Angelina Jolie, Christopher Nolan and more Directors on THR's Roundtable | Oscars 2015

great directors masters of controlled chaos the controlled chaos is behind any movie from inception to release join us as we talk to some of the brilliant minds behind this year's modes of Mark movies on this episode we have Angelina Jolie unbroken Mike Lee mr. Turner Richard Linklater boyhood Bennett Miller Foxcatcher Christopher Nolan interstellar and Morton Tilden the imitation game welcome to The Hollywood Reporter round tables the directors [Music] I'm Steven Galloway and welcome to The Hollywood Reporter round tables the directors I'd like to welcome Bennett Miller Morton Tilden Christopher Nolan Mike Lee Angelina Jolie and Richard Linklater I won't start with the precise moment each of you really decided that directing was your path I started making films about seven years old super 8 you know ethics and I remember being about 12 when I sort of sort of figuring out what the job of the director was the thinking that's kind of what I think of as filmmaking what is the job of the director filmmaking you know just putting images together well but it is it but it is abstract because the thing is you go on a set and you know I don't shoot the film I'll record the sound I don't you know you sit there in the middle of it all trying to be a conductor or something I don't know trying to be helpful try to be a lens for everybody else's input the focus of which aspect you most comfortable with and which one you not they're probably being a jack-of-all-trades knowing a little bit about everything but not enough about any one thing to to specialize I'm pretty comfortable being a instant expert on a bunch of different things without really digging into motions I think being a director is great job for a mediocrity could you do you have to know a lot of different things and kind of get on with people you grew that Mike absolutely to answer your first question I was 12 the snow was falling my grandfather had just died everybody was in the house old men were carrying the coffin down the stairs there was a guy with a very long nose a very long trip and I remember thinking this would make a great film that's what I want to do I want to make films about things like this well then did you make films about things like that yes and I'd be making films about things like that but I mean you know I think we all probably share this you know it's an impulse to tell stories to make things up to get people doing things to put on shows to be funny to be to horrify people confronting them with stuff you know I mean all of that is in your DNA and I think if I'm honest I've been doing it since I was so high mr. Tallis seems to have taken leave of form [Music] Tanna clearly losing his eyesight a masterpiece I hear present which mr. Turner has just said you were right or two which has been you prefer the right whatever oh that's for me they're indivisible I mean they really are I don't I can't tell me where one ends in it but because I don't write formal scripts and I'll make it all up with the actors and we shoot it make it go along I really can't define the difference between the two parts of the process but it's all about all aspects of the whole process we don't make films by ourselves we do make them we collaborate with a whole bunch of other people are you afraid when you make films yes I've never made a film where I didn't think this this is the one this is the disaster scene the first edit is the worst I know you you you were terrified and you see the assembly anything pop I don't want your something suffer exactly the reason I've never wore [ __ ] I just I couldn't face it for hours like the crummy version of John it's a and it's funny because the others killed some talks about wanting to know all of the editors cut but it's ridiculous because they the poor editor has to cut everyday put it together put together mess any cuts there at the end and he can take out anything you know everything has to be in the movie it's wrong is dreadful and you hate it and it's it's it's the worst experience watching your first day that's so comforting to hear so it's terrifying it's it's it's it's terrifying it it's never as good as the dailies and it's never as bad as the efforts complete assembly code well why do you get in to do a rough assembly if you're not gonna watch it well because it's there as a document to tell you whether you're getting everything you need and so Liam I had a he'll call me up and if there's something he doesn't understand why didn't get this shot why didn't get that and then I look at something scene by scene but it's it's sort of for him to know everything we've got and give me feedback and we sit there and watch dailies every night and talk about it you know whatever but then when we get in the edits we will so we'll look at a few scenes ago and then go back to dailies and watch all the dailies to start putting it together and coming back [Music] I love you forever potentially habitable worlds right within our reach they save us from extinction here we go you can't just think about your family now you have to think bigger than that I am thinking about my family and millions of other families actually you're fairly new to directing did the figure less or more when you did unbroken first big film it was different kind of fear I got into I think the sense the question about how do you get into I got into this accidentally and that I was one of those actors they said you own a direct tonight always saying no absolutely not oh and I wanted to learn more about the war in Yugoslavia so I wrote something that was a project that was really private I didn't think I was gonna show anybody so there's this little script that I used as an excuse to kind of send myself back to school and study at a time in history and then somebody said you know it's not that bad it should be a film and I was so excited and then the idea of who would direct it came up and I was worried that it would be turned into something else by somebody else and so I volunteered to direct it and thought oh well but just to protect the material and then realize that I loved it but I was I was afraid of that one because it was my first and I was afraid of it because the war was very fresh and there was a lot of hostility and country and would it ignite new new violence so I was actually politically very concerned I'm broken I was very concerned because it was something bigger than I'd ever done and it was well beyond my skill set when I started and I had a lot to learn and the subject matter was my friend and hero who I desperately did not want to let down how did that project come to you it was on an open directing list so again came to all of us oh I was the crazy one that thought I read some of the earlier drafts and and then I read Laura Hillenbrand spoke I had the good fortune of having this extraordinary book and and the way she writes is so visual that as you read through it you can't help but want to see it but I didn't I didn't know what it was about when I first got involved in thought it was about heroics and a man they could do extraordinary things and I wasn't that interested then I realized what it was about and it's about the strength of the human spirit then it was inspiring in me and I wanted to walk in his footsteps and I wanted to take that journey I'm happy I did because it was I learned a lot what did you learn I learned to be a better person even more open to my fellow man to understanding to seeing the other side that when you have hate and anger and you let it eat yourself up it's only hurting you it doesn't hurt your enemy and I learned that when we look at the news today and we see all the things going on in the world and we feel like all is lost that in fact there is great strength to a strong heart and indomitable will an unbreakable spirit that's exists in each one of us it made me face every day and every challenge differently it's gonna make me raise my children differently specifically how because that fire we see in our children is a great thing and I certainly was one of those people that thought that this fire inside was maybe a bad thing and I think there's beauty to unrest and and fight and we have to channel it the right way we have to teach our children to channel it the right way we need to know what there is to fight for that is valuable that's the right thing to fight on this in this world when Louis had an obstacle no matter what it was he thought fantastic it's a new mountain to climb no matter what it is no matter what pain would come I'm gonna I'm gonna rise up to it and I'm gonna make it make me better I'm not gonna let it take me down I'm not going to be broken and broken is not about failing broken is about losing heart and losing sense of who you are and letting life take you off track or make you dark I don't know this is this is the British cynicism has to come out what I mean is I wanna do more and I would love to yes but I think I have to be a it's about the message for me maybe that's my answer is it's not it's not about the idea of making a story it's not about saying I made a film it's not about what it looks like it's about yeah what it's about and what it means so if there's no more stories to tell and I think you know there's enough great directors in the world to tell stories so unless there's one I think I can do really well and and my heart's in it then then I'll fight for that one my brother used to think that I could do anything that I was better than I am you keep going the way you're going you end up on the street did folks catch you change you it broke me oh wow oh no I'm joking a little bit it came close and it was one of those where I thought I got myself in too deep just because it was difficult I think this has been true of all of my films where you get to the Edit and you have that moment where you put down all of your ideals and you have to just take the time and look at what you actually have my first cut was four and a half hours I did watch it for the first time I thought an assembly of a film that I had made was watchable I thought it four times that's that's pretty watchable but it's you know you can't make a four and a half hour film but you know the Edit went on for about a year and at one point I was alone in a closet sized edit with no windows editors were on a short hiatus and it was like New York and Rose in December and I just thought how am I gonna witness like you get a little stir-crazy it was a key for you also big house is off limits okay coach DuPont has a vision he would like Foxcatcher to be the official training site for the national team what's he get on this what are you thinking this is it this is all that we've that we've ever wanted mark you have been living in your brothers your entire life it's your time how do you cut for that long no sorry I just want it like when you take it when you have it you because I've never had that long to kind of film are you going in every day and yeah rest of it you don't take a break from it and go away you know you're literally in there banging your head against the Abbott anything you're still able to be sort of like be objective sort of like feel and and I mean that's that's the hardest in the end it's like you've seen things so many times and do you see what an audience will see I mean what you tell away from them alone I think you do because I think you become an expert on I and I don't think I said laboring to see it like an audience I think it's more that of an actor who's doing a play the notion of doing that play over the course of eight months eight times a week and how do you keep that fresh and there is some kind of a discipline I think you have close friends with food Seymour Hoffman did you talking about how you keep it fresh for that period of time a little bit I mean he had his rituals and would go to the theater and he would just sit onstage and have a moment and similarly in the Edit it's you know you do have to take a breath and you've seen the scene a thousand times but does this sound pretentious nope but I'm gonna well skew which film spoke to you and you were growing up I didn't discover filmmaking or think of it as my own medium tell us about 20 so it came to be much later I think I always had the storytelling impulse but films were just what showed at our local I lived in a little town in East Texas and every week a new film would open every Friday it was a real last picture show so you know John Wayne the cowboys Evel Knievel you know whatever we're showing the resistance you cultivate know every movie I saw actually he's a little kid 2001 I saw it when I was in first grade and it blew my mind but I didn't think I could make a film that that didn't hit me too much later I was I was always writing short stories and as I got older plays but it took me a while to kind of what's the realize I could make a film was the one moment you realized this is for me I think I saw Raging Bull and I thought oh wow a film can do that it can go to that place psychologically but still you don't think you can make Raging Bull so seeing some of the early American independent films you know I was like four you know so it makes you think wow this is an expressive medium you know but then it was seeing I think indie films much more humble scale personal films for me this is in the early 80s when those films are starting to show a lot more so early John Sayles Spike Lee early Coen Brothers Jim Jarmusch you know so wow these people making films kind in their own backyard was there anyone that made me to do slacker yeah was there anyone film the camera at his party you said I could do something that I don't know if there's any one film but it was definitely the backyard film you know it's like I'm gonna make a film in my neighborhood with my friends for me slack who is the one like oh yeah we could make a film what like over the years yet there's no excuse not to get a camera get your friends together make your movie about your own world or what you guys got going on in you sense when we came out it's been 12 years on one film me yes maybe more including the editing yeah probably 13 years um would you do it again I don't know depends on what story needs to be told you know this is really a storytelling medium I really see that now I used to feel like oh called to make films it was all about cinema it's really just storytelling what was the toughest boat on that film there was no one tough moment you know they were all tough or they were all kind of methodically what they were so it sounds boring but it was a marathon you know it required a lot of patience obviously it was a long-term plan but it was fun to be able to work that way you know most films to me feel like they're a runaway train if you especially if you have a limited budget and schedule you it's running and you trying to keep up with it this was like it was such a gift to shoot three days edit watch it maybe go do something else for six months come back watch it feel my way through what I need next year well and sit with my editor Sandra and just kind of like therapy is this film is this element grow you to have that kind of time at the conceptual stage because it was always it was like 12 films so it's like a skull play life sculpture we had equipment it felt like a film but it didn't feel like would anyone 12 years in the film I haven't got 12 years suspended but that was just would you anything I would do yeah and if so a beauty which she made eight other films great films in the 12 years it's not you know cuz I've had that with you know I tell people it took me 10 years to write inception is amazing yeah but I did a lot of things in that 10 years when you describe that process and then when we look at each other like it just sounds fact it wasn't to have something to keep just just yeah have all that contemplation time and it so what what subject would draw you over 12 years I don't know I mean it's it's we ever worried that anything's gonna happen to look for the actors or you said what I mean that's the that's I think the filmmakers were all kind of control freaks right yeah I want to control the elements that's our job as Orchestrator master storyteller you know is to control the elements and this one I had to just realize okay I'm throwing that card away and I'm collaborating with a very unknown future and yet predictable I mean the likelihood is we're all are gonna be here twelve years from now and we were but people said what did someone died isn't well I hope my impulse wouldn't be about my film you know it's a life yeah issue you know but the truth you're impossible is about you but I never we didn't have there was no plan B but but everything had a life analogy though I knew a guy and the tragedy is that then what happened to him a filmmaker one year he filmed his landlady on her birthday and every year he would go and shoot this woman actually got older and older and older but she he was gonna not openly not gonna open or process any of you until she died oh now that's the only example I've ever heard of we're all wondering if we can get our hands on that documentary I mean this is like the 7up series of documentaries that's true but what I really what I was really getting out of saying is that when your film came out I just said wow that's such a great idea no one can beat I mean that is that is the definitive beginning and end was not even the idea of the execution because yeah I'd read about you know Stanley Kubrick may be doing AI that way maybe you know the various things that but nobody done it just and you know people have talked about it I had thought about things but to actually do it Ron Howard told me he had a film he was thinking about over years but every thing is that they're hard to get funded no one wants to oh you don't get your money for however many years they're like no no one's gonna give you I the key is keeping the budget pretty pretty humbling so just loaning it's the commitment is yeah you know it's like you can have the idea and go oh would be cool to do something but to actually execute it was it did cross my mind with two years in I realized this isn't working I've committed to you drop it but what happened was the reverse the more we committed the more the moment and built the more cast and crew kind of bought in you know so it was it was kind of a wonderful way have some fun don't worry about it we can use the bumpers you don't want the bumpers life doesn't give you bumpers you have issues with budget on imitation game I mean of course it was a smaller budget I mean it was a big budget for me I used to shoot movies for four or five million dollars you know and I'm so you start to have restrictions you know everything is about the precision it's where we come from and in a way you know everything is short and and your shooting time period might be six weeks seven weeks eight weeks so to extend something over 12 years seems insane in many ways I mean it's like going into to shooting is sort of like this you know you're not gonna sleep you know I mean it's so intense because you have to get everything in that very short period of time so it's like this insane focus you did constant fear of making you know the wrong decision or not getting everything you need when it's over you you relieved and you terrify it at the same time because it's such an intense period all your senses are sort of like hyper you look at the world you're in them and it sort of like it being in a trance in many ways I think so I never had a long shoot you all agree with that I agree with it but I will tell you the longer the shoot gets you do naturally adjust it's like running a marathon instead of running you know when you get to 125 issue you you can you know I've done 25 days shooting has 128 issue that's thank you you naturally adjust the way you run the race so the shoot is the shoot and in the end long or short you are only creating raw material we all know you make the film in the cutting room and that's the long however I mean you spend an extraordinary length of time doing that so the shoot is I mean it is a gas and if it's a disaster but it really is a disaster I mean I thoroughly I love the shoe I spent six months before we shoot rehearsing with the actors and creating characters and I don't like that very much at all because although it's great stuff you know is nothing to show at the end of the day all you're doing is preparing for the shoot which is actually when we then make the film up have you had a shoot that is a complete disaster we had a film that we abandoned before we got to the food for all kinds of reasons which one well they didn't exist so no point it's not in ice FDB I'm already sorry I mentioned how did that state affect your personal life what can I say I mean I I have a very understanding wife I mean you need to have a partner that you really understands what you're doing and going through because you become extremely focused on yourself and what you're doing I mean you don't really care about anybody else because if you can't because it's so consuming what you're doing just getting four hours of sleep it's sort of like a so you have to be somebody who understands that okay now we're going into that face and that's gonna happen but it's gonna be an end to it I guess it's something as if you're doing a six-month shoot you have to adjust to it you have to be more human you have to before more more pleasant to be around but if that if you're doing those eight weeks shoots I mean it's it's it's very intense one meet mr. Turing we work together then I'm afraid these men were ready send me down popular at school way short on staff we get more staffing you'll have six minutes to complete the task it ignores it takes me five minutes and thankfulness things you said to John under six what is it that we're really doing we were going to break an unbreakable Nazi code and win the war [Music] how long was the shootin limb broken so 46 days is 947 days so not that long and then how did that affect you personally I came home to my kids and I was and they and they bounced me and in fact it made me a because I was insane when I was at work and when everybody went to sleep I had my insane hours before going to sleep but but I was actually really happy to have an excuse to you know play a board game on the floor and be forced to forget and leave my work a little bit at home kids complete you know again they need to know when to like I'm going crazy my needle but but they were very gracious the toughest moment on the shoot day one wasn't it day one was hard day one was hard because technically we were on the we were on the water and we had a camera on a crane and the raft was going up and down and we were trying to work on real water and I was trying to get my confidence if I can do this I'm gonna direct this movie and and then I saw the monitor in the person's head kept doing this and I couldn't hear anything and I couldn't see anybody I've learned I learned I learned so it was it was a moment of making the actual making of the film I think you know I think we all feel like the toughest moments of the best moments so like the big emotional climax between the men was the toughest emotionally between the actors the and then physically trying to figure out I had to learn a lot about you know how to do plane crashes and CG and things like that that was very confusing but I had great people teaching me and it was such an amazing education and it was fascinating but certainly many days where I felt you know I walked on with confidence but I was famous I feigned confidence but I but I was so excited and that I figured that one interstellar christened that what was the toughest for you I think probably the toughest for everybody were the location streets we did in Iceland so we did three days out on the water standing in you know 250 water in the freezer cold and I never had a crew complained quite so much about you know they really really didn't like it it wasn't the usual joking oh you know they really didn't like it and then we went up on the glacier they were a lot happier we were all alive I really enjoy things like though they said it's difficult but I kind of have fun with it because you see what you're getting and you see people kind of rising to it and reacting to the elements and it's you know that it's somehow getting in the camera you know that it did you're getting something there but we had 100 mile an hour winds which I've never seen before it actually lifted the asphalt off the road and threw it to one side I mean it's it was bizarre and we were out there trying to shoot with actors kind of bracing themselves in the wind and everything but it was really I thought was really fun and you know you get nothing with a crew well yeah but they get that sort of you know everybody rises to it and you feel people really come together and that's when you feel the spirit of the collective endeavor and that's what's fun ah I was I went to the REC avec Film Festival a few weeks ago and I was taken on a trip around Iceland by these guys who facilitate film a row and all they could talk about was you and you they've never met such a stickler never met such a perfectionist and of course well that obviously meant was that you were really confronting the elements in Iceland yeah we were and you really were and you've left your reputation behind you good or bad I don't know find out well we were there 10 years earlier in the same spot it's one of the only glaciers and well you can drive on to it so we can put our spaceship on the truck and drive it up and crane it into place and a lot so for Turner was it difficult to decide about the historical accuracy no decisions we had to make that consciously departed from some kind of accuracy for example the stuff that happens in Margate where Turner went a lot which is down on the southeast coast markets not a place you can really film in and get control of anymore it still kind of looks like it did 200 years ago but not quite so we filmed it in a in Cornwall and a different looking place which captured the kind of spirit the light of the place my feeling about period films is that the minute you say people say well let's modify the language let's make it more contemporary so the audience can understand it let's not have the women wearing bras because it's not sexy etcetera etcetera I mean you throw out the baby with the bathwater so our job was to be as accurate as possible and enjoy the detail of the look the language the everything else and all the details about Turner but at the same time to be it's not a documentary to be creative and inventive woodrue to him great painter a cinematic painter I thought about doing it just after we made topsy turvy in the late 90s and then i started to look into Turner the man and I thought this is a great character for my Cleef the epic work and this eccentric guy seemed to be is there something about which I find this is the first Iron Man movie about real events real people who live it and huge difference I mean it's it's it's shocking because before sorta like your character is yours you own them yeah I call it fictional characters you can do with them exactly what you want you can change them you can it's like you have that freedom and now suddenly have the responsibility of doing justice to somebody who's lived who achieved great things and and this responsibility of the somebody's legacy and that really caught me when I'm doing this this is actually Suzy you better not [ __ ] up this is this is somebody who deserves to have his legacy spread out this is someone who did amazing things suffered great injustice and and that responsibility became more than the movie in any way did you [ __ ] up in any way I like to think not but it's--but is of course this tears you have to sort of like focus what's important what Carly what's the story you want to tell which is important to me as a filmmaker and then it's the objective story which is the true story of this man so it starts in these two things will always you know they will crash and drag him but sure you found as I did that you you kind of absorb and assimilate the real person in his life and work I mean I rather suspect that your sense of as possibility will be slightly different from mine because a he's more recent true and also he was a victim Turner is in a sense more robust Turner good it is interesting when their real life films which categorically distort history to what extent are you free to move away from the truth look we read and researched Turner till he came out of our ears but the truth was only in our heads and so you then interpret that now there are scenes in mr. Turner which are for all intents and purposes very accurate reconstruction of famous things that happened particularly the scene in the Royal Academy where it goes and of course a red blob on his great painting next up it's no one constable very red painting but if you go into a time machine and he went back you can be absolutely sure that what you would see would bear no resemblance whatever to what's in the film because you know well that's a something more recent like I mean auntie when you were dealing with World War two and the Japanese how did you deal with that ethically what what questions did you ask yourself mister but well or to to my to me I was doing a story about a man in his life and his life was beyond World War two and his the meaning of his life certainly expanded beyond it and his personal relationship to the Japanese was what was important to our story and his personal relationship was was very particular he's he's a man who raced and enjoyed and was had camaraderie with Japanese during the Olympics he's a man who then was held captive by the Japanese and went through many tortures but he also had Japanese prison guards have sympathy for him and help him and he credits some with saving his life so he had a very different view he came back full of hate he changed that view through his faith and through his understanding that the hate would only destroy him he then went back and shook the hands of the guards that held him captive so I think that story without having to make personal decision about the views of how it represent a country was I love this story in this man because that is one of the aspects of his life and it says quite a lot about how we need to open and see condition what's the toughest decision each of use how to make ethically as a filmmaker I hope struggle with aggressive okay she's one I'm gonna give you the answer I God I I I don't struggle with it as much because I make a pretty clear delineation between all of these facts and the literal you know impossibility that Mike is describing that of course there's going to be invention you know of course there's there's going to be fiction in it so it begins with you know reality whatever that is and there's no means of communicating you know a perfect distilled reality there is no quite the question toughest ethical decision you've had a daughter know you are the one who is a man white Essex I mean some that interested me a Kazan wrote a piece about what you need is a director and I was talking to modern writ director protege of Kazan who'd had a falling out with him over the McCarthy era and Marty said the one thing he doesn't talk about ethics so yes it's important you're dealing with a young kid on on boyhood did you go in thinking I'm gonna be affecting this kid's life that it's a good question of course I thought that not just his life my own daughters in the movie and the adults in the movie will make an adult professional decision but I'm dealing with the seven and a nine year old and they're committing into this long-term project you know but my hope was that it would be a positive thing in their lives and that it would just be this artistic fun thing to do every year and it ended up being that way but I was pretty confident I would make it a fun thing you know kids are kids like movie sets a lot of food so and I think about halfway through Ellar Coltrane you know my my lead actor he realized the bigger picture and was more of a full collaborator and to see him and my daughter loralei you know come into their own artistically in that process but there were no like big stakes I felt and this is my own ethical thinking was like by the time anyone sees this they'll at least be adults that they'll they can deal with it with an adult mentality at least but I was still worried but you do have I mean on some level it's an ethical thing when you're deciding how much my true to the science and how much do I depart if you're making interstellar right well yeah to a degree but I think well everything we've been talking about with real life stories you know in terms of feeling responsibility because other people will feel ownership of it and I'm saying try making a Batman film trust me look come on burn your house down and there is there is a sense of responsibility and on interstellar it is it is about the science on on Batman it was about people's commitment to the character and their enthusiasm for it which is what gets the film made in the first place so I think we all have to balance that thing of what makes a great story the only answer to it I've ever come up with a sincerity if I really believe that what I'm doing is gonna give the audience the best experience possible and I think that comes across somehow that's the only guideline I've okay yeah I think we should acknowledge though that artists are by nature deviance and in totally unrelated to you know the criminal mind Truman Capote said that the most dangerous person is is the artist because they're really only going to ever be ultimately obedient to their vision it doesn't mean that the creative mind is necessarily a criminal but there is a willingness to abandon a conventional way of thinking and conventional morals more do you agree with that completely I mean I think that you know you have to be obsessed about it and you have to sort of like your instinct is the only thing that can guide you there's nothing else you do we have you have nothing else than just instincts it's like either it's right or is wrong there's no almost right Angie are you deviant I happen I don't disagree with better but I also think you can be an artist and socially responsible like though there's lots different we're all different things we're all artists but we're all also other things in our life and whatever our responsibility to is whether it be our children our politics our faith or that you know we have things that we holds us to a higher standard than just how we break which is not what you were saying and it's true with everybody about me because I actually don't have a life but I think there is like there is when you asked about the question like for example you cast somebody I'm broken very conscious of casting the Japanese actor it's very conscious of how his country would relate to him the choices he would make who he is does he understand this month it is my ethical responsibility to be thoughtful of what I'm asking the people to do the artists to do and how that will affect the country even if I plan to protect it I need to be honest and responsible to the best of my game because sometimes art can influence in a very beautiful way and sometimes we can be very damaging so when we can be of ethic that if we can be responsible to something that we think matters there's a responsibility which i think is you know ghost goes hand in hand with absolutely yes this question of moral moral dilemma I mean I think it's I think it's absolutely true that we are all the entirely deviant and it's absolutely true but you really can't get down to a decent film unless you are motivated by caring about people those things are not mutually exclusive I never had any moral dilemmas about my film naked but there were decisions to be made because it does ride a very narrow balancing act between a gratuitous violence which it's not about and making the audience get behind and understand the way people behave you know what is can be perceived as deviant and away within a social context and it's about men and women and power and all kinds of stuff you know and truth speaking in a deviant character who's a truth speaker exactly I think it's the intention of making your intention to make Foxcatcher your intention to make make what if the intention is just to understand the edges of human nature and the different ways people are I think than that I think if your aim is to you know put light where it had not been before and if it's just about truth that ultimately it can't hurt you and them I personally don't have a political agenda but if there is something that I think can be exposed and if there's new ground that a film can take stylistically great but also just in terms of communicating and conveying an aspect of life and inner life the means to the end I mean for instance language stops short of killing anyone rather where would you stop short so so so verna hawks almost had gone up to Klaus Kinski's head would you do that Bennett that happened on Fitzcarraldo you I think you're right he could happen on all the films they were I think it was Kazuki holding a gun to head so you might want to say that one for the actors round the means to the end how far would you go hold on that's really important Virna would not do that and he didn't know therefore it's outside the remit of this conversation well let me ask you if you knew that to an actor what I hold a gun when I said of course why would you have to you don't know like would you eat another human being until you're in when you made a imitation game where did you disagree with Bennett you had with Bennett do you have conversations going in where you said okay this I can accept this I can't accept how did that work yeah but the big discussion I like to have before you start shooting I mean it's it's I'm really big believer in rehearsals and and having time I insisted on three weeks of rehearsal you know that's the time when you allow yourself and the actors to [ __ ] up and that's when you do all the the things not doing shooting and we really wanted to figure out how does the mine of this land work so we spend a lot of time talking and rehearsing and trying to figure out from the inside out who is this man who is this character and I mean as a director I mean how do you if you disagree with nature how you know it's it's it's all up to the individual gun at their head you could either you can go and say this is how I want it and this is how you're doing it you know sometimes you have to trick them something as a convince them I mean it's all individual the situation is individual I mean it's all officer but you started this roundtable by asking us about what is directing apart from anything else you must take the responsibility because it's your job to create an atmosphere of conditions in which people are going to be creative and positive and you know directing is a lot of things I mean it's telling the story sure it's making visual decisions sure it's doing all those things but it's also it's about nurturing it's about being a nursemaid it's about being a bully in some ways but but you've got to find ways of doing it which are enabling are not confrontational so in a way the thing about guns that active has is completely irrelevant and not really or even a responsible thing to think about because it's not what it's about it's a journey making a film is a journey you don't start off with a fixed place and then simply try and get to that place as though you were already there through the way you then work on it becomes something else by definition which will be just as good if not better probably better as you say charge the atmosphere you know with the right energy that unexpected things can happen and that the actors can be everything that they could possibly be so long as everybody is you're getting the best out of everybody it's never gonna come by coercion but the only time you might ever come into a conflict if if somebody is acting selfishly or if somebody's acting fearfully and and then it becomes another issue anyway but the level of trust you have I mean it's it's it's actually a very unique relationship you have with an actor during the shooting I mean it has to be like this insane level of trust it's it's like almost like beyond her anyway it's like it's like this is this very unique thing where he has to believe that the actor will catch him if he falls I mean you need that trust for him to let go and you need to to to trust in your actor and send him out and trust in him to deliver and to make these characters come alive I mean it's a very very unique and very intimate one of the big pleasures of being a director a third director or one film that's particularly shaped you influenced you Oh interesting huh a one film in particular oh hell yes brilliant Wow Wow it spoke to me the way it's executed the way it's done the way it's perfect film Tamara yeah yeah but but many of his films many of his homes did you ever meet him no no I read his book I kept it where I keep it with me I often like reread it and and I've learned a lot about pay I've talked a lot people have worked with him to tell me things about him and his process and how he worked with actors and I approached material and how did you come to see the hill because it's a great favorite of mine but you can never find it anybody who when I found it I got a bell a lot of copies I gave it to everybody on the brokenly everybody that's why you know I just felt I II was on TV one night on the BBC like I had no idea who directed it was kind of this I loved all his films but then I didn't know about the hill but have you seen the effect nothing friends now you ever see that you know he didn't wanted another one with Sean Connery it is in that period where is it it's incredible what about you Chris I'm gonna assume you're going to say 2001 oh absolutely I mean that someone will film for me they re-released it after star wars were such a big hit so my dad took me to see him in Leicester Square when I was 7 years old no forgotten that that experience but on the science fiction and it's George Lucas and Ridley Scott and well Ridley Scott in general I think for me if you looked at a lien and you looked at Blade Runner different cast different stories different worlds but the same mind behind it and they remember kind of figuring it out okay that's this guy Ridley Scott he's the director maybe that's the job that film being the filmmaker behind behind things what about you Ray that's one was overwhelming questions I started a Film Society long time ago just to see every movie I could and it depends on my mood one time they asked for a top ten I wrote like 250 films so pick a mood pick a mood and I will tell you my favorite directors right this second hmm think in a one room of a V like making a comedy I'd like to see a Hal Ashby comedy the thing is I never saw a film that wasn't in English till I was 17 I saw movies all the time in Manchester they were all Hollywood or British movies now went to London of 17 and swam world cinema it was fantastic I realized that you know I've been sitting at the pictures as we called it thinking wouldn't it be great if you could see a film where the people and it were like real people and suddenly we started to discover but that actually existed and had done for some time that was the moment of a Buddhist oof that was a moment of shadows Cassavetes first film which materialized that was the moment of I mean the whole of the new nouvelle fog was happening so there are those that inspire there are forms that you remember there are films that astound you for one film out that I still think is remarkable that's Ole Miss the tree of wooden clogs oh yeah which is a miraculous film made without a professional actor in it he shot it himself he directed it and edited and he actually his own camera you know I mean it and it is a phenomenal film without a moment that is quasi documentary it's a real emotional dramatic study of this whole community over seasons in eternal our century [Music] [Applause] Bennett Miller Wharton Tilden Christopher Nolan Mike Lee Angelina Jolie Richard Linklater thank you very much for taking cotton The Hollywood Reporter round tables the detectives thank you Vegas - thank you very much [Music]

Channel: The Hollywood Reporter

Views: 858,831

Rating: 4.930913 out of 5

Keywords: THR, The Hollywood Reporter, Directors, Christopher Nolan, Angelina Jolie, Mike Leigh, Richard Linklater, Bennett Miller, Morten Tyldum, Yugoslavia, In the Land of Blood and Honey, Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken, Interstellar, Mr. Turner, Louis Zamperini, Foxcatcher, Boyhood, John Wayne, The imitation Game, Sydney Lumet, The Hill, Werner Herzog, Klaus Kinski, Fitzcarraldo, Inception, Naked, Slacker, Ethics, Editing, Iceland, acting, directing, WWII, Topsy-Turvy, Elia Kazan, batman, dark knight

Id: 0xkh982zFm8

Length: 48min 26sec (2906 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 12 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Why is Angelina Jolie there? Where is PTA? Jonathan Glazer? Innaritu? Fincher? I also can't stand the moderator. He needs to let the directors converse naturally instead of cutting in with irrelevant questions

[u/[deleted]]

More directors (personally my fav.)

Cinematographers

[u/ElliottHeller]

I have to ask: what's an "open directing list?" Angelina Jolie said Unbroken was on it when she decided to snap it up. I've got some ideas, but Google ain't illuminating me.

[u/YC19916]

For a round table with directors you would think they would of come up with a better solution that having that huge awkward gap so they can include the guy asking the questions into the frame.