Craig Brewer Interview on His Neil Diamond Ode

Writer/director Craig Brewer‘s “Song Sung Blue” is an exuberant ode to chasing dreams. It’s as deliriously romantic as it is clear-eyed about the brutal tragedies and struggles its real-life heroes, Mike (Hugh Jackman) and Claire Sardina (Kate Hudson), experience. In Brewer’s hands, the true story of a husband and wife who form a Neil Diamond cover band and find salvation in music plays like a modern-day Frank Capra movie, joyous and painful in equal measures, but ultimately celebratory of its characters and generous toward the audience in its pleasures.

Brewer felt a personal connection to the Sardinas’ story from the first time he encountered it in a 2008 documentary, also titled “Song Sung Blue.” “The truth about independent films is that a lot of movies get made that are never distributed,” Brewer told IndieWire, noting that he made one of those movies before his breakout at Sundance with “Hustle & Flow” in 2005.

“I made my first film, ‘The Poor and the Hungry,’ for $20,000, and I still think it’s one of my best,” Brewer said, “but there weren’t any distributors who wanted to pick up a black and white DV movie with no stars that takes place on the streets of Memphis.”

The experience of taking “The Poor and the Hungry” around film festivals made Brewer empathetic to the many other artists doing something similar — musicians like Mike and Claire, who played in bars for peanuts, or filmmakers making the rounds of regional festivals without the muscle of big financiers or distributors behind them.

“You go to festivals everywhere that are not the biggies,” Brewer said. “They’re not Sundance. They’re not Cannes. You’re just going to anyplace that will accept your movie, and sometimes you go to these film festivals, and there are four people in the audience, and two of them are programmers who are just there because they don’t want you to feel bad. That’s happened to me so many times, so I always have a real soft spot for those kinds of films.”

Brewer’s desire to support other independent filmmakers led him to a screening of the documentary “Song Sung Blue” at the 2009 Indie Memphis Film Festival. “Being in that screening room with five people and totally being knocked on my ass, I just felt that this was a great story,” Brewer said. In keeping with the film’s outsider origins, director Greg Kohs didn’t have a distributor for “Song Sung Blue” — the only way to get a DVD was to send Kohs money so he could personally burn one from his computer.

Brewer bought one of those DVDs and began showing it to everyone he could. “For years I would show it to people and just say, if I ever get a chance, this would be a movie I’d want to make,” Brewer said. “The idea of telling that story gnawed at me for a long time.”

After Brewer finished “Dolemite is My Name,” he felt the time was right. “I began to think, OK, you’re 49 years old, the age your dad was when he dropped dead of a heart attack. Yes, you’re being offered jobs that would pay you a lot of money, but maybe you should do something that means a lot to you.”

Brewer suspected that the movie might be a difficult sell given some of the dark moments in the Sardinas’ lives, and he quickly realized he was right. “Everybody in town said no,” Brewer said. “They saw the documentary and said, ‘Everyone is going to be depressed by this.’” But Brewer saw “Song Sung Blue” as an inspirational underdog tale in the tradition of “Rocky,” and kept pushing forward until he got the green light he needed from Focus — the whole time relating to his movie’s protagonist.

“I was looking at Mike Sardina and thinking, this guy has blind ambition toward something that seems completely unattainable,” Brewer said. “The problems never stop. And yet I’m rooting for him.” Brewer’s affection for the Sardina’s informed his approach to the visual style with his department heads, as he embraced the clutter of everyday life in the production design but shot everything with warm, welcoming lighting that invites the audience into the film’s world.

“When I grew up, I’d go to my grandmother Dixie’s house, and there was this hoarder mentality,” Brewer said. “If you get a new TV, you don’t throw out the old TV — now that becomes a TV stand, and you put the new TV on top of the old TV. (Cinematographer) Amy (Vincent) and I have a love for that kind of lifestyle, and we felt something similar when we were working on ‘Hustle & Flow.’ It’s a simple shotgun house in Memphis where they’re stapling drink holders to the wall, and they’re covered in sweat, but I want everybody to want to live there because of the excitement that’s happening.”

In the case of “Song Sung Blue,” that excitement comes from the sheer idealism with which the Sardinas approach their music. “I want the audience to come with respect and awe, and to see the magic within that life,” Brewer said. “Amy and Clay Griffith, my production designer, really believe in our hearts that there’s something beautiful about those homes and the way the Sardinas lived, and if you can take the cynicism out of yourself you see it, and it’s powerful.”

Part of the Capraesque quality in Brewer’s film comes from its uniquely American story and how it taps into an earnest idealism that yields considerable emotional effects thanks to Brewer’s genuine investment in the values he’s exploring; its celebration of creating and performing for no other reason than the love of it feels deeply personal and honestly earned. “I think we’ve lost our way as a society a little bit,” Brewer said. “In terms of art, we put so much of our worth in the idea of fame and fortune as a barometer of success.”

In shooting the Sardinas belting out Neil Diamond songs in dive bars and strip-mall restaurants, Brewer wanted to capture the purity he felt early in his career, when he was a young filmmaker on the outside of the industry. “You will never beat my first premiere,” he said. “It was at a bar called The Last Place on Earth, and we had a band play beforehand, and then everybody watched my movie on a sheet we put up. That was me performing for my community in Memphis, and I felt love and comfort and encouragement.”

The greatness of “Song Sung Blue” lies in the way that Brewer recalibrates our expectations and definition of success in keeping with the feeling he experienced at his first premiere. “For some reason, we look at bands like that and say, ‘Oh, you didn’t really make it, did you?’” Brewer said. “I felt like this was a story where I could say what I believe, which is that there are a lot of amazing people and amazing stories in this world, and there’s still greatness in the American dream. We’re understandably in a place where we’ve been critical of our country, and there’s a divide, but I think we’ve lost a little bit of the memory of what we’re really about.”

For Brewer, the key was honoring Mike and Claire Sardina with a movie that celebrated their lives with the grandeur he recognized in them when he first saw Greg Kohs’ documentary. “You need to give them the respect David Lean gives the characters in ‘Lawrence of Arabia,’” Brewer said. “Those are bigger than life characters, but so is Mike Sardina, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with treating him like he’s Omar fucking Sharif.”

“Song Sung Blue” opens in theaters from Focus Features on Christmas Day.