“Amazing actor, amazing” Director Denis Villeneuve on Timothée Chalamet, Dune & cinema's importance.

[Music] denise i have so many questions most of them are about june but i thought i'd start with a softball opener which is you've said that 2001 is one of your favorite films but what would you say is the film that you've watched most in your life um i think probably it's apocalypse now francis fought couple of apocalypse now you know that gasoline smell a whole hill smells like victory i saw that movie i studied that movie i saw that movie uh yeah a million times not sure it's it's a it's a movie that for me is close perfection and and deeply inspiring you're in the of the world captain and by far one of my favorite moments of cinema of all time when you love a movie like that so much can you notice its influence on your own work as a filmmaker when i shoot i try to isolate myself and to work with the camera like if i was the first one which is silly of course because i'm i'm the product of multiple influences but i will say that yeah i i'm really trying to isolate myself but uh it does all those movies have have a major influence on me certainly so 2001 apocalypse now what else would come close in the most watched factor like in that list probably the godfather is a movie that i watched a lot you don't even think to call me godfather instead you come into my house on the day my daughter's to be married and you ask me for the murder mommy again about the narrative the the dramatic structure it's a movie that i uh have a lot of fun watching today if we go too far in this list then we will fall into the guilty pleasure and that's going to be more interesting well now i have to ask if you're about to say the minions i cannot wait what is your guilty pleasure oh uh i will say that i'm a major bond fan yeah and and there's nothing like a good james bond to cheer you up and that's what i would say there is no guilt in this room in this country in this world about loving james bond do you have a particular bond that you turn to i noticed myself during lockdown it was roger moore and a bit of pierce brosnan but that's where i went because i just went you know what i need to see an underwater lair oh yeah [Music] but i would say that the the the casino royale the first daniel craig moved on is still one of my favorite of all time i would say and skyfall as well both i went through these movies several times i must say in difficult periods for sure i think june has a similar trick actually where you can notice the audience gasp and like actually physically react to things that are happening do you often dream things that happen just as you dream them yes i must say the pain box scene is a particular highlight for me the test is simple remove your hand from the box and you die i found it utterly chilling what's in the box pain [Applause] talking about audience reactions we're getting a lot of noises coming out of british people's mouths which is uh a feat and of itself is that something that stands out to you as being a key scene where you weren't i think it is definitely it's an iconic scene from the book it's a scene that uh it's one of the first things that we did as we were shooting and it's a scene the atmosphere the tension and the color palette it's a scene that is very close that's one of the scene that i i will say is very close to my original dream wonder when i was a kid when i read the book it's like uh and i remember having shivers directing it it's also a scene that it was among the first days i was working with mati salameh oh no pressure hey timothy welcome to the set yeah yeah yeah it's pain box time exactly and i would say that i remember vividly making one of the shots and starting to dance behind the camera because he did deliver a performance there right there that really stunned me i knew that i had made the right choice the right casting on that day is an amazing actor amazing science what else could rival it because i would imagine perhaps directing amy adams with a whiteboard in a rival human i'm human i would imagine that's another one and was you're absolutely right i will say that amy who has the old movie on her shoulders brought an extraordinary performance i mean the arrival whole everything to host everything to amy adams i mean she's a one of the best actress i ever work with and there are several moments when she was interacting with the extraterrestrials in the movie that really blew me away yeah yeah there was like but uh working with amy again that that's like uh that was a massive privilege i feel like everything that happens in there comes down to the two of us yeah it's a good thing though right that's the thing that i love about uh making movies uh in los angeles is they have the the privilege of working with artists of that calibre i would say i also think you like being challenged i think you like difficult projects because if you look at your past four films it's just gone from arrival later 2049 which would have given me a panic attack just as a concept working with ridley scott living up to the legacy and then succeeding and then doing the first half of june would you say that part of what drives you as a filmmaker is that sense of i need to do something that's the next level i didn't i didn't choose in a way to make blade runner 2049 i was invited to do it and and and it's not i would have never never dare first of all to come up with this idea or or to offer my services i mean to to to bring my candidates yeah my my name i will add it came to me i had your job i was good at it it was simpler then why are you making it complicated why don't you just answer the question what question i didn't figure you as one for first of all i i i declined the offer at the beginning and then it came back and i uh i was it i was i became obsessed because it's a blade runner is a again you were asking one of the movie i watched the most uh probably blade runners one of them by far it seems you feel our work is not a benefit to the public replicants are like any other machine they're either a benefit or a hazard their benefit is not my problem i i love the idea of putting all the chips on the on the table to take it i think creativity is definitely linked with the notion of risk i always knew you were special maybe this is how the nature of the project i'm not choosing project to be arrogant i will say i'm not it's not that uh uh but it's true that the two the two last projects were were quite ambitious fear is the mind killer [Music] my lord duke where the fear is gone only i will remain if we focus on june again and this is revealing my level of nerdery a lot of conversations have been had about the sandwich obviously but i'd like to talk about the ornithopter you have to be ready there is no call we do not answer there is no faith that we betrayed because for whatever reason that unlocked a part in me where i went that's exactly how i imagined it lovely that's it i think that i wanted us not to express ourselves through design but more to really try to bring the spirit of frank herbert to the screen i mean to be as close as possible to the descriptions of the book so that's why when when you you are saying that when you saw the earn adopters it was close to what you had in mind for me that's the most beautiful compliment someone can give me get everything with guns off the ground go but about design i mean every element of the of the movie uh brought pure joy to me i would say that uh the frame kit is something that i i'm pretty proud of the still suits you've worn a steel suit before no this is my first time there's so much love that was put in the design of this movie and we had time and time and a great artist working with me so that's what i would say i am grateful that you didn't have the fight in loincloths i'm very very grateful for that i think that was a good artistic decision just wanted to put it out there and maybe a good idea not to have the villains all have red hair that was also a nice move as somebody who has many red-haired people in their family i just don't want a big bunch of overweight red-haired people that's the villains i'm gonna wrap things up with an impossible question if you don't mind which is i'm a film critic i often get asked i think sometimes quite absurdly to defend cinema as a concept going to the theater and to see a movie on a big screen with sound with the everything what is your answer to people who question the validity and the ongoing popularity of the concept of cinema i would say that for me the theatrical experience big screen is part of the language showing that the way you shoot the way you edit the way you see the movies being scored the sound design everything is done thinking about the theatrical environment and it's just that there's nothing as immersive as the theater experience and i think that as human beings also we are not meant to be isolated we are there's something unmatchable as the communal experience sharing emotion being an audience become become we as humans i think we need some time to become one together and to share and and there's nothing like cinema to go through this experience and again cinema is meant to be watch on a white screen and and for me it's at the definition of cinema so it's in uh what uh what's that what do you think i agree i think quentin tantino once called cinema his church and for me it's that feeling of experiencing something together laughing together crying together screaming whatever that's what makes it so special but i have a small feeling we could go on for another three hours on this so i'm just gonna say thank you thank you very much thank you [Music] thanks for watching if you enjoyed this video don't forget to subscribe and click the bell icon to keep up to date you can listen to my radio on movies and tv podcast screen time on bbc sounds and you can find these interviews in full on bbc iplayer by searching movies with ali plum [Music]

Channel: BBC Radio 1

Views: 646,472

Keywords: denis villeneuve, dune, timothee chalamet, Timothée Chalamet, zendaya, radio 1, radio one, bbc, iplayer, ali plumb, denis villeneuve interview, ali plumb interview, movies that made me, movies with ali plumb, frank herbert, arrival, amy adams, blade runner, blade runner 2049, sicario, prisoners

Id: lCPzTNTvlAs

Length: 12min 24sec (744 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 22 2021