Thursday, February 6, 1997
In the upcoming volcano disaster film ‘Dante’s Peak,’ the cast
and crew recount the difficulties they overcame in making a movie
about exploding magma and destruction.By Emily Forster
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
aking movies is hard work. The process can involve hardships of
many kinds, some even life-threatening.
Just look at the production of "Dante’s Peak," and the
danger-fraught aspects of filmmaking become clear.
"There’s nothing unique about this movie in terms of the effort
it took to make it, but it was a very, very demanding movie to
make," says "Dante’s Peak" director Roger Donaldson, whose past
hits have included "Species" and "Cocktail." "That’s why I took it
on. I knew it was going to be tough. Just the sort of sheer
exhaustion of everyday going out there and trying to come up with
images and ideas. It was a very, very dense movie to make."
The density of "Dante’s Peak" is just one of many difficulties
that Donaldson and his cast had to overcome. Gathering at a Beverly
Hills hotel, "Dante’s Peak" stars Pierce Brosnan ("Goldeneye,"
"Mrs. Doubtfire"), Linda Hamilton ("Terminator 2: Judgement Day,"
"Shadow Conspiracy") and Donaldson recount the rigors they went
through to bring the fictitious town of disaster-prone Dante’s Peak
to life.
One hardship that actors went through on "Dante’s Peak" was
working in fake ash, a necessary prop for a volcano movie. Hamilton
recalls that it was particularly uncomfortable.
"Dealing with the ash was really hard," Hamilton says. "I had to
get my eyes washed out every take. Every single take. Towards the
end it was under my nails, and my hands wouldn’t come clean for
weeks. I would just scrub and scrub and scrub."
As filming in the synthetic ash, made from finely ground
newspaper, continued, many members of the cast went from
uncomfortable to unhealthy.
"I got sinus infections, bronchitis and Elizabeth (Hoffman, of
television’s "Sisters") ended up in the hospital. She laid in the
ash all day for one scene," Hamilton says. "But when I saw the
movie and it didn’t look like there was ash in that many scenes. I
thought ‘How could it have felt so long and awful?’ But it
was."
There were other dangerous, life-threatening incidents on the
set of "Dante’s Peak." Brosnan, who also remembers that working in
ground-up newspaper was a "pain in the ash," recalls one wild scene
when he, Hamilton, Hoffman and teen-age actors Jamie Renee Smith
and Jeremy Foley raced out of a burning house. The scene went well,
but the fire was a bit too powerful.
"What you see in the movie is the one take we got," Brosnan
says. "We did it the first time, the fire went up, we ran out, and
Roger (Donaldson) yelled ‘Cut. Cut. Cut!’ but they couldn’t put the
fire out and the whole thing burned down. It was like ‘Oh, shit.
Guess we go home.’"
Other mess-ups on the set were less humorous. Brosnan remembers
the horror when 12-year-old actress Smith nearly drowned. He and
Smith, along with Hamilton, Hoffman and Foley, were doing a scene
in a boat, which was being pulled by a boat in front of them. The
boat was pulled too hard, it went under the water and all the
actors were forced to swim. Unfortunately, Smith did not know
how.
"She went under and started to drown," Brosnan recalls. "After a
second I realized I could stand up in the water and it was like
‘I’ll save you!’ But for a couple of heart beats, it was very, very
scary."
But not all of the trials and tribulations that came with
"Dante’s Peak" resulted in life-threatening incidents. In fact one
the greatest challenges faced by "Dante’s Peak" was the
soon-to-be-released motion picture "Volcano." Starring Tommy Lee
Jones, the disaster film focuses on what happens when a volcano
bursts in the middle of Los Angeles. Its prime attraction, like
"Dante’s Peak," will be the wonder of its special effects. "Dante’s
Peak’s" cast and crew are not worried about a similar film that
will be released so closely to their own because they have the
upper hand.
"There’s two ways to beat them: to try and make a better movie
and to come out first with it," Donaldson explains. "So that was
basically what we tried to do. We’d contracted Digital Domain early
on in the year to develop along some key aspects of special
effects. So we felt we had a real leg up on them and that our
planning was very complete."
Hamilton is even more confident about "Dante’s Peak" standing in
the race with "Volcano" for disaster film audiences.
"We didn’t feel the pressure," Hamilton says. "We knew that
there was this big footrace, but we did not have to sacrifice
anything. We did not cut scenes or cut days like they did. So they
were already working at a deficit."
Perhaps the cast and crew of "Dante’s Peak" are confident
because they are accustomed to the stiff competition. Certainly
Donaldson seems used to the sling and arrows that a filmmaker must
avoid when making studio pictures. He has accepted that making a
film can be like living through a disaster.
"It was the toughest picture I’ve ever done, but nobody beat us
out and we had our picture out there first," Donaldson says. "It’s
competitive in this business. There are no prizes for seconds."
Universal City Studios, Inc.
Harry Dalton (Pierce Brosnan) and Rachel Wando (Linda Hamilton)
try to escape before the volcano known as Dante’s Peak unleashes
its deadly force.Universal City Studios, Inc.
Pierce Brosnan plays volcanologist Harry Dalton in Universal
Pictures’ ‘Dante’s Peak.’Universal City Studios, Inc.
Dalton and Wando must rescue her two children, Graham (Jeremy
Foley) and Lauren (Jamie Renee Smith) from the erupting
volcano.