Write what you know. That’s the often-dispensed advice of screenwriting gurus—a mantra that’s largely dismissed by the more experienced (and generally more successful) moviemaking public—but a statement that journalists and critics still latch on to as an analytical crutch, concluding that the thoughts and attitudes of a film’s main characters must closely reflect the thoughts and attitudes of the film’s makers. For identical twins Mark and Michael Polish, creators of the unexpectedly moving Twin Falls Idaho (1999), the question of how they related to the conjoined protagonists at the center of their film went far beyond the psychological. “I realized we did a good job when we started to do press for Twin Falls Idaho and began to notice that love seats were provided during interviews—the journalists were expecting to interview conjoined ‘Siamese’ twins,” says Michael, who directed the film. It doesn’t take long to realize that not only are Mark and Michael of separate body—but completely distinct personality and talent as well. While their latest film, Jackpot , an exploration of the road to fame and fortune through the eyes of disillusioned karaoke songster Sunny Holiday, shows relatively little physical trace of the moviemakers themselves (Mark does have a cameo), it has the Polish brothers’ style written all over it.

Jackpot marks the brothers’ sophomore foray into feature films. Like Twin Falls, Jackpot examines the relationship between two men—soap salesman turned wannabe country singer Sunny Holiday (Jon Gries) and his manager Lester Irving (Garrett Morris)—who begin to feel the strain of their own dependencies. Departing on a nine-month tour of some of middle America’s finest karaoke establishments, Sunny and Les are propelled by dreams of celebrity, with George Jones’ Grand Tour leading the way. A sort of new millennium Midnight Cowboy, the film celebrates the romantic notion of struggling to achieve a dream—and the worldly realism of failing to do just that.

According to Michael, “what really inspired us was an appreciation for country-western music, especially some of the old-time stuff. We wondered what would happen if people who didn’t have a venue to sing decided to do karaoke as they tried to become stars. What happens when he starts taking it too seriously?” For Sunny, talent lies in the art of imitation. The audiences who come to see him are not there for Sunny Holiday, they’re there for whichever artist he is covering. As Les tells him, “You’re not in the shower anymore. You have an audience that is here to listen to you sing ‘Escape’ like Rupert Holmes does. They do not need to hear your version. These folks come in here, have a drink, shoot the shit and if they close their eyes, they’re in the third row of a Rupert Holmes concert.”
Born in the Mexican border town of El Centro, California and raised in Northern California, the brothers have always displayed a flair for the artistic. “I poured paint into an electric pencil sharpener when I was in high school and began painting,” declares Michael. “In some ways, that translates into filmmaking… others might say I was a lazy Jackson Pollock.” Though unorthodox in his methods, Michael was accepted into the fine arts program at CalArts, where he earned a BFA in visual communication. Because he was too young to enter the film program, Mark opted to forgo college and continue his pursuit of an acting career.

Jon Gries stars as Sunny Holiday with Daryl Hannah as Bobbi in the Polish Brothers’ Jackpot.

Though Michael’s art school education may have helped the brothers tell their stories in a visually compelling way (the lighting and composition of Twin Falls Idaho intentionally mimics the work of Vermeer and Hopper), it brought them no closer to their dream of making movies. While they knew they could tell a story (and envision what the final product should look like), they lacked the technical know-how to make it happen. Picking up an Arriflex camera and a roll of black and white 16mm film, “Mark and I decided to collaborate, just on small things, just to see how we’d cut everything with a beginning, middle and an end.”
Those initial collaborations eventually led to Bajo del Perro (Under the Dog), a short film about Mexican boxing which played at film festivals around the country and won several awards, including Honorable Mention from the Director’s Guild of America and the Young Filmmakers Award at The Walt Disney Company. Between 1994 and 1996, Mark and Michael penned a trilogy of screenplays, starting with Northfork (the project they’re currently working on), followed by Twin Falls Idaho and completed with Jackpot .

Of their own road to success, “there is an epic version that starts with the time I was walking my dog and met Jon Gries,” says Mark. Impressed with the script for Northfork, Gries (Get Shorty) convinced Rena Ronson, who at the time was Senior VP of International Sales for Trans Atlantic Entertainment, to meet with them.

“I was immediately struck by them, their energy and all of those things you get when you connect with people. Their enthusiasm was monumental, and clearly addictive,” remembers Ronson of their initial introduction. Though they originally pitched her the idea of Northfork, it was the “concept of conjoined twins, and what it meant to be separate from a loved one or partner in life,” that intrigued her. “It was original, dark, odd and carried a uniqueness that I had never before seen on film—a lot of the wonderful ingredients that make movies like this nearly impossible to get financed!”

Though a universal story of love and separation, because of the film’s offbeat protagonists—and the fact that investing in Twin Falls meant investing in two unknown moviemakers—finding one ‘angel’ was the key to getting Twin Falls Idaho financed. But true to their artistic nature, Mark and Michael look at the investment from a more straightforward point of view: “We found someone who was willing to risk losing $500,000,” states Michael.

In 1999, the quietly compelling story of Blake and Francis Falls—conjoined twins who decide to reenter a perversely curious society to find the mother who abandoned them—premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Though it had been a long road to completion, all the struggles seemed to pay off when Sony Pictures Classics “offered us a deal that made us happy as filmmakers: they didn’t want to touch the negative. They bought Twin Falls as is, flaws and all,” says Mark. When it came time to look for a home for Jackpot , “we knew that Sony was the first place we wanted to go,” he continues. “Luckily, they enjoyed the piece and our relationship continues.”

Though they are currently in pre-production on the last of their trilogy films, Northfork, a 1950s-set story about a dam being built in Montana and the repercussions of what happens when they decide to flood the valley, Mark and Michael recently completed a several week acting stint on Neil Jordan’s upcoming Double Down—an English-language remake of Jean-Pierre Melville’s French New Wave classic Bob le Flambeur. Jordan offered them the role after seeing Twin Falls Idaho. “When you add up what was involved—working with Neil Jordan and Nick Nolte, a great script, plus the South of France—I had to make Mike reconsider his retirement from acting.”

In a series of conversations from Nice, France, where they were shooting Double Down, as well as their home base of Los Angeles, Mark and Michael Polish spoke with MM about their own road to success. Armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of popular culture (which is clearly evidenced in Jackpot ), both brothers can speak at length—with authority and humor—on just about any subject. But when the topic comes back to moviemaking, they’re always serious. Here, they discuss their early struggles, the art of imitation and where their 30-year collaboration will take them next.

Jennifer Wood (MM): Both Twin Falls Idaho and Jackpot are part of a trilogy, with Northfork as the third installment. What’s the connection between these three stories?

Michael Polish (MIP): Theme-wise, they have to do with people’s relationships to each other. There are two guys in Twin Falls and two guys in Jackpot who are trying to figure out their identity within each other.

Mark Polish (MAP): Both are a quest for identity and individuality. When Northfork is completed, I think there will be a clearer link to all three of the stories.

MM: Is that quest for identity and individuality a theme in your own relationship?

MAP: We know each other so well—I know his strengths as well as his weaknesses—so it’s very much like a puzzle. We each have certain pieces that complement each other. It’s always a good game of tennis with us, hitting ideas back and forth, always forcing one another to get better. I don’t think we need to assert our individuality. We respect each other’s talent and that’s where we succeed.

MM: Twin Falls Idaho, Jackpot and Northfork are all named after North American towns. In Twin Falls, the title comments on the characters and the places. What does Jackpot signify?

MIP: It’s more a state of mind, since we don’t actually make it to Jackpot [in the film].

MAP: Jackpot is a small gambling town, where people from Twin Falls and Salt Lake City come to bet their paychecks. That’s what Sunny Holiday is doing. He’s betting everything he has on becoming a country singer. Everyone has some kind of Jackpot in their life—somewhere they’re driving to. It may not be fame or fortune, but it’s always a better place than where they’re at.

MM: Of the three screenplays, why choose Twin Falls as the first to make? Because of its originality, I assume it wasn’t an easy sell?

MIP: Any first-time filmmaker is going to have a difficult time financing their first feature. You have to be willing to go the distance for your vision. Your struggle gets filed away next to the last person’s struggle. What makes it different is the story you want to tell.

MAP: Although TFI was perceived as non-mainstream, it had a marketing hook: no one had seen a movie about Siamese twins. So there was intrigue due to the originality of the story. But as we found out, the more original the less the budget was going to be. You can always tell the faith in the movie by the size of its budget, and we were quite low on that scale.

MM: Your films display a meticulous attention to detail, from color and lighting to music and title fonts. Each scene is so precisely rendered—especially for a low-budget independent.

MIP: We rely heavily on the visual to tell our stories and less on the spoken word—we’d rather show you than tell you. The picture is the magic and we try to heighten certain parts of the story with special attention to detail. We render the image to a form that conveys the most information. How much do you show and is it interesting enough to use as a tool for storytelling? This is the question that decides what details are going to exist on screen.

MM: Do you ever leave a scene open for on-the-set interpretation? Do you allow for any improvisation?

MIP: I would have probably been more into on-set interpretation if we didn’t shoot Jackpot in 15 days. You need time to explore, and that is exactly what we don’t have.

MM: Though you’re working in a visual medium, you seem to employ various literary elements, like symbolism, imagery and metaphor.

MAP: Many of the movies I watched and learned from, like Excalibur and The Natural, used a lot of symbolism. And books like Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea influenced me with its use of symbolism. They made me look deeper into the stories and I began to respond to the subtext. I don’t necessarily begin a story using symbols or metaphors, they just seem to reveal themselves as I dig deeper into the truth of a subject.

MIP: I worked the late shift at a cardboard factory that made cut-out carrying cases for beer and wine coolers. Terri, the girl who ran the forklift, used to tear off pieces of the boxes and munch on them as she worked. Could I ever write something that good? That’s the struggle, making sure you pay attention to the box munchers of the world.

MM: Being truthful is very important to you. You did heavy research on conjoined twins to write Twin Falls in an honest way. And in Jackpot , you don’t rely on a happy ending.

MIP: The truth encompasses humor and tragedy better than any liberty I could take. My chalkboard quote is: artistic freedom is knowing your limitations.
The metaphor of building a house seems to fit nicely when describing moviemaking. The blueprint has to translate into something people want to live in. So far, our homes have lacked the necessary light to attract the suburban customer. We are working on a floorplan that would satisfy this type of customer and yet still please us.

MM: Where did the inspiration for Jackpot come from?

MAP: I was interested in exploring the road to fame. Everyone’s path is different, but there is the common goal of fame and fortune and overall recognition of your talent. Everyone has a dream, no matter how silly it may seem. A person should be allowed to go after it.

MIP: Fame, fortune and fucking. Tie these things together, and you’ve got yourself a Sunny Holiday.

MM: Are the struggles that Sunny deals with something you can relate to in your own career?

MAP: Our struggles were worthy of any artist—literally starving to feed the dream—but they still wouldn’t make the cut for an E! True Hollywood Story. I have yet to hit the coke and hookers phase of my life.

MM: Jackpot has a nonlinear editorial style, jumping back and forth in time. Is this another way you’re able to heighten the story through imagery?

MAP: The editing of Jackpot was to enhance the feeling one gets while listening to a favorite song. A song’s natural repetitiveness allows you to replay memories, like a chorus or a bridge in a song. You become comfortable with the structure and start to enjoy the melody.

MM: Jackpot is the first feature to showcase Sony’s new 24p HD camera. How did you come to decision to employ an untested format?

MIP: We knew that we wanted a grittier feel to Jackpot . Mark knew a DP who was testing the 24p camera—one of the first ones in the LA area. That camera was going to be used for Roswell, but they decided not to go 24p, so we had the opportunity to take it off their hands.

From there we kind of jumped off the deep end because nobody knew anything about the camera—and nobody knew what it would take to take it through post.

MAP: We felt, conceptually, it commented on our story. The 24p strives so hard to look like film, but it’s only imitating it—much like karaoke will never be anything but imitation. audience will not be able to detect that it’s digital video.

MIP: Videotape is the benefit when shooting digital. You’re able to burn plenty of tape and not see the dollar signs in the smoke. Artistically, we were able to achieve a hyper-realistic look using high definition. This look commented on the popular.

MM: From both a technical and an artistic standpoint, what are some of the benefits and limitations of 24p?

MAP: Both the benefits and limitations are up to you as a moviemaker. It’s so close to imitating film that the majority of the culture we wrote about. The new 24p format strives to be film-like, and the characters in Jackpot can relate to that effort of imitation.

Being able to shoot in 2:35 with a flick of button allows independent filmmakers the chance to experience widescreen without the expense. The notion of saving money going digital may work when you’re using a consumer DV camera—or even a prosumer camera—but the high definition camera is expensive and there is still a major cost in the transfer to film.

MM: Twin Falls was shot in 17 days on a $500,000 budget; Jackpot was made in 15 days on a $400,000 budget. How do the low budgets and quick shoots affect the outcome of your films?

MAP: So much so that I think we may only do one more film like this. I really don’t think I could make a career of short shoots and low budgets without being admitted to a padded room. But if that is the only way to make our films, then I have no choice.

MIP: Money buys time, it’s that simple. On Jackpot , there was never a day when we shot under five pages. Everyone has got to be “on” and that’s where the creating suffers. There’s no time to discuss any possibilities if the set-up is not working. Time constraints seem to bring out the best and worst in people, and knowing those limitations makes us more creative in the end.

MM: After Twin Falls Idaho, you were offered studio projects that you didn’t take. Are you against making a film within the Hollywood system?

MAP: It came down to being comfortable with the material. I didn’t connect with the screenplays. I’m not really opposed to making a “Hollywood” movie; it’s just a different process. You’ve got a hell of a lot of chefs, and they’re cooking for a lot of different tastes.

MIP: It was the wrong material, but the right money. Once I get over these self-indulgent films, I may want to make a living. MM