Out of the Frame, Into the Fire

“I think women are ideally suited to directing,” Anjelica Huston says. “They are emotional beings. I think film is an emotional medium.”

Huston, winner of the 1985 best supporting actress Oscar for “Prizzi’s Honor,” has followed in the footsteps of her legendary director father, John Huston. The star of 1990’s “The Grifters” and 1991’s “The Addams Family” makes her directorial debut with the disturbing, hard-hitting “Bastard Out of Carolina,” which airs Sunday on Showtime.

Adapted by Anne Meredith from Dorothy Allison’s best-selling novel and set in South Carolina during the 1950s, the drama deals with the abusive childhood of a young girl named Bone (Jena Malone). Jennifer Jason Leigh stars as Bone’s mother, Anney, and Ron Eldard (of NBC’s “Men Behaving Badly”) plays Bone’s stepfather, Glen, who molests and rapes the little girl.

“Bastard” was made for Turner Network Television but the cable channel said the film didn’t meet its program standards. Rather than require cuts, executives let the producers take the property elsewhere. The movie was screened at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and found a new home at Showtime.

On a recent rainy morning, the 45-year-old Huston discussed the movie’s history, her father’s influence and her experiences as a director in her cozy Venice office.

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Question: Were you in shock when “Bastard Out of Carolina” ran into difficulties at TNT?

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Answer: Well, my initial fear was that I would be forced to cut it, since the two scenes they were worried about--the rape and the molestation scenes--were individually no longer than two minutes. I felt that it would be detrimental to the film, not particularly because I liked to watch these scenes, but because they are intrinsic to the material. It is, after all, what it’s about, and the scene following the rape and the last scene in the movie have no impact if you don’t show what goes on.

I had been sent the script by that network. I had not changed any of the scenes--in fact, on the contrary, I was rather surprised that a network, or a cable company in this case, would be taking on this kind of subject.

Q: Ironically, Showtime originally developed “Bastard.”

A: It went back to its former home like the good little orphan it was. I think it is a good thing, in a way, that it went this way. First of all, as far as I am concerned, it gets seen without commercials and that is a relief to me. I made it for television, so it is being shown in the medium for which I made it. It was very welcome news to me when Showtime picked it up.

Q: Why did you want to direct?

A: I think it’s inbred--and I have been on many movie sets in my life. [As an actor] you sit in your trailer for a concerted amount of time and wonder why things are taking so long. I thought I might venture out behind the camera and see why. And also, let’s face it, there is a degree of control you don’t have as an actor.

And there are other areas of filmmaking that are enticing to me. I love costumes. I love set design. I love photography. I worked as a model for a long time; I know quite a lot about photography. So to have it your way, to place things the way you want them, to interpret a scene was really attractive to me.

Q: Did you worry, though, about being compared as a director to your father?

A: Not really. I felt more encouragement than anything else from the time that I spent with my father and what I learned at his feet. I felt, ultimately, he would be on my side. This isn’t a competition. I think it was just a question of taking the things that I have learned and maybe reinterpreting them a little bit because, when it comes down to what you have to offer, it’s always a little different from anybody else’s point of view.

Q: How did you become involved with “Bastard?”

A: I was set to do one of the half-hour movies for Showtime, the actors-directors series, and I was working on that. My agent knew I was interested in directing something. We had been talking about it for a while. I had been offered a few things, but nothing that had really taken my breath away, and a couple of other things that were maybe too personal in terms of my father’s work, like the prequel to “Prizzi’s Honor” and the sequel to “Prizzi’s Honor.” I felt that would be a mistake. So I was pretty much set to go on this other thing, and the script [for “Bastard”] arrived on my desk on a Monday morning with an offer to direct from Turner. I read it and was absolutely bowled over by the quality of the writing. I bought the book and thought it was really a tremendous, beautiful piece of writing, very emotional. So I made up my mind over the weekend.

Q: You elicit a terrific performance from Jena Malone (now 12 years old). Where did you find her?

A: She was about the fourth child I saw. She read for me and I was really impressed because I imagined I would have to sweat long and hard with any child who was going to be playing this part. I couldn’t quite believe it. She came back and she read even better the second time.

Q: Did she understand the material?

A: She read the script. She knows somebody, I believe--a friend of her mother’s who had undergone a similar situation--so she was not unaware of the kind of thing that goes on. While we were making the film, she was reading the book with her mother, and she knew what she was doing. Her whole position was that, if it helped one child who had been abused to get through the guilt, or if it shed light on a situation, that was a good thing.

Q: What was the relationship on set between Ron Eldard and Jena?

A: He was great with Jena. I think they really got along well. They played together so at no time would she be uncomfortable. . . . He was great with her. That was important. Any movie you are doing in which you have to be related in some way to another character really demands you spend time with the actor to find out what their buttons are. And, in this case, trust was terribly important. Not just for them but for all of us. They trusted each other. I put them with a stuntman about a month before they did [the rape scene] so they could work out ways in which to convey what they had to convey without any sort of worries or insecurities.

Q: Are you planning to continue directing?

A: I am doing a lot of reading right now. I have several things in development, but I am not going to give up my day job yet!

* “Bastard Out of Carolina” airs Sunday at 9 p.m. on Showtime.