Cambridge Film Festival: Director’s interview: Peter Webber, Emperor

Emperor

Ella Walker speaks to the director Peter Webber (director of Girl With A Pearl Earring and Hannibal Rising), about working with Tommy Lee Jones and braving his critics.

Can you start by explaining what made this a story you just had to tell?

I’ve always been very interested in Japan and Japanese culture. I think it’s an interest that started when I discovered the films of Kurosawa and Ozu when I was a teenager. also the thing that made me really interested in this particular subject matter was that it seemed very metaphorical for what was going on today. It’s a way I could tell a story from the past that had some resonance in the present – it’s about regime change, the battle between justice and revenge. And I had always wanted to work with Japanese actors and do a film set in Japan; this seemed like a very good opportunity.

Considering the plot is based on true events, did you feel a responsibility to the real people portrayed?

Yes, but you also have to balance that against responsibility to the audience. You can be tugged in different directions. There’s obviously been an awful lot of films, not about this particular subject, – this is a post-war film rather than a war film – but about the Pacific War, and overwhelmingly they’ve put the American point of view. I felt it’d be interesting to tell a tale where you would hear what the Japanese had to say.

What made you pick Matthew Fox for the lead role?

I was looking for someone who was the modern day equivalent of Gary Cooper. Quite an old fashioned, strongly morally centred, very masculine kind of a figure, and it just seemed to me Matthew Fox was perfect for that. He has some of that 1950s leading man about him.

What was it like working with Tommy Lee Jones? Is he as intimidating as he comes across?

It’s scary to begin with, because he comes with a big reputation, he can be quite daunting but actually he’s great to work with. He’s super smart and underneath that rather gruff exterior, beats a heart of pure gold (Peter breaks off laughing). But it is a very gruff exterior.

Were there any tough days when you thought the film wasn’t going to work out?

Every day is a difficult moment on set because you never have quite enough money and you never have quite enough time. Stanley Kubrick said making a film is like trying to write War and Peace on a rollercoaster, so every day has its challenges.

Emperor has been considered a critical and commercial flop in America. What do you think of its reception so far?

I was particularly pleased with the way it’s gone down in Japan. It’s been very successful in Japan, I think it’s just passed the £12m box office mark, so that was important to me, that people went to see it over there. I got a couple of good reviews from my two favourite reviewers – Rex Reed and Roger Ebert. There’s obviously bad reviews out there as well, I’m choosing to ignore those.

What do you want people will take from the film?

I hope they enjoy it, I hope it makes them understand a bit about how enlightened American foreign policy used to be, I think it casts an interesting light, especially with current events. It’s very important to remember and understand history. But I hope really that they’ll be plunged into a strange, mysterious and fascinating world and really learn something about a period of history that hasn’t been told before.

ella.walker@cambridge-news.co.uk

First published by the Cambridge News.

Review: The Paperboy

The Paperboy actually burns, suffocating you as it spirals into a story of violence, racism and dysfunctional, misplaced love.

Charlotte Bless (Nicole Kidman) gets her kicks writing to prisoners on death row. In too-short skirts, she’s pure sex, sliced through with sweetness, and her current beau, Hillary Van Wetter (a wheedling, rank and sweaty John Cusack), is facing the electric chair for a murder he may not have committed.

Jack Jansen (a bronze, muscled Zac Efron), got thrown off the swim team, sent home from college and is stuck missing his mom, idling until his older brother Ward (Matthew McConaughey) comes back from Miami. Scarred, and dragging his fractious writer, Yardley, along with him, Ward’s a reporter set on uncovering the twisted corruptions of Hillary’s tale. Jack drives while smoky-voiced Charlotte sits about fixing her hair, desperate to get her man out of his cell.

It’s dark, funny and disturbing with crocodile infested waters (literally) and saturated colours – it’s the summer 1969 after all, our narrator, the Jansen’s lovingly bossy house maid Anita (played by Macy Gray), tells us. Director Lee Daniels fuses every scene with a sort of sickness. You feel drugged at times, trying to find your way through the tangle of emotions that threatens to overwhelm the characters, and the violence, a lot of which is sexual, is undeniably brutal.

But there is brightness too. The practically unrecognisable Nicole Kidman is an absolute scene stealer, uncomfortably and hilariously so at times (there’s a rather spectacular encounter with a jellyfish), while McConaughey’s Ward, scrabbling for some kind of control, is achingly brilliant.

It’s definitely not for the squeamish, or those who can’t bear the crawling of their skin, but The Paperboy is sharp and lingers unforgettably in your mind like the tang of blood and the dank smell of swamp water.

First published by Who’s Jack magazine

Review: Take This Waltz

Take This Waltz

Director Sarah Pulley might as well have slapped a “Hot – do not touch!” sign on every shot of Take This Waltz.

Doused in sweltering oranges, reds, yellows and the odd flash of azure blue, it seems intent on burning out your eyes with super-saturated Technicolor.

Michelle Williams plays restless wannabe writer Margot, struggling to fill the gaps in her life with Lou (Seth Rogen), her smitten husband and chicken cook book extraordinaire. The pair dance around each other, stirring pots and pans of bubbling stews in a vibrantly ramshackle house that is sweating with stock, heat and claustrophobic love.

And then in strolls their new neighbour, rickshaw towing Daniel (Luke Kirby), who, with a frank stare and a set of very strong arms, completes a rather sticky love triangle.

Every scene is beautiful. From the baking streets of Toronto’s Little Portugal where it’s filmed, to the indoor fairground ride drenched in glitter where Margot and Daniel find themselves sliding dangerously and illicitly toward each other. And yet, it is strangely unsatisfying.

Perhaps it is the film’s preoccupation with a fear of being in between things – you end up feeling slightly torn as well. While Williams is flawless, whirling from one emotion to another, her character makes and breaks decisions; it’s touching but also infuriating. Daniel asks: “What is wrong with you?” and you can’t help but want to scream it too. Or at least reach out and give her a good shake.

Sarah Silverman cameos as a straight talking, lovable alcoholic who adds bite, and some moments have you giggling as uncontrollably as Margot (namely a swimming pool scene involving a sunburnt aqua aerobics teacher and a weak bladder), but by the end you are left hot, bothered and a little weary – particularly at the thought of marriage.

First published by Who’s Jack Magazine.

The Guardian Guide experience

So this last week has been rather exciting.

The Guide, Saturday 24 April

I’ve been doing work experience at The Guide – the Guardian’s Saturday previews supplement – and basically, leaving was quite painful. After a week of free daily papers, glass panelled offices, a Mac of my very own and colour coordinated chairs that can only be described as “jazzy”, having to head back to a mould infested student house in Cardiff was in no way cool.

But anyway, not only did I get to feel like a bit of a journalist (proofing, pitching and with bylines to follow…) and sit in a circular office next door to the Observer, I also got to go to morning conference. On Wednesday the irascible Tracey Emin arrived to spend half an hour defending why she won’t be voting Labour and finished off by promising that she is a good person really – which I fully believed until I was told it would cost me a tenner to get in to see her quilts at the V&A – and then on Friday I was rather starstruck as editor Alan Rusbridger was there being softly spoken and (media)god-like.

The only thing I didn’t get to do was accost Polly Vernon and tell her what a brilliant slapper she is… damn it.