INT: Philippe Martinez

The
Arrow interviews Philippe Martinez

Philippe
Martinez has had a very
interesting life. He went from being the President of
the popular Odeon Theatre in Marseilles, to
Producing/Writing/Directing under his Bauer Martinez Studios
Company. Philippe has a new
directorial effort on the horizon called

WAKE OF DEATH ,
starring Jean Claude Van Damme. The picture is set to be released
straight to video in North America on December 28 2004 and I got to
admit…I truly enjoyed it. I recently had the opportunity to talk
to the lad and found him to be a smart, well spoken and obviously
passionate individual. Mr. Martinez! You got the floor!

As a Producer,
what was it about the project that appealed to you?

The
appealing thing was to work with Van Damme; we tried to work with
him for many years. Now the script was completely different back then, it
was more like a supernatural thriller.

Yes I heard,
the little girl had to do with that…

Yes the
little girl had visions and things like that. Which as a Producer, I
said why not but the minute I became the Director of the film, I
didn’t buy the story anymore. Its funny how you can think one way as
a Producer and when you’re the Director of the film, whatever you
liked, you don’t like anymore.

Well becoming
the Director puts you in a full blown artistic position; it changes
things.

Yes it does.
For this film I wanted to have Van Damme…well… do you know those
French films from the 70s? Like the old Alain Delon movies.

Yes (Le
Clan des Siciliens rocked!)

Where the hero is kind of dark, he
doesn’t talk too much, he doesn’t smile and he’s kind of a loner. So
I wanted Van Damme to be dressed classy and in black. And I wanted
him to be a bad and tough guy. Not the image of a nice young hero
who has no problem you know?

Yeah!

So
I wanted to start the movie by giving Van Damme class and sobriety,
those were my main things

Well
in my opinion you succeeded where the character came
across as classy, grounded and old fashioned. In fact “Old Fashion”
was the term that came to my mind while watching the picture. Now
you’re mostly known as a Producer, you directed one other film last
year, how did you wind up as a Producer saying “I’m going to direct
this!’

I didn’t, Van Damme suggested it.
He saw my first movie and he was interested in me doing this one and I
said “fine, I’ll do it.” You know, I knew that Van Damme was a great
actor and I knew that nobody actually went into him. I started out
as a
Stage Director and the key to the film was to get a performance from
Jean Claude. It wasn’t about talking about the character; it was
more psychological, making him feel what’s happening. It wasn’t like
he walked on set, smiling to everybody, then I said action and
he was the character. It was more like prepping him to what was
happening and almost making Jean Claude believe that this was
happening.

Well
that’s the secret of acting really…”being”.

Exactly, he was not acting; he was
feeling what was happening to the character.

That’s something I wanted to address. I
actually watched the film with a girl and she cried her head off during the “sad
scenes”. I’ve never seen anybody cry during a Van Damme movie. After
the film was over, I was like…wow…either Van Damme became Brando
over night or Mr. Martinez pulled a wonderful performance out of
him…

It was a little bit of both. You
know with Van Damme, it’s actually not that difficult to direct him.
Now I don’t want to talk bad about other directors but people always
try to see him just as a “Karate guy”. Now the truth is, I don’t
like Karate, I don’t like Kung Fu, I don’t like all that shit. For
me the challenge was; can I find what works, what’s going to touch
him, what he’s going to relate too. We all have problems in our
life…

Of course…

And what you do when you work with
an actor, it’s like a sponge full of water, we press it and the
water comes out. You have to press the emotion that he had and get
him to give it to you. It was not like I had to describe him the
scene for hours. . It was more like me and him, being alone, holding
each other and I’d say “sorry about your wife man” and almost like
crying with him. We were like two friends that were crying about his
wife that just died. It was a different process, something that I
learned as a Stage Director and I think that the key to Van Damme,
you have to make him feel so he can react. Not to tell him how to
act.

Some
people are practical others emotional…

YES! Van Damme is a completely
emotional person and you have to go straight to his heart and press
it and that’s it, he’s giving it to you and then of course you tell
him, it’s a little bit too much or not enough but really I don’t
understand why he hasn’t done more movies like this before.

Well people won’t give
him that chance; they don’t perceive him that way. I’ve seen all of
Van Damme’s movies and this was the first time I saw him break down
like that. I remember this particular scene in the film where he
walks in the house, scotch in hand and he just broke. I was like
“wow” look at that raw and genuine emotion coming out of Van Damme…wow!

Yes he was brilliant in the film.

For
you as a director, taking into account the script changes and the
location change, did you have enough time for proper pre-production?

I basically had no prep.

Ouch!

I re-wrote the script as we were
shooting and I was basically giving the pages on the day on set.
Everyday I was handing over the pages to the actors. It’s crazy for
an action movie to say this but even the crew got their script pages
a day before we shot. I knew exactly what I wanted for the film
though. I know it sounds pretentious to say that and sometimes when
I produce a movie and a Director tells me that, I think its bullshit
but really I knew exactly what I wanted.

It was a simple story you know, a
guy, he’s a gangster, he wants out of that life, he has his own
little stability and you kill it by killing his wife. The problem is
that the Chinese Mafia doesn’t know that they messed with the wrong
guy, so they go after them. You know it could be a Charles Bronson
movie, a Clint Eastwood movie, it’s the same story. But it’s the way
we treated the story that appealed to you at least.

Definitely.

Which is why, we put in a lot of
emotion. Me, I’m not the best action director in the world. People
out there do action in a way that I would never be able to do. The key to the movie
for me was the emotion. If you can communicate
the emotion and people feel for the character then I did my job as a
Director.

In my opinion you
accomplished that goal that’s for sure. Are you planning on working
with Van Damme again down the road?

Sure, why not? He’s busy now
prepping a movie that he’s going to direct.

Yes Kumite.

After that…well…

If the right project comes
along….

Right, I wouldn’t just do a “Van
Damme” movie; I’d do something along the lines of Wake of Death. That’s
where I’d feel comfortable.

What
kind of distribution is Wake of Death getting so far?

We’re being released all over
Europe in the Cinema.

That’s
great!

That will happen in January 2005.
And in the US its Blockbuster handling the film at the end of December.
It’s going straight to
video.

You’re also producing
Dolph Lundgren’s directorial debut “The Defender”.

Yes!

What can you tell us about
the picture?

Its great! Dolph is a very nice
man, very intelligent, he knows what he wants. Again it was an
accident that Dolph wound up directing. The director got sick 2
weeks before the movie started and I told Dolph, do it… why not?
He’s smart and he did a great job! We’re really happy with the film
and we’re in negotiations right now but I think its going to come
out in February in the States.

What’s next for you as
Director?

I have a big movie that I want to
do called “Silverfish” which is along the line of Wake of Death but
much more action oriented I’m doing it in June and right now I’m
thinking of who I want in the movie.

So you haven’t casted
yet?

No, I’ve been really busy, I just
Produced Modigliani with Andy Garcia, right now I’m producing a
movie with Eddie Griffin called Irish Jam and then next month I’m
producing a movie with Ralph Fiennes and Donald Sutherland so…

You’re keeping busy
there man!

Yes, keeping busy!

Last question; do you have
any advice to all the aspiring Producers out there trying to make it
in this crazy business?

LOL! The key is to…aside from don’t
do it…

LOL!

LOL! Get a real job, I think the
key is that we’ve all been thinking that what counts in a movie is having a
big Star and all that. The truth is you can make a terrific movie
with half a million dollars. What’s important is your story and to
work with your actors the same way you’d run a Theatre Company, like
a group, a group of people that want to make a good film. The one
thing that sucks in the movie business is the Star System that’s
what fucks it up. If people would just focus on the story, the
script and the pleasure, cause making a movie is a privilege…

Definitely

Then I think you’d have more good
movies than what we have now.

Well thank you so much for your
time Mr. Martinez!

Than you John!

BUY WAKE OF DEATH

I’d
like to thank
Philippe
for taking the time to blab with me and would like to encourage Van
Damme and non Van Damme fans to seek out WAKE OF DEATH, it hit the
spot and then some!

READ THE ARROW’S REVIEW OF WAKE OF DEATH HERE

VISIT
THE OFFICIAL WAKE OF DEATH SITE HERE

VISIT THE OFFICIAL BAUER/MARTINEZ SITE HERE

WAKE OF DEATH TRAILER #1

WAKE OF DEATH TRAILER #2

LISTEN TO A TRACK FROM THE WAKE OF DEATH SCORE