In light of John’s recent praise piece on “Revolutionary Road,” I thought it a good time to shine a light over on indieWIRE and Peter Knegt’s recent interview with director Sam Mendes. Here are a few power quotes from the helmer:
The most common comment from friends of mine who had read the book was, ‘don’t fuck it up.’ That was basically all they said, ‘don’t fuck it up.’ And the biggest compliment I get now is, ‘thank fuck you didn’t fuck it up.’ That’s all I get! Thank god I didn’t fuck it up.
Retrospectively, it seems to be the beginning of a sort of genre of suburban literature that went into John Updike, Tobias Wolff, Rick Moody with ‘The Ice Storm’ and Tom Perrotta who wrote ‘Little Children. Yates is the granddaddy of all of that. Looking back, he sort of began that whole movement.
It’s a sad film. It’s a tragedy. If a tragedy works, like ‘On The Waterfront’ for example… You leave it exhilarated. You don’t leave it depressed. You’re glad to be alive. You know, it’s a cautionary tale. And it was the same thing working on it. You’re plumbing the depths but you’re aware at all times how lucky you are not to have to go there in your real life.
Read the rest here.
Comments
One response to “Sam Mendes: he didn’t f#$% it up”
That last paragraph, though certainly not original, was great. This is why the so called “darker” movies always resonate with us more – because they are more realistic and therefore likely more endearing.
Also why a certain happy ending animation movie from this year didn’t strike me as emotionally strong (key word there “happy ending”).