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Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2014 23:11:09 GMT
Frankly, I didn't much like the movie "Lost in Translation" perhaps because it was too realistic. On my first trip to Tokyo, I stayed in the grim Inter-Continental in Shinjuku and almost felt like a prisoner in my room because everything was just too weird outside. While the movie was filmed at the Park Hyatt, everything was totally identical in terms of the physical location and the view from the room, because the other hotel was also in Shinjuku. What does this have to do with Santo Domingo? Not much really, except for the psychological climate. I went there to spend some time with my wife, who was filming Sydney Pollack's "Havana" at the time, so I was just the errant hotel husband with absolutely nothing to do during the day. So rather than having the role of Bill Murray, I was Scarlett Johansson. The crew and actors were all at the Jaragua Hotel, filling about half of the place for six months. We useless people spent a lot of time at the hotel bar or at the swimming pool.   |
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Post by questa on Feb 7, 2014 2:39:49 GMT
"Japan and translation" = rough time for my son. He had just started teaching in Japan and is a keen bushwalker.
Had minimal Japanese skills. After a walk in a forest he came home to find a tick had burrowed into the flesh halfway down his 'manhood'. He went to a nearby doctors rooms and had to mime his problem...receptionist and nurse helpless with laughter
Doctor came out to see what was happening...Lady Doctor.
He had to mime all the medical history and she was good to warn him of Lyme disease (not in Oz).I wish I had seen it.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 7, 2014 6:30:17 GMT
Sydney Pollack tried every method imaginable to get permission from the United States to make his movie in Cuba. He was even going to lease a cruise ship to house the cast and crew offshore in order to respect the American embargo, but he was met with total refusal. And therefore he had to recreate Cuba in the Dominican Republic. The main Havana street sets were built on an old air force base, but all of the vintage cars were kept in the hotel car park. |
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Post by questa on Feb 7, 2014 6:53:57 GMT
Reminds me of my youth, and the old saying, "If it don't go, chrome it"!
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Post by bjd on Feb 7, 2014 7:49:49 GMT
I enjoyed your photographs more than I did the movie "Havana".
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 7, 2014 15:53:32 GMT
Cool pics & story! Love the cars.
Kerouac, didn't you say somewhere you had a bit part in a movie that didn't make it to the final version? I sort of remember something about the scene being in a bar & your character's wife as being Jackie Kennedy-ish. Was that this movie? I had to work on getting the image of you as a lounge lizard out of my head.
How so -- you mean it didn't look like Cuba in the '50s?
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Post by lagatta on Feb 7, 2014 18:44:22 GMT
Well, at least Kerouac could have had PIZZA any time of the day or night.
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Post by lola on Feb 12, 2014 4:23:56 GMT
Now here's me trying to erase K as Scarlett. Documents from a cool life. Thanks, Kerouac.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2014 11:44:50 GMT
Indeed, after a few days of boredom, I was hired an extra on the film, at the same rate as Dominican locals, which is to say next to nothing, but I didn't care. We were taken to a prefab warehouse on the air base that looked like absolutely nothing from the outside, but as soon as you walked in, you were in a 1958 Havana casino. Before walking in I had to go to the wardrobe area where I was outfitted appropriately and even got a slight haircut the first day before having my hair slicked down to the height of late 1950's chic. Most of the time was spent strolling slowly around the perimeter of the casino with my wife-of-the-day on my arm. We would glance at the people playing the slot machines along the walls. They were completely silent because the sound effects were added later. One guy got 3 bars on his machine each and every time he pulled the handle. I would like to find that machine in the real world. In any case, it was better to be able to stroll around all day rather than be one of the people stuck sitting on the slot machine stools or at the gaming tables. The whole point of the scene was that Robert Redford was having a major conversation at one of the card tables and all of the rest of us were just in the background. Not only did I not appear in the scene, but I think that even Bob got cut out of it, too -- the final edit apparently did not require that bit of acting. On another day, I was standing at the casino bar drinking with my pals, or at least looking at our glasses of coloured water. What was amusing was the most of the bottles on display were actually modern bottles of the major brands, but all of the bar codes and things like that had been carefully covered over, as they were on the packs of cigarettes. Since brands like Lucky Strike and Chesterfield were more popular back then, I don't think that Marlboro even got to do any product placement. In the bar scene, Robert Redford was hitting on Lena Olin in one of the booths, but in the movie it is all in closeups, so none of us riff raff can be seen. So I am completely missing from the movie even though I worked on it for four days, but since it is without question Sydney Pollack's worst movie ever, I didn't really care when I finally saw it. I will say that I was favourably impressed by Robert Redford's behaviour as an international movie star because every day when he left the set, instead of zooming out of the airbase in his chauffeured car, he had it stop outside the gate so he could sign autographs for all of the fans who had been standing there all day. He and Sydney were also quite friendly at the hotel; even though their rooms were up in some private penthouse area, they usually had dinner at the hotel restaurant. As for Lena Olin, I have no idea where she was, but nobody knew her anyway. I think that most of the historical area in Santo Domingo was under renovation when I was there, so I missed just about everything. It is after all the oldest colonial city in the New World with the oldest cathedral in the Americas. But mostly I just saw a few old walls from the 15th and 16th centuries. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 20, 2014 7:39:26 GMT
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Post by nycgirl on Apr 3, 2014 2:06:39 GMT
You may have been bored, but this looks like a mighty fine way to kill a few days. I'd take it.  |
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 3, 2019 16:28:07 GMT
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 3, 2019 16:32:31 GMT
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 3, 2019 16:37:34 GMT
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Post by mossie on Nov 3, 2019 17:07:55 GMT
I note you managed to find Galeries Lafayette
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Post by bjd on Nov 3, 2019 17:52:25 GMT
Your style of taking pictures hasn't changed all that much in 30 years.
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Post by htmb on Nov 3, 2019 17:58:45 GMT
Must seem like another lifetime ago. What year was this? About 1990?
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 3, 2019 18:05:46 GMT
Yes, it was something like December 1989 or January 1990. In any case, it was between these dates: I note you managed to find Galeries Lafayette I noticed that when I posted the photo. Your style of taking pictures hasn't changed all that much in 30 years. The main difference is not having to worry about the cost of film anymore. |
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Post by fumobici on Nov 4, 2019 0:05:10 GMT
I just saw "Lost in Translation" for the first time on a recent flight from Seattle to Amsterdam. I liked it a lot, but thought it would've been more interesting if the Bill Murray character had been an anonymous American businessman instead of a movie star. Anyway.
All I know about S. Domingo is from a friend who spent a few weeks there visiting his father who was on a diplomatic assignment of some sort. Would have been maybe ten years ago. He said US Americans were really thin on the ground there, even then but there were loads of French and from some other country--Holland, Belgium, Germany? I can't remember now. The beach scene, outside of the French frequented area, was apparently pretty dicey, and the place was a little dangerous-feeling for a lone American. His favorite find was a little bar owned by a guy who fought with Che in S. America somewhere and had photos of him and Che behind the bar.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 4, 2019 2:54:49 GMT
Well, I would say that you saved the best till last, except that the original pictures in the post are awfully interesting as well. I'm extremely glad to see this thread come back to life, since I only sort of remembered your reporting on your Havana stint, but I'd forgotten most of the Sto.Domingo details.
As for your style, since you are the genius behind using a forum to tell stories with pictures, it's delightful to see that all those years ago you already had the wit to capture stuff beyond the obvious, stuff that really rounds out the place for others. I think most of us here have picked up on and copied that technique over time -- I certainly have & thank you for it.
If I have one quibble about the pictures, it is that selfies weren't a thing back then. I don't think I'm alone in saying that I would absolutely kill to see you trying for the Graham Greene dubious character award, slick hair, wide lapels & all.
re: authentic ~ It pretty much looks like Mexico in some ways. There is one blast-from-the-past that picture brought back for me. It's the Galeries Lafayette one -- when I first moved here, it was common to see trucks laden with empty pop bottles and people used to accumulate them on the roofs of their houses. I'd forgotten all about that.
Also, Sto. Domingo looks like an excellent choice to stand in for Cuba, since Pollack couldn't have the real thing.
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