ACU Today - Fall 1998 "Movie Minds"

Movie Minds

By Dr. Cheryl M. Bacon Photography by Seth Affoumado

Tutored by motion picture icon Steven Spielberg, Bonnie Curtis headlines a group of energetic alumni helping create Hollywood's cinematic dreams

Tell me, am I a good man? Have I led a good life?

In the final scene of Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan," the audience meets again the elderly Pvt. James Ryan. He kneels at the grave of Capt. John Miller, who led a platoon of D-Day Rangers to find Ryan and send him home to his mother after her other three sons were killed in the war.

Ryan's poignant words, of course, were from a movie script, spoken by a fictional character at the grave of another fictional character - Tom Hanks' everyman. The scene was real, however; the perfect rows of perfect crosses marking the graves of imperfect men and boys from every walk of life, sent to fight a war that threatened the whole world, buried with their dreams at the American military cemetery at Normandy.

Their story was real, and the realities of their battle at Omaha Beach were portrayed in the film with a visceral starkness unprecedented in previous war movies. Veterans in countless media interviews have praised the film as the most realistic war movie ever made, though it still does not approach what those who were there saw and smelled and felt and heard.

Bonnie Curtis ('88) says that's how Steven Spielberg planned it, and she should know. "The big joke is that I speak Spielberg."

As co-producer of "Saving Private Ryan," Bonnie worked side by side with producer Ian Bryce on the film.

"I was involved in all facets of the production, budgets, locations, sets, hair, makeup," she says. "What tanks are we going to use? What guns are we going to use? Which beach? Where are we going to shoot the invasion? France? No. England? No. Ireland? That's good. Every little detail - I touch it."

It's exactly where she wants to be, and she's known it since she was 10 years old.

"I remember watching the Academy Awards the year 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' won Best Picture," she says. "I remember thinking to myself, 'I really want one of those.'"

Today, she's a movie mind herself, but still a fan. "The actual experience of being in a dark theater and watching a movie, one that really gets to you and speaks to you - there's no greater experience," she says.

Bonnie tells everyone that her parents were enormous film fans, too. She talks about checking the TV movie listings each Sunday with her Mom to see what films they would need to get up early or stay up late to watch.

"I remember them as bigger film fans than they claim to actually be," she admits, and Bonnie's mom, Billie Curtis agrees.

"Bonnie just loves films and movie stars," she laughs. "Probably, secretly, she'd really like to be one, but she's gotten in on the wrong side of the business for that!"

Few film fans would view eight years at the right arm of Steven Spielberg as the wrong side of the business. Certainly not veteran Hollywood producer Kathleen Kennedy who believes Bonnie's career track thus far mirrors her own, having worked under Spielberg's tutelage then produced several of his projects, including "E.T." and "Jurassic Park."

"In a funny way, she's followed my path," Kennedy says. "She started working with Steven, and needless to say that's a fantastic place to start - and a fantastic place to end up."

* * *

When Bonnie came to L.A. after graduating from ACU, she knew one person - Jeff Knipp ('81). "We grew up together in Dallas. He's older and knew the ins and outs," she recalls.

"He got me an interview with a friend at Disney who passed me on to someone who passed me on to someone else."

Her first job was answering phones, then she moved up to production assistant. About a year-and-a-half later, another friend of Jeff's mentioned that Spielberg was looking for a new assistant. Initially, she declined to apply, having just received a promotion at Disney. "The guy I was dating at the time said, 'Are you insane?' So I called back two minutes later, met him [Spielberg] and started working for him two weeks later," she says.

The boss at Disney understood. "He was very happy for me."

Kennedy says even during Bonnie's time at Disney, she had developed a reputation.

"Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work. Bonnie classically is one of those people who's been working very, very hard for quite a long time," Kennedy says. "It may seem like an overnight success, but even before we hired her to work at Amblin with Steven and I, when she was at Disney just getting her foot in the door, it was clear by the people there that she was incredibly hard working and driven."

Bonnie actually met Kennedy first and the two have maintained a close friendship and mutual admiration. "We completely hit it off," she says. "To this day we're very good friends. I worship the ground she walks on. She had me meet Steven a week or so later.

"I was a Steven fan - not an enormous fan - but I was excited to meet him," she says. "I loved his movies. But I was 24 years old and I had no idea what I was about to get involved in."

In her typically low-key style she muses over her story:

"One reason I've been so successful is my ignorance. I didn't understand the scope of the job I was about take on. To me it was, 'I'll get to be on a set.' I wanted to travel and be on the sets and see what this movie making thing was all about at a more hands-on level," she says.

To date, Bonnie has worked on six films with Spielberg. On the first two, "Hook" (1991) and "Jurassic Park" (1993), she earned credits as "assistant to Mr. Spielberg."

On "Schindler's List" (1993), he gave her a new title - production associate.

Kennedy describes "Schindler" as the real transition movie for Bonnie.

"When it was being mounted in Poland, it was back-to-back with 'Jurassic Park,' and so it was really an opportunity for her to roll up her sleeves and get very involved in the process of actually making a movie instead of sitting quietly on the sides and watching," Kennedy says.

After six years as an assistant, Bonnie was ready for more. "I went to Steven and said, 'I have no interest in leaving you, I want to grow with you.'

"He said, 'Great.' He was, boom, right in there with me," she says.

But he emphasized she would not be an assistant that got a title because of friendship.

"If we're going to give you these credits, you're going to actually do those tasks," he told her. And so she worked even harder to learn even more.

The next two years brought greater responsibilities, and greater recognition.

In 18 months, Amblin produced three films back-to-back - "Lost World," "Amistad" and "Saving Private Ryan" - with only six to eight weeks off between each. On the first two, she was an associate producer, a role she describes as kind of a producer-in-training, and given specific tasks.

"I was primarily in charge of casting, and also all issues involving Steven," the advantage of "speaking Spielberg." On "Saving Private Ryan," she was promoted to co-producer.

"I feel so unbelievably lucky," she says, "to be working on a project with people so knowledgeable and with such expertise that every answer I need is a phone call away."

The uniqueness of such circumstance is not lost on Bonnie. "I definitely do not live in a real world, which is something my friends constantly tell me," she says. "The film business in itself has a bit of not being in a real world - when you're off on locations it's almost like being at camp. It's really not a real world and without a lot of effort you get pretty detached."

Spielberg's reputation and financial depth make life at Amblin a bit smoother than in many other houses. "Things come pretty easily in that regard; you get entreé to things you wouldn't get in other places. I'm aware it's quite a cushy berth where I sit," she says.

The thing she loves best, though, is how much she gets to learn.

Thus far she has acquired a substantial knowledge of dinosaurs, the Holocaust, slavery and World War II.

"It's like being in a classroom all the time and that was my favorite place to be.

"I love coming to work every day," she says. "I love making movies. It combines all the things I love - interesting people and conversation, constantly learning about new things. It's never boring, always different - it's a full education in itself."

Bonnie says her formal education prepared her well for her new classroom. She almost didn't come to ACU because it had no film program, and after her freshman year she spent a year away, sampling programs at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and SMU in her hometown of Dallas. Now, like other alums who have found careers in the industry, she's concluded the absence of film school from her resume never hurt her professionally, and may have helped.

Of the ACU alums making their mark in the Hollywood film industry, most have their academic roots in mass communication. Jeff Knipp was a marketing major in college, though he now wishes he had pursued a degree in the fine arts. Bonnie majored in journalism; Craig ('90) and Leslie (Cheatham '91) Barnett in broadcasting; and Nelson Coates ('84), Les Hunter ('86) and Aundrea Hearn ('92) all majored in advertising and public relations.

"You have to study what is interesting to you," Bonnie tells young people who are considering a film career, or any other career for that matter. "You're given a gift when you go to school. You're there to be educated and if you're not taking that opportunity, you're going to really regret it later on.

"I would highly recommend the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication to anyone," she says, "because you leave school with the ability to read and write and a pretty good grasp of history and English…I'm called upon to write a lot here, whether in screenplays or speeches or releases, and that's a lost commodity. A lot of people cannot do that."

Kennedy also has been impressed by the preparation ACU graduates have brought to their work at Amblin.

"I am one of those people who reads everything that comes through my mail, and I was very, very impressed with the university even before I met Bonnie," she says. "The people I've met and that Bonnie has introduced me to have given me a really great impression of the university. There seems to be a fundamental preparation for life that graduates have which serves them very, very well."

Bonnie believes her faith and basic knowledge of the Bible and about religion have been professionally helpful and personally sustaining.

"There are not a lot of Christians in this business," she said. "My education is very unique - I have this knowledge of the Bible, of religion, and I have it in seemingly this most casual way. I grew up with it! It's been unbelievably beneficial; it's a moral viewpoint that's very unusual to most of these people."

Her traditional rearing played a role in her choice of careers as well.

"I always knew I was going to make movies and produce films. I was raised in the Church of Christ and women aren't preachers. That was what I'd have been if I'd been a man - I'd be preaching. So for me, film was going to be a means of expression - a way to reach people with my ideas about life that I couldn't necessarily do from the pulpit," she says.

Bonnie believes everything that has happened in her career is part of a bigger plan. And when she talks about it, she sounds just like her mother. They both talk faster than most people can think. They both call you "Honey" in that tone that only a Texan can invoke.

And they're both convicted that God has opened the doors.

"The doors that have been opened for Bonnie in Hollywood have opened too readily not to believe that," Mrs. Curtis says. "I believe that she's there for a reason and that reason is to make the world a better place."

"The more people I can touch, the more things I can learn, can only prepare me for what I am to do here," Bonnie says. "I know I'm here to accomplish something. And I know if I continue to pray about it and keep focused and be kind to those around me and smile and make a room a better place before I leave it, those things will happen."

Bonnie also believes that Spielberg was put where he is for a purpose.

Conventional wisdom, and Hollywood critics, always understood that one reason for Spielberg's success was his ability to relate to the masses in a way that few in Hollywood or anywhere have done. Spielberg doesn't appear on screen, and yet, Bonnie says, "I think you see a lot of Steven in every film he does."

"His films very much mirror where he is in his life," she says. "It's very much a part of him, not an extracurricular activity. He has to make movies. He would die if he couldn't make movies." Many of his films have been personal films for him, but none more so than "Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan."

"You go through a stage where you begin to be very grateful for everything that makes you.

I think Steven had a lot of issues with being Jewish, and I think for him, with 'Schindler,' he reached a thankfulness for being Jewish.

"I am unbelievably grateful for the history that I have. I happen to have parents who gave me a reality balance that did the same thing.

Being good was cool in my family," she says. "But I think that Steven received a lot of criticism for being Jewish when he was younger."

Spielberg has spoken frankly about the personal nature of "Saving Private Ryan."

In numerous media appearances he's talked about hearing his own father talk about the war. "I didn't believe him," Spielberg said on "Nightline" soon after the film's release.

"I thought it was just my father's way of making himself look important to his son. I was wrong."

That personal involvement was part of Spielberg's motivation for making the film a realistic depiction of war. "What he's attempted to do is honor veterans and men who fought in that war," Bonnie says. If early response is any indication, the veterans and film-goers appreciate his efforts.

The film grossed $30.6 million the first weekend, and more than $23 million the second. "We're overwhelmed. The phone hasn't stopped ringing," she says.

The most telling call for Bonnie came from Dallas. "The most significant reaction for me personally was when my mother called after she saw it. I could tell in her voice how it had affected her before she ever said a word about it, before she told me. When I heard Mom's voice I knew, and I thought, 'Alright, I haven't been crazy all these months thinking we really have something here.' She's kind of my monitor that helps me stay in touch," she says.

Bonnie's read on her mother's voice was entirely accurate. "I started crying at the very start and I didn't quit until the end of it," Mrs. Curtis says. The film inspired another mother-daughter phone call between Bonnie's mother and grandmother. Mrs. Curtis was eager to learn about her father's war experiences.

Bonnie says that reaction has been common.

"What's been interesting is in a lot of relationships, people are telling stories about their ancestors. They're not saying, 'I'm going to take my kids to that.' They're saying, 'I'm going to take my parents to see that, or my grandparents.' It's causing people to talk about things that happened. They're finding out about their family history," she says.

Maybe that's part of the film's purpose, though Bonnie says it's still too early to tell. "The audience tells us" about a film's message, she says. "We don't tell the audience." And by the time the answer is clear, Bonnie may be in Japan.

Earlier this summer she got what she calls the phone call of her life.

"I want you to produce my next movie, 'The Memoirs of a Geisha,'" Spielberg said.

"I felt like I just got an 'A' on a paper I've been working on for eight years!" Bonnie says.

The film will be in production in January through April of next year. Meanwhile, Bonnie finds herself in an entirely new role with a completely different type of stress.

"With 'Geisha,' it starts here, it starts with me," she says. "I have to hire the location manager, the casting director, approve every dime that's spent, organize a location scout for the production designer and find a woman who knows more about geishas than anyone else in the world - my phone isn't ringing until I instigate the calls."

One of the biggest challenges she says is learning to let go of the minutia and trust the people she's hired to handle it for her. She expects this to be the greatest learning experience of her life, and she loves learning.

Perhaps in the process she'll gain a clearer picture of her purpose for being a movie maker. If not on "Geisha," then on her next film, or the one after that.

"I've always wanted more," she says without apology. "In every situation I've ever found myself in, I've always wanted more, wanted new experiences. I don't really know what it is, but I know I'm headed in the right direction."

Bonnie Curtis | Craig & Leslie Barnett | Aundrea Hearn | Jeff Knipp | Les Hunter | Nelson Coates

Cheryl Bacon is associate professor and chair of journalism and mass communication at ACU.

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		Movie Minds By Dr. Cheryl M. Bacon Photography by Seth Affoumado Tutored by motion picture icon Steven Spielberg, Bonnie Curtis headlines a group of energetic alumni helping create Hollywood's cinematic dreams Tell me, am I a good man? Have I led a good life? In the final scene of Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan," the audience meets again the elderly Pvt. James Ryan. He kneels at the grave of Capt. John Miller, who led a platoon of D-Day Rangers to find Ryan and send him home to his mother after her other three sons were killed in the war. Ryan's poignant words, of course, were from a movie script, spoken by a fictional character at the grave of another fictional character - Tom Hanks' everyman. The scene was real, however; the perfect rows of perfect crosses marking the graves of imperfect men and boys from every walk of life, sent to fight a war that threatened the whole world, buried with their dreams at the American military cemetery at Normandy. Their story was real, and the realities of their battle at Omaha Beach were portrayed in the film with a visceral starkness unprecedented in previous war movies. Veterans in countless media interviews have praised the film as the most realistic war movie ever made, though it still does not approach what those who were there saw and smelled and felt and heard. Bonnie Curtis ('88) says that's how Steven Spielberg planned it, and she should know. "The big joke is that I speak Spielberg." As co-producer of "Saving Private Ryan," Bonnie worked side by side with producer Ian Bryce on the film. "I was involved in all facets of the production, budgets, locations, sets, hair, makeup," she says. "What tanks are we going to use? What guns are we going to use? Which beach? Where are we going to shoot the invasion? France? No. England? No. Ireland? That's good. Every little detail - I touch it." It's exactly where she wants to be, and she's known it since she was 10 years old. "I remember watching the Academy Awards the year 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' won Best Picture," she says. "I remember thinking to myself, 'I really want one of those.'" Today, she's a movie mind herself, but still a fan. "The actual experience of being in a dark theater and watching a movie, one that really gets to you and speaks to you - there's no greater experience," she says. Bonnie tells everyone that her parents were enormous film fans, too. She talks about checking the TV movie listings each Sunday with her Mom to see what films they would need to get up early or stay up late to watch. "I remember them as bigger film fans than they claim to actually be," she admits, and Bonnie's mom, Billie Curtis agrees. "Bonnie just loves films and movie stars," she laughs. "Probably, secretly, she'd really like to be one, but she's gotten in on the wrong side of the business for that!" Few film fans would view eight years at the right arm of Steven Spielberg as the wrong side of the business. Certainly not veteran Hollywood producer Kathleen Kennedy who believes Bonnie's career track thus far mirrors her own, having worked under Spielberg's tutelage then produced several of his projects, including "E.T." and "Jurassic Park." "In a funny way, she's followed my path," Kennedy says. "She started working with Steven, and needless to say that's a fantastic place to start - and a fantastic place to end up." * * * When Bonnie came to L.A. after graduating from ACU, she knew one person - Jeff Knipp ('81). "We grew up together in Dallas. He's older and knew the ins and outs," she recalls. "He got me an interview with a friend at Disney who passed me on to someone who passed me on to someone else." Her first job was answering phones, then she moved up to production assistant. About a year-and-a-half later, another friend of Jeff's mentioned that Spielberg was looking for a new assistant. Initially, she declined to apply, having just received a promotion at Disney. "The guy I was dating at the time said, 'Are you insane?' So I called back two minutes later, met him [Spielberg] and started working for him two weeks later," she says. The boss at Disney understood. "He was very happy for me." Kennedy says even during Bonnie's time at Disney, she had developed a reputation. "Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work. Bonnie classically is one of those people who's been working very, very hard for quite a long time," Kennedy says. "It may seem like an overnight success, but even before we hired her to work at Amblin with Steven and I, when she was at Disney just getting her foot in the door, it was clear by the people there that she was incredibly hard working and driven." Bonnie actually met Kennedy first and the two have maintained a close friendship and mutual admiration. "We completely hit it off," she says. "To this day we're very good friends. I worship the ground she walks on. She had me meet Steven a week or so later. "I was a Steven fan - not an enormous fan - but I was excited to meet him," she says. "I loved his movies. But I was 24 years old and I had no idea what I was about to get involved in." In her typically low-key style she muses over her story: "One reason I've been so successful is my ignorance. I didn't understand the scope of the job I was about take on. To me it was, 'I'll get to be on a set.' I wanted to travel and be on the sets and see what this movie making thing was all about at a more hands-on level," she says. To date, Bonnie has worked on six films with Spielberg. On the first two, "Hook" (1991) and "Jurassic Park" (1993), she earned credits as "assistant to Mr. Spielberg." On "Schindler's List" (1993), he gave her a new title - production associate. Kennedy describes "Schindler" as the real transition movie for Bonnie. "When it was being mounted in Poland, it was back-to-back with 'Jurassic Park,' and so it was really an opportunity for her to roll up her sleeves and get very involved in the process of actually making a movie instead of sitting quietly on the sides and watching," Kennedy says. After six years as an assistant, Bonnie was ready for more. "I went to Steven and said, 'I have no interest in leaving you, I want to grow with you.' "He said, 'Great.' He was, boom, right in there with me," she says. But he emphasized she would not be an assistant that got a title because of friendship. "If we're going to give you these credits, you're going to actually do those tasks," he told her. And so she worked even harder to learn even more. The next two years brought greater responsibilities, and greater recognition. In 18 months, Amblin produced three films back-to-back - "Lost World," "Amistad" and "Saving Private Ryan" - with only six to eight weeks off between each. On the first two, she was an associate producer, a role she describes as kind of a producer-in-training, and given specific tasks. "I was primarily in charge of casting, and also all issues involving Steven," the advantage of "speaking Spielberg." On "Saving Private Ryan," she was promoted to co-producer. "I feel so unbelievably lucky," she says, "to be working on a project with people so knowledgeable and with such expertise that every answer I need is a phone call away." The uniqueness of such circumstance is not lost on Bonnie. "I definitely do not live in a real world, which is something my friends constantly tell me," she says. "The film business in itself has a bit of not being in a real world - when you're off on locations it's almost like being at camp. It's really not a real world and without a lot of effort you get pretty detached." Spielberg's reputation and financial depth make life at Amblin a bit smoother than in many other houses. "Things come pretty easily in that regard; you get entreé to things you wouldn't get in other places. I'm aware it's quite a cushy berth where I sit," she says. The thing she loves best, though, is how much she gets to learn. Thus far she has acquired a substantial knowledge of dinosaurs, the Holocaust, slavery and World War II. "It's like being in a classroom all the time and that was my favorite place to be. "I love coming to work every day," she says. "I love making movies. It combines all the things I love - interesting people and conversation, constantly learning about new things. It's never boring, always different - it's a full education in itself." Bonnie says her formal education prepared her well for her new classroom. She almost didn't come to ACU because it had no film program, and after her freshman year she spent a year away, sampling programs at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and SMU in her hometown of Dallas. Now, like other alums who have found careers in the industry, she's concluded the absence of film school from her resume never hurt her professionally, and may have helped. Of the ACU alums making their mark in the Hollywood film industry, most have their academic roots in mass communication. Jeff Knipp was a marketing major in college, though he now wishes he had pursued a degree in the fine arts. Bonnie majored in journalism; Craig ('90) and Leslie (Cheatham '91) Barnett in broadcasting; and Nelson Coates ('84), Les Hunter ('86) and Aundrea Hearn ('92) all majored in advertising and public relations. "You have to study what is interesting to you," Bonnie tells young people who are considering a film career, or any other career for that matter. "You're given a gift when you go to school. You're there to be educated and if you're not taking that opportunity, you're going to really regret it later on. "I would highly recommend the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication to anyone," she says, "because you leave school with the ability to read and write and a pretty good grasp of history and English…I'm called upon to write a lot here, whether in screenplays or speeches or releases, and that's a lost commodity. A lot of people cannot do that." Kennedy also has been impressed by the preparation ACU graduates have brought to their work at Amblin. "I am one of those people who reads everything that comes through my mail, and I was very, very impressed with the university even before I met Bonnie," she says. "The people I've met and that Bonnie has introduced me to have given me a really great impression of the university. There seems to be a fundamental preparation for life that graduates have which serves them very, very well." Bonnie believes her faith and basic knowledge of the Bible and about religion have been professionally helpful and personally sustaining. "There are not a lot of Christians in this business," she said. "My education is very unique - I have this knowledge of the Bible, of religion, and I have it in seemingly this most casual way. I grew up with it! It's been unbelievably beneficial; it's a moral viewpoint that's very unusual to most of these people." Her traditional rearing played a role in her choice of careers as well. "I always knew I was going to make movies and produce films. I was raised in the Church of Christ and women aren't preachers. That was what I'd have been if I'd been a man - I'd be preaching. So for me, film was going to be a means of expression - a way to reach people with my ideas about life that I couldn't necessarily do from the pulpit," she says. Bonnie believes everything that has happened in her career is part of a bigger plan. And when she talks about it, she sounds just like her mother. They both talk faster than most people can think. They both call you "Honey" in that tone that only a Texan can invoke. And they're both convicted that God has opened the doors. "The doors that have been opened for Bonnie in Hollywood have opened too readily not to believe that," Mrs. Curtis says. "I believe that she's there for a reason and that reason is to make the world a better place." "The more people I can touch, the more things I can learn, can only prepare me for what I am to do here," Bonnie says. "I know I'm here to accomplish something. And I know if I continue to pray about it and keep focused and be kind to those around me and smile and make a room a better place before I leave it, those things will happen." Bonnie also believes that Spielberg was put where he is for a purpose. Conventional wisdom, and Hollywood critics, always understood that one reason for Spielberg's success was his ability to relate to the masses in a way that few in Hollywood or anywhere have done. Spielberg doesn't appear on screen, and yet, Bonnie says, "I think you see a lot of Steven in every film he does." "His films very much mirror where he is in his life," she says. "It's very much a part of him, not an extracurricular activity. He has to make movies. He would die if he couldn't make movies." Many of his films have been personal films for him, but none more so than "Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan." "You go through a stage where you begin to be very grateful for everything that makes you. I think Steven had a lot of issues with being Jewish, and I think for him, with 'Schindler,' he reached a thankfulness for being Jewish. "I am unbelievably grateful for the history that I have. I happen to have parents who gave me a reality balance that did the same thing. Being good was cool in my family," she says. "But I think that Steven received a lot of criticism for being Jewish when he was younger." Spielberg has spoken frankly about the personal nature of "Saving Private Ryan." In numerous media appearances he's talked about hearing his own father talk about the war. "I didn't believe him," Spielberg said on "Nightline" soon after the film's release. "I thought it was just my father's way of making himself look important to his son. I was wrong." That personal involvement was part of Spielberg's motivation for making the film a realistic depiction of war. "What he's attempted to do is honor veterans and men who fought in that war," Bonnie says. If early response is any indication, the veterans and film-goers appreciate his efforts. The film grossed $30.6 million the first weekend, and more than $23 million the second. "We're overwhelmed. The phone hasn't stopped ringing," she says. The most telling call for Bonnie came from Dallas. "The most significant reaction for me personally was when my mother called after she saw it. I could tell in her voice how it had affected her before she ever said a word about it, before she told me. When I heard Mom's voice I knew, and I thought, 'Alright, I haven't been crazy all these months thinking we really have something here.' She's kind of my monitor that helps me stay in touch," she says. Bonnie's read on her mother's voice was entirely accurate. "I started crying at the very start and I didn't quit until the end of it," Mrs. Curtis says. The film inspired another mother-daughter phone call between Bonnie's mother and grandmother. Mrs. Curtis was eager to learn about her father's war experiences. Bonnie says that reaction has been common. "What's been interesting is in a lot of relationships, people are telling stories about their ancestors. They're not saying, 'I'm going to take my kids to that.' They're saying, 'I'm going to take my parents to see that, or my grandparents.' It's causing people to talk about things that happened. They're finding out about their family history," she says. Maybe that's part of the film's purpose, though Bonnie says it's still too early to tell. "The audience tells us" about a film's message, she says. "We don't tell the audience." And by the time the answer is clear, Bonnie may be in Japan. Earlier this summer she got what she calls the phone call of her life. "I want you to produce my next movie, 'The Memoirs of a Geisha,'" Spielberg said. "I felt like I just got an 'A' on a paper I've been working on for eight years!" Bonnie says. The film will be in production in January through April of next year. Meanwhile, Bonnie finds herself in an entirely new role with a completely different type of stress. "With 'Geisha,' it starts here, it starts with me," she says. "I have to hire the location manager, the casting director, approve every dime that's spent, organize a location scout for the production designer and find a woman who knows more about geishas than anyone else in the world - my phone isn't ringing until I instigate the calls." One of the biggest challenges she says is learning to let go of the minutia and trust the people she's hired to handle it for her. She expects this to be the greatest learning experience of her life, and she loves learning. Perhaps in the process she'll gain a clearer picture of her purpose for being a movie maker. If not on "Geisha," then on her next film, or the one after that. "I've always wanted more," she says without apology. "In every situation I've ever found myself in, I've always wanted more, wanted new experiences. I don't really know what it is, but I know I'm headed in the right direction." Bonnie Curtis \| Craig & Leslie Barnett \| Aundrea Hearn \| Jeff Knipp \| Les Hunter \| Nelson Coates Cheryl Bacon is associate professor and chair of journalism and mass communication at ACU.

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