NOISE In a city that never sleeps

Imagine falling off into a peaceful sleep, heading into dreamland when BAM! a car alarm goes off in the street and several horrifically loud and disruptive beeps smack you awake. Pretty awful, you say? Well, imagine it happening every night, several times a night. At some point, you might want to do something about it. You might scream out your window. You might even be lured to go outside and stare at the car with a look to kill.

But when the alarm keeps blaring and bleating, then what?

If you are David Owen, the protagonist of the sharp new film NOISE, you break into the car and cut the electrical wires. Then you get arrested. And then you do it all over again. Henry Bean wrote, directed and produced this film, starring Tim Robbins, based on his own actions during several frustrating years of city dwelling in New York. Bean began breaking into cars to disconnect the alarms in Los Angeles in the '70s. The problem only grew more unbearable when he moved to NYC in '89.

Bean explains, "In an incident identical to the one in NOISE, I was arrested for breaking into a car to disconnect the battery. The film grew from that arrest, from asking myself, 'What would happen to someone who got arrested once and refused to stop doing it?'" Anyone who has ever suffered the incredible decibel level of city life will commiserate and envy Bean vicariously through David Owen.

Bean wore many hats to make this film, but he was not deterred, "I wrote the film, therefore I directed it, therefore I had to do what I could to get it made. It was like one hat with three sides." And as for challenges: "The greatest obstacle is the stubbornness of the world (including oneself) in the face of the impulse to do anything. Inertia. The death instinct. Whatever you want to call it."

He hesitates to consider his work "his" and lauds Peter Hoffman, who found the money, and Susan Hoffman, who organized the production. "They wanted to make [NOISE and The Believer] and saw to it that we did, and therefore it was not so difficult."

NOISE is traveling the festival circuit and garnering quite a bit of buzz, and AFI FEST was one where Bean really wanted to screen his film. We're happy he's here. Maybe now, we'll all get some peace and quiet.