Skowhegan's empire falls

A visitor might wonder whether this long-slumping mid-Maine town had indulged in a very un-Maine-like vanity and changed its name.

In many ways, Skowhegan did just that. For more than two months, this former mill town handed over its tired downtown for an HBO rendition of "Empire Falls," the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Richard Russo. Storefronts were re-done, traffic signs removed, the clock turned back to 1962, and movie stars Paul Newman, Ed Harris, Joanne Woodward, and Helen Hunt set loose on the streets.

That was the good news, bolstered by a once-in-a-lifetime bonus for hundreds of residents who landed jobs as extras. The bad news: Skowhegan was chosen partly because it resembles the fictional Empire Falls, a blue-collar Maine community whose down-at-the-heels present is a bleak reminder of the good days from long ago, and good jobs gone far away.

"It's not really a compliment, you know," Town Manager Patricia A. Dickey said of Skowhegan's selection as a look-alike home for broken dreams.

But Dickey and her neighbors threw themselves into the project with an infectious enthusiasm that impressed the HBO film crew, many of whom had never been to small-town Maine, said producer Bill Teitler.

The result served two needs: the movie's desire for a visually compelling location, and Skowhegan's search for a new reason to feel good about itself.

"One thing that a movie does for a community is give it vigor and hope," said Lynn Kippax, a Kennebunkport resident who served as location manager.

"These are places that have often been ignored when it comes to Maine's story and how it's told," Kippax said of Skowhegan and nearby Waterville, another depressed mill town featured in the movie.

"Maine's story usually includes lobsters, lighthouses, L.L. Bean, and Stephen King," Kippax said. "We're thickening the broth; we're extending the story."

That story has been a tough one in recent years. Since July 2000, Maine has lost 21.1 percent of its manufacturing jobs -- the fourth-worst seasonally adjusted mark in the country, according to the National Association of Manufacturers.

In Skowhegan, a community of 8,725 people, the losses have been staggering. American Shoe laid off its entire work force of 54 unexpectedly this month; Solon Manufacturing shed 75 workers this year, and Dirigo Stitching laid off 40, Skowhegan officials said.

When Dickey and other municipal leaders talk of good memories, they recall the glorious day President Dwight D. Eisenhower came to town -- half a century ago.

Dickey, who has been town manager for two decades, said she listened to "Empire Falls" on 21 hours of audiotape.

"In hearing it, it was a depressing thing, but that's life," Dickey said. "I can almost name those people in the book."

Russo, who taught English at Colby College in Waterville, used people and places in central Maine to help create "Empire Falls."

The steps of most townspeople quickened beginning Sept. 10, when 56 days of shooting began for the three-hour movie, scheduled for broadcast in 2005.

"When I saw those 10 tractor-trailer trucks rumbling into town, I said, `Holy cow, what have we gotten ourselves into?' " Dickey recalled. "We didn't know how many people work in a movie."

They do now. And everyone seems to have a unique memory of the experience, from pizza-parlor owner Richard Zazulia's autographed picture of Harris, to taxi owner Ernestine MacMillan's unacknowledged wave to Newman.

MacMillan, 66, was married at 15. But her sightings of Newman, who spent many days at the re-created Empire Grill across a crowded parking lot, clearly caused her heart to flutter.

"Don't quote me, but Paul Newman's got those great bedroom eyes," MacMillan said.

Like Empire Falls, Skowhegan's decline began when Eisenhower was president. But like the fictional characters of Empire Falls, who hope that the luxury cars with Massachusetts plates are carrying new money for the mills, Skowhegan's townspeople see promise in the movie.

If the baseball film "Field of Dreams" can lure tourists to Dyersville, Iowa, their thinking goes, why can't Skowhegan catch the magic?

"I always thought that if this were anywhere else, Skowhegan would be a tourist mecca," said artist Milton Christianson, whose watercolors of the replicated Empire Grill, the focal point of the novel, have sold briskly.

Ed Beaulieu, who manages a downtown thrift shop that benefits people with mental disabilities, thinks the dreams of movie-related tourism are fantasies.

"I don't think it's going to do that much for Skowhegan," said Beaulieu, who estimated that the film's traffic disruption cost his store as much as $800 a week. "Maybe for six months we'll have some tourism, but it wears off quick."

Glenice Woodman, who runs the Riverside Restaurant nearby, was even harsher.

"It's pretty much put us under," Woodman said of hours-long street closings. Now, a "for sale" sign is in her front window.

Woodman estimated she lost as much as $14,000 a month when regular customers went elsewhere during the filming. "It's like, `When we come to town, we take it over, and you have to deal with it,' " Woodman said of the production company.

Film-crew managers said they tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to work out financial compensation with Woodman. The restaurant owner insists that no reasonable offer was made, and that the movie experience was a disaster for businesses.

But at Town Hall, that's not the way Dickey sees the autumn of 2003.

"We can't lose the momentum," she said.

Plans are in the works for an annual "Empire Falls" week: Downtown streets and storefronts will be refurbished in 1960s style, and mementos from the film will be preserved at Town Hall.

The future is painfully uncertain here, but the town at least has one other shining memory to burnish. And for Dickey, who thought long and silently as she leafed through recent history, this movie about failure -- and ultimate redemption -- is the best thing that has happened to Skowhegan.