In Contention

Category: Interviews

  • INTERVIEW: ‘Shutter Island’ director Martin Scorsese

    Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island” did just fine with audiences this year, bringing in nearly $300 million worldwide and ultimately proving to be the biggest box office hit of his career to date.  However, the film didn’t quite ring the bell of a number of critics who struggled to comprehend its specifically rendered formalism and opted instead to (perhaps hastily) dismiss it as a misstep in an otherwise artistically successful autumn career.

    A few weeks ago I hopped on the phone with the revered filmmaker, largely for the purposes of a two-part profile of actor Leonardo DiCaprio.  Calling from London, where he’s currently taking the 3D dive with “Hugo Cabret,” Scorsese graciously spoke for a half hour at the end of a 16-hour day of shooting.

    Much of the conversation surrounded his work with DiCaprio, but also naturally drifted into the general territory of filming the Dennis Lehane adaptation and, of course, how his famed love of cinema impacted his vision of it as a film.  So I thought it deserved a separate space.  Have a listen to our chat after the jump (and beware of SPOILERS of the film throughout).

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  • INTERVIEW: ‘The Illusionist’ producer Bob Last

    It’s been over 10 months since I first reviewed Sylvain Chomet’s dazzling new animated feature “The Illusionist” at the Berlinale, and yet it only finds its way to US theaters tomorrow.

    A more appropriate film to unwrap on Christmas morning, however, you could not ask for.  Both a loving tribute to the creative legacy of French comedian Jacques Tati and an iridescent valentine to the city of Edinburgh, Chomet’s latest is finally a heartbreaker independent of such associations, covering loneliness, disillusionment and renewal in its delicate tale of an outmoded music-hall magician who takes a naïve waif under his wing.

    The crowning artistic glory of a robust year for animation, and among the best films of any stripe in 2010, “The Illusionist” has already taken Best Animated Feature honors from the New York Film Critics’ Circle, as well as a special award from the National Board of Review, a Golden Globe nod and a healthy haul of Annie Award nominations.  And in addition to Chomet himself, the man deservedly basking in the film’s success is its British producer Bob Last.

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  • TECH SUPPORT INTERVIEW: ‘True Grit’ production designer Jess Gonchor

    We’re wrapping things up today with a final look at the below-the-line of Joel and Ethan Coen’s “True Grit” and a chat with production designer Jess Gonchor.

    You might recall our interview with Gonchor from last year when he mentioned how he first came to work with the Coens (on 2007’s “No Country for Old Men”).  The brothers had been very impressed with what they saw on Bennett Miller’s “Capote” and liked what he brought to the table.  Gonchor had already shown his value as art director on films like “Kate & Leopold” and “The Last Samurai,” but “Capote” was his first stab at being the head of the art department as production designer.

    Four films later the collaboration is still going strong as Gonchor has settled in nicely with the Coens’ family of craftsmen and women, and “True Grit” might be the apex of that work so far.  Any designer would delight in working on a western, but the attention to detail in Gonchor’s work, and particularly in the work of his set decorator, Nancy Haigh, is truly wonderful.

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  • TECH SUPPORT INTERVIEW: ‘True Grit’ composer Carter Burwell

    Nearing the end of our week-long series of interviews with the below-the-line talent of Joel and Ethan Coen’s “True Grit,” we’re talking today with the film’s composer Carter Burwell.

    Of the entire Coen crafts family, Burwell is one of the true veterans.  He goes way back with the brothers — all the way back, in fact, to their directorial debut, “Blood Simple,” in 1984.  Save for “O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” which featured an assemblage of pre-existing musical selections, Burwell has contributed an original score to each of their films.

    With “True Grit,” the task was unique despite music having always been quite integral to the genre.  Rather than whip up a completely original score from beginning to end, Burwell and the Coens decided to base a lot of the music on hymns of the period (though there is still a good deal of original music in the film — music unceremoniously ruled ineligible for Oscar consideration by the music branch of the Academy this year).

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  • TECH SUPPORT INTERVIEW: ‘True Grit’ cinematographer Roger Deakins

    The Coen brothers’ “True Grit” opens nationwide today.  And we’re continuing right along with our daily look at the below-the-line talent of the film with director of photography Roger Deakins.

    Deakins has been with the Coens for nearly 20 years, going all the way back to “Barton Fink” in 1991.  It’s fair to say his style and tendencies as an artist have become married to the Coens’, forging an identifiable texture to their work together.

    But a lot of that general stylish flourish took a backseat on “True Grit,” allowing for a much more simplified rendering of the film’s imagery.  I’ve talked to Deakins a couple of times over the years and he’s rarely one to pour sound bytes onto an interview, but it’s always a great and enlightening discussion regardless.  I keep linking to last year’s interview with these guys regarding “A Serious Man” to hopefully shed more light on their process working with the Coens.

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  • TECH SUPPORT INTERVIEW: ‘True Grit’ sound mixer Skip Lievsay

    Continuing today with our week-long look at the below-the-line elements of the Coen brothers’ “True Grit,” we’re chatting with sound re-recording mixer Skip Lievsay.

    Along with Carter Burwell, Lievsay is one of only two of the individuals we talked to who goes all the way back to “Blood Simple” with the Coens.  What that says to me is that these filmmakers have maintained a sense of sonic consistency in their films over the years and put plenty of thought into the overall sound experience.

    Lievsay was finally recognized by the Academy in 2007 for his and his collaborators’ work on “No Country for Old Men,” an understated piece of work that was fortunately not overshadowed completely by large scale productions that year.  This year he delighted in tackling one of his favorite genres: the western.

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  • TECH SUPPORT INTERVIEW: ‘True Grit’ costume designer Mary Zophres

    In lieu of a typical entry in our Tech Support interview series (which kicked off last week), and on the heels of Friday’s sit-down chat with the Coen brothers, we’re kicking off the week of “True Grit” (opening December 22) with a series of five audio chats with the film’s below-the-line personnel, all at the top of their game on this very traditional but detailed western.

    We’ll have sound mixer Skip Lievsay tomorrow, cinematographer Roger Deakins Wednesday, and production designer Jess Gonchor Friday. Each piece will lead off with a little bit of the score from Carter Burwell, who we’ll be featuring Thursday.

    Today, however, we begin with costume designer Mary Zophres.  Zophres has been with the Coens for 14 years, going back to “Fargo” in 1996.  We first spoke (as I did with most of these folks) last year regarding “A Serious Man,” but this time around we had even more to talk about given the period nature of the film.

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  • INTERVIEW: ‘True Grit’ writers, producers and directors Joel and Ethan Coen

    Directors Joel and Ethan Coen have evolved into the quintessential American filmmakers of our time since charging onto the indie scene over 25 years ago. It was a trajectory hinted at in early depictions of Prohibition-era gangsterism (“Miller’s Crossing”), post-war Capitalism (“The Hudsucker Proxy”), Midwestern slice-of-life peculiarity (“Fargo”) and epic folk land adventurism (“O Brother, Where Art Thou?”), but it was a trademark that snapped into clarity in 2007 with their thematically potent examination of a country at a crossroads, “No Country for Old Men.”

    It seemed only a matter of time before they turned their attention to the quintessential American genre: the western.  But the word “western” didn’t really figure into their thinking when they set about re-adapting Charles Portis’s novel “True Grit” for the big screen.

    “To us, in a weird way, if you were going to put it into a genre, it was just a young adventure story,” Joel says. “It takes place in America in Oklahoma in 1878, so yeah, it’s a western, but the other thing almost kind of preceded it in our thinking. So I guess it wasn’t consciously approaching it as a ‘western’ in quotation marks. It’s an adventure story with the trappings of the old west.”

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  • TECH SUPPORT INTERVIEW: The look of ‘Inception’

    Christopher Nolan has become known for making the Batman films look, and consequently feel, “real.”  His latest film, “Inception,” despite being a visual treat, also seemed a far cry from the CGI spectacles that normally dominate the blockbuster circuit.  It was very well-received by critics and certainly audiences alike and is currently enjoying a solid run on the awards circuit, having earned multiple nominations from both the BFCA and the HFPA.

    Speaking to cinematographer Wally Pfister, production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas (who earned the LAFCA award) and special effects supervisor Chris Corbould, it becomes clear that Nolan’s style is as infectious on the crew as it is on the public.  They delight in revealing how they collaborated with Nolan – and each other – to make “Inception” look so real.  The short answer: “Because it is.”

    Corbould, having worked with Nolan on “The Dark Knight” and “Batman Begins,” was on the fast track when Nolan approached him in 2009 to talk about the new film  “I heard from him on a Wednesday,” he recalls, “and after reading the script and hearing the pitch, I had signed the contract on the Saturday or Sunday.”

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  • INTERVIEW: Leonardo DiCaprio on ‘Inception’ and ‘Shutter Island’ parallels and a shifting industry landscape

    *PLEASE NOTE: There will be spoilers of both “Inception” and “Shutter Island” in this two-part interview with actor Leonardo DiCaprio.  For yesterday’s installment, featuring extended conversation with the actor and director Martin Scorsese, click here.

    Leonardo DiCaprio was very aware of the similarities between “Shutter Island” and “Inception” when he was considering starring in the latter. The idea of a man haunted by his past and living in an alternate reality, these are themes that interest him, in particular because he enjoys playing characters which are in some ways unreliable protagonists (to play on the “unreliable narrator” literary device).

    “There’s nothing obvious,” he says. “It forces you to sit with the other characters and be deceitful to yourself and to the people around you. No line is taken for what it is. You can never read a line with either of these characters and say to yourself, ‘He means exactly what he says.’ There’s a hidden agenda there. Both of these characters are lost in the labyrinth of their own mind and living an alternate life completely that they hadn’t come to terms with. And how one lies to oneself is interesting, too, with both of these guys.”

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  • INTERVIEW: Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese on building the perfect psychosis in ‘Shutter Island’

    *PLEASE NOTE: There will be spoilers of both “Inception” and “Shutter Island” in this two-part interview with actor Leonardo DiCaprio and director Martin Scorsese.

    Audience members flock the stage of the television Academy’s Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre in North Hollywood, cameras and signables at the ready, as Leonardo DiCaprio patiently weathers the Black Friday-like storm of appreciation.

    They’ve all just seen “Shutter Island,” many for the first time. During a post-screening Q&A they’ve heard him tell stories of an “anxiety-ridden,” “intense” shoot, of playing through multiple versions of his character for the purposes of creative editing and of his perspective on virtually growing up on camera over the last two decades.

    But they want to be closer. They want to be around greatness, talent, fame: that unmistakable glow of movie stardom.  And yet DiCaprio has made a career of translating his celebrity into precious fuel for an insatiable creative fire. Rather than rest on paycheck laurels of notoriety, he consistently places himself at the crossroads of art and commerce, even putting his money where his mouth is as producer if need be. And two financially successful films that embraced creative risks in 2010 prove that the actor shows no signs of changing course.

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  • INTERVIEW: ‘The Way Back’ actor Ed Harris

    When actor Ed Harris was doing the press rounds for his second directorial effort, “Appaloosa,” in 2008, he was frequently asked who was on his wish list of collaborators. He remembers saying a couple of times that he’d like to work with Peter Weir again because he had such a good time on the 1998 film “The Truman Show” (which yielded the actor an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor). And it wasn’t long after that he got his wish as the screenplay for “The Way Back” came his way.

    “I would have done anything he asked me, whatever it was,” Harris says sipping an iced tea outside his Malibu home. “He’s such a thorough, committed director. It’s like the best teacher you ever had. You enjoy writing a paper for the guy, because you know the feedback is going to enlighten you. It’s going to encourage you. It’s going to make you better. And working with Peter is like that because his attention is so laser-like. You know whatever you’re doing he’s paying attention to. One of the things I like to do as an actor is the specificity of any given character but working with Peter enhances that even more. You’re just aware. It makes you focus on the moment-to-moment reality of what you’re doing.”

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  • INTERVIEW: ‘Tangled’ composer Alan Menken

    Sitting at the Four Seasons’ Culina Restaurant with a tomato juice in hand, politely asking to turn the heaters up on a fair weather day, composer Alan Menken recalls the afternoon before, when he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

    “That was a trip,” he says. “I didn’t know how much to make of it or not to make of it. It’s not a moment where someone says, ‘You’ve won this because you accomplished this.’ It’s a moment in time when someone says, ‘You know what? You should have a star.’”

    And it’s not the most out-of-line observation, given what Menken has meant to filmmaking, particularly animated filmmaking over the past two decades. It seems surprising that, however political an honor such as this may be, that he didn’t have one. But like he seems to take most praise, Menken was politely appreciative and didn’t quite know what else to make of it.

    “It was almost a little like going to a funeral. Because they have the thing covered up and you’re standing there and then they uncover it. And then I went back later in the day to visit my star and it’s a little strange, your star is still there and you’re walking away. On cold nights I can picture homeless guys peeing on it.”

    The star rests on the sidewalk outside of Disney’s El Capitan Theatre, a fitting place given Menken’s undeniable contribution to the studio’s legacy over the last 21 years.

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  • INTERVIEW: ‘The Town’ actor Jeremy Renner

    Warner Bros. has been looking for any and every opportunity to get Jeremy Renner and his well-liked supporting performance in Ben Affleck’s “The Town” out there as Oscar season begins to take hold. Yesterday he was making the press rounds just as screener copies of the film were hitting voters’ doorsteps.

    The last time I saw Renner was on the C lot bus at the airport maybe a month after the Oscars put a bow on the long, rewarding haul of “The Hurt Locker.” He and that film’s co-star, Brian Geraghty, were coming back from some much-needed R&R and Renner told me at the time he was happily “unemployed.”

    Of course, plenty has changed since then. He finds himself starring opposite Tom Cruise in the latest installment of a “Mission: Impossible” franchise that he may well take over, joining the giant ensemble of Marvel’s hugely ambitious cross-over film “The Avengers” and, of course, kicking up awards buzz once again for his work in “The Town.”

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  • INTERVIEW: ‘Blue Valentine’ actress Michelle Williams

    I chatted with “Blue Valentine” star Michelle Williams a few weeks ago and it’s one of a handful of discussions I haven’t yet had a chance to transcribe. But in her case, I think it’s more beneficial to let her answers speak for themselves rather than have them filtered through the perspective and narrative drive of a journalist.

    Williams is a delightful interview subject because she seems to painstakingly search for the honest and fresh answer. She doesn’t naturally lean back on sound bytes and the usual banter even if it does prove impossible not to tread similar water from one interview to the next.

    In the film, she gives a dynamic performance that could well push her into the final five of a lead actress category uncharacteristically competitive this season. Her chemistry with co-star Ryan Gosling, largely a topic of our discussion, is impeccable. Have a listen to our brief chat after the jump.

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  • INTERVIEW: ‘Inside Job’ director Charles Ferguson

    I’m getting to that point where the interviews are stacking up and there’s precious little time to transcribe and write them up.  It pains me to resort to audio for these purposes as I enjoy writing them out and giving a narrative interpretation of a persona, but sometimes one’s hand is forced.

    This morning I had the pleasure of chatting with “Inside Job” director Charles Ferguson, who has already stirred a fuss in political and economic sectors with his latest documentary.  The film opens wider this weekend and, hopefully, will reach the audience that really needs to see it: the American public.  Check out the trailer for the film here.

    Forgive dodging the writing duties this time out, but hey, I’m not just lazily throwing the audio up here.  A little editing in and out of the piece was fun and I think the conversation sheds some light on Ferguson and his approach to this film in particular.  It’s a short chat.  Have a listen after the jump.

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  • INTERVIEW: ‘The Town’ screenwriter, director and star Ben Affleck

    Actor — and as of late, filmmaker — Ben Affleck makes his way to a cozy corner of Santa Monica’s Casa Del Mar hotel restaurant. He’s coming from a “Dad’s event” at his daughter’s school, he says, propping his feet up on a nearby chair.

    Currently shooting Terrence Malick’s latest film in Oklahoma, the multi-hyphenate has a window for awards season publicity and Warner Bros. seized the opportunity. Affleck’s second directorial effort, “The Town,” has kicked up enough buzz to legitimize an all-out Oscar push, and judging by most reactions to the film, it could be an effort well-rewarded.

    I pass along one such reaction — from actor Robert Duvall, who greatly enjoyed the film — and Affleck’s eyes light up. “Wow, really? That’s great to hear.” He playfully riffs on Duvall’s characteristic voice, adding, “He’s a spectacular personality. A genius.”

    That mixture of humility and humor highlights the majority of our conversation. Affleck is as affable as they come. Perhaps it’s years of navigating the game and knowing how to put his best foot forward with a journalist, but it rings through with authenticity. He’s a guy’s guy with a thoughtful charisma that has served him well over the years, but now he finds himself putting it all to use in the director’s chair. And while he is very appreciative of the success his latest film has achieved, he notes that he came to it apprehensively.

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  • INTERVIEW: Patricia Clarkson

    “I’m going to bring back the letter,” a flustered Patricia Clarkson announces as she makes her way to our lunch table, ever-so-slightly rain-mussed but otherwise immaculate in black and cream, a jaunty matching fedora astride her familiar blonde mane. “I’m never late. I blame email for this. I’m only just getting acquainted with it.”

    She is, thanks to a slight communication muddle, late only to a degree most actors wouldn’t apologise for. Together with my lunchmate, Daily Telegraph critic Tim Robey, we’ve nabbed a cosy corner spot at Mayfair’s all-day Italian bistro Cecconi’s, a humming London institution of marble, green velvet upholstery and £40 white truffle starters. (Clarkson is more excited by other things on the menu: later, one eye on the menu, she interrupts her own sentence with the jubilant cry, “Meatballs! With spaghetti sauce!”)

    “This place is fabulous,” she says—that adjective’s first of many appearances in our two-hour conversation—settling into our banquette with a tidy collapse of a sigh. Patricia Clarkson, she does not mind admitting, is exhausted, and not just from her week of jury duty at the London Film Festival, where she presided over the panel that, we’d learn the next day, selected Russia’s “How I Ended This Summer” as best in show. (All she tells us is that she’s “very happy” with the “wonderful” winner they’ve chosen, though she successfully deflects our speculation as to what it might be. “Oh, the Russian film?” she shrugs, when Tim brings it up.)

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