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Details: Written by Matthew Toomey; Created: 07 September 2012

Since it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival back in January 2012, Beasts Of The Southern Wild has received rave reviews. It’s been talked up as a possible contender for next year’s Academy Awards. You can check out my review by clicking here.

29-year-old director Benh Zeitlin was in Australia for the Melbourne Film Festival back in August and I was lucky enough to speak with him for 15 minutes about the film and his background.

You can download a quick audio extract by clicking here.

Matt: You’re only 29 years of age and you’ve already made a film that’s been showered with praise. Can I tell you how jealous I am to start out with?

Benh: (laughs) Yeah, but then I’m going to bashfully turn away.

Matt: I admit I don’t know a lot about you. Can you tell us a little about your background and how you got involved in the film world?

Benh: It wasn’t in a really pointed way. I’ve been making art my entire life. My parents always encouraged me and I never really knew any other path except for telling stories as a way of going about things. I was always writing music, writing plays, writing stories and making movies with my free time.

I didn’t go to film school or anything like that. I sort of had these stories that needed to be told in film so I made a bunch of shorts. One of them was seen and someone asked me if I wanted to make a feature film and of course I said “yes”.

Matt: So where did the interest come from in terms of taking this stage play from your friend Lucy Alibar and bringing it to the big screen? What did you see in it?

Benh: It sort of infused itself into a story I was already trying to tell about a community of people who were holding out on land that was disappearing out from under them. That’s where I started having moved to New Orleans and living in Louisiana. I wanted to tell this story that celebrated “hold outs” and what it means to hold onto your land and refuse to be pushed off it.

I found a parallel in this play that was written by one of my best friends who I’ve known since I was 12 years old. It was the connection between a little girl that was losing her parent and a community that was losing its land. I was sort of working on the same thing in two different places and then I realised there was this emotional connection between these characters and this broader story that ended up becoming the film.

Matt: The setting of the film is so intriguing – an isolated bayou that’s protected by the levee. Is this a real place? Where did you shoot this film?

Benh: Yeah. It’s shot in the place that inspired the story. When you drive all the way to the bottom of America, you’ll get to the very end and there are levees that protect the bottom of the country from the water. You then drive over these levees to the unprotected side and the drive another 3 miles down this tiny little road and you get to this island called Isle de Jean Charles.

It used to be a thriving community but has now been sacrificed into the Gulf Of Mexico by those engineers who designed the levees. It’s down to about 20 families who are desperately hanging onto their culture and their lifestyle and their land. That story inspired a lot of the themes in the film and was also the place where we shot the film.

Matt: When the storm rages up and the flood comes through there’s so much water and destruction. I’m guessing you didn’t have a huge budget to work with so how did you create that without the help of special effects?

Benh: Desperation and panic. You run up against problems like that where the centrepiece of your film is a storm that you can’t create with the money you have. I started watching a lot of footage we had from the storms and how they happen and how they’re photographed. One thing that strikes you when you watch the footage that people shoot during hurricanes is that it’s all indoors and it’s often dark because it’s at night.

We then had this idea that to create this realistic depiction of what it’s like to go through the storm that’s not being outside with trees becoming uprooted and tyres crashing into your windshield. It’s actually about being in a dark room that’s dripping with water and the sound of the storm outside. We found ways to bring realism to the event that also allowed us to create larger things than we could have ever depicted on screen with a low budget.

Matt: Was there a lot of help and assistance from the local community in making the film?

Benh: Yeah, absolutely. Down where we shot the film, if you’re on your own you’d be dead in two days. There are rattlesnakes, poisonous spiders, sinkholes. From the moment I got down there, I was sitting on the docks with a laptop looking completely out of place. Someone would drive past in their boat and say “put away that computer boy, get on my boat and I’m going to teach you to hunt alligators”.

I got this visceral indoctrination into a culture that’s extremely tough and very much in touch with nature. Those people all came on board the film and were our guides to navigate this extremely hostile environment and ultimately become collaborators on the story.

Matt: If there is one thing that people are going to remember about the film, it’s the performance of Quvenzhané Wallis. How old was she when she made this film?

Benh: When she auditioned she was 5 and when we shot it she was 6.

Matt: How did you find someone like that who is so talented?

Benh: We looked really hard basically. We auditioned 4,000 girls over the course of 9 months. It was both all that hard work and also a miraculous event that we found someone who has this inborn “star power” and talent. People are going to know who she is for the rest of history as far as I’m concerned.

She’s a truly incredible star that we met by chance. We had fliers in elementary schools and delis and through a trail like that, someone told her that she should walk into this audition at a local library and that’s what she did. Now she’s going to be a movie star. The way life goes that way is pretty wild.

Matt: I love the music in this film and I’m a big fan of film scores. I think I must have watched the trailer about 50 times after I’d seen the film just to hear the music again. Of course you’re not only the writer and director of the film but also one of the composers of the film! How do you do that? How do you sit down and come up with the score for a film like this?

Benh: It’s all kind of the same thing to me. As I was saying, I didn’t really know what form I was going to work in growing up. I sort of started in music and when I come up with a story and a narrative, music is always imbedded in that. I never feel like I’ve completed the idea until I’ve written the film and then written the music for it.

The music in this film was really the way we experience Hushpuppy’s sense of her own story if that makes sense. I thought back to when I was 6 years old and whatever you’re doing when you’re that age, there’s always a score. You’re always either listening to the Batman theme in your head or you’re listening to Indiana Jones in your head. When you’re riding your bike there’s always this heroic music playing.

We needed to give Hushpuppy her internal soundtrack. I thought back to those themes and scores and we tried to come up with something that was iconic and made you feel a “sense of yourself” when you’re 6. When we landed that tune, we felt it was a universal song that people would remember like a national anthem. That’s was when we knew we had it.

Matt: Well it’s terrific. I’m going to be buying the soundtrack, I know that much. For the story itself, at its essence, it’s a heartfelt story about a father and his daughter but there’s also these fantasy elements like the prehistoric beasts that we see roaming around. I’m curious to know about why the mix between fantasy and reality?

Benh: It was partly a reflection of trying to tell the experience of being that age when reality and fantasy aren’t separate things. When you have a monster under your bed, it’s there. It’s not a fantasy to you, it’s actually there and you have to wait until it leaves the room before you can fall asleep.

We tried to represent that in a realistic way. The film is also inspired by very real, environment things that are happening in Louisiana that are causing the land to fall off into the Gulf Of Mexico but we didn’t want to tell a political story or make a “call to action” film. We wanted to tell a fable or folk tale that anyone could watch in the world and understand it.

Part of the inspiration was to tell a folkloric fable like Huck Finn or Robin Hood or any of these iconic tales that can travel anywhere in the world and people can relate to them. Part of the reason to tell the story from Hushpuppy’s point of view was to not tell something that is political but rather something that is more universal.

Matt: The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where it won the Grand Jury Prize and then it went off to Cannes where you won the Camera D’or. When was it you realised that you had something really amazing here?

Benh: It was somewhere during Sundance but it definitely wasn’t before that. We finished the film two days before Sundance and I was in an absolute panic to screen it. It didn’t feel like it was finished. At the first screening, I was sitting there thinking “we need to turn down the sound level on that dog barking” and “there needs to be a little more magenta in that shot”. I was still kind of making the film.

After that screening, I was still all tortured but we started to hear from the audience and we started to hear people talking to us and understanding the ideas that we set out to express and the feeling that we wanted to convey. It leaves you heartbroken but also invigorated. It gives you hope and tragedy and it feels kind of glorious. I started having people tell me that walking out of the screening and seeing their faces and it made me realise that we’d done what we set out to do.

If that was actually communicating to people of all ages and people of all types, we had accomplished it. It started to dawn on me then that this might be something that was going to be shown in movie theatres. We never imagined that when we were making the film… but here I am in Australia and it’s all happened.

Matt: I’d love to finish up by asking how your life has changed in the past few months. Touring with this film and going around the world – how has it been?

Benh: It’s crazy. No one prepares you for this idea. It’s a beautiful thing. I’ve always wanted to come to Australia since I was a little kid and never in my wildest imagination would I believe that by making a movie, I would get the opportunity. It’s my first time here.

It’s an incredible thing in your life. You look at your world as this tiny little city where you’re living and working and suddenly your world is the globe. It’s a thrill, a privilege and an honour. Hopefully it’ll allow me to make better films that communicate with the globe.

Matt: Now that your name is out there, do you get offers of new projects? Or do you have something in the works yourself that we should know about?

Benh: Yeah. I can’t totally talk about it yet but we’re very set on continuing to create original work and doing our own thing and making films using methods that are pretty unconventional. We get a lot of offers and a lot of people trying to recruit us out of our world but we make films as a collective called Court 13 and we’re adamant about sticking to that and not jeopardising the things that got us to where we are.

It’ll be the same team on the next film so if people like this one, the next one will have the same kind of spirit and hopefully we can building something out of that.

Matt: Fantastic. Well Ben, do enjoy the rest of your time here in Australia and I can’t wait for people to see your movie. Thanks for speaking with us this morning.

Benh: Thank you so much.

Details: Written by Matthew Toomey; Created: 04 September 2012

It’s hard to believe that a year has passed since my trip to the 2011 Toronto Film Festival. On this day a year ago, I was in Washington DC, checking out a few sites and gearing up for my trip to the film festival that I’ve always wanted to visit. Thankfully, I have the whole experience blogged and for those new to The Film Pie, you can check it out by clicking here. In all, I managed to see 30 films in 8 days.

I won’t be there in 2012 due to time and budgetary constraints. Hopefully that’ll change in 2013 and I can’t wait to get back there.

Toronto generally marks the start of the Oscar season. A few contenders have already popped up at Venice and Telluride (both underway) but there’ll be a lot more at Toronto and there are many out there in the film community (including myself) that will be checking the tweets, blogs and reviews to see which films are worthy of the hype.

In this week’s blog, I thought I’d provide a quick overview of the films I can’t wait to see that are either getting a world or North American premiere at this year’s Toronto Film Festival. The quick plot overviews are as per the TIFF website…

The Master
One of the most anticipated films of the year, Paul Thomas Anderson’s tale of an aimless WWII veteran (Joaquin Phoenix) who befriends the charismatic founder of a new religion (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a provocative study of male camaraderie, deception, and hubris.

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower
In this witty and affecting coming-of-age story (adapted by writer-director Stephen Chbosky from his own novel), a shy teenager (Logan Lerman) with a dark family secret is coaxed out of his shell by a sympathetic teacher (Paul Rudd) and two wild, carefree new friends (Emma Watson and Ezra Miller).

Cloud Atlas
Tom Hanks, Halle Berry and Hugo Weaving head a stellar international cast in this visionary, time-tripping science-fiction epic from directors Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) and Lana and Andy Wachowski (The Matrix).

Looper
A mob hitman (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is assigned to kill his own future self (Bruce Willis) in this mind-bending futuristic thriller.

Argo
Academy Award® winner Ben Affleck directs and stars in this based-on-fact thriller about a CIA "exfiltration" expert who concocts an outlandish plan to get six stranded Americans out of Tehran after the 1979 invasion of the American embassy — by having them masquerade as a Hollywood film crew.

Frances Ha
Greta Gerwig stars as Frances, an apprentice in a dance company who wants so much more than she has but lives life with unaccountable joy and lightness. This modern fable from Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale, Greenberg) explores youth, friendship, class, ambition, failure and redemption.

At Any Price
Zac Efron, Dennis Quaid and Heather Graham star in this drama from acclaimed director Ramin Bahrani (Chop Shop, Goodbye Solo), about a rebellious son whose dreams of becoming a professional race-car driver are derailed when his father's farming empire becomes the target of a high-stakes investigation.

Anna Karenina
Keira Knightley re-teams with director Joe Wright (Atonement) for this visionary adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's classic novel about a society woman torn between loyalty to her husband and the desires of her heart.

Hyde Park On The Hudson
Bill Murray and Laura Linney star in the true story of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's relationship with his distant cousin and soon-to-be mistress Margaret Suckley, over a weekend at the president's country estate with the visiting King and Queen of England in 1939.

To The Wonder
Rachel McAdams, Ben Affleck, Javier Bardem and Olga Kurylenko star in the new film from Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life), about a man who reconnects with a woman from his hometown after his marriage to a European woman falls apart.

The Place Beyond The Pines
Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper and Eva Mendes star in this multi-generational crime drama from director Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine), about a motorcycle stunt rider whose moonlighting a bank robber brings him into conflict with an ambitious young cop.

The Company You Keep
Robert Redford directs and stars in this gripping political thriller about a young journalist (Shia LaBeouf) who stumbles upon the story of his career when he uncovers the identity of a wanted ex-radical activist (Redford) who has been underground for five decades.

Amour
Screen legends Jean-Lous Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva are ineffably moving as an elderly couple facing their own mortality in the Palme d'Or–winning new work by modern master Michael Haneke (The White Ribbon).

Emperor
In the aftermath of Japanese Emperor Hirohito’s surrender to the U.S., Gen. Douglas MacArthur (Academy Award® winner Tommy Lee Jones) and his adjutant Gen. Bonner Fellers (Matthew Fox) are faced with a decision of historic importance, in this epically scaled historical drama from director Peter Webber (Girl with a Pearl Earring).

Silver Linings Playbook
Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Julia Stiles and Jennifer Lawrence star in this acerbic comedy-drama from David O. Russell (Three Kings, The Fighter), about a former high-school teacher who returns to his family home after eight months in a mental institution and begins to slowly rebuild his life.

Antiviral
The debut film from Brandon Cronenberg is a prescient and chilling vision of a dystopian future where celebrity obsession has gone to literally sick extremes.

Laurence Anyways
The third feature from Montreal's Xavier Dolan (J'ai tué ma mère, Les Amours imaginaires) centres on a young bohemian couple whose defiantly exclusive relationship is sent spiraling when the man, Laurence, confesses that he believes he's transgendered. This audacious and searing mediation on love and sexuality is shot in hyper-florid style and driven by gutsy performances.

The Paperboy
An all-star cast — Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron and John Cusack — get down and dirty in this sizzling, deliciously trashy chunk of Southern-fried Gothic from the director of Precious.

End Of Watch
David Ayer (Training Day) writes and directs this high-octane found-footage crime flick about two up-and-coming L.A. cops (Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Peña) who find themselves on the lam from a ruthless drug cartel after making an unexpected discovery during a seemingly routine traffic stop.

Imogene
Kristen Wiig, Annette Bening and Matt Dillon headline this hilarious comedy about a washed-up playwright who, after faking her own suicide as a ploy to get her ex-boyfriend's attention, winds up remanded to the custody of her wackily dysfunctional family.

The Iceman
Academy Award® nominee Michael Shannon stars alongside a stellar supporting cast — including Winona Ryder, Ray Liotta and Chris Evans — in the story of real-life mob hit-man Richard "The Iceman" Kuklinski, who was reportedly responsible for over 200 murders.

Much Ado About Nothing
Shakespeare's classic comedy gets contemporary spin in Joss Whedon's stylized adaptation. Shot in just twelve days using the original text, the story of sparring lovers Beatrice (Amy Acker) and Benedick (Alexis Denisof) offers a dark, sexy and occasionally absurd view of the intricate game that is love.

Writers
Greg Kinnear, Jennifer Connelly, Lily Collins, Kristen Bell and Logan Lerman star in this touching comedy-drama about a successful novelist whose obsession with his ex-wife has sent his perplexed family into a tailspin.

Spring Breakers
James Franco, Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens star in the wild new film from perennial provocateur Harmony Korine (Trash Humpers), about four flat-broke co-eds whose spring fling in Florida turns into a booze, drug and violence-fuelled bacchanal.

Details: Written by Matthew Toomey; Created: 28 August 2012

Finding Nemo is Pixar’s second most successful animated film – pulling in $339m in the United States back in 2003. That’s some serious coin.

The film is being re-released in 3D and is out in Australian cinemas from this week. I was thrilled to speak with the amazing Albert Brooks about the film, it’s re-release and a few other things.

You can download the full audio extract by clicking here.

Matt: Finding Nemo was released in Australian cinemas 9 years ago and the man I’m speaking with is obviously a fan because he’s still promoting it. I say good morning to Marlin the clownfish… also known as Mr Albert Brooks. How’s it going?

Albert: (laughs) I have been non-stop promoting this film for 9 years. Fortunately, it’s back in a theatre now and it’s starting to pay off.

Matt: Over the past few years we’ve seen so many classic animated films get upgraded to 3D and re-released like The Lion King and Beauty & The Beast. What’s going on here? Has Hollywood completely run out of ideas?

Albert: Well I can’t speak for Hollywood. I know I’ve run out of ideas. (laughs) This movie was so visually amazing that I was always assumed that they would do this. Pixar does this particular upgrade very well and with the ocean and surroundings of water, I would think this should have been out in 3D ten years ago if they had the technology.

Some movies, I do agree with you… but I don’t think Pixar takes this stuff lightly. It doesn’t take an hour to do so. This is a long, arduous process.

Matt: What are your own thoughts on 3D? Is it something that you think can enhance the film-going experience? I know some people see it as a bit of a novelty. Do you make an effort to see 3D movies over 2D?

Albert: I took my kids to see Avatar and I think that was a really good 3D experience. I won’t go to a movie just because of 3D. If something is appealing and it’s 3D, I’ll go to the 3D version. But you’re not going to trick me to see something in 3D just because of that fact.

Matt: When it comes to animation, few could argue with the success of Pixar. I’m talking about Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Ratatouille, WALL-E and Up. You had the chance to work with them so closely on Finding Nemo. What’s their secret? How do they keep churning out good movies again and again?

Albert: I don’t know. It’s really amazing. They have the best track record in the business in terms of animated movies. They’ve always said that the story is the most important thing and then everything else flatters the story. If you start with the tricks instead, it doesn’t seem to work.

Matt: Can you remember how you were approached about Finding Nemo?

Albert: Someone contacted my manager at the time. They asked if I’d like to do it and to show me what it might look like, they took a little bit of Marlin and they put a speech from a movie I wrote called Defending Your Life. So I went into a darkened theatre and I watched this fish give a speech from one of my movies. I thought this is so creepy that I have to do it! (laughs) It was very clever on their part.

Matt: I remember reading an interview with Woody Allen where he said that once he’d finished a film, that was it. He’d never go back and re-watch it. With Finding Nemo now getting a re-release, I have to ask – do you go back and watch some of your prior works, your prior films?

Albert: I don’t usually re-watch my own films. If I’m on the treadmill and something comes up, I’ll watch 10 minutes of it. The great thing about film as opposed to television is that you can leave it. You can work your head off on a project and then it’s done. You don’t have to revisit that character.

It was a little different with Nemo because with kids, it was on the television so much in our house. I’d walk into the kitchen and I’d hear them watching it with Marlin yelling at Nemo and I’d get all confused thinking that I was yelling at my own kids. (laughs)

I’m going to go to the premiere here in September and will see it in 3D because it’ll have to look amazing.

Matt: While on the subject of animation, I can’t pass up this opportunity. My favourite TV show is The Simpsons and one of my favourite episodes is You Only Move Twice where you play the head of the Globex Corporation, Hank Scorpio. Did you ever realise that episode was going to be as popular when you were doing it back in 1996?

Albert: No. no. I don’t think you ever realise when something is going to take off. That’s become one of the most talked about Simpsons episodes in its 24 year history. It’s funny about that and how the episode has endured.

Matt: I want to go down to work right now and tell all my staff to head down to the Hammock District. How much credit can I give you for the dialogue or was it largely scripted?

Albert: It was largely ad-libbed. Even they will tell you that. They certainly had a story but the great thing about doing stuff for The Simpsons is that if you can “riff on it”, they love it. They’ll leave a tape machine on for 5 hours. By the end of that session, I don’t think I had another comedy thought in my head for a month. I said every funny thing I had as Hank Scorpio.

Matt: I travelled last year to the Toronto Film Festival and I remember my last film on the Saturday night was Drive. I know you picked up a swag of critics’ awards and were great in the film but I have to ask – where had you been hiding? We hadn’t seen you in a movie for years.

Albert: Well, I wrote a book. Amazon has funny rules that say you can only buy it in America. It’s called 2030: The Real Story Of What Happens To America and it took about 3 years to write. So I was a novelist for a while and then I got offered this part and it was too good not to take. I’m playing Paul Rudd’s father in a movie that’s coming out this Christmas – Judd Apatow’s movie This Is 40.

I’ve split my life between making my own films, and acting in other films, and now writing books. Once I get involved in something, I sort of close the world out.

Matt: And how did you miss out on an Oscar nomination this year? Was that Christopher Plummer running a smear campaign against you? It seems he won everything by the end of the season.

Albert: I’m shocked he did! He played a Nazi in The Sound Of Music! (laughs) Honestly, I don’t know how any of that happens. All of a sudden, you wake up one day and you’re a horse in the Kentucky Derby and people are betting on you and putting saddles on you. People are coming out my house and brushing my hair. Then you wake up, and it’s like “oh, too bad” and then no one talks to you again.

You know, that thing, my answer is that if you want an Oscar, you do a movie for Harvey Weinstein.

Matt: Yeah, that does seem to be the way to go. I guess I’ll finish up with one final question and I’m sure it’s one you’ve been asked before. With all you’ve done and achieved in the entertainment industry, what’s been the highlight for you? What’s been your favourite role?

Albert: Because I’ve had such varied roles, I don’t really think like that. If we had long enough time, I could tell you some that were really great experiences and some that were hell. The ones that were hell, I’d probably have a foul memory of just because of that.

I know roles that people like. I get more mail 20 years after making Defending Your Life that any movie I’ve ever done. I got 12 letters today from people trying to deal with fear and loss. They come across the movie and they write these great letters. Was it my favourite? I don’t know. I loved doing Drive last year.

I guess I’m afraid to answer the question because it means I’m going to die. (laughs)

Matt: Well hopefully I’m going to be seeing you in many, many, many more good movies.

Albert: I hope you will!

Matt: Mr Albert Brooks, it’s been an absolute honour. Thanks for talking with us this morning.

Albert: My pleasure.

Details: Written by Matthew Toomey; Created: 20 August 2012

For this week’s blog, I thought I’d share some photos from the Australian International Movie Convention (AIMC) which opened last Sunday at Jupiters Casino on the Gold Coast.

It’s a week-long convention where the major movie studios showcase their products for the upcoming year. It’s a chance to network and it’s a chance to find out what’s happening in the industry. Most importantly, the studios use the opportunity to get their films in front of cinema owners… with the ultimate goal being that they’ll soon be seen by the public.

The convention traditionally opens with a screening of an Australian premiere and this year’s choice was Mental. It was the second time I’ve seen the film and whilst the plot is a little rough around the edges, it has some great dark comedy. I’ll review it in full when it’s released in early October.

It seems that no expense was spared for the film’s Queensland premiere and on that note, here’s what you missed out on…