Exclusive: Behind the Jesus Cloth of ‘Gentlemen Broncos’

Posted by Neil Miller (neil@filmschoolrejects.com) on October 8, 2009

Fox Searchlight has provided Film School Rejects with an exclusive look behind the scenes of their upcoming release Gentlemen Broncos, from Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess. As you might recall, we covered this film as part of Fantastic Fest ‘09, where it made it’s North American premiere. In the film, Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) plays Roland Chevalier, a once-famous sci-fi writer who pilfers a story from a budding home-schooled kid named Benjamin (Michael Angarano) and passes it off as his own. Sam Rockwell stars as Bronco, the central character in Benjamin’s story.

In the design of the film — which fits perfectly with previous Jared Hess works in that it is super-kitschy and very middle America weird — production designer Richard Wright had to capture the home of Benjamin and his eccentric clothing designer mother (played by Jennifer Coolidge) with a bunch of very odd little touches. One of these touches is a cloth Jesus who is going to meet the dinosaurs, a creationist’s wet-dream. It sounds a bit odd, but then again, that’s the whole point. Check out the video below to see Wright as he finds inspiration for Dino-loving Jesus.

Gentlemen Broncos opens in limited markets on October 30, 2009.

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