Rock Star The Blowing Rock plays large part in
new movie
By Jeff Eason
If the new independent movie Goodbye Solo takes off the
way last year’s Slumdog Millionaire did, millions of movie
lovers might find out about the Blowing Rock. The 250 million
year-old rock formation, tourist attraction and town namesake
is a focal point in Goodbye Solo and is prominently featured in
several scenes.
From left, Red West and
Souleymane Sy Savane star in Goodbye Solo.
Goodbye Solo, written and directed by Ramin Bahrani, tells the
tale of Solo, a Senegalese taxi driver in Winston-Salem. He is
hired by William, a tough 70-year-old white Southerner, to drive
him in two weeks time to the Blowing Rock. Solo is suspicious
and comes to believe that William intends to take his own life
by jumping off the Blowing Rock. So, Solo befriends William in
an attempt to convince him not to commit suicide.
Goodbye Solo has been a hit at several international film festivals
and recently was the winner of the Venice Film Festival’s
International Critics’ Prize. The Blowing Rock scenes were
filmed during the fall of 2007 and several area residents were
filmed as extras for the movie.
A number of premiere screenings are scheduled for the film this
spring. Goodbye Solo will be one of the featured films at the
River Run Film Festival in Winston-Salem on Friday and Saturday,
April 24 and 25.
Currently, the Blowing Rock Tourism and Development Association
is trying to get the film shown in Blowing Rock during its premiere
tour.
Goodbye Solo stars African television star Souleymane Sy Savane
as Solo and veteran American character actor Red West as William.
West was a member of Elvis Presley’s famed Memphis Mafia
and appeared with him in films, such as Blue Hawaii and Harum
Scarum. Over the years, he has worked for filmmakers, such as
Robert Altman, Oliver Stone and Francis Ford Coppola.
The idea for the movie came to writer Ramin Bahrani, a native
of Winston-Salem, after encounters with a Senegalese cab driver
and an elderly man standing on the side of the road. Bahrani refers
to the real life cab driver, who wishes to remain anonymous, as
“O.”
“I came to learn that even though O was a cab driver, he
did not own his own cab,” Bahrani said. “He would either
hire a taxi or walk to get from his home to his job.”
The elderly man that Bahrani met was one of several old men that
he would see every day on the side of the road outside an assisted
living facility.
“I began to wave at one specific elderly man every time I
passed,” Barhani said. “Soon, he recognized me and started
happily waving at me, despite the fact that we did not know each
other. I confess I was also happy to wave each time, but this
man’s situation also filled me with a sense of sorrow. Clearly
he was lonely and that small connection really meant something
to him.”
The final piece of the puzzle that helped convert these elements
into a cohesive story was the Blowing Rock, a childhood holiday
destination for Bahrani and his family.
“I remember throwing sticks off the rock as a child and watching,
hoping and willing the wind to blow them back up,” Bahrani
said.
In the winter of 2006-07, Bahrani rode with O in the taxi for
several months, trying to get a feel for his character and develop
a storyline. He shared his experiences with his co-writer, Bahareh
Azimi, with whom he had created the award-winning film Chop Shop.
“The first thing I wanted to tell Bahareh about was O himself,”
Bahrani said. “He was a complex, kind and charming man, whose
street past and language, love of reggae music and overall spirit
became fused with the fictional character of Solo and the spirit
of the film. O had the ability to make everyone who entered his
taxi feel good. No matter how mean they might have been to him,
they always left the taxi with a smile.”
Principal photography for Goodbye Solo took place from Sept. 19
through Oct. 22, 2007. Bahrani chose that schedule so that the
scenes shot in Blowing Rock would take place during the prime
leaf-changing season. Those scenes were shot on and around Oct.
20.
For the scenes shot at the Blowing Rock, Bahrani and cinematographer
Michael Simmonds used hand-held cameras instead of the traditional
tripod set-ups.
“Michael and I decided on hand-held after I showed him photos
I had taken on the rock,” Bahrani said.
Added Simmonds, “I remember someone from production asked
if we wanted a crane that day. What the hell would we do with
a crane?”
For veteran actor Red West, the hardest scene in the film was
the unspoken goodbye with Solo and Alex on the footpath leading
to the Blowing Rock.
“It made me realize how much time my character had squandered
with his grandson,” West said, “but that death was one
of the few things I was still in control of. It meant final relief
from the indignities of old age, from the looming inevitability
of a nursing home scenario and freedom from the ever-present reminder
of personal failure. I prayed that God would have mercy on my
soul.”
Director Bahrani considers West’s performance in that scene
to be one of the most emotional moments in all three of his films
to date.
“The scene tore Red up, and it shows on screen,” Bahrani
said. “It’s very powerful.”
Producer Jason Orans agrees that the final moments of the movie,
shot at the Blowing Rock in all its autumnal glory, are among
its most powerful.
“The final shot of the film is so exquisitely beautiful that
I can imagine that Ramin drove every inch of the 469-mile Blue
Ridge Parkway and climbed up every single rock and cliff to find
just the right vantage point for his camera.”
Bahrani talks about the Blowing Rock much as if it was a character
in his film.
“The cinematic language of the final moments on the rock
with Solo are important to me,” Bahrani said. “I tried
to capture a very intense emotion and complex philosophy about
the world, God, life and death, through basic elements and cuts:
Solo’s face, his hand holding a wooden stick above the clouds
and trees, and the gusting sound of the wind. No dialogue. No
music. No sentiment. This scene can’t be a novel, a song
or theatre. It can only be expressed this way through cinema.”
Although Goodbye Solo is not yet in wide release, the initial
reviews have been enthusiastic. After seeing the movie at the
Toronto International Film Festival, Roger Ebert wrote, “I’ve
seen 12 films I haven’t yet written about. One I immensely
admire is Ramin Bahrani’s Goodbye Solo, the story of a Senegalese-American
taxi driver.”
Mark Olsen of the Los Angeles Times wrote that Bahrani’s
film is “a powerful step forward, taking the more amorphous
and ambiguous aspects of his earlier films and giving the storytelling
a more fully realized shape without robbing the film of a sense
of mystery.”
And added, “West’s performance, centered mostly around
looks and body language rather than dialogue, plumbs real emotional
depths. His final moments onscreen are riveting and heartbreaking.”
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