Scott Derrickson recalls Woolsey Fire that destroyed his home
As Wim Wenders prepares to reveal a 4K restoration of his 1987 classic fantasy film wings of desire In New York in November 2018, Scott Derrickson had to be there.
The German director is not only “a filmmaking mentor and one of my closest friends,” but is also the godfather to Derrickson's two sons, Atticus and Dashiell. When the former was born, Wenders was the first guest to visit the family in the hospital. It made sense that Atticus, then 14, would leave his home in Los Angeles' Thousand Oaks neighborhood with his director father and board a plane to the East Coast to attend a screening at New York's Quad Cinemas.
“Wim always had trouble with balancing color in black and white – whether it was on VHS, certainly on DVD, or on print – and finding the right tone for the footage, which was a bit sepia. He always had trouble “It was very frustrating because he couldn't control the movie to make it look exactly how he wanted it to look,” recalled Derrickson, a veteran filmmaker with an impressive track record for Marvel superhero blockbusters. After a profound resume, I know the fight well. Doctor Strange and a series of high-profile horror films such as The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Sinister, and Deliver Us from Evil recent, black mobile phone. “They went through a complicated process to re-digitize the film and did a fantastic technical demonstration. We saw the film and it was really great.”
However, a wonderful weekend contemplating the art of film and the work of a beloved mentor was plunged into tragedy when the 2018 Woolsey Fire swept through Los Angeles' West Side, destroying the Derricksons' home and taking away all their possessions. This tragic fire ultimately burned more than 96,000 acres, 1,643 structures, and killed three people. Miley Cyrus, Shannen Doherty, Neil Young, Gerard Butler, Robin Thicke and writer-producer Chris Kelly were also lost in the catastrophic fire Home.
“After the fire, the only stuff I had was what I took with me on weekend trips. That was it,” Derrickson said by phone last weekend from Toronto, where production was nearing completion. black phone 2. “The saddest I've ever seen my son cry was in New York when he found out everything had burned down. The family room was an extremely important space to him, and all the stuff he had carefully curated was not only something he couldn't get back Memories that are specific to that space. Everyone responds to it differently; people grieve in different ways.”
That's a lesson Derrickson learned from living through a catastrophic fire and picking up the pieces in the months and years after. Dozens of Angelenos are facing the same situation last week after unprecedented wildfires broke out in Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Altadena and surrounding areas, a historic disaster that continues to unfold. As of press time, the largest and most destructive Palisades and Eaton fires have killed 24 people and covered 40,000 acres in the Los Angeles area. More than 12,300 buildings have been reduced to ashes.
“If a person, a couple or a family loses their home, it's certainly shocking when it happens. The real watershed difference between the two groups of people who lose their home is those who have good insurance and those who have poor or poor insurance People who don’t have insurance,” Derrickson explained. “I'm lucky enough to have very good fire insurance, so it doesn't cause the financial stress that it would for someone with bad or no insurance. It's a nightmare that I can't really talk about, but it can obviously be life-changing, devastating. “My heart goes out to people in this situation.”
The immediate challenge for everyone is where to sleep. Friction often ensues.
“What a long process it is to relocate. It seems like it takes forever and you're staying in a hotel or with family, neither of which is fun, especially if you're a family because it's very cramped,” he said, adding that they were lucky enough to experience the comfort of a Four Seasons property for a while before settling on a rental property. “Our children are in school, so we have to rent. But displaced people can suffer from a pathology because one day you have a home and the next day you are homeless or have no place to call home “It's a long process of dealing with insurance companies and finding a temporary home and maybe another long-term place to live, and you're going to be shocked the entire time that everything you have is gone.”
Derrickson and his family signed a long-term lease on a home previously owned by actor Kevin Sorbo. “I don't mind saying publicly that I don't like him being on Twitter and I don't like him as a landlord. I think we lived in that house for nine months and we hated it. Hated it. It was not our home. It’s not a place we like aesthetically and it’s not a place anyone would want to be in.”
It wasn't widely known at the time, but Derrickson and his wife, Joyce, had split before the fire, complicating the difficult period. (He later married Maggie Levine.) “The timing was really unfortunate in that sense, and it turned into a dark, difficult and somewhat depressing time,” he said, adding that he Everyone in the family handles things in their own way. “What I didn’t know at the time, but I know now, is that losing a home can put an incredible strain on a couple’s relationship and the family (if there are children). Everyone grieves the loss of space in their home differently. My two sons and My ex-wife and the four of us had very different experiences with losing that house.”
However, he did not mourn the loss of his property. “That's just because of who I am. It's not a personality thing. Essentially, I'm not a very materialistic person. I actually felt relieved, like, 'Oh, great, I'm getting rid of all this chaos.' “I'm the one who suffers the least. It's not that there's anything special about me, it's just who I am. I don't miss all the clothes. I have a lot of movie posters that I love and I think about them sometimes.”
A professional writer and director whose work dates back to the late '90s, Derrickson also lost all printed drafts of every screenplay he'd ever written, which sat in a stack in his office. “The vast majority of them are gone forever. I don't have them on any of my hard drives due to newer computer systems and that kind of thing. I lost a whole bunch of movie memorabilia. I had a great collection of stuff, a ton of The DVD collection, there's a huge collection of classic movie posters, some of which are unique. But then again, it's just stuff. My family is fine, so I've never really mourned that stuff.”
But one thing still weighed heavily on his mind. period Doctor Strange During press conferences and media tours, Derrickson wore something homemade: a bracelet made by his then-12-year-old son, inspired by their shared memories as father and son. “It's beautiful and very clever,” Derrickson said. “It's really sentimental because Dashiel made it for me and he worked on it for such a long time. It's the only thing I've lost that I still think about. I'll never get it back.”
In the days since the Los Angeles fires broke out, Derrickson has been in touch with industry insiders and close friends who lost their homes, offering a listening ear or advice when they needed it. One of them is Miles Teller, who stars opposite Anya Taylor-Joy in Derrickson's new film canyonairing February 14 on Apple TV+. “I sent him a message and told him I'd been there and I knew what it felt like.”
Comforting words can help. Derrickson still remembers what Wenders told his son that weekend in New York. After filtering wings of desirethey attended a party at a hotel to celebrate the restoration. “Atticus was very depressed that day and was clearly in a depressed state. Wim wasn't a man of many words, but when he did speak, he said things that made perfect sense,” Derrickson said. “I'll never forget this. We stood up from our chairs to leave, and Wim called to Atticus, who turned to him. Wim said, “Keep your memory alive. “No one can burn them.'”