He Went to a Wedding, Ended Up in ‘Oblivion’

It was way back in 1994 and director Tom DiCillo had long finished with his debut movie, “Johnny Suede.” His other projects were in limbo. He had to go to his wife’s cousin’s wedding.

It was inspirational.

“I met a friend I hadn’t seen in 10 years, a guy who had been in one of my acting classes,” DiCillo said. “And he was all over me, telling me how great it was that I’d made a movie, ‘Ooooh, Tom . . . oooh, “Johnny Suede” . . . oooh, working with actors . . . oooooh, how incredible.’

“I’d had a couple of martinis, I’ll admit it. But I said, ‘Listen, man, working in a movie, especially for an actor, can be a nightmare.’ And I started listing a few things that could happen. . . .”

What happened was “Living in Oblivion,” a low-budget film about making a low-budget film that uses the mishaps, foibles, egomania and blown lamplights of a typical independent film set for tragic, but mostly comic, effect. It has its quirks--independent film icon Steve Buscemi, who’s been in everything from “Reservoir Dogs” to “Airheads,” has his first romantic lead and first on-screen kiss--but the movie’s advance good word has also propelled DiCillo, who won the screenwriting award at the Sundance Film Festival this year, to a quite happy, unfamiliar position.

The film, now playing in selected theaters, started out as “a joke,” then became “something to do” while DiCillo secured financing for another project called “Box of Moonlight” (which begins filming next month with John Turturro in the lead).

But the money wasn’t coming, DiCillo said. And since he’d also wanted to make a short-film showcase for his friend Catherine Keener, who had co-starred with Brad Pitt in “Johnny Suede,” one thing led to another. Keener’s husband, Dermot Mulroney, came aboard, as did Buscemi, Danielle Von Zerneck (“La Bamba”), James LeGros (“Safe”) and Kevin Corrigan (“Rhythm Thief”).

Making “Living in Oblivion” wasn’t quite the same thing as “Box of Moonlight,” DiCillo said, “because this cost no money. As a matter of fact, the actors put up most of the money. Everyone worked for free. Steve agreed to do it without even reading the script. Danielle put up money. Dermot put up money. Basically, if they gave me money, I gave them a part. . . .”

The film is part of what’s become a long tradition of movies about making movies, a lineage ranging from Truffaut’s “Day for Night” to Abbas Kiarostami’s “Through the Olive Trees,” with plenty of good and bad in between. Few have attempted the outright farce of “Oblivion,” though, which also uses some of the technical aspects of filmmaking to get laughs (and does). But was the writer-director ever concerned about how the movie was going to be received by audiences who know nothing about making movies?

“Immediately after I made it,” DiCillo said. “On the other hand, I showed it to my mother, who’s 65 and knows nothing about film, and she was into it from beginning to end.”

When DiCillo--a 42-year-old New Yorker with a master’s degree in film from New York University--says he prefers making his own kind of movies to schmoozing in Hollywood, you believe him: Here, after all, is a guy who has the chutzpah to cite his mother as an impartial judge of his film. Who has both the looks and the hustler’s instincts required for studio-level filmmaking. Clearly, he’s gotta be sincere.

That other essential Hollywood quality--money--was the missing link in DiCillo’s life. It’s the same problem for Nick Reve (Buscemi), the director of “Oblivion’s” film-within-a-film. Nick has other problems, too: Wolf, the bikeresque cinematographer played by Mulroney, is more attitude than aptitude (DiCillo himself worked as a cinematographer years ago, for directors such as Jim Jarmusch). Nick’s lead actress, Nicole (Keener), is just a little neurotic, a condition aggravated by the affair she’s having with her big-time co-star, Chad Palomino (LeGros), himself the personification of self-involvement. Wanda, Nick’s assistant director (Von Zerneck), is a martinet. The rest of the crew consists of Martians. Dream sequences-cum-nightmares, romantic entanglements, technical crises and emotional snafus arrive and depart at a briskly efficient pace.

“ ‘Johnny Suede’ turned out to be a lot slower than I ever thought it was gonna be,” DiCillo concedes. “I don’t mean, ‘Oh yes, it’s gotta move so people won’t get bored.’ I mean dramatically, it could have been picked up. So I said with this movie I’m going to pick one thing it’s about and treat it like a classic screwball comedy. In fact, there were some scenes during the filming where it sunk to a little darker tone and I just took them out.”

People have a real curiosity about the film business now, he said. “Most people assume there’s a real glamour and romance to the process, and I kind of enjoy taking them into the trenches.” Contrary to the disaster-strewn set within his movie, however, DiCillo called “Oblivion”--shot in 20 days and for less than a million dollars--”one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life.” The cast was a family; the problems were few.

“Of course,” he added, “it’s tough to be a prima donna when you’re making a movie about prima donnas.”