It
doesn’t come as a surprise that the famous actors that star in his
films are so enamored with director John Curran.
He comes across as a sweet, effervescent and polite man.
A longtime friend of Naomi Watts, the director previously
coaxed her into partaking in his acclaimed 2004 drama, WE DON’T LIVE
HERE ANYMORE. Reuniting with
Watts and assembling a talented cast of actors including Edward
Norton, Liev Schreiber and Toby Jones, Curran showcases his
impeccable style of directing, diligence, determination and the
importance of detail, in his upcoming romantic period drama, THE
PAINTED VEIL.
THE
PAINTED VEIL is the film adaptation of the famous Somerset Maugham
book based on a couple’s relationship, its breakdown and
reconstruction, played by Norton and Watts.
The story takes you on a beautiful journey of betrayal,
avenge, redemption, forgiveness and rediscovery of love.
Curran’s passion for the Chinese culture, history, social
and political situation becomes quite apparent as its importance is
magnified and illustrated in the backdrop throughout the film.
The end result is a concession of subtle messages delivered
with a powerful and emotional impact.
I
had the pleasure of picking John Curran’s brain last week as he
sat down to discuss the challenges and advantages of filming in
China
, his cast, his future, his inspirations and the anticipation of his
newly released film, THE PAINTED VEIL.
Check out what he had to say.
John
Curran
What
did you enjoy most about shooting The Painted Veil?
My
greatest feeling about the shoot was just looking back and
remembering how it was in the beginning. At the end, we’re all
sitting in a small town after work and hanging out together with the
Chinese crew and having a few beers and really loving being there
and loving the local flavor and the people embracing us. [It] was
fun experiencing that tradition. At the beginning, I just felt like
I didn’t think we were going to make it.
How
did you find the locations to film?
There
isn’t really a location database that we could access. We could
access here if we wanted to find locations here [in America]. So, it
necessitated us getting on a plane, flying around and looking at
travel books and talking to the people. We did that for about 2 ½
weeks and then I really focused our search on this area of Guangxi
in the south [of China] because of the Karst mountains—they’re
really distinct to me and they offered us an opportunity to really
film in every frame the background.
Is
there personal reason why your films have been about failed
romances?
I’ve
done 3 films and they’ve all been, in some ways, about failed
romances. I certainly don’t think I’ve gotten it right in my own
life, so, yeah, maybe. I wasn’t attracted to the themes of this
project in the same way that I was attracted to the themes in We
Don’t Live Here Anymore. [In The Painted Veil], I loved the
friction. It wasn’t about doing something ultra-contemporary and
nuanced and real. I loved the motor of the friction and how it drove
the whole story and the idea of shooting Edward Norton and Naomi
Watts. This kind of relationship really appealed to me as a
director. This is, once more, an exercise of being a director and
having the opportunity presented to you and not analyzing. I guess
the themes are more coincidental.
How
did you get introduced to directing The Painted Veil?
I
had known about it. We Don’t Live Here Anymore became a
Warner Independent film. They acquired it and they have this
property. So, both Mark Gill, [the head of Warner Independent], and
Naomi Watts passed me the script. They both, kind of, had me in mind
and then, in turn, I spoke to Edward [Norton].
Why
did you decide to shift the scenes back and forth in time?
In
the book and in the original script, it begins with the infidelity
and then it goes back with the story of how Walter and Kitty meet.
That back story, we all felt, was really important to [Kitty’s]
character and [Walter’s]. When we cut it, it was, sort of, plodding
and I kept on trying to find a really muscular, dramatic way to tell
that story. Shortening [it] didn’t help; it just made it abbreviated
and lacked emotion. When we arrived at the idea of cutting the
journey, it all seemed to fall into place. Certain scenes resonated
more, like when Charlie tells the story of the plot onstage at the
opera and then you’re cutting to [Kitty]. Those little links started
to have more of an effect.
What
did it feel like directing The Painted Veil?
It
was a pain in the ass. We were in the middle of nowhere [and] the
equipment had to get shipped out to a town that wasn’t accessible by
paved roads. We weren’t seeing dailies—they were shipped off and
developed overseas. We’d see stuff a week later, so what are you
going to do if it’s not right? Everyone has already moved on. There
was a lot of stuff that was difficult because of where we were
shooting and how we were shooting it. I wanted a helicopter shot
which I really felt like we needed at the end. I can’t tell you how
difficult it was to find a helicopter. They don’t want helicopters
flying around in China. If you’ve got the money, it’s a very easy
request here [in America], but what I went through to get [it]
became like an obsession. Then, after a while, it becomes abstract
and I’m saying, “Why am I laying in bed thinking about this?
It’s just a helicopter. Do I need this?” The headaches of some
of the simplest stuff were crazy.
What
was it like casting the extras?
As
extras, I was using local people and, as a culture, they’re tough
and [brought up] not to group and, certainly, not to express hostile
emotions in a group. As a director, I’ve got a group of;
essentially, non-actors acting as an angry mob and, man, trying to
get them angry was [difficult]. I’d start yelling at them and they
must have thought that I’m insane. There was a real reluctance as a
group to emote.
There’s
a terrible moment [when], in one scene in the film, guards come
around the corner with guns and we’re rehearsing the crowd being
angry and I really couldn’t get them to be angry. I said,
“Let’s rehearse the soldiers coming in”. The correct
extras weren’t told that this was going to happen, so the first
assistant yelled “Action!” and these soldiers came around
the corner with fake guns and, literally, about a half a dozen old
people dropped to their knees and covered their heads because
they’ve been through the Mao period. The last few generations [in
China] have lived through some really, really tough times and we
became a lot more sensitive to what they were dealing with.
What’s
your process like when dealing with actors?
My
process is to find out their process, always. I really don’t think I
have a, sort of, magical genius that I could give Edward Norton
that’s going to make him a better actor. The best thing that I could
do is to create an environment that inspires him and then just get
the hell out of the way. Naomi [Watts] and Edward [Norton] are very
different. Naomi is some one that I know and have worked with her
before and I know that the best thing for her is to, sort of,
sometimes distract her from it and to take the seriousness out of it
because she likes to have fun and it diffuses any anxiety that she
maybe has about something.
[As
for] Edward, I just leave him to himself and let him trust his
instinct. He listens to me. If I’m happy, we move on. If not, he’s
happy to do it another way. He loves to act and what’s great about
him is that as long as you trust his instincts, he’s happy to trust
yours. Both of us are stubborn, so instead of just arguing all the
time, [we] just agree to disagree if it happens. We’ll do it [his]
way and my way and then we’ll move on.
Do
you value Chinese history now that you’ve made this film?
Yeah,
I think you feel more of a responsibility to it. We’re, kind of,
making a judgment about these characters and their arrogance abroad
and we don’t want to step into this country and do the same thing
we’re accusing them of. Also, it was a Chinese co-production and we
had a responsibility to infuse the story with more of a Chinese
character, which, I think, helped. From my earliest instinct, it was
about this couple in this environment and this environment was a big
character, so I wanted to fully realize the character of China—not
just pretty pictures, but what was really going on in China at that
time.
Was
Edward Norton surprised at being in more of a romantic film?
Yes,
but Edward [Norton] is pretty self-aware. I’ve heard him say that he
looks in the mirror and he realizes that he [isn’t] going to be
getting stacks of romantic leads. Part of his ambition for
developing this was that it was the kind of film that he doesn’t get
that he wanted to do, but it had to be the sort of role that he was
fascinated by. There’s a lot of Edward in Walter, I think. He’s an
extremely intelligent, well-read guy with diverse
interests—everything from flying planes to scuba diving. He’s
really involved in a ton of charities. Acting just happens to be a
job that allows him to channel all of these various interests.
Where
did you meet Edward Norton?
We
met at a coffee shop. I’m the guy that has heard a lot about [him]
and he’s got a reputation and, sort of, a force of nature. I know
that, whatever stories were true or not, that he was nobody’s
fool—I gathered that much. I’ve been doing this long enough to
know that you can’t go in being anybody but yourself because they’re
going to figure it out if not in the first meeting, then in the
second meeting. You might as well just get to it. I, kind of, go in
there with all of my weaknesses upfront because I don’t want them to
discover it little by little and then [affect] the relationship. I
think he [understood] that my feeling was, “Look, this is my
issue with the script, this is what I like, this is what I’m worried
about”. But, mostly, what I was attracted to was the adventure
of it all and I think that’s what he really dug. Like me, he, kind
of, looked at this thing and it all added up to one great life
experience. He liked that I didn’t over-intellectualize the choice
of it—it was, like, “Yeah, let’s do this”.
Do
you still feel close to Australia?
I’ve
lived in Australia for a long time—15 years. I knew Jane [Campion]
and I was aware of her earlier work. I augmented the [film] crew
with the few Australians that I knew. They’re a tough bunch and
they’re not afraid of braving the elements and I knew that they’d
come along and that they’d hold up in whatever conditions we were
under.
How
have audiences in China reacted to The Painted Veil?
It
has been shown but just in small screenings. It opens up [there]
later in December. Edward [Norton] is going there for the opening,
[but] I can’t. [Chinese audiences] loved it. They were really happy
with it.
What’s
the difference between shooting in Australia versus in America?
When
I was living in Australia, it’s a government-subsidized industry,
which is a very freeing environment to make films in. But that has
evolved—it’s more difficult. Now they have the same commercial
concerns that you would have here. They want stars; they want a
return on their investment. It used to be more of an arts-funding
scenario. My view is that if I’m under those constraints, I might as
well be [living] here [in America]. [Also], I’m an American and I
want to tell American stories and you can have a career here as a
filmmaker where as, there, you have to do a lot of stuff between
making films to survive.
So,
it’s just time for me to come home. This is the culture that I was
brought up in and that I relate to the most even though I still feel
like I’m a bit of a mutt. I still feel like there’s a lot of
Australian in me. My path [as a filmmaker] has been coming through
small, indie films. I’m always going to be attracted to
character-driven pieces, I think. But, the scope of what I do is
going to keep changing. I think that [The Painted Veil], in
particular, has been a big jump from [We Don’t Live Here Anymore] in
terms of the scope of it. This is what I was really looking forward
to do.
Will
you ever make big-budget films?
I’m
never going to be a high-ends special effects guy. I’m not very good
at it. I think that after a certain budget level, it becomes a comic
book because you have to get a bigger return; it also has to have a
simpler language to appeal to a bigger group of people, so you do
cross over into this style of filmmaking where it isn’t
character-driven. I don’t have any ambition to go that far. There
isn’t something out there that I wouldn’t do if I felt that there
was some meat in it for me, but there is kind of a crazy level of
filmmaking that I don’t get.
Which
filmmakers have inspired you?
I’m
a fan of [Stanley] Kubrick, but there’s a reductive simplicity in
Kubrick that’s just awe-inspiring and I really like his process—he
never stopped making [his films]. None of us have that luxury,
though. I [like] Hal Ashby [and] Roman Polanski. David Lean was a
good touchtone for [The Painted Veil]. People like David Lynch are
like Gods in their own way.
What
are you working on now?
I’m
doing a Jim Thompson novel, The Killer Inside Me, at the moment.
It’s gold for me for somebody to say that I have the rights to a
Thompson novel. All I can say is that I’ve finished the script and
that I’m happy with it. [It’s going to be set] in West Texas
[during] the 50’s. That book has been around a long time and no one
has really cracked it, so it was more of a compulsion to take a run
at it. It has left a lot of great names in its weight.
Did
you read any of W. Somerset Maugham’s previous writing?
I
did, but only his short stories just to kind of see which character
I related to most in the book, which, in this case, was Waddington.
I read his short stories to get an idea of his themes and to
understand his voice. He concerned himself a lot with ex-pats abroad
in the outer-reaches of colonial outposts in the days of the dying
Empire which made it, kind of, very relevant. Being in America now,
we can’t experience the same sort of things. All of his characters
were stuck between going a bit native and holding onto some
semblance of [tradition]. I related to him on that level—feeling
like a mutt. To survive there, you have to be more like them but
still try to hang onto something that’s really you.
Would
you consider The Painted Veil to be a love story?
At
heart, yeah, it’s a love story. I [also] wanted it to be an
adventure story, a thriller [and] a mystery. I didn’t want to
approach it with just one vision, [which] is limiting and, also,
kind of dull.
Have
you ever experienced method directing?
I
don’t recommend method directing, but [The Painted Veil] is, sort
of, all of us naively entering into a situation that was, kind of,
over our heads. We didn’t have a lot of time [and] the money wasn’t
in place, [so] it was, sort of, madness. There was a point when I
didn’t even care. To me, the goal was just to finish the shoot. The
ambition was just so small—it was just to keep from getting fired
and to get the film in the can. On the first day, I asked my agent
[whether] it’s better to quit or to get fired. [He said] that I
should get fired because if [I] quit, people would think [I] got
fired anyway. I think that the life experience of just not giving a
damn was one of the greatest life lessons I’ve had—being fearless,
moving forward and just trusting the people around me.
Why
did you think you would get fired?
I
thought that the film would just shut down. Nothing was happening
and the weeks were being chewed up and I could see the approach date
coming and nothing was prepared. I thought [that it] was just insane
and [that] I’m going to look like a complete idiot.