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"Sugartown" filmmakers Kurt Voss and Allison Anders ...on fame: [350k WAV] or [1.8Mb] QuickTime ...on the drawbacks of being a filmmaker: [355k WAV] or [1.8Mb] QuickTime

September 13, 1999
Web posted at: 2:20 p.m. EDT (1820 GMT)

By Jamie Allen
CNN Interactive Senior Writer

ATLANTA (CNN) -- So you want to be a rock 'n' roll star?

Listen now to what filmmakers Allison Anders and Kurt Voss have to say, and you might change your tune. The writing-directing team's new film, "Sugar Town" (USA Films/October Films), offers an unblinking take on the Los Angeles music scene -- in what Anders and Voss picture as all its back-stabbing, drug-addicted, fame-obsessed, washed-up glory.

There's the character of Gwen (Jade Gordon), who would sacrifice life for a hit song; there's Burt (Larry Klein), the record producer who replaces morals and values with gold records; and there's former 1980s rock sensation Clive (John Taylor), who must makes amends with mistakes in his past.

"With our film, we were trying to show a group of people who have experienced degrees of fame and it's either been fleeting or they're trying to regain it," says Voss during a recent interview at CNN Center.

But more than that, the message of "Sugar Town," Voss says, follows the old John Lennon line, that life is what happens to you when you're busy doing something else.

"Rather than leaving you with a message about fame," Voss says, "the film hopefully conveys the idea that God is in the details and the meaning and value of life is in the details. The relationships and the whole fame quest that drives the movie along just sort of prove to be a shaggy dog story. And likewise in life. It's not about so much trying to achieve fame as who you meet along the way and the enduring relationships you build."

Anders, who lives in Los Angeles, says the film -- which releases September 17 -- isn't biographical, but it's culled from real experiences in both the music and film industries.

"I think there are people we've met that are capable of such things (as happen in the film) and might even have done such things," she says. "It usually tends to be more rock people than film people. But I think it could exist in either one of those places in the entertainment business."

Voss and Anders have been friends for years. They met in junior college in Los Angeles.

Ally Sheedy and Rosanna Arquette in "Sugartown"

"I was a high school dropout," Voss says, "she was a welfare mom raising two kids." In fact, before they met, Anders was a free spirit. She hitchhiked across the country as a teen, and says she had several scrapes with the law before settling down in California.

Voss and Anders connected over their love of film and decided to turn that into a career. They attended the University of California-Los Angeles film school around the same time, and eventually made their first film together. The 1987 "Border Radio," like "Sugar Town," was set in the Los Angeles music scene -- this time punk rock.

Looking back on it now, Voss and Anders can smile about their first production, which took four years to complete.

"We shot that first film $500 to $1,000 at a time," Voss says. "We would shut down and start up again several months later after we got another $1,000. And God bless our cast for sticking with us. Allison's daughter was in the film and she grew out of her wardrobe."

Anders laughs: "She was 5 when we started and 9 when we ended."

Voss jokes about how much he and Anders have grown as filmmakers since then.

"We learned a few things in the ensuing 10 years, like the basics of dramatic structure," he jokes. "A film should be properly exposed; point the mike at the person who's talking. Little tricks of the trade like that."

Since that first film, Voss and Anders have gone their separate ways. Voss has made movies like "The Horseplayer" (1990), "Baja" (1995) and "Poison Ivy: New Seduction" (1997). Anders, meanwhile, built a respected career with films like "Gas Food Lodging" (1992), "Mi vida loca" (1993) and "Grace of My Heart" (1996).

Now they've teamed up again for "Sugar Town," co-writing and co-directing the project from start to finish in just six months. Voss and Anders say they make a good filmmaking team.

"It requires that people be really tight, family tight, and that they know each other extremely well," Voss says. "So I think that's part of the reason why we're able to do it, because we're such old friends and almost sort of symbiotic in certain respects."

The film is receiving attention for some of its stars, including Taylor -- formerly of 1980s sensation Duran Duran -- and former Spandau Ballet member Martin Kemp. The filmmakers say Taylor surprised them in his feature film debut.

"John Taylor is an exquisite natural," says Anders. "It was such a shock, a delightful shock, because he's never acted before. We actually think he has a big movie-star career ahead because he's very charming and he has taste."

"We're hoping to see him as James Bond in the next decade," Voss says.

Meanwhile, as Anders writes her memoir, Anders and Voss are teaming up again for another film. The psychological thriller has them on the edge of their seat.

"I'm thrilled to find out what happens in the movie because at this point we haven't got the foggiest," Voss laughs.