2009 Souvenir Program Guide - California Film Institute

BE TRUE TO YOUR HEART: BRING THE MAGIC
by Ilya Tovbis
Despite feeling movie-making’s
persistent tug from a very early
age, Jason Reitman resisted
mightily. Coming from a family
flush with filmmakers of all
stripes—not least his father, celebrated
director-producer Ivan
Reitman (Ghostbusters, Kindergarten
Cop)—he worried about
being perceived as the spoiled
progeny of Hollywood gentry, a
talentless hack getting by on a
famous surname. Between making
cameo appearances on his
dad’s fi lms, working as a production
assistant on fi lm sets at age
13 and spending his teen years as
a self-described shy movie-geek
shuffl ing in and out of dark theaters,
Reitman’s affi nity for the
big screen often bordered on
obsession. And yet, he resisted.
Fear of being written off as a
pretender was real enough to
REITMAN IN 2006
make him enter college on a premed
track—much to the surprise of those closest to him. In fact, the
elder Reitman, generally supportive of his son’s choices, felt compelled
to intervene. Jason has recounted his father’s touching and persuasive
words: “If you became a doctor, your mother and I would be
over the moon. There’s no more noble a job in the world than being
a doctor. But, I don’t think there’s enough magic in it for you; you’re a
storyteller, and you need to follow your heart.”
The simple maxim couched in this fatherly encouragement not only
allowed Reitman the courage to delve headfi rst into fi lmmaking, but
charts the utterly individual course of a still young yet already spectacular
career. Maintaining a rigid commitment to personal integrity
and an above-all-honest approach to the craft, Reitman has ensured
his work is defi ned by a strikingly original blend of accessible, intellectual
and challenging comedy cut with an unspoiled, wide-eyed fi lm
fandom. Even the route he took to recognition as one of the most
promising young fi lmmakers in Hollywood today is marked by the
same independence. Instead of relying on family ties to wealthy fi nan-
60
JASON REITMAN
ciers, or taking on big studio projects such as the twice offered—and
twice rejected—Dude Where’s My Car 2, Reitman operated on shoestring
budgets to shoot a series of short fi lms that took the independent
fi lm festival circuit by storm. Selling ad space in desk calendars,
he cobbled together the budget for Operation (1998), which premiered
at the Sundance Film Festival. The next eight years saw the production
of fi ve more shorts, which totaled more than 100 appearances at
festivals worldwide: H@ (1999), In God We Trust (2000), Gulp (2001),
Uncle Sam (2002) and Consent (2004).
After nearly a decade of developing his chops in the short form, Reitman
turned in an auspicious feature fi lm debut with Thank You for
Smoking (2006). He developed the ambitious screenplay from Christopher
Buckley’s novel, despite the fi lm industry’s vocal fear that the
source materials was impossible to adapt. The black comedy centers
around Nick Naylor (in a bravura performance by Aaron Eckhart),
chief spokesman for Tobacco’s big seven, as he zigzags across the
country gleefully espousing the cigarette industry’s credo that no
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