media.movieweb.netThe indie film genre is slowly becoming overshadowed by the glare of Hollywood lights. While we get “independents” like “Brokeback Mountain” by Paramount, or “Capote,” paid for by United Artists, movies made and distributed completely outside of the Hollywood system are becoming few and far between. Tricia Brock filmed “Killer Diller” quite a long time ago, and with almost no help from California, she has had trouble getting it to the people. It showed at the Tribeca and South by Southwest film festivals two years ago and had a limited engagment at the Tivoli earlier this year, as well as other theaters around the country. The length of time between production and release doesn’t seem to bother her.
“This might be the only independent film distributed this year. Truly independent,” said Brock. “If I were to tell you about the depths of financial despair I went into…” She doesn’t elaborate and has a habit of getting her point across without speaking. Brock is an attractive women in her mid-thirties who casually brushes off any talk of delay. She has, in the meantime, started a successful career directing shows such as “Grey’s Anatomy,” but any mention of her movie shows that she has much love for her long-lost project.
“Killer Diller,” based on the novel by Clyde Edgarton, is the story of Wesley, a young man living in a halfway house, who turns the gospel band he is forced to perform with into a blues band with the help of an autistic piano prodigy. It stars William Lee Scott (“October Sky”) as Wesley and Lucas Black (“Sling Blade”) as Vernon, his new friend who drives an imaginary car, but is master of the black and white keys. Fred Willard (“Best in Show”) plays the desperate man running the halfway house, who needs his gospel group to do well in order to maintain funding for the house.
Blues is a very important part of the story, and it became crucial to the director as well.
“I think blues music is one of the greatest American art forms,” said Brock. “It just moves me. I didn’t grow up with it so I probably listened to about 500 songs [to prepare]. The music clearance alone on this movie is a huge part of the budget.”
Brock knew that credibility when it came to the music was important and therefore went after Keb Mo for the score and legendary blues guitarist Taj Mahal to play for the opening credits.
Brock grew up in Columbia and attended the University of Missouri before moving to New York where she started writing for “Twin Peaks.” When she left, she says she always knew she would return to Missouri but was certain she wouldn’t for this movie.
“Clyde wrote the novel set in North Carolina, and I had every intention of filming it there,” said Brock. She had trouble even getting the rights to the novel, originally buying them but running out of time for production and subsequently giving the final decision to Edgarton himself.
“I didn’t have the rights [to the novel] but still wanted to make the movie,” said Brock. “Clyde was going to have to read the screenplay and believe that it was good enough to go ahead with filming. He hadn’t heard from me in two years. The first night I ever met him was the night I handed him my script.”
Edgarton loved the screenplay, but Brock was unable to find a location in North Carolina suitable or cheap enough for her modest budget. However, from the very beginning, her mother, who had read the book, had a different idea.
“She told me, ‘Well, you should come film it in Fayette,'” said Brock. “I just told her, ‘Maybe, Mom,’ but I wanted to tell her, ‘If you think I’m going to film my movie in Fayette.'”
Her only financier wanted her to film in Austin, but she wasn’t happy with that location either.
“Many fabulous movies have been shot there, but I didn’t want the location to be mine,” said Brock.
Upon realizing that she was running out of time, she checked out Fayette and realized that it was perfect.
“I could not believe it,” said Brock. “I had trouble convincing my financier until I said ‘Tax credit.’ That’s language he could understand.”
Brock has lost any accent she might have picked up while growing up in Missouri, but she still retains her love for this part of the world.
“I made the movie for people in the middle of the country,” said Brock. “The people in New York, they responded to this movie at Tribeca, but those people on the coasts think they know things about this area and what we will like, but they don’t.”
For that reason the launch schedule of the movie is the reverse of those for most movies.
“We are starting the release in Missouri and Tennessee,” said Brock. “If this movie is given a chance, I think it can find an audience.”
This is one of the few times that the middle of the country will see a movie before the rest of the country does, and Tricia Brock seems happy about that. “It’s a part of the country that America doesn’t see very often.” And a truly independent movie made by someone who loves the material isn’t that common in this country either.