Where Others Fear to Tread, She Steps In

PARK CITY, Utah —  She’s the ultimate independent producer, the kind of woman who will help a filmmaker fine-tune a script, secure the financing to shoot it and then let the entire cast and crew sleep in her apartment.

She’s fearless about subject matter. Since her first feature in 1989, she has produced movies about a sympathetic pedophile (Todd Solondz’s “Happiness”), violent teenagers (Larry Clark’s “Kids”) and a super-radical feminist (Mary Harron’s “I Shot Andy Warhol”), not to mention several gay-themed films that drew fire from the religious right.

Christine Vachon, 37, is “the kind of producer who will lay down in front of a train” to get a film made, said director Todd Haynes, who has made all his features (“Poison,” “Safe” and “Velvet Goldmine”) with her.

Now, with the huge success of “Boys Don’t Cry” (which she sold at last year’s Sundance Film Festival), Vachon--the habitual indie underdog--is suddenly and strangely on top of the world. Arriving at Sundance a week ago, she announced that her New York-based company, Killer Films, had forged a pact with TV producer John Wells, who will back the development of Killer’s future projects. A few days later, “Boys Don’t Cry’s” Hilary Swank won a Golden Globe for best dramatic actress and thanked Killer Films “for always making important movies and standing by them.”

“It’s a big week for us,” Vachon acknowledged a bit giddily the other day as she and her producing partner, Pam Koffler, hurried from a festival party to a dinner for the director of another Killer production, a teen drama inspired by Dostoevsky called “Crime and Punishment in Suburbia.” In contrast to last year, when Killer was heatedly negotiating the sale of “Boys Don’t Cry” based on 20 minutes of footage, this Sundance has seemed almost relaxing, Vachon said, sounding like a person who rarely relaxes.

“I think I have nerves of steel,” she said, adjusting a huge orange backpack on her shoulder and exchanging amused glances with Koffler about the stress of last year’s frenzied bidding.

Mention Vachon to anyone with ties to the independent film world and you hear nothing but superlatives.

“She is to indie film what Scott Rudin is to studio movies--the most effective producer of films that are both commercial and intelligent,” said entertainment lawyer John Sloss.

“She deserves a lifetime achievement award for the very difficult subject matter she so brilliantly supports,” said Tony Safford, senior vice president of acquisitions at 20th Century Fox. “Just dip her in bronze.”

No one mentions Vachon’s penchant for screaming. They don’t have to--Vachon raises it herself. “I yell at people all the time,” she wrote in her hilarious and practical 1998 book (“Shooting to Kill: How an Independent Producer Blasts Through the Barriers to Make Movies That Matter”) in which she defined a low-budget film production as “a crisis waiting to happen.”

“The bottom line is, you cannot be a producer unless you understand that it’s all your fault,” she wrote. “When I’m asked what producers do, I say, ‘What don’t they do?’ I develop scripts; I raise money; I put together budgets; I negotiate with stars willing to work for said [generally meager] budgets; I match directors with cinematographers, cinematographers with production designers, production designers with location managers; I make sure that a shoot is on schedule, on budget, on track; I hold hands; I stroke egos. I once had to bail an actor out of jail [for gay-bashing, no less].”

While at Sundance, here’s a little of what Vachon, Koffler and three of their Killer Films colleagues have done: They’ve gone to every screening of “Crime and Punishment” to support the director, Rob Schmidt; they’ve had a conference call to discuss casting of “Cock and Bull,” a dark comedy based on the novella by Will Self; they’ve chatted with Harron (whose “American Psycho,” to be released by Lions Gate, premiered here) to discuss her next film with them, “The Ballad of Bettie Page,” about the cult icon and pinup girl; they’ve talked up a project in the early stages of development at HBO, “Offramp to Babylon,” about a woman implicated in the murder of a transvestite.

And like everybody else, they’ve gone to the movies.

“So what do you think of Toronto as New York?” Vachon asked the assembled Killer troops the other night over a bottle of red wine at one of Park City’s pricey restaurants. One of the films they’d all seen that day had shot its Manhattan scenes in Canada to save money. Vachon--in a black T-shirt, black jeans and a black fleecy pullover, with a shark’s tooth on a chain around her neck--wanted to know if they thought it had looked real.

“The restaurants weren’t right,” said Bradford Simpson, Killer’s head of development.

“I didn’t like the apartment,” Koffler said.

It’s hard for Vachon to watch a movie sometimes without thinking about this stuff. She notices how many camera angles were used in a particular sequence, for example, or will find herself thinking, “That scene took five hours to light.” When your life is about getting quality movies made with limited resources, it’s hard not to obsess.

“Our company is about putting the money up on the screen,” Vachon will say, “though we’re not adverse to making money. I know we’re bastions of integrity”--she smiles and rolls her eyes--”but we have to make a living.”

Vachon means it when she uses the word “we.” She’s worked with Koffler, 34, for seven years, and their complementary partnership is talked about within the industry as a perfect match: the tenacious, pragmatic and sometimes sharp-tongued Vachon and the diplomatic, unflappable and organized Koffler.

Over a hasty lunch between screenings the other day, Koffler clicked off her cell phone and announced good-naturedly: “We’re having a typically Killer problem.” She’d just learned that the print of “Crime and Punishment,” which was supposed to be at Sundance already, had not yet arrived in Utah. Vachon looked momentarily stricken. Koffler was unfazed.

“We’ve got to give you something to scream about,” Koffler told Vachon sweetly before picking up her phone to solve the problem.

Later, Vachon would explain that being a worrier works for her. “Whenever I’m nervous about something, there’s always a reason. I do get insane, but I’m always right.”

‘Fierce Determination in This Woman’

Vachon’s parents took her to see “Patton” when she was 7. She’s been passionate about movies ever since. Growing up in Manhattan, she frequented theaters that showed classics like “Rules of the Game” and “The 400 Blows.” But she also admits to seeing “The Poseidon Adventure” five times.

At Brown University, she studied film in the semiotics department, immersing herself in theory and history. She did not go to film school. “I know, lots of people learn the basics there,” she wrote in her book. “The problem is that everyone who comes out says, ‘I want to be a director.’ Somebody has to make the coffee.”

She worked a lot of unpaid jobs--gofer, prop girl--to learn the business, working nights as a freelance copy editor to pay her rent. When she finally began to get paid, it was very little money for all kinds of work: assistant editor, location scout, script supervisor. Then, in 1987, she, Haynes and another friend from college formed Apparatus Productions to help fund and produce experimental work.

“Christine had the most experience,” Haynes remembers of that time. “And there was a fierce determination in this woman that seemed to withstand anything.”

Vachon, meanwhile, was inspired by Haynes, who at the time had just finished a 43-minute stop-action film, made with Barbie dolls, that has since become a cult classic. Titled “Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story,” it charted the rise of the Carpenters pop duo as its lead singer wasted away from anorexia nervosa. Never released (Richard Carpenter blocked the use of the original music and sicced lawyers on Haynes), the movie was, Vachon thought, precisely the kind of filmmaking she wanted to do.

Their first feature together was “Poison,” a film whose homo-erotic themes (and partial funding by the National Endowment for the Arts) sparked the wrath of the Rev. Donald Wildmon, head of the American Family Assn. Vachon credits the letters Wildmon sent to every member of Congress with helping to fuel interest in the film.

Next came “Swoon,” Tom Kalin’s 1992 feature about the famous Leopold and Loeb murder case. Vachon was dubbed “the Queen of Queer Cinema,” an appellation she says she loathed. But she didn’t change course. In 1994 came the lesbian love story “Go Fish,” by director Rose Troche, and Steve McLean’s “Postcards From America.” The next year Vachon produced three movies: Haynes’ “Safe,” Clark’s “Kids” and Nigel Finch’s “Stonewall,” about the historic gay rioting in New York.

In 1996, Vachon and Koffler--who’d line-produced “Kids”--formed Killer Films. The name was drawn, in part, from their first project: “Office Killer,” directed by photographer Cindy Sherman. They’ve made eight films since, and have scores more in development, including Whit Stillman’s adaptation of the novel “Red Azalea” and John Cameron Mitchell’s film of the off-Broadway smash hit “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.”

Asked what draws her to a project, Vachon ticked off three essentials: “One, the screenplay itself--is it provocative and fresh or can you put it down? Two, the director--are they a psycho or are they collaborative? Can you stand to spend two years with them? And three, is it something we can sell? Is there a role that a great actress is going to be dying to play?”

When told that some will be surprised that she takes a movie’s commercial prospects into consideration, she made a face.

“I do get tired of those filmmakers who want $8 million for their movies but don’t care what the audience thinks,” she said. “Those people should take up modern dance to express themselves.”

Everyone at Killer Films, meanwhile, who come to work each day in a funky Manhattan loft that is anything but elegant, will worry less about their next meal now that Wells is in their corner. Wells, who is currently executive producing NBC’s hit drama “ER,” will cover the company’s overhead and provide funds for project development. Vachon and Koffler will seek independent financing for films, just as they always have.

“They take chances and have excellent taste in material. And they go on their gut,” Wells said, explaining what made him want to invest in Killer. “There’s very little of that that exists in this business. It’s refreshing, and I hope some of it rubs off.”

Killer Connection May Mean More Access

Moreover, Wells said he hopes his connection to Killer will give him more access to talent he can use both in feature film projects and television.

“Frankly, with all of the cable outlets the talent pool has been getting stretched thinner and thinner,” he said, adding that he thinks indie film people, as well as being stylistically interesting, are better suited to TV work than studio film people. “People coming out of indie film are not frightened by the speed with which we have to work. You have finite financial constraints in TV. You don’t have $100-million cost overruns.”

For Vachon, the deal means continued independence, which is--for her--essential. When you’re working for yourself, after all, you don’t have to ask anyone’s permission to put everything on the line.

That’s exactly what Vachon did last fall at the Toronto Film Festival, when pending lawsuits against “Boys Don’t Cry” prompted festival organizers to get cold feet. Unless someone stepped forward and indemnified the festival, risking being sued for several million dollars, “Boys Don’t Cry” would not have its North American premiere. Vachon, personally, took the risk.

“I was totally in awe. I thought, ‘Damn, that’s my producer!’ ” said Kimberly Peirce, the director and co-writer of “Boys Don’t Cry.” “Sometimes I think of her as David O. Selznick, but that night she was pure John Wayne of ‘The Searchers’--fearless, relentless and apparently calm. She is Vachon.”