Bogdanovich: A man of many talents

Peter Bogdanovich, the Festival Fellow for this year’s Virginia Film Festival, still plays a variety of roles.

For decades, he has been a director, writer, producer and critic in a challenging and complicated film industry. Don’t forget to add teacher to that list, because he is leading some film classes at the North Carolina School of the Arts. Oh, and he’s an actor, too — he appeared in the “Robots vs. Wrestlers” episode of “How I Met Your Mother,” which CBS aired in May.

But Bogdanovich hasn’t forgotten that one of the most enduring qualities of film, part of the magic that makes people glad that they’re sitting on the edges of their seats in a dark, stuffy room full of strangers, is simple.

Pure enjoyment.

When he’s at a screening of one of his films and notices that folks are savoring the story on the screen, “it’s a good feeling,” Bogdanovich said. “When you connect with the audience, it’s a home run. You can hear the crack of the bat.”

He will get several opportunities during the 23rd annual Virginia Film Festival to listen for that connection. At noon today, he will present his Academy Award-winning “Paper Moon” at Culbreth Theatre. At 1:30 p.m. Saturday, he’ll be back at the Culbreth to present “The Last Picture Show” and take part in a question-and-answer session with film critic David Edelstein.

Bogdanovich’s “The Cat’s Meow” (2001), based on a real-life Hollywood murder mystery in 1924, was shown Thursday.

His 1972 comedy “What’s Up, Doc?” can be seen at 10:45 a.m. Sunday at the Paramount Theater.

Ryan O’Neal and Barbra Streisand starred in the film, which paid homage to the screwball-comedy tradition. It was O’Neal’s first comedy, Bogdanovich recalled.

“Barbra had done comedy, and Ryan hadn’t,” Bogdanovich said. “She made the mistake of telling me she’d never been directed before.

“So I directed her.”

He chuckled. “We got along very well,” he said.

Bogdanovich said that most actors are open to receiving direction.

“It’s much easier to work if they’re open to it,” he said. “I’ve rarely had an actor who wasn’t open to it.”

In “Paper Moon,” Bogdanovich’s careful direction drew out an Academy Award-winning performance from then 9-year-old Tatum O’Neal. But another kind of movie magic sparkled in the casting. Ryan O’Neal, who played Tatum O’Neal’s father in the film, is the actress’ real-life father.

“The father-daughter thing has some resonance that you can’t help but pick up,” Bogdanovich said. “There were moments that were directed, but the intimacy was theirs.”

When actors can find a bond in friendship or family, audiences can get drawn into a story all the more easily.

“I think it helps. It always helps,” Bogdanovich said. “Any kind of intimacy helps.”

Bogdanovich, who’d turned down a lucrative offer to film a “What’s Up, Doc?” sequel, also said he passed up an offer to direct a sequel to “Paper Moon” — a project called “Harvest Moon,” which would have teamed Tatum O’Neal up with Mae West to tell another portion of the story in “Addie Pray,” the novel on which “Paper Moon” was based.

“They offered us money to do a sequel to ‘Paper Moon,’ too,’ ’’ he said. “I just felt we’d done it. Walk away while we’re ahead.”

However, a sequel of sorts to his famed “The Last Picture Show,” a 1971 film based on a Larry McMurtry novel about three teenagers coming of age in a dying Texas town, made it to the screen. “Texasville,” released in 1990, took its story from a different McMurtry book and looked in on the characters from “The Last Picture Show” three decades later.

“I was always a little bit worried about doing sequels, because it’s really the same thing over again,” Bogdanovich said. His other reservation? “Middle-age angst is not nearly as interesting as teenage sorrow.”

“Unfortunately, ‘Texasville’ — the version that was released — is not the one we made,” Bogdanovich said. “I wasn’t happy with it.”

The version Bogdanovich submitted was 25 minutes longer.

“I’d like to have the director’s cut we did for Pioneer Laserdisc available on DVD,” Bogdanovich said, so that more audiences could see the film they way he envisioned it.

That version’s unavailable at the moment, underlining another challenge in the film industry — the way that ownership rights and bureaucracy sometimes can interfere with artistic visions.

“It’s frustrating,” Bogdanovich said. “It took me 20 years to get the right version of ‘Mask’ out.”