A brutally simple film following an ex-con on his release from prison in Butte, Montana. More a character study of the man than a story, the film methodically follows him through an unspecified period of time from his release to a dubious conclusion.
2012-2023
68 mins
Conceived, directed, filmed and edited by Jon Jost
Cast:
Ryan Harper Gray, Dan Cornell, Kate Sannella, Roxanne Rogers, Frank Mosley, Dawn, Brittany Hemphill, Peter Hemphill, Marshall Gaddis, Renee Gaddis
Comments, by Jane Spencer, a filmmaker:
I watched DEADENZ last night, very interesting film. I thought the actor you used for main role as the psychopath character was fantastic, as was his buddy who tried to help him and then realized he was a liar (yet again) – that was a great performance. I also thought the young woman who was talking with him in the bar was fantastic, playful, funny but she seemed aware he was weird and somewhat cold on some level. To the film itself, great opening – really made me want to stay with it and find out what brought him to that situation. Also, I totally believed – at first – he was trying to get his life together but I noticed he was a bit ‘too polite’, which I am sure you meant to show that it was kind of a warning that something was off…And his over-friendliness with people he wanted things from, also, in retrospect, made it clear he was a narcissist who knew how to manipulate. But he had a side to him that really made you, at the start anyway, have empathy for him up until the moment his friend called him on being a liar. The ending was a surprise and not a surprise, in that he was, in reality, such a brutal person who simply went for what he wanted, with no compassion for anyone else.
It was, for me, a character study and a very on the mark, interesting one. I really have no criticisms other than, and you probably anticipated this from me, the long, long bit where he is sleeping – or trying to sleep in the silence (which he clearly finds disturbing…). It absolutely works but starts to not work as again, I think you need to bring it down time-wise. But, you may want to create a feeling there, again, that you feel you cannot get without this time on it. But, I think you COULD achieve it sooner.. It’s ultimately of course your call as the filmmaker, but I wonder if it might make some people stop watching AFTER it goes on a bit too long. I like the use of the heartbeat in it. He hears his own heart…in the silence…and clearly does not want to. Also, the (let me know if I am interpreting this wrong) but the double persona within him of his nature…his inability to accept himself on certain levels. Mixed with narcissism. So it’s VERY interesting
This is a film that I hope gets out there re streaming or distribution as it is a fascinating character study within a very still, sort of dead town. Great work, Jon. Also, as a marketing note (if you are interested) – sociopaths/narcissists are of great interest in the current zeigeist. I mean, this goes far more into his being but, kind of a thought.
Filmmaker’s reflections:
DeadEndz was made on a lark. In August of 2012, I’d gone to Butte to shoot Coming to Terms, a very serious film for which I’d enlisted some of my usual actors, and a few others. I’d asked them, if possible, for a month of their time, figuring that is more or less the time I’d need to make the film. Improvising we moved along, editing as we went, and much to my surprise Coming to Terms was finished – shot and edited – in two and a half weeks. For those who could and wanted to stay the balance of the month we did a quick whatchawannado, and decided to make another film. I told everyone this was just for fun, and if it didn’t work out, that was fine so long as we were having fun.
Starting from scratch – no story, no prior idea or thought given to it – we cooked up the most basic of threads to follow and began to shoot. Butte happens to have a kind of half-way house for recently released Montana state prisoners, and perhaps that triggered our central thought. Hastily we got OK to use the no-longer-used, except as a tourist attraction, old jail; I knew the people in the pawn house, at the Pisser’s Palace bar in Walkerville, and some other things, and we quickly whacked out the core of a film. Towards the end we shot a sequence, intended to the the closer, in which Ryan is in bed with a girl, a kind of punky girl I’d noticed in the Silver Dollar Saloon, and asked her to be in film. In the bar she was lively and kick-ass, but on camera she was awful, and so the scene was terrible. It was shot just before everyone was leaving, and I figured, well, we tried and it was fun and that was that. I sent everyone off and put the film out of my mind, a fun adventure, some good stuff, but no film. OK with me.
I had edited as we went along, and Ryan had been able to see what we had, and after going back to LA, he pestered me a bit about finishing it, as he’d been quite good and I suppose didn’t want to see it disappear. Then he showed it to an actor friend in LA, Frank Mosley, who then also contacted me, saying how good it was and I ought to finish it, and perhaps he and Ryan could cook up some way to finish it. I don’t really recall just how or why, but I had some reason to go to LA and drove down to give a try at a wrap up for the film. Cooked up an idea, of Ryan visiting old prison buddy, and we ended up booking for one day a real cheap motel in the valley, in Eagle Rock. It was run by an Indian (India) guy, who seemed very suspicious of us, probably thinking we were shooting some porn. We got a scene done, green-screen one. I edited it in, and it seemed to make the film round-out.
I then had somewhere to go, flying, and I asked Ryan to let me park my car in front of his place in Silver Lake, saying I had no third-party insurance and he was not to drive it. He promised it would just sit there. On getting back he picked me up at airport in his girlfriend’s car, and getting close to place he said since it was complicated to get to freeway from his place he’d stay in front and guide me. When I got in car it turned over fine, but as I went to go it didn’t move. Gears. I finally got it to go in automatic forth gear, slow, no acceleration, as I thought WTF did Ryan do to my car. Then noticed the had-been-near-full tank was near empty and worried if I’d get across valley to where I would be staying. Managed. Half an hour later Ryan called and rather breathlessly asked, “you make it?” I inquired WTH he’d done with my car, and he said “nothing, never touched it.” I mentioned the gas, the no gears, and he fessed up he’d taken it down his hill to the market… This devolved into him saying I was old and didn’t remember telling him he could use my car. Later on it cost $800 to replace the tranny. Ryan was a good actor, as the 4 films he’d been in of mine testified, but he was a real bad liar. Curiously in the scene he did to finish up DeadEndz, he plays a liar getting caught at it by his buddy. After that I never spoke with him again.
Some years later, pressed by Mosley and a friend, Blake Eckard, and a few others, I returned to it, tidied it up, and “finished” it, in a world where I am sure no festival will show it, and it will simply sit, along with most of my work, in a digital limbo, drifting in “The Cloud,” to say stored in a gigantic industrial system euphemistically hidden, purposefully, in its name.
My view is it is what it is – a quickie film done for the fun of it, and rather good for that. My only regret is that it did not remain “all fun” and I was sorry to lose someone I thought of as a friend to it. Lying to me is one of the few ways to really lose me. It has happened a handful of times in my life.
Jon Jost Films 