Ben out of both detox and involvement with Gwyneth, and slumming by starring in Pearl Harbor. Matt tanking in The Legend of Bagger Vance and no longer with Winona or Penélope but dating Ben’s publicist. Typical starry Hollywood sagas, but what happened to our two bright Cambridge kids with their East Coast integrity and left-wing politics? Has anything from their roots survived the six years since they got to LA with their Good Will Hunting script in hand? Judging from the engrossing first seven episodes of HBO’s 12-part Project Greenlight (Sundays at 10 p.m. in December, at 9:30 in January), I’m thrilled to report that our home boys are good guys, and much in touch.

This documentary series, the best record of the filmmaking process I’ve ever seen, shows us Affleck and Damon — still firm pals, but infinitely shrewder and more experienced than in Beantown days — determined to give back to the idealist-minded community from which they sprang. They persuaded Miramax Films to let them sponsor a screenwriting contest, Project Greenlight, for filmmaking novices, the winner of which would direct his/her indie script in a $1 million movie paid for and distributed by Miramax.

The HBO series reveals that 10,000 of the bushy-tailed answered the September 2000 call, which must be a record for a screenwriting contest. Bit by bit, the numbers shrank. One hundred were asked to submit a video bio; 10 were given cameras and tape to shoot a scene from their script; finally three sweated in their LA hotel rooms while, in a nearby suite, Ben, Matt, and a coven of Miramax executives argued over which screenplay would translate into the most appealing movie, which of the three survivors was most capable of helming an indie feature.

After a marathon pow-wow of Twelve Angry Men intensity, the judges selected a winner: Pete Jones, an apple-cheeked Chicagoan (think the Hardy Boys’ pal, Chet) with a wife and baby and a past career as a corporate insurance salesman. Affleck and Damon would executive-produce, along with their Fusion Studios partner, Chris Moore. Jones’s film to be: Stolen Summer — it’s set in Chicago 1976 and has to do with the friendship of a little Jewish lad and a little Catholic lad. A mini Chariots of Fire? The HBO publicity kit describes it as "the story of an eight-year-old boy’s search for the meaning of life."

The first few episodes of Project Greenlight are deft and entertaining. (Who directed them? There’s no name on the whiz-by credits.) But the series becomes truly amazing and revelatory from the moment we watch Jones sit down for his first pre-production meeting. Step by step, through two horrific days of actual shooting, we see Stolen Summer explode in a hundred excruciating ways, from casting to money matters to relations with Miramax, where power-game people vaguely mind the store — all the psychotic abnormalities of a low-budget (translate: severely underbudgeted) independent film.

There is, as I said, no better visual record of the hour-to-hour travails of making a little movie. This series should be mandatory viewing for all film students and all I-think-I’ll-be-a-director people. "Directors work so hard. He’s going to be fried!", Damon predicts correctly of poor Pete Jones. Our virgin cinéaste is seen visiting Kevin Smith for advice. "Be prepared to gain weight," the very portly Clerks director tells Jones of the filmmaking experience. "And it will never go away."

A Miramax happy ending? Stolen Summer was finished, and Jones, who’d been regarded with suspicion as a first-time director, kept intact his testy veteran cast, which included Aidan Quinn, Bonnie Hunt, and Kevin Pollak. It’s scheduled for a February 22 Miramax release. We’ll see.

NOVEMBER 30 was my September 11. I was playing pick-up basketball at the Cambridge Y when one of my teammates, John O’Connor, 47, the wonderful public-spirited millionaire and left-liberal congressional candidate, keeled over and died of a massive heart attack. The horror! That was also the day of the memorial service in New York City (Jonathan Demme and Robert Altman were among the speakers) for the recently deceased maestro film critic Pauline Kael. And the day before, not only did George Harrison pass away, but filmmaker Budd Boetticher, 85, bit the dust, one of the last of the old-time Hollywood "B" directors of grit and talent. He’s famous in extreme cult circles for his Randolph Scott Westerns in the 1950s and for his bullfight movies, especially the great documentary Arruza.

Gerald Peary can be reached at gpeary@world.std.com

Issue Date: December 13 - 20, 2001

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