Drago Sumonja: Documenting Life

Movie Meltdown - Episode 447

This week we're coming to you "live" from Harry Dean Stanton Fest as we sit down with Drago Sumonja the co-writer of Harry Dean's last film (Lucky) as well as director of the documentary Char·ac·ter. So listen as we discuss his time spent with Harry Dean as well as the artistic collaboration and friendship he has built over the years with actor Dabney Coleman.

And while we realize that the whole world eventually comes together at Dan Tana's, we also bring up… Private Benjamin, he made his own weapon, we’d just kind of play the parts really, Daveigh Chase, Cloak and Dagger, they mounted this giant antenna-looking thing onto your house, it’s own weird special little world, Unwigged and Unplugged, something about him showing up in a dress one day, it turned out to be what I wanted to be, Ron Livingston, docudrama, Facebook and their darn algorithms, David Lynch, by necessity, crossing from PG to PG-13, and I would just start typing, racy movies in conservative households, Sydney Pollack, Showgirls, and so we just try to figure out how to make that kind of interesting in a script, Top Secret, The Missouri Breaks, a dirty martini all over my pants, S. Darko, sequels to movies many years later, a rainy day assembly, Logan Sparks, Muhlenberg County, going off on these magical monologues, it’s like a master class, Mark Rydell, Repo Man and TV edits for R-rated movies.

“...the documentary and your podcast - is only as good as your subject.”

For more on Harry Dean Stanton Fest go to: https://www.harrydeanstantonfest.org/