Watching the marvelous comedy-drama "The Kids Are All Right," you feel as if the co-writer-director, Lisa Cholodenko, had all the time and money in the world. She brings good vibrations to the growing pains of a warm, complex couple (lesbian moms, played by Annette Bening and Julianne Moore), their smart, intuitive children (Josh Hutcherson and Mia Wasikowska), and an unconventional man (Mark Ruffalo) — the couple's sperm donor — who befriends their family.
Cholodenko's film is, among other things, a great Los Angeles movie, exuding promise and possibility. But she created this echt-L.A. mini-masterpiece in the filmmaking equivalent of a New York minute — 23 days. She directed it with a confidence that compensated for an unforgiving schedule.
That's partly because New York-based, Baltimore-bred Bart Walker, a partner in Cinetic Media, creates artist-oriented working environments for his clients. Cholodenko had "final cut." She knew she'd have the last word on what went into her movie.
From his New York office, Walker explains that he and Cinetic's John Sloss, both ardent movie-lovers, use their skills "as lawyers and business people to expand artistic and financial benefits for creative people." They recognize that it's crucially important for "capital to be attracted' to the independent film business. So at Cinetic, capital and creativity serve each other. And projects receive individual attention from development to release.
Walker joined Cinetic in 2007 after 16 years as an agent for top writers and directors at ICM and CAA. It's a unique company because it offers what Walker calls a complete film-production "menu," one that clients can also order from "a la carte."
Cholodenko's film exemplifies the soup-to-nuts approach. Walker became her talent agent a dozen years ago, after seeing her first film, "High Art," at Sundance. Her latest took five years to set up. During that time, "Lisa got pregnant and had her son, so she put it down for a while."
When she decided to work again, Walker "went to everybody who would finance films. It was not easy." Companies in Paris, L.A. and New York ended up as his principal sources of finance. Why was the process so difficult? "There were questions about whether it would be accessible to a mainstream audience. I always believed that it would."
Walker acquired his taste and sense of audience while growing up in Mount Washington and attending the Park School. In the early 1970s, he and two school chums, Paul Genecin (now director of the Yale Health Care System) and Leslie Ries (now a Baltimore-based attorney), would descend on midtown art houses to see films by "Bunuel, Truffaut, Bergman, Fellini — and Andy Warhol." Ries says, via e-mail, "We felt about as hip and independent as three kids from private school could be."
From watching Bergman, Fellini and Warhol, Walker has gone to working with contemporary artists like Cholodenko, Julian Schnabel ("The Diving Bell and the Butterfly") and Lee Daniels ("Precious"). "There's no evolution," he says jokingly. "I got stuck at 17."
Walker says, "Our company is about expanding the freedom of the filmmaker. Sometimes that can lead to a very personal film that does not connect with an audience." But with "Kids," "Lisa was committed to making her vision authentic and to sharing it with a large audience. She had the freedom that allowed her to do that."