25 years after its initial release, Kurt Vonnegut’s biting portrayal of America’s mad chaos, BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS returns in a restored 4K version. Directed by Alan Rudolph, and starring Bruce Willis, Albert Finney, Nick Nolte, Glenne Headly, Barbara Hershey, Omar Epps, Luka Haas and many more.
We spoke with Rudolph about the comedy now that it is being re-released for its 25th Anniversary, and you can find the exchange below:
Rise up Daily (RUD): Obviously, Kurt Vonnegut was well aware of your adaptation as he also makes a cameo in the film. But how did you manage to get a Kurt Vonnegut adaptation greenlit and then funded enough to bring the film to the finish line?
Alan Rudolph (AR): Only took fifty years. (Producer) Robert Altman was brought the book by someone right after we finished Nashville. None of the writers he tried could crack it and he needed a screenplay. Even then it was labeled “unfilmable.” He asked me to try. His marching orders were, “Don’t follow the book.” We discussed a few things then off I went. He liked the result and started discussing casting. I met Kurt for the first time in New York then. The project was put aside for “Buffalo Bill and The Indians,” which I also adapted. After Bob moved on and I started directing, for a few years when I could afford it, I optioned the book rights.
Twenty-five years after writing the script, I received a call from Bruce Willis. We’d worked on Mortal Thoughts with Demi Moore in 1991, and he loved that performance and the non-studio experience of making it. He had optioned Vonnegut’s book and read my screenplay. Both made him laugh a lot and he wanted to make a comedy. Would I, could I, figure out how to do this for a low-ish budget like we did on Mortal Thoughts? He promised me no interference. A few months later, we were shooting.
Maybe the true question isn’t really how, but why? My answer probably defines the thrill and drive of film making for me and many others: I couldn’t let it go. Here we are five decades later to see if it’s still radioactive or perhaps prescient.
RUD: Nick Nolte and Albert Finney were already globally recognized names in Hollywood by the time you began production, so how did you get them to sign onto a film with this zany subject matter?
AR: Zany? Hmm. They and everyone else approached this no differently than something starkly dramatic. Artists dive in all the way. Not a lot of opportunities to do that in Hollywood. They knew this was wildly humorous and deadly serious simultaneously, a caustic look at an increasingly absurd, chaotic, insane world.
I’d worked with Nick on Afterglow just before Breakfast and we really enjoyed it and wanted to keep going. To play Kilgore Trout, casting Director Pam Dixon and I went after one of the world’s great actors. By then, if you couldn’t meet his usual price, Albert Finney turned down projects without reading. Fortunately, he didn’t with us. In fact, every cast member was our first choice.
RUD: Breakfast of Champions came out in 1999 and there are quite a number of surreal visual effects in the film. How did you accomplish creating those with computer software and rendering still in its infancy stages? Do you have any anecdotes about crafting the vfx on this film?
AR: The ideas behind each effect were fairly basic and kept simple. I got them from the book, either by description or inspiration. Kurt’s use of his drawings in the novel at key moments was something I ran with. Janet Muswell was our visual effects supervisor, and we wanted to use real commercials but only a few companies agreed. So we made most of our own.
RUD: The original big screen critical response was not favorable. Do you think audiences were not ready for a surreal and biting look at modern American life? Or something else perhaps? Are they ready now?
AR: Not favorable would be a compliment compared to the actual critical reaction at the time. They leveled both barrels point blank. They and audiences might feel differently looking at it through today’s chaotic prism, where absurdity and chaos reign. But the film hasn’t changed one frame. Funny how that works.
The main thing Altman and Vonnegut both originally impressed upon me separately, and Kurt re-emphasized before we shot in ’98, was that a film and a novel are two distinct experiences and did not have to be similar. They both said, “Don’t follow the book.” Because Vonnegut himself is a character in his book, to do that justice would in my mind require a biographical element. Not something I, Bob, nor Kurt were interested in. I wanted to follow the main characters in the story.
When written, the book questioned many things at its time – society, values, politics, sanity among them. I decided to do that with our time, late nineties, with these characters. Advertising to me seemed to be the poison tip of the spear. Our film today might fit right in with your evening newz. Perhaps it’s more cogent, makes more sense. Our main character even has ridiculous hair.
