But Lewis – then in his early 80s, now 90 – had not made a film in years and considered himself retired. “There was no protocol for submitting a script to him. He didn’t have an agent,” says Noah with a frustrated sigh.
Still, Noah and his producers were undeterred. “We finally went online and we found that he had an office in Vegas that was really established to handle the business of being Jerry Lewis, which is a big business,” he notes. “We just cold called and the woman that answered the phone said, ‘He gets thousands of calls every year, many with scripts. He doesn’t read anything. He’s not going to make any more films. Don’t waste your time.’”
But they agreed to waste their time, carefully crafting a three-sentence pitch letter. One day a few weeks later, Lewis called. “He had read the script and he committed on the phone,” says Noah, still a bit incredulous.
The film, Max Rose, opens this weekend in South Florida and around the country, after premiering in New York and Los Angeles earlier this month. In it, Max is devastated by the death of his wife of 65 years, Eva, played by the great Claire Bloom. In the midst of his grief, Max is taken even more aback to come upon evidence of an affair Eva had decades ago, causing Max to question his lifelong relationship.
Because of his chosen field, Daniel’s grandfather “worked nights in the clubs, so during the day he would take care of us when I was very young,” says the director. “So we were very, very close, I think unusually so. When my grandmother passed away in the year 2000, my whole family kind of took turns living with him and caring for him. I went first so the day that she died, I basically moved in with him. If we’re lucky enough to love someone the way my grandfather loved my grandmother and vice versa, eventually someone will be left behind.”
No, Noah’s grandfather did not find evidence of an affair. That part of the film is strictly fictional for dramatic purposes. “That was a way of externalizing the very subtle spiritual crisis that I saw him experiencing,” explains Noah. “Because he had been with my grandmother since they were in high school, he had no sense of identity without her. It started to kind of throw everything into question.”
Three years later, when his grandfather passed away, Noah began thinking about a film to pay tribute to him. “I found myself thinking obsessively about his story. I felt like there was something missing in film about this topic. There are depictions of the elderly and old age, but they tend to be comic. In some small way I felt that there needed to be a film that dealt with these issues, so that when these times come for people, hopefully they’ve thought about them a little bit.”
Lewis has almost two dozen directing credits and a reputation for being difficult. No wonder Noah keeps being asked if he found working with his star intimidating.“All the information that got to me was that this guy is very difficult,” concedes Noah. “It was ‘Good luck, kid.’ I think that you have to get past the mythology that surrounds a person to encounter who they really are.
“It wasn’t that I was intimidated so much as that I was steeled for a painful relationship, a difficult experience, and I told myself that it would be worth it,” he says. “But the truth was something very, very far away from ‘the legend.’ Jerry was very, very loving and sweet. Instantly we just achieved an almost filial intimacy.”
During the years that it took to finance Max Rose, Noah grew close to Lewis.
“I would go visit him, once a month or every two months, either in San Diego or at his home in Vegas,” Noah says. “We spoke about our lives and the ways we saw ourselves in the character and Jerry mentored me, for sure. It was never lost on me that I was in the presence of one of the master filmmakers. We would systematically go through every film that he ever made and talk about them in great detail.”
Still, when shooting began, Lewis made a point of saying to Noah, “You’re probably worried that I’m going to hijack your movie. You have my word that I’ll be in front of the camera. I will never get into your business.”
And Lewis kept his word. “To the point where a couple of times I’d ask for help,” recalls Noah, “and he’d say, ‘Nope, you’re on your own.’ I talked to him about his reputation and what he says is, ‘Yes, I expect people to be on their game and when they’re not, I’m hard on them.’ It just never entered the equation for us. We were partners and we were making something together. It just wasn’t an issue.”
Max Rose was completed – or so Noah thought – in early 2013, in time for the Cannes Film Festival. “Cannes had been tracking it because, I don’t know whether you know this, but Jerry Lewis is very popular in France.
“So they asked to see it, we showed them what was basically the first assembly, and they invited us to screen it in May. We didn’t want to say ‘no’ to Cannes, we really wanted Jerry to have that experience. Who knew at the time that he was the Energizer bunny who seems to be immortal? At the time, even he would say, ‘I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be around.’ ”
The editing was rushed and not wholly satisfying to Noah, so after Cannes, he took the film apart and recut it. “So, the version that was shown at Cannes was seen once and never again.” He says. “The version that is out in theaters now was seen first at (New York’s) Museum of Modern Art in April of this year.”Even so, reviews of Max Rose have not been positive, calling it overly sentimental. Noah meets such criticism head-on. “The film is an honest representation of what it felt like to go through this with my grandfather. So when I see people say that it’s sentimental or maudlin, my answer to that is, ‘Yes, it is, because that’s how I felt about my grandfather and I am unashamed of having feelings of love and compassion for this character.’”
During the shoot, Lewis explained why he decided to do the film. “When he read this one he realized he had a responsibility to, as he said, ‘give ’em one more Jerry film.’ What he said was, ‘Now that all of us are here at the end of the story, I want to make this movie to show them that they don’t have to be afraid.’
“I think the film is extremely vulnerable and Jerry is vulnerable, I think it goes to places that are uncomfortable for people,” says Noah. “I’m proud that we were able to tell this story.”
Max Rose opens Friday at the Living Room Theaters and Regal Shadowood 16 in Boca Raton; Cinema Paradiso in Hollywood, The Last Picture Show in Tamarac, and Silverspot in Coconut Creek; and Regal South Beach 18 in Miami Beach, AMC Sunset Place 24 in Miami, and AMC Aventura in Aventura.