SPACEY CAN HANDLE THE TRUTH The search for truth in the film is set up early when Polly, Darin's mother, tells him, "You can never go wrong with the truth." But later on Bobby tragically falls into an identity crisis because of the lies his loved ones had told him. "Bobby was raised to always tell the truth," Spacey says. "So think of it this way; he built his entire life on the idea that he was Walden Robert Cassotto (Darin's real name) - that was the pillar from which he built his life. Then he created Bobby Darin, and then he suddenly found out, at the age of 36, that he wasn't either of those guys - he was nobody. He wasn't Walden Robert Cassotto and he wasn't Bobby Darin. I mean what that does to a person's mind - it's completely understandable why he f***ing gave everything away and f****d off to Big Sur for nine months. And it was only when he figured out that if he put back on the toupee and he put back on the tux that people would listen to what he wanted to say."

The scene where Bobby fights to learn the truth behind his identity serves as the film's climax and comes at the end of act two. It's a complicated, effective scene that remains completely dependent on the non-linear, unique structure that Spacey built into his story. In various places leading up to this scene, both Bobby and Little Bobby (the wise child actor playing Bobby's younger self in the biopic) comment existentially about different events" in Darin's life. They sometimes make decisions together and at other times watch on the sidelines as Darin's life plays out in front of them. While early on this seems like a gem of a device, it's completely paid off in the film's climax, which relies on the surreal relationship between these two characters that constitute the same person. In the climax, Bobby and Little Bobby simultaneously challenge Nina (Bobby's sister) and Polly (Bobby's mother) regarding the secret behind Bobby's true identity. It's a scene that calls for four different characters, two different sets, and two completely different time periods in Bobby's life, wherein the characters also manage to interact with each other across these boundaries - by all means, a heck of a scene for freshman screenwriter Spacey. "I can only tell you that it was a very confusing scene for everybody to shoot," Spacey says laughing. "It wasn't confusing in my head because I knew exactly how I wanted it to come together. Writing that scene went through a couple of different stages. Originally, that scene happened in what I call 'The Bobby's World Soundstage,' where Polly was on the stage of the Coconut Grove rehearsing an old vaudeville number and Bobby and little Bobby and Nina were all there. Then I decided it didn't work for me dramatically." Spacey finally decided on two rooms: Bobby's dressing room and Little Bobby's bedroom. "It was terribly confusing for everyone involved in the movie, and I can't tell you what it did to the actors. But I just said, 'Look, the reality is that you're all where you're supposed to be - and we're having a conversation where everyone is talking to each other, but we don't necessarily know it .' And then I said, you just have to trust me on this.'

The scene ultimately works because it grew organically from Spacey's structure and his understanding of Darin's character. It also works because Little Bobby's character fulfills his purpose here when Darin reverts to his childlike self as Nina's revelation of the truth attacks the very core of Darin's psyche. "What I wanted to do was, in a sense, go inside Bobby's head at that point in his life," Spacey says. "I tried to think about what must have happened in his head. He must have just sat there thinking, 'My whole f***ing life.' The confusion, the sense of betrayal, the sense of loss, the sense of anger. And I thought, 'Can I create a scene in which - without making it sentimental and without making it over-dramatized - all four of them are dealing with each other, but the audience doesn't know that they're all in the same space until a certain shot.' And at that moment you suddenly realize that Bobby's world, which previously has been expansive - he's had his house here and his Bronx house there - suddenly those worlds are colliding. Physically colliding. And that's why I've decided to put the dressing room and the living room next to each other for that scene."

KEEPING IT ALL TOGETHER Even after getting the rights and writing his script, Spacey still had to continue fighting to get his film made. When funding fell through, Spacey invested his own money into pre-recording the music so that his UK-German co-produced, $25 million, ten-week shoot could move forward unhindered when given the final green light. Beyond his own capital investment, Spacey's secret to bringing this film to the screen was the same tactic used by any good screenwriter: never give up on the story. "Well, I never ever, ever - not for one day did I not think it was going to happen," Spacey says, "because I happen to be of the school of thought that sometimes it is through sheer force of will that you make something come through. And this was an effort of absolute sheer will. We made it happen. There was a moment when all of the financing fell apart - I had my cast, my crew, and four months went by when we weren't sure the movie was going forward. But I never lost faith. Everybody stuck with me, including the cast with agents saying, 'This movie's never going to happen, you should f***ing walk from it. It ain't happening, we got a big studio offer for you.' Every one of that crew and that cast stuck by us, and rather than all of that s*** that we went through coming on top of us and crushing us, from the moment we started shooting, all that s*** went underneath us and lifted us up. That's how we got through it."

Believe it or not, even with such complete control, Spacey took the initiative of keeping his story tight. "Look, I had to be ruthless," Spacey says. "I cut all the stuff that ultirnately isn't advancng the story. I had to cut my whole drum solo that I did at the Copa, because it made the Copa too long. And keep in mind I had to learn drums for four months for this. You have to be ruthless before someone else is ruthless. When I first showed the studio the movie, it was under two hours. I mean, they were stunned at not seeing a four-hour cut." But after all tlhe years he'd put into the film, it wouldn't have made sense for Spacey to allow his ego to lead him astray from the heart of the story this late in the game. As of press time, Spacey was fine-tuning his film with the intention of cutting four to five minutes. From all accounts, these tweaks were in response to a few "friendly" studio notes plus audience reactions Spacey noticed when his film played at the 2004 Toronto Film Festival. 

Presumably, some of the tweaking deals with the film's final moments. The biggest risk Spacey took in the script is, that by avoiding the conventional biopic frame- work, his script seems, by design, to lack a dramatic ending. Thankfully, there is no weepy bedside hospital death scene for Darin because Spacey's ending embraces the more positive concept of Darin's artistry gaining an immortality. It's sure to satisfy the audience, but currently hangs within a delicate balance of a multitude of seemingly final moments in which the film suggests to end itself two if not three times. These moments, even if they're left untouched, by no means invalidate the film's strengths but seemed ripe for reworking.

The toughest editorial decisions for Spacey yet to make concern his film's surrealist moments. One of the film's more beautifully surreal moments occurs when Bobby and Little Bobby sit side by side and witness a serious scene from Darin's life play out on an old film moviola editing machine with-in the editing room that Darin uses to cut his own biopic. It's a defining moment that continues to build upon the film's dream-like quality and reinforce its unique structure. Sure it might momentarily confuse five percent of the film's audience, but nobody's going to be falling out of their chairs because at its core, this moment only serves to remind us of the film's self-reflexive structure that's we've seen since the beginning. By keeping little morsels of surrealism like this around, the film's climax feels like an organic part of the surreal sub-text that we've witnessed throughout. By cutting these gems out, the style of the climax could draw too much attention to itself. Spacey suggested this scene might get the axe, and although the film will still shine without it, I will be sad to see it go.

THE FELLINI FACTOR There's no missing the sheer beauty of Beyond The Sea's surrealist moments and a few steps into Spacey's Trigger Street Productions offices reveals a huge La Dolce Vita poster hanging in the waiting room along with various Fellini books scattered throughout. Thus, it's no surprise that Fellini's influences can be seen throughout Beyond The Sea. The self-reflexive, self-critical, nonlinear structure approach to storytelling is also very 8 l/2-inspired. "Well, if there are two movies that were guideposts for me in developing this movie, they would be 8 1/2 and All That Jazz," Spacey says. "What I loved about 8 1/2, and I'm not even close to having made a movie like that, is that Fellini never lets you know whether you're in a dream or a real sound stage, or a real film set, or a health spa, or a nightmare, or a memory. He never lets you know. It's for you to figure out. And in a way that's what I attempted to do in Beyond The Sea. I also have to say, there's a lot of the film that I dreamed that became a part of the movie." Another similarity to 8 1/2 is that the Little Bobby character resembles 8 1/2's Young Guido, but here Little Bobby plays a more involved role because he not only plays out Darin's childhood, but also serves as Darin's confidant and conscience during the film. "The reason I decided to turn the character of Little Bobby into a real character, who is separate from Bobby, is because of what Bobby Darin had said very often in his own life," Spacey says, "That he felt like two different people. And that he felt like Walden Robert Cassotto had spent half his life trying to become Bobby Darin, and Bobby Darin spent the rest of his life trying to get back to Walden Robert Cassotto. And what eventually happens by the end of the film is that Walden Robert Cassotto is the one who sacrifices himself so that Bobby Darin can live. And that's why in this movie Bobby Darin doesn't die - Bobby Darin lives forever."  ~

 

Creative Screenwriting November/December 2004
There are several pictures from the film included in the article, versions of all can be found in the Beyond The Sea photos section.

 

© 2000 - 2004 Driving Mr. Spacey!