Occasionally a film comes out of Sundance that breaks molds, makes cinematic history and in the end just makes people feel good. In 2004 when “Napoleon Dynamite” had its premiere at the festival it was a lightning-in-a-bottle moment that accomplished all three of those things.
It didn’t take home any big prize, or win awards that year, but the independent film which was made for $400,000 was acquired by Fox Search Light Pictures for $4,000,000 who partnered with Paramount Pictures and MTV Films for its release.
The filmmakers Jerusha Hess and her husband Jared created the story together while they were attending Brigham Young University film school. Hess said the premiere was one of the most nerve-wracking moments she’ll never forget.
“But when that moment at Sundance, when it was the first moment of the film, Napoleon standing there, the bus comes because we didn't even have the title, the fun, like food, title sequence, or credit sequence,” Hess said. “We didn't have that in the beginning. We added that later. But we were showing it and people like started clapping the second they saw him and we just got the chills were like, OK, people get it. People got it. We can, we can breathe.”
According to Box Office Mojo, the film grossed $44,540,956 domestically in its first year. Since then, the film has become a cult classic, spawned endless streams of merchandise, and was voted number 14 on Bravo’s 100 funniest films.
Jared directed the movie and according to Hess the characters were based on family members and friends.
“Jared has five brothers or six, five brothers, I have seven brothers, we both came from these big Mormon families,” Hess said. “And we both lived in the Midwest. And so we have this rural, kind of out-of-the-box life that a lot of people live, but if you are city folk, it's completely foreign.”
Hess said one of the beautiful aspects of the film is the locked off feeling it has because they couldn’t afford any fancy camera equipment and shot on the short ends of film reels.
“So we couldn't take really long takes the whole thing like the dance sequence is a million tiny chopped up pieces that we just edited together because we couldn't afford a longer take,” she said. “But those types of things they were all this low budget informed the whole cool style.”
The film was shot entirely in Preston, Idaho, on the Utah border, and actor Jon Heder, who plays Napoleon, is a fellow college friend of the Hess duo. Hess said Heder based a lot of the character off one of his brothers. Keeping in line with the Hess theory that everyone has a relative like Napoleon.
“And he did this crazy, kind of last-minute dance moment, because we had some film leftover,” she said. “And my husband said, ‘Hey, go dance in that cornfield right there.’ And he did turn the radio on, and Jamiroquai was playing. And it was so unexpected and delightful. We're like, ‘Oh yeah, that's how we end the movie.’”
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of “Napoleon Dynamite,” the film will screen at the Ray Theatre on Jan. 24 at 7 p.m. followed by a conversation with screenwriter Jerusha Hess, actor Jon Heder and more.
