A filmmaking Bronco

Those familiar with Jared Hess’ work will not be surprised to find he is something of a Hollywood anomaly. The idiosyncratic film director, responsible for both Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre, chooses to live in Salt Lake City instead of Los Angeles, and his projects each have a striking uniqueness.

Most of his films, including Gentlemen Broncos, which opens today nationwide, have been co-written with his wife, Jerusha. In an interview with The Diamondback, he explained some of his quirks, inside and outside his films.

Explaining the eccentricities of his characters Hess notes, “I’m inspired by the people in the mountains.”

From Napoleon Dynamite to his latest film, Hess follows people of small towns, usually time-locked in the 1980s. Gentlemen Broncos follows Ben (Michael Angarano, The Forbidden Kingdom), a homeschooled boy traveling to a writer’s camp that first provides him with an outlet for his sci-fi talents, until he is plagiarized by a washed-up author named Chevalier (Jemaine Clement, The Flight of the Conchords).

“This may be as weird as we get,” said Hess in reference to the sci-fi roots of Gentlemen Broncos. “We just try to make the movie we’ve always wanted to see with the characters and situations we’ve never seen before, and that’s what’s fun to do as a filmmaker.”

As the movie moves along, Ben has to get past his own awkwardness and insecurities to get his story back. Hess, with his wife, found inspiration writing the film in real life.

“My mom inspired the Judith (Ben’s mom) character,” he said. “A lot of the things that happen to the Benjamin character in the film, I can relate to quite a bit. The Lonnie Donaho character, that’s based on somebody that I knew in high school, that made a lot of soap opera movies that were thrillers.”

New to Hess this time around are the special effects needed to produce a movie about science fiction. Ben’s story leads to three different mini-movies within the film, offering plenty of new challenges.

“As a kid I really wanted to do special effects, like I wanted to go ‘nerd it up’ in the desert,” Hess said.

Gentlemen Broncos, Hess commented, is the very representation of his creative life, from his independent filmmaking to his adolescent mishaps. Ben’s friend Lonnie Donaho (Héctor Jiménez, Sin Nombre), a independent filmmaker of meager resources and big ideas, adapts Ben’s story to screen.

“All my early movies were at that level of lameness and awesomeness,” Hess said.
Though his characters are very often the butt of jokes, Hess always wants to redeem them and find virtue in their awkwardness.

“I identify with so much with their predicament,” he said. “Our movies end happily thus far. We like to see them get what they’ve been searching for.”

Still, Gentlemen Broncos seeks out the balance between making fun of its characters and loving them.

“We are definitely laughing at them,” Hess said. “Have you ever seen a comedy where you are laughing with the characters? You’re laughing at the situation. In our case were laughing at them, but at the same time we have a lot of love for them.”

Despite his work’s strong sense of irony, they eventually all result in the success of the underdog and the value of perceived loser-types, like Napoleon Dynamite. It is no surprise that Gentlemen Broncos is something of a family affair, with costumes done by Hess’ sister-in-law and the writing done by the husband-and-wife duo.

For budding filmmakers, Hess recommends the personal approach.

“Creatively I think the most interesting stories, and a great way to find your voice as a director or writer, is to look at your own life and write up about the stories in your own life,” he said.

Hess’ biggest inspiration may just be from his rural background. Gentlemen Broncos, like his other work, finds the heartwarming center of the story. It is only natural that the people in his films are very often individuals Hess can recall from real life: “People living in small places with big dreams.”

awaldo@umd.edu