The artists' inn

>> Ethan Hawke visits the famed Boho flophouse with Chelsea Walls

by JOANNE LATIMER

"The Chelsea Hotel is the Ellis Island of bohemian life in New York," stated Ethan Hawke, rubbing the scruff on his chin and leaning forward in his chair for emphasis. "Anyone who harbours romantic dreams about the artistic life is drawn there. If you see that life as a religious calling, then the Chelsea Hotel is your St. John the Divine."

Hawke was spouting this Boho sermon to flog his first feature film at Cannes. It's called Chelsea Walls, starring Uma Thurman, Kris Kristofferson, Natasha Richardson, Steve Zahn, Vincent D'Onofrio and Hawke's old buddy from Dead Poets Society, Robert Sean Leonard. The actor-cum-director has taken on the legendary Chelsea, where Arthur Miller lived for years and Sid Vicious stabbed Nancy Spungen to death. Hawke was doing a promotional blitzkrieg while partying along the Croisette, where he and Thurman reached Super Couple status.

A lonely ensemble

The film is an Altman-like collision of strangers who live in the Chelsea Hotel. A poet/waitress (Thurman) becomes attracted to a sullen painter (D'Onofrio), while a booze hound novelist (Kristofferson) wrangles his manuscripts and women. There's a bittersweet love story between a young writer and her druggy boyfriend, while two musicians (Zahn and Leonard) schlep into town with their guitars and high hopes.

"All the characters share a certain loneliness," said Hawke, looking over at Thurman for support. She nodded slowly, without blinking, stroking her hair behind her ears. "They have an inability to connect with people in their lives and the hotel is a metaphor for that loneliness."

Chelsea Walls was shot in digital video, in the Hotel's dark halls. The Chelsea looks like a minimum security lock-down and the guests seem more suspicious and afraid of each other than curious. It's a grainy, dark film, which perfectly matches its arty pretensions.

What kind of arty pretensions? Imagine shots of a dancer traipsing around the hallways between vignettes, which are mostly two-hander scenes of breakdowns and redemptions. The characters' respective talents go unproven, mostly, and we're left wondering whether they're worthy of the Chelsea's famed accommodation. In the end, it doesn't matter if any of the guests are marked for greatness. Hawke focuses on their process, and how they hurt themselves with runaway insecurity. The digital video works well with this mandate.

Inspired by Celebration

"After seeing The Celebration by Thomas Vinterberg, I knew it was possible to make a great film with DV," recalled Hawke. "And it would've been impossible to shoot on 35mm in the hotel, with its old wiring, so shooting digitally was part of the original idea. There's something seedy to the quality of DV that really suits the Chelsea Hotel. I mean, I didn't make this film for the malls of America."

Off he went, talking about how digital video now makes it possible for the James Joyces and Emily Dickensons of today to realize their work. I winced at the comparison, but returned Hawke's earnest gaze, hoping to find an ounce of irony.

"Digital video is the best thing to happen to acting since Marlon Brando," stated Hawke, suddenly blushing at the transparency of his sound bite. "Being a first-time director, it reinvigorated my respect for acting. I witnessed how much they brought to the table."

Thurman shifted in her chair, adding: "Ethan can be a bit bossy on set, but he's entitled to that at work. Whereas at home, he's not expected to be." He nudged her playfully and she launched into a cutesy story about how his hair is always sticking up and she can't get him to dress appropriately for formal occasions.

It occurred to me that Ms. Thurman, as radiant as life itself in person, looked like crap in the film, relatively. What did she think of the dingy lighting? "Well, inner beauty always wins out, right?" she offered. "It's more interesting, but yeah, I'm used to, well, more light. Quentin [Tarantino] works with the brightest lights available, but digital video doesn't need a lot of light. For an actress, working with subtle light is something altogether different. You can't worry about the camera being in your face and what you'll look like."

"Digital video will revolutionize cinema," added Hawke, after making quite certain Thurman was finished speaking. "You can take a story, without big studio backing or millions of dollars, and tell that story without making concessions to audience testing and marketing teams. That's a luxury that a first-time director like myself couldn't even dream of until now."

Will it flood the market with bad cinema? "Sure, for a while. It's inevitable," he concluded. "But the good stuff will float to the top."