DATE: Saturday, October 4, 1997             TAG: 9710030094

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER

                                            LENGTH:  141 lines

A LIFE OF DREAMS NORFOLK NATIVE FULFILLS CHILDHOOD AMBITION, DIRECTS MAINSTREAM FILM

GARY FLEDER saw ``Jaws'' at the Pembroke Theater in Virginia Beach in 1975. On that day, the 12 year old decided that he wanted to be a movie director.

Two decades later, in a heartening turnabout, Fleder has directed a $40 million movie produced by David Brown, the same man who produced ``Jaws.''

``Kiss the Girls,'' based on the best-selling novel by James Patterson, is being released nationwide this weekend. It's a thriller starring Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd.

Not all the suspense is on the screen.

By today, the Norfolk native will, in his words, ``know my fate.'' Highly computerized box office tallies can, within 24 hours of first screening, forecast whether or not the film is a commercial success. Fleder has been heralded in industry trade papers as one of the hottest new, young directors around, but his first film, ``Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead'' was more a hit with critics than at the box office and suffered endless comparisons to Quentin Tarantino's ``Pulp Fiction.''

`` `Denver' was for the critics. This one is for a mainstream audience,'' Fleder said. ``It had to be that way.''

The director, sitting in the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills the morning after the film was screened for critics, said his film is not misogynistic or overly violent, even if it does concern a serial killer who is holding seven North Carolina co-eds prisoner in a basement harem.

His theory: the moviegoing public has been beaten, bruised and maligned with unspeakably gory terrors in recent years. He wanted to make a more intellectual, esoteric thriller, even if the source, Patterson's novel, is replete with mind-deadening descriptions of rape and tortures.

``It's a very fine dividing line,'' said Fleder, 34. ``I thought I'd be all right if I kept it from the viewpoint of the two lead characters rather than that of the killer. But one scene, one line out of place, and it would have gone in the wrong direction. The first day on the set is the important one. You're either safe, or you're in trouble. I've seen this film from every possible angle. It's been two years of my life. I first read the script in 1995 and here it is, the fall of 1997, finally opening in theaters. ''

Sherry Lansing, head of production at Paramount, describes Fleder as ``our filmmaker, whom we trust.''

But how far will the trust last if, in this case, box office returns don't come through?

David Brown, the film's producer, is the veteran who, in partnership with Richard D. Zanuck, made some of the memorable films of this generation: ``Jaws,'' ``The Sting,'' ``The Verdict,'' and executive produced ``Driving Miss Daisy.''

``Gary has all the advantages of youth,'' Brown said when asked why he was chosen to direct this film. ``He has a particular stylistic look and he took the particular stand not to have in-your-face violence in this film. That was a brave stand to take and, of course, it was debated at the studio.''

Brown laughed when he heard that ``Jaws'' was Fleder's boyhood inspiration. ``There is a similarity,'' he said. ``In `Jaws,' you don't see the shark until late in the film, and, even then, you don't see much. There is a minimum of carnage, yet the audience is frightened the entire time that the monster might appear. This film has that aspect.''

Like ``Denver,'' ``Kiss the Girls'' is getting unwarranted comparisons to earlier films - ``Seven'' and ``The Silence of the Lambs.'' Both concerned serial killers and ``Seven,'' a box office hit despite its darkness, also starred Morgan Freeman.

Brown likes the magazine review that called ``Kiss the Girls'' ``seven times `Seven' '' but he adds ``Frankly, I couldn't sit all the way through `Seven.' I hope we compare to it commercially, but I don't think there is any other valid comparison. It was simply too gory for me.''

Fleder, who grew up going to movies at the Naro and reading film reviews in The Virginian-Pilot, is dismayed about the comparisons.

``The two films are completely different. `Seven' was about hopelessness. `Kiss The Girls' is about hope. The villain here, who identifies himself as `Casanova,' thinks he loves women. He talks to them in loving ways. It's a comment, maybe, on the American male who says all these loving things to women to try to control and possess them. It's heartening that in our test screenings, the film has scored higher with women than with men.''

Fleder admits that he was hesitant about casting Morgan Freeman in the lead because he thought it would encourage the ``Seven'' comparisons. ``But Morgan is the one actor who could automatically lift this above a genre film right from the start. He has a great credibility and warmth. He's like a John Wayne or Gary Cooper in their day - an actor you automatically trust.''

In the book, the character Alex Cross, a forensic psychologist and best-selling author, is younger. Changes were made to accommodate Freeman playing the role. Fleder summoned writer Marc Moss, another Norfolk native, to Durham to aid him in on-the-set rewrites.

``Much of my vision, in keeping the violence to a minimum, was achieved through Marc's writing,'' he said. ``He deserves a good deal of credit but, due to negotiations with the Writer's Guild, he doesn't get credit.''

Moss is currently writing a screenplay for Robert Redford.

The casting of Ashley Judd caused some uncertainty, too. She plays an intern at the fictional Carolina Medical Center in Durham - a young woman who is kidnapped by the killer and who is the only one who can, perhaps, identify him. Fleder said ``the studio wanted one of the top five - the five women who are on all the lists, starting with Demi Moore.''

Meg Ryan was also in the running. Producer Brown says that the two leading candidates were Elisabeth Shue (``Leaving Las Vegas'') and Ashley Judd. The producer said that Judd has ``a wonderful proud persona characteristic of Southern womanhood.''

Author Patterson had already written one Alex Cross novel when he got the idea for ``Kiss the Girls'' while visiting Chapel Hill, the home of the University of North Carolina.

``It's a very idyllic college town,'' Patterson said, ``but in the middle of all this beauty was a community bulletin board with four pictures of young women and the word `missing' under each one. That's what gave me the idea that something tragic and awful happening in such a beautiful location would seem even scarier and more horrifying.''

Only one scene in the film is recognizably Chapel Hill. Fleder said that he ran into opposition to the film being shot there. ``We were losing locations. We turned more toward Durham and Duke University. The Research Triangle area of North Carolina is a unique place. A mixture of old and new south.''

Harry and Lorraine Fleder, Fleder's parents, flew from Norfolk to Los Angeles this week to attend the premiere.

Fleder's movement has been steadily upward into film direction since he left Norfolk, graduating summa cum laude from Boston University. He got a master's degree in film production in 1991 at the University of Southern California, where he won the prestigious John Huston Directing Scholarship, winning numerous student awards along the way.

His early, short films ``Terminal Round'' and ``Air Time'' were showcased at the Naro early in his career. He credits films at the Naro ``with my beginning education in film. It was the one place where I could see important films from around the world.''

Intense and ultra-serious about his work, Fleder nervously talks about the fact that the opening weekend will determine the fate of his film.

``You have to really give passion to a film for two years of your life in order to get it made,'' he said. ``Then, what happens in one weekend decides its fate.''

Even with the backing of Paramount Pictures, its budget, and all its promotional facilities, he admits that releasing a film is a risky, and suspenseful happening.

``It's a life of uncertainty,'' he said, adding, ruefully, ``actually, it's a life of dreams.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos

Director Gary Fleder...

Detective Alex Cross (Freeman)...

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Ashley Judd stars as Dr. Kate Mctiernan, a woman who survives a

serial killer in the suspense thriller ``Kiss the Girls.'' KEYWORDS: INTERVIEW PROFILE BIOGRAPHY

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