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'Swimming'
Controversial director of anti-Vietnam flick swims
in more placid waters in his third movie.
MICHAEL ELKIN
Philadelphia Jewish Exponent
The funny thing is that the student, Lisa Bazadona,
"hated me as a teacher.
"I'm known as a terror. It's a tough business and I teach
n Swimming, producer-director Robert J. Siegel
[students] for the real world — as if we're going into
transforms the personal and public ebb and flow of war."
loneliness into a quiet movie that may very well
Make script, not war, became their mantra as the two,
make waves this summer.
abetted by Grace Woodward, sent the script through nine
Floating among other films more adept at shallow end-
drafts.
ings, Swimming features a tomboyish performance by
"I wrote the last three, and Lisa polished it," says Siegel.
Lauren Ambrose (Emmy-
The polish shows in this gem-like
nominated for her role in
film. It's no surprise that it has the
HBO's Six Feet Under) as a
stamp of authenticity since Lisa, says
solitary teen in the sleepy
Siegel, once worked at a Myrtle
Southern town of Myrtle
Beach shop doing tattoos, just like
Beach, S.C.
the Nicola character.
Indeed ; there is no
Swimming is a mild movie com-
Southern comfort for
pared to the tsunami Siegel swam
Frankie (Ambrose) until a
through during his first time out.
sexual awakening roils her
His debut movie, Parades, pilloried
placid existence.
the Vietnam war, and the fervor it
Frankie's gentle
fomented erupted into fisticuffs
girl/woman is a siren call
when it played in New York, eventu-
for those eternal outsiders
ally forcing the distributor to with-
fighting the feeling of being
draw what Siegel calls the first the-
alone. It certainly was that
atrical film to focus on America's
siren signal for Siegel, who's
role in the war.
also the film's co-screen-
But the feisty Siegel wasn't about
writer.
to withdraw from controversy; his
"Frankie is me," says
Descending Angel, premiered by
Siegel.
HBO, tackled the touchy topic of
How could a Jewish inde-
Romanian Nazis' penetration of the
pendent producer from
Romanian Orthodox Church in the
Riverdale, N.Y., see himself
United States.
in the quiet Frankie, a
"I spent three years researching
Southern gentile?
that, and what I learned was that 28
"I always felt like the out-
of the 40 churches were run by
sider when I was growing
indicted war criminals," he says.
Lauren Ambrose stars as a solitary teen in
up," says Siegel.
What he also discovered as a film-
Robert Siegel's "Swimming."
Raised in an Irish Catholic
maker was a different kind of crime
neighborhood, Siegel says he
— how long and how much of an
"always felt at a disadvantage,"
effort it takes to raise funds for a film.
and he takes advantage of that adversarial feel in the film.
Which was one of the reasons Swimming went so swim-
"There is not a moment she goes through that I didn't
mingly. "I decided to make a film for which I could raise
experience," he says.
the money in one day."
And like Frankie, who hangs out with the town's cooler
Siegel has his sights set on a new project about
-
chick, Nicola (Jennifer Dundas Lowe), Siegel was sidekick McCarthyism's impact on the comings and goings at a
to the school dude.
hotel in New York's Catskill Mountains in the 1950s.
"I'd walk along with Richie Goldstein, the cool guy,
Tentatively called In the Pink, it's a comedy that looks at
hoping to live vicariously," he recalls.
the Red Scare through the eyes of a rough-edged Irish kid
Siegel is hot in his own right now. Swimming took
sent from reform school to work in the unfamiliar Jewish
home the Torchlight Award for excellence in filmmaking
world of the Catskills.
at the Woodstock Film Festival and has been invited to
Like Swimming, a coming of-age film, it is all about
dozens of film festivals around the world.
how a reputed incorrigible is taught "to do the right
All this recognition makes Siegel happy and one of his
thing," Siegel says. 111
students probably even happier. Swimming swam against
the tide from the very beginning: The film was originally
Swimming, unrated, opens Friday, .Aug. 23, at the Maple
scripted as a senior thesis by one of Siegel's students —
Art
Theatre in Bloomfield Township. (248) 542-0180.
Siegel is a film professor at SUNY Purchase — before he
optioned it.
'14MOWSUMA41WkaARNMEWAMMEN.
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