Local Color (film)

Local Color
Local Color
	Theatrical release poster
Directed by	George Gallo
Written by	George Gallo
Produced by	Jimmy Evangelatos; Julie Gallo; David Sosna
Starring	Armin Mueller-Stahl; Trevor Morgan; Ray Liotta; Charles Durning; Samantha Mathis
Cinematography	Michael Negrin
Edited by	Malcolm Campbell
Music by	Chris Boardman
Distributed by	Monterey Media (U.S.)
Release dates	April 29, 2006 (Tribeca Film Festival); September 19, 2008 (United States);
Running time	108 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Local Color is a 2006 American drama film, written and directed by George Gallo and starring Armin Mueller-Stahl, Ray Liotta and Trevor Morgan in the lead role. It is based on the director/writer's experience when he was 18. The character of Nicholai Seroff was based on George Cherepov, to whom Gallo had been an apprentice in the 1970s.^[1]^[2]

Plot

In 1974, John Talia is a teenager who aspires to be a painter, despite the fact that his father disapproves. Talia manages to meet Nicholai Seroff, an elderly Russian expatriate impressionist painter who had been quite successful before the modern art movement threw realism into disrepute.

Seroff is bitter and has not painted for years. Gradually, Talia attempts to befriend the elderly artist, and despite many rebuffs, finally succeeds. Seroff invites him to spend the summer with him in his summer house in the countryside. Talia's father is skeptical, and suspicious of the elder man's motives, but Talia goes anyway.

During the first weeks, Seroff seems to be using Talia as an unpaid laborer to fix up his house, however it becomes clear that the Russian is sharing nuggets of wisdom about life and art. Eventually Seroff shows him how to paint, and how to capture a shared experience. When Talia comes home at the end of the summer, Seroff goes to Talia's house first, and manages to win over his father.

Some years later, when Seroff dies, he leaves many of his paintings to Talia, who happily remembers seeing Seroff finally painting again.

Cast

Trevor Morgan as John Talia Jr.
Armin Mueller-Stahl as Nicholai Seroff
Ray Liotta as John Talia Sr.
Charles Durning as Yammi
Samantha Mathis as Carla
Ron Perlman as Curtis Sunday
Diana Scarwid as Edith Talia
Julie Lott as Sandra Sunday
Tom Adams as grey artist
Taso Papadakis as metal artist
David Sosna as college dean
Nancy Casemore as Mrs. Huntington-Quail
David Sheftell as Mikey
Timothy Velasquez as nasty kid
Melissa Allman as gallery girl
Jimmy Evangelatos as waiter
Michael Negrin as John (50 years old)

Production

Gallo also painted all of the oil paintings in this movie, having "cleaned out his whole garage" of his paintings. In particular, the paintings that John (Trevor Morgan) showed to Seroff (Armin Mueller-Stahl) when asking him for advice in the beginning of the movie were the exact paintings that Gallo had shown to Cherepov as a teenager.

Although the film was based in New York and Pennsylvania, the film was actually shot in various locations in Louisiana in and around New Orleans, Covington and Baton Rouge. Production began in July 2005. The company stayed in two different hotels to avoid delays driving from New Orleans to a nearby location at the end of the schedule and were thus able to wrap production only 8 days before Hurricane Katrina without interruption.

References

^ "Local Color". Cincinnati World Cinema. Archived from the original on 2018-01-24. Retrieved 2011-10-25.
^ "An artist's flawed look at his colorful past (C-)". 19 October 2007.

External links

This 2000s drama film–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

[1] "Local Color". Cincinnati World Cinema. Archived from the original on 2018-01-24. Retrieved 2011-10-25.

[2] "An artist's flawed look at his colorful past (C-)". 19 October 2007.

[1]

[2]