|
S:
So
is there anything after this, have you got anything planned? Are you just
going to take a break?
V:
Yeah,
I’ll probably take a break.
S:
…and
recharge the batteries and see what’s out there. Will you be basing yourself
there [Los Angeles] full-time?
V:I’ve
always liked the idea of being a little bit of an itinerant and I’m fairly
happy wherever I am and as long as I can do my work and have a few friends.
S:
You’ve
got a place in Sydney as well?
V:Yeah.
A:
Peter
Jackson is coming back here to do his big thing–
V:Well,
he never left; and I think Peter’s situation is unique and I really take
my hat off to him. I don’t think it applies to the rest of the film industry.
A:
Do
you have any intent to return to New Zealand to do, say, a single film
rather than returning here for good?
V:
I’d
certainly like to be able to do that, I think it’s good to do that. I don’t
have a specific idea, but I like the idea of it. I also like the idea that
it’s possible to come back here and try and find some finance to try and
make films. It’s one thing to make an American-style film here, or to make
Lord
of the Rings, which is essentially international, it’s not a film about
New Zealand or about New Zealand characters; it’s another thing to try
and find finance here and make films that relate to who we are and where
we come from. There is a real problem doing that in this country, unlike
places like Ireland. It’s very hard for experienced film-makers to come
back here and make films that are to do with anything that’s New Zealand-related,
come back and use the locations, and I think that’s a real shame. I think
it was fantastic the way Jane actually managed to do that, but she primarily
had to do it with international financing. But that’s difficult, the way
it’s structured with the amount of money available to the Film Commission
getting smaller, and it means they can only practically support first-time
film-makers. Either they can do 4 low-budget films, which means first-time
film-makers, or they can do 1 or 2 larger-budget films; well, there’d be
a riot if that happened. So, the only way to change that is to make sure
there is sufficient finance for more experienced film-makers, to make it
attractive to make films here; not of a scale of What Dreams May Come,
obviously that’s ridiculous, but on a scale which is more comparable with
other countries. You can do that in Australia, you can do that in England,
you can do that in Ireland. Otherwise you end up a country without a voice,
a country that can’t look at itself in the mirror.
S:
Are
you in contact with any other Kiwi film-makers out there in Hollywood?
I know Lee Tamahori after Once Were Warriors has been out there
and made a couple of films, but then you’ve got the base of Donaldson–
V:
I see Lee every now and again, I see Gregor Nicholas, I see occasionally
Roger, I’ve been to a few parties. Probably my closest friend there is
Phillip Noyce, the Australian film-maker–
S:Dead
Calm.
V:
He’s
a great guy. We all fairly much stick to ourselves; it’s not like we all
stick together. I haven’t seen Geoff Murphy in years: I think he lives
in Hawaii...
V:Obviously
the main point for me is that I only want to make a film that I really
believe in, and there’s a cost to that and there’s also a risk trying to
do that in the studio system.
S:
Do
you find that you have to tow the line?
V:You
have to go out and negotiate.
S:
But you can do that to a point where it becomes successful and you’re able
to–
V:
Unless
you do a 75-million-dollar grossing film, if you’re making a very large-budget
film, you do not have that complete ability. If you make a film that’s
under a certain budget, then you can negotiate that you can do what you
like, with normal budgetary constraints. So, the best you can do working
in that industry, which is an industry, with those big-budget films is
saying there are certain points: the script is worth making, so let’s go
ahead; okay, the next point is the casting, which everything lives or dies
on; okay, I agree with that casting, I like that casting, those are the
people I wanted or the people I feel would do a good job; okay, let’s keep
going. Once you’ve passed that point youre committed. Normally you’ll get
left alone when you shoot a film, and then the next big hurdle is the postproduction,
is the editing, where the studio normally has some sort of say; and test
the movie and then you hope you get through that – in this we were lucky.
I think that the screenwriter and myself were a formidable team and I was
helped by his negotiating skills. Did I say that he was a former top entertainment
lawyer? He was Francis Ford Coppola’s lawyer on Apocalypse Now.
He used to get up at 4 a.m. in the morning and start screenwriting. Between
us we were able to keep what we felt was the heart of the movie, consistently.
And if ever there was a phrase that sums up Ron Bass it would be the phrase
he put in the movie, ‘never give up.’
S:
I was reading this book on Star Wars, because George Lucas collaborated
with Francis and there’s a section in there about Heart of Darkness
and Ron’s name was in there too… I was under the impression that you’d
somehow become disillusioned with the whole Hollywood system after Map
of the Human Heart - correct me if I’m wrong.
V:I
do think it’s very difficult for most Australasian film-makers to work
there, if they have any voice – unless you just want to make, as I say,
‘gun for hire’ films, which I don’t want to make, and most of us don’t
want to make, you have to constantly be wary – it’s a constant mine-field.
I was lucky here, it was a drama, it was a good material, with a company
that was more European, a background that was a little more open. You can’t
assume anything, you just have to be very wary...
V:
The curious thing is that you go through this testing process, which is
arduous for any film-maker. But it’s good. It’s like playwrights test theirs
out in other smaller centres first, then they adjust it and get the timing
right. We did that endlessly with timing and made sure it played well,
so there wouldn’t be any places where it dipped or slowed, while still
keeping what’s essential for the drama, what you love about the film. But,
one thing we did find, which was kind of curious, with this particular
film, we found as a generality, obviously women responded to the relationship
and the love-story and the emotional, more to the emotional story; men
responded to the quest and the strong visual visceral elements of it. Generally
women liked Paradise more and men like Hell more, which is very telling;
and the scene which was the favourite among men was the least favourite
amongst women, that’s the Sea of Faces; and the other thing which was again
interesting is that slightly in America they tended toward Paradise, in
Europe they like Hell more, it’s kind of telling.
S:
What if you had a different ending, where they weren’t able to reunite,
Robin wasn’t able to bring her back, did you consider that, an opposite
ending?
V:
No, and it was never part of the book. No, I’ve certainly had my share
of dark endings; I made it a love story, also. But we felt that we put
the audience through a wringer and wanted them to come out the other side;
we wanted it finally to be an uplifting story, a story with some hope in
it.
S:
This
film marks every other film that you’ve done to date. There are elements
with emotion and conflict, the journey, from all your previous films, all
in one, but a more colourful addition to this particular one, obviously.
V:
Yeah, I feel that, too. John Maynard was commenting on that whom I normally
work with – I’ve worked with him on a couple of films.
S:
Also with the drama effect; the sequences with Annabella and Robin, like
in that field where, after the tragic circumstances of the kids, she can’t
handle it… she’s sick, there was a shot there that went down to the wrist,
you see the cut, the stitches, very powerful scenes I thought.
V:
We tried to use certain contrasts in the movie, which were strong, dramatic
and psychological scenes sometimes contrasting it with more romantic scenes,
depending on the nature of what point in the relationship you’re looking
at.
A:
Are
you comparing it with that Greek tragedy–
V:
Orpheus and Eurydice [Persephone?].
A:
…where he goes down into the underworld to bring her back?
‘The
film is indeed based on a Richard Matheson book published circa 1980. The
book is described by the scooper as a modern reworking of the myth of Orpheus
in the Underworld. Matheson is best known as the screenwriter of films
like The Incredible Shrinking Man, Duel and many of Roger Corman’s
Edgar Allan Poe films.’ [Internet info’ sent by ‘Roogulator’.] |
V:
That does have an unhappy ending.
A:
Or in the Christian religion with Jesus going to Hell in order to bring
us back?
V:
The
story you can relate it to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, there’s
a lot of stuff you can relate it to. For me, I like that; I’ve lived in
a lot of different communities, whether it’s in the Ureweras or it’s in
the Arctic, whether it’s investigating a film-set in 19th century Japan.
S:
Back
to the title, What Dreams May Come, are your own dream experiences
relevant to the script?
V:
I kind of share the belief of Francis Ford Coppola, which is that I’d like
to make films that to some degree have a predictive element. I know Coppola’s
been put on record as saying the way he predicted a lot of technological
development and started using them in his films, his way of investigating
what may be. It’s not necessarily a dream, but it’s further than
that. I don’t remember my dreams, the dreams at night, unless I’m going
through a really hard time in my work and then it’s more about a nightmare
with what I’m doing, but I do imagine things and I take different roads
in my mind during the day, as I’m imagining different scenarios.
S&A:
On that note, Vincent, thank you, it’s been a pleasure and we look forward
to your next offering.
“Epic
romantic drama starring Robin Williams, Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Annabella
Sciorra is now in its final stages of editing - adding amazing sound design
and a beautiful score by Michael Kamen that will blow away the doubters
who were hung up on the Academy Award™-winning composer Ennio Morricone,
whose score was tossed out a month and a half before release.
Visual
effects by the top names/houses in the biz are beyond your wildest fantasies
and push the envelope on visual effects.
Put
on your seat belts, this one will take you further than any film before,
exploring metaphysical ideas that’ll keep you thinking/ feeling long after
the last credits have faded.” ’ [Anonymous Internet writer.] |
Sam
Gaoa and Aidan
Ph.
373-7599, extn 2527
s.gaoa@auckland.ac.nz
aidan.howard@directories.co.nz |