Sean Baker’s new feature The Florida Project is released this Friday in the UK after a very positive festival run over the summer.
We follow young Moonee’s summer adventures whilst living in budget tourist motel Magic Castle with her mother Halley. The film deals with the hidden homeless families who are struggling to get by in temporary housing in Central Florida right next door to “The Happiest Place on Earth”.
I’ll be looking at The Florida Project cast and one of Baker’s previous films Tangerine. I’ll conclude with recommendations of my favourite British films that cover various social class issues.
Baker is renowned for working with a shoe-string budget and giving lead roles to first time actors. Through street casting and working within his means gives Baker’s movies an authentic feel. With The Florida Project being distributed by A24 and a $2 million budget this is Baker’s biggest film to date but this hasn’t stopped him using the same approach to casting.
The casting of the children went through local Florida agencies where they found Brooklynn Prince, Christopher Rivera and Valeria Cotto. Before filming, the kids were helped by associate producer Samantha Quan who provided acting coaching through workshops. She would get the kids to act out various scenarios,linked in to the film,so when it eventually came to the camera rolling they would be comfortable with their surroundings.
Bria Vinate,who plays Halley, was cast after direct messaging with Baker on Instagram and had never acted before. Hollywood is ,of course, a haven for young actors with experience under their belt but Baker had his heart set on a newcomer to play Moonees’s mother. He wanted someone with life experience and on screen he wanted the connection to be like two sisters with Halley and Moonee.
The film has been bolstered with Baker being able to cast Oscar nominee Willem Dafoe as motel manager Bobby. With over a century of credits to his name his wealth of experience will have inspired The Florida Project’s cast and crew. Dafoe got his big break in Kathryn Bigelow’s co directing debut feature The Loveless which hit the screens in 1981. For the more mature audience he’ll be best known for his roles in Oliver Stone’s Vietnam war epic Platoon and Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ. For the younger audience he’ll be recognised as Green Goblin from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. I would recommend William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A. where Dafoe plays a sadistic villain who has a knack for counterfeiting dollar bills. The Boondock Saints and The Hunter are also on my watch list.
Dafoe has said in press interviews that he had no idea about the temporary housing issue engulfing not just Florida but all over the country. Shooting in a working motel with a dynamic crew and learning of this new world gave Dafoe energy to give Baker his best. Unlike here in Britain -where we’re shown these issues through films from the likes of Ken Loach, Mike Leigh and Shane Meadows -American cinema audiences aren’t usually exposed to these social class issues.
Baker and his fellow co writer Chris Bergoch aim to make films in locations and focus on subcultures you don’t usually see in American cinema. Baker was handed $100,000 ,peanuts in the film industry, from the Duplass brothers to make his fifth feature Tangerine. The film centres around two transgender prostitutes Sin-Dee and Alexandra on Christmas Eve in Hollywood’s sex district. Sin-Dee is fresh out of prison and is on the hunt for her pimp/”boyfriend” and the girl he’s been seeing behind her back.
The film has a lot of energy down to the chemistry between first timers Rodriguez & Taylor and the blaring trap soundtrack matches the films tempo perfectly as Sin-Dee marches through the streets of L.A. looking for revenge. I enjoyed the intermitting scenes with taxi driver Razmik and the various customers he picks up. Baker also likes having plenty of footage to edit so improvisation was encouraged, he cited Mike Leigh as an inspiration for the final confrontation scene. The main buzz around the film upon its release, and I’m writing nothing new here, was that it was all done using multiple iPhone 5s’s with Steadicam mounts, clip on lenses and the Filmic pro app. I’m certain Baker was over the moon to be given to the opportunity to shoot The Florida Project on 35mm film.
Film4 Productions started in 1982 and is renowned for producing gritty British dramas dealing with various social class issues. As a young chap, in the early days of Telewest cable, I would stay up late on the weekend and watch a number of films on the FilmFour channel.
East is East, Brassed Off, My Name is Joe and The Full Monty are still favourites of mine from Film4 and a bit further down the line This is England, Tyrannosaur and The Selfish Giant.
Ken Loach’s The Angels’ Share (2012) focuses on a community service group in Glasgow and I, Daniel Blake (2016) deals with the welfare state. The Angels’ Share has a light hearted, comedic approach with Glaswegian offenders who discover their love of Whiskey. However, I,Daniel Blake is a completely different ball park. It’s an emotional rollercoaster from start to finish with Loach taking you through Daniel’s struggle to claim employment and support allowance after having a heart attack at work. Very few films have left me thinking for weeks after leaving the cinema and this is one of them. Loach has been making films since 1976 and I will most definitely be working my way through his filmography.
Admittedly I haven’t watched any of Mike Leigh’s films from the 70’s to 90’s but I have seen Another Year and Happy-Go-Lucky which I enjoyed. I’ll be looking into a number of his releases like High Hopes, Life is Sweet, Secrets & Lies and All or Nothing which all deal primarily with the working class.
Let me know your thoughts if you manage to catch The Florida Project during its run in cinemas.
I’ve got high hopes for Baker’s sixth feature and hope it puts this talented filmmaker onto greater things in the future.
Alex
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