by Kaleem Aftab,IGN
UK, May 27, 2008 - James Gray rose to prominence when he made Little Odessa aged just 24. A decade and a half later he's made his fourth film, Two Lovers, which premiered in Cannes last week. It's his third film to be selected in competition, making the New Yorker a firm favourite on the Croisette, in spite of the fact that he's yet to have a huge box-office hit.
His latest is something of a departure from the gritty crime dramas he's known for (The Yards, We Own The Night). Instead, it's a romantic tryst starring Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw. Phoenix's Leonard is on the verge of suicide when his parents introduce him to Shaw's Sandra. Things seem to be going swimmingly until Paltrow's Michelle moves in next door. She's already going out with a married man, but Leonard is determined to win the heart of this mysterious and volatile woman.
Typically, Gray avoids all the romantic clichés as he recounts a tale of desire and love that feels as real as a punch in the face. Here he speaks about his own change in direction, and love of complicated, self-destructive characters.
Joaquin Phoenix's character Leonard is on the one hand brash and on the other very nervous. How did you go about creating such a complicated character?
James Gray: Joaquin and I talked a lot about the idea that you can't really conceive of a character in a one dimensional way. You can't say that this person is like this or that in every scene in the movie. That is a very simplistic and not very interesting idea of characterization. Joaquin pretty much charted the character, particularly someone who has bi-polar disorder, very carefully with me and said 'here I want to be like this, here is this type of person and here is this flavour.'
You've used Joaquin in three films: what attracts you to him?
James Gray: Obviously I love him. He has the wonderful ability to project his emotional intelligence - what is going on underneath the surface - and he is rarely verbal. He is really an emotionally complex person and it all seems to come out on the screen because the camera doesn't lie. He doesn't have to say anything because you can see a whole thing bubbling inside him. He's quite remarkable.
How did you come to cast Gwyneth Paltrow?
James Gray: Gwyneth had said to me once, when we'd been talking about working with each other, 'How can I work with you anyway, all you do is make films about crime and men with guns. I can't be in anything like that.' Her statement sort of inspired me to do this. I thought if she is saying this kind of thing, I really feel like I should get out of this rut and try something else, and so when I wrote the picture, I thought of her. First of all, I've known her for many years on a social basis and adored her. I don't know very much about her acting - to this day I've not seen Shakespeare in Love - but I saw her in The Talented Mr. Ripley and there is a moment towards the end of the film when Matt Damon is confronting her and you see the danger, you see the terror on her face. She's incredible. It's like that wall between actor and movie seems to crumble and all of a sudden you see a performance that's so real that it kind of frightens you a little bit. I thought 'that's the person I want to work with.'
Do you see Two Lovers as expanding the horizons of the types of film you want to make?
James Gray: I don't know. I didn't make the film as a career piece. If I did, it wouldn't be an $11m movie with Joaquin and Gwyneth being very sad, I would have done it very differently. I don't know the answer to that. I made Two Lovers in the most honest way that I could and hope that people respond.
By calling the film Two Lovers, it makes one think of the French New Wave. Was that something you were thinking about?
James Gray: That's a great question. I hadn't thought of the French New Wave but I had thought of Italian movies, especially Two Women (1960), or films that are very simple and bare like The Bicycle Thief. Two Women was really the movie I thought about.
In all your films you have self-destructive characters at the epicenter. What's your infatuation?
James Gray: Well I guess the answer is that people are self-destructive aren't they. Who isn't? I feel like people are all the time doing things that are insanely self-destructive. Small things: lighting up a cigarette for example, having that extra bit of chocolate, or telling your wife something you know will lead to a fight.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Cannes 2008: James Gray Q&A
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