SEIDELMAN’S NEXT FILM DATE IS WITH ‘MR. RIGHT’

For a woman working in a world still dominated by men, Susan Seidelman has come a long way in a short time. What’s more, her independent spirit still seems to be intact.

Seidelman has moved from the ranks of independent film makers, where she was in 1982 when she made her first film, the low-budget “Smithereens,” to being the director of Orion Pictures’ $5-million film “Desperately Seeking Susan,” released last year.

Now, she has moved even farther, from lower Manhattan, the new-wave scene of her first two films, to the kitsch of Miami Beach, the setting for “Making Mr. Right,” her second film for Orion.

The $10-million film, the first in a three-picture non-exclusive deal Seidelman has made with the film studio, has just wrapped up an 11-week shooting schedule here and will be released early next year.

Describing it as a “comedy about love from a post-feminist perspective,” Seidelman acknowledged that she has managed to move rapidly in the film industry without making compromises. Being a woman made no difference in her moves, she said, but being part of “a new generation” of film maker who treasures her independence does make a difference.

“Making Mr. Right” stars John Malkovich in a dual role: as both scientist and android that he has created to serve as an experiment for the loneliness of space travel.

The love interest in the film is provided by performance artist Ann Magnuson, in her first starring film role. She plays a professional image maker hired to give the android a public image.

However, Seidelman stressed the metaphoric rather than the scientific implications of the image maker taking “a blank slate of a man” and turning him into what she thinks to be the perfect man. For Magnuson, who plays a professionally fulfilled woman who has not had a good history with men, he becomes “Mr. Right.”

“The question facing women in the ‘80s is not, ‘Can I be more than a wife and mother?’ ” said Seidelman during a recent break from shooting at the beachfront Casablanca Hotel, now one of Miami’s many havens for senior citizens. “Feminism has taken us beyond this to the point where a great percentage of women are working . . . whether or not they are getting paid equally is another question.

“The question now is, ‘How can I integrate my professional and personal life?’ ” she continued, pointing out that it is a question with which she and other women of her mid-30s generation can readily identify.

“I’m really consumed by my work, but I’d really be sad if I thought I couldn’t also have a personal life with someone in it,” she said, noting only that she now lives alone. She added: “I think we are all looking for Mr. and Ms. Right, especially after we reach a certain age. But also, as you grow older, the possibilities for finding somebody that you can love get narrower and narrower.”

Seidelman said such concerns led her to shift the focus of an original screenplay by Floyd Byars and Laurie Frank from “a Frankenstein-type story about the android” to one with “a more Pygmalion theme.”

“I wanted to do a movie about love, and to find a way to talk about falling in love that was different from other movies,” said Seidelman, pointing out that the script was one of the very few submitted to her since the successful release of “Desperately Seeking Susan” that did not deal with “new-wave girls.”

“I didn’t want to become a cliche of myself,” she said, referring to the new-wave elements in her first two films. That’s why she changed the locale of the latest screenplay, from New York to Miami. “Besides,” she added, “new wave is now out of style.”

Seidelman intends her current film to be just as “quirky” as the last two, as opposed to “just another Hollywood film.” The unconventional look of the film was evident poolside at the Casablanca, where a garish purple-and-orange motif had been selected for a scene of a wedding between a Cuban and a blue-haired punk rocker.

Seidelman said that technical requirements, such as the split-screen technology required for Malkovich’s dual roles, appealed to her. “There is a myth (in the industry) that women directors can do a certain kind of sensitive film but not action or special-effects films. I wanted to set a technical challenge for myself, but to use the effects in a human rather than a technological way.”

Seidelman spoke with authority, backed by what many on the Miami location referred to as her “strong will” and “personal strength.” Referring to her petite size--she’s 4-foot-11--Seidelman quipped self-effacingly, “Let’s face it, I’m not the most imposing figure, and I’m not one to be coquettish.

She said she has gotten what she has wanted from Orion. In spite of the new geographical and technical terrain, script changes and a cast not geared to immediate box-office appeal, the studio has “not interfered or meddled in any way. I think I’ve found a home.”

The director said that there had been some studio skepticism regarding some of her eclectic cast choices. Besides Malkovich and Magnuson, other actors include Susan Berman, star of “Smithereens,” Hart Bochner and Polly Bergen.

“They were skeptical of Madonna (in “Desperately Seeking Susan”), too, and I think the fact that that film was a surprise hit for them is why I’m here at all. And if this film doesn’t do well, it will be harder (for me) next time.

“This industry is fickle, and unfortunately, with the costs what they are, you tend only to be as good as your last film.

“But I have nothing against the studio system,” she continued. “They are very good at what they do . . . the business, the marketing. . . . I just don’t want to feel I’m working for a corporation.”

She pointed out that she has come this far on her own terms partly because of her naivete when it comes to the Hollywood studio system. “It’s like it was in film school,” she said, “being a woman of my generation, in the 1970s, when it was taken as just a matter of course that women were coming into the business. Nobody ever said I couldn’t direct. I think ignorance was bliss.”