Taking Aim At Hollywood

With his acclaimed new film, “The Assassination of Richard Nixon,” screening at Toronto’s film festival, Tufts graduate Niels Mueller has set his sights on box office success.

Toronto [09.13.04] Filmmaker Niels Mueller has come a long way since his days of toting his father’s super-8 movie camera around his home in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin. The hand-built setsare long gone but the Tufts graduate’s passion for film remains strong. His latest film – “The Assassination of Richard Nixon” – won acclaim at Cannes and is currently showing at the Toronto film festival, before its release in New York and Los Angeles this winter.

“It’s a tough competition to get in,” Mueller told Greater Milwaukee Today, referring to the Cannes film festival. “‘Nixon’ was one of only a few American films chosen in the category they screened, so that was a nice honor, as well.”

The film – which was written and directed by Mueller – is set in 1974 and is based on the true story of a man who attempts to fly an airplane into the White House, after being turned down for a small-business loan, losing his job and his wife. Sean Penn plays the lead role.

The combination of Mueller’s direction and Penn’s performance has made the film a hit.

“Sean Penn is his generation’s greatest actor, and ‘The Assassination of Richard Nixon’ may just be his greatest performance yet,” Mark Urman, head of the company distributing the film in the U.S., told Indie Wire. “With stunning clarity and control, Penn, Mueller, and a brilliant cast have taken a forgotten incident from America’s past and have turned it into a strikingly contemporary look at where we could be headed today.”

The idea for the film hit Mueller after he heard about a random fast food restaurant shooting in California, reported Greater Milwaukee Today.

“I asked myself how a thinking adult could go from point A to B when it comes to indiscriminate violence,” he told the newspaper. “Fictitiously, I wanted to explore that notion, of somebody lashing out.”

As his film flourishes abroad, Mueller said that he never planned out his career. Things just seemed to fall into place.

“I don’t feel all that different from when I left Milwaukee [for college] when I was 18,” he told Greater Milwaukee Today. “I had an odd continuity and one thing led to another. Tufts provided a really good, broad liberal arts background.”

It also provided Mueller with some strong talent for his early projects. As a student at Tufts, he worked with classmates Oliver Platt and Hank Azaria on film projects - many that were never quite finished. After graduating, he produced a television series that aired on Milwaukee public television before finally getting serious about finishing his work and getting into bigger endeavors.

“I was writing half stories,” the Tufts graduate told Greater Milwaukee Today. “For me, it was inspiration vs. perspiration. I forced myself to get to the end of something.”

He also faced some opposition from his father, Hans Mueller, who stressed the importance of a professional career to his children.

“I think [Tufts is] where he began taking his writing more seriously,” Hans told Greater Milwaukee Today. “At first, I was a bit disappointed when he leaned toward film. I think I referred to it as a ‘breadless art.’”

But Niels’ talent and aspirations won out.

“It was hugely important to fill their expectations,” Niels told the newspaper. “It sounds like a cliché, but it’s nice to have parents for whom you wish to do your best. Both my parents stressed to me that I go into something professionally that I’d want to do, something that I was passionate about.”

Perhaps to both son and parents’ surprise, Mr. and Mrs. Mueller have actually become “film groupies,” according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. They flew to Cannes where the film debuted and then drove to Toronto for the second showing of their son’s work.

Mueller has experienced a handful of film successes leading up to “The Assasination of Richard Nixon.” He was an associate producer of “Sweet Nothing,” which starred Mira Sorvino and Micahel Imperiolli in 1996 and co-wrote “Tadpole,” which starred Bebe Neuwrith and Sigorney Weaver in 2002. He also co-wrote the recently released “13 Going on 30,” which starred Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Garner.

Now Mueller couldn’t be happier as he sees his latest project screened by V.I.P.s in the industry, at what he calls the “audience-driven” Toronto film festival, according to the Journal Sentinel.

“I know there will always be people that won’t understand or appreciate what you do,” Mueller told Greater Milwaukee Today. “But just getting a film to a place where it is now, that wasn’t a given when I started production. Even though there were tough times making the film, I’m glad I’m doing something I love.”