IVAN'S XTC
UK, US, 2002, 93 minutes, Colour.
Danny Houston, Peter Weller, Lisa Enos, James Merendino.
Directed by Bernard Rose.
Ivan's XTC is a Hollywood film with a difference. However, one can look back to such grim films as Sunset Boulevard and The Bad and the Beautiful as well as more contemporary films like Mulholland Drive. The film was directed by Bernard Rose, who had directed Immortal Beloved and was dissatisfied with the experience of making his version of Anna Karenina with Sean Bean and Sophie Marceau. He uses a Tolstoy story again as the basis of his film, the death of Ivan Ilyich. From Russia to Los Angeles with grim parallels.
Ivan is a whiz-kid producer but, at the opening of the film, we know that he is dying of cancer. With the flashbacks, the audience sees the rise and fall of Ivan, his life in the fast lane, especially with drugs, with his relationship with his girlfriend Charlotte, with the egotistical actors and with the producers. It is a typical picture of disillusionment with Hollywood and the struggle of egos.
Danny Huston, son of John Huston and director of such films as Mr North, portrays Ivan with zest and with pathos, especially in his inevitable journey towards death. Peter Weller is the egotistical actor. Lisa Enos, who co-wrote the screenplay with Bernard Rose, is Ivan's girlfriend.
The film was made with a very small budget, with high-definition video cameras. This gives the film a grainy look, the difficulty for audience is that they have to peer often at what is going on. Comparisons could be made with the work of Mike Figgis, especially Time Code and Hotel (with the multi-screen images) and the use of video camera in order to get more flexible performances, a range of different shots and more versatility in editing.
The film is particularly bleak, as was Tolstoy's original novel, a grim comment on life in the fast lane in contemporary western affluent society.
1. Personal drama, Hollywood drama, dark drama?
2. The screenplay as an adapted adaptation of Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich? The effectiveness of the transfer to the US, the 20th-century, Hollywood?
3. Audience familiarity with Hollywood itself, the locations, studios, offices, socials? Agents, the movies? The musical score?
4. The opening, the illness and death of Ivan? The flashbacks? In the context of Ivan’s death?
5. The title, Ivan, Danny Houston, strong screen presence? His character, his age, the cancer, his wasting away, drugs, prospects for his life – and any discovery of meaning for his life?
6. The Hollywood trappings, the movie personnel? Produces, actors, agents? The women? The world of drugs, alcohol, womanising?
7. Ivan, his reflection on his life, not finding any meaning in it?
8. Don West, Peter Weller, the star, reputation and career, character, arrogant? His behaviour at the funeral?
9. The meaning of Ivan’s life and death? The picture of moral bankruptcy, audience response?
