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The London Film Festival Awards

Mali Elfman — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:07:47 +0000

The Times BFI 53rd London Film Festival is officially over. The theaters are back to their usual routine, press conference rooms filled with boring business people, and awards have been passed out to some of the finest new-comers and veteran filmmakers in the business. As you can see we were able to briefly cover the film festival and bring you both first looks and interviews from Up in the Air, The Road, and The Fantastic Mr Fox. Sadly we missed out on a number of other amazing films which ended up winning awards but hopefully, due to their success at the festival they will be making their way across the pond soon.

And the winners are…

BEST FILM: Un Prophete
HONORABLE MENTION: The Road
BEST BRITISH NEWCOMER: Jack Thorne, screenwriter of the film THE SCOUTING BOOK FOR BOYS
SUTHERLAND AWARD: Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani took the award for their film AJAMI
GRIERSON AWARD FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY: Yoav Shamir for his film DEFAMATION
BFI FELLOWSHIPS: John Hurt for acting and Malian filmmaker Souleymane Cissé directing

All the details of each award, who presented, and a quote from each presenter can be found below…

BEST FILM

In recognition of original, intelligent and distinctive filmmaking, the new award for Best Film was judged by an international jury chaired by Anjelica Huston and fellow jurors John Akomfrah, Jarvis Cocker, Mathieu Kassovitz, Charlotte Rampling and Iain Softley. The Star of London for Best Film was awarded to Jacques Audiard’s A PROPHET and was presented by Anjelica Huston..

On behalf of the jury Anjelica Huston (Chair) said:

“A masterpiece: UN PROPHETE has the ambition, purity of vision and clarity of purpose to make it an instant classic. With seamless and imaginative story-telling, superb performances and universal themes, Jacques Audiard has made a perfect film.”

The jury also gave a special mention to John Hillcoat’s THE ROAD, praising the film’s breathtaking vision, extraordinary performances and profound political statement.

BEST BRITISH NEWCOMER

Presented for the first time, the award for Best British Newcomer celebrates new and emerging film talent, rewarding the achievements of a new writer, producer or director who has demonstrated real creative flair and imagination with their first feature. Dominic Cooper and Jodie Whittaker presented the Best British Newcomer Star of London to Jack Thorne, screenwriter of the film THE SCOUTING BOOK FOR BOYS. The jury said:

“Jack Thorne is a poetic writer with an end-of-the-world imagination and a real gift for story-telling. Thorne’s substantial authorship is revealed in the unique voices of the film’s characters and the rich, soulful and playful layering of the story.” The jury also gave a special mention to J Blakeson, the writer and director of THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ALICE CREED, commending his accomplished, original and ambitious filmmaking.

SUTHERLAND AWARD

The longstanding Sutherland Award is presented to the maker of the most original and imaginative first feature screening in the Festival. This year, Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani took the award for their film AJAMI, which was presented by Alfonso Cuarón. Jurors included Paul Greengrass, Kerry Fox and David Parfitt. The jury said “A bold and original piece of filmmaking, AJAMI tells an important story in a thoroughly engrossing and cinematic way. A fantastic achievement, Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani have made a film with a heart and a vision that speaks for a common humanity.”

LONDON FILM FESTIVAL GRIERSON AWARD for Best Documentary in the Festival

This award is co-presented with the Grierson Trust, in commemoration of John Grierson, the grandfather of British documentary. The jury included Nick Broomfield, Molly Dineen, Ellen Fleming and Christopher Hird, and was presented by Broomfield to winner Yoav Shamir for his film DEFAMATION.

On behalf of the jury Nick Broomfield said: “A fantastic film, Defamation does exactly what documentary, at its best, can do, making us re-examine our assumptions about an important and complex subject, in an absorbing and funny way. The film’s intellectual courage, boldness of conception and the excitement of the journey on which it takes you make this a winning film.”

BFI FELLOWSHIPS

The highest accolade that the British Film Institute bestows was awarded tonight to distinguished British actor John Hurt and renowned Malian filmmaker Souleymane Cissé for their significant achievements in the fields of acting and directing. Hurt, whose films 44 INCH CHEST and THE LIMITS OF CONTROL, were featured in the festival, received his award from producer Jeremy Thomas and director Michael Caton-Jones both of whom have worked with Hurt on a number of films. Cissé’s TELL ME WHO YOU ARE had its UK premiere at the festival this week and his award was presented to him by actress Charlotte Rampling.

LFF: Fantastic Mr. Fox Press Conference

Ben McCarthy — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:50:05 +0000

A few weeks ago the London Film Festival began its first press conference of the festival with the Opening Film, Fantastic Mr Fox. On the panel was the writer/director, Wes Anderson and the stars, George Clooney, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Eric Anderson, Jarvis Cocker and Wallace Wolodarsky. What follows was a really funny press conference; Bill Murray was the standout, with some fantastic one-liners and rants. The only problem with the press conference was the fact that most of the questions were to George Clooney and half of them was about his personal life, which seem out of place, but George Clooney was on top form and dodged the gossip news bullets aimed at him (for those quotes check out our Why Press Conference Suck story). Hope you enjoy.

George, what for you is the appeal of Roald Dahl’s storytelling and characters?

George Clooney: I just showed up for the paycheck because I heard it was a big one. This is a fairly well-known book for a long period of time for a lot of us and there was an opportunity, not only to work on a really interesting and fun story, but also to work with Wes, so I was excited about the whole process. It was a very different process than what most people go through when they work on an animated film. We were out in the middle of nowhere, people’s farms, doing sound effects and things like that; rolling around in the field. The whole process what is exciting and fun to do. If wasn’t an interesting answer, I apologize for that.

Mr. Clooney, can you talk about Mr. Fox? It seems to be a George Clooney performance without your face.

Clooney: Thank you. Although have you noticed the suit and the suit. There is something a little scary about that. For me this guy was just an optimist and I really thought it was a fun character to play. I remember reading the script and saying to Wes, “Listen I love it, and I’m thrilled and excited to do it. I don’t know who’ll see it because it’s sort of made for grownups and sort of made for kids. You never know how that plays.” And he said, “Don’t worry about it. Let’s just go make a movie and have some fun.” And I thought that was a great way to approach making a film, so for me it was about the process of working with Wes, working with these guys. I didn’t enjoy working with Bill, that’s fair to say. We fought a lot.

Bill Murray: That’s accurate George.

Clooney: But I let go of some of the anger and we seem to get along fine now.

Wes, what brought you to the project? And why this style of animation?

Wes Anderson: Why stop motion? Yeah. This was the first book I ever personally owned; officially my property. It was a book I loved as a child. It was a book that introduced me to Roald Dahl’s work in general. It made a big impression on me. About ten years ago, I approached Liccy Dahl, Dahl’s wife, and asked for permission to do it so it’s been a long process. I always intended for it to be stop motion. I wanted to do a stop motion movie. Stop motion movie with animals with fur because I always liked the way that looks — that odd, sort of magical style. That’s the process.

Wes, returning to the stop motion and the choice that you made with that. I’m wondering whether you intentionally approached the cultural history of that form and specifically and Czech filmmakers like Jan Svankmajer used it for politically subversive ends. And I’m wondering if it had any link to the anarchic spirit of Roald Dahl’s novel?

Murray: That’s the kind of question we’ve been hoping for. That’s why we flew over here. Go get ‘em Wes.

(Laughs and claps)

Wes: That kind of eastern European animation was one of the inspirations for me. It’s the most esoteric thing; it isn’t what we thought we were going to talk about onstage, but it’s a very good question. I hadn’t thought about the political links but I do think the movie and Dahl is kind of anarchic. The movie is a bit of a Robin Hood story so it’s a bit communist, I think…

Murray: Or English.

[Laughs]

Wes: But there’s another animated film also that’s a French one, it’s called Le Roman de Renart, do you know that one? And that was a great influence on us because they use — this is too esoteric for this –

Everyone in the panel: No, no, go on.

Wes: One of the techniques that it uses to have multiples scales, so there puppets that are this size, but there also puppets that are tiny that are meant to be the same characters for big-wide shots and it’s very charming and that was something we stole from that movie and used it quite a lot in ours. That’s it. That’s the end of my answer.

Jarvis and Jason, Wallace and Eric, briefly explain your experience voicing the character?

Jarvis: I don’t actually know if I got a line anymore.

Wes: You do.

Jarvis: That line, I put everything into it.

[Laughs]

Jarvis: I hope that when people see the film, they’ll be able to sense the preparation that went into doing it.

Wallace: I have had some experience in animation, mostly in American television with The Simpsons. We use to record theatrically, all the actors there subsequently in future animation that never happens, so this was really a very fun, dynamic experience. We got to run around. When we were running, we ran. When we were hiding behind bushes, we hid behind bushes. It was actually quite fun. I’m not really an actor, but I had a great time working with all these people. It’s been a unique experience for future animation.

Jason: I loved being a part of this movie. I think we’ve talked a lot about all getting to go run around and dig in the dirt and make eating noises and growling noises and how much fun that was to do together, but I can, I really can tell you what a thrill it was to work with everyone. And this is weird to say, but like often time if you’re working with people you really admire, you’re working with them and you can’t really stare at them and take it in of how amazing the whole thing is. Because there were no cameras on this, when George would get to do a scene, make a speech, it was nice because I could just look at him and really admire him. I admire him too, to watch the work and look at it, and to be with Bill and watch Bill work and watch Wes. It was really nicety be able to work, but also watch and have that kind of a privilege. I know it sounds like an odd answer, but that was the thing I liked most about this experience. Thank you.

Eric: My experience started out with all these people having a great time standing in for Jason because he wasn’t there at that moment, and then my part began to work afterwards, once it was all over. It was a series of transatlantic phone calls with my brother, which was sort of like visits because I wasn’t talking to him that of often, he was working very hard. It was sort of like when we were kids, making movies only no cameras, in a darken booth with Wes on the headphones. Occasionally it would be such an abstract experience he would say, “Eric remember, you’re an animal.” I had to keep reminding myself that, but ti was magical.

George or Bill, could you relate to the feeling of something being your last?

Clooney: This is your last film Bill. [Laughs]

Bill Murray: I was just with Felicity Dahl yesterday and she made me feel that way too. [Laughs] She brings out the real fear in you. You always feel like this is the very end of it, but the nice thing about being animated is there going to have a big of difficulty picking me out in an audio crowd. That’s what I’m hoping for. I don’t know what were talking about here, but she seems okay. He’s dead now, so he’s safe. There’s nothing to worry about. She can’t do him any damage now. He’s a great guy and she must have roughed him up pretty bad. [Laughs]

Whatever happened in there household should stay there. We saw where they lived; it’s an amazing place and she’s quite a person, so they had quite a life together and she’s very devoted to him, even now. So I’m sure that in that moment it must have been very forceful to her to realize there’s nothing I can do for him now because it’s just an anxiety that no person can help you with. It’s just your own fear of about yourself. You came to it time after time, it’s just somebody must have roughed him up once upon a time and doesn’t go away so easily. She’s a wonderful, wonderful woman. If I were to remarry, I’d take a chance with her.

Bill, do your improvisational skills help or hinder animation?

Murray: It really has to do with the director and the actors you’re working with. The creatures don’t come into it much. It’s just like any other character — you’re sort of put in this – it’s as if I were here. It’s not a big problem. The improvisation is a function of good the script; the script was good, the story is great. The worse the script is, the more you improvise; it’s as simple as that. Whether it’s a Badger, or a doctor, or a housewife, if the script is lousy you’re going to see more and more improvisation from me, especially if I’m a housewife. Worming with these characters was great, and I just want to say before we go any further, I think the real stars of this movie are Eric and Jason and Wallace because their amazing performances. Their the things that delight me the most in the movie, but they wouldn’t of been possible if George hadn’t really stepped out in front and made a character that we all maple around. This is some of the best work I’ve ever seen somebody do in any kind of voice work. I mean that very sincerely.

Clooney: He’s setting me up for something.

Clooney: I guess now you can officially be described as foxy. What other attributes you think you share with Mr. Fox, other than foxiness?

Clooney: Well I tried a daily wax. Let’s see, I seem to be considerably taller than this character.

Wes: Sometimes when I’ve been writing a script, I had an actor in mind. In this one, we were just thinking of animals, until the script was done. I thought, I would like to have Cary Grant, would have been good, and –

Clooney: Thanks for that.

Wes: Within 20 seconds of thinking of Cary Grant, I was talking about George Clooney. That was the casting process.

Clooney, does this make you want to do more animated films in the future?

Clooney: No. We worked for a few days out on a farm together, and ran around and played in barns and out in fields. Wes worked for a year and a half, or two years, or so on this project. In some ways, us being up here is a little silly. This is Wes’ job and so certainly I would do any of this again. It was an incredibly fun experience for all of us. I would imagine that the real question would be to him, whether he wants–

Wes: The one thing that I learned over the course of the movie is how much the voices — these actors siting up here — how much they give the animator to work with. You record the voices first and the animators, they spend all this time animating these puppets, but their inspiration comes from these moments with these actors.

Wes, how did you work with the animators?

Wes: I did have a wonderful time with the actors. That was a very exciting process and very brief. Animating is a very slow and painstaking process and the animators become the actors at that point. At the most , during this movie, we had 30 units going on at once. So we kind of created a system. I was not in London thought the whole shoot. I was sometimes here and sometimes in other places, but it’s very consuming. You have to work on it all the time while you’re shooting, and we had a computer system where I could look through 30 different cameras at once and see what’s on each set and work with all the different people, which is hundreds of people. Designing and preparing and executing the shots. Getting the systems to do it was as much part of the process as actually doing it, but I loved making this film. Stop motion is something I feel it part of my arsenal of things to use for movies now, I really enjoyed it.

Roald Dahl was thought to likely scaring children. Did you make this story a bit darker than it was and did you enjoy scaring children?

Wes: I remember being scared by Roald Dahl and I loved that. I don’t think we made it any darker, but we tried to keep it as dark. While we were writing the script our goal was to try to see if we could imagine what doll, how he would have expanded the story into a movie. That was out ideal. This is a movie they’re not in danger of getting hurt, they’re in danger of getting killed, and that’s the way it’s in the book. Mr. Fox tale is shot off and doesn’t grow back. We tried to keep that.

Wes, why does it tend to be American actors with American accents rather than British ones?

Clooney: That’s it. (Stomp) [Laughs]

Wes: Noah Baumbach and I adapted the script together — we’re American. I feel we were better writing American voices, so we decided that we would make all the animals American and the humans would be British. That’s the way we did it.

Murray: Because they’re the bad guys. [Laughs]

Clooney, what is the moral lesson from this fairytale?

Clooney: Stealing is good. I don’t know. What’s the moral lesson? Anybody? It’s honoring thievery. Let me try again. I think we just want to be true to our animal nature.

Check out the film in theaters November 25th!

LFF Review: Fantastic Mr Fox

Ben McCarthy — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:19:35 +0000

Note from the Editor: Straight from London, comes one our latest addition to the team Ben McCarthy with his first response to Fantastic Mr. Fox at The London Film Festival. At the festival I had some issues making the film because, well, London traffic rivals the best in the world. Luckily, I met Ben who I thought had a rather interesting opiniong of the film. Check out his thoughts below…

You know you’re watching a Wes Anderson film when you see a dysfunctional families, quirky characters, and 70′s style clothing, look at The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited and now his adaption of Roald Dahl’s book, Fantastic Mr Fox. The film tells the story of Mr. Fox (voiced by George Clooney) trying to out wit 3 farmers named Bean, Boggis and Bunce to gain more food for his family. I was nervous about the film after watching the trailers, but Anderson has pulled it off and I was deeply impressed with the look of the film.

The set, costumes and creatures are fantastic, you really do get caught up in their environment. The amount of detail, that they incorporate into the creatures is wonderful, especially The Foxes themselves (I kept on thinking back to a character called “Sully” in Monsters Inc). The film is in tune with the book’s time, all the sets and costumes are made to look like they where from the 1970′s and with a soundtrack featuring Rolling Stones you’ll feel like you’ve been transported.

The voice casting was perfect, George Clooney oozes with charm in the role of the daring Mr Fox, sly and witty. With Clooney’s clever voice, you feel as if Mr. Fox can get away with anything. Meryl Streep provides the emotional center of the film as Mrs. Fox, with her soothing voice and Bill Murray as the Badger is of course wonderful at comic relief. But to me, the real star of the film was Jason Schwartzman work as Ash, Mr Fox’s son, trying to seek approval of his dad. It may not be the most original character in the world, but your sympathies are always with him and you desperately want him to succeed.

There are problems with the film, it feels stretched at 87 minutes. It doesn’t help that the writers, Anderson himself, and his writing partner Noah Baumbach, decided to fill the film’s stretching points with chases between Mr Fox and the dogs. It feels as if the writers had to make changes for its American audience, so they just put a collection of chase scenes in to liven up the film, which towards the end becomes a little bit relentless and slightly tedious for the audience. The film also, somewhat runs out jokes towards the end of the film, which is disappointing because the film starts brilliantly. Which then leaves me to my last critique, and that is I have forgotten most of the film already. I saw the film on Wednesday morning, and by the afternoon, I found it quite hard to remember the chase scenes and even the jokes of the film.

Overall, this is a Wes Anderson film in its truest form. Full of quirky characters, smart jokes and a great soundtrack, but it is ultimately let down by its own narrative and the story running out of ideas.

Check back for news from the Fantastic Mr. Fox press conference!

Our full review will be on it’s way with the films release on November 13th!

LFF: Up in the Air Press Conference – Reitman, Farminga, Kendrick

Mali Elfman — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:21:16 +0000

Director Jason Reitman is on a role! First with Thank You for Not Smoking, then Juno, and now Up in the Air, he’s proved that all three times can be a charm. If you liked either of his previous works, than you’re going to love his latest film, Up in the Air starring George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, with a number of amazing supporting roles by Jason Bateman, J.K. Simmons, Zach Galifianakis and more.

Sadly, at the press conference for for the film at The London Film Festival, Clooney was unable to show up because (as always) he was busy working away on another one of his many projects. But! We were graced by the extremely humble and hilarious, Jason Reitman who is just as charming and funny as his films, the gorgeous and talented Vera Farminga, and the adorable new-comer who will blow you away Anna Kendrick.

You can read my first response to the film or check out what they had to say about the film below in one of the most laid back and entertaining press conferences I’ve ever been to…

Up In The Air is based on a book. If I were to read the book, would I recognize it in the film?

Jason Reitman: Yes and No. The book is about a man who fires people for a living and is about a man who obsessively collects air miles, but if I had directed the book exactly as if was, these two lovely ladies next to me would not be here because their characters are not in the book. The way I use source material, I see it as a tool box. There’s a story that I want to tell, and I’m looking for the right words. I’ll read a book or i’ll read an article and suddenly it will just be the language that I’ve been looking for to say something that I mean to say, or ask something that I’ve been meaning to ask. At that point it just becomes a tool box of ideas that I can either follow literally or sometimes I take someones dialogue and give it to someone else, or in this case I really chose a main character that would ask the questions that I wanted to ask.

Jason, I read that you wrote the role with George Clooney in mind. Is that true?

Jason: Yeah, I wrote the role with him in mind and with Vera and Anna in mind as well. It’s easier for me to write when I know who I’m actually writing for. That’s often how I identify the voice of the character. I had met Vera before and I’d seen many of her films. I knew the things that she was able to do that no other actresses is capable of doing. It was because she was able to walk that very fine line of being aggressive and feminine at the same time that I was able to write balance for what I did. It was because I saw Anna in “Rocket Science” and knew the sparkle and brilliance of her mind and how fast she is that I was able to write Natalie the way I did. If you’re going to make a movie about a guy who fires people for a living and you still want to like him, that actor better be dam charming and I don’t think there’s a more charming actor alive than George Clooney. I was very lucky he said yes.

What if he’d say no?

Jason: I would probably just ended my career right there and then. The story is actually kind of funny. I had been writing it for six years and I told his agent, “Look I’m about a week away or a month away from finishing this screenplay. In the middle of that I’m going to Italy on vacation with my wife,” and he said, “Well if you’re going to go to Italy you should just go see him.” I said, “That sounds like an awful idea, I don’t want to go see him if he hates my screenplay,” and he’s like, “No, no. Just go, he’ll love to see it.” I told him that I would send him the screenplay and if (George) enjoyed it, I would drop by. So I get to Italy and I call his agent up and ask him if he liked it and he told me to go see him.

We drive there and get to his house in Como. One of the first things he asks me is, “So what are you working on these days?” It’s a screenplay, it’s called Up In the Air and he says, “Oh I got to find that, I got to read that.” I was just trying to prove that I was a man to George Clooney. I played basketball with him; I hand’t done that since 8th grade. I never drink; I tried drinking with George Clooney. He opened four bottles of wine and I don’t know how I didn’t die of alcohol poisoning. Finally, around the end of the second day, he disappeared for a while and we walk into a room and he said, “I just read it, it’s great. I’m in.” Those are the words that changed my life and one of the greatest moments I’ll ever remember from my career.

Where the interviewers in the film authentic fired people?

Jason: When I started writing the screenplay seven years ago, the economy in America was very different. We were basically at the table end of an economic boom and I decided to write a corporate satire of a man who fired people for a living and wrote comedic scenes in which people lost their jobs. By the time it came to shoot this film, it just wasn’t funny anymore. I couldn’t go about shooting these scenes as written. We were scouting in St. Louis and Detroit, and the idea just came that we should try to use real people.

So we put an add out in the help wanted section saying, “We’re making a documentary about job loss and we’re looking for people who would go on camera and talk about their experience.” We got an overwhelming amount of response and we brought in 100 people. 25 are in the finished film, so the outside the people you recognize like J.K. Simmons, Zach Galifianakis, and Tamala Jones, everyone else who loses their job in this movie is a real person who came in and sat down at the table with an interviewer and for about 10 minutes answered questions about what it’s like to lose your job in an economy where really there is nothing available and you have to consider some very dire decisions.

After then we would fire them and asked them to respond the way they did the day they lost their job, or whatever they wished they had said. This would turn into improv scenes in which they would pelt our interviewer with all sorts of questions that he did not know the answer to. Their severance about why they lost their jobs instead of Jeff and they just went on. Some people were really angry. Some people got emotional and cried. Some people were really funny and I’m so grateful for their participation in the film. I could of never written the type of things that they said.

Jason you have a history of writing strong female characters. Do you think there’s a shortage of those in Hollywood right now?

Jason: Yes. I like to write original films and many of the men stories have been told and so many of the women stories haven’t. I’ve fallen in love with many really smart women over the course of my life. The most recent and personally the last one being my wife. I enjoy spending time with my wife, talking about these things. The best scene I’ve ever written and I only wrote half of it and that’s the scene in this movie where Vera and Anna talk about what they look for in a man at each of their ages. The only way I could write that is I asked my wife to have a conversation with herself at 18-years-old about what she looked for in a man. Everything they say is true to her, which breaks my heart every time she watches an audience because they laugh at her for five minutes. I enjoy writing for women and I enjoy working with actresses and I’ve just very fortunate. I’ve made three movies now and throughout all of them from Maria Bello on Thank You for Smoking and then with Ellen Page and Jennifer Garner on Juno and then not only Anna and Vera, but also Amy Morton, Melanie Lynskey — I’ve just been surrounded by great actresses. I just hope I can work for more and more.

Vera, how did you access your character when you first read them?

Vera Farminga: I didn’t have the luxury of reading the script without knowing what happens in the end. It was challenging to play a woman who is very much like a man. Often times when a women behaves this was it can be interpreted as — it was difficult for me to — it was a fine line, I found, to thread to have the softness and yet take control of her sexuality. I really like the male perspective of heartbreak.

In the nude scene, was that really you?

Vera: I had about six pounds more chunk on badonka donk. I was pregnant. And I did do the scene. I think my bottom half had become too large. I did attempt to do nudity. I got to choose my body-double and I thought that Jason did a good job in selecting someone that was pretty accurate.

Jason: [Joking] I studied her films to make sure that it was the exact representation. I’m a very specific director, both actresses will tell you that.

Anna, what in particular appealed to you about your character?

Anna Kendrick: First it’s that sort of rare thing. This girl who is so intelligent and complicated and her character does not revolve around a romantic story line. That was enough to make it fascinating in itself because it just doesn’t happen, you don’t read scripts like that. I was normally so timid in real life that I’m really excited my character is someone who gets to tell people off and I’m telling off George Clooney, which is pretty awesome.

Anna, how did you feel when you got this role?

Anna: I was shocked beyond belief because I thought Jason hated me. My audition was very plain and I think Jason was trying to suck me out by showing any kind of enthusiasm, but I thought he hated me. When I got the job I was so shocked and I thought he we just like that, he’s just going to be a time rack on set. But he’s very, very nice. I was surprised. I was thrilled beyond words. the script is so beautiful. And I didn’t think that George was doing it, for whatever reason I just assumed it was just too good to be true for a script to be this good and to be working with George Clooney, I just thought it was one of those things were it was rumored. And then Jason told me the Italy story and I got really excited. That was one of the funnest parts, seeing him, eating lunch with him, trying to act like, “Oh right, of course, you knew me,” because I’d do that kind of thing.

Why did Anna think you hated her Jason?

Jason: Well look, one, I’m a mean guy (laughs), but two — I wrote the role for Anna and Anna auditioned against thirty of the best actresses of her generation and I needed to know that she could actually do it. I basically saw her in one movie, and she’s great, but I needed to see her actually read the lines. When she walked in, I didn’t want her to get psyched out by saying, “Hey, I wrote this role for you,” because then she would probably freak out because it would become hers to lose. Since I’m a horrible actor myself, in trying not to show that I was already a huge fan of hers, I probably wasn’t as nice as could have been. It’s like when you meet a pretty girl and you don’t want to show her that you think she’s pretty so you’re trying to act as discreet as possible, and not yourself, and pretty soon you’re acting like a jerk.

The Up In The Air script was 7 years in the making. How did your timeline work?

Jason: The time line is that no one would make Thank You for Smoking. So I started looking for something else to write and direct. I found this book, fell in love with it, and I started writing it. Then out of nowhere, a millionaire, one of the creators of PayPal, who had sold PayPal to Ebay for $1.5 billion with his partners decided he wanted to make movies. He read my script, he got it form a friend, and called my agent and said, “Hey, I’d love to make this movie.” He wrote a check for $6.5 million and made Thank You For Smoking and all of a sudden I wasn’t writing Up In The Air anymore.

I made Thank you For Smoking, went back to writing Up In The Air and then Juno came into my life and it was this irresistible screenplay that I knew if I didn’t direct, I would regret for the rest of my life. The interesting thing was that I basically finished the screenplay after Juno, out five years into it, I basically got to the end of the script having never gone back and reread what I’ve been writing and as I read from start to finish, I watched myself grow up.

Over the course of the six years that I wrote the script, I became a professional director, I bought a home, I got married, I became a father. In the first act, we have a cynical guy in his 20s who’s really just a satirist and over the six years I became a bit more sophisticated as a writer, but I also realized that this was important in my own life and that really changed Ryan’s journey as I continued to write.

What was your experience having to do emotional scenes in the middls of airports?

Anna: Well actually it was a hotel lobby and it was a little uncomfortable. It was still just the space and the extras and even though their a part of the film, you don’t know them. It’s still sort of embarrassing. On that particular day, it was less about other people, it was more about the space.

Vera: What was most amusing for me was the fanaticism that George attracts and that was overwhelming and so odd. For me, no one ever knows who I am, they always think I’m a producer of the film. But watching George have to deal with that and having just to simply open the door and close it and there’s a standing ovation that goes lost, and he’s so gallant and gracious and takes his bow.

What was the overall experience like shooting in so many public places?

Jason: It’s a total pain in the ass. Shooting in airports is very difficult. We shot in four international airports. There was actually a fair amount of access and because American Airlines partnered in this film basically our trade was that they were our airline and hay gave us access to all their checking gates, as well as their departure gates. But still all the actors had to go through security, everyday, on the way to the set. They would put George through as much security as they possibly could. We had to bring in our own electricity and the wire from our generators through an airport. It was really tricky. We are the first film to actually shoot the TSA — it’s this thing of going through security — usually if you see that in a movie, you’re looking at metal detectors that were thrown at a convention center hallway or something. This is the real thing and all of the people on camera were real TSA security people who volunteered their time.

Anna: They were really picky about what they did and didn’t want to do onscreen. You had to talk this woman into crossing off the name and then stamping the thing. She was like, I don’t wear gloves. Her supervisor had to come over and tell her it was okay.

Is this the first time you and your father have worked together? How was it?

Jason: This is the first film that my father and I have actually worked on together. I avoided doing it in the first movies. I wanted to make a name for myself. And once I made a couple films, there’s nothing that made me more proud. My father wrote one line in this movie and that line is, “Oh that’s like firing people on line.” It’s a monster line. It’s a really proud moment for me it’s as if we were in a baseball game and he just showed up and was like, “Oh you want me to hit one? Sure.” [Home-run expression]

How to you get distinguished actors to do such small roles, how much explanation do they need?

Jason: Once I give a great role like the ones I gave to Vera and Anna, I presume that on the next film, they’ll come in for free and offer four lines of dialogue each. I’ve begged all of them to come in and do those roles and they’ve all been very gracious. I try to keep a strong relationship with them so that when I ask to come back and do these roles. When I started my career, my thing in school was I wanted to be a director that actors want to work with. Actors make movies, not only fiscally, but they make them work and I knew that the only way I would ever be a successful director in the way that I want to be a filmmaker would be if good actors actually wanted to work with me. I’m slowly trying to work my way towards that. And I look at people like Sam Elliot, who show up for a day, and that makes me more proud than anything.

Jason can you talk about your choice in your films?

Jason: I start putting together my Itunes library while I’m writing a screenplay and I’m very specific about music and it’s a very personal thing for me. I originally thought that this movie was going to be done to Hank Williams music and then I got into the edit and realized I was wrong and started moving into folk music. But it’s very personal for me.

The film balances between the darkness of everybody getting fired and the optimism of these people finding new jobs and the cherry on top of that was the song that came in at the end of the credits. How did that come about?

Jason: That was dumb luck. After Juno, I’d gotten use to teenagers sending these songs. The idea of them appearing in one of my films, but I’d happen to be speaking in a college in St. Louis, where we were shooting, and a man in his mid-50s came to me with this song and that was unusual. He handed me a cassette tape. So first off I had to find a please to actually listen to this. We find a car and sat back and I was ready for something ridiculous and instead along came this voice, which is in the credits now, and he introduced himself, explained how he had lost his job. He was now in the middle of his life trying to figure out the purpose of his life. He started to singing a song that had never been written, but it’s an authentic song.

I guess my feeling was that we’re in the middle of one of the worst recessions on record in America and about a million people have lost their jobs in the last year. But we really don’t experience who these people are, they’re often just numbers on newspapers, percentages. And he was a guy who was able to sing very authentically about how he felt and I thought what a better tribute than to end the movie. And I new halfway through listening that it was going to be in the credits.

The film will be hitting theaters December 25th.

LFF: First Look at The Road and Press Conference Photos

Mali Elfman — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:21:47 +0000

***Update: Press Conference now available***

Surprise, surprise, I’ve made it over to London for the British Film Institutes’s 53rd Annual London Film Festival (a little late but here none-the-less).

I started the trip off on a bit of a depressing note, with a screening of The Road followed by a press conference with actor Viggo Mortensen, screenwriter Joe Penhall, and director John Hillcoat. All of whom were in much chipper spirits than there film was.

Check out a few photos from the press conference and some quick thoughts on the film below…

***Warning: Some Minor Spoilers Ahead***

My first opinion of the film, without worrying about writing a formal review (which will come later) is that the performances are gritty and heart-wrenching. The overall tone was well established, the writing was sparse but well done, and all and all, I liked it. Even if you’ve read the book or know the story, you never knew quite know what to expect next, which is always a welcome surprise in theaters.

In the film you’re never given an explanation as to what exactly has happened, you’re only given the desolate world in which they live in now (or rather try not to die in). The film did a good job of allowing us to understand as little about their situations as possible, which kept one from trying to predict what was next. In fact, just like the characters on screen, the only thing you could do was watch and hope, which helped you feel involved in the film and if nothing else a bit depressed (and possibly hungry if you forgot to eat before).

Overall, the tone, the art direction, the script, all helped to capture the desolate hopelessness of the film, but by the end of it, I couldn’t help from wonder what the greater meaning was of putting an audience through so much? Is it to never give up hope? Because they really don’t give you much reason to want to live. In the film, more people stay alive out of fear of dying than desire to live. To me I couldn’t help but wonder if the message of the film was “what’s the point in living if there is no life?”

That being said, after the screening I talked to some nice people, got a cup of coffee, and walked around London and felt extremely glad to be doing so – almost as if the film made me take a breath and look around. So maybe the point of the film isn’t to enjoy the process, but to realize what we have when we walk out of the theater – but it’s a rough road to get there.

Also, on a less deep, side note, what’s up with Guy Pearce randomly showing up in good movies for a few seconds as a crazy-ish character? He’s done that twice this year. First in The Hurt Locker and now this. He’s Guy Pearce for Christ’s sake! Someone give him some more lines!

That’s it for now! Getting late in London Town. If you want to keep up with ScreenCrave follow us on Twitter or check back in when you have a chance.

Check out the photos of Viggo Mortensen, Joe Penhall, and John Hillcoat from the press conference below…

And we will have the press conference typed up for you as soon as possible! And no, Viggo did not talk about retiring from acting. He was laid back and happy to quietly talk about the movie and even throw in some jokes. I for one could see him spending his days happily on a ranch somewhere. Especially since every movie he’s in they seem to try to break him via cold, sword fights, stab wounds, or something dangerous.

Coming up on my schedule for the next few days at LFF is:

The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Up in the Air (Screening and Press Conference)
Pirate Radio – formerly known as The Boat That Rocked (Screening, Roundtables, and a 1:1 to come) – This is actually not part of LFF, but I threw it in there because, hey, why not!

Check back in soon!

Welcome to The 2009 London Film Festival

Krystal Clark — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:00:31 +0000

We’re here! We might have shown up a bit late, but ScreenCrave has finally popped up at the 53rd Annual London Film Festival, and it’s awesome. The festival kicked off on Wednesday, October 14th and will continue until October 29th, that means two weeks of screenings, and cultural events to keep us entertained.

Check out some of this year’s roster…

Some of the most talked about film’s that will be featured at this year’s festival include:

An Education (Check out our interviews with Carey Mulligan, Peter Saarsgard, Dominic Cooper and our film review)
The Men Who Stare At Goats
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Road (Check out Our First Look and Photos from Press Conference)
Up in the Air
The Boys Are Back
Bright Star (Check out our Review and our Jane Campion and Ben Whishaw interview)
Chloe
Father of My Children
MICMACS
The White Ribbon

This is just a tip of the iceberg when it comes to the rest of the coverage we’ll be bringing you over the next few days. As you can tell from the above list George Clooney will be all over the place, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. We’ll keep you in the loop with all the latest happenings at this year’s festival with interviews, photos, reviews and more.

I’m heading out to explore again, but I’ll be back with more goodies soon…

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