HOW DIVINE RAPTURE WENT TO HELL
Producer Barry Navidi’s traumatic experience with an unfinished film
Producer Barry Navidi is conducting a free master class Wednesday afternoon at the Cinémathèque québécoise, in conjunction with the tribute being paid to him by the Festival du nouveau cinéma. Starry- eyed would- be filmmakers ought to make every effort to attend, for this class will not be the stuff of Hollywood fantasy — more likely a horror story.
OK, that may be a tad harsh. But the class will certainly be an eye- opener. Tehran- born Navidi, who has made Hollywood his home for the past three decades, has produced some gems over the years, including Mr. Corbett’s Ghost with John Huston and The Merchant of Venice with Al Pacino. More recently, Navidi produced Wilde Salomé and Salomé, both directed by his buddy Pacino.
The Merchant of Venice, Wilde Salomé and Salomé are all being screened at the festival over the next week. But the focus of Navidi’s talk will be the documentary Bally Brando, which will be presented at his class and which has no connection to Pacino.
Bally Brando is a harrowing tale about Navidi’s efforts to make the film Divine Rapture in Ireland 20 years ago. The story deals with a series of miracles in a small Irish town in the 1950s.
Alas, Navidi could have used a miracle or six himself.
Initially, everything seemed perfect. After trying to get the film off the ground for seven years — in different locations and with different stars — it looked like everything was finally falling into place.
Navidi found a divine location for shooting in the scenic seaside town of Ballycotton, in County Cork. Townsfolk, living in the midst of recession, were elated.
Navidi was able to raise an initial $ 13 million for the shoot, and he was able to land no less than Marlon Brando for the lead role of a priest. Also conscripted for the film were Johnny Depp, John Hurt and Debra Winger.
Brando was Brando, which is to say eccentric. But he was committed to the project, owing to his Irish ancestry.
All was fine with Brando until the second $ 1 million instalment due him failed to materialize, and he threatened to walk.
Navidi was then to learn that those who had agreed to finance the film had engaged in fraudulent activities. No more money was forthcoming. No other financiers would touch the project. Brando bailed. The production shut down. The citizens of Ballycotton were devastated — as was Navidi.
In Bally Brando ( released in 2009), Navidi returns to Ballycotton a decade later with a 20- minute montage of some Divine Rapture footage to screen for the townsfolk. He also pledges that he hasn’t given up on the project, that he is reworking the script under the title Holy Mackerel and that he will one day come back to Ballycotton to complete it.
Such failures are the harsh reality of the movie biz, Navidi explains to the good burghers of Ballycotton.
Say this for at least one resident, local potter Stephen Pearce: he has a sense of humour, albeit of the gallows variety. Pearce erected a headstone in the middle of the village. It reads: “Divine Rapture born 10th July 1995, died 23rd July 1995, RIP.”
The doc also contains an image of a Tinseltown sign that’s just as cynical: “Hollywood — almost as many ATMs as unsold screenplays.”
Navidi would be the first to concur that more dreams get shattered than realized in Hollywood. The failed film experience certainly took its toll on him. He not only went bankrupt as a con- sequence, but was afflicted with cancer shortly thereafter.
Navidi has recovered from cancer, but not from the less than divine Rapture ordeal.
“I felt invincible in many ways at the time,” he recalls in a phone interview. “I had the best people behind me — agents, lawyers and high, powerful players.
“Brando was on board. I felt I was kind of bulletproof. We know the horror stories about films that get pulled, that run out of money. But that wasn’t the real issue. It was that we just couldn’t rescue this one.”
Navidi notes that even the Oscar- winning The English Patient ran out of money three weeks into production, but that producer Harvey Weinstein was able to save it.
“In hindsight, 20 years later, it was a major story in Ireland. Michael D. Higgins was then with the ministry of art — now he is president of Ireland — and he was so enthusiastic. None of us were expecting this to happen.
“It was still very much rescuable, especially for such a highprofile picture. It was the biggest news the moment that Brando landed in Ireland. And when it collapsed, everyone was in a state of shock,” says Navidi, before cracking: “It turned out to be the most expensive short film ever made.”
Navidi still insists he will even-
tually make the movie.
“For a number of years I couldn’t really touch it. I needed to recover. And I needed to figure out what really happened. I had lost everything. It looked like my career was all over.
“But I really have to give thanks
to Brando, who befriended, supported and protected me. He was very helpful. He said that he felt for me as an underdog producer and that he would take care of me. Others wanted me to write a book on the experience, but I told my co- writer that we should wait,
that we hadn’t yet come to the end of this story — that we may now have a sad ending, but, nevertheless, an unfinished ending.”
There was a silver lining to the Divine Rapture experience. Brando had suggested that Navidi get over his hurt by tackling the theme of greed in a film adaptation of The Merchant of Venice. Navidi took Brando’s advice, and into the producer’s life came Pacino, who was to star in the film.
“To be honest, there would not have been a relationship with me and Al Pacino today had I ever finished doing Divine Rapture,” Navidi muses.
True, and so Navidi made the transition from one Godfather to another Godfather. Of course, the box office to be gleaned from filmed theatre — such as The Merchant of Venice and Salomé — doesn’t come close to that netted from the Godfather trilogy, even with Pacino involved.
“Still, I like to think the themes of human struggle are similar. The films are also as complicated to put together. But that may be part of my personality, that I do go after projects that are quite difficult to put together.
“Hollywood likes to make its blockbusters, so it leaves these kinds of projects for people like me to suffer through and bring to life,” jokes Navidi, who, with Pacino, is developing King Lear and Modi, a drama about Modigliani, for the screen.
“In spite of everything, though, I still consider myself very lucky.”