NEW WEST FILM

In ‘I AM,’ Tom Shadyac Seeks Connection With the Audience - and the World

By David Frey, 1-26-11

Tom Shadyac was a fabulously successful filmmaker whose movies like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Liar Liar and The Nutty Professor were blockbuster hits. But after a mountain bike accident nearly took his life, Shadyac set out to make a different kind of film, asking two basic questions: What is wrong with the world and what can we do about it? A frequent visitor to Telluride, Shadyac premiered his independent documentary I AM at Telluride MountainFilm last summer to audience acclaim. After three Colorado screenings this week, it begins a wider national release in February.

Look for I AM tonight at Colorado State University and Thursday at Pine Creek High School in Colorado Springs.

NEW WEST: I had the pleasure of seeing I AM at Telluride MountainFilm last year. Why did you choose Telluride to premier I AM?

TOM SHADYAC: There was always only one choice as to where to premiere I AM – Telluride. Telluride is a town of such beauty and light, bowing gracefully to the surrounding mountains, sitting so humbly in a natural amphitheatre, and this magical setting and the MountainFilm Festival held annually there helped open me up to many of the ideas and concepts explored in the film.  It felt natural and right, even destined, to release our offering into the world from the very place which inspired much of it’s content.

Every year at Telluride, there seems to be one film that becomes the surprise hit, the film everyone is saying “You’ve got to see this.” Last year, I AM was it. What did you make of the response?

We were all humbled by the emotion and connection we felt from those first three screenings. I’ve been told that we received a 20-minute standing ovation. I was too touched, I guess, to put a clock on it. But I do know that something got in, something connected, and we were greeted with such love and gratitude that it buoys us to this day.

What has the reaction been in Hollywood?

It’s funny, tonight I’m showing it to some very high level producers and actors and players in our business, and I’m always anxious and curious to hear their thoughts. I can tell you that the people I’ve shown it to thus far, my agents at CAA, a few actors and producers, a few studio executives, have been more than supportive and enthusiastic. And from a musical standpoint, we’ve been met with incredible generosity in licensing from the likes of The Black Eyed Peas, will.i.am, Peter Gabriel, and the great composer John Debney. I think the bottom line is that people in Hollywood are good in their hearts and souls, and are as interested as anyone, or even more so, in how we can all give birth to a better way of walking in the world.

You have had huge success with blockbuster comedies. Why make a little independent documentary like I AM?

Why not?  I never look at the size of a film or the “commerciality” of a story.  I only want to know if the content, the subject, and the story move me. I AM, and the subject matter explored therein, moves me as much or more than any film I have ever done.

It was a mountain bike accident that prompted the film?

Yes, I got a concussion that turned into post-concussion syndrome, which is a condition where the symptoms of the original concussion don’t go away. It’s quite torturous really, and after several months of isolation and pain, I didn’t think I was going to live very long. And when I faced my own death, and asked myself if there was anything I wanted to share before I went, I AM was born.

Can you talk about the two questions the film asks?

First, What’s wrong with our world?  That’s a question that usually sparks answers like war, hunger, poverty or the environmental crisis. But these to me are symptoms of a deeper endemic problem. I wanted to talk about, to see if we could identify the deep seeded cause of the world’s woes, hold it up to the light and then in this light, explore solutions.

Two, What can we do about it? This is where we spend most of our time in the film. And what we uncover about who we all really are as individuals, as a species, and what the basic nature of reality very may well be, is quite empowering and made the journey an inspiring and hopeful one for us all.

You try to answer the questions by going both to spiritual leaders and scientists. Why?

Not just spiritual leaders and scientists, but academics, poets, journalists, and authors. I wanted to hear from great minds and spirits from a number of disciplines because I began to realize some time ago, that beneath the specifics and the differing approaches, everyone was saying the same thing.

This film also coincided with your decision to start simplifying your life, didn’t it?

Actually, I had begun the walk toward simplicity a while ago. The material wealth that had come to me after my string of successes, never felt right. I don’t say this in a guilt ridden way, but I felt somewhat as Emerson did, that while I sit on the cushion I fall asleep: asleep to our inherent connection, asleep to the needs of others, asleep to my effect on the natural world. And I simply didn’t want to decry the gap between the rich and poor at the same time being the gap between the rich and the poor.

How do you look back on your feature films now?

With gratitude and appreciation that we were able to send out a piece of energy to the world that brought laughter, or light, or a thought, or a cathartic emotion. I’m not sure why, but somehow people think that because I questioned the way I accumulated wealth, because I rethought my participation in a cancerous philosophy of taking for myself all I could, that somehow that equates to some shame at movie making. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love film making, the art of it, the art of storytelling as a way of connecting us and sparking conversations about what it means to be human. Storytelling is a form of prayer and I am infinitely grateful that I have been able to hit my knees in front of others with the likes of Bruce Almighty, Patch Adams, Liar, Liar, and yes, even that child-like romp, Ace Ventura.  Can I hear an “Alrighty Then!”

Will you go back to directing features again?
Anytime, and absolutely.

Follow David Frey at www.davidmfrey.com and on Twitter.

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