David Gordon Green and the old "One, two."

David Gordon Green directs Dermot Mulroney in 2004's Undertow.

After August 6th weekend, add David Gordon Green to the list of directors who have cracked the "machine-good-for-us, we-good-for-machine" Hollywood code. If (or should we say when?) the Apatow clan's Pineapple Express is a success, Green may well be joining the ranks of Spielberg, The Coens, and George Clooney in the tiniest niche of Hollywood: Those who make what they want, when they want, because they've been feeding the hungry beast what it wants..........truckloads of money.

This isn't to say Green has sacrificed his artistic integrity. The boy has worked hard. He's already written-and-directed four very low-budget, beautifully crafted films about the South. His disarming debut, (George Washington) was accomplished at 24 with a budget of 40,000 and has since received the coveted Criterion treatment. At a mere 33 years old, it's quite a resumé.

Green has a voice of his own, rare in these days of Iron Man and 45 Will Ferell movies a year. There's a hyper-realism to his films. People look the way people look, say the things people say. Upon watching these films, the first guess concerning his next project wouldn't necessarily be stoner-comedy. But watch a few interviews with the man himself and you'll see where David Gordon Green is coming from.

By his long supply of college t-shirts, dirty old baseball caps, and laid-back attitude, you infer that he's an average American college kid from the South. But why, after so much critical acclaim and artistic success, jump on the Apatow Express now? Surely, he's "better than that?" A true modern-day Cinephile in the league of Quentin Tarantino, Green has no pretensions and his tastes don't stop at foreign philosophical cinema (though he's well-versed in that, too). When asked to show a series of films that inspired him alongside his own week-long retrospective at BAM's Cinematek, he featured 1989's Tango and Cash. Green jokes, "In terms of people who are going to retrospectives and are kind of digging back into movies of the past, I don't know if 'Tango & Cash' is one people are primed for. I mean, I know me and my buddies will be there."

Green has mentioned his interest in several projects with a much bigger scope (a meditative, 3-hour sci-fi epic in the vein of Tarkovsky). In an interview with Filmmaker magazine in 2004, Green was already plotting the moves to find these budgets, "It’s the financial pressure we don’t want, and it’s the creative freedom we insist upon. It’s hard. I’m at a point in my career where I’m trying to be somewhat strategic in the next move or two so that I can open doors and create opportunities like that, yet at the same time trying to work within the aspect of the industry that I love."

One has to wonder what Green would do with a massive budget, a major studio behind him, and his own script in hand. He admits, "(I know) how difficult it is to bring my approach to a production where people are looking over your shoulder. It makes it really hard for me to work in a way that I want to work, where my crew is inspired to work....I don't like being told I can't move a light...There’s a lot more of a structured, systematic, mechanical discipline in larger-budget projects."

A big budget, and artistic freedom? In that case, riding with the Apatow clan might be the wisest way into the machine, as one would imagine nobody is breathing down their necks. With millions in opening weekends and DVD sales, nobody's sweating Seth Rogen for going a few thousand over budget.

Whatever happens, it will be interesting to see if Green gets a rhythm going in the "One for you, one for me" style of Clooney or Spielberg, or if he'll retreat back to the bible belt with a few thousand dollars and a few friends. Either way, I know I'll be watching.

-aa