Directors downsize their productions' scales

Mendes isn't the only director who has opted to renew creatively by going small. While this summer boasts a raft of de rigueur studio blockbusters, the "Angels & Demonses" and "Star Treks" of the world, it also features a crew of A-list directors pointedly departing from the kinds of films that made their reputations, often chucking the trappings of big-budget filmmaking in search of the high of flying by the seats of their pants. For some, the films serve as bids for the creative freedom that comes with smaller scales and lowered expectations, almost a self-prescribed tonic for the bloat and stress of industrial-sized, high-stakes studio filmmaking. Others simply crave a change of pace.

There are historical precedents, of course; Francis Coppola, for example, delving into "The Outsiders" and "Rumble Fish" after the tsoris of "One From the Heart" and "Apocalypse Now." (He's also painted on a smaller canvas for his 32nd film, "Tetro," due in theaters June 11.) Or Steven Soderbergh's micro-budget experiments with non-actors like "Bubble" and the recently released "The Girlfriend Experience," which stars porn star Sasha Grey and feels like an ironic, cool chaser after the two-part, 268-minute megalith of "Che" or his trio of glitzy "Ocean" capers with a laundry list of marquee talent.

After a trifecta of "Spider-Man" movies and with a fourth on the horizon, Sam Raimi recently returned to his horror roots with the modestly budgeted "Drag Me to Hell," about a young loan officer cursed by a vengeful gypsy. And Ang Lee is forgoing heavy drama for the first time in over a decade, making the comedic and intimate "Taking Woodstock," which opens in August.

According to Mendes, Soderbergh calls these cinematic excursions "purification films." "It's like detoxing. You can get into the habits when making bigger films where you sort of expect everything to be there for you. You don't have to work for it. You can get into a rhythm that sometimes you need to break," said Mendes, who also worked with an entirely new crew, editor, cinematographer and production designer to make the $17-million film (only $2 million more than his budget for "American Beauty" 10 years ago).

The production also made a concerted effort to be environmentally conscious, with smaller trailers, and Priuses to ferry people about. "As a consequence there was even less conspicuous consumption," Mendes said, and less of a feeling of running a small empire. "There aren't as many people, and you feel less guilty because you're not spending as much money."

For Mendes, "Away We Go," which opened Friday, meant a welcome plunge into romance after years of dwelling on the marital despair of "Revolutionary Road." "I love that it was written by a couple [married novelists Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida] who love each other, about a couple who love each other." Like the characters in "Revolutionary Road," this couple "wanted to escape, but this time they could. It mirrors my own philosophy much more closely. I'm not Yatesian," he said, referring to the bleak worldview sometimes taken by "Revolutionary Road" author Richard Yates. "I don't believe we're all doomed."