Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
What a surprise. Another film I haven’t seen yet. *sigh*
Maybe on Thursday, when I get into Austin, I’ll warm up for the BNAT by tracking this one down and seeing it finally. Then again, I haven’t seen MATRIX: REVOLUTIONS, either.
Have I mentioned how behind I am? Anyway, here’s Hoyden, one of our regular chatters and a loverly person overall, with her impressions on a recent Q&A she attended:
Question and Answer session with Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, director of 21 Grams
At the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) in Long Beach, California
November 25, 2003
Firstly, I didn’t have a recorder, nor am I that fast at writing in the dark, so I’ll just say that I’ll give you an impression and paraphrase of all that happened that night, very few actual quotes.
First the Museum director introduced AGI, saying that his background is in music, drama and comedy. The director was very casual in dress (black jeans, boots, black leather jacket) and relaxed. He stated the following:
The process was not a rational one, it was more of an intuitive one.
It took 3 years to be made from script to shooting.
Motion conveyed emotional states of characters. Graininess in the film conveys extreme emotion. When people are calm, the grain is clear. When the characters are in extreme emotional states you’ll see that the grain is very gritty.
He tried very hard for it not to seem an intellectual piece and for the audience to forget about the structure the piece was being told in and to concentrate on the emotions of the characters.
The plot is universal and the story could be told in any country in the world
That spiritual connection all people can feel is an awareness present at the end of the movie
He had a freehand with the studios and as such has a positive experience with Hollywood which many had warned him was a corrupting influence. He has artistic lisence.
He got to pick the city he wanted to film in. Felt as independent as in Mexico in the U.S. only difference were all the red tape and rules of the unions in the U.S.
He mentioned two directors he admired were Polanski and Coppola
Was asked what the significance of the car crashes in both films he said that both films have a tragedy element and something that’s our of our hands. Death can happen at any time you just need to be in the wrong place at the wrong time or conversely at the right place at the right time and “the bad guy is God”. What he liked to see is what people will do with their free will after. He said he thinks “accidents are our payment for using technology.” Cars are the number one metaphor of how an accident can change your life in one second and he uses that.
When asked why he liked to come up on people’s faces and get right in there, he says that it he likes the handheld because it gives movement to everything. “I see things like you. I have never been a tripod or a dolly”, and he likes that feeling the handheld gives like our own body where we look down just an inch and we see a difference and it adds meaning to it. “a little movement says things about you.” He said he has the best DP(Director of Photography) in the world. He says Rodrigo makes himself invisible. The actors loose consciousness of the camera after a while which is hard with the hand held (made little hissing sound of film rolling next to his ear)
He feels telephathically connected with those he cares about. For example, he was in love with a German production designer, Bridgette Rock, also did Moulin Rouge and pulled a book out for R to see and he also pulled out the book.
His film works like a cubist painting or “puntis” where you see just dots up close but as you stand back further and further you see more and more of the picture until finally you see the entire picture.
Someone asked if Rulfo was an influence on him (Mexican director) but said he would like to “big time” but he didn’t feel that feeling of existentialism and loneliness was so from “el campo” (the country) of solitude. He felt his work has a more urban feel to it.
When asked who chose the script he said Guillermo dreamt in on a train ride in Spain and called him up immediately to pitch the story to him and he was in.
When asked if there were any other choices for the main actors he said he has done a broad search of unknowns in the theater but said there’s a reason why people don’t get discovered after 30 years. He heard Marlon Brando say Sean Penn was one of the most brilliant actors of our day and he felt Marlon Brando should know. He always wanted to work with him. When he sent Penn the script he would call him every twenty pages he was so jazzed about the script “like a child” wanting to know how it would all play out and (laughing) was told “keep reading”. He liked Del Toro’s work in Traffic and Naomi Watts in Traffic.
On being asked about the dedication at the end he said it’s to his wife who was a constant consultant on the film and a brutal necessity in the editing process. It refers to their third child being born. Apparently they had lost a child the year before this and he had had a really bad time dealing with it and she helped him through it. It reads something like, Maria who planted a crop while my corn plants burned, or something to that affect.
When asked if the script was written completely in Spanish and then translated, he said yes and it was fairly easy translated once it was finished. He said an hour was lost from the three hours on the cutting room floor and when someone asked if there was any improvisation he said the script was solid and it really wasn’t the type of film you could improvise in.
There was a little bit more, but I’m sorry, my pen ran out. I hung around for a little while after and overheard him say to a fan that commented on the fact that the rain at the end was a brilliant piece to signify the renewal process that the rain (though I could swear he said snow) was an accident. The sun was out and it was chilly and for about five minutes it suddenly turned and the camera crew filmed it. He saw it while editing, liked it and put it in. Also, the birds were real; someone commented that it was brilliant the way they were shot and the fact that they were going down instead of up, he just grinned and broke in to a laugh. Some people brought their copies of AP for him to autograph and he did. Then the man was being gracious, but kept inching to the door, so not to add to the nuisance factor, I left.
Thanks, Hoyden. You Argentine girls rule.
"Moriarty" out.
