Want to Subscribe?
Sign In or Sign Up now!

Like Peter Jackson, one of Patrick Beacham's fondest memories is of seeing King Kong when he was very young. Indeed, he even fantasized - at age 10 or 11 - about creating a Hollywood theme park where he would reconstruct the massive wall from the movie. And likewise, the huge set from D.W. Griffith's Intolerance. Also, like Peter Jackson, he often thought about remaking King Kong, but in a radical departure from Jackson, would have preserved Max Steiner's original score - among other things. Alas, this was not to be, but after spending many years as a writer - both of fiction and non-fiction (the latter for Microsoft, writing about Windows Server - material which no doubt contained its own fictional elements), he finally realized his long-cherished dream of writing and directing his own movie. The result is The Audience Strikes Back, low on budget but big on ideas.

As a graduate of UCLA with a degree in political science, Beacham has never lost his interest in contemporary social and political issues, and with its focus on abortion, gay marriage, the war in Iraq, Christian fundamentalism, ecology, and that other great cultural phenomenon of our times, Star Wars, The Audience Strikes Back represents Beacham's fresh and original statement on all these things. Or so he hopes.

I believe it was Samuel Goldwyn who said, "If you want to send a message, use Western Union," but Beacham has always been a fan of the so-called message picture, including Fritz Lang's Fury, John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath, Frank Capra's Meet John Doe, and of course, Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men, the little gem to which The Audience Strikes Back owes its greatest debt. Does Beacham have the hubris to compare his movie to Sidney Lumet's? Not really, but then again, why not? Perhaps hubris is at the core of any great undertaking - or even of very small ones, like the making of an independent film on a shoe-string budget by a director who has never before directed but who certainly hopes to direct again.