“Cake Eaters” director: film is about love in the face of loss
The Daily Mail
Mar. 22, 2009

CATSKILL — Mary Stuart Masterson emerged from an opening curtain on the movie stage in Catskill’s Community Theater after the 7 p.m. showing of “The Cake Eaters” and took a dramatic curtsy in front of an applauding audience of about 300 who attended the screening and a question and answer session Saturday.

“I’m sorry I didn’t bring cake,” she joked.

Masterson explained that the tile of the movie, which was written by Jayce Bartok, who also appears as Guy in the film, referred to a regional term that distinguishes “the haves” from “the have-nots.” She said the characters in the film all wanted something they thought was out reach, but for one moment are able to have it, or, rather, get to eat their cake.

Saturday’s session was moderated by Lisa Thomas and Margo Pelletier of Thin Edge Films.

Masterson said Bartok’s script was quasi-autobiographical. His mother, she said, suffered from neuropathy and passed away shortly before he wrote the script. She said Bartok wanted to present a character going through the similar problem of losing their motor function but not a loss of their mental or emotional capacity.

The character of Georgia, played by Kristen Stewart (”Twilight”), suffers from Friedreich’s ataxia, a genetic disorder that causes progressive damage to the nervous system. Georgia, Masterson said, is at the age where children gain more freedom from their parents and just wants to lose her virginity and take control of her life before she becomes more dependent on her mother.

“To me, it has always been about love in spite of life, love in the face of loss,” she said.

Masterson said that although the movie’s themes of illness, death and return are familiar, conflicts in the story were allowed resonate rather than be pushed into violent or graphic scenes.

“That heightened violence or that gratuitous sex would have taken away from the apparent kind of stillness inside of this story,” she said.

She said that the most important task of a director is to view the film every time as if it was the first time. She likened the process to that of a staged play where every moment in every performance needed to be fresh.

She explained that the script evolved throughout the filming process, noting, for example, that scenes occurring in the Kimbrough family’s kitchen were written much later than the original draft.

Masterson said she and the producers are relying on word-of-mouth buzz and reviews to draw audiences to their low-budget film, which is scheduled to be released on DVD on Tuesday. The Community Theater will screen the film today at 2 p.m. and 7:15 p.m. and weekday evenings at 7:15 through Thursday.

Masterson and her cast and crew filmed in Catskill, Athens and Hudson three years ago.

She said the classic architecture and near gentrification she found while driving through Columbia and Greene counties scouting filming locations fit the feel of the film.

“It is in the past and in the present, both,” she said.