James Toback Hints At New Directorial Effort That Will Blur Fiction And Reality

It's been a while since writer/director James Toback last brought a new film to the silver screen. While the filmmaker could never be described as prolific - in 34 years he's only made 10 films - but his last, the documentary Tyson, came out all the way back in 2008. While he did write the script for the upcoming Barry Levinson movie Gotti: In the Shadow of My Father (which may or may not ever get made), the mystery continues concerning what his next directorial effort will be. Now new quotes have surfaced over at Vulture, and while he doesn't explicitly say what his next project will be about, at least he's actually thinking about doing another one.

The site caught up with Toback at a luncheon to celebrate Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist and revealed that he is planning to shoot a new film in Cannes this summer, but his description of what it will be about borders on the metaphysical. "It involves rethinking what the self is," Toback said. "If I say, 'I'm James Toback,' what does that mean? I could just as easily be walking over there and saying, 'I'm Harold Lerner.' I could go to a second country with a different identity."

The reason Toback is hesitant to reveal what the project is about is because he has not yet signed a deal, but he says that could happen as early as next week. He did say that the movie will blur the line between feature and documentary to the point that he will actually stress that the film is just made up. "It's going to say it's a 'James Toback Fiction Film,' because the reason I say that is that it might otherwise be confused with a nonfiction film; it turns fiction on its head. So that's the official position." I have no idea what that means, but I must admit that my curiosity is through the roof.