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SXSW Film Preview: SATURDAY NIGHT
After hosting Saturday Night Live in December, James Franco returned to his classes at NYU Film School with SNL Creator/Executive Producer Lorne Michaels and sketch comedy on the brain. When he received a five minute documentary assignment, he decided to chronicle one of the hellishly hectic and creative weeks of SNL production. Armed with more behind-the-scenes access than Michaels had ever granted before, the short doc project turned into the 94 minute film SATURDAY NIGHT, which has its world premiere as part of SXSW's Spotlight Premieres category on Sunday at Alamo Lamar.
Even if we didn't have Nerd Heaven Goddess Tina Fey making sketch comedy production look like the coolest thing ever on 30 Rock each week, we would still be all over this. Franco happened to film the week John Malkovich hosted and captured everything from sketch conception to the communal goodbye.
As expected, there's lots of the unexpected in putting on a live show with multiple skits that come complete with rushed, dizzying set and costume changes. As Franco told Radar Online, "When you host, you don’t realize you’re going to be yanked across the stage after one sketch ends and you have four or five people undressing you. The clothes all have velcro, so one person will pull your shirt off, another will pull your pants off, and someone else swaps your wig and facial hair. It's nerve-wracking and a little surreal to have all these people working on you. And--since it's live--if you aren't ready in time, you're kinda screwed." You can imagine the pressure if you stop thinking about Franco getting velcro clothes ripped off of him.
While this is his first documentary, Franco already premiered short film Herbert White at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. He has another directing gig lined up for late 2010 with Ham on Rye, a movie based on Charles Bukowski's novel about uncouth youth growing up in Germany during the Great Depression.
SATURDAY NIGHT world premieres at Alamo Lamar on Sunday, March 14th at 7pm. The film also screens on Wednesday, March 17th at Alamo Ritz at 9:45pm and Friday, March 19th at G-Tech at 9:30pm. For the full schedule, see my.SXSW or B-Side.
