Gorgeously filmed, resonant...a Nabokov adaptation
you won't be able to take your eyes off."
Christopher McQuain, Willamette Weekly
"Outstanding and deeply evocative...perhaps one of
the finest adaptations of Nabokov to date"
Jamie Hook, The Stranger
"An elliptical and observant adaptation"
Todd Haynes, director
SYNOPSIS
After burying his son, a father makes a winter visit
to the family summer home and decided that life is
no longer worth living. Based on a Russian
short story by Vladimir Nabokov. Funded by a
special projects grant from the King County Arts
Commission.
CREDITS
Father: James Venturini
Son: David Chernicoff
Servant: Michael Chick
Voice of the son: Ian Duncan
Girl: Brette Howard
Director and screenplay adaptation: Serge Gregory
Director of photography: Joseph Hudson
Editor: Laura Krc
Camera assistants: Keehn Thomsen, Bruce Hutson, Ray
Woodhouse
Production manager: Ann Marino
Wardrobe: Debra Olin-Wright
Music: Jeff Greinke
Location sound: Mickey McMullen, Elijah Lauson,
Justin Moff
Moth wrangler: Ben Gregory
Legal advisor: Robert Cumbow
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
"Christmas" was shot in five days over a
seven-month period from January through July 1999.
The winter exteriors were filmed in Roslyn,
Washington, which has an old Orthodox cemetery, and
at a cabin near Mt. Rainier National Park. The
summer exteriors and all interior scenes were filmed
in Seattle. To film the crucial moth scenes, I
raised two dozen Polyphemus moths (Antheraea
polyphermus). The moths typically emerge
from their cocoons between 10am and 2pm, and I was
able to capture only two births on film. The
moths have no mouth parts and live only about five
days, their sole purpose being to mate and die. |
