BEE-ING THE NAUMANNS: ABOUT THE CAST AND CHARACTERS (2)
A central theme for Miriam becomes the kaleidoscope from her childhood that she brings to Eliza - and it was one that especially moved Binoche. "The kaleidoscope is so important to Miriam because it is a device that gathers shards together and no matter how you move them, they stay together," she explains. "When Miriam gives the kaleidoscope to Eliza after the spelling bee I think her feeling is that she wants to share this very important and precious secret of how to survive."
As a European, Binoche had never encountered a spelling bee before and was surprised to learn how intense and serious they can be for the youngsters competing in them. "All that concentration and focus with such little kids!" she remarks. "It was quite amazing. But that's part of what I loved about doing this film - it led me to so many totally new encounters."
Binoche even consulted several psychiatrists to probe further into the reasons for Miriam's seemingly inexplicable behavior. "The doctors explained to me that someone like Miriam really isn't interested in committing crimes, and wouldn't even see what she is doing as criminal. For her, it is a kind of poetry, although the doctors would call her an obsessive-compulsive. For me, she isn't really crazy," says the actress. "She might do some crazy things, but she is just looking for a way to fulfillment and happiness, the same as everyone else. The things she does are scary, but I think things just like it happen to people all the time in real life."
For the filmmakers, Binoche brought just the right sensibility to capture Miriam's mix of light and dark. Says Albert Berger: "Miriam definitely has a dangerous side to her but we also thought it was critical that you really see how deeply and sincerely she loves her children and husband. Juliette brought so much humanity to the character that I think it helps you to understand what she's going through."
Meanwhile, for the role of Eliza Naumann, the filmmakers embarked on a nationwide search - hoping to find that rare, precocious pre-teen actress who might be capable of taking on the enormous complexities and intelligence of the character. Although the casting team filed through mountains of resumes and pictures, eleven year-old Flora Cross -- with her luminous face and quiet intensity -- emerged within the first month of the search. "At the time, we didn't know who we were casting for the role of Miriam, but we joked 'that little girl would be perfect if we cast Juliette Binoche,'" recalls Scott McGehee. "So we didn't cast Flora right away, but the more serious we got about Juliette joining the cast, the more we thought of her. At first it was just the resemblance to Juliette that we found so remarkable, but as we saw Flora at work, we soon fell in love with her as a remarkable young actress."
BEE SEASON marks Flora Cross' acting debut, though she hails from a theatrical family, following in the footsteps of her actor brothers, Harley Cross and Eli Marienthal. Born in France, Flora has lived in Paris, Panama, Haiti, Jerusalem, New York City and Argentina, giving her a worldliness and maturity beyond her years. Notes David Siegel: "Since Flora really hadn't had any experience on a film set, all the actors rallied around her and became a family of support for her. It was easy to nurture her, though, because she was so determined to do her best."
Flora was won over by her character. "I think there's really two people inside of Eliza, but one of them is really, really courageous," she says. "Sometimes she's scared to say anything or do what she knows is right but other times she's willing to give up everything for her family, which is really brave." Despite the very grown-up nature of the role, which includes scenes of potent mystical experiences, Flora was undeterred. "It was never that difficult because I had faith in myself and I know if I have faith in myself, I can do most anything," she says.
The only thing that really intimidated Flora was the prospect of having to become a champion speller - but she quickly developed her own linguistic prowess. "In the beginning, I couldn't spell 'puppy,'" she notes, "but now I can spell 'pharmacopeia!'"
Working closely with Flora Cross throughout was another young actor who comes to the fore as her on-screen brother Aaron: Max Minghella, who also takes the lead in this season's ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL. Though he grew up in England, Max auditioned for the film using an American accent - and the filmmakers then asked him to use that same accent 24-7 throughout production just to really nail a specifically American personality.
"Max is a naturally gifted mimic," says David Siegel. "We never had to use a dialect coach because he was spot-on right from the beginning. And outside of his accent, his performance is remarkable. I think he shows himself to be a very talented and unique screen presence and someone we'll be seeing a lot more of."
Minghella found that the script really stood out from others he had read. "I was just so fascinated by the paths the different characters in the story take," he says. "And I think it explores something about family relationships that you rarely see in films, which is that thing where kids become completely besotted by their father, where they have this intense, platonic admiration and just yearn for his affection and when they can't get it, things get very cold. It's about that - and it's about a lot of other things like love and spiritual enlightenment and other things that just aren't brought up enough in any of today's art media."
It is Max's character Aaron who suffers a dramatic loss of attention when Eliza, out of the blue, demonstrates a genius that sparks her father's imagination. "What's so hard for Aaron is that he was always the gifted child of the family. And then suddenly, Eliza's brilliance takes over and leaves him very lost," he explains. "I do think he wants to be supportive of Eliza but he's also facing up to seeing some truths about his father for the first time, seeing his selfishness and narcissism, which is a huge thing."
Turning away from the family, Max takes refuge in the least expected of places - with his new Hare Krishna girlfriend, Chali. To learn more about the Hare Krishna temple and its appeal, Max visited a local chapter. "I spoke to some of the members, saw a service and talked to some experts who helped to explain what the devotees do, how they act and what kind of things they go through. I had known very little about it, so it was actually really fascinating and they treated us very well," he recalls.
For inspiration in taking on the roiling emotions that Aaron faces between his spiritual and familial confusion, Minghella looked no further than his co-stars. "It was just incredible to be working with Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche," he says. "It's great to work with people who are not doing it for vanity reasons but are there entirely because they love to do it. They are so dedicated, serious and present, just watching them work was hugely influential for me and I felt really lucky."
Minghella also greatly enjoyed working with Kate Bosworth. Bosworth, who received international attention as the lead in the hit surfing movie BLUE CRUSH and went on to star most recently with Kevin Spacey as Sandra Dee in BEYOND THE SEA, had come to the attention of Siegel and McGehee, who were drawn to her at first because her face was the spitting image of a fresh-faced young woman they had seen in a Hare Krishna brochure. "Kate has that incredible glow about her," points out McGehee, "and you really feel that there is something spiritual emanating from her. She's the kind of person you look at and wonder: what is that thing that's making her feel so happy and connected."
Adds Siegel: "At the same time, I think what also attracted us so strongly to Kate is that there's also something very vulnerable about her. I mean she's definitely a very beautiful young woman, but there's also something very human and fragile inside her that we felt captures what it is that Aaron becomes attracted to."
Bosworth's attraction to the screenplay was equally enthusiastic. "I felt like I'd never read anything like it before," she says. "It's filled with these really rich, fascinating characters who are each on a search, so the subject matter dives really deep into spiritual fulfillment and family relationships. I was completely captivated by it."
Like Max Minghella, Bosworth spent time hanging out at the Hare Krishna temple in Berkeley to better understand the religious sect and her character's total devotion to it. "They were really generous and open with me at the temple," she says. "Because I really didn't know anything about what they believed in and they really took the time to explain everything in a way that made sense, and that helped me a lot to understand Chali."
She continues: "For me, it was all part of coming to see what the story of BEE SEASON is really about - which is that we all have our different ways of searching for meaning, for God, for love, for whatever it is you want to call it. That hunger is something that so many people have, I think it's really a great subject for a movie."

BEE IS FOR BEAUTY: CREATING A VISUAL KALEIDOSCOPE
"Elly, when you're trying to spell a word, what happens when you close your eyes?"
-- Miriam, BEE SEASON

To bring the world of BEE SEASON to life on the screen, Scott McGehee and David Siegel knew they would have to find unique visual methods of communicating the thoughts and emotions held captive inside the minds, hearts and experiences of the Naumann family.
Siegel and McGehee reunited with several of the same artists who helped them to create the visually captivating, anxiety-producing style that had won over critics and audiences in THE DEEP END, including cinematographer Giles Nuttgens; production designer Kelly McGehee (who is also Scott's sister), editor Lauren Zuckerman and composer Peter Nashel.
The directors spent months prior to filming just talking with Giles Nuttgens about the look of the film, knowing that Nuttgens' trademark talents for manipulating subtle layers of light and shadow would be key to bringing visual excitement to the film. Through Nuttgen's imagery of kaleidoscopes, shards of glass and permutated letters, the Naumann world emerges as an extraordinary mosaic, delicately balancing on the edge of everyday suburban reality and mystical surrealism.
"It was wonderful to be able to work with Giles Nuttgens again," says Scott McGehee. "He is a remarkably creative person. And we trust him. He's able to communicate visually so beautifully. On such a high level."
BEE SEASON, filmed mostly on location in Northern California's Berkeley, Oakland, Alameda and Piedmont areas, was a return home for both directors who had spent time at university there. "We finally realized we couldn't shoot the film in Pennsylvania (where the novel takes place) in the dead of winter because it was going to present far too many difficulties, so we thought of the Bay Area, because we knew it so well," explains McGehee "The background of hills and bridges gave us what we were looking for - a kind of three-dimensional, very sculptural feeling to the environment -- and the Berkeley area gave us the kind of college-town academic feeling as well. We didn't want it to be a typical San Francisco film, so the emphasis is on outlying areas and the eye of the camera is always moving towards the hills, and the interior, rather than the bay."
The production took advantage of the UC Berkeley Campus - where Saul Naumann lectures on the concept of repairing the world in LeConte Hall, and Saul and Eliza study together in the campus' Doe Library. David Siegel even arranged for Richard Gere to sit in on lectures given by his former philosophy professor John Searle and later cast Searle in a bit part. Ultimately, Richard Gere's passionate teaching sessions were filmed in the same classrooms where Siegel had taken his first-semester course with Searle. "There was a great synchronicity about it," says Siegel. "It felt like a kind of complete circle in my life."
In addition to UC Berkeley, the filmmakers traversed the East Bay, also shooting at Oakland's bucolic Lake Merritt and around the historical Ascension Greek Orthodox Church in the Oakland hills. Piedmont High School housed the Greater Sacramento Delta Regional Spelling Bee. Then, for the scenes in the Hare Krishna temple where Aaron falls in love with Chali, the filmmakers invited some 40 Hare Krishna devotees from around the state of California to create an authentic "kirtan" - or chanting ceremony - on an Oakland-based set.
But when it came to creating the Naumann's very cloistered and private domestic family world, production designer Kelly McGehee chose to build the Naumann's book-lined, music-filled house pretty much from scratch, designing every room in order to leave special camera conduits for Giles Nuttgens to shoot with the versatility on which he thrives. "Kelly designed really useful pass-throughs from room to room that allowed for the complex lighting and camera work that set the tone for the film," observes producer Albert Berger. "Those interior scenes take on a distinctive intensity that works to build the story."
Also central to the film's design was creating the chain of spelling bees that Eliza enters - each one more competitive and tense than the last. For these sequences, the filmmakers had to recruit some 700 school-aged children to serve as spellers, audience members and extras.
"Because each group of kids had to be different for each bee, we needed lots and lots and lots of children. And, of course, we did have some trepidation about working with so many kids," Siegel admits, "but we had a blast with them. Each of the kids had his or her own little quirks and idiosyncrasies that really brought something enjoyable to this very emotional story."
But even as the production journeyed around Northern California, the film's directors remained most concerned with journeying inwards. In some of the film's most riveting visual sequences, the camera seems to journey into Eliza's thought processes as she sees letters spinning into words - or, more precisely, the essence of words - around her. "Our hope is that the audience will be really surprised by what they're witnessing in these scenes," says McGehee. "It evokes one of the big questions that the film asks: where do gifts like the one Eliza has come from? Is it where her imagination is taking her or is there something transcendent she is tapping into?"
On the set, Siegel and McGehee shared creative duties in their usual way - placing performance and visual creativity at the forefront. "It's a very unusual thing to work with two directors, but these guys really have a way of making it seamless," says producer Albert Berger. "David is usually right in the middle of the action, working with the actors and the cameras, while Scott tends to stand back a bit, taking in the big picture - and then they have a great way of sharing what they each see from their own perspective. What's amazing is that despite being completely individual on the set, when it comes to the footage, they truly speak with one, clear voice."
In the case of BEE SEASON, that voice was most focused on creating a very strong emotional experience. "I hope that what people take away from BEE SEASON is the idea that when people really reach out for one another, they eventually find a way to connect. When you strip everything else away - the spelling, the academics, the personal troubles - the love in this family is what you're left with and the feeling that they ultimately find each other again," voices Siegel.
"I agree with David completely," Scott McGehee concludes, "and I'm sure that people will also leave the theatre having learned to spell a really unusual word or two."

DIRECTORS
In 2001, Scott McGehee and David Siegel turned Elisabeth Sanxay Holding's 1947 novel
The Blank Wall into the mesmerizing contemporary suspense thriller THE DEEP END, their second feature together. The film won numerous critics awards and was nominated for a Golden Globe (for lead actress Tilda Swinton), the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, the Grand Special Prize at the Deauville Film Festival and two Independent Spirit Awards.
Siegel and McGehee began making short films together in San Francisco just out of graduate school, then embarked on their first feature, the critically acclaimed thriller SUTURE. After premiering at the Telluride Film Festival, SUTURE went on to Toronto, Sundance, and Cannes before its domestic release by the Samuel Goldwyn Company in 1994. The film won accolades for its smart, savvy exploration of identity and memory through the story of an amnesiac accused of murder.
David Siegel received a BA in Architecture at UC Berkeley before pursuing an MFA in Photography and Painting at the Rhode Island School of Design. Scott McGehee received a BA in English from Columbia University, then went on to graduate studies in Film Theory and Japanese Film History at UC Berkeley. Both Siegel and McGehee have recently relocated to New York.

SCREENWRITER
Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and received the PEN West Screenplay Award and the Golden Globe Award, for her screenplay RUNNING ON EMPTY. She also wrote and produced A DANGEROUS WOMAN, starring Debra Winger, Barbara Hershey and Gabriel Byrne and LOSING ISAIAH with Jessica Lange and Halle Berry. Gyllenhaal recently completed GRACE, a biography of Grace Metalious, the author of Peyton Place, for Sandra Bullock and Fox 2000 and is at work on a film about Victoria Woodhull.
Gyllenhaal was involved with the development of Sesame Street and The Electric Company at the Children's Television Workshop and has an ongoing interest in progressive politics. She is actively involved with the Sundance Institute's Writer's Laboratory, has served on the Board of Directors of the Writers Guild of America, West and is currently a member of the WGA Screen Council. Her children Maggie and Jake are actors and her husband, Stephen Gyllenhaal, is a director.
Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and received the PEN West Screenplay Award and the Golden Globe Award, for her screenplay RUNNING ON EMPTY. She also wrote and produced A DANGEROUS WOMAN, starring Debra Winger, Barbara Hershey and Gabriel Byrne and LOSING ISAIAH with Jessica Lange and Halle Berry. Gyllenhaal recently completed GRACE, a biography of Grace Metalious, the author of Peyton Place, for Sandra Bullock and Fox 2000 and is at work on a film about Victoria Woodhull.
Gyllenhaal was involved with the development of Sesame Street and The Electric Company at the Children's Television Workshop and has an ongoing interest in progressive politics. She is actively involved with the Sundance Institute's Writer's Laboratory, has served on the Board of Directors of the Writers Guild of America, West and is currently a member of the WGA Screen Council. Her children Maggie and Jake are actors and her husband, Stephen Gyllenhaal, is a director.