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Sacrifice in the Sand: 1on1 with Rod Lurie (THE OUTPOST)

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War is hell.

Though that may sound cliché in, there’s no question that any war requires incredible sacrifice that can be difficult to understand for those who have never been involved in the military. Still, over the years, this has not stopped filmmakers from attempting to bring the intensity and tragedy of war to life on screen. 

With his latest film, The Outpost, director Rod Lurie (The Contender) may have come closer than others to depicting reality with his incredible and intense look at the famed Battle of Kamdesh, the bloodiest engagement in the Afghanistan War. When he was first offered the script, Lurie says that he found this particular project too enticing to pass up, especially considering his own military background.

“As a military guy, I’m living every day on military websites and [I have] my military friends on Facebook and on Twitter, [so] I was aware of the story,” Lurie begins. “Certainly, I was aware of The Battle of Kamdesh. It’s absolutely within military folklore at this point. So, when it was brought to me, there was just no doubt I was going to do this. It was, by the way, brought to me by the first director of it, Sam Raimi. Sam had decided to drop out as director and was not going to produce it. Although he didn’t ultimately end up producing it, I first heard about it as a film project in his office with his head of development—a guy named Paul Merryman—and the film’s two writers, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson. I knew there was just no way [that] I wasn’t going to do this film.”

The Outpost tells the story of Bravo Troop 3-61 CAV, a small unit of U.S. soldiers left alone at the remote Combat Outpost Keating, who are tasked with helping maintain the peace and build relationships with the locals. Trapped at the bottom of a deep valley between three mountains in Afghanistan, the division sits exposed and faces daily attacks from insurgents. Then, when an overwhelming force of Taliban fighters attacks them, the unit finds themselves faced with the impossible task of defending their station and staying alive. 

Relentless and unyielding, The Outpost is a visceral experience that makes the viewer feel as though they’re in the middle of the firefight. While he may have never been directly involved in combat himself, Lurie also argues his passion for this project extends from his desire to honour his brothers-in-arms.

“If I’m really being honest, it’s my lack of experience that made me want to make this film,” he confesses. “I graduated in 1984 from West Point, the United States military Academy. [It was a] tough four years. I graduated into a peace time and served in Germany. I was with an air defense unit. I was never on a battlefield and never had a bullet pass my head. I never fired a bullet at an enemy. My life was never in danger in any real way but that’s not true of my classmates. Many of my classmates have decorations that they wear on their chest from their valorous actions and from being in the field of battle. When I go back to my reunions at West point, I’m one of the guys who wasn’t in battle. It’s not a great feeling, to be honest with you. I always knew I wanted to make a war film, but not just any war film. It had to be about the war that my brothers were fighting in. So, if I couldn’t be on a battlefield with him, then I was going to honor them and this was the best way to do it… [It’s] the only way that I can do it right now, I think.”

Of course, with any film of this nature, preparing for the role would be an intense process. Though some of the cast were military veterans, Lurie notes that the actors who were experiencing basic training for the first time found themselves pushed much harder than they had expected.

“I really had to put these guys through the ringer,” Lurie recalls. “A lot of the guys were already vets. They were soldiers and they knew how to hold an M4. They knew how to fire a weapon. They knew how to move. But a lot of these guys, they’re like trained at Carnegie Mellon University. They are not soldiers. So, I sent them to basic training with our military guys…. This was not easy for a lot of these guys. I mean, there are many times at lunch where they would come and they would sit with me and there would be a tear rolling down their eye, going ‘I didn’t expect this humiliation. I didn’t expect this physical toughness.’ I had to train them properly, so that was very, very, very difficult for them.” 

“Now, [then there’s] somebody like Caleb Landry Jones, who plays Ty Carter, the medal of honor recipient, in the film,” he continues. “I’ve never seen a guy more dedicated than this kid. It’s just incredible. When I first met Caleb, he was exactly what I thought I was going to be, which is like this hippie type. He’s as Olive Oyl (from the Popeye series) and he’s hairy down to his [butt]. It’s like the opposite of the sort of buff, tough bald-headed [guy] who was Ty Carter… But I knew that Caleb was a great actor and, from speaking to people about him, I knew that he was dedicated and he would somehow transform himself into this guy. In fact, I sent him to meet Ty Carter. Ty called me and he said, ‘Rod, this guy is going to work out’. He was really nervous, but… Caleb transformed himself. That also meant militarily. So, he took it very, very seriously when the military guys trained them. In fact, Caleb’s brother, a guy named John Jones – is a Marine who lost both his legs in battle and he came to Bulgaria and trained with his brother. So, there was lots and lots of an attempt at authenticity in this film. I think we nailed it, in the end.”

Asked about the response he’s gotten from those involved that have seen the film, Lurie is grateful for the overwhelming support that he has received from the veterans and their families. However, that should not be surprising. To his credit, The Outpost works hard to depict The Battle of Kamdesh as realistically as possible. In fact, one of the most amazing aspects of the film is the fact that some of the survivors themselves are in the film, in some cases playing themselves. 

“Not only have they seen the film, some of them are in the film,” he asserts. “Daniel Rodriguez, who fought in the mortar pit, plays himself in the movie. Not only that, but he had to relive for us the death of his best friend. He actually staged it for us. He told us exactly how it happened, which was obviously a hugely traumatic experience for him, but he was a good soldier and he fell apart after he did that for us. We had a screening for many of the survivors of the battle and for the families of the fallen last October in Washington DC. That had to have been among the most emotional nights of my life. Certainly, that’s pretty remarkable. It was really something. What these families realized was that their loved ones, their names, will live on now. They don’t just disappear into the ether. Their names matter.”

Though Lurie recognizes the value of every man who served in Kamdesh, he chooses to frame the narrative in segments that focus on the unit’s rotating (and brief) commanders. Given their dramatic differences in approach, Lurie felt that this would be a good way to highlight them and how their varying styles to leadership affected the unit.

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“The commanders were targeted by the Taliban, so I thought that was one way to sort of honour them. One after another, they either die or have to leave the outpost. They also have different styles of command, which I thought was very interesting. So, the story sort of changes as we go along, based on the leadership styles of the commanders. I just thought that it would be a very effective form of storytelling.”

One interesting aspect of the film is the fact that, though they live and serve together, there are no guarantees that the troops will come together until they’re on the field of battle. Popularized over the years as the ‘band of brothers’ mindset, Lurie believes that, while may be willing to sacrifice themselves for one another, the truth about the relationships between men off the field may have become overstated. 

“I think you’ve latched onto something really, really interesting. You’re right. They are not friends,” he points out. “In fact, sometimes they’re actually like almost enemies. They will fight in the barracks, but they do learn that, in the field of battle, they’re all brothers. They are absolutely brothers. The real Ty Carter will tell you how unpopular he was among the other soldiers. Nobody liked him. He didn’t like anybody, but he saved a lot of lives. He put his life on the line in a very dramatic way for at least for one soldier and probably for several more. That is what it boils down to. These guys that are in Afghanistan right now, I’m talking about troops for all nations, they’re there to survive more than to do anything else. That means being there for your brother. It’s really simple.” 

“That’s not a good enough reason to have troops over there, in my opinion. It’s not a good enough reason. During the Second World War, you ask every soldier why they’re there, [and] they’d all have the same answer. You’re going to stop Hitler. I don’t know that if you asked any soldier at any war after that why are they are there that they would have the answer. The closest common denominator [as an] answer would be ‘to keep my brother alive’. That’s the reason that they’re there. It’s not good enough, but it is what it is.”

In addition, while other famed war films such as Saving Private Ryan and 1917 choose to emphasize the gravity of their specific mission at hand, The Outpost opts to instead focus on survival as the mission itself. For Lurie, this level of sacrifice was one of the most inspirational aspects of the project.

According to Lurie, “Scott Eastwood, who plays Sergeant Clint Romesha says [in the film that], ‘Our mission is what it’s always been.’ Then he says, ‘To survive’. That is indeed what all but eight of them did. They survived. But there’s something also very inspirational about that. This movie is not a morose thing at all. You will likely come out of this very moved, but also very inspired by the human spirit and what the human calculus is capable of. When I was at West point, what I was told was once you think you have exhausted everything, you’re only 10% of the way there. That’s something you see in The Outpost.

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For full audio of our interview with Rod Lurie, click here.

The Outpost is currently streaming on iTunes, Google Play and other VOD sites.

Refracting Truth: 1on1 with Atom Egoyan (GUEST OF HONOUR)

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Atom Egoyan does not make life easy for the characters in his films.

Known for such powerful and entracing films as The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica, and Chloe, the iconic director always creates characters who are caught up in complex relationships that challenge the viewer’s assumptions. His latest film, Guest of Honour, continues this trend by building around what appears to be the simple relationship between an estranged father and his daughter yet somehow spirals into an intricate, multi-layered narrative infused with a mix of truth and lies.

Written and directed by Egoyan, Guest of Honour tells the story of Jim (David Thewlis), a health inspector whose daughter, Veronica (Laysla De Oliveira), has recently been convicted of a serious crime. Although Jim remains steadfast in his belief that she’s innocent, his efforts to reduce her sentence are hampered by her stubborn refusal to cooperate with him. After her release, she visits Father Greg (Luke Wilson), a local priest, that she looks to as her potential confessor and may know more about her story than she realizes. Asked where the idea for such a complex narrative came from, Egoyan claims that the seeds were planted from his own family’s experiences in the restaurant business.

“It came from the fact that our son was working as a bus boy in this very exclusive French restaurant in Toronto,” he begins. “[He] came back with stories of the chef who is a proprietor also being tormented by a food inspector who was making his life really difficult. [Then], the character began to emerge. I began to think of parenting and how much do we really know about our kids?… That became sort of the root of the story. That weird place where we all know that, in a family (or any relationship), you have openness. There has to be communication, but where there couldn’t be communication. That blockage had this really strong effect on the two characters [of Jim and Veronica]. Of course, there were all sorts of issues around #MeToo and this idea about the ways in which lines were being crossed. I thought that [because] she was also as a teacher and had these responsibilities, there was something very interesting about this choice that she made. She’s a very extreme character. She obviously has this very self-destructive sort of tendency, but that’s where it came from.” 

“We [also] had a small bar on Queen Street, and we had to deal with food inspectors. You become aware of this whole network of how the city especially is built up on this network of restaurants and all these different sorts of windows into the different places. So, this person who spends a day going from one place to another, and who himself was a restauranteur at one point, that became really interesting and rich in possibility.” 

When the time came to cast the character of Jim, Egoyan was thrilled for veteran actor David Thewlis to take on the challenge. Having been a fan of Thewlis’ work for some time, Egoyan believed that he had the presence and gravitas to take on the role.

“There are actors that you see a performance and you just never let it go,” Egoyan recalls. “I’d seen David in Naked, Mike Leigh’s film, a long time ago. The way he was able to hold the screen and the energy and he had, I just thought it’d be very interesting to revisit this actor all these years later. I’d seen him in several films, but I’d never seen him take on a lead role. I just prayed that he would respond to the script when I sent it to him and he did… I was so thankful that I’d found my actor. He was so curious and he brought so much to the role. Some of my favorite scenes are the ones where he’s not doing anything or he’s just opening a drawer and looking at ribbons and an old cell phone. We read everything in his performance.”

Though Jim walks a line of the law as a health inspector, he also pleads for grace from his incarcerated daughter, Veronica. However, despite Jim’s earnestness, Egoyan feels that Veronica’s anger towards her father may inform her motivation in meeting with him.

“The question is, by seeing her father in these visits, almost in a very strange perverse way… [does] she actually also want to punish him as well?,” he asks. “[Jim] goes on about reputation and how he knows how important it is to preserve a reputation. But, of course, his reputation has been demolished by this action. There’s a side of what she does, which I think is really also focused on seeing him pay this penance as well. That’s so unfair because ultimately if they had only communicated to each other, this would might’ve been avoided.” 

“I also understand that that wouldn’t have been possible. There’s no way he would have told her at that time that [he and] her idolized music teacher were having an affair [or that] the mother was aware of that because she was ill. [She] was thinking about (maybe) a mother figure for her daughter. You know, a nurturing figure. So, it’s a real tragedy at the core of this, but you can’t explain that to her. As I said, by the time he could, when she was older, she probably locked herself into such a place that she wouldn’t believe it. She would have said, ‘Well, that’s as easy for you to say now.’ I think that really hurts him as well, but he feels that he didn’t even have that trust from her. What is he going to do to earn that at the same time?” 

Interestingly, while Veronica’s character remains in jail for her crimes, she also finds herself in an emotional prison as well. When he reflects upon what it will take for her to be truly free, Egoyan points out that her soul can likely only be able to let things go if/when she finally has the opportunity to hear the truth about her father.

“She feels responsible for wiping out this family, between the mother and the son. That’s where she is [emotionally],” he explains. “I think her character needs to know exactly what the priest tells her, right? The mother had given her blessing for that relationship. That was something that the mother felt would be best for her. To have this woman that was in her life, then take on that maternal role. I think the most moving part of the film for me [is]… when Jim is doing his final inspection. There’s that closeup of that smile on his face when he comes to realize something. I think that’s the moment where he thinks that if he has his funeral at that church, that maybe that conversation might happen. That maybe the priest would actually offer that information, because he’s the only person who can. It’s the only person who objectively would be able to say that and allow Veronica to believe it.” 

“Not only is it the Veronica wouldn’t believe the father, but also what would be the point in the father telling her that history? Because the music teacher isn’t there either… He doesn’t see any point to it. And yet it’s a moment that actually would have a profound benefit, but there’s no one there. I think this happens sometimes. There’s no one there to regulate that. There’s no one there to kind of say, ‘This would be the best course of action.’ So, these two characters are left to their own devices.” 

Known for his complex relationships within his films, Egoyan loves to challenge his audience with visual imagery as well. For example, in Guest of Honour, one of Egoyan’s most effective visual motifs is his use of glass which serves as a metaphor for how our understandings are affected by others.

“First, we’re telling our story through glass camera lenses. Also, glass is this object that refracts, and, in this case, creates a different sound [and] these strange distortions. In the film, there are flares but there’s this idea that glass is also fragile. It can break. So, all those things were really important in the visual motif of the film.”

In light of this, Egoyan maintains that Guest highlights the fact that, like refracted lens, our perspectives shape our understanding of history.

“The question is who determines what actually is the story that’s told and why is that story being told?,” he contends. “This is a very unusual situation where she is perceiving something as a child and what she’s perceiving is that the father is doing something so incomprehensibly wrong. We need to understand that. We see that image twice. Once, she’s playing the piano and she notices her father make a signal to the music teacher that they go upstairs. It just seems like so cavalier and crazy. But then, when we see it again, after she understands what has happened to the father, we see that he’s actually in the same place but his hand is in her hands. Then, he just leaves the room and the teacher goes to follow him to try and comfort him. It’s interesting that the only thing that separates those two scenes is the fact that she now has the information from Father Greg as to what the circumstance really was. But if there’s no one there to tell you that, then there’s no reason for her to ever altered that. I firmly believe that, even if the father had told her that story, there would be no point to it from his perspective…He doesn’t understand that she’s in pain so why would he tell her?”

In fact, faith plays an interesting role within Egoyan’s latest endeavour. For example, while his character appears not to hold any specific religious beliefs, Jim seems to honour and even carry out any number of religious sacraments within the film.

“There’s one huge clue [to his spiritual history],” he points out. “When he’s at the party at the Armenian restaurant, he’s holds up the glass and he says, ‘To his blood’. That is a moment from the Eucharist. That is a moment of communion. My suspicion is that there was religion in his background, but he just hasn’t been following it. So, he does create all of these weird sacraments, like what he’s doing with the rabbit. It’s as though he’s he still needs that… We also understand that his wife, Rosangela’s parents gave a lot to the church… So, I think it was there. It was just that he’s lapsed. It’s not there in his life anymore.” 

With an emphasis on the relationship between the past and present, Egoyan’s structure is told through multiple flashbacks and timelines. Though that may seem daunting, he believes that it actually brings the narrative together as a whole in a seamless manner.

“It’s all about these conflicting images that are existing in these two characters’ minds,” says Egoyan. “They both have these memories. They both have these sorts of images of things that happened and those are being revisited over the course of the film. So, there had to be a structure that allowed that to happen fluidly. There are really five timelines that are being kind of followed. That sounds confusing but, I think as you watch the film, it’s not. I think it’s pretty clear. Between her as an eight-year-old, a 17-year-old, the school band trip, in jail, and with the priest, those are five different sort of moments that are being referred to. So, to keep it fluid and keep all those balls bouncing, the structure seemed most organic.” 

For full audio of our interview with Atom Egoyan, click here.

Guest of Honour is currently streaming on iTunes.

Battle of the Soul: 1on1 with Aaron Schneider (GREYHOUND)

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You simply don’t ignore a phone call from Tom Hanks.

As the director of the latest WWII epic, Greyhound, Aaron Schneider was thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Tom Hanks in bringing the story to life. Featuring a screenplay written by Hanks himself, Greyhound transports the viewer back to February 1942 and follows the journey of U.S. Navy Cmdr. Ernest Krause (Hanks). For his first war-time command, Krause is assigned to lead an Allied convoy across the Atlantic during World War II. Forced to travel without air support across the area known as the ‘Black Pit’, his convoy is suddenly pursued by German U-boats. Despite his anxiety about the situation, Krause must remain steadfast and committed to his crew if he is to successfully lead his convoy across the Atlantic to safety. 

While he was thrilled to partner with Hanks on the project, the primary appeal of the film to Schneider was the opportunity to help the iconic actor bring his passion project to reality.

“[When] you get a hold of a Tom Hanks-starring WWII script, the filmmaker in you gets excited right away,” he admits. “But what really drew me in was that Tom had written it, not just the novelty of that [either]. I had made a short film early in my career, called Two Soldiers… It was fun and a little scary, but it’s what I wanted to do. It turned out great! We were honored with an Oscar for our effort and it was the beginning of my director’s career.” 

“When you’re inside of it though, you don’t know any of that. All you know is that you’re trying something new. So, when I saw Tom’s name as screenwriter, my first thought was, ‘Oh my gosh, Tom Hanks is a big movie star and yes, he’s done it all. But I wonder if this is something new and a little scary and a little challenging for him, the way my film was.’ How cool would that be? That I could sort of help out a filmmaker like Tom with something that’s personal [and] new to him. Just the idea of helping a filmmaker do something different sounded like even more fun than just making a movie with Tom. That’s what it turned out to be. It was a passion project [that] he’d been sort of secretly building behind the scenes over time, when the mood struck him. He finally debuted it and here it was falling into my lap. So, that was very exciting and that’s what drove me.” 

Based on C.S. Forrester’s classic book, The Good Shepherd, Greyhound may not be a true story but it is based on actual events. In his research and preparation for the film, Schneider was amazed by the stories that he heard and sought to be as historically accuracy as possible.

“I’ve read [that] some people kind of wish it was true story, as if somehow that would affect their enjoyment of the film,” he muses. “The truth of the matter is that I started doing lots of research when I came on the project. One of the first things I began to learn is that every ship in that convoy and Naval engagement is based on an actual event. There’s a story out there about [the drive-by of the sub] happening and the guns not being able to tilt down far enough. In the real-life story, men even started picking up Coca-Cola bottles and potatoes and throwing them at the sub. As it turned out, somebody recalling the event said that the Germans thought the potatoes were grenades and it kept them from manning their guns. One of the destroyers in Greyhound had a history too. I was doing historical research and sure enough, I said, ‘Oh, my goodness, C.S. Forrester has basically borrowed the history of this real-life destroyer in terms of giving it its backstory in the book. So, it’s a fictionalized story and a fictional character that uses many of the many real-life events and stories from actual battles as a foundation.”

Though Hanks’ career has brought him to WWII on several occasions, this was Schneider’s first attempt at re-creating this period of history. Asked if there was anything in particular that he learned from the experience, Schneider says that the most meaningful aspect was seeing for himself the level of hard work and sacrifice that was required from those who served.

“It was a crash course. You look back at the heroes of WWII, and you already know that they sacrificed,” Schneider points out. “You already honor the heroism. But it isn’t until you get inside of it, research it and your job is to dramatize what made that job so hard to do. It took all those things, the difficulties, the hardships, the challenges, the talent that it took, the commitment, it took just to do the job, let alone win the war. So, I’d say that was probably the biggest lesson for me is submersing myself in this tin can, this ship, learning how it works and learning all of its moving parts and how they had to work together to succeed. That was probably the most meaningful lesson to me because it wasn’t easy work. It was hard enough to risk your life, but the job itself was such a challenge, it makes it that much more heroic.” 

To bring history to life, special effects and sound mixing are always essential to create the proper atmosphere for the audience. By developing a balance between the whizzing of bullets, crashing waves and (at times) muted dialogue, Greyhound becomes a visceral experience for the viewer. In doing so, Schneider explains that the process helps the viewer focus their perspective on the film’s most important narrative aspects.

“The challenge for the filmmakers at any point in time is that it’s about point of view,” Schneider explains. “You can tell a story based on focusing on one point of view over another. There’s that great moment in the Normandy beach landing in Saving Private Ryan, where a shell goes off near Tom’s character and it blows it ears out for a moment, right?… As [his] ears ring, Tom looks around and he’s taking in all these chaotic horrific things going on around him and then boom, a shell lands and jerks you out of it.”

“That’s a great example of how both the camera and the sound can have a point of view in terms of what you’re focusing the audience on. This was a big challenge in Greyhound as well. The movie kind of sticks to Krause’s shoulder [and] his point of view and experiences. He’s our conduit. He’s our ‘way in’ to everything… The goal in sound design, I think, is always to make sure that the sound design helps support the point of view of what the character is experiencing. Sound design is trying to adhere to the same subjective point of view that the camera is or that the story is. Then, that boils down to balance and what you choose to bring to the foreground and what you choose to push to the background.”

In fact, point of view is essential to Greyhound. By following Krause’s character, the film offers a unique perspective on the battle that gives a personal feeling to the action.

“From the very beginning, Tom described this as the perfect 90-minute procedural,” Schneider explains. “He wanted it to be a rip-roaring, experiential event for the viewer. He wanted to honor and dramatize the experience of the Battle of Atlantic by dropping you off over Krause’s shoulder, without giving you anything to hold on to, and force you to follow him, move through his experiences and, in some case, without a full understanding of where you are and how things work. Over time, you would engage with the film, educate yourself, acquaint yourself, get yourself more comfortable, exactly the kind of experience you’d have if I beamed you aboard the USS Keeling, and you found yourself in a foreign world in the middle of a very dangerous battle. So, in that sense, making the whole movie experiential and Tom’s character becomes the human conduit for the person following him around, through all this.” 

More specifically, one of the most interesting aspects of Krause’s character is his devout faith. As a man who sees the value of every human soul, his faith puts his heart into conflict as he is called into battle. According to Schneider, this experiential aspect of Krause’s character helped provide weight to the film.

“In that regard, you introduce this character upfront and you’re in a very private moment, praying and preparing yourself emotionally and spiritually for the day and for the job at hand,” he describes. “We’re not even sure we know we understand [the situation] yet, but you get a sense of the kind of man you’re going to be moving through this journey with. So, now knowing this about him, that he lives his life within a certain set of principles and we get an immediate sense of what we can imagine that he holds dear, right? And then, boom. All this stuff begins to happen. So, in those little private peeks we get inside his mind that maybe the crew doesn’t absorb or get to see, we know enough him that we can begin to ask questions about the way he feeling about this.” 

“That’s where the soul comes in. You have to understand who a person is and what lives in their soul before you can you can explore who they are and what any of this means to you. It’s not a classical drama in the sense that there’s no soliloquies announcing who this man is or how he feels. The only way into that is what you can pull away, learn about and derive from the way he’s making these decisions. So, in that sense, getting to know the character is experiential. You only get to learn as much about this guy as you’re willing to study and pull out of it. You have to do a little bit of work if you want to know this man. The goal there is to engage audiences in their curiosity about who he is. We see him kill his first 50 soldiers. The ship is cheering, but he’s staring out at these floating dead bodies as a man of faith. He’s confronting the irony of having to kill. You’ve got a job to do, He’s got to protect. He’s got to serve, but, but he’s got to do something that’s in conflict with his nature and his spiritual principles. If we’ve done our job right, we created a moment there where you’re empathizing with his internal struggle. Now, you put that in your back pocket and you move forward through the rest. It’s an exploration of somebody’s soul moving through these horrific events.“

As Krause journeys across the treacherous waters, the film reminds the viewer of the importance of every decision that he makes. Using the theme of ‘yesterday, today and tomorrow’, Greyhound places great emphasis upon working through the struggles of the moment while keeping the end firmly in view. Interestingly, in this way, Schneider also sees comparisons between his film and the emotional strain of our current global pandemic.

“From the beginning, as the screenwriter, Tom was fascinated with the feeling of what he calls ‘stasis’,” he explains. “Looking back at WWII, it has a beginning, a middle and an end. But, if you can try for a moment to imagine the world shortly after we entered the war where the entire world was on fire in a fist fight with itself, nobody knew who was going to win. Nobody knew what their fate would be. Nobody knew when it would end, right? In many ways, without even knowing it would occur, we’re living in similar times with the pandemic. We’re fighting this war against this virus and nobody really knows where we’re going and how long it’ll take. It’s a disquieting feeling but the best you can do inside of all that is maintain vigilance. We got yesterday, we got today and we’re going to have tomorrow. You hold onto that… Krause wants to succeed. He’s got his eye on the end. He doesn’t know when it’ll come, but he’s fighting for the end. Then, Charlie [his XO, tries] to remind him that the battles aren’t won in a moment. It’s about getting from yesterday to today, because, if you do that enough times, land will appear. That’s kind of where we are now in the world. We’ll get there.” 

For full audio of our interview with Aaron Schneider, click here.

Greyhound is currently streaming on AppleTV+.

Sipping from the Cup of Life: 1on1 with Sean Cisterna (FROM THE VINE)

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In his latest film, From the Vine, director Sean Cisterna (Kiss and Cry) shows that, like a glass of fine wine, it can be refreshing to go home again.

From The Vine tells the story of downtrodden CEO Marco Gentile (Joe Pantoliano), a man experiencing a moral crisis. Burned out and broken, Marco finds himself lost in a sea of corporate nonsense and he quits his job on a whim. Despite the protests of his wife, Marina (Wendy Crewson), Marco then decides to uproot his life and return to his grandfather’s old vineyard in Italy to re-calibrate his moral compass. As he reconnects with his heritage, Marco’s venture offers the surrounding town of Acerenza a sustainable future that may also signal a fresh start for his family as well. 

Having grown up in Toronto, Cisterna shares that his initial interest in this story stemmed from his desire to find a link between his Canadian home and Italian heritage.

“I’m Canadian and Italian,” he explains. “so I was looking specifically for a project to shoot both in Canada and in Italy. When I put out that call, a number of projects came across my desk. Then, so did this novel Finding Marco, which the film is based on. [After] I read that, I got in touch with the author [Kenneth Canio Cancellara] and that’s how it started.”

By blending Italian neo-realism with fantasy elements, the film is both creative and engaging in its stylistic choices. Reflecting on what led him to make such unique choices to build the narrative, Cisterna believes that it was the best way to communicate the unique perspective of the source material.

“I think one of the challenges of the book is that it was very introspective,” Cisterna considers. “It was like a first-person recollection of this character going back to his hometown in Southern Italy, but it was very hard to externalize that into film form. We really wanted to play with having the town feel like it’s coming back to life when Marco returns to Italy. So, we had the statues that sort of awaken when he’s once again back in his hometown after many years. Vine leaves come to life. We have all these little flourishes and animations, just to suggest that the town itself is rejuvenated with this character’s re-emergence.”

When the time came to cast the character of Marco, Cisterna was thrilled for Joe Pantoliano to come onboard for the lead role. Given the fact that he’s best known for playing more dangerous or aggressive characters, Cisterna was excited to give him the chance to explore his range in a more tender role.

“I’d always known Joe as a bad guy,” he reasons. “Every character I’d seen are these over the top bad guys with guns and he’s either playing a cop or a monster. I just loved the idea of seeing him in a romantic lead, something so far from the realm of what we know him as. When you give a strong actor that might be known as something else an opportunity like this, I think they take it seriously and want to shine at something else to showcase their chops. Joe was just a remarkable person to have on set in Italy. Everybody loves him. He’s an amazing storyteller. So, the cast and crew appreciated his presence in the film.”

In one of the film’s more unique cultural twists, Cisterna even added an Italian version of Blue Rodeo’s iconic song Lost Together to the soundtrack. Recorded by Laura Cavacece and arranged by Mark Alexander, Cisterna explains that the idea stemmed from his desire to find a musical connection between the two worlds. 

“I was just looking for some sort of musical link between Canada and Italy,” he remembers, “and I couldn’t really find a pre-existing song that would’ve worked. Then I thought, ‘what if we take a popular Canadian anthem and rerecord in Italian?’ That kind of gave us that musical bridge between our two countries. That was the main. I thought that Laura Cavacece, the singer here in Canada, did an incredible job translating that iconic song into Italian.”

Featuring stunning cinematography in both Italy and Toronto, the film allowed him to play with the visuals creatively by holding the two cultures up against one another and compare their ideologies as well.

“We played with the look of [the two cultures] as well,” describes Cisterna. “All of the scenes in Canada or most America are very linear, the colors are muted. They have a lot of grays and silvers and blacks, whereas Italy is more earth tones and rolling hills, that sort of thing. So, we played a lot with the look of the two geographical areas, even through wardrobe. The characters [in Toronto] are wearing tight clothing and a stuffy sort of business attire, whereas in Italy, it’s far looser. It’s just a visual representation of what it looks like to work in both Canada and Italy. In Canada, we’re very rigid with time and our schedule. Behind the scenes, we stuck to our schedule as much as possible. In Italy, it’s very hard to stick to a schedule because there’s wine at lunchtime and there’s naps. There’s a fun dichotomy shooting between the two cultures, for sure.”

Filled with history and charm, Italian culture heavily influences the manner that they develop their wine (and vice versa). At a time when technological advances seem to drive every aspect of industry, Cisterna points out the value in doing things ‘the old ways’ and even felt compelled to highlight these practices in his script.

“It’s hard to dismiss centuries of people who have come before us and perfected the craft,” he argues. “I don’t know. It’s just hard to argue against the beauty of tradition. Even there are just these flourishes in the script that we added that when we got there [that we] learned from the old winemakers in town, like the whole trick about the lighting candles in the barrel house when they’re doing the punch down of the crust on the top of the wine. The fermenting wine releases carbon dioxide, and the old winemakers would put candles in there and, if the room filled up with enough CO2, it would extinguish the candles. That was a cue for the winemaker to leave right away because these dangerous gases were in the air. And so, yeah, there’s just a beauty in that natural alarm system. So, it was just really, really cool to incorporate that into the film.” 

By honouring the value of doing things in ‘the old ways’, From the Wine also speaks to the spiritual refreshment that takes place when we take the time to slow down. Though he believes that lives of patience may be a challenge in our culture of immediacy, Cisterna also feels that, like a fine wine, it also reaps the greatest rewards

“I think we want instant results for our hard work,” he states. “That’s one thing that when you make a film about wine, you know. Wine takes time to ferment, to turn from a grape into like a drinkable, glorious beverage but, it takes months and years for it to be appreciated. In North America, I think we just want that instant satisfaction. So, the characters reminding Mark to be patient is something he has to can relearn. That’s the beauty about working in Europe for a bit, man. The pace is so deliberately slower and it just does not feel as stressful when you’re making a movie in Italy.”

“When you’re here in North America, our jobs—or at least pre-COVID—were kind of all consuming,” he continues. “There’s a rigid structure where you wake up and head down the DVP and then… do your work, and check out when the sun is no longer there. Maybe [you] spend an hour with the family before bedtime. So, the difference [between] a job and mapping a life is just the balance of everything. A bit of work, bit of family and rest for yourself. It’s kind of like wine. All these things have to come together to make them the perfect wine. I think that’s a good analogy for how one should live their life.” 

Like the character of Marco himself, Cisterna also believes that slowing down can be a life-giving process, especially when it means investing our lives in helping others.

Says Cisterna, “I think when you’re (and I’m guilty of it as well) so consumed with a project and you’re racing towards the clock to get something done, your ethics and commitments to family or friends seem to go out the window when there’s a deadline. So, having this deliberately slower pace and isolated towards one single goal, like the rebuilding of his grandfather’s vineyard. This goal is a meaningful goal to help rejuvenate this town. It’s a selfless act. And I think having that time to himself in Italy recalibrated his moral compass to his business skills for the betterment of the people.”

Given the amazing experience to reconnect with his heritage and explore such important ideas, developing this From the Vine has been a particularly rewarding experience for Cisterna. Asked if there’s anything that he’s learned about himself through this process, he feels that this journey has challenged him to bring better balance to his own life.

“I almost want to embrace more of a European lifestyle where I can balance things a bit better in my life,” Cistera ponders. “I know when I get consumed with projects, it’s all I can think about. I’m in film mode 24/7. It’s good to have that other perspective and other selfless things happening around me, where I can devote my time to even bettering someone else’s life or doing something for my community. So, I think the overall slowing down the still pace and using your skill to better our community is what I want to take away from this experience.” 

For full audio of our interview with Sean Cisterna, click here.

From the Vine is available on demand now.

In Her Own Voice: 1on1 with Miranda Bailey (CherryPicks)

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Breaking into the ‘boys club’ is never easy.

Even as things begin to improve due to recent movements surrounding women in the Hollywood, the power still remains predominantly in the hands of the men in the industry. Interestingly, while many of these conversations have surrounded gender equity in filmmaking and production, what about the world of film criticism? 

Enter The Cherry Picks.

Developed by Miranda Bailey, TheCherryPicks.com seeks to create space for female-identifying and non-binary critics to find their voice. By highlighting reviews and creating original stories, Cherry Picks has started to bring a little more balance into the primarily male-dominated world of film criticism. Asked how the idea came about, Bailey recalls that the development of the site stemmed from the realization that, even though it seemed obvious, no one else was providing a platform for alternative critical expressions.

“The question is ‘why didn’t anybody else think of this?’,” she laughs. “It came about because I was looking for something like this. I had produced a movie [called] I Do Until I Don’t, which was Lake Bell’s second feature film. It was about women and geared towards women. It was friendly towards love. It didn’t make any grandiose political statements or anything like that and a lot of the male reviewers when they were reviewing it were saying things about how disappointed they were with Lake. It was like she was their daughter or something and it was just like really weird. Some of the female reviewers talked about it, and they didn’t necessarily score it any better, but they talked about it differently. They actually talked about the film part. And a lot of my friends who aren’t in the industry who are women really liked it… So, I was like, ‘Oh, well let me find out what all women think and what’s the women’s score of that for critics’.”

“And then I couldn’t find it. I found some organizations that had female critics that belong to it, but you’d have to like go and read each one. But those weren’t necessarily Rotten Tomatoes certified critics and you couldn’t figure out a score… When I was looking a little deeper, I realized that, at that time which was about three years ago, like 78% of the critics were men. I think they’ve gotten it to like 60 something now… How are we ever going to do what we say we want to do in Hollywood, which is have more women behind the camera and have more female stories, if consumers are hearing what is worth their money from mostly men? So [Cherry Picks] was kind of a way to start something that would help female critics get more noticed, get more jobs, get more hired. But it was also a way for me to affect the consumer market to prove that there actually is an audience for film by and about women. We collect the scores of all of the critics that on every movie, [including those that are] non-binary or identify as female. We do Ford v Ferrari, also. We collate from that as well. So, it’s not only about women movies, but it’s just about what women think these movies that are out there. So, you know, it’s a ‘for everyone, by women’ kind of thing.”

Even though she believes that its essential for stronger diversity in the circles of film criticism, Bailey also explains that the ‘female voice’ is never the same across the board. With the development of Cherry Picks, Bailey’s vision is simply to provide an alternative opinion in a male-dominated industry.

“I think everyone’s an individual,” she explains, “so I don’t think [that] all men think one way. All women, all Republicans, all Democrats, all blacks or whites or whatever. I don’t think that way, but think about it like magazines, right? Like I don’t really read GQ magazine. I’m not the demo for that. I know most guys don’t read Marie Claire, right? So, it’s really just about interests and whatnot. I could read a GQ magazine, if I wanted to. A guy could read Marie Claire, if they wanted to do. I just wanted to present something that you could read, if you wanted to.”

From Instagram Live interviews to written reviews, Bailey is clearly excited about the variety of ways that Cherry Picks is bringing their voice to the public. Viewing themselves as a ‘film-friendly’ site, Bailey recognizes that even bad movies deserve a place in our hearts.

“Cherry Picks has a newsletter that comes out every Friday that kind of tells you what to watch right now,” she beams. “Obviously, we’re focused on movies that are playing at your home, but they’re new movies and it’s great. You can go to the movie pages, [and] see the scores [from] female critics, and how they’ve been curated. We have a ‘bowl of cherries’, which is like ‘run, don’t walk’. Two cherries, [means] that it’s worth the ticket. One cherry [means] catch it from your couch, but maybe not worth going to see. (Fortunately, all of us are on our couches now.) And then there’s the ‘pits’, which is pretty self-explanatory. For myself, as a filmmaker or a woman, I don’t know which one is talking here. Maybe it’s the combo, but I love ‘pitty’ movies. That’s kind of our motto. Everyone loves a ‘pitty’ movie now and then. So, it’s a very film-friendly site as opposed to something that [says] ‘Don’t see this. It’s garbage.’ I love some garbage. I mean, The Hot Chick is one of my favorite movies of all time… Our Instagram is doing Instagram Lives with a lot of actresses right now, and female filmmakers every day, every Tuesday and Thursday at one o’clock. Instagram Live. It’s really fun and it’s fun to make that new content, I have to say.”

A veteran of the industry herself, Bailey continues to strive for gender equality in the workplace. While people continue to debate whether or not things have improved for women behind the scenes, she insists that there is still much work to be done.

“I’ve been hearing [stories about progress being made] for my entire 20-year career,” Bailey points out. “[I’ve heard] ‘There’s no audience for it’ and then there’s, ‘We need more of it’. [From] not necessarily any movement to Times Up and MeToo. I had started working on Cherry Picks before that had happened. So, it was just really coincidentally good timing that we were able to get this site up and launched and writing right at the time when people were talking about [the fact that] women should be listened to. So, I got very lucky with that. Movements [like] Time’s Up, MeToo, or other movements like Black Lives Matter are really important movements that make people pay attention to [those issues]. We can’t just say that we want equality. We have to go out of our way to make equality happen. I think that, since those movements have started and they really gained a lot of traction, that things have been changing for the better for women for sure. I think there’s obviously still problems, but you know, I do definitely notice a change in the work place…” 

With this in mind, Bailey feels that one manner in which the industry could demonstrate gender equity would be for the Oscars to separate the Best Director award into male and female categories, similar to what they do with the acting nods.

“Do we still have the problem that not a single female director was nominated for an Oscar this year when we had the best year ever of movies by women? Absolutely,” she continues. ”It was a problem. That has to do with money. Unless there’s a category specifically for women in the Oscars or Golden Globes for directing and there’s a reason why a distributor will put money behind a campaign specifically for a woman who is not an actress… It’s only going to happen if they can make money off of the ‘Oscar winner’. Right now, they don’t go out of their way to select movies that are directed by women. They go out of their way to select the movies that they think have a chance. Also, people vote for their friends. This is in SAG Awards, PGA and whatever. It’s always the idea [there’s] a ‘boys club’ and it’s true. But more and more women are breaking into that boy’s club. The more we get into the boy’s club, the more it will [improve]. Awards campaigns are very expensive and the only reason that you do it is to make more money. So, until there’s a financial interest for distributors to literally invest in a campaign for female directors, I don’t see it taking great strides.” 

Although she recognizes that dividing the Best Director category has its complexities, she also believes that doing so would create more opportunities for notoriety and financial gain for everyone involved.

“Do I want to be called a female producer or a female director? No, I want to be thought of as a director and a producer,” Bailey contends. “It doesn’t matter what my sex is. However, the only way I can see us really jumping in and getting money behind us for being a director is if there’s a category for it, personally. Now, I know that a lot of people that disagree with that because they don’t want to be singled out, you know? There’re also sexual identity stuff and nonbinary people, people who don’t identify as either sex so, I do understand the complexities. It’s certainly not something I’m going to campaign for. It’s too controversial but I have a distribution business myself. I’m a partner at the Film Arcade so I know how it works. I have a production company and so I know how it works. And, at the end of the day, whether it’s doing a small campaign for a Spirit Award or doing a big campaign for the Oscars, it’s all about money and what you can put on your website or your video case, your film poster, which is ‘Winner Of…’. Not until this year did I come to the thought [that] there should be a female director category because Mary Heller, Lulu Wang… and all these other movies that were smaller movies that were brilliant should have been nominated for directing and they were not. But yet they would have been if we had a female director category. So, that’s where it gets a little tricky. I don’t think it will happen, but that’s just what I think.”
“The only reason that women and men [acting categories] are [separated is] because, back when they started it, getting Marilyn Monroe and getting these fancy, beautiful, iconic actresses that were movie stars to show up was how they got people to watch the show. No one [cared] about the costume designers or whatever before. But now, it’s become an art form that’s much more about filmmaking than movie stars.” 
However, what’s far more important than awards campaigns is the issue of equal pay within the industry. Even though she sees that progress has been made as a result of recent social movements, Bailey also recognizes that there continues to be tremendous imbalance behind the scenes.

“People are talking about it but, to be honest, the deal I was just making with two other men, I, once again, was asked to not take a fee,” she remembers. “So, it’s not changing for me as a producer. I did have to demand that I get paid what everyone gets paid. My friend also is a producer on a big movie right now that got shut down. She also had an issue where they were paying her $25,000 less than the two men who are doing less work. I mean, it is a big problem still and it is still happening. It is really annoying and upsetting when you go through it. And I’m done. My whole life has taken less than men on every single movie I’ve ever made or been asked to and I’ve done it. Me and my colleague Amanda have to split a fee, one fee for the two of us, where the other guys will get their own. It’s just shocking and I’ve had to fight just for that. So, now I have a resume that’s big enough that I have enough confidence in myself to be able to say that I’m not going to do this movie or this TV show, you know? I just had to take a hard line. I started the hard line about four years ago with Swiss Army Man. I did get paid less on that movie than the other producer… And my office did all the work. Amanda got paid less as well. I had to fight for us to get paid at all on that. That was obviously before MeToo or Time’s Up. But now, I’m not accepting anything less than equal. If I’m doing the equal work, I’m just not. If I’m not doing equal work, I get it. I don’t want to pay a man the same as me if I’m doing more work. That’s pretty much always happening. I love men… There are men [that] I admire. Several men have mentored me more than women have in this business. My agents and managers, they were the first to believe in me and I really appreciate them.”

Looking forward, while she may not have any specific path in mind, Bailey very much hopes to see awareness of the issues of disparity continue to build so that more people can receive opportunities to succeed.

“I’m not one for mandates, myself,” begins Bailey. “It’d be great to have more PSAs about it frankly and bring more awareness into it because I don’t think people understand. I know my son who’s 12 does not understand. He thinks that the ‘pink tax’ is a hoax. He thinks that there’s no such thing as ‘fair pay’ just because that’s not a real thing. It is! I didn’t experience this, but my mother did. Women weren’t allowed to get their own credit card or buy their own house without a man co-signing for them. Women weren’t allowed to get jobs. One of the things with Rotten Tomatoes that was probably why it was hard for them to have a more diverse selection of critics, [is] because their standards at the time… were things like you had to work at the New York Times for the last ten years. Those jobs 10 years ago were not given to women or people of color. So, when your restrictions are set with the resume you need to have, it’s a lot harder for women or people of color because we weren’t able to get those jobs. (I’m certainly not comparing what women have gone through with people of color. I think that people of color have had a much harder time than white women and women of color have had really hard times getting jobs as well.) I think we just have to be more open to taking people who aren’t as experienced, believing in people who need a chance, who haven’t had the ability to make twenty movies before now. Maybe they’ve done one. Maybe they’d done a short. I think that people with money, which isn’t necessarily me or indie films, but studios, television series and whatnot, need to be able to be willing to bring on female directors. “

When she considers which current female voices in the industry she’s most excited about, Bailey believes that there are several high-quality filmmakers that are worth keeping an eye on.

“I think Lulu Wang and Alma Har’el’s work are very exciting to me right now in terms of female directors and ones to watch,” she says enthusiastically. “Where will they be in five years? I hope that they’ll be huge, personally. You know how Wes Anderson has or the Coen Brothers or Baumbach have a [specific] look? I think there’s this girl named Suzi Yoonessi that’s [directed] a couple of films and she’s had very little money to work with… And I’m not saying not the greatest films in the world, but she definitely has a really interesting style, I think. I’m curious to see if that style gets embraced. It’s definitely kind of girly pop-y style, which I haven’t seen before. So, those are a couple of filmmakers that I think are really interesting right now”.

To visit Cherry Picks, click here.

For complete audio of our conversation with Miranda Bailey, click here.