sophisticated. It’s a nostalgic story told through a child’s eyes. Obviously our movie is not told through a child’s eyes, but there are similarities in the simplicity of the storytelling.
Momentum Pictures
Tell me about working with Hamish Linklater. He was my favorite actor in the movie.
He’s just amazing. He looks like a Rolls Royce, you know? Every nuance. It was incredible being in the editing room and to see him perform. Because he is in the pocket of it all the time, but every time, he does it differently. Take after take. And we could have cut together any type of performance from this guy, and they all would have been right. And I know Frank Capra, I’m sure, would have cast him in everything.
He does have a Jimmy Stewart quality.
Yeah. He’s such an optimist. And he gets hurt so beautifully, you know what I mean. And he plays this guy… he’s paralyzed in a way in a type of adolescence, and he gets really pushed forward into growth by this 14-year-old that he’s observing. I can’t get over it. He’s brave enough to play these moment where he’s jealous of a 14-year-old’s relationship to the guy whose approval he wants. And he can’t get it. I also love the moment near the end of the movie, where he says “Have faith.” Basically he saying have faith in something. The act of faith alone will save you. He said the best part of a good man is to have faith in something. So have faith in that. Very soulful guy, and a great actor.
What was the first record you bough with your own money?
“Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” by Elton John. I was 1000 years younger than I am now. [laugh] I remember reading it. I loved the album cover and reading all the lyrics. That was a full experience, that record.
Top Image: Momentum Pictures
Witney Seibold is a longtime contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and the co-host of The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon. He also contributes to Legion of Leia and to Blumhouse. You can follow him on “The Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
