​​

In the winter of 1997 I saw a Spanish film called "Abre Los Ojos" I couldn't get it out of my mind the movie felt like a folk song to me, part Fable, part poem, partly a committed conversation that you'd have with someone late at night when Big Ideas flowed easily, I wanted to be a part of that conversation.

​

hey man good what Benny was Benny was struck by lightning David opinions are expected

 

Casting went quickly from the smallest parts to the leads, we all had to move fast.  

 

how do you accomplish such a thing?

 

oh Emma do you know Lynette no but I started to think what we might have in common

​

As all movies do, Vanilla Sky, a title I thought had a kind of a musical quality acquired a driven adrenalized personality all its own. 

​

What about you?  What's your nickname? 

​

it looks certainly looks like Cameron

​​

Much of the same crew had worked on Almost Famous we made the two movies back to back and they couldn't have been more beautifully dissimilar 

​

nice quiet atmosphere to be working

 

visuals mattered a lot on this one especially the opening sequence where we emptied Time Square on an early November morning working with the great John tol again was key he'd been the cinematographer on Almost Famous and while that movie had a free flowing documentary is feel this one would be even more demanding not a shot would go unplanned not an image wasted. the goal was a movie filled with Clues and signposts kind of like the cover of Sergeant Pepper every time you look at it you might see something different.

 

in the original I don't remember Penelope Cruz being in the psychiatric unit

 

I don't remember it either

 

I don't remember it I think there's some kind of Mojo in the air that that that creates an environment in this movie where Penelope

 

me

 

would be in the psychiatric unit

 

we all pitched in to tell this odd & intoxicating story about dreams and reality often after we'd wrapped for the evening many of us still stayed behind and talked about the layers of the movie even while we were making it not quite 2 years later we still do

​

David, you have been taken

 

yes, yeeeess

 

we worked six day weeks to beat an impending strike that never quite arrived and by the end everybody was burnt after the first screening it was obvious we needed to discuss it and put the film in context

 

what do you think the shot means?

 

it's confusing

 

what do you think the shot means?

​

I don't know

 

what does this shot mean? 

what does it mean?

 

we started in a single piece of paper picture comes in the frame piece of paper comes in the frame camera starts to rise rise rise rise rise we see him surrounded by a of paper

 

and what is the meaning of this shot?

 

Cameron knows

​

oh, really?

 

what does this shot mean?

 

this shot is the nightmare of somebody trying to catch up on unfinished business. it is cramming for the finals

of life in a single shot. join me now to watch the opening image

​​

the result of an international press tour filled with highs and lows is the subject of another film also included on this DVD. There's a school of thought that says a movie should be clear and obvious whenever possible from the moment it leaves the theaters and begins its journey through home video and DVD people will be doing more and more other things while it's playing and ultimately it will be something on late night television that will play while its greatest audience is half asleep.

​

Vanilla sky isn't obvious. it's a movie to be watched closely but it's also a movie you can let wash over you. it's a story a puzzle a nightmare a lucid dream a psychedelic pop song a movie to argue over and most of all a movie that extends an invitation wherever you want to meet it it will meet you there.

​