Empire May 2020 by Ahsan

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PREVIEW 8

EDGAR WRIGHT If there were a movie Prime Minister, Edgar Wright would be it. At this time of crisis, he makes a rallying cry to all ﬁlm fans: celebrate our cinemas!

BLUMHOUSE Now that he’s made The Invisible Man a must-see, Jason Blum has plans for the other Universal creatures: Dracula, The Wolfman and Stiﬂer.

Q&A We talk to Rebecca Hall, the sole inductee of the Rebecca Hall Of Fame.

CANDYMAN The unstoppable monster who shows up in your bathroom if you say his name ﬁve times is back. But enough about Jeff from HR — the Candyman returns this summer in a Jordan Peele-produced rebootquel. We got the full story, by hook or by hook.

THE BEASTIE BOYS You gotta ﬁght! For your right! To interview the Beasties about their new doc! Hmmmm. Doesn’t scan.

CARTON OF MILK Jim Sturgess talks dairy. Hey, why did the carton of semi-skimmed avoid the movie star? It was actose-intolerant.

WONDER WOMAN 1984 It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking 13. Which meant it was time for a world-exclusive peek at Patty Jenkins’ nostalgia-tastic sequel to her groundbreaking superhero ﬂick.

MAY 2020

cinema’s most uplifting moments. Groundhog Day, The Shawshank Redemption, Casablanca, E.T., the fuckin’ Catalina Wine Mixer...they’re all here.

TOM HANKS Fresh from his bout with Covid-19, a fully recovered Tom writes exclusively for us about his forthcoming World War II movie, Greyhound. He wrote the article on a typewriter as well. What a bloody legend.

GLADIATOR At our signal, Russell Crowe unleashes anecdotes.

REQUIEM FOR A DREAM Twenty years on n from the debut of his harrowing drug drama, director Darren D Aronofsky invites us into his dreamscape.

THE COMFORT ZONE With the world going full The Stand at the moment, we all deﬁnitely need some succour. Here, you will ﬁnd it in a new regular section over 12 pages that celebrates

EDITH HEAD The incredible true story of one of Hollywood’s greatest, and most iconic, fashion designers. No capes!

Above: Diana (Gal Gadot) and Steve (Chris Pine) are reunited for Wonder Woman 1984. Bottom: Being awesome, it’s Emmet (Chris Pratt) in The Lego Movie.

THE PLATFORM The Spanish prison drama about a society that takes from the top and leaves scraps for the poor. How far-fetched.

THE BANKER Is the ﬁrst movie on Apple+ worth your iTime?

SPOILER SECTION Dissecting The Invisible Man and Onward. Sounds painful.

KN NIVES OUT Riian Johnson ﬁlls in Blanc’s donut.

102

B ABU FRIK The inside story of Rise Of Skyywalker’s breakout character.

1008

THE RANKING A Best Picture winners bumper pack!

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HOW’S EVERYONE COPING with lockdown? For those of us forced to self-isolate, one of the bigger problems we face is finding ways to occupy our days. Obviously, watching lots and lots of movies fills some of those hours. But for others, this strange period in our lives is a unique opportunity for us to explore other interests. Personally, I’ve been reading a zillion books I always planned to get to “one day”, training regularly with my YouTube fitness instructor Joe Wicks and learning French. Soon (I hope), I won’t need subtitles to understand my favourite Jean-Luc Godard movies! This issue has been a madhouse to put together – what with the world’s cinemas closing their doors for the foreseeable future and many films having their release dates delayed till God knows when. Edgar Wright’s piece on pg8, then, is a call to arms for all movie fans. When this crisis eventually ends, we must do everything we can to support the industry that has given us so much pleasure. Get a year’s membership at your local cinema, buy a DVD, subscribe to a streaming service. Every little bit helps. That said, we DO still have films to talk about: Wonder Woman 1984, Tom Hanks’ Greyhound, Candyman, Russell Crowe’s classic Gladiator and much more. So...stay safe and let’s get started.

EDITORIAL EDITOR DAN LENNARD ART DIRECTOR GENEVIEVE HANCOCK PHOTO EDITORS ELOISE GOODMAN, SAMANTHA LAWRENCE, WILLIAM YORK

CONTRIBUTORS

Michael Adams, Liz Beardsworth, Elizabeth Best, Simon Braund, David Michael Brown, Jenny Colgan, Nick de Semlyen, Fred Dellar, Andrew Dickens, James Dyer, Angie Errigo, Ian Freer, Alex Godfrey, Chris Hewitt, David Hughes, Travis Johnson, Dan Jolin, Tim Keen, Will Lawrence, Andrew Lowry, Ben McEachen, Jim Mitchell, Anthony Morris, Ian Nathan, Kim Newman, John Nugent, Helen O’Hara, George Palathingal, David Parkinson, Seb Patrick, Sophie Petzal, Nev Pierce, Jonathan Pile, Olly Richards, Adam Smith, Beth Webb, Amy West, Terri White, Rod Yates.

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BAUER MEDIA

Chief Executive Officer Publisher Commercial Manager Business Analyst

Forget Tiger King; fitness guru Joe deserves his own

Brendon Hill Shane Sutton Marena Paul Melissa Tanudjaja

Netflix series.

CLASSICLINESOFTHEMONTH “It’s fun to play deeply stoned-curious, like you’re on a great mushroom trip.”

p.50

MAY 2020

“I haven’t really spoken the word ‘Candyman’. It makes me a little bit uncomfortable just to say the word.”

p.56

“When [he] was going through chemotherapy, he’d watch Big Fish...it’s about being hopeful in a dark time.”

p.77

Empire is published in Australia by Bauer Media Action Sports Pty Limited, part of the Bauer Media Group, ACN 079 430 023, 54-58 Park Street, Sydney, New South Wales, 2000. © 2020, under licence from Bauer Consumer Media Limited. All rights reserved. The trade mark “Empire” and certain material contained herein are owned by Bauer Consumer Media. Printed by Ovato Warwick Farm - 8 Priddle St, Warwick Farm NSW 2170, (02) 9828 1350. Distributed by Ovato Retail Distribution Australia Pty. Ltd. Empire accepts no responsibility for loss of or damage to unsolicited contributions. ISSN 2205-0183 PRIVACY NOTICE This issue of Empire is published by Bauer Media Pty Ltd (Bauer).Bauer may use and disclose your information in accordance with our Privacy Policy, including to provide you with your requested products or services and to keep you informed of other Bauer publications, products, services and events. Our Privacy Policy is located at www.bauer-media.com.au/privacy/ It also sets out on how you can access or correct your personal information and lodge a complaint. Bauer may disclose your personal information offshore to its owners, joint venture partners, service providers and agents located throughout the world, including in New Zealand, USA, the Philippines and the European Union. In addition, this issue may contain Reader Offers, being offers, competitions or surveys. Reader Offers may require you to provide personal information to enter or to take part. Personal information collected for Reader Offers may be disclosed by us to service providers assisting Bauer in the conduct of the Reader Offer and to other organisations providing special prizes or offers that are part of the Reader Offer. An opt-out choice is provided with a Reader Offer. Unless you exercise that opt-out choice, personal information collected for Reader Offers may also be disclosed by us to other organisations for use by them to inform you about other products, services or events or to give to other organisations that may use this information for this purpose. If you require further information, please contact Bauer’s Privacy Officer either by email at privacyofficer@bauer-media.com.au or mail at Privacy Officer Bauer Media Pty Ltd, 54 Park Street, Sydney NSW 2000.

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IN HER HONOR I’d barely walked out of the newsagency with my latest copy of Empire – containing 25 pages of all things Bondian – when I learned the terrible news that Honor Blackman had passed away. She was stunningly beautiful opposite Sean Connery in Goldfinger, but I think many people forget that she was also Steed’s first partner in TV’s The Avengers. I tip my bowler hat to Honor and shall have a cup of tea – stirred anti-clockwise – in her memory.

Published writers this month will receive a DVD copy of Lizzie, which will be released by Eagle Entertainment on May 20.

LE TTER OF THE

MONT H

S P INE Q U OTE

HONOUR ROLE

BRIAN, HAWTHORN, VIC

While we found Emma quite a-Peel-ing, we firmly believe Tara was King (or should that be Queen) of The Avengers.

SPINE QUOTE #228 “Despite that cart, I haven’t practised dentistry in ﬁve years. But these days I practise a new profession... bounty hunter.”

NOT FOND OF BOND I’m disappointed at what movie posters have become. The Bond gallery in April’s issue just highlights it – there’s a huge contrast between painstakingly drawn images of a dapper armed man, along with cars, aircraft, explosions and/or seductive women and that of today’s simplistic selfie of a bloke. It’s supposed to be a movie poster not a LinkedIn profile pic. Less definitely isn’t more. AUSTIN, TUMUT, NSW

A FILM WITH BITE I loved the retrospective on The Lost Boys in the March issue...a classic film from a classic era. I still remember doing movie appreciation during ‘Fun Week’ at high school. There’s nothing better than being close to the end of school and sitting in a cinema as the Lost Boys rip up the sand on their motorcycles while Lou Gramm’s Lost In The Shadows blasts through the speakers. MITCHELL, VIA EMAIL

That soundtrack rocked, especially the two tracks – Good Times and Laying Down The Law – by Jimmy Barnes with INXS.

TOTALLY BOGUS BEHAVIOUR When I saw the preview of Bill & Ted Face The Music (Empire, March 2020) I laughed out loud. I mean REALLY loud. These guys made their first Bill & Ted movie in 1989. Decades went by and while Keanu Reeves added many blockbusters to his resume, poor Alex Winters did very little. When I saw the article with Keanu’s face right in the middle of the page and poor Alex standing to the side with only a third of his face showing, I laughed my head off. I bet Mr Winters felt really proud finally being pictured in a movie magazine after nearly 30 years. Well done, Empire. It’s great to see you have a sense of humour. FABIAN, HINCHINBROOK, NSW

We’re glad you found it funny – heck, if you found the PIC hilarious, then we can’t imagine how you’ll react when you watch the actual FILM!

WELCOME BACK!

WORTHLESS GEMS

I’ve been away from Empire for some time. I became disenchanted with movies for a while, too. During a recent hospital stay, my wife picked up a copy for me and I read every single page. The writing is fresh and the content is superb! Hello again, old friend, how I’ve missed you!

You gave Uncut Gems five stars, bu ut I had to turn it off after eight minutes ’cos I couldn’t take the excruciating g music anymore.

JUSTIN, VIA EMAIL

THE CONNECTION From Django Unchained referring to The Mandalorian being on the cover.

THE WINNER A shout-out to Rob Cartwright, who won an ace Empire cap! Send answers to empire@ bauer-media bauer media .com.au

TAM, SOUTH PLYMPTON, NSW

Not a fan of the eight-minute epic Th he Ballad of Howie Bling, eh? Perhaps The Lost Boys LP is more your thing. g

MAY 2020

London’s Leicester Square, bids a temporary farewell. Right: Director Edgar Wright, looking forward to big-screen entertainment and even bigger chocolate buttons.

Marco Vittur. Prince Charles Cinema: Pat Mallows

[ EDITED BY JOHN NUGENT]

T H I S M ON T H ’S F I L M M OM E N TS T H AT M AT T E R

Above: The Prince Charles Cinema, off

PREVIEW

1 Cinemas have No./

gone dark — but the light will return

With big screens everywhere closing due to the coronavirus pandemic, director EDGAR WRIGHT reflects on the precious experience of filmgoing in an exclusive essay ONE OF MY favourite things to do is sit in the dark watching a movie. Whether I am with loved ones, a group of friends or just all on my lonesome (but with the tasty company of some Cadbury Dairy Milk Giant Buttons), going to the cinema has been the closest thing I have to a religion in my life. Sometimes people use the word escapism as a negative term, but there is real pleasure in

being transported when the lights go down. The ongoing pandemic on this planet has made that experience a little darker than I care for, as silver-screen projector lights the world over are being switched off. Before this crisis I could, like many, appreciate the convenience of watching movies at home but, deep down for me, really experiencing a movie meant getting my

arse off the sofa,going to the cinema, sitting down with friends or strangers and appreciating the flickering art (or trash) up on the big screen. So I dearly hope, as a fan of the cinema, that any light at the end of the tunnel of this period in history includes the Xenon bulb that so many of us worship. Since big-screen exhibition has fought in recent years to combat the comforts of home cinema, the climb back from this shuttering of picture palaces may be tougher than ever, especially for many independent cinemas that you may cherish. So how can you, a fan of cinema, help the big screens out there that you adore even as their doors stay closed? One way of showing your unwavering support is to become a member of your favourite cinema. After you’ve read this, why not buy a membership for yourself, or for someone close to you. Buy some gift cards. Donate where you can. Consider, if you can afford to, not asking for your unlimited subscription to be refunded. Yes, you may not be able to go back in the coming months, but you’ll feel better for having helped now than if you later found your local church of cinema had been forced to close for good. I myself have been buying memberships to cinemas I frequent that I hadn’t already joined. This is not a luxury that everyone can afford but, for those who can, think of the many hard-working staff at your favourite cinemas who may have just lost their jobs. This just might help ensure they have a place of work to return to. When this is all over, I can’t wait to get back in there and support my favourite cinemas in any way I can, even if it means watching way too many commercials, sitting through trailers that I’ve already seen several thousand times and watching a franchise film that could easily lose 15 to 20 minutes (whispers: ‘they all can’). My life was forever changed by a cinema trip when I was three years old (Star Wars in 1978 at the Galaxy Cinema on Hinton Road in Bournemouth), and I’ve spent the best part of my career trying to recreate the magic of that night out by making the films I’d want to see as an audience member. I promise to keep doing that and everything I can to still give movie acolytes a place of congregation. Stay safe out there and I’ll see you at the big screen as soon as we are able. Giant Buttons are on me*. (*Not legally binding)

HEAD ONLINE TO SEE HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL CINEMA WWW.EMPIREONLINE.COM/ CELEBRATEOURCINEMAS

MAY 2020

PREVIEW

2 Social distancing, Hollywood style

No./

As the world shut down over coronavirus, film stars took to social media to show us how they’re using their free time

DAME JUDI DENCH: WORE A SILLY HAT What happens when you stick a national treasure in a dog-shaped hat with ears that spring up on command? Via her daughter’s Twitter account, the behatted Dench sent a resilient message to fans: “Just keep laughing. That’s all we can do.”

SETH ROGEN: GOT STONED AND WATCHED CATS

SHARON STONE: TRIED HER HAND AT PAINT-BY-NUMBERS

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: FED CARROTS TO A TINY HORSE

“WHAT IS JELLICLE?!,!?”, a high Rogen asked of his Twitter followers during his running commentary, which also saw him baffled by Jason Derulo’s feet and Judi Dench’s jacket. He later gave up and watched 90 Day Fiancé instead.

One small upside to self-isolation was that the world got a peek into what the Hollywood elite might do for downtime. For Stone, this was a spot of arts and crafts. No need for total recall when you have the numbers to help you, eh?

No-one brought their A-game to quarantine quite like Arnie. When he wasn’t admonishing ‘Spring Breakers’ from his jacuzzi, or riding his bike to feel the wind on his face, he tended to his pets, miniature horse Lulu and donkey Whiskey.

KAT DENNINGS: PUT MAKE-UP ON A CAN OF COCONUT MILK

SIR ANTHONY HOPKINS: PLAYED THE PIANO FOR HIS CAT

SAM NEILL: CLEANED HIS COLLECTION OF SHOES

Nothing if not resourceful, the Thor star spent her hours of isolation applying make-up to a can of organic coconut milk. By the end of this oddly mesmerising tutorial, the can had received full lashes and red, bee-stung lips.

Always a beam of light during uncertain times, the veteran actor tickled the ivories with a hauntingly beautiful tune for his cat Niblo. Fun fact: as well as being an Oscar-winner, Hopkins is an accomplished classical musician and composer.

Neill’s grandfatherly-yet-somehow-sexy social media presence is always a soothing tonic. “I didn’t realise that I had so many shoes that were pretty much exactly the same,” he gently purred, ASMR-like, on Twitter.

MAY 2020

PREVIEW

AMY ADAMS AND JENNIFER GARNER: READ CHILDREN’S STORIES FOR CHARITY For her Instagram debut, Adams brought joy to the masses by reading aloud adventure fairy tale The Dinosaur Princess for charity, with a little help from her pal Garner.

the way we watch ﬁlms The coronavirus crisis has profoundly disrupted all facets of ﬁlmmaking — including how studios release them. What does it mean for the future?

TOM HANKS: ATE SOME VEGEMITE UNDER QUARANTINE Film fans wept when news broke that America’s Dad himself had fallen prey to the virus over here. Thankfully the panic was short-lived, as the most beloved man in Hollywood reassured fans with our national dish while recovering.

JARED LETO: WAS OBLIVIOUS IN THE DESERT Leto missed the coronavirus breakout entirely while on a meditation retreat in the desert, only to return, 28 Days Later-style, into a very different world. “We had no idea what was happening…” he sheepishly admitted on Instagram. BETH WEBB

IN A SHORT period of time, the movie landscape around the world, including Australia, became unrecognisable. In late March, the Federal Government ordered cinemas in this country to close their doors. Going to the movies, at least for a while, would have to take place outside of an actual cinema. For the studios, the response to this crisis has been simple: delay their films’ releases until all of this blows over. But some have taken the near-unprecedented step of making high-profile movies available to download, weeks or even days after their theatrical releases. Onward, Birds Of Prey, The Hunt, The Invisible Man and Bloodshot moved their digital release dates forward. Meanwhile, Easter holiday family fare Trolls World Tour just abandoned its theatrical release, moving, remarkably, to digital-only. Industry expert and box-office analyst Charles Gant thinks the ‘theatrical window’ — the time between a film being released in cinemas and arriving on home entertainment — might just change permanently beyond all recognition. “The window has been tweaked over the years,” Gant says. “When I was a kid, a major film migrating to TV was always years after the cinema release.” With the advent of VHS, DVD and now streaming, that window has been steadily shrinking to just a handful of months in Australia.

But the coronavirus crisis has changed the rulebook. “With The Hunt, The Invisible Man and, now, Birds Of Prey, the studios are breaking the original agreement they had with cinemas when they booked the films into their venues,” Gant explains. “It’s a big deal — but what complaint can cinema operators reasonably articulate when they have closed their doors and have no customers?” The question is whether things will get back to normal once the cinemas open again. “I can see us going back to a window, but I can’t see it being quite as airtight as in the past,” Gant predicts. It’s clear that these are extraordinary, exceptional times, so naturally different rules apply — but there is no one-sizefits-all rule for films. “It is perhaps significant that Universal bumped both No Time To Die and Fast & Furious 9 before taking this path with Trolls World Tour. Trolls is like a toe in the water,” Gant concludes. Ultimately, though, it seems highly likely that the big-screen experience will remain a crucial part of life — to the film studios who are willing to put up with costly delays to their movies’ releases; to filmmakers determined to preserve the most powerful possible way to showcase their work; and to film fans, who will always be thrilled by the prospect of sitting down in a packed house on opening night. JOHN NUGENT

MAY 2020

PREVIEW

4 Blumhouse’smonstermission No./

Hot on the heels of The Invisible Man, JASON BLUM wants to let all the Universal creatures loose WITH THE MUMMY’S lukewarm reception in 2017, Universal’s Dark Universe, a new era of interlinked films resurrecting the studio’s classic monsters, crashed and burned. But then Leigh Whannell and Blumhouse rode into town, unleashing a fresh take on The Invisible Man perfectly suited to 2020. Lean, mean and cost-effective, this $7 million, relatively lo-fi exercise in terror was a one-off — but its success may well see those old monsters out for blood again. “It was always something that I’d wanted to do,” says producer Jason Blum, of getting to play in the Universal Monsters toybox. “I loved monsters as a kid. I was Frankenstein for Halloween when I was eight years old.” Talking to Empire on the phone from his home, working remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic, he says that when the Dark Universe was launched he paid it little mind, mostly because the scale of the films (The Mummy cost a reported $125 million) was in a different realm to Blumhouse’s tried and tested model. “We don’t do movies over $20 million,” he explains. “It would have been like competing with Marvel.”

MAY 2020

Elisabeth Moss helped make The Invisible Man an extremely visible hit for Blumhouse.

After The Mummy failed to inspire audiences, though, Universal approached Blum and Whannell, whose spare set-up made for an enormously effective experience. And now Blum hopes for more, starting with Dracula and Frankenstein. As with The Invisible Man, they would be one-offs, but of a piece. “If we’re lucky enough to do them, I think they’ll feel like The Invisible Man feels — very grounded, character- and performance-driven, and not super-heavy on special effects,” he says.

He had already been developing a Dracula film with director Karyn Kusama, and while it remains in pre-production for now, Blum is optimistic. As evidenced by The Invitation and Destroyer, Kusama is an expert at atmosphere. How, though, do you make a film about an immortal vampire feel as grounded as Whannell’s The Invisible Man, which boasts scary shots of doorways? “No idea,” laughs Blum. “I have the easy part of saying, ‘Make Dracula like The Invisible Man.’ How that’s gonna happen, I have no idea. But Karyn has an idea.” For Frankenstein, he has asked a couple of other in-house directors to pitch takes, asking, “If you watch The Invisible Man, does that inspire any thinking about what Frankenstein could be?” And could The Wolfman and The Mummy be next? “They definitely appeal to me, because there are so many places that you could take those stories,” he says. And if he can pull off what they achieved with The Invisible Man, we’re in for a treat. It may not be a universe as such, but it’s gonna get dark. ALEX GODFREY THE INVISIBLE MAN IS OUT NOW TO RENT ON DOWNLOAD

Getty Images, iStock

ILLUSTRATION MUTANT 101

No./5

ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WAHL As well as his Wahlburgers, Mark Wahlberg is making a Dragon’s Den-style show, Wahl Street. What other puntastic things could he try?

WAHL-MART WAHL MART Mark Wahlberg opens a chain of discount supermarkets, located entirely in the Boston area. How do you like these apples? They’re extremely affordable!

BETTER CALL WAHL Mark Wahlberg is a sleazy lawyer for criminals, based in a strip mall. He’s the guy who does his job. You must be the other guy.

WAHL OF DUTY Mark Wahlberg creates a line of first-person-shooter video games, in which his likeness is used for all the characters, and also all the in-game characters you shoot in the face.

CANNON & WAHL Mark Wahlberg joins forces with popular light entertainer Tommy Cannon to perform variety for the working men’s clubs of Greater Manchester, and also Boston.

WAHL’S ICE-CREAM Mark Wahlberg makes ice-cream. Look, do we have to spell it out for you? His name sounds a bit like a brand of UK ice-cream. Wall’s ice-cream. Wahl’s. Is it lunchtime yet? JOHN NUGENT

PREVIEW

No./

6 The Shining can

help your cabin fever

Five movie-based boardgames to stop you from getting bored — coming soon to a tabletop near you

QUESTS OF YORE: BARLEY’S EDITION

Above: Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) looks bored in The

The Dungeons & Dragons-alike role-playing game that guided the guileless Barley (Chris Pratt) through Onward’s adventure is soon to be available as a real-life tabletop experience. One player takes the role of the ‘Quest Master’ who runs the show, the others become intrepid heroes heading off on their own jaunts in Pixar’s fantasy world of Clovendell. Seems aimed at younger players, but is attractively shot through with top Pixar production values in its miniature ﬁgures and components.

Shining. Hey, Danny (Danny Lloyd), break out the boardgames.

BACK TO THE FUTURE: DICE THROUGH TIME With Biff buggering up the timeline, it’s up to two-to-four players to work together to travel to the past (and future) and tidy up his mess, grabbing scattered items and restoring order to Hill Valley’s chronology. All this is done through the rolling of custom dice, which determine which actions you can take, all the while requiring careful teamwork with your fellow DeLorean passengers.

THE SHINING Coming from Prospero Hall, who brilliantly adapted Jaws into a game last year, this handsome cooperative gamee looks set to do for big hotels what Jawss did for not-big-enough boats. Players are snowed in at the Overlook, and must explore its rooms, mustering up the willpower to resist its malevolent inﬂuence.

Below: Bill and Ted, immortalised in plastic.

Oh, did we say it was cooperative? Well, one player is actually secretly working against the rest, having already done a Jack Torrance. All play and no work...

TOP GUN STRATEGY GAME First, you pick a side: Team Maverick/Goose, or Team Iceman/Slider. Then you face off over an ’80s-ﬂavoured hex landscape to pull off the best aerial manoeuvres and achieve target locks against each other. But that’s not all, as this is two games in one: between jet-ﬁghts you also have to compete in a show-offy volleyball-match card game that can give you the edge once you’re back up in the clouds. Bring the Danger Zone to your table, er, zone.

BILL & T TED’S RIFF IN TIME As with th he Back To The Future game, playyers must work together to ﬁx timee. Except here, it’s down to Bill, Ted d, Elizabeth and Joanna to ping around d the board’s timelines in their phone-bo ox time machine, picking up historical ﬁgures (Billy The Kid, Napoleon, S Socrates) and getting them back to their correct period. The big draw here is the impressively detailed m miniatures of all the characters, from the Wyld Stallyns them mselves to Genghis Khan. Looks totally non-heinous. DAN JOLIN D

MAY 2020

PREVIEW

No./

Top to bottom: Andy (Stephen Graham) and Carly (Vinette

Theone-shotfilmheatsup STEPHEN GRAHAM undergoes a baptism of fire with Boiling Point , an improvised restaurant-set drama filmed in one go THE SAYING GOES: if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. For his first film as a producer, Stephen Graham saw this as a challenge. Graham and his wife Hannah Walters’ newly formed Matriarch Productions is opening its account with Boiling Point, a drama about a chef on the verge of a breakdown, set and filmed, literally, in a kitchen. To turn the gas up higher, it’s improvised, filmed as one shot with dozens of speaking roles, and is also a debut feature for director Phil Barantini. It begs the question: why? “I saw a lot of chefs struggling with their mental health,” says Barantini, who once worked in the restaurant industry, when Empire visits rehearsals on location at Jones & Sons in East London. “I want to shine a light on that world. I want people to know the blood, sweat and tears that go into these beautiful meals.” (Hopefully not literally.) There are few people better at portraying ‘broken’ men than Graham, who plays Andy, the troubled chef. And, while the format is challenging, the pair have at least had a practice run: a Boiling Point short was made last year. “Phil asked me if I’d do a short set in a kitchen,” says Graham. “He tells me he’s got this director of photography who’s got this mad idea to do it

MAY 2020

in one shot. I was like, ‘One shot? In a kitchen? Wow. How many days do you need?’ He said ﬁve and I said I’d give him three.” Barantini and co-writer James Cummings saw the setting as a chance to experiment with an improvised story. “In a kitchen everyone’s talking over each other,” says Barantini. “I asked Stephen if Shane Meadows writes scripts and he said, ‘No, just bullet points, and they workshop off that.’ So that’s what we did.” After the short was nominated for a BIFA, work on a feature started. Key to the Matriarch Productions mission is hiring a diverse and youthful cast and crew, a philosophy applied here — that aforementioned director of photography, Matt Lewis, is just 23. “That was vital for us,” says Graham. “Kitchens are full of different cultures and backgrounds.” When Empire arrives in early March, it’s four days until ﬁlming begins, during which they’ll have eight takes to nail the perfect dish. It’s a daunting prospect. But Graham is beaming out his trademark enthusiasm, at one point serving up Empire oysters shucked by his own fair hands. He’s a one-man cheerleading team as they run through the whole script with only the occasional pause for discussion . “It’s gonna be

Robinson) feel the heat in Boiling Point; On set in East London; The pressure begins to mount.

magic by the third take,” he says. “I’m thinking of starting a sweepstake.” ANDREW DICKENS BOILING POINT DOES NOT CURRENTLY HAVE A RELEASE DATE

PREVIEW

SMALL

TA L K

MAISIE WILLIAMS Now that Game Of Thrones is over, you’re off making Hollywood movies. How is the experience different? The food, mainly. Over here [in the US], craft services [catering] make you so fat [laughs]. Every day, you have lunch and there are flame grills going — grilled shrimp, grilled chicken. Steak. A huge salad bar. Whereas on Game Of Thrones, it was just... A bit of toast? No! Not even that. You’d get, like, an apple. But one that had gone off. And not even a proper coffee machine. It was just instant coffee in polystyrene cups.

Christian Black, Alex Fountain, Getty Images

Aside from avoiding rotten fruit, what other career ambitions are you working towards? I’d like to play a few more measured young women. I’m desperately trying to show people that I’m 22 [laughs]. I’m such a baby face, which is fine, but I’d like to play someone a bit more complex. Arya Stark was pretty complex... True, but it came out in rage. And I’m not a very ragey person. I think you lose an argument immediately if you raise your voice. So, it’d be interesting to play a character like that. TOM ELLEN THE NEW MUTANTS DOES NOT CURRENTLY HAVE A RELEASE DATE

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AhsokaTano:anewhope Rosario Dawson playing a fan favourite in The Mandalorian Season 2? Count us in... IN CASTING-NEWS terms, the recent report that Clone Wars veteran Ahsoka Tano would be appearing — in the flesh! — in The Mandalorian Season 2 could hardly be more exciting for long-time Star Wars fans. Over the years, we have come to know this former Padawan of the Togruta race extremely well, watching her evolve from an overly perky, slightly irksome 14-yearold apprentice to a pivotal, shady figure in the Rebel Alliance, as seen in Clone Wars sequel show Rebels. It’s hard to think of another female Star Wars character who’s been given such a detailed and developed arc. We received a hint that she’d be moving over from the series’ animated strand, Saw Gerrera-style, when she was heard (courtesy of voice actor Ashley Eckstein) among the disembodied Jedi aiding Rey’s climactic struggle in The Rise Of Skywalker. Her inclusion among such august company as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda and Qui-Gon Jinn was well deserved, not least owing to her fascinating and crucial relationship with demised Sith Lord Darth Vader. Ahsoka started out as his apprentice, facilitating his maturation from the Anakin we saw in Attack Of The Clones to the one at the opening of Revenge Of The Sith. In a brilliant Clone Wars-finale twist, she also quit the Jedi Order, having been falsely accused of murder, and sensed the cracks in its noble facade. And in Rebels she returned,

Top: Ahsoka Tano in Star Wars Rebels. Above: With Anakin Skywalker in The Clone Wars. Below: Rosario Dawson, who is lined up to play Ahsoka in The Mandalorian Season 2.

finally identified her old Master in Vader, faced him in a vicious lightsaber duel — and survived. So basically, then, she’s pretty damn cool, coming with her own interesting perspective on the fall of the Jedi, not to mention a distinct fighting style. Rosario Dawson now looks certain to take the role — three years after responding to a fan lobbying for her on Twitter with an emphatic “Ummmm… yes, please?! #AhsokaLives”. Dream casting realised, she’ll no doubt need to start double-white-lightsaber acrobatic combat training as soon as possible. Because ol’ Mando is about to meet his ass-kicking match. DAN JOLIN THE MANDALORIAN SEASON 2 IS SET TO COME TO DISNEY+ LATER THIS YEAR

MAY 2020

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ArtemisFowl

We visit the set of Disney’s latest liveaction gamble: an adaptation of the fairy-napping kids’ book

[ON- SET REPORT]

WHERE? Longcross Studios, Surrey WHEN? 12 April, 2018 WHY? Because Kenneth Branagh is adapting Eoin Colfer’s tooled-up fantasy novel into a spared-no-expense Disney blockbuster. Think Harry Potter, if Harry Potter was a cunning, Irish criminal mastermind who kidnapped a fairy to extort its gold. So, not actually much like Harry Potter. WHAT DID YOU SEE? A whacking great mansion — Fowl Manor has been built in its entirety, inside and out. Empire pores over the shelves of Fowl Library, stocked with 12,000 books (from Simone de Beauvoir to Nick Hornby), peeps into the master suite (gold bedsheets,

MAY 2020

pure luxury), walks the portrait gallery decked with paintings of Fowls past, and wanders around Artemis’ bedroom. 3D printer? Check. LEGO Death Star? Check. Raspberry Pi computer? Check. it’s the ultimate geek-kid haven. Outside is Josh Gad, looking like Hagrid 2.0 — massive beard, covered in mud, in a huge, leather trenchcoat. “This? Oh, I woke up looking like this,” he deadpans. “I just throw on whatever animal this is, and we go from there.” WHY WAS JOSH GAD THERE? He’s playing fan-fave Mulch Diggums, an oversized dwarf whose (wait for it) powerful farts propel him through the crust of the earth. “We’ve sort of grounded the infamous flatulence from the books,” he says. “You can get away with it in books in a different way. We’re still doing it, but

he’s very embarrassed by it. It provides a nice comedic vulnerability to the character.” WHAT WAS BEING FILMED? A troll smashing its way into Fowl Manor, bearing down on Artemis (Ferdia Shaw), fairy cop Holly Short (Lara McDonnell) and Butler (Nonso Anozie). There’s a giant troll-head prop for the cast to react to — though it’s destined to be replaced by CGI. HOW’S SIR KEN COPING? He’s totally zen, post-Thor. “Once you’ve been in a world of Frost Giants with an enormous, blond Australian person who lands in New Mexico and takes his shirt off in front of a scientist, then it isn’t so weird to have a 13-year-old Irish boy summon up ancient Celtic spirits to potentially prevent a troll attack on his house,” he says. “It’s creatively scary, but that’s the only place to be. On that note, I’m off for a creatively scary lunch.” BEN TRAVIS ARTEMIS FOWL IS CURRENTLY SCHEDULED TO BE IN IN CINEMAS LATER THIS YEAR (MAYBE)

No./10

PREVIEW

NeildeGrasseTyson ruinsyourfavouritefilms After the film-puncturing astrophysicist’s recent five-day T i Twitter rant, we assess th he best and worst of his quibbles

HE’’S GOT A POINT!

TITANIC’S SKY IS WRONG! After watching Titanic, Tyson emailed James Cameron to say that the star field at that point in 1912 in the Atlantic was inaccurate. “There is only one sky she should have been looking at,” he wrote, “and it was the wrong sky!” Ever the stickler for accuracy, Cameron put a new sky in the re-release.

STAR WARS IS TOO NOISY! In 2015, Tyson took to Twitter with a common bugbear: too much space noise. In Star Wars: The Force Awakens, “the TIE fighters made exactly the same sound in the vacuum of space as in planetary atmospheres,” he wrote. But he has acknowledged that it is fantasy, which licence. h allows for creative lic

Clockwise from far left: Butler (Nonso Anozie),

GRAVITY’S HAIR IS TOO FLAT!

Holly Short (Lara

Sandra Bullock has a cropped hairdo in Gravity to avoid a complex CGI dilemma. Not good enough, says our favourite astrophysicist. “Why did Bullock’s hair, in otherwise convincing zero-G scenes, not float freely on her head?” he tweeted. Tyson would later grudgingly admit j ye the e film. that he enjoyed

McDonnell), Mulch Diggums (Josh Gad) and Artemis Fowl (Ferdia Shaw); Colin Farrell is Artemis’ criminal father; Director Kenneth Branagh offers tips; Gad goes full Hagrid;

ARRIVAL’S ALIEN LANGUAGE IS BACKWARDS! Tyson also broods over linguistics. “In the film Arrival, nobody wondered whether the circular patterns drawn by the creature were backwards. The septopoid Alien drew them from the other side of a transparent glass wall.” But if it’s an entirely unknown language, does it matter?

The gang assess their work.

Getty Images, Shutterstock

ELSA’S HEAD IS BIG! “Not that anybody asked,” Tyson tweeted in late February, setting himself up for a fall, “but if Elsa from Frozen has a Human-sized Head, then she has Horse-sized Eyeballs — occupying 4x the normal volume within her cranium. I’m just sayin’.” Which would be a good point, if the concept of caricature and artistic exaggeration hadn’t existed for several centuries!

MARRIAGE STORY’S TITLE ISN’T CORRECT! Then came Tyson’s fretting over titles. Marriage Story, he claimed, should be called ‘Divorce Story’: “‘Goodfellas’ should instead be called ‘Badfellas’; ‘Bad Boys’ should instead be called ‘Good Boys’.” If only he understood dramatic irony as much as collapsing supernovae! JOHN NUGENT

SERIOUSLY, DUDE? MAY 2020

PREVIEW

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Taika takes on the Oompa-Loompas Director Taika Waititi is bringing fresh eyes to Charlie And The Chocolate Factory — a perspective that’s sorely needed THE LIST OF filmmakers able to pull off a movie about a young boy whose imaginary best friend is mass-murdering dictator Adolf Hitler is extremely short. In fact, it may be a list with just a single name: Jojo Rabbit director Taika Waititi. The New Zealand filmmaker became the first person of indigenous descent to win an Oscar for his Nazi-era comedy earlier this year; that Waititi cast himself — a proud PolynesianRussian-Jew — as a goofy version of Hitler was itself a middle finger to the Führer, and a smart appropriation of a racist white icon. It’s a trick Waititi looks set to replicate with Roald Dahl’s Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, which he’ll adapt for two new animated series for Netflix. While the first looks to be a standard adaptation based on the world and characters we’ve known and loved for years, the second will be a more ambitious take on the Oompa-Loompas. Wonka’s little helpers have a troubling origin story: described as a “pygmy tribe from the very deepest and darkest part of the African jungle where no white man had been before”, they were essentially Wonka’s slaves in the first edition of Dahl’s beloved children’s

Right: Taika Waititi could almost pass for a 1971 Willy Wonka Gene Wilder. Below right: Wilder with the OompaLoompas.

book. It would take a later revision by publishers to remove it. There’s another sense of Waititi reclaiming a previously racist story here. Colonialism and cultural representation are themes that loom large in his movies, from the Maori characters of Boy to the diverse crew that made Thor: Ragnarok. With this latest project on his bulging to-do list, the ﬁlmmaker seems to be carving a niche for himself in challenging outdated ideas of colonialism with his unique, quirky sense of humour. Racism tends to be treated very sombrely on screen. Waititi has made a career out of ﬁnding comedy in the sheer absurdity of it. Plus, the fact

this this is an animated project gives the director even more licence to make his version of the Oompa-Loompas the most purely imaginative one yet. With any luck, he will prove a worthy recipient of the golden ticket. AMON WARMANN

[TREND REPORT]

No./12

BACK FROM THE DEAD

WORDS JOHN NUGENT ILLUSTRATIONS BILL MCCONKEY

MAY 2020

STEVE TREVOR

RAY GARRISON

The nature of exactly how Steve Trevor

After ﬁnding fame in the resurrection-

(Chris Pine) made a miraculous recovery

friendly Fast & Furious franchise,

Elven brothers Ian (Tom Holland) and

from his plane exploding remains unclear.

it’s ﬁtting that Vin Diesel now

Barley (Chris Pratt) use a spell to bring

Theories range from possible (parachute!)

plays a man resurrected by

back their dead dad — the latest, after

to confusing (time travel!) to absurd

nanobots — who live their life

Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2, in the

(he’s powered by a magic fanny pack!).

a quarter millimetre at a time.

‘Chris Pratt Has Daddy Issues’ series.

WONDER WOMAN 1984

BLOODSHOT

WILDEN LIGHTFOOT ONWARD

Alamy, Getty Images

The latest cinematic craze? Characters who enjoy unlikely resurrections

PREVIEW

No./13 “I like doing things that I would watch and things that I wouldn’t” [THE Q&A]

British multi-hyphenate REBECCA HALL on her enigmatic new sci-fi show — and heading behind the camera for the first time And then you have your directorial debut, Passing [an adaptation of the 1929 Nella Larsen novel about racial passing, starring Tessa Thompson]. Where did that come from? I think that’s a little less arbitrary, if I’m being completely honest. I can be a little bit loose with things as an actor, given that the commitment is relatively small. But when it came to directing, it was very different. I’ve wanted to write and direct a movie for my whole career. I was just biding my time until I could. And now I’ve done it. Well, nearly done it anyway.

HALFWAY THROUGH OUR phone conversation with Rebecca Hall from her New York home, another voice joins the call. “Sorry, my twoyear-old’s just walked in,” Hall explains. “Go watch Fantasia, sweetpea!” That’s life under lockdown for you. But Hall seems to be rolling with the punches: while she edits her directorial debut from home, the actor-turned-ﬁlmmaker is appearing in Tales From The Loop, a mysterious and bewildering new sci-ﬁ TV series based on a book of narrative art by Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag. “I like things that are wilfully obtuse,” she says.

Where are you with that? Were you working on it when the lockdown started? I was in the middle of editing. About ten days away from picture-locking. It’s just a strange process. I’m still working with the editor, but we’re working remotely. I write her notes, she sends me a cut two hours later, and then I’m like, “No, actually three frames back!” Then we have to wait another two hours. It’s odd!

Getty Images

Were you familiar with the Tales From The Loop book? No. I had no idea about anything. I was emailed the script and it included a link to all the artwork. I found that very compelling — that a show had been devised from and inspired by some art. It deﬁnitely suggested that it was going to have a visual sensibility and a kind of authorship to it, which is, I think, important to me on some level. My interest was piqued by that. Then I read it and it was incredibly mysterious while staying grounded and accessible, and it’s also about... everything? [laughs] Do you learn more about the character with a TV season’s worth of time, compared to a movie? My character [Loretta, a scientist who works at ‘The Loop’] was always quite mysterious to me, to be honest. Her journey isn’t mapped out in a conventional way. You mostly piece it together like you would a puzzle. I ﬁnd it very intriguing, trying to convey an entire life, but subtly. The smaller beats add up to the larger beats. That’s

very much to my taste. I was deﬁnitely into it for that reason, but also challenged by it because there’s a certain amount of detective work for me as an actor to work out who the character was and how to best get across her emotional life in an understated way.

Top: The multi-talented Rebecca Hall. Above: Hall contends with a dark riddle in sci-ﬁ series Tales From The Loop.

After this, you’ve got something quite different: Godzilla Vs. Kong. You’ve done TV and film, indies and blockbusters — is there a space you prefer working in? No, not really. I think it boils down to the “How would I like to spend my time?” question. Is this going to be creatively fulfilling in some way whilst also being fun? And if it’s not going to be fun, then is it going to be creatively fulfilling enough to make up for the horror show that it might be to do? [laughs] I like doing things that I would watch and I like doing things that I wouldn’t necessarily watch but seem like they would be fun or different or challenging.

Did the process of shooting it live up to your expectations? I don’t know what my expectations were. I think I was terrified going into it. But I loved every second of it. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more creatively engaged with anything. I’ve always had a lot of creative interests. I’ve always taken projects because I’m interested in watching the director work, or I paint. I play music. I have always written stuff. Theatre background, etc, etc. And I just think that directing film is something that finally ties all of those interests together. JOHN NUGENT TALES FROM THE LOOP IS ON PRIME VIDEO NOW

MAY 2020

PREVIEW

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What we want in Creed 3’s corner Seconds out, round three…with wheels now turning on another Creed ﬁlm, we draw up our wishlist for the sequel ROCKY REFERENCES! In Creed II, the main face-off came between Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) and Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu), the son of Papa Creed’s in-the-ring killer, Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren). Seeing Drago go toe-to-toe with Rocky — this time both as trainers to the respective opponents — was an immense pleasure. It would be equally thrilling to see some other familiar faces from the Rocky franchise pop up in the latest sequel. In other words: where’s Mr T?

SOCIAL COMMENTARY! The best ﬁlms about boxing are about other things, too: especially masculinity, class and racial tension. Don’t forget that Adonis is the son

of the Muhammad Ali-esque Apollo. In Creed 3, it’d be great to see some awareness of the legacy of the boxing ﬁlm looking askance at the socio-cultural issues of the day.

BOXER CAMEOS! Back in the original Creed, Adonis comes to the UK to fight Tony Bellew, a real heavyweight fighter from Liverpool, and both films are chock-full of real fixtures from the international boxing world. This lends the series an element of realism and spark, featuring the showboating of genuine athletes and the star power that they bring to the screen. With Tyson Fury, Deontay Wilder, and Anthony Joshua all huge names in heavyweight boxing at the moment,

Michael B. Jordan in the ring in Creed II. Could we see him ﬁght Tyson Fury in part three?

it seems only right that at least one of them should make a cameo.

FEMALE FIGHTERS! Michael B. Jordan has been outspoken about the introduction of inclusion riders at his production company, and generally in making his sets as diverse as possible. In the case of boxing, there’s always a notable absence: women. With the recent upsurge in popularity of real-life women champions like Claressa Shields and Katie Taylor, why not have Adonis Creed’s ringside pals and gym partners be as gender-split as they are in real life? It could do wonders for the normalisation of female ﬁghters on our screens. CHRISTINA NEWLAND

15 WES’S

WATCH LIST The ﬁve ﬁlms Wes Anderson made the cast of The French Dispatch watch — and what we can learn from them

WORDS JOHN NUGENT

MAY 2020

QUAY OF THE GOLDSMITHS 1947

LE PLAISIR 1952

LES DIABOLIQUES

A lightly comic drama

1955

THE 400 BLOWS 1959

IT’S MY LIFE 1962

This crime drama set in

from German-born

Another from Clouzot,

François Truffaut’s

This Jean-Luc Godard New

the Parisian theatre world,

director Max Ophüls,

this time a suspenseful

French New Wave classic

Wave classic is very Wes,

from director Henri-

this shares the same

horror-thriller. Some

is a major inﬂuence on

with intertitles, ’60s cool,

Georges Clouzot and

three-story anthology

of this ﬁlm’s stark

Anderson, who has often

coffee bistros and record

boasting character names

format used by

impressionistic

cited it as one of his

shops. All undercut with

like ‘Jenny Lamour’, is an

Anderson in The French

photography can already

favourite ﬁlms, once

a bittersweet melancholy.

early hint at The French

Dispatch, adapting

be glimpsed in The French

claiming it was “one of the

Dispatch’s look and feel:

three short stories by

Dispatch’s trailer, in

reasons I started thinking

high drama, replete with

French author Guy

its black-and-white

I would like to try to

CURRENTLY SCHEDULED TO BE

fabulous vintage costumes.

de Maupassant.

ﬂashback sequences.

make movies”.

IN CINEMAS AT A LATER DATE

THE FRENCH DISPATCH IS

Alamy, Getty Images

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PREVIEW

No./17

No./16

Revealed: the most bizarre streaming service ever Quibi launched last month in the US — with a host of shows that sound utterly insane YOU KNOW THE I’m Alan Partridge scene where the hapless presenter pitches a string of bizarre ideas for TV series to a BBC executive? They might have stood a shot on Quibi — a mobile-only streaming service that has recently launched in the US. Providing “quick bites” of entertainment, Quibi has some top Hollywood talent working on ten-minute-orless-length content for the service — Sam Raimi, Ridley Scott and Steven Spielberg are all set to produce work. Dig beneath the blockbuster titles, however, and there’s a host of odd-sounding series that make Alan’s ‘Youth Hostelling With Chris Eubank’ seem like a perfectly reasonable bit of telly. Here are ﬁve shows that left us scratching our heads.

DISHMANTLED

ELBA VS BLOCK

TITUS FROM KIMMY SCHMIDT ASSAULTS PEOPLE WITH FOOD!

IDRIS ELBA PERFORMS CAR STUNTS, FOR SOME REASON!

Tituss Burgess blasts food out of a cannon into the faces of celebrity chefs, who then have to guess what the dish was and reconstruct it from scratch. Think Ready Steady Cook, but with more senseless violence.

Not content with starring in a Fast & Furious movie, Idris Elba now wants to live in one, it seems: this reality show sees him take on pro rally driver Ken Block in a string of petrolhead escapades, including something called ‘The Wall Of Death’.

DOG HOUSES THAT ARE NICER THAN YOURS!

KILLING ZAC EFRON

MEMORY HOLE

LITERALLY WHAT IT SAYS ON THE TIN (ALMOST)!

WILL ARNETT OFFENDS ALL OF CANADA!

Community star Joel McHale is among the guests on a show that’s basically Grand Designs for pooches, building luxury dog houses for lucky mutts based on their personalities. Expect lots of “good boys” and kennels swisher than anything on the Sydney property market.

A show that nearly lived up to its title: the actor was rushed to hospital late last year after contracting “a form of typhoid” while filming this Bear Grylls-like adventure/ survival series in Papua New Guinea. How about a follow-up called ‘Cutting Poor Zac Some Slack’?

Comedy series in which Arrested Development’s Will Arnett explores “topics most people forgot or never even knew existed, such as Canada”. The BoJack Horseman actor is also reportedly fronting a show about horoscopes. Classic Taurus behaviour. AL HORNER

Getty Images

BARKITECTURE

HOW A NAFF JACKET BECAME A MOVIE STAR Deerskin is one of the year’s most eccentric ﬁlms. The unique mind behind it explains how it came to be

WHEN QUENTIN DUPIEUX — the French DJ known as ‘Mr Oizo’-turned-film director — started writing his new movie, the pitch was simple. “It was supposed to be a stupid comedy about a fat guy buying small jackets,” he says. “That was it.” Anyone who sees Deerskin, his very funny and bizarre portrait of a man having a fashionable and violent mid-life crisis, will know that, in fact, it’s much more than that. In the film, Jean Dujardin plays divorcé Georges, whose life is upended when he buys a new jacket — a garish, fringed, mudbrown deerskin jacket, to be precise. His love for the garment turns into a dark obsession, to the extent that Georges decides every other jacket in the world must be destroyed — and the people wearing them, too. Dujardin (The Artist) is no stranger to comedy among French audiences — something Dupieux knew to capitalise on. “I had meetings with other actors, but Jean was the one who got it,” he explains. “It was amazing, because he basically was this character. Jean was so intuitive that he made it so easy. I’m not saying he intended to kill someone,” he clarifies, helpfully. “But he was the guy! He wasn’t playing it.” The strange obsessions of Deerskin, it seems, have stretched beyond just fashion choices. ELLA KEMP DEERSKIN IS CURRENTLY SCHEDULED TO BE IN CINEMAS LATER THIS YEAR

PREVIEW

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TheBeastie Boyscheck theirheads The ‘live documentary’ BEASTIE BOYS STORY tells the potted history of the legendary New York hip-hop crew. They pass the mic in a rare interview

IN 1994, SPIKE JONZE and the Beastie Boys made one of the best music videos of all time for their track Sabotage. Twenty-four years later, they teamed up again for a stage show, to promote Beastie Boys Book, which Jonze has now expanded into a doco about the trio’s 30-year career, from their rowdy New York adolescence to the death of founding member Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch in 2012. They ended as a band that day, but Beastie Boys Story is a typically eccentric and irreverent reminder of their wild ride. The surviving Boys — Michael ‘Mike D’ Diamond and Adam ‘Ad-Rock’ Horovitz — hopped on a Zoom call with Empire to explain how it came about, and where this fits in their somewhat chequered cinematic canon. So, how did the book lead to the film? Michael Diamond: We had to promote the book. Adam and I were like, “What are we gonna do? Put on blazers and pretend that we’re authors?” That would basically suck. So we started working with Spike on doing a version of the book for the stage. Adam and I were used to playing music on stage. We don’t have a band to hide behind in this format. We actually enjoyed doing it, so we refined it and Spike filmed that whole run. Adam Horovitz: We thought it was just going to be a document

MAY 2020

Above: Adam Horowitz and Michael Diamond on stage in Beastie Boys Story.

of the show but Spike and our editor Jeff Buchanan transformed it into a documentary. It became so much more. How come you have so much footage from the early days? Diamond: We were lucky. When we were making [1986 debut album] Licensed To Ill we had the very first Sony Hi8 video camera and that was a huge deal for us. You didn’t really need to know what the fuck you were doing.

PREVIEW

Was there anything too embarrassing to include? Horovitz: Well, if it was all the embarrassing stuff it would be, like, 30 hours. We wanted to address the weird shit that we did, the mistakes, all of it. We were lucky because we had a bunch of friends around who we could call and ask, “Wait, did this actually happen?”

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Was Spike one of those friends? Diamond: Yeah. When we were recording our [1992] album Check Your Head we had this studio called G-Son [in LA] that became our theatre of operations. All these other people would come through and hang out and Spike was one of those people. Has looking back helped you process the loss of Adam Yauch? Horovitz: As heavy as it is, and as hard and sad, it was really nice to have him with us, just through us talking about him. We miss him so much and it was nice to be able to tell stories about our friend. Diamond: Spike had this true love and camaraderie with Yauch, too. We could all delve into it together, knowing that he got it. We never had to explain that to him.

Clockwise from main: Beastie Boys (L-R: Adam ‘Ad-Rock’ Horovitz, Michael ‘Mike D’ Diamond and Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch) in 1993; Director Spike Jonze, with Mike D and MC, sampling wigs and moustaches for the Sabotage video in 1994; Ad-Rock and Mike D ch-ch-check it out on the stage of their ‘live

Adam, you acted in a few movies in the late 1980s… Diamond: Can we apply the word thespian to Adam, maybe? Horovitz: Was I one of the first rapper-slash-actors? Yes, if that’s what you’re getting at. Let’s talk about Lost Angels [1989 flop in which Horovitz plays a troubled youth]. We met Method Man from the Wu-Tang Clan years ago and he said, “Yo, I saw that movie you were in. Yo, that sucked.” Don’t we owe your album Paul’s Boutique to Lost Angels? Diamond: If Adam hadn’t been in LA, then he wouldn’t have been at this party where [legendary music producers] the Dust Brothers were playing, which led to us meeting and working with them. You should ask Method Man about this… Is this movie the last thing you’ll do as the Beastie Boys? Diamond: [Deadpan] No, we’re working on a scripted telenovelastyle soap opera. A General Hospital kind of thing. Horovitz: Mike and I are going to do Ultimate Fighting Challenge. Diamond: What about a Dancing With The Stars spin-off? Horovitz: We’re great dancers, both of us. DORIAN LYNSKEY

documentary’. BEASTIE BOYS STORY IS ON APPLE TV+ NOW

MAY 2020

PREVIEW

19 The multitudes of No./

Max von Sydow

Kim Newman programs a four-movie retrospective that reveals the many shades of the iconic Swedish actor, who died on March 8

[IN MEMORIAM]

FILM 1: SHAME (1968)

FILM 3: FLASH GORDON (1980)

Max von Sydow came to the cinema in the stock company of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman — in The Seventh Seal, their first collaboration, von Sydow is the raw-faced knight playing chess with Death. They made 11 films together in total; the best when teamed with co-star Liv Ullmann — Hour Of The Wolf, The Passion Of Anna and most notably Shame, in which he is a failed musician in a troubled marriage, struggling on a farm as war causes the breakdown of society. Filmed and released while the war in Vietnam raged, it reflected the real-life conflict through themes of shame and moral decline.

International movies often cast von Sydow as a villain — he had more than his fair share of Nazis (Escape To Victory), Soviets (The Kremlin Letter) and merciless hit men (Three Days Of The Condor), plus a cameo as Blofeld in Never Say Never Again. It’s to his credit that he never walked through or looked down on these roles — and, in Mike Hodges’ delirious comicstrip space opera, he invests world-destroying tyrant Ming The Merciless with every atom of his talent, delivering a turn as indelible as his weightiest art-ﬁlm performances.

FILM 2: THE EXORCIST (1973) When Hollywood needed a Christ for the all-star The Greatest Story Ever Told, von Sydow accepted the crown of thorns. This prepared him for more sainthood and martyrdom as Lankester Merrin in William Friedkin’s horror classic. The 43-year-old actor was made up to look much older — unusually, he did age the way make-up man Dick Smith imagined — and featured in the iconic man-of-God-outside-the-house-of-evil poster image. Without the make-up, he played the younger Merrin in the ill-fated Exorcist II.

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Having already played Jesus and Father Merrin, von Sydow proved he was a rare actor who could serve heaven and hell by delivering a memorable Devil in the Stephen King adaptation Needful Things. As antique shop owner Leland Gaunt, von Sydow extends temptations to the folk of King’s Castle Rock with charming wickedness. “Oh…you know, there are days I really hate this job,” he muses as the town burns. “This is not my best work, by a long shot. Oh, sure, a few murders and a couple of rather lovely explosions. I would hardly call it a rousing success, but what the hell? I’ll be back.”

Top to bottom: Max von Sydow as Ming in Flash Gordon (1980); As Leland Gaunt in Needful Things (1993); As Lankester Merrin in The Exorcist (1973); With Liv Ullmann in Shame (1968).

Getty Images

FILM 4: NEEDFUL THINGS (1993)

PREVIEW

CARTON

JIM STURGESS

Do you have a nickname? I guess Jim itself is some sort of nickname. I did a movie with David Thewlis, Sir Ben Kingsley and Sir Michael Caine [2014’s Stonehearst Asylum]. We tried to convince the entire crew and any new actor that came on that I insisted on being called ‘The Sturge’. It didn’t work. Nobody called me that. But we tried. Sir Ben, Sir Michael and The Sturge. When were you most starstruck? God, I get starstruck all the time. Probably one of the first times was when I went to one of those Hollywood parties in Los Angeles. I remember using the urinal, and Sean Penn coming up next to me and using the urinal next to mine. I couldn’t do the business until he finished and left the room. Starstruck and stage fright! That was a big moment for me. I’m a huge fan of his films. It’s that weird moment where you want to say something but you can’t because you’re in the toilet. What is the worst smell in the world? You know after you cut your toenails? I don’t know why, but I always have a little sniff. You know it’s going to be rank, but you just have a little go anyway. Just to make sure it might be better this time. And it never is. I just have to make sure that it hasn’t gotten any better. Yeah. My own toenail clippings. [laughs] How much is a carton of milk? In England, at my Tesco, it’s 50p, isn’t it? I guess if you ever buy some milk in Shoreditch or something, it’s probably £3.50. Do you have any scars? I do. All of them from skateboarding accidents. My legs are pretty shredded, to be honest. I have a pretty bad scar on my inner thigh from having a really bad skateboarding accident about eight years ago. I stopped skateboarding after that. I was too old to be rolling around on a skateboard anyway. Have you ever knowingly broken the law? Oh God, yeah. Many times. Yes. I’m not gonna go

ILLUSTRATION ARN0

into details! But certainly through most of my teenage years, there was a fair amount of lawbreaking going on. Who is the most famous person you could text right now? Maybe not the most famous but probably the most interesting famous person is Billy Bob Thornton. We text. Billy’s one of a kind, man. There’s not many like him out there. He’s like a cowboy to me — old-school Americana. They don’t build them like that anymore. And he’s one of the greatest storytellers I’ve ever come across. You could literally sit in a bar with Billy and just

COMINGSOON ONE THOUSAND PAPER CRANES (2020)

Sturgess and Evan Rachel Wood star in this basedon-fact tale of a survivor of the Hiroshima bomb.

THE OTHER ME (2020) In this surreal drama exec produced by David Lynch, Sturgess is an architect whose rare eye disease allows him to see people’s true motives.

THE LION’S SHARE (TBC) Currently in development is this thriller about Somali pirates, told from the Somali perspective. Sturgess and Djimon Hounsou star.

listen to him roll off story after story. He’s an amazing person. He’s become a good friend. So yeah, I would say Billy’s probably the coolest, most interesting celebrity on my phone. What scares you? Sharks. I have a major fear of sharks. And, weirdly, horror films. Which is bizarre because I work in the film industry and I’m quite aware of how a film is made...it shouldn’t really have an effect on me! I can watch horror films and I’m not even scared of them while I’m watching them. Then all my mates leave my house and I’m on my own. And then my brain just goes sideways. So I guess probably my own imagination is what scares me the most. Leave me on my own in a dark space for enough time and, yeah, I’ll be terrified. What one thing do you do better than anyone else? Waste time. Great time-waster. I can stare into space better than anyone I know and seemingly do nothing. I’m very good at just staring out of the window and watching the world go by. My wife’s always active but I can just sit. So, this lockdown — I’m in heaven. On a scale of one to ten, how hairy is your arse? [laughs] I have no idea. I’m a moderately hairy person. I’m gonna go with a...six? I don’t know. I’ve seen some hairy men in my time. So maybe I should lower it down. Five-and-a-half? I need to ask my wife. JOHN NUGENT HOME BEFORE DARK IS ON APPLE TV+ NOW

MAY 2020

[ EDITED BY IAN FREER]

+++++ EXCELLENT ++++ GOOD +++ OKAY ++ POOR + AWFUL

1 MAY— 31 MAY

B I G S C R E E N . S M A L L S C R E E N . YO U R R E V I E W S B I B L E S TA R T S H E R E

[FILM]

THE PLATFORM HHHH

OUT NOW (NETFLIX) CERT R / 94 MINS

DIRECTOR Galder

Gaztelu-Urrutia CAST Iván Massagué, Antonia San Juan, Zorion Eguileor PLOT Every

day, a platform covered in a sumptuous feast is presented to a prison tower with innumerable floors. The inmates of each floor must eat what they like, then leave the rest for the floors below. Greed and selfishness are rife, but one new inmate hopes that he can change that, one way or another.

AN ACCIDENTALLY PERFECT parable for current times, The Platform has an ingeniously simple premise: Goreng (Iván Massagué) wakes up in a concrete room. In the centre of the floor and ceiling are large, rectangular holes, through which he can see other identical rooms stretching above and below across innumerable storeys. Each room contains two people. Goreng’s only companion is Trimagasi (Zorion Eguileor), a smirkingly cruel old man who explains what’s happening here. Every day, a platform covered in food is presented to Floor 1. Once Floor 1’s inhabitants have eaten their fill, the platform is lowered to Floor 2. They eat their fill, and the platform is lowered again, and so on and so on, down who knows how many floors. Each floor can only eat what the floor above leaves. Goreng is on Floor 48. He is nowhere near the bottom. Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia’s film makes no attempts to hide its social metaphor in a broader story. The metaphor is the story. If every floor

ON SCREEN

Food for thought: Alexandra Masangkay’s Miharu amid the decimated dishes. Right, top to bottom: Zorion Eguileor as the cruel Trimagasi; Emilio Buale as inmate Baharat and Iván Massagué as central enigma Goreng.

chose only to eat what they need there would be food for everybody, but nobody does. The inhabitants are sent to a new floor each month, so they may be feasting one month, starving the next. They have short memories. Those who find themselves suddenly elevated start gorging themselves, making up for previous starvation. They loudly complain about “those bastards” who left them with nothing, while doing the same. The individual, it says, will never blame themselves for societal dysfunction. It’s always the fault of those above and below them, taking too much or expecting charity they would never give. It’s not a film to make you feel aglow with love for your fellow man. First-time director Gaztelu-Urrutia is making accusatory points about society, but he’s not finger-wagging. The Platform delivers its moral message with the mechanics of a lean thriller. It hurtles along, almost every shot bringing new information, both about the people

in the tower — a mix of prisoners and volunteers, signing up on the promise of a reward when (if?) they’re released — and how the tower functions. As with other movies restricted in large part to a single set — Cube is the most obvious comparator, but you could also mention Room — the restriction of the setting forces creativity, which Gaztelu-Urrutia has in abundance. He uses dramatic angles, lighting changes and judicious special effects to keep it visually surprising. There are shades of the lustful decadence of Peter Greenaway and the industrial fantasy of early Jean-Pierre Jeunet in his styling. Our ﬁrst shot is of a hoity-toighty kitchen meticulously preparing a feast, every dish a pristine artwork. When we see how the inmates treat that food, pouncing on it and ﬁsting it into their faces, with no pause to taste it, it’s enough to ruin your appetite for weeks. As we’re frequently reminded, the food platform descends every day. Those higher up are never

starving, yet eat like they are, because they can. Gaztelu-Urrutia finds very clever ways to give hints of his characters’ history, without really telling us much about them. Goreng is the one we find out most about but even his biography is sparse. We know little more than that he volunteered to come to the tower, for a completely absurd, trivial reason. But we get to know him by his actions. He is fundamentally good and maybe too trusting. When he sees a silent woman travelling down the tower on the platform, he believes the story that she’s looking for her child. He wants to help. His attempts propel the movie forward. A rule that each inmate can bring a single item into the tower gives us a shorthand on who each of these people are, even if we see them for just a second. Many bring weapons; Goreng, clearly an optimist, brings a book; a lonely woman brings her dog; one briefly seen fool brings, bafflingly, a surfboard. These items don’t reveal much, but they make this a tower filled with people with lives and thoughts. All this sounds like it might have an entirely nihilistic view on man, but there is hope here. As it charges toward its ending there is optimism that people will eventually try to help each other, even those they don’t know. Released at a time when the whole world is confusing and humanity’s empathy for each other is constantly tested, The Platform offers both a fantasy view on what can go wrong, but also a small, welcome reassurance that things can eventually turn around. OLLY RICHARDS

VERDICT

Released at any time, The Platform, packed with ideas and moments to be endlessly debated, would have all the makings of a cult classic. Released in 2020, it is an astonishingly apt metaphor for our times.

MAY 2020

ON SCREEN

She was sure there’d been more than that in the original.

[FILM]

LADYANDTHETRAMP HHH

OUT NOW (DISNEY+) CERT PG / 103 MINS

DIRECTOR Charlie

Bean Thompson (voice), Justin Theroux (voice), Kiersey Clemons, Thomas Mann, Sam Elliott (voice)

CAST Tessa

PLOT Pampered pooch Lady (Thompson) thinks she’s got it made, at least until her family grows by one. Replaced in her owners’ affections by the new baby, she accidentally ends up on the street in the company of crafty, scruffy Tramp (Theroux), and discovers there’s more to life than home comforts.

AS PART OF Disney’s swathe of animated-tolive-action adaptations, Lady And The Tramp was chosen to skip cinemas and instead ported straight to the company’s streaming service Disney+, to form part of the line-up of original ﬁlms and shows bolstering the hefty back catalogue — though we doubt people were rushing to sign up to the service desperate for another of the company’s conversion jobs. And

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on the evidence of the movie itself, it’s certainly a minor effort compared to the big-screen likes of The Jungle Book. Which is not to say it’s bad; this is a perfectly charming and warmly entertaining tale that takes the basic bones of the original narrative — perhaps itself a second-tier Disney classic compared to Pinocchio and Dumbo — and gnaws on them to create something that feels different enough. Gone — naturally — are the racially troubling Siamese cats (though there is still a pair of pesky pusses who sing), and without the near-limitless resources of animation, the story feels a little narrow. But the big moments are present (if not always as correct), including the iconic spaghetti scene, featuring bonus F. Murray Abraham as Tony (he’s a little skinnier than his cartoon equivalent). Tessa Thompson and Justin Theroux bring some canny canine chemistry to their characters, even if they’re slightly hampered by patches of odd-looking facial effects on the real-life dogs and the occasional times the script lets their natural comic ability down in the quality stakes. They’re backed up by a pack of recognisable character voices: Sam Elliott’s leathery tones just feel natural coming from a gruff, forgetful Bloodhound, while Ashley Jensen ﬁnds moments to shine in a more limited role as Jock, a chatty West Highland terrier who spends her time as an artist’s model for her eccentric owner. Talking of the supporting vocal cast, credit also to Janelle Monáe’s Lhasa Apso Peg, who belts the ﬁlm’s

trademark tune He’s A Tramp. As for the lesser-seen animals, kudos to Benedict Wong, who channels Liam Gallagher as Mancunian bulldog Bull. The humans are largely set dressing, there to help move the plot along when it’s required. But they’re at the very least adequate, with Adrian Martinez’s dog catcher, who treats Tramp like Jean Valjean to his Javert, a stand-out. It’s competently directed by Charlie Bean, who comes from an animation background (Tiny Toon Adventures, The Ren & Stimpy Show and The Lego Ninjago Movie). Much like the original, the story ambles in an amiable way, trotting on a traditional Disney path of mild peril and gentle laughs. The tone is a little bit all over the dial in places — especially when the threats ramp up towards the end — but at least there’s no attempt to go overtly dark and gritty. Which is understandable, since watching actual hounds in danger is more jarring than their cartoon counterparts. Yet this new offering is still better than belated and best-ignored sequel Lady And The Tramp II: Scamp’s Adventure. If anyone is considering a live-action take on that movie, step away from the camera. JAMES WHITE

VERDICT

This Tramp doesn’t really stamp a fresh personality on a story already told well. But it also doesn’t embarrass itself compared to the original and it has a shaggy charm of its own.

ON SCREEN

His Satanic Majesty: washed-up rock star Christian (Will Forte) is feeling devilish.

BURNING KISS HH

OUT NOW (APPLE TV+, FETCH, GOOGLE PLAY, YOUTUBE) CERT MA15+ / 81 MINS

Robbie Studsor CAST Liam Graham, Richard Mellick DIRECTOR

This ambitious local film aims to be many things – a crime noir, a perverse thriller, a quirky indie – but never quite succeeds. Six years after a hit-and-run incident killed his wife and left him a cripple, ex-policeman Edmond (Mellick) is confronted in his house by Max (Graham), who was behind the wheel of the deadly car. The young man seeks forgiveness but, instead, Edmond forces Max to be part of a sinister plan that will bring the former cop fame and redemption...unless it goes pear-shaped. Which it inevitably does. Filmed in Perth, Burning Kiss is lovely to look at, has nice visual effects...and there’s enough nudity to almost make you forget the pretentious dialogue and confusing plot. DAN LENNARD

[FILM]

EXTRAORDINARY HHHH

OUT NOW (NETFLIX) CERT MA15+ / 94 MINS

DIRECTORS Mike

Ahern, Enda Loughman CAST Maeve Higgins, Barry Ward, Will Forte PLOT Rural

Ireland. Sweet-hearted Rose (Higgins) is a paranormal investigator-turned-driving instructor who blames herself for the death of her dad. When local widower Martin (Ward) asks for help dealing with the abusive ghost of his deceased wife, she soon finds herself in the middle of a Satanic plot involving a washed-up American pop star (Forte).

CUCK HH

OUT NOW (DIGITAL) / CERT R / 115 MINS

Rob Lambert Zachary Ray Sherman, Sally Kirkland, Timothy V. Murphy DIRECTOR CAST

There are plenty of similarities between Joker and Cuck, which follows Ronnie (Zachary Ray Sherman, effective and committed), an angry, racist loner who cares for (and steals from) his sick mother. But while there’s something to be said for an unflinchingly honest depiction of an alt-righter’s ugly worldview, Rob Lambert’s debut fails to illuminate anything new about those who embrace hate. It doesn’t help that Ronnie is shown to be an overt bigot from the outset; this gives his slide into more explicit xenophobia and violence more than a hint of inevitability, while ensuring zero audience sympathy. Additionally, a strange mid-movie pivot involving Ronnie’s neighbour (Monique Parent) and her porn business feels clumsy and implausible. AW

THERE ARE MORE examples of exorcisms in horror-movie history than you can shake a projectile-vomiting infant at. Ex-wife-orcisms, on the other hand, are rarer in the horror canon. Extra Ordinary, a devilishly Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace-esque romcom courtesy of first-time writer-directors Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman, delights in exactly this kind of invention. The film centres on Rose (Maeve Higgins), a smalltown ghostbuster whose love-life is destined to remain as dead as the ghouls she converses with unless she can rid recent widower Martin (Barry Ward) of the poltergeisty presence of his late wife. We never see the dearly departed Bonnie, but she controls every element of Martin’s life — his shirt selection, his toaster settings, you name it. When Martin reaches out to Rose for help, the pair hit it off. Which cheers Rose, but sends Bonnie into a rage from beyond the grave. The duo’s budding romance is derailed by the discovery of a local singer-songwriter’s plan to sacrifice a virgin to a demon in exchange for a hit album. Which explains Ed Sheeran, sure, but pulls the film away from its finest material — the

phantasmal love triangle at Extra Ordinary’s core. The Last Man On Earth’s Will Forte is fun as the preening ’70s has-been whose tax problems (and utter lack of talent) have led to him exiling himself in a rural Irish town, where he’s struck a deal with dark forces: slaughter Martin’s daughter during the upcoming blood moon, and in return he’ll be granted fame and glory. Ahern and Loughman’s script is at its most impressive, however, when Martin, Rose and Bonnie are left to bicker and charm, in the movie’s less bombastic beats: a ridiculous driving lesson between Rose and Martin; a glimpse into Rose’s daily dinner plan (yoghurt followed by microwave lasagne, consumed in her pants while sat on a slowly deflating space hopper, in case you’re wondering). There’s humanity beneath the hilarity. Rose, played by the sensational Higgins, is haunted by regrets over the death of her father, himself an investigator into ghostly goings-on. Her loneliness gives the film a heartstringtugging emotional undercurrent: at times, she confides, she herself feels like a ghost — unseen, unattractive, unloved. Ahern and Loughman strike a formidable balance between laughs and lilting moments of emotion. Combining What We Do In The Shadows’ dry wit, the punchy direction and genre fun-poking of Shaun Of The Dead, plus a proton pack’s worth of Ghostbusters gags (“I haven’t read it,” says Rose when Martin references the ’80s classic), Extra Ordinary is spirited in every sense of the word. It’s a film in which there’s something strange in a neighbourhood, to borrow from the Ghostbusters theme song. That “neighbourhood” just happens to be middle-of-nowhere Ireland. What’s strange is how confident this is for a pair of first-time filmmakers. AL HORNER

VERDICT

The Conjuring by way of the Cornetto Trilogy, there’s little ordinary about Extra Ordinary — an unfalteringly funny, ectoplasm-drenched horror-comedy that deserves the cult status it’s destined for.

MAY 2020

ON SCREEN

Ah, the bliss of pre-coronavirus supermarket shelves.

[FILM]

WHOYOUTHINK IAM HHHH

OUT NOW (YOUTUBE, RENT OR BUY) CERT MA15+ / 102 MINS

DIRECTOR Safy

Nebbou CAST Juliette Binoche, Nicole Garcia, François Civil, Guillaume Gouix PLOT To cyber-stalk her younger ex (Gouix), middle-aged Claire (Binoche) creates a much younger online alter ego, Clara — who soon attracts the attention of her former lover’s roommate, Alex (Civil).

THE STORY OF a fifty-something divorced mother (Juliette Binoche) who lives another life online as a twenty-something, Who You Think I Am could take a number of approaches to its promising premise. It could be a comedy drama where a mature woman finds her true self through the prism of new-fangled social media. Or it could be a psychological thriller played out from the rarely observed point of view of the perp rather than the victim. To his credit, co-writerdirector Safy Nebbou manages to accommodate

MAY 2020

both tones in an elegantly made movie that only falters when it comes to wrapping things up. Its key asset is, of course, Binoche, owner of one of the most expressive faces in cinema history, who somehow makes you empathise with a catfish (or poisson-chat). Binoche plays Claire, a literature lecturer whose husband left her for a much younger woman and who is subsequently seeking affirmation in younger men. Yet, after being cruelly ghosted by Ludo (Guillaume Gouix), Claire gets both desperate and online. She creates a Facebook profile — Clara, 25, fashion intern — and begins to cyberstalk Ludo by friending his roommate, sensitive photographer type Alex (François Civil). The forging of the pair’s connection is the film’s most engaging stretch. Claire begins to find herself living out this new persona, dancing like no-one’s watching and letting loose with hot and heavy phone sex in a parked car. It also has fun with the generation gap — watching Binoche react with complete befuddlement when she is asked for her Insta deets is priceless. Alex, for his part, becomes increasingly desperate to meet Clara, with Claire becoming increasingly frantic trying to appear young (“Sometimes you talk like someone’s mum,” Alex tells her) and keep her double life separate — a moment where she drives in circles round a small car park talking to Alex while her kids wait to be picked up is hilarious. Yet the film has another string to its bow in a framing device where Claire is relating her story

to a new therapist, Dr Bormans (Nicole Garcia). It starts as a simple tool for exposition, allowing Claire to paint the picture of her passions, but soon takes on different turns, partly when Claire turns the tables on her shrink and starts quizzing her inquisitor, and partly because it sets up the possibility that Clare is an unreliable narrator, not exactly telling the truth about her life. Who You Think I Am circles ideas around the double-edged nature of social media, the importance of being desired as you get older and the double standards facing age differences between men and women. As the story moves on, Nebbou, and co-writer Julie Peyr, adapting the novel by Camille Laurens, take the tone into more serious dramatic territory. By the third act, the twists, turns and rug-pulls build up at such a dizzying rate that they undermine credibility. But Binoche keeps it all on track, perfectly toggling between the joy of a new love and the nerviness of maintaining a façade. Who You Think I Am is another stage in a golden era for Binoche, from Let The Sunshine In to High Life, Non-Fiction to The Truth. Long may it continue. IAN FREER

VERDICT

A fun take on love in the Insta age. Who You Think I Am (terrible title) thrives on the talents of Juliette Binoche, who makes the schlocky plot-turns feel true and the emotional beats heartfelt.

ON SCREEN

STARGIRL HH

OUT NOW (DISNEY+) / CERT PG / 107 MINS

Julia Hart Grace VanderWaal, Graham Verchere, Giancarlo Esposito DIRECTOR CAST

A teen movie for the younger Disney+ audience, Stargirl follows Leo (Graham Verchere), an unconfident high schooler who finds love in a quirky new student (former reality show star Grace VanderWaal). With her rainbow knitwear and ukulele, bohemian Stargirl brings out a new side in Leo, until her outsider attitudes lead her to be shunned, causing him doubts. Herein lies Stargirl’s central issue. At a time where well-observed movies like Eighth Grade and Love, Simon are empowering the misfit, Stargirl fails to keep up. VanderWaal fans may enjoy the musical numbers, but nothing else exists in the film that hasn’t been done better by Stargirl’s more progressive coming-of-age peers. BW

Secret lives, secret loves: Ema (Mariana Di Girolamo) and Gaston (Gael García Bernal).

[FILM]

EMA

HHHH

OUT TBA CERT TBC / 107 MINS

DIRECTOR Pablo

Larraín CAST Mariana Di Girolamo, Gael García Bernal PLOT Following

the short-lived adoption of a young boy which ended traumatically, Ema (Di Girolamo) and Gaston (Bernal) come to a crossroads in their relationship. She’s a dancer, he’s a choreographer, and through the movement in their professional lives, their personal ones begin to unravel.

TIMMY FAILURE: MISTAKES WERE MADE HHH

OUT NOW (DISNEY+) / CERT PG / 99 MINS

Tom McCarthy CAST Winslow Fegley, Ophelia Lovibond, Wallace Shawn, Craig Robinson DIRECTOR

Tom McCarthy follows 2015’s Spotlight with this Disney+ original, based on the series of Stephan Pastis novels. It’s a sweet, surreal dive into the life of an oddball 11-year-old (Winslow Fegley), wrapped in the trappings of classic film noir as Timmy runs his own ‘detective agency’ from his mum’s attic, with the aid of imaginary polar bear Total. That Timmy’s reality is clearly the result of past trauma is only lightly touched upon; the film instead choosing to embrace his quirky antics without peering too hard beneath the surface. The result is a frothy fantasy that, thanks to its ursine antics and a healthy dose of magical realism, makes up for in style what it lacks in substance. JD

THERE ARE DENSE, delicious layers of poetry and physical language to sink your teeth into in Pablo Larraín’s incendiary drama Ema (his first since Jackie), in which the limits of human desire are stretched and tested. The somewhat simple premise — a couple suffering through the aftermath of a loss — unravels with serious intensity, with gripping performances and a labyrinthian story that just keeps unfolding. As the eponymous dancer at the epicentre of a microcosm of destruction, Mariana Di Girolamo is a magnetic presence. The relative newcomer leads proceedings with a subtle command of both body language and her delivery of the sharp dialogue. Larraín frames early arguments between Ema and Gael García Bernal’s Gaston (he’s the choreographer of her dance troupe) as direct addresses to the viewer, each hurting party putting their pain on our shoulders when the other can no longer carry it. Bernal is as enigmatic as ever, even as he is needy and neurotic — this is one of the actor’s most comical roles to date. The story quickly spirals out of this one couple’s control, as notions of loyalty and ownership, of power and independence, become

fluid. The guilt and resentment over the couple’s loss sows the seeds of a dangerously seductive story, turning grown adults into beings childlike and impulsive. Other lovers and relatives enter Ema’s orbit, prioritising an atmospheric world of desire and feeling over any one linear narrative. Larraín weaves a story that looks at the sexual dynamics of secretly polyamorous people, tainted by the tension surrounding the couple after they abandon adopted son Polo to an orphanage following a horrific incident involving his aunt. The seductive mood is sharply crafted both sonically and visually. DJ and producer Nicolas Jaar spins a rousing electronic score that blurs synths and sirens, reggaeton beats and piercing vocals. Music courses through the film, underscoring the choreography but also accentuating moments of quiet — ones probably lived in silence, now incandescent for the viewer imagining what emotions could be running through these characters’ minds. DP Sergio Armstrong lenses the film in extreme colours, incorporating the pink and green lamps of nighttime streets, and some shots fully ablaze with orange due to pyromaniac outbreaks at night. It never veers into anything garish or unbelievable, though, Larraín operating in taut, powerful displays of restraint. If vibrant clothing is worn, the rest of the frame is muted. In one scene, a burning traffic light crackles against a dark sky. Piercing stares full of longing and lacking punctuate the film, a vividly human portrait that explores the limits of physical expression. Fear and pleasure, birth and disposal, freedom and responsibility — the obsessions of a relationship powered and chained by love are examined in dizzying detail in a masterful exploration of complicated emotions. ELLA KEMP

VERDICT

Following Jackie, Pablo Larraín offers another powerful examination of grief, capturing all of the confusing and fascinating layers of human relationships. Despite the heavy subject matter, it’s intoxicating.

MAY 2020

ON SCREEN

[FILM]

THE BANKER HHH

OUT NOW (APPLE TV+) CERT M / 120 MINS

DIRECTOR George

Nolfi CAST Samuel L. Jackson, Nicholas Hoult, Anthony Mackie, Nia Long PLOT In

1960s America, two African-American businessmen — Bernard Garrett (Mackie) and Joe Morris (Jackson) — see an opportunity to buy a bank in Garrett’s deeply racist Texan hometown. The catch: to succeed, they need to use a dimwitted white guy (Hoult) as their front. Complications soon arise, with potentially serious implications…

MAY 2020

ON PAPER, THE BANKER was a banker. As a film highlighting a little-known but very relevant true story about two Black men who used their smarts to outwit the American banking system, starring two bona-fide, Marvel-approved leading men, it seemed tailor-made to make a splash during Oscar season. And when Apple picked up the movie as their first big distribution deal, it seemed a guarantee of future success. Why, then, has it come to this? A recent theatrical release in the US that would have been a whisper even by pre-coronavirus standards, followed by a wide release on Apple TV+ that arrived with little fanfare? The answer, partially, seems to lie in off-screen allegations about misconduct on the part of one of Bernard Garrett’s family members. Sadly, though, the real truth is that The Banker, while decent and well-made and stirring in certain moments, just wasn’t good enough to make a dent in Oscar.

In a world where a film like the charming but problematic Green Book, which also explored the racial divide in 1960s America, can win the Best Picture Oscar, that would seem to be especially damning of The Banker. However, for all its faults, Green Book was an unashamed crowd-pleaser. Without giving anything away about a story that’s a matter of public record, The Banker isn’t looking for the easy win or the punch-the-air ending. It’s a more complex treatment of a more complicated story, and co-writer/director George Nolfi’s pronounced emphasis on the low-key, while admirable, doesn’t always result in dramatic fireworks. Instead, this is a movie that takes place almost entirely in long conversations about finicky finances, as Garrett (Anthony Mackie) and Joe Morris (Samuel L. Jackson), and their frontman Matt Steiner (Nicholas Hoult), discuss the best way to get a seat at the table in a system and society that, with the Civil Rights Movement

ON SCREEN

Clockwise from left: Joe Morris (Samuel L. Jackson) and Bernard Garrett (Anthony Mackie) take on the fat cats; Matt Steiner (Nicholas Hoult) joins up; Nia Long is Eunice Barrett.

yet to have a huge impact, wouldn’t even allow Black people to be part of the conversation. That, in itself, is not a bad thing, even if the dialogue rarely leaps off the page. But as the stakes get higher, and the screws begin to tighten on our heroes, Nolfi — who previously directed The Adjustment Bureau and the middling Bruce Lee biopic-of-sorts, Birth Of The Dragon — stages proceedings in such a drab, formal, perfunctory way that the audience is never truly clued up on how bad things might get for Garrett and Morris should their bold gambit start to fall apart. Even his excellent cast, perhaps straitjacketed by all the fiscal gobbledegook, struggle to get the point across. Which is a shame, as the central trio of Mackie, Jackson and Hoult are otherwise excellent. Hoult, as the face of the operation who starts to fancy himself as the brains, makes good use of his innate likeability to bring layers and depth to a role that could have been a fairly

two-dimensional backstabber. As Garrett, the genius-level mathematician who is the real brains of the operation, Mackie perhaps succeeds a little too well in subsuming his natural charisma and energy beneath tailored suits, glasses, and an air of grim determination, but manages to show us enough glimpses of his humanity to make us care. And then there’s Jackson, having as much fun as he’s had in ages as the swaggering Morris, something that can’t simply be put down to the film’s lengthy trip to golf courses (where Steiner is taught to play the game in quadruple-quick time). Joe Morris is the kind of old swinger who delights in upending expectations, pushing buttons and upsetting the apple cart. He’s an irascible, ever-cackling presence, and when it’s just him and Garrett bonding and growing and reacting to the oppression of Black people in very different ways, The Banker works. It’s also strong on the various indignities suffered by

Black people then (and, let’s face it, now), ranging from openly racist old ladies refusing to believe that a young Black man could ever own the building in which she lives, to the more insidious kind; that of monied, powerful white men, insulated and inured by their position and privilege, reacting to the rise of a new generation of competition with barely disguised hostility. Especially when that competition immediately starts using their newfound financial muscle to give loans to Black-owned businesses, and level a hideously lopsided playing field just that little bit more. Some of those scenes will make your blood boil. And, in the hands of a more assured director, the film would have built to a satisfying crescendo of righteous fury. As it is, the second half fizzles where it should have fizzed. Your interest rate may drop sharply. CHRIS HEWITT

VERDICT

A well-performed, in particular by an effervescent Jackson, and well-intentioned drama that never quite catches fire. And you can take that to the…well, you know.

MAY 2020

ON SCREEN

Vin Diesel’s Ray is on a desperate mission to ﬁnd Quick-Eze.

Top to bottom: Guy Pearce is Dr Emil Harting; Superadversary Jimmy (Sam Heughan); Eiza González’s scientist KT.

[FILM]

BLOODSHOT ++

OUT NOW (DIGITAL) CERT M / 109 MINS

DIRECTOR Dave

Wilson Diesel, Eiza González, Guy Pearce, Sam Heughan

CAST Vin

PLOT Killed after taking part in a hostage rescue, Marine Ray Garrison (Diesel) is brought back to life by scientist Emil Harting (Pearce). Yet he is not only back from the dead: he’s superenhanced and ready for revenge.

THERE SHOULD BE something tons of fun about a mash-up of RoboCop and Universal Soldier. Yet, based on a 1992 Valiant comic book creation, Bloodshot delivers an origin story about a military man brought back from the dead to become a super-soldier that rarely ﬁnds the spark or any potential richness in the conceit. Directed by VFX supervisor Dave Wilson, it has moments of visual ﬂair but feels hamstrung by dull writing and a leading man sleepwalking through the tech and the bullets. Diesel is Ray Garrison (he’s a one-man army,

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see), a Marine who, after a hostage rescue mission in Mombasa, enjoys some R’n’R with his wife Gina (Talulah Riley) on the Amalfi Coast (cue gold filters). Garrison is captured by evil Martin Axe (Toby Kebbell), who, in the film’s most memorable moment, does a Mr Blonde-style dance to Talking Heads’ Psycho Killer before executing Gina and shooting Garrison dead. Garrison wakes up in the lab of Rising Spirit Tech, regenerated by Dr Emil Harting (Guy Pearce, channelling Iron Man 3’s Aldrich Killian but never really making the character distinctive) through millions of miniaturised nano tech-bots called nanites replacing his blood (hence Bloodshot). The regeneration gives Garrison all sorts of superpowers — super-strength displayed by punching concrete pillars, interfacing with technology at rapid speed, the ability to selfheal — but not his memory. Yet with the help of Harting and his assistant KT (Eiza González), whose lungs have been upgraded so she can breathe underwater — cue portentous underwater ballet interlude — Ray begins to piece his old life together and escapes the facility to go after Axe. It’s at this point that Jeff Wadlow and Eric Heisserer’s script delivers the film’s one decent idea, that niftily reframes the story but also almost goes so far as to explain why it has been so poor up to this point. But the film never really capitalises on the clever conceit, falling back on action, techno-talk and a throbbing, bombastic score courtesy of Steve Jablonsky.

Save a Point Break-y foot and bike chase, the action has learned nothing from the John Wick-Chad Stahelski 87eleven aesthetic (ie letting action take place in long takes). Instead, a punch-up in a toilet, a showdown in a tunnel riddled with flour after a truck crash (allowing Diesel to walk moodily out of the dust), cinema’s only action sequence set in East Sussex, and a fight atop a lift feel like by-the-numbers set pieces, full of injections of slow motion and senseless cutting. Wilson’s VFX background delivers some benefits — after being shot in the face, Garrison’s visage rebuilds itself in an impressive effect — but little else lodges in the memory. Despite all the modern trappings, there is something distinctly ’90s about Bloodshot. It’s less a blockbuster, more belongs in Blockbuster. The film gets a speck of character colour from two computer geeks played by Siddharth Dhananjay and Lamorne Morris, but for the most part it’s a bland ensemble following Diesel’s lead. There’s something potentially moving in Garrison’s plight — a man who’s lost his past and can’t face his future; think Peter Weller in the aforementioned RoboCop — but Diesel gets nowhere near it. It’s a somnolent, inexpressive performance that makes Stallone’s turn in Escape Plan 3 feel like Daniel Day-Lewis. IAN FREER

VERDICT

Despite the odd strong moment, this Bloodshot is anaemic.

Jeff enjoying his Saturday job at Gap.

CHECKLIST Your at-a-glance view of this month’s reviews

[TV ]

THE WORLD ACCORDINGTO JEFFGOLDBLUM HHHH DIRECTORS Nic

OUT NOW (DISNEY+) EPISODES VIEWED 12 OF 12

Stacey, Karen McGann,

Simon Lloyd CAST Jeff Goldblum PLOT Goldblum

digs into the history and appeal of a variety of topics, including pools, jewellery, coffee and gaming, meeting people who are enthusiastic and channelling his own curiosity about the world around him. Along the way, he tries such varied practices as making his own ice-cream and eating grilled crickets.

WHEN YOU LOOK at the list of subjects that Jeff Goldblum is tackling in this first series of his eponymous documentary series for Disney+, you might wonder whether he came up with them simply by pointing at objects around his home. Sneakers! Ice-cream! Denim! But the series’ choices were made by show producer National Geographic, though he’s happy to wander around investigating what makes them either appealing, or fascinating — or both, in the case of something like coffee. Goldblum makes for a cheerful, daffy host, his real-life persona little different from many of his big-screen roles. This is pure, uncut JG: working without a script, he’s often given to drifting off into singing little ditties. But there’s a real joy in how he sincerely indulges the passions of those he meets and throws himself into, say, playing the part of a lord along with a group of live-action role-players, or wanders through a

lush Oregon forest on the hunt for unusual ice-cream ingredients, or uses virtual reality to grow into a tree. “I’m a curious cat, for sure,” he announces early on, backing up those credentials with a silken purr. At a swift 30 minutes, the mini-docos would never claim to offer deep-dives...this is strictly fluffy infotainment. Yet there’s something to be said for the natural ebullience of Goldblum as he gently interrogates his interviewees like an Afghan hound nuzzling their hand. And if you were to start a drinking game based around whether the host will end up hugging someone each episode, you would be buzzed early on. Naturally, there are references to Goldblum’s cinematic CV (Jurassic Park most frequently) and plenty of charm to be found in both his onscreen appearances and his bubbly narration. More factual information is delivered via vivid animation that indicates what the inside of Goldblum’s brain could look like — all buzzy, shifting graphics and side trips into off-topic jokes. Credit also for not ignoring discussion of more divisive topics, such as the brain-threatening warnings about caffeine or video games. If there’s a downside, it’s that this is the sort of quick-take show that feels a better fit for short YouTube videos, and not something Disney should be throwing resources towards (though the company has already ordered a second run, so clearly there’s an audience). And your appreciation for the show will entirely depend on your appetite for the presenter’s singular style; if he tends to itch your brain more than stimulate it, then this is one you should probably avoid. Goldblumaphiles, meanwhile, wallow, um, ah…away. JAMES WHITE

OUTNOW THE BANKER BLOODSHOT (ABOVE) BURNING KISS (BELOW) CUCK EXTRA ORDINARY LADY AND THE TRAMP THE PLATFORM STARGIRL TIMMY FAILURE: MISTAKES WERE MADE WHO YOU THINK I AM THE WORLD ACCORDING TO JEFF GOLDBLUM

HHH HH HH HH HHHH HHH HHHH HH HHH HHHH

P32 P34 P29 P29 P29 P28 P26 P31

P31 P30

HHHH

P35

HHHH

P31

UPCOMING EMA

VERDICT

Breezy and bright, this is the sort of diversion you’ll probably turn to after you’ve watched other things on the streaming service. Yet there’s real happiness — and some actual facts — to be gleaned.

FOR MORE REVIEWS, VISIT EMPIREONLINE.COM

MAY 2020

OUT NOW

$49.99

CELEBRATING 40 YEARS OF STATE OF ORIGIN PICK UP YOUR ANNIVERSARY COPY TODAY AVAILABLE WHERE ALL GOOD BOOKS ARE SOLD AND BAUERBOOKS.COM.AU

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(THIS ISYOUR MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING! DON’TSAYWE DIDN’TWARNYOU)

THIS MONTH: THE INVISIBLE MAN P38 ONWARD P42 MAY 2020

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UNPACKING EVERYSPOILER THATMATTERSTHIS MONTH

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SPOILER SPECIAL

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THIS MONTH’S SPOILER TEAM

↓ LEIGH WHANNELL Director, The Invisible Man

DAN SCANLAN Director, Onward

KORI RAE Producer, Onward

IAN FREER Contributing Editor, Empire

CHRIS HEWITT Associate Editor (ReView), Empire

JOHN NUGENT News Editor, Empire

BEN TRAVIS Online Staff Writer, Empire

MAY 2020

TheInvisibleMan CECILIA’S ESCAPE

Chris Hewitt: Now this is how you start in medias res. Not with a bang, but a whisper, the suspense ratcheting up to unbearable levels as Elisabeth Moss’s Cecilia makes her meticulously planned escape, in the middle of the night, from her abusive partner, Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). Soundtracked just by the crashing of nearby waves (and the occasional whirring of cameras to suggest the presence of one of Griffin’s fancy-dan invisible suits), this wordless sequence, tight with tension, tells us everything we need to know about Cecilia’s situation. And without even properly introducing us to Griffin, who is asleep the entire time, it renders us terrified of the threat he holds. Leigh Whannell: I wanted to keep the character of Adrian mysterious. One of my initial thoughts was that to make the Invisible Man scary, I had to make him unknowable — rather than make him a central character, make him a background player. I didn’t want to know much about him. The less you know, the scarier he is.

Top: Elisabeth Moss as Cecilia Kass in The Invisible Man. Above: The movie opens with Cecilia’s

John Nugent: Somehow, this opening scene is terrifying, despite the Invisible Man being fully

night-time escape.

visible. This is as tense and uncomfortable as any horror or thriller in recent memory, yet the bad guy spends most of the sequence sleeping quietly in his comfortable bed, drugged up to the nines by Cecilia’s sleeping-pill cocktail. It’s a masterclass in visual storytelling from Whannell and subtle use of body language from Moss, immediately conveying the possibility of immense danger beyond the apparently calm setting. There’s nothing supernatural about that threat and, at this point, nothing even invisible. It’s real, urgent and, as the encounter in the car shows, at absolute boiling point. Guaranteed sweaty palms from minute one.

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perspectives, and spending hours poring over the script with Elisabeth Moss. The result is something that feels horrifically true-to-life, and far more powerful than anything supernatural. And the invisibility premise is an inspired way of tackling gaslighting, the form of psychological warfare in which someone is forced to question their sanity. After all, what could be more sanity-doubting than a threat nobody else can see?

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John Nugent: As far as Friday night movies go, domestic violence is not a subject most filmmakers like to venture into. But horror has always been a useful way to process real-life wrongs, and domestic abuse is as prevalent as they come — one in four women will experience it in their lifetime. Whannell clearly did his homework beforehand, interviewing domestic violence counsellors and experts for their

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2 DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

at the hands of her partner, Adrian.

4 ADRIAN’S BROTHER

John Nugent: If Adrian Griffin is transparent, his brother Tom (Michael Dorman) is — figuratively speaking — kind of translucent. He’s a mystery, almost until the very end: a figure you can never quite trust, given his proximity to the bad guy, but one you suspect may be as much abused as abuser. Whannell has great fun playing with that ambiguity; the reveal in the hospital that he’s been conspiring with Adrian all along may not come as a huge surprise, but his appearance in the invisible suit certainly does. Yet there’s never the sense that he is, as Adrian claims, the true evil mastermind. He’s absolutely complicit in the crimes. But there may be a grain of truth, however manipulatively it’s delivered, in his claim to Cecilia that he’s a victim, too.

3 THE UPGRADE REFERENCE Adrian’s tech company is called Cobalt — the same company as that run by tech guru Eron Keen (played by Harrison Gilbertson, above), which produces the computer chip ‘Stem’ in Whannell’s previous sci-fi chiller, Upgrade. Is this a sneaky Upgrade prequel?! John Nugent:

Below right: Good guy or bad guy? Michael Dorman as Tom Griffin, Adrian’s younger brother, keeps us guessing.

5 THE FIGHT IN

Chris Hewitt: We only get to meet Tom, Adrian Griffin’s younger sibling, four times in the course of The Invisible Man, but each time the audience’s

relationship with him changes immeasurably. The first time, when he tells Cecilia and Emily about the particulars of Adrian’s will, Kiwi actor Tom Dorman is so obviously off-key that we suspect that something’s up. “The brother’s in on it!” we cry (internally, so as not to disturb fellow cinemagoers). The second time he’s a little more sympathetic, revealing to Cecilia that he, too, suffered mental torment at the hands of Adrian. Could he be telling the truth? This leaves us off-balance for the third occasion, when he visits Cecilia in the psychiatric hospital. Might he be a valiant saviour, here to rescue her from her plight? No, instead he reveals himself as his brother’s partner-in-crime, and is even more odious and sleazy than before. So by the time he shows up again, and Cecilia puts a bunch of bullets in his chest as he tries to kill James and Sydney, we’re glad to see the back of the little prick. And don’t call it murder. More � like ‘Invisible Manslaughter’.

THE KITCHEN

Ian Freer: There is something a little bit opening-of-Back-To-The-Future about the way Whannell has the confidence to patiently plant seeds in the knowledge they will flourish later. When Cecilia puts on a frying pan, walks out and returns to find the pan on fire, she thinks little of it. But this is just a tiny prelude to a brutal scene where the threat from Adrian becomes tangible, if not visible. Like a scene from a paranormal thriller, Cecilia is lifted up from the throat and chucked around her kitchen by an invisible entity. The scene was saved until the end of the schedule so Elisabeth Moss and the team had time to work out the complex choreography. The result is brutal and brilliant.

MAY 2020

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and mental abuse

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Right: Cecilia suffers physical

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6 THE ATTIC Chris Hewitt: The clue is in the title. The Invisible Man. Griffin is not a ghost, or a spectral presence, who can haunt Cecilia 24/7. He’s a man. One wearing an admittedly fancy suit, but a man nonetheless. Which means that he needs to take breaks to eat, to go to the loo (we’ll figure out the details of that in our heads, thank you very much), and to sleep. Which, in one of the film’s most chilling reveals, it turns out he’s been doing in the attic-space above the room where Cecilia is sleeping. In an incredibly tense sequence, Cecilia enters the attic and finds Griffin’s mobile phone, the knife he’ll later use to kill her sister and the portfolio he nicked from her ahead of her job interview. Interestingly, Whannell deleted a small scene in which Cecilia discovers that Griffin has drilled a hole in the floor, all the better to watch her sleep. A curious choice to delete, perhaps — the insidiousness of that voyeuristic act is perhaps the creepiest thing Griffin gets up to. And there’s a lot of stiff competition.

We’ll see that knife again in a later scene.

8 THE WONDER OF WHANNELL

Cecilia’s in deep trouble now. Below: Director Leigh Whannell and Moss

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on location.

DINNER WITH EMILY

Chris Hewitt: Every time I’ve seen this movie — and that includes twice with fellow film journalists; some of the most jaded, cynical hacks you could ever wish to meet — this scene, in which Cecilia’s reconciliation with her sister, Emily, is rudely interrupted when Griffin slits Emily’s throat, and thrusts the murder weapon into Cecilia’s hand, has elicited gasps of utter shock. And I’ve seen it three times. It’s one of the great filmic shocks of recent times, its impact enhanced by the way Whannell skilfully lulls us into a false sense of security. This is a public place, Cecilia is safe, the sisters are coming together to form a plan of attack. There’s even a bit with an overly obnoxious waiter just to further make us relax. Then, wham: flying knife, claret galore, screaming punters everywhere. Because how can you truly be safe from an invisible man?

MAY 2020

John Nugent: It all happens so fast that we are barely given time to process what’s just occurred. And Cecilia clearly does not immediately comprehend the scene before her, dumbstruck and frozen as chaos erupts in the restaurant. It’s a masterfully constructed sequence, with no hint or suggestion in the build-up that something terrible is about to happen — and then Cecilia’s life goes from bad to bloody awful quicker than you can say, “Surprise!” Leigh Whannell: The scene in the restaurant with Emily was one where I felt if I got it right, I would really rip the audience’s face off. One of the things I was thinking was, “How would you exploit invisibility if you were an evil, malignant sociopath?” I thought framing someone for a murder would be really easy if you were invisible.

Ian Freer: The Invisible Man represents an upgrade – pun intended — in Leigh Whannell’s mastery as a filmmaker, both in the mixture of new-fangled VFX and old-school horror filmmaking techniques. On the spectacle side, the movie deploys a stunning mixture of stuntwork and digital effects, seamlessly replacing Elisabeth Moss mid-shot as she is chucked around by Adrian. Yet it’s also built on a very traditional use of negative space — parts of the frame where nothing is happening. Oftentimes, Whannell slowly pans across an empty room while action continues out of frame, making you wonder what might be lurking in the shot. This is also heightened by the very un-horror-like aspect that the rooms and corridors are very brightly light — you can clearly see what is going on. And when the film is called The Invisible Man, these spaces become — to use Whannell’s word — “weaponised”. It’s a film that also pays careful attention to its soundtrack, clueing us into Adrian’s presence when we can’t see him — witness the disappearing knife we should hear hit the floor but makes no noise.

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Alamy

FINAL SHOWDOWN

Chris Hewitt: Just as Whannell started the movie quietly, he finishes it by subverting our expectations. When Cecilia arrives at Griffin’s house for dinner, we believe that she’s there to elicit a confession of his horrible deeds, so that friendly cop James can rush in and save the day. We suspect, and have steeled ourselves for, a final showdown between the two, perhaps with an invisible Adrian terrorising Cecilia once more before receiving his just desserts. Not so — instead, the just desserts arrive before they’ve even had their starter, as Cecilia, wearing an invisible suit she stashed earlier, slashes his throat. There’s much to unpack here: was this a spur-of-the-moment decision or something

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Not much of James Whale’s original studio classic transfers to this reboot. But there is a nice blink-and-you’llmiss-it nod to the 1933 character design when Cecilia sees a man with a heavily bandaged face in the hospital. The spirit of Claude Rains lives on! John Nugent:

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9 A UNIVERSAL ICON

Chris Hewitt: Coming on like the bastard child of Terminator 2 and Predator, Cecilia finally fights back against her unseen tormentor in this extended sequence where she breaks out of confinement from her psychiatric hospital prison, only for Griffin to go on a rampage against security guards who can’t see him. Mostly. Whannell’s use of Griffin’s now-malfunctioning suit, which blinks him into vision for just a second or two, ups the suspense ante considerably, and it also gives him a chance to show off some of the nifty camerawork that characterised Upgrade’s fight scenes. Interestingly, Griffin leaves most of the security guards alive. Not because he’s not such a bad guy after all, but because he’s aware that floating guns and black-clad blips will show up on CCTV. The jig is up.

Top: Chaos ensues at the psychiatric hospital. Above: Cecilia meets up with Adrian (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) one last time.

more premeditated? Cecilia’s sly smile as Adrian says, “Surprise” — a key word from earlier in the film — and confirms to her that he was behind her all-too-human haunting, would indicate the latter. It’s poetic justice for Emily, and best of all: Griffin never sees it coming. John Nugent: By the end of the film, surely nobody can begrudge Cecilia her bloody revenge. She’s had such a rough time of it, Murphy’s Law should be renamed Cecilia’s Law. There’s been consternation from some corners that by killing Adrian, Cecilia only stoops to his level, that she becomes the new bad guy. But that’s not how revenge works in genre flicks. This isn’t

social realism — we can be allowed a little bloodthirsty fantasy. And the final moments, with the invisible suit safely stashed away in her bag, sets up an intriguing future (either imagined or in an actual sequel) of ‘The Invisible Woman’, as a kind of unseen superhero, seeking bloody vengeance on domestic abusers everywhere. We’d pay to see that. Leigh Whannell: I wanted it to come full-circle. I wanted Cecilia to use his power against him. I love it when a movie folds in on itself. I opened the movie with Cecilia opening her eyes and the film finishes with her closing her eyes. I love symmetry. I think I’m mildly OCD.

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10 HOSPITAL ESCAPE

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SUBSCRIBE TO THE EMPIRE SPOILER SPECIAL FILM PODCAST, BY HEADING TO GLOW.FM/EMPIREFILM/

Onward

IAN LIGHTFOOT

Ian Freer: There aren’t many cinematic heroes called Ian to root for (Jurassic Park’s Dr Ian Malcolm, maybe?) so I was particularly delighted Onward’s protagonist shares my name. As the movie starts, elf Ian Lightfoot (Tom Holland, channelling Peter Parker) is a gawky, diffident kid, afraid to ask the other children to come to his birthday party and overwhelmed by his loud, brash brother, Barley (Chris Pratt). Ian’s father died before he was born (Barley knew him a little bit) and director Dan Scanlon (with co-writers Jason Headley and Keith Bunin) does an economic-buttelling job of sketching the absence in his life, while covertly suggesting the importance Barley plays without showing his hand. Ben Travis: One of Onward’s most touching scenes comes early on — a show-don’t-tell moment that explores the relationship Ian wishes he could have had with his deceased dad. As our young hero sits in his bedroom listening to a cassette featuring his father’s voice, he speaks back to it and constructs his own dialogue with

MAY 2020

the parent he never got to meet. As it turns out, this is where the story began for director Dan Scanlon, whose father passed away in his

early years. He got to hear his dad’s voice for the first time on tape, saying just two words: “hello” and “goodbye”.

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Ben Travis: All good fantasy stories need a faithful steed — and with the unicorns of Onward’s world having turned into rubbishchomping pests, we instead get Guinevere, Barley’s crusty old van named after the queen of Arthurian legend. Covered in geeky stickers, held together with duct tape and adorned with soaring Pegasus graffiti, it’s a complete externalisation of everything that makes Barley tick — his passion for magic, adventure and rock’n’roll made manifest. All of which makes Guinevere’s noble sacrifice later in the film surprisingly emotional — a fateful farewell that allows Ian and Barley to escape the approaching cops as they embark on the final stretch of their quest. (The vehicle’s tyre bursting as it makes its final charge, leading it to ‘gallop’ towards its heroic demise, is a genius visual touch.) We know just how much that van means to Barley, how much of himself he’s poured into it and the lengths he’s willing to go to in order to complete the quest. It’s not really Guinevere’s sacrifice — it’s Barley’s. And he’s rewarded come the final reel with the arrival of Guinevere 2, freshly

Left: Ian Lightfoot (voiced by Tom Holland) listens to his late father’s voice on cassette. Top: Ian and older sibling Barley (voiced by Chris Pratt) embark on their magical quest. Above: Barley’s trusty, groovy and mighty steed, Guinevere.

painted and ready to take him and his little brother on a lifetime of adventures to come. Dan Scanlon: Guinevere didn’t come ’til a little later in the process. We had the boys walking all the way on their journey because it’s a quest. We thought, “This is a modern fantasy world,

we should have a van because you can’t have a van in a traditional fantasy movie.” She joined the movie more for entertainment reasons but as it went on she got deeper. Barley has made many sacrifices for Ian but we’ve never really seen one — and we wanted to see a big one — so we � worked backwards and created an arc for her.

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3 THE HALF DAD Ian Freer: If the Academy Awards ever gave Oscars for ‘Best Trousers In A Supporting Role’, Onward would win hands down. The pair of brown keks that represents Ian and Barley’s father delivers a performance that mines both the comedy chops of Buster Keaton and the pathos of Charlie Chaplin as it gets thrown about a van or does a funny, touching dance with his sons. But the trousers also serve a poignant purpose, too, in that, with Ian and Barley’s dad being absent in their lives, any part or trace of him is even more significant. Kori Rae: We did start out thinking, “Maybe they go on the quest and at each juncture they get another piece of him.” So he would start with just shoes and they would have another encounter and we’d get a little more of him. But that seemed a bit episodic. We kind of landed on the pants, which is really just getting a part of him and

showing that even that was important. It wasn’t necessarily enough, but it kind of was for Ian. Dan Scanlon: One of the great things about making an original movie is that you don’t really know your tone yet. It’s like, anything goes. We had them in a boat, with dad’s legs off the back kicking like a speedboat. And you’re like, “Maybe this is that kind of movie.” The dancing came out of that. It’s a fun, visual thing to do. The reason we got excited is that the boys had put the dad on a pedestal their whole life; he’s precious, he’s sacred. But that’s not what parents are like when you are a kid; you make fun of them, you are embarrassed by them. So the idea that the boys would see him a little disgraced and realise, “Oh wow, he was a terrible dancer,” just seemed fun. It was like a chance to watch siblings at a wedding watching their dad dance. It’s such a bonding moment.

4 IN-JOKES

As ever with Pixar, Onward is chock-full of in-jokes and references, this time to fantasy and gaming lore. So keep a look out for barber’s Sir Snips A Lot, bakery Sword In The Stone and my personal favourite, a dessert parlour called Master Froyo. Ian Freer:

Left: The brothers bust some moves with their ‘half dad’. Below: Ian and Barley’s mother, Laurel (voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfus) joins the quest, along with Corey the manticore (voiced by Octavia

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Spencer).

5 MUM’S QUEST Ben Travis: The destiny of Laurel Lightfoot, mum of Ian and Barley, is laid out right from Onward’s opening — where she’s seen working out in front of her TV, the instructor chanting her mantra: “I am a mighty warrior.” And that’s what Laurel becomes in the final reel, wielding the Curse Crusher sword as her sons are threatened by manifested dark magic. Voiced by Julia LouisDreyfus, she’s one of the most refreshing characters in the film — when was the last time you got to see a middle-aged woman, pointy purple ears or not, get to be a sword-swinging action hero? As soon as she learns that her boys are in danger, there’s no worrying, no hesitation — just pure pragmatism, leaping into action, acquiring the services of the Manticore, and heading off on her own quest to keep her kids safe. That subversion of stereotypes is the Pixar touch in full effect.

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John Nugent: Anyone who’s taken part in a role-playing game such as Dungeons & Dragons will recognise the beats of Ian and Barley’s quest. It’s a perilous journey, across land and water, taking in colourful friends and foes, against the ticking clock of sundown. It also features no small amount of luck, a crucial component of any RPG: you could easily imagine an unfortunate ‘natural one’ roll of the D20 dice, which led to Barley being shrunk by Ian’s shapeshifting spell; or a ‘natural 20’ rolled on an acrobatics check when Guinevere successfully hits the rocks in just the right place. There are hints, too, of the game mechanics of D&D’s six attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma): Ian’s character sheet clearly has plenty of Constitution and Wisdom, but Barley outstrips him in terms of Strength and Charisma, their

and, in particular, a haven for the lonely or socially awkward. Ian and Barley’s quest, much like the best D&D sessions, is a chance for two brothers to spend some quality time together. Ben Travis: As soon as you hear the words “gelatinous cube”, you know you’re desperate to see it. Which makes it all the more joyous when, at the end of the second act, Onward pays off on those early mentions of a sentient slab of acidic ooze that dissolves all it comes into contact with. As Ian and Barley navigate their way through a booby-trap-laden tomb, in comes the Gelatinous Cube in all its glowing green glory. Any Dungeons

& Dragons fan worth their salt will have long known about the ‘GC’, as nobody is calling it. In fact, the inclusion of the Gelatinous Cube is one of the reasons that Wizards Of The Coast, the company behind D&D and card game Magic: The Gathering, are thanked in Onward’s end credits. Another D&D creature in the film is the Beholder — a floating ball covered in eyestalks, with a big razor-toothed smile — who has also been a mainstay of the game since the first edition. You’ll see it in the sequence at the Manticore’s Tavern, hovering around in the restaurant.

Here: Ian and (half of) his dad watch the sun set when it seems like all is lost. Above: Ian uses his growing magical abilities to continue the quest.

THE REUNION

Ben Travis: All film long, Ian Lightfoot has been on a quest to meet his dad. Which makes it all the more surprising when in the final reel, he doesn’t — instead allowing big brother Barley to get a few precious seconds with the father of whom he has a small number of precious, tragedy-tinged memories. It’s a beautiful denouement, the sort of left-turn pay-off that Pixar does best. And, of course, on reflection it’s the right choice — Ian having realised that he

always had a father figure in Barley, and seeing that his older sibling has more to gain in getting closure from his dad, having already formed some early memories of him. It’s all brilliantly executed — particularly the way the audience doesn’t get to hear what Barley says to his dad, the virtual camera lingering over Ian’s shoulder as he watches from afar. Pixar, you’ve done it again. Dan Scanlon: Meg LeFauve [co-writer of Inside Out] helped us find the story within the story. I was telling her how my brother was so supportive of me [when I was young]. He would

put pictures I’d drawn on his wall. When he was in college, he’d show a new girlfriend the movies I’d made as a kid. [Meg] started asking me what it’s like not knowing your father and how much did I miss him. I said, “To be honest, I don’t remember him, so why would I miss him?” And Meg said, “The reason you don’t miss your father is that your brother is your father.” And my heart exploded and I fell apart. So from the very beginning that was the point of the movie. And I hope other people — who don’t have my exact situation — can say, “There’s somebody in my life that went above and beyond.”

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6 THE GAUNTLET

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Someone brought up the manticore in a meeting and I said, “What in the world is a manticore?” It’s so many different respective aptitudes making up for their deficiencies. Beyond the obvious things jammed into one character (and frequently referenced) similarities, [part human/lion/porcupine/scorpion]. however, there’s another subtler but surely more powerful resemblance. Since I think it’s really funny its inception in the ’70s, D&D has been a and fun.” precious opportunity for sociability among friends Dan Scanlon:

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WH ER E DO YOU G O AF TER YOU ’V E CHAN GE D TH E WO R L D ? FOR

WONDER WOMAN 1984 DIRECTOR PATTY JENKINS AND

STAR GA L GA DOT, IT WAS CLEAR: BI GGE R , B O L DER , B R IG HTE R. WE H EAD ON SET TO M EET DIAN A 2 . 0

WORDS HELEN O’HARA

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NO-ONE WAS QUITE READY FOR WONDER WOMAN. 48

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Oh, everyone knew the 2017 film was coming, but nobody expected the scale of its success. It had been budgeted as, and written about, like just another superhero movie, a niceto-have while we got ready for the real business of Justice League. Despite the long history and popularity of the character, and the warm reaction to Gal Gadot’s first appearance in the role in Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice, when it finally arrived, the film still had the air of a sleeper hit. “We were underdogs,” Gadot tells Empire now. “It was the first time for all of us to shoot a tentpole movie by ourselves, and I don’t think anybody thought it was going to perform the way it performed.” That was to the tune of $800 million worldwide, bigger than Justice League and significantly better reviewed. Little girls turned up to screenings in costume; at Comic-Con, Gadot posed with them and cheered them on. Companies rushed out Wonder Woman slankets and

“Daughters Of Themyscira” bombers. It felt like a sea change in who gets to make an impact in the cinema, changing the game in the same way that Bridesmaids or Get Out did. Tweeter @megsauce summed it up: “NO WONDER WHITE MEN ARE SO OBSCENELY CONFIDENT ALL THE TIME. I SAW ONE WOMAN HERO MOVIE AND I’M READY TO FIGHT A THOUSAND DUDES BAREHANDED.” Just one catch: that success meant they’d be asked do it again, without the element of surprise. And just because Zeus is your dad, it doesn’t mean that lightning will strike twice. “I was very supported [on the first film], but there was fear because I was shifting the direction and the tone,” says director Patty Jenkins when Empire sits down with her in LA in January. “This time, people understood that it had worked and that she was great. But now I wanted to make something new.”

Left: Diana Prince, aka Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), rocking her ’80s-appropriate ‘Golden Eagle’ armour. Below: Behold, the dazzling pleasures of the cathode ray. Bottom: Director Patty Jenkins and Gadot check their progress on set.

This time, they were not underdogs. “Patty and myself, we came with so much more experience and know-how of what to expect,” says Gadot. “We knew what the process was like, what we needed to do, how things work.” So they went for it. Jenkins never even considered playing it safe. This time, she wanted to revel in her heroine’s power, to take her around the world, and to push every aspect of the film: bigger stunts, bigger stakes, bigger hair. Hair? Yes, because she also decided to hop forward in time by 66 years, picking up the adventures of Diana Prince/Wonder Woman in the much-changed world of 1984. It would require plenty of hairspray. “My ambition raised high enough to make it an even harder film to make,” admits Jenkins. “There was a story I wanted to tell. The best location to do that story was in the

’80s. And I really miss grand spectacle films [where] you’re seeing real people do incredible things, and you’re going to real locations and seeing incredible vistas. So I said, ‘Let’s try to make a massive, epic journey on screen.’” The process of taking that journey proved to be way tougher than expected, she says. Not because anything went wrong: the cast loved each other, Jenkins’ established department heads returned and the studio supported her location requests — even when she wanted to fly Amazons out to the Canaries for a blue-screen scene, just to get the right sunlight on their faces. But the scale of the challenge that Jenkins set herself was immense, and involved enormous stunt rigs in desert landscapes and closing down more of Washington DC’s Pennsylvania Avenue than during a presidential inauguration. Wonder Woman 1984 has taken the ‘more, more, more’ ethos of the ’80s to heart. Go big or go home.

enkins came up with the sequel concept while shooting the first movie. She told Gadot and Chris Pine, who plays love interest Steve Trevor, at once, explaining the planned ’80s setting and the themes she wanted to explore. Crucially, she had found a way to bring Steve back for the sequel, following the inconvenient case of death he picked up at the end of the last film. “She’s a fountain of ideas, constantly,” says Pine. “On this film she was talking about the Amazons and maybe a TV series she was gonna do about that. But she was working on the second one during the first.” Gadot loved the concept. “I was all on board,” she gleams. It promised an entirely different feel from last time, which had been set mostly in the mud of the Great War’s trenches and filmed over a miserably wet winter. This one would be coloured by neon rather than mustard gas, offering a poppier, more summery world to explore. “In the first movie, we got to see the birth of the character, but we didn’t have enough time to dig deep, deep, deep,” says Gadot. “This time, because we’re already familiar with her character and because we find her in a different place to where we left her, there’s a lot more to explore, and there’s a lot more for her to discover. And for me as an actress, I also wanted to dig deeper, to show her journey.” The story picks up in 1984, with Diana working at the Smithsonian museum in Washington DC and living in the Watergate complex. The DC setting means she’s positioned to keep tabs on the government of a superpower, and her apartment gives her a view in every direction. The Smithsonian job also allows her to look out for any dangerous, mystical items that might crop up. “It’s a world with other gods and other lores,” Jenkins reminds us. But Diana’s living near the world rather than fully engaged with it, doing superheroics but trying to avoid notice as she does so, foregoing close relationships because she’s wary of losing friends. “The first movie was a coming of age, it was Diana becoming Wonder Woman,” explains Gadot. “She was very naive and she didn’t understand the complexities of life. A fish out of water. In this movie, that’s not the case whatsoever. Diana has evolved. She’s much more mature and very wise. However, she’s very lonely. She lost all of her team members and she’s guarded. And then something crazy happens.” That “something crazy” is the return of Steve Trevor, through means that have not yet been revealed. Cue a role reversal from the first film: now Diana is a befuddled Steve’s guide through a strange, new world. “That was actually a bit hard for me,” admits Pine. “I haven’t played earnest in a long time because usually they want guys my age to play � the world-weary, furrowed-brow thing.

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It’s fun to play deeply stoned-curious, like you’re on a great mushroom trip. Therapist guided, of course. Undertaken at Johns Hopkins. Part of an important study.” Bringing Steve back from the dead is a risk: will it seem too implausible? Will the audience feel cheated of his sacrifice? Then again, not doing so is a risk, too: Pine was a huge part of the first film’s success in both Gadot and Jenkins’ estimation, and the love story worked. “Chris was an integral part of the movie, and of its success,” says Gadot. “And because he and I and Patty really enjoyed working together, we all wanted to have him back. And Patty and [co-writer] Geoff Johns found the best way that serves the narrative to bring Steve back.” For Jenkins, he was necessary to Diana’s arc. “She has her own journey in this movie,” says Jenkins. “It’s not just a flatline hero [story]. During the course of the film she comes to life within the era that she’s living in, and everything that’s going on with it, for better or for worse. He ends up bringing her to this world really, and planting her feet on the ground where she is.” But if Batman v Superman is canon, Steve won’t be around forever — and within the story itself, his appearance could be linked to trouble brewing elsewhere.

rouble this time will come not from some Greek god or anthromorphic personification of war; now Jenkins is sinking her teeth into two of Wonder Woman’s most iconic comic-book foes. Initially for her villain, Jenkins thought of Cheetah, the snarling were-cat whose claws and bottomless jealousy provide a serious

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threat to Diana. But she liked the Barbara Ann Minerva version of that character, who starts as Diana’s friend and then goes spectacularly off the rails. That meant that she needed another force to introduce this “outside element of corruption” and spark that transformation, which is where Pedro Pascal’s Maxwell ‘Max’ Lord comes in. He’s a self-promoting businessman who promises your heart’s desire, and “all you have to do is want it”. This is the character who Jenkins says is “completely invested” in the ’80s business ethos that greed is good and more is always better than enough. Pascal had worked with Jenkins before on a TV pilot called Exposed, and when the call came for Wonder Woman 1984, he was ready. “There wasn’t anything she could tell me that was going to make me not want to do it,” he says. “It could be like, ‘He’s naked and wet the whole movie,’ and I still would have done it.” His first day on set was spent filming Lord’s infomercials, an almost shot-for-shot recreation of real ’80s ads that instantly immersed him in the character’s absurd materialism, with Jenkins shooting whatever Max would consider impressive. “Girls!” Jenkins laughs. “Playing cards, on a boat! That equals success [for him]. Five girls in bikinis on a boat.” But if Lord is ridiculous, he also unleashes dangerous forces. One of his targets is Barbara, another Smithsonian scientist. “I like that the evil comes from within our own storyline,” explains Jenkins. “What makes Barbara turn into Cheetah is feeling like she’s never been as good as someone like Diana. She reminds me of certain people I’ve known who have such low self-confidence that they’re always holding

Above: Pedro Pascal as the venal Maxwell Lord.

themselves back. Then once they start to embrace change, out comes this ugly resentment built up over all those years.” To chart that evolution to Cheetah, Jenkins turned to Kristen Wiig. “Having Kristen portray this character was the best idea because she has so many different faces to her,” says Gadot. “She can be insecure and vulnerable, and then funny and charming, and then she can go really dark.” Indeed, under Lord’s gaze, Barbara seems to blossom. “In the very beginning, Barbara’s [prone to] nervous laughs and she’s a little hunched over and insecure,” says Wiig. “She’s not really with it but she desperately wants to be.” At first, it looks like positive evolution as she becomes more self-confident and daring. But then she takes more extreme measures and risks much more as she slowly transforms into Cheetah. Diana’s attempts to warn her friend about the dangers of her new life only sound like more of the condescension Barbara has always resented, fuelling her fury.

Above: Kristen Wiig’s Barbara — a Cheetah in sheep’s clothing. Or maybe zebra’s. Left: Wonder Woman checks for loose change.

“It’s like she becomes a different person,” says Wiig. “I had to constantly be reminded, ‘Shoulders back! You’re Cheetah!’” Barbara adopts first a harder-edged, leather-clad look before her final transformation, in a process that’s as heartbreaking for Diana as it is threatening. “It really is like a falling apart of a friendship, with this real misunderstanding at its core,” says Jenkins. Cheetah’s final form remains to be seen, though there are tantalising tidbits. We’ve seen Wonder Woman’s ‘Golden Eagle’ armour, the winged suit she has worn in the comics in moments of great peril or full-on war. She once wore it to wrestle Cheetah into a moment of emotional connection, which would certainly fit Jenkins’ conception of Diana’s character. But it’s also possible that Diana needs it against conventional weapons: this Wonder Woman is not entirely bullet-proof. It’s not � always easy being a goddess.

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or Diana’s fighting style, Jenkins felt she needed to find something bigger and better than the first film, especially as her heroine faces off against such a fast and ferocious feline opponent. “Men fight like men,” says Gadot. “We were mindful of that. I don’t want to be trying to look like a man. We need to fight like women.” There were some things, like headbutting or punching, that, says Jenkins, “instinctively and inherently felt wrong” for Diana, who fights, as a rule, to protect and not to kill. The stunt team figured out a style that worked for the Amazons: they would show no delight, no attempts at domination, just a professional determination to finish the fight. But Jenkins wasn’t sure how to take it further until, one night, she and Gadot took their children to see a Cirque du Soleil show, and something clicked. “It was beautiful,” says Gadot. “And then Patty said, ‘This should be the inspiration for the fight sequences.’ I looked at her like, ‘How do I do that?!’ She said, ‘Don’t worry, you never know how you do it until you do it.’” Jenkins was confident. “I was sitting there and I thought, ‘That’s it,’” she says. “If they have incredible skills and can be airborne in their big jumps, what an incredible way to do it.” So Cirque du Soleil were hired to design the fighting. “For months we worked on crazy wire rigs to figure out how to make it work,” says Gadot. “It’s so original, so fresh and powerful, but yet so graceful and sexy. We pushed it to the next level.” Empire gets a glimpse of the results of that in summer 2018, when we visit the set at Leavesden Studios, loitering near a gang of off-duty Amazons. They’re here for a flashback to Diana’s childhood in Themyscira, and a scene where she competes in a sort of Amazon Olympics against adult warriors, determined to prove her toughness. On a high platform above, camera operators and stunt team members surround more Amazons as they stretch or crouch, ready to throw themselves off and sprint, on wire rigs, across a series of high poles: think Gladiators without the padding. This is Jenkins’ Cirque du Soleil dream, writ large: a bigger, bolder, more beautiful fighting style befitting its film. Lilly Aspell, returning once more as young Diana, watches the Amazons with an expert eye after doing the same run already. “The team say that I’ve been doing more stunts than a lot of stuntwomen have done,” she says. Aspell had a hard time from mean girls at her school after the first film came out, jealous of her success. Her mum prompts, “But what do we kill them with? Kindness.” “Punches,” suggests the young Diana simultaneously, with a grin. Going back to Themyscira was not originally in Jenkins’ plan, but she realised that she needed to show Diana’s home to

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establish the contrast with her detached, lonely existence: “It made sense to start again with where she comes from, to have the juxtaposition to who she is in our world.” In their tawny, mock-leather sportswear, the Amazons look not unlike a pride of lions; there’s the same suggestion that they’re chilling out right this second, but could leap up and kill you if they had to. Later that evening, Empire heads back into London, where glitzy venue One Marylebone has been transformed into a processing centre for hundreds of 1980s

partygoers. In its own way, it’s just as grand as Themyscira. Men are having bouffant toupées and fake moustaches applied, while the women’s hair is curled, teased and piled up to cascade over a shoulder or puff. Some of the make-up team worked for the BBC in the ’80s and are recreating those glory days of blue eyeshadow and fuschia lips. A disorientating fug of hairspray extends down the stairs and out into the street; everywhere you look, someone is backcombing something. We’re definitely in 1984. Excess abounds.

TOTALLY RADICAL THE WONDER WOMAN TEAM PICK ONE THING THEY LOVE FROM THE ’80s

Far left: She would not be missing that bus. Here: Diana is, somehow, reunited with true love Steve Trevor (Chris Pine).

The crowds then make their way around the corner to the Royal College Of Physicians, transformed into the venue of a posh Smithsonian fund-raiser thanks to iridescent screens and gold lighting. Diana has to make her way through the crowd searching for Max Lord, with men leering at her in her white gown (a look balanced exactly halfway between Dynasty and Olympus) as she goes. “Tell those guys to be much cockier,” says Jenkins after one take, as Gadot sips cold brew through a straw (“Rum and Coke,” claims her assistant. “Don’t expose me!” laughs Gadot). They run the scene again; this time, the come-ons are even more comically awful, but Diana remains ﬁxed on her target. Until, that is, she sees someone who reminds her of Steve Trevor and everything else — Max, Barbara, the past 66 years — goes straight out of her head.

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xcess is not just decoration in Wonder Woman 1984. It’s no coincidence that that Smithsonian gala is titled ‘The Dark Side Of Desire’. All of it comes back to a question about whether greed really is good, after all. The 1980s setting, then, is not just an excuse for a killer Blue Monday remix, a lot of neon or even, Pine says, “nostalgia for the sake of nostalgia”. For Jenkins it was more about identifying the evils of our own time in that earlier era. Max’s promises make him like a precursor to the Instagram star, selling the glorious but empty image of a perfect life

that’s all about fame and fortune. “That’s the American dream that the ’80s gave birth to,” she says. “I really thought about that a lot when I was doing Max Lord’s thing. It’s like, you deserve to have it all.” But it’s also about getting back to the big, ambitious physical filmmaking of the ’80s, globetrotting like a James Bond and pushing the stunt envelope like an Indiana Jones. Jenkins pushed to make this a “global experience” — and to make sure that Wonder Woman is not just an American heroine but a worldwide one. And if that means pushing for bigger stunts or another far-flung location, so be it. “I used to call her ‘the Japanese sword’,” smiles Gadot, beaming about her collaboration with Jenkins, and the film they’ve made. “She knew exactly what she needs to do and how to get it in the nicest and most effective way.” So can Wonder Woman 1984 hit the jackpot again? The team certainly can’t be accused of tonal repetition. With a backdrop of modernist art and architecture and hit pop music, there’s a DayGlo feel to this that should balance the story’s heavier and maybe even more tragic elements. A blend that could — if Jenkins has hit her mark —recapture the feel of those ’80s Amblin movies in their mix of action, adventure and emotion. Maybe lightning can strike twice. Or, at the very least, Diana can lasso it and hitch a ride. WONDER WOMAN 1984 IS CURRENTLY SCHEDULED TO BE IN CINEMAS FROM 13 AUGUST

GAL GGADOT “Madonna. I was w born in the ’80s. So I was listening to her in the ’90s — and in the 2000s, 2010s — but Madonna became the icon she is back in the ’80s. It’s funny because some people have actually mentioned that Kristen has looks in this film that remind them of Madonna.”

PATTY JENKINS “I would say roller-skating, just because roller-skating was what I did all the time in the ’80s. It might just be my age, because I was a teenager — we went out to roller-skating rinks. And it was a great ’80s experience, but it might be an American version of it.”

CHRIS PINE “A dictionary. I think it was a dictionary. It was orange. It had, like, a handle to it. A Speak & Spell? Is that what it’s called? And I would have said Nintendo, and then I thought about this Transformers thing that I had.”

PEDRO PASCAL “I was obsessed with movies. It was all my father’s fault, because he would take us to the movies several times a week. And even though I developed a very sophisticated palate for film, I have to say my favourite movie when I was a kid was Poltergeist, which is very disturbing, but it’s also really a beautiful family film. You know, or a movie about a family.”

KRISTEN WIIG “Probably a Rubik’s Cube. I think the most I ever got was three sides. One, two, three. Yep, halfway. [As if writing this article] ‘It took Kristen a minute to count that high.’”

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A F T E R Y E A R S B E H I N D T H E G L A S S, WA I T I N G TO B E S U M M ON E D, CANDYM AN I S BAC K , R ETO O L E D FO R M O R E T ROU B L I N G T I M E S. PRODUCER JORDAN PEELE AND COMPANY TELL US WHY THEY R E S U R R E CT E D T H E H O O K E D, B E E - S PAW N I N G B O O G E Y M A N WORDS CHRIS HEWITT

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YAHYA ABDUL-MAT II has a Candyman problem. s , he doesn’t like to say the word “Candyman”. Not once, let alone five times. “No, no, no, no, no,” he tells Empire. “You know, it’s interesting. I just realised I haven’t said that name in a very long time. Even talking about the movie, I haven’t really spoken the word ‘Candyman’. And now? It makes me a little bit uncomfortable just to say the word.” Which is understandable. Because, according to the rules laid down in Bernard Rose’s 1992 movie of the same name, this is how you summon the Candyman — a vengeful spirit with a hook for a hand, a thing for bees and the kind of voice that sounds like the Honey Monster gargling with bleach — from his spectral realm into ours. Stand in front of a mirror, say “Candyman” five times, and he’ll suddenly appear behind you. And let’s just say his idea of hooking up in a bathroom is different from yours. It’s the stuff of urban legend; a spook story passed around to deter the nervous and tempt the devil-may-care into seeing if it’s true. It’s a diabolical dare that started in the film but, over time, it’s become something of an urban legend in its own right. “It was one of those things I grew up knowing about,” says Abdul-Mateen. “He was a mythical figure in my household. I knew there was a movie, but Candyman was always real. It took on a life of

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its own. It was one of those things, like the Bloody Mary game, that you didn’t play with. You didn’t play with Candyman.” And right there you have the nub of Abdul-Mateen’s problem. Because as the star of a certain movie, Abdul-Mateen found he had to say that word not just once. Not just ﬁve times standing in front of a mirror. But a whole bunch of times. Because the Candyman has returned, 21 years after 1999’s risible threequel Candyman: Day Of The Dead, and is eager to get his hook into a whole bunch of new victims. And for this, we can thank its co-writer and producer. You might know him best as the new Master Of Horror.

JORDAN PEELE DOES not have a Candyman problem — either with the character, the movie, or saying his name. “I don’t think I would have fucked with that,” he laughs. “If I did, I somehow blacked it out.” Unlike Abdul-Mateen, Peele was in his teens when Candyman came out, not quite old enough to legally see it, but he did, and it embedded itself in his head. “I think the reason I love the original Candyman is, for better or worse, it broke us out of a box,” he says. “A Black monster was pretty revolutionary. If there was no Candyman, I don’t know that there would be a Get Out.”

Top: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and director Nia DaCosta have a serious confab between takes. Above: Abdul-Mateen as artist Anthony McCoy.

In 1992, horror movies were the domain of white people. Yes, George A. Romero went out of his way to cast Black leading men in his Dead trilogy, but by and large, horror movies were made by white people, about white people, for white people. Even the monsters doing all the terrorising, from Jason Voorhees to Michael Myers, were a sea of white faces. Then Rose took Clive Barker’s short story, The Forbidden, about a young woman who has a runin with a seductive monster on an estate in Liverpool, and transplanted it to CabriniGreen, a dilapidated housing project in Chicago. In doing so, he explicitly made the Candyman, whose race is never stated in the short story, into a Black man, one with a tragic and racially charged origin story.

Daniel Robitaille [played by Tony Todd in the original Candyman ﬁlms] was a 19th century artist, the son of a slave who had become something of a cause célèbre in society. But when he had an affair with a white woman, Robitaille was hunted down by a lynch mob, who cut off his hand, covered him in bees, and burned him alive for good measure. Restless and thirsting for revenge, Robitaille’s spirit became the Candyman, shedding the blood of any innocents foolish enough to dare invoke his name. It’s a complex character and, though Peele has long been a Candyfan, that’s something he has often struggled with, not least because he is such a cold-blooded killer. “How do I tell a story with a Black villain in a world that

has exhausted the villainisation of Black people?” he asks. “And yet, this is a piece of representation I crave as a horror fan. And in the past, when we were made monster, it was a monster without empathy. For this monster, Tony Todd built a character that was a force, and had a charisma, and gave me a sense of power as opposed to a feeling of otherness.” Peele had been thinking about making a Candyman film before Get Out broke out. His newfound clout from that film’s immense, Oscar-winning

Top: Billy (Rodney L. Jones III) really shouldn’t listen at doorways. Above: Maybe he saw this challenging painting.

success gave him the leverage to pitch it to MGM and Universal, and get them on board, but he also sought the blessing of Rose and Barker, taking a meeting at the British author’s LA home in the process. “Wonderful and mysterious” is how Peele describes Barker, which sounds just about right. Peele reveres the original movie. “I can’t believe I’m part of a Candyman movie,” he says, almost giddily. But his involvement with this signals a major shift for the franchise. As well-intentioned as Rose

was with the original movie, it remains an American story told by a white Brit, and a story of a Black community seen almost exclusively through the eyes of a white protagonist, Virginia Madsen’s haunted Helen. With his Candyman, Peele saw a chance to tell the tale from a perspective often missing in horror. “I think the story deserves another look, because there’s a lot we’ve learned since the original came out,” says the producer. “It’s very tricky to bring the Black experience into horror in new ways. There’s a piece of the puzzle here, that is to view this spectacle from the other side of the mirror. That is, the Black perspective.” To make it happen, though, he would need new blood.

NIA DACOSTA DOES not have a Candyman problem either, mainly because she remains vigilant at all times. “I remember being dared to say his name

at middle school,” she laughs. “And when I was watching the audition tapes for the girls in the bathroom scene, I would always stop the video before they said the fifth one. I’m literally making the movie, so I know it’s all fake. I know I’m not at risk. But you never know…” DaCosta, one of a fastbreaking wave of young AfricanAmerican filmmakers, only had a couple of projects on her CV before Candyman. Neither of them — not a couple of episodes of Netflix’s British drama Top Boy, or her 2018 modern Western Little Woods — are even remotely connected to horror. But when the call came out for filmmakers to pitch their take on Candyman to Peele, she knew what to do. “I read the first draft and thought, ‘How do I push this further?’” she says. “I love body horror, and that was a big thing we talked about. ‘This would be cool if we did more of this!’” Peele, who was so impressed � by DaCosta that she was not

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only brought ht on to direct but also co-write the script he had begun with Win Rosenfeld, admits that directing Candyman was never on the agenda for him. “I was working on Us when this would have happened,” he says. “But quite honestly, Nia is better to shoot this than I am. I’m way too obsessed with the original tales in my head. I probably wouldn’t be any good. But Nia has a steady manner about her which you don’t see a lot in the horror space. She’s refined, elegant, every shot is beautiful. It’s a beautiful, beautiful movie. I’m so glad I didn’t mess it up.” On this Candyman, many of the crew are Black. The cast is also predominantly Black. The director is a Black woman. This is hugely significant, not least for those cast and crew members. “There is definitely a sense of taking ownership, and telling a Black story about Black people,” says DaCosta. “It was very important for all of us to have our main character be Black, and for this experience to be through the Black lens. Let’s make sure we change the lens now.” In terms of changing the lens, this Candyman deals with a world that has changed vastly since the events of the first movie. There’s plenty of socially conscious material for DaCosta and Peele, whose horror movies as a director have had a thing or two on their mind, to delve into. “You’re going to find an element of my type of social analysis in there,” admits Peele. Cabrini-Green, which was basically held together by glue in 1992, is now an upwardly mobile neighbourhood. Gentrification is pushing out its former, mostly Black and poor, residents into other areas. “When you set out to write a Candyman film, and you want to set it in Cabrini, and you go back to Cabrini and it’s not there, you have to talk about why that’s happened,” says DaCosta. “But it’s not just about gentrification. It’s really about stories, and how powerful they are, and stories that, if you take them seriously, it will hopefully help us not repeat the past.” For a movie about a boogeyman who

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derives his power from notoriety, from the very notion of people talking about him, it’s that latter theme that seems particularly pertinent in a world where the biggest sticks are carried by those who make the loudest noises. “The fascinating thing about Candyman for me, both in Barker’s story and Rose’s adaptation, is the idea that that story itself is the vessel for the dark magic that’s at play here,” explains Peele. “So it’s wonderful for the very medium that Candyman comes to us in story, and the way he perpetuates his life is a matter of story.” If this all sounds very weighty for a horror flick, well, the best horror flicks always have something to say about the state of the world. In amidst all the killing and screaming. And it’s also in keeping with the first film which, rather than the goresoaked supernatural slasher film that it’s turned into in people’s memories, is a graceful, artful, often sombre mood poem. It even has a Philip Glass score, for the love of God. Which is not to say that DaCosta’s movie won’t please crowds. For all its subtext, for all its messages, DaCosta and co. are keen to stress that their Candyman is also a no-holdsbarred frightfest. There will be shocks. There will be scares. There will be more kills than the, fairly conservative in that regard, original. As the trailer indicates, those poor girls who

Top: Always a bonus if a story has a good hook. Above: Eerie isolation.

chant Candyman’s name en masse in a school bathroom (all of whom must have sent in audition tapes to DaCosta in which they said the C-word ﬁve times), are going to be indeﬁnitely late for their next class. “It’s been a long time since that appetite has been satiated,” laughs Abdul-Mateen. “He’s got some catching up to do.” It aims, in short, to make an entirely new generation afraid of Candyman. The question is: which Candyman?

WHEN THIS PROJECT was ﬁrst announced, it was described as a “spiritual sequel”. It’s since become clear that “spiritual” was superﬂuous. Following in the footsteps of David Gordon Green’s Halloween, a follow-up that shared the same name as its progenitor, this Candyman is a direct descendant of Candyman. “I don’t know that ‘spiritual sequel’ is right,”

admits Peele. “This movie works as your ﬁrst Candyman ﬁlm, and it also works for a couple of different reasons if you’ve seen the original. In a lot of ways, it’s about the nature of a quote-unquote reboot.” DaCosta prefers the word ‘reimagining’, but there’s little doubt that this movie picks up threads left dangling at the end of Bernard Rose’s movie. Most notably Vanessa Williams as Anne-Marie McCoy, a young woman who lived in CabriniGreen, and who was the mother of a young baby named Anthony. As in Anthony McCoy. As in, the same name of Abdul-Mateen’s character, who is now an artist returning to Cabrini-Green, in pursuit of a lifelong obsession with the Candyman that led him to stage an installation in which he invites some poor, unsuspecting, soon-to-bediscontinued people to say Candyman’s name. Fans of the original will, of course, know that Anthony McCoy is the baby who was

SHARPFOCUS GET A LOAD OF THESE OTHER HOOK-WIELDING ICONS

TEE HEE

LIVE AND LET DIE (1973) Kananga’s one-armed voodoo henchman was a sinister sonofabitch who terrified ’70s kids. He also made for a classic final rumpus, having his pincer’s wires cut by 007 and tossed out of a train window.

BLADE

PUPPET MASTER (1989) Has a knife for one hand, and a lethal hook on the other. At one point he pull’s someone’s mouth open with his hook, then a colleague spits a leech into it. Great bunch of guys.

Above: Gallery owner Brianna (Teyonah Parris), a conﬁrmed art lover — but at what cost? Left: McCoy’s obsession with the Candyman legend takes ever

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darker turns.

kidnapped by the Candyman and used as a bargaining chip to lure Madsen’s Helen, who effectively swapped her life for his, after rescuing him from inside a huge bonﬁre. In that moment, was a connection forged between Anthony and the Candyman, leading him back to Chicago 28 years later, to kickstart the nightmare once more? Is this even that same Anthony? “I cannot conﬁrm. I’m going to do a little dance around that,” says AbdulMateen. “But there are themes of history and connection and reconnection that are explored as well.” What is incontrovertible is that Anthony is going through some dark, heavy shit, and that his connection with the Candyman takes a different form than the tortured/starcrossed lovers aspect of the

first movie. Instead, Anthony’s bond with the Candyman appears to be dialled up to such an extent that — call it possession, call it becoming, call it transmogrification — Anthony finds himself becoming the new Candyman. In the film’s trailer, any glimpse of the Candyman is brief, and usually either shrouded in darkness or from a distance so that we can’t see his face. It could be AbdulMateen, or someone else entirely brandishing the hook. But we do hear the Candyman, and that gravelly growl is unmistakeably Tony Todd’s. Todd is as synonymous with Candyman as Robert Englund is with Freddy Krueger. It seems almost certain that he crops up in the movie somewhere, somehow. Again, though, those lips are sealed.

“We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel when it comes to Daniel Robitaille,” says DaCosta. “But as for Tony? He’s cool. I won’t give anything away about what he’s doing. Or not doing.” It’s almost as if they’re scared to even say Todd’s name, lest he show up behind them with a hook in one hand and a jar of honey in the other. But there will be a Candyman in the movie. And the hope here is clearly that audiences will fall hook, line and sinker — with the emphasis heavily on hook — for this new iteration, and that people across the world will once again be chanting his name. Just make sure you’ve taken down any mirrors beforehand. It could get messy. CANDYMAN IS CURRENTLY SCHEDULED

CAPTAIN HOOK HOOK (1991) Spielberg’s take on Peter Pan’s big bad boasted an über-panto villain in the form of a bewigged Dustin Hoffman. Having turned a crocodile into a clock tower (as you do), he brandishes his hook with aplomb, even if it does poke out of a doily.

AZOG THE HOBBIT (2012) The handsome orc chief has a rather troubling metal rod spiked into his d of said rod stumped elbow. At the end is a mangled claw because, well, of course. Needless to say, he likes a good fight, and puts that claw to good use. Also a fan of the mace. Whatever works.

FURIOSA

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (2015) The war captain never lets on how she lost her arm, but no matter — her prosthetic is a steampunk marvel, her middle finger substituted for a toothed hook. That’s how you do it. ALEX GODFREY

TO BE IN CINEMAS FROM 24 SEPTEMBER

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G LAD IATOR

WE EKS BE FOR E FIL M ING, T HE S C RE ENPLAY B AR E LY RE SE M BL E D T H E MASTERPIECE IT WOULD BECOME. BUT THEN STAR RUSSELL CROWE AND DIRECTOR RIDLEY S C OTT R E ALLY WE N T T O WORK . T WE N T Y Y E A R S O N, C R OW E R E F L E CT S O N T H E F I L M T H AT CHANG E D E V E RY T H I N G WORDS MARTYN PALMER

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JUST A FEW weeks before the cameras were set to roll on Gladiator, director Ridley Scott and his leading man Russell Crowe sat down for a pre-production meeting with high-powered Hollywood executives. The clock was ticking and there was trouble ahead. Released in May 2000 to a fanfare of critical acclaim, the film would, later, dominate the Oscars: nominated for 12, it won five, including Best Picture and Best Actor. But before taking its place in cinematic history, there was a long, arduous road to navigate. It would involve changing up everything, from the lead character’s name (originally Narcissus) to major story beats. It would, tragically, include the demise of Oliver Reed (cast as grizzled gladiator trainer Proximo), who died from a heart attack in a pub on a day off from filming. It would see Crowe producing remarkable levels of snot while sobbing holding onto a rubber leg, grappling with an unruly barnet, and filming opposite real — and dangerously unpredictable — tigers. The conceit is as striking now as it was then: a Roman general who becomes a slave, then becomes a gladiator, seeking vengeance for the murder of his wife and son. Starting off with an original screenplay by David Franzoni, and then input from heavyweights John Logan and William Nicholson, the rewriting process would continue throughout, and it was the director and actor who shaped, honed and rewrote many of the scenes they were about to film. This, then, is the story of Gladiator, a movie still referred to by both Scott and Crowe as the greatest bullet-dodging in the history of cinema. “Are you not entertained?” Maximus memorably asks after one brutally vivid round of Colosseum carnage. Oh yes. We most certainly were. Twenty years on, exclusively for Empire, Crowe looks back at a masterpiece. Let’s go back to 1999. You’ve made L.A. Confidential for Curtis Hanson and Michael Mann’s The Insider. And then Ridley offers you Gladiator. What was your reaction? The producer Walter Parkes went to Ridley with a single image: the [Jean-Léon] Gérôme painting [Pollice Verso], and Rid said, “No matter what is in the script, I want to make this movie.” When

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the producers approached me, they said, “We don’t want you to read the script, we want you to engage on a single sentence: ‘It’s 184 AD, you’re a Roman general, you are being directed by Ridley Scott.”’ And on the basis of that sentence I met with Ridley. I had just come off The Insider so I was really super out of shape. I was also bald, because I’d needed a wig for [Jeffrey] Wigand’s hair. When I walked in he was like, “Holy shit!” But he showed me that painting and the mathematics of how he was going to create the Colosseum with a set and CGI. The budget was $103 million and though I’d worked on big ﬁlms before, nothing of that scale. If you crossed the $100 million mark at the time it was a big deal — there was no room for failure. I was in on the basis of how I got along with Ridley because he is super-honest, sometimes to his detriment, and he was telling me more about the problems we faced, rather than trying to do a snow job or super-sales me. What were the problems? It’s really hard to explain, but there’s nothing

about the ﬁlm that Ridley ended up creating that was on the table at the beginning. Ridley was like, “You’re giving me two acts — you are giving me ‘general’ and ‘gladiator’ and asking me to make a fully arced story.” So we needed a second act, for a start. Really, at the time all we had was a simple idea that we both loved and believed in but that was it. So there were lots of meetings about the script? I remember arguing with 12 executives in Rid’s office about the name of the character. I was like, “Narcissus? What are you talking about? It connects to narcissism, for a start. Nobody is going to give a fuck about a character called Narcissus.” I mean, come on. I also remember talking about Marcus Aurelius and what a goldmine he would be in terms of thematics. And everybody else in the room, apart from Rid, was like, “What the fuck is he talking about?” They didn’t know that Marcus Aurelius was a philosopher. So I bought every one of ’em a copy of Meditations. I still have a quote

Main: Maximus (Russell Crowe) takes on tigers, gladiators and

Ridley was like, “We have to go ahead and have faith that we will work all this shit out.” And that’s what we did.

a baying crowd.

Let’s talk about the cast. Tell us about the ‘Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse…’ day at the ofﬁce [Laughs]. That’s what Ridley for our mate called Richard [Harris], Maximus. Oliver Reed, David Hemmings [the Colosseum’s master of ceremonies] and, initially, Peter O’Toole [as Senator Gracchus]. But Peter wouldn’t do it. I think it was offered at a time when he’d only take a role if it fell during the school holidays because of his parental commitments. So Rid cast Derek [Jacobi], who was fantastic. Above: It's just

another (bloody)

Left: Scott, Crowe (and tiger prop) discuss tactics. Below left: A moment of quiet reﬂection for Crowe on

from it on the wall in my office: ‘Nothing happens to anybody which he is not ﬁtted by nature to bear.’ Every piece of shit that was thrown at me, every challenge on that set, I would refer myself to that quote [laughs].

You became great friends with Richard Harris... From 1999 when we met on Gladiator until 2002 [when Harris died] there wasn’t a week, ten days tops, that went by without us being in some kind of contact. He was a great man, a great friend and a great actor.

the set.

Would you be working on the script during shooting? [Laughs] Every day, but before we started shooting there were these meetings and Rid was getting more and more irate because he felt like everybody was wasting the time he had to solve these problems. It was like, “I can’t do this by committee. If you and I agree on it, then fuck everybody else’s opinions.” He would work with his people, and they are great people — production design, cameras, costumes, all of that — and every night I’d go to his office or his house and work on it and, really, we began to throw out what we didn’t need. And after a couple of weeks we had about 21 pages left.

Let’s talk about Oliver Reed. What was that relationship like for you? I gravitate towards company who enjoy a drink, not those who just enjoy getting drunk. There’s quite a distinct difference. [Long pause] I don’t want to speak ill of him in any way. I didn’t know him well enough to know where his demons came from, but he deﬁnitely had them and he took against me from our very ﬁrst reading. He’d had quite a lot of drink before he arrived, and the script was a mess. It was just painful, like having your teeth pulled without a needle, to hear really good actors reading that script. I kept reassuring everyone that the lines ¼ would be rewritten and get stronger. We got

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through it, but Oliver just had a thing from the start. He didn’t like me, which is just the way it goes sometimes. But he was delivering on set? In Morocco, Oliver contributed a lot — he brought a lot of ideas to Ridley. As I said, he was in a dark place when he was doing that movie. But that darkness wasn’t about laziness or lack of care: he was still charging at that character every day. And when he died, Ridley didn’t want to give up what he had, so he came up with a way of gracefully ﬁnishing and honouring his contribution. Two other key cast members were Connie Nielsen and Joaquin Phoenix [as siblings Lucilla and Commodus]. How did it work with them? Both were fantastic. It’s funny with me and Joaquin, we’re not in each other’s pockets, we don’t see each other very much at all, but it’s actually really dangerous when we do because the only thing we want to do is just sit together, talk and drink, and the rest of the world can fuck off. I have a deep love for Joaquin. He should have won the Oscar 20 years ago and there are probably two or three other performances he should have won for, too. Here: Maximus is about to put that sword to good use. Top and above right: Filming for the battle scene took place in Bourne Woods in Surrey.

There’s a haunting, emotional scene when Maximus returns to his farm in Spain to discover that his wife and son have been murdered and strung up on a cruciﬁx. It encapsulates the key themes — a longing

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How did you approach the performance there? I said, “You know this scene has to be full snot, right?” And Ridley goes, “I don’t even know what that means.” I said, “This is beyond a tear, man, this is total collapse, that’s got to be a lot of snot.” So he calls, “Action!” and I start from about 400 metres away and he’s got a long lens on me, I’m limping, running, and I get to the ﬁrst spot and I start to cry as I see her. I collapse and then I delicately kiss her toes, and the realisation that she’s dead sinks in. I’m in full-on snot mode. I’ve got to wipe my face and the snot is on my hands like a spider’s web — I’ve got it on one hand, then

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the other and I can see it lit up — there’s fucking snot everywhere. Then I kiss the feet and I collapse and it’s, “Cut!” And Ridley comes over and he goes, “Holy fucking shit, that was some powerful stuff, man. Wow! Can we do it one more time?” And I say, “Yeah, no problem.” And he goes, “And just a little less snot…” [laughs]. What about the scene where Maximus, as The Spaniard, has won yet another battle in the Colosseum, and Commodus orders him to reveal his true identity and he delivers the “My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius” speech? That helmet was full of static electricity and every time I took it off the hairs on the top of my head stood up [laughs]. I tried doing it slowly, I tried doing it fast, but every time two hairs stand up like I’m a fucking Teletubby. So, Ridley solves it by going into a massive close-up, when I turn to face Commodus — it’s just forehead and chin and out of frame you can’t see the Teletubby hair wiggling in the wind. Every single moment of that ﬁlm, man, was like that

— it was on the day, solving problems, constantly asking questions and finding answers. Did Maximus die in the original script? No. That “My name is Maximus…” speech is basically a suicide note. I remember Ridley coming up to me on set saying, “Look, the way this is shaping up, I don’t see how you live. This character is about one act of pure vengeance for his wife and child, and, once he’s accomplished that, what does he do?” And my joke used to be, “Yeah, what does Maximus do? Does he end up running a fucking pizzeria by the Colosseum?” He has a singular purpose, which is to meet his wife in the afterlife and apologise for not being there for her. And that’s it. With the story being developed so much on the fly, was the film a gamble for you? I knew it was an extreme gamble. I remember meeting an executive from a different studio before Gladiator came out. There’d been strange stuff coming back from the front, mainly from people who weren’t actually on

Alamy, Getty Images

for home, vengeance, and Top: Ben-Hur Max longing to join them ain't got nothing in the afterlife — that run on these guys. through the rest of the Above: Easy film. Could you talk about with that sword, that sequence? Commodus. At first Max was just going to Next thing you kneel and break down in front know, he'll be of the crucifix. I said, “Rid, I’ve running with thrown away an opportunity to scissors. be the emperor of Rome. I’ve crossed Europe from the north of Italy to Spain on horses that have died underneath me. I’ve done all that to get to my wife and I’ve failed.” And he goes, “Yeah, I know, man, but I’ve only got the legs.” I’m like, “What?” He goes, “Are you not fucking hearing me? I keep telling you I’ve only got a pair of legs.” So I say, “It doesn’t matter, I’ll kiss her toes.” So there’s this piece of wood with some rubber legs nailed on to it.

What impact did winning the Oscar have on your life? and Lucilla How long have you got? (Connie Nielsen) [laughs]. That tidal wave of looking pretty fame that came off the back of ﬂash in Rome. Gladiator, which led, in 2001, Above: In a to winning the Oscar, shifted quieter moment, my life in such a dramatic way. Maximus and It changes your day-to-day Lucilla catch up because every time you walk on old times. down the street, you know you are going to have 50 conversations that you weren’t expecting to have. But if there’s one thing that’s really wrong about the process, it’s how the fuck can you give me and the producers an award and not give Ridley one? It just misses the point of how you make a movie. He’s the guy who stood in the middle of all that. He said to me, “Kid, come and stand next to me if you want to, but I’m going to stand in this fucking ﬁeld and I know it’s going to be raining arrows but I don’t give a fuck. If I’m going to do this I’m going to make it the way I want to.” And I believed in him and I went with him. And that’s what he did. Top: Commodus

the front, as usual. I told him, “Yeah, it was a really difficult shoot, mate, it was heavy (Joaquin Phoenix) hours and a lot of extra work.” contemplates his And his response was really next move. Left: patronising. He said something Phoenix trains like, “You still have L.A. for the role (and Conﬁdential — not every career gets sexy in the has a great ﬁlm like that.” And process). I didn’t say it, but I thought, “I’m pretty sure the effort we put in will add up to something special.” Above: Nasty Commodus

Can you remember when you first saw Gladiator? I saw it on a mixing stage in LA and it was an overwhelming experience because it’s such a powerful film. And when you’re in something like that, you’re not watching yourself and patting yourself on the back; you’re watching the work of hundreds of people unfolding in front of you. At the end, Ridley turned to me and said, “Did I fulfil my promise to you?” And I was like, “Mate, you really did.”

And that “extreme gamble” certainly paid off… We were given an opportunity and we were put under an enormous amount of pressure. There were a lot of bullets heading our way but by sticking together — one of the fundamentals of Maximus’ beliefs as a general — we dodged those bullets. Every single fucking one of ’em!

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T H E R E â&#x20AC;&#x2122; S N E VE R B E EN A B ET T E R T IM E TO R E MI ND OU R SE LVE S O F T H E J OY FUL P OW ER O F C INE M A . HE R E , TH E N , AR E 1 2 PAG ES OF FE EL- GO O D M OV IE MAG IC

NED RYERSON IN HOW THE ONE-NOT E-J OKE IN S UR ANCE SA LESM AN BE CAM E PURE JOY NED RYERSON ISN’T just annoying. He’s superannoying. An avalanche of annoying. Ned Ryerson is the human equivalent of a child kicking your economy seat from behind throughout the duration of an eight-hour flight. Ned Ryerson is the insurance salesman and old schoolmate from hell — tormenting Bill Murray’s Phil Connors in Groundhog Day with an unholy combination of unironic cheer and unconscious unctuousness. Yet every single second of his four minutes and 25 seconds of screentime (and, yes, we checked) is a delight. The first encounter sets the template: Ned sees Phil in the street, buttonholes him for a quick catch-up and establishes his INCREDIBLY ANNOYING credentials (silly voice, inability to take a hint, total disregard for personal space). He also tries to flog him life insurance. He even has his own catchphrase: “BING!” By the time they meet again, fate has conspired to condemn Phil to relive the same day over and over and over again. So, naturally an unsettled Phil has no time for Ned’s shenanigans and tries to ditch him immediately. Third time round, a now-fully-freaked-out Phil pushes him away, then scarpers. The fourth? Well, that’s when Phil flat-out floors Ned with a single punch, actor Stephen Tobolowsky expertly pivoting 180 degrees to camera for the reaction shot. The fifth time, Phil turns the tables by holding Ned close. So close, in fact, that it sends Ned running for cover; a reminder that even a seemingly perfect movie like Groundhog Day wasn’t above a problematic gay panic joke. The sixth time that Phil, now fully at the end of the Kübler-Ross scale and entirely at ease with his situation and who he is, meets Ned is at the end of the movie, when it’s revealed that he’s bought the full platter of life insurance options. The beauty of Groundhog Day is that Phil not only changes himself, but enriches everyone else’s lives at the same time. Ned deserves a happy ending, too. That Ned continues to make such an impact is down to the man who plays him. Tobolowsky, just like Ned, sells the hell out of the limited

Main: Stephen Tobolowsky hams it up as Ned Ryerson in 1993’s Groundhog Day. Below: Ned buttonholes Phil Connors (Bill Murray) for the umpteenth time.

tools he’s given, going toe-to-toe with Murray and creating a character that became his calling card. “I got lost in Reykjavík, had no money, no way to get back to the hotel,” he tells Empire. “A security guard came up to me and goes, ‘Ned! Ned Ryerson?’, and he got me home.” Tobolowsky remembers well his initial meeting with Murray, just before they shot their first scene in Woodstock, Illinois. “He said, ‘How are you going to play this part?’” recalls the actor. At which point Tobolowsky ran through his repertoire of zany noises. “And Bill said, ‘Okay, that’s funny.’” Forty-five minutes later, Murray grabbed Tobolowsky, ran to a nearby bakery and bought their entire stock of Danish pastries to hand out to the townsfolk. Even back then, Ned Ryerson’s joy was infectious. BING! CHRIS HEWITT

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THE MARSEILLAISE SCENE FROM TAK I NG D OWN TH E N A Z IS WI TH T HE S O U N D OF MUSI C Main: Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) and bar owner Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) look on grimly as the Nazis sing a German patriotic song in the club.

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ATIONAL ANTHEMS SUCK. They’re tubthumping, militaristic and usually include naff pleas to some god or king or, in the case of the UK, both. But every so often you get one that’s so genuinely rousing that it inspires passion far beyond its homeland. That’s the case for La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, and it rings out around the world at least partly due to Casablanca’s most uplifting scene. It starts, as so many shouting matches do, with a knees-up down the pub. A few visiting Nazis are living it large, and have a sing-song to Die Wacht am Rhein (‘The Watch On The Rhine’), an old German patriotic number. They’re so loud and obnoxious (the latter probably goes without saying) that Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) and Czech resistance leader Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) hear them from Rick’s office upstairs. Laszlo can’t stand idly by — and his reaction becomes one of the great defiant stands of movie history. Laszlo orders the house band to play La Marseillaise — banned in Nazi-occupied and Vichy France at the time and by default only sung by the Free French Resistance. They look to Rick, who gives just a tiny nod. Victor, his face fervent, leads them as every patron in the café stands up and joins in, singing so hard it looks like their lungs might burst and entirely drowning out the Nazi song. One man punches the air, almost involuntarily. You suddenly see why Victor might really be a leader of men — even as his wife Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) despairs because she knows that their escape from Casablanca just became ten times more difficult. Director Michael Curtiz personally cast many of the extras for the scene, using European refugees from World War II, a conflict the US had not yet joined when Casablanca went into production. Henreid himself was an Austrian Jew who had fled the regime, as had Conrad ‘Major Strasser’ Veidt, who played Nazis but refused ever to portray them positively. Really, it’s Yvonne (Madeleine Lebeau) who takes us through the scene. Lebeau and her Jewish husband had also escaped to the US via Lisbon just like every hopeful refugee in Casablanca, but there the resemblance to the weak-willed Yvonne ends. We first see Yvonne early in the film as Rick’s jilted ex, then starting a fight when she enters the bar on a Nazi’s arm. As she weeps her way through her Right: Czech resistance leader Victor (Paul Henreid) has had enough. He orders the house band to play La Marseillaise and begins

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to sing with gusto.

national anthem, however, you can see the Frenchwoman rediscovering her backbone. “In her own way, she may constitute an entire second front,” quips Claude Rains’ dissolute Louis Renault when she arrives with the Nazi — but it might just become true. By the end she shouts, “Vive la France! Vive la démocratie!” and you hope she’s set for better things. Casablanca wasn’t the first to use La Marseillaise to express defiance and hope in wartime: Jean Renoir had already done so in La Grande Illusion a few years before. Still, this is a miraculous scene, enough to move you to tears, and it hit wartime audiences like a train — though it was by no means a foregone conclusion. The original plan was to use the Nazi anthem Horst-Wessel-Lied, but that was still in copyright and Warner Bros. didn’t want any trouble about paying to screen the film in neutral countries. The War Department, meanwhile, worried that the film would harm relations with Vichy France, were unsure whether they could rely on the Free French or if they should try to win over the collaborators. Eventually, of course, the US would follow Renault and Rick, who set off to join the fight back in Brazzaville in the film’s final moments. “If Laszlo’s presence in a café can inspire this unfortunate demonstration, what more will his presence in Casablanca bring on?” snarls Strasser as the anthem wraps up and he orders the closure of Rick’s Café Américain. But he is too late: the soaring song has worked. Rick has rediscovered his idealism, as has Yvonne. Laszlo has lived up to his promise. Ilsa has realised the danger they are in, and resolved to ask Rick for help. And the Nazis have shown their weakness. They can be defeated if everyone else pulls together instead of singing from different hymn sheets. As Laszlo says to Rick soon after, in the film’s final scene, “Welcome back to the fight. This time I know our side will win.” HELEN O’HARA

PRACTICALLYALL OF IN A F ILM OVER F LOWING WI T H H EART, WE C OU LDN’T PI C K J UST O NE MO M EN T ELLIOTT’S FIRST KISS

To illustrate the idea that Elliott (Henry Thomas) increasingly feels E.T.’s feelings, Spielberg delivers a moment of low comedy combined with high romance. An increasingly sozzled E.T. watches John Ford’s The Quiet Man on TV. Just as John Wayne pulls Maureen O’Hara into his arms for a passionate clinch, so Elliott, hopped up on Dutch courage by E.T.’s vicarious boozing, does the same with a class mate (Erika Eleniak, who later found fame in Baywatch)— only Elliott is standing on another kid to reach the taller girl’s lips. A simple idea beautifully executed.

bag’s zipper, with E.T. babbling, “E.T. phone hooooome!” Elliott can hardly contain his joy. And neither can we.

INTO THE SUNSET

Elliott, E.T. in basket, flying his bicycle silhouetted by a full rich moon is one of E.T.’s, not to mention cinema’s, most indelible images: it speaks to the power of imagination, the joy of flight and the delight in the unexpected. But it’s E.T.’s second bike ride that lifts the spirits and the heart, as it is deployed in a moment of narrative urgency: Elliott and the BMX gang facing a police blockade armed with guns. Seemingly lifted into the orange sunset sky by John Williams’ soaring theme, it’s an unforgettable punch-the-air moment.

RAINBOW’S END

After the heartbreak of E.T. and Elliott’s goodbye, the spaceship takes off into a twinkly sky. But as it jumps to light speed, the ship leaves a beautiful rainbow to lighten up the sky. Accompanied by a John Williams brass fanfare, it also brightens the story somehow, a portent suggesting that Elliott is going to be okay. Magical. IAN FREER

Here: Elliott (Henry Thomas) and E.T. say

PETER PAN

an emotional goodbye.

It’s one of E.T.’s most tender moments: E.T. eavesdropping on Mary (Dee Wallace) reading Gertie (Drew Barrymore) a bedtime story, Peter Pan (don’t forget Spielberg went on to make Hook), while simultaneously healing Elliott’s cut finger with his own glow-y digit. At a certain point in the script’s development, Melissa Mathison’s screenplay had E.T. develop a thing for Mary. But common sense prevailed and the scene both captures the charm and innocence of a child being read a bedtime story and the sense of an outsider finding solace in something three million light years from home.

Below: Josh (Tom Hanks) and Mac (Robert Loggia) get their Chopsticks game on.

RESURRECTION

E.T.’s resurrection is a thing of beauty, his comeback drip-fed in telling increments. As Elliott closes the chamber on his squat buddy, believing he is gone, we see — but he doesn’t — E.T.’s heartlight beginning to glow. Elliott wanders out, inconsolable, but catches sight of a dead flower flourishing, which keys him into E.T. being alive. Running back, he opens the body

THE PIANO SCENE FROM

NOTE- PERFECT HAPPI NESS

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THE BIG PIANO sequence is 2:04 minutes of pure joy. Josh Baskin (Tom Hanks), transformed from a 12-year-old into an adult’s body by a Zoltar Speaks fairground attraction, has found a job at MacMillan Toys. One afternoon he runs into company CEO Mac (Robert Loggia) at toy shop FAO Schwarz. The pair stumble upon a giant electronic piano and begin to dance on the keys, first playing Hoagy

Carmichael’s Heart And Soul, followed by an energetic version of Chopsticks. The scene was inspired by screenwriter Anne (sister of Steven) Spielberg’s recce to FAO Schwarz, delivering a moment that perfectly encapsulates the film’s ethos: as Josh and Mac revel in childish glee, their dance erodes the difference between kid and grown-up, innocence and maturity. From Mac’s delight watching Josh slide down the keyboard, creating a glissando, to the moment the pair amp up the speed of their dancing but remain in perfect synch (Hanks remembers it “like jumping rope for three hours every time we did it”), it is a delight you never tire of watching. FAO Schwarz later sold seven-foot versions of the keyboard (at $6,520 a pop) — a testament to the scene’s ability to capture happiness in a bottle. IAN FREER

MAY 2020

RYTHING ESOME’ T HE HISTO RY O F THE M O ST U P BEAT SO NG K N OW N TO HU MA N — O R IS TH AT BR I CK — KI ND

“OH MY GOSH, I love this song!” yells The Lego Movie’s everyman hero, Emmet, at his toy car stereo. Popstars Tegan And Sara have come on the radio, singing the hook of the film’s Oscarnominated anthem Everything Is Awesome. It’s a relentlessly bouncy, synth-powered ode to teamwork, positivity and, as the title suggests, all things awesome, be it brand-new pants, possums or a book of Greek antiquities. This platinum-selling pop song was the brainseed of Shawn Patterson (with later contributions from The Lonely Island and JoLi), who drew on a series of surprising influences to create one of the most cheerful movie theme tunes in years. How did you get involved? It started when I got a call from [The Lego Movie animation director] Chris McKay, who I’d worked with when I was a score composer on Robot Chicken. When he told me he was working on this film called The Lego Movie I laughed and was like, “Really?” But I was excited about the prospect of working with Chris again so I dropped everything and dove in. He explained that Phil Lord and Chris Miller had scripted into the film that there would be a song called

Clockwise from top: The Lego Movie’s ode to teamwork and positivity rings loud and clear as Emmet (voiced by Chris Pratt) goes on his quest to save the Lego Universe.

Everything Is Awesome, that it ou e he poppiest, catchiest song in the history of all songs, and that it would be about teamwork. And that’s all I had to go by. You weren’t given any points of reference? There wasn’t a single audio reference for the song, Chris just filled me in on Emmet’s character — that he has a desire to be a part of this collective that he doesn’t fit in. When he told me that I went down a path probably a little darker than what the filmmakers wanted. What do you mean by “dark”? If you watch Star Trek you’ll know about The Borg — it’s like a beehive, where there’s one mind or a queen that tells everybody else what to do. Everybody thinks that they’re part of a family, when they’re actually working for the queen. So that was my take on it, that it was the dream of this nerd to fit into the hive. It was still very upbeat and about teamwork, but there was definitely a sinister undercurrent, almost like a hint of communism to it. Why do you think the final version of the song resonates with people so much? I think that people love the song because it’s bright and poppy and singable — the hook sounds like a child playing a toy piano. And there’s this goofy side to it, that says: “Hey, I’m trying really hard, even though I’m failing miserably!” But it’s also dripping in sarcasm, which is a big part of what adults like about the song. They get that if you say, “Everything is awesome,” as an adult, most of the time it’s because you’ve just spilled your wine or dropped a picture and it shatters. You look down at it and you go: “Well, everything’s awesome here!” When did it sink in that it had become such a massive success? It took me a long time to realise that the song was so popular. I was in a screening of the movie after it came out and I could hear kids singing along to it, which was really crazy. Then I was at a premiere for another movie, and a woman came over to me with all these Lego blocks glued to her high heels and introduced me to her son, who shook my hand. I just thought I’d written the song as a fluke, or that because everybody knows Lego as a property they wouldn’t buy into it. It’s been so funny and so unexpected for me. BETH WEBB

THE ENDING OF C OU L D I T BE THE MOST F E E L-G O OD HALF-HOUR O F A L L TIME? ( YES. )

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THE THING THAT is often forgotten about The Shawshank Redemption is just how long we have to wait for the redemption. Like It’s A Wonderful Life and, more recently, Paddington 2, Shawshank takes a deep dive into one character’s misery, putting them through the wringer, making them crawl through a river of shit. In the case of Shawshank, that river isn’t metaphorical, but when Tim Robbins’ Andy Dufresne emerges on the other side, it transforms the entire movie. The last 30 minutes or so (including credits) of Frank Darabont’s Stephen King adaptation, in which we discover how Andy escaped, how the evil Warden Norton (Bob Gunton) receives judgement and how Morgan Freeman’s Red reunites with his old friend, is among the most uplifting in cinema. Time for a little deep dive of our own. River of shit optional.

Here: Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) and prison buddy Red (Morgan Freeman) await orders in 1994’s The Shawshank Redemption.

THE MORNING AFTER 1:46:16 – 1:49:39

“I love misdirection,” Darabont once told this reporter in one of our many discussions about Shawshank. And there’s one hell of a misdirect here, as we’re made to think that Andy Dufresne, beaten into submission by Warden Norton’s obtuse ways, is about to commit suicide. Never mind that we know the title of the ﬁlm. “When I was writing that, I said, ‘I’d better stack this deck as much as I can, and lead the audience down a path that they think is familiar, and then we whip the blindfold off and reveal to them that they’re on another path altogether,’” says Darabont. So instead of Andy’s dead body in cell 245, the guards ﬁnd… nothing. He’s up and vanished, “like a fart in the wind”. And thus, the long crawl begins.

THE ESCAPE 1:49:40 – 1:52:31

As Norton pulls back the poster (“lovely Raquel” Welch in One Million Years B.C.) that had been hiding Andy’s carefully cultivated escape tunnel, Darabont kicks things up a notch, flashing back to the particulars. As we see Andy, over a couple of decades, work on his tunnel at night, we have to suspend our disbelief somewhat. Not that Andy managed to get a cell with no next-door neighbour, thus allowing him to dig a tunnel in the first place. That can be explained by his finding favour with Warden Norton, thanks to his ability to cook the books and launder lorry-loads of lucre. But that he doesn’t wake anyone up with his nocturnal grinding. Regardless, Andy — pushed to the brink by Norton at the exact time his tunnel is finished, which is decidedly convenient — puts everything in place with a glorious bait and switch. That old sleight of hand again. He swaps out the ledgers containing evidence of Norton’s misdeeds for exact copies, and even jettisons his own dirty shoes in favour of Norton’s buffed brogues. “How often do you really look at a man’s shoes?” asks Red in narration. After Shawshank, a lot more often.

THE REDEMPTION

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1:52:54 – 1:55:34

Making a bolt for it on a stormy night (another stroke of luck), Andy makes it into the sewage system under Shawshank, and crawls to freedom through what Red calls “500 yards of shitsmelling foulness I can’t even imagine”. And then he’s out, out into the night, out into the rain and the river, ripping his shirt off, laughing in relief and disbelief, free for the first time in years. “I was a little worried about that creek because it was in farm country,” Robbins told Empire. “Some of those places, with all the cow manure and urine, can be pretty toxic. But I didn’t get sick from that.” That shot of Robbins, gleefully turning his face into the rain, became the film’s defining image.

Top to bottom: Andy makes his move; Warden Norton (Bob Gunton) discovers the escape route; Finally tasting freedom; In the sewers under Shawshank.

MAY 2020

THE JUDGEMENT 1:56:51 – 1:58:50

Andy having artfully absconded with Warden Norton’s misbegotten cash (370 grand and change), and tipped off both the police and press to his corruption, there are three ways Norton can take this. He can go to prison, take his punishment like a man; he can go out, guns blazing; or he can take the easy way out. Which he does, shooting himself, just seconds after realising that he’s the butt of Andy’s last joke. Inside his wall safe is a Bible. Not his Bible, though — Andy’s. And inside, the rock hammer Andy used to dig his tunnel. Right there under everyone’s nose the entire time. And what does the picture hanging over Norton’s wall safe say? “His judgement cometh — and that right soon.” That’s goddamn right.

THE PAROLEE 2:00:40 – 2:11:51

Finally, at the third time of trying, Red gets his parole. And here, as the old ex-con struggles to adjust to life on the outside, asking his grocery store boss for permission to take a piss, Darabont misdirects again, making us fear that Red will go down the same suicidal route taken earlier in the movie by Brooks Hatlen (played by the late James Whitmore). Eventually, though, Red — bound by a promise he made Andy the night before he escaped — heads to a field in Maine, and finds a message waiting for him. An invitation, really. To come down to Mexico, to the small town of Zihuatanejo, and reconnect. Red takes that chance, deciding to “get busy living rather than get busy dying”. And so he boards a bus, violating his parole. His final words, taken directly from King’s novella, Rita Hayworth And Shawshank Redemption, are achingly beautiful: “I hope to make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.” The original intention was for this to be the film’s ending. “It really is a story about friendship between two men,” says Darabont. “And I thought it was a lovely way to end the story.” And yes, it would have been nice. It would have been moving. But it wouldn’t have been the closure we needed. Thankfully, for once, studio intervention worked out for the best.

MAY 2020

Top to bottom: Andy makes off with Warden Norton’s dirty money; Andy, on the road to freedom; Red ﬁnally gets his parole; The reunion on the beach in Mexico.

THE REUNION 2:12:01 – END

Legend has it that the very final shot of The Shawshank Redemption, in which Red walks down a Mexican beach to find Andy sanding an old boat, was a last-minute addition. That Darabont had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to shoot it. Nothing could be further from the truth. “That was our last day of principal photography,” he says. “We went down to St Croix in the Caribbean. I know it’s supposed to be Mexico, but we fibbed. It is Hollywood after all.” What is true, though, is that this concluding scene was the suggestion of Liz Glotzer at Castle Rock, the production company that had backed Darabont on the movie. Darabont had final cut on the film but, nevertheless, this ending was put forward, Glotzer correctly perceiving that audiences didn’t just need the promise of hope. They needed the real thing, right there in front of them; irrefutable, irrepressible. “They said, ‘You don’t have to use it if you don’t want to. Just give it the best shot that you can,’” recalls Darabont. But, after they’d shot it, he found himself warming to it. “In the editing room, we really started to love that ending. We never actually test-screened the movie without that ending. It just became apparent to me how deeply pleasing it was.” And is. As Thomas Newman’s piano tinkles before the orchestra explodes into strings, as Red and Andy warmly embrace, as redemption is achieved miles away from Shawshank, dry eyes need not apply. CHRIS HEWITT

THE SEND-OFF IN S CR E EN WRIT ER J OHN AUGUST O N TH E CAT HAR SIS OF CRYI NG TIM BURTON’S BIG Fish is a guaranteed weepfest. Adapted from Daniel Wallace’s 1998 novel about a father-son reconciliation, it ends with Albert Finney’s story-spinner Edward Bloom in his dying moments, asking his son Will (Billy Crudup) to tell him how it all ends. Later, at his funeral, reality is served, with Will meeting characters from Edward’s life and realising that his father’s tales weren’t quite as tall as he’d first thought. Love floods the sadness. Writer John August seeded his relationship with his own dad into the screenplay, and Burton, who had lost his father a couple of years before filming, has called the movie a personal catharsis. For many others, it cuts just as deep.

How did you go about capturing that feeling on the page? How I got there as a writer was very ‘method’, in that I literally sat in front of the mirror, I’d bring myself to tears and then I would write a scene. A weird alchemy happens. You pick different words when you’re in a certain emotional place. Until the roles are assigned to people, I’m all the characters. I have to be able to internally perform everything that these characters are doing. And the Will character is very much me. I kept things as close to me as I could. The ending really hits. There’s something about seeing all of the characters as they really were that works on an elemental level. I definitely hear that. The sequence at the funeral — you don’t have to have that moment in the movie, you could cut it, but it’s where the dam breaks for a lot of people. Because you recognise that there is a reality underneath all of this. And while Will’s father was wildly

as a young Edward Bloom, whose tall tales confused and annoyed his son in Tim Burton’s Big Fish.

exaggerating, his exaggerating was based on some underlying truth. There were people who deeply cared about him, and he had touched so many lives. There’s a deeper emotional truth underneath all the fabrications. Seeing it is hopeful. I think the reason why people might come back to this movie at this time of uncertainty and crisis is that it gives you hope. And as sad as you are to lose Edward Bloom, you recognise that there’s the hope for a continuation. You can mourn someone’s loss while also celebrating their life, and being optimistic about the future. Presumably you’ve heard lots of stories from people who have watched the film with their father, or after they’ve lost their father. I’ve been lucky to have been hearing those stories a lot. More so than any other movie that I’ve been involved with, this is the one that people come back to and say truly impacted them. When my father-in-law was going through chemotherapy, he would watch Big Fish. And I can understand, because it’s about being hopeful in a dark time. ALEX GODFREY

Alamy

This film elicits an intense emotional response from people. What’s that like for you? A common experience of Big Fish is that people don’t expect it to take them to that place. A lot of men especially aren’t used to crying. And so when they find themselves emotional [watching it], it sort of freaks them out. When we were doing test screenings, we realised we had to keep the lights low a little bit longer because if you

brought the lights up right away, people were not in a place to be around other people. It’s [proven] a cathartic experience for a lot of people.

Main: Ewan McGregor

MAY 2020

THE CATALINA WINE MIXER FROM POW ! WE GE T I NTO STEP BROTHERS â&#x20AC;&#x2122; M O ST R I D IC U LOUS S CE N E W I TH D I R E CTOR A ND CO -WR I TE R A DAM M cK AY

MAY 2020

F YOU’RE TRYING to gauge the impact of the Catalina Wine Mixer — the fictional corporate event that provides the backdrop for the triumphant climax of Adam McKay and Will Ferrell’s Step Brothers — this is all you need to know: it’s no longer a fictional event. It’s the fuckin’ Catalina Wine Mixer, and it’s as real as a drum solo performed in the middle of an opera song. There can be no greater tribute to the strangely euphoric sequence, in which Ferrell’s Brennan Huff and John C. Reilly’s Dale Doback, estranged stepbrothers and butts of a never-ending joke, step up to the plate (and the mic, and the drumkit), and rock the hell out of it. Empire caught up with McKay for a deep dive into the scene. Where did the idea come from? We knew it was going to be a joke where we overblow some minor event and treat it like it’s the biggest deal ever. I knew we wanted some kind of bullshit corporate event. Right away, we were like, “Helicopter leasing?” It sounds like something where people would take themselves very seriously. And Ferrell, who grew up around Los Angeles, was like, “What about a wine mixer out in Catalina?” I thought, “Oh my God, that sounds perfect.” Did you shoot in Catalina? We scouted it and the little town is so tiny, there was no footprint for a film crew. So we ended up shooting it at Trump’s golf club. We thought he was just a joke. We had no idea there was this darker thing that was going to happen. If you look at the sequence, in the background you can see the real Catalina Island in the distance. Above: Brennan (Will Ferrell) and Dale (John C. Reilly) step up to the plate at the Catalina Wine Mixer. Below: Proud parents Nancy (Mary Steenburgen) and Robert (Richard Jenkins) look on.

It’s an unexpectedly moving scene, even including Richard Jenkins’ [as Dale’s father, Robert] speech about dinosaurs. That was totally improvised. We were filming this exchange between Reilly and Jenkins and Ferrell and I was like, “It needs something here.” I was talking to Richard and said, “It has to be something you did when you were a kid that was idiotic. What if you pretended to be a dinosaur?” We both kind of wrote it together. We only did two takes. At the premiere, Jenkins said, “Please tell me you didn’t put in that dinosaur monologue.” Oh no, it’s in there.

Was it always going to be those guys doing the song Por ti volare for real? We wrote that [scene] in Ferrell’s guesthouse. It was written to be that song. Hal Willner, our music supervisor, taught me to always do it live. If you can do it live, always do it live. And I knew Ferrell could sing. His dad’s a professional musician. We also knew that song was a little bit of a stretch for him. But when he did it, he rose to the challenge. That’s all them, that’s all live. That’s John on the drums. We brought in a crazy high-level drummer for the fills. But there’s a bunch of it where it’s John. Why that track? When we were writing it, we thought, “You’ve seen these guys lose themselves. We should bring pure beauty into the movie,” but we wanted it to be a little bit cheesy. We went through track after track and spent half a day going through music. We finally found that track and it was perfect. “It’s the fuckin’ Catalina Wine Mixer” has passed into the movie quote hall of fame. Where did it come from? From Ferrell and I just laughing about making a big deal out of the Catalina Wine Mixer. We kept elevating the mythology of it over and over again. In the script it was only two people saying, “It’s the fuckin’ Catalina Wine Mixer.” When it came time to shoot we were like, “We got to get everyone saying it.” You’re no stranger to having your movies quoted back at you. That must be up there... The best quote-back I’ve ever experienced was when the New Orleans Saints had just won the Super Bowl, and one of the players goes, “It’s the fuckin’ Catalina Wine Mixer,” and all the players cheered. And now it’s a real event. I love it. What a crazy, specific inside joke the Catalina Wine Mixer is — and to see it actually become real, and people get the joke of what we were doing, and to see it grow and grow, is very gratifying. Have you thought about going? Reilly and I talked about it two years ago. If they keep doing it... In fact, I’m gonna say it now: if they do it again next year, I’m gonna go. That’s on the record. I have to go. It’s incredible that it still goes on. You should come join. It’ll probably be insane. CHRIS HEWITT

Alamy

Did you know this sequence would have an emotional punch? We did not. The thing that really affected us was when Ferrell’s [screen] brother, Adam Scott, flashes back to him and Brennan as kids. The first time we saw that in the cutting room we were like, “That’s kind of beautiful.” And the other thing was we didn’t know that Will and John singing that song would be oddly moving in a fucked-up way. When we test-screened the movie, we had some people tearing up.

We thought they were kidding. I mean, it’s not the end of Terms Of Endearment, but people were being moved by it.

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LOO KIN G FOR

MAY 2020

T H E LIGHT

T WO DE CADE S ON FROM SAVING PRIVATE RYAN A N D BAN D O F BROTHE RS , TOM H ANKS RET URNS TO WORL D WAR I I W I T H SUB M ARI N E D RAM A GRE YHOUND. WRI T IN G EXCLUSI VELY FO R EM P I RE, HE EX PL AI N S W HY WAR STORIES CAN GI VE U S HO P E WORDS TOM HANKS

MAY 2020

S TA S I S : A PERIOD OF I N A C T I V I T Y… OR CIVIL STRIFE. ALAN FURST, THE fabulous novelist of World War II occupations and spies, sets his books in the war years before the Nazi defeat at Stalingrad because, up until then, the German army seemed invincible and Nazi Germany was sure to rule one side of the world. The Japanese Empire, with its sudden attack of Pearl Harbor, other bases and civilian populations across the Pacific, had conquered the territory it called The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Furst’s characters, then, have but three choices on how to conduct their lives — as heroes, as villains or as cowards. Now, that is a harsh sentence to pass onto the kids and old folks who were alive then, but it does capture the personal dramas that I find so relentlessly fascinating, human and worthy of telling in movies. The War (yeah, in capital letters) had no end date in sight, the Bad guys were winning, and matters as broad as who lived and who died, and as common as how much bread and bacon would be on store shelves, were daily worries for most of the people on the planet. Until the Covid-19 virus affected us all, living in a state of stasis — of constant civil strife — might have been hard to fathom. If you were alive in 1939 and could read a map, the next six years of your life were to be ruled by the great unknown. You had no idea who was going to survive, if your city was to be forever blacked out at night, if invaders were going to appear from just over the horizon or if liberation would ever save you.

...

I KEEP RETURNING to stories about World War II because they ask a very basic question: what would I have done? I don’t mean, “Would I have

MAY 2020

signed up to serve?” as I have enough hubris to assure that, like everyone else, I would have. Rather, I wonder what would have become of me once I became a soldier, seaman or airman? Would I have been an engineer? A cook? A quartermaster? A machinist-mate, like my father was in the South Pacific? A paratrooper who jumped into Normandy

on D-Day like the fellow who ran the drycleaning service of the hotel I once worked for? Would I have been a real-life version of the characters I have played, or would I have served by filling out forms at a desk? And how would I have behaved in that physiological state of stasis — in the paradox of equilibrium and strife?

Main: Tom Hanks as naval commander Ernest Krause. Left: Hanks and team on location in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

When I came across C.S. Forester’s The Good Shepherd, I found a setting for that very state — a destroyer escort protecting a convoy of ships in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in early 1942. The character of Ernie Krause is middle-aged, a career naval officer who graduated from the US Naval Academy 20 years prior, but has just now been given command of his first ship. Adapting the book into the screenplay, Greyhound was an exercise in distilling a million details into a straight line from the moment Commander Krause awakes one morning until he returns to his bed days later, having survived just one extended battle of the North Atlantic; it is his first crossing. He, his crew and the other ships under his protection experience the dread of the war, the terror of fiery deaths in the cold sea, the miscues of unreliable equipment, the life-altering reliance on each other, and the pleasures of stolen bites of a decent meal and the bracing power of a cup of hot coffee. As Forester did with the book, my adapted

screenplay did not go to other settings of London or Berlin. The enemy in the Nazi wolfpack are not seen except when the U-boats surface or in eye-of-God shots from below. One of the challenges of writing the screenplay was dramatising all the information that Forester, the novelist, was able to put into prose. For example, few civilians know that the U-boats could travel as fast as their prey only when they were on the surface. Submerged for the attack, submarines were slowed to a fraction of that speed, powered by electric engines with batteries that needed recharging on the surface. Sonar could not operate when the ship was at high speeds. If Krause needed the familiar ‘beep beep beep PING beep’ that is a part of all ship/sub movies, Greyhound, the ship, has to slow its engines for the sonar to work at all. And get this word into your head — pillenwerfer. Ever hear of it? I hadn’t either. German for “pill-thrower”, a pillenwerfer was a decoy device that a sub would release

underwater, creating the same kind of sound signature that sonar would often confuse with a U-boat. This stuff drove director Aaron Schneider and me a bit nuts. We shot the film on a stage at the Celtic Studios in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in the spring of 2018, also using the USS Kidd, a vintage Fletcher-class destroyer that sits on the Mississippi River as part of a vibrant historical area in downtown Baton Rouge. The cast was trained by Captain Dale Dye (USMC Ret.) who I’ve worked with since the Vietnam sequences in Forrest Gump, then again on every World War II project since (he also played the supervisor who fired me as Larry Crowne). Despite the gimballed set on stage and the actual bulkheads of the Kidd, we still found frustrating limitations when it came to dramatising the smaller details, the standard procedures and historical records that add ingredients to the stew. For example, the quality of the radar in � early 1942 was notoriously spotty, and often

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Clockwise from above: Riding the swell of the North Atlantic; Krause, Charlie Cole (Stephen Graham) and crew pay their respects; Staying alert for Nazi U-boats; Some scenes were shot aboard the USS Kidd in Baton Rouge.

simply did not work. And, do you know what a ‘talker’ is? That’s the crew member on the bridge that repeats exactly what he hears over his headphones — from all over the ship — relaying information and orders to and from the commander. For an actor, it’s a blast to perform. For a director, it’s a lot of footage to shoot. For a screenwriter, it’s a ton of verbiage that devours pages. Krause does not have the luxury of the cinematic narrative of the movie — some of the film’s grander storytelling shots of U-boats on the prowl and the position of the ships in the convoy. He has only the information that is relayed to him and his view of the grey sea. But these details, all these small bits of behaviour, become the material of drama — the small ‘b’ beats that make up the big ‘B’ beats of the inherent conflict of Greyhound. Where are those enemy subs? According to what the sonar operator just said to the talker, and what the talker just repeated to the commander, the U-boat hoping to kill them all is somewhere over there, maybe. And, Krause has just heard over the TBS (‘Talk Between Ships’) that the other escorts under his command are

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chasing a target of their own — a Nazi U-boat — somewhere over there.

A FILM IS made three separate times, each a creative marathon. Writing the screenplay is a maddening if glorious dream, as anything can be conjured up on paper. In the early drafts of Greyhound I was able to go deep, ignoring budget and physics — for example, initially the wardroom [the commissioned officers’ mess] tilted so far over while the ship was manoeuvring when under attack that plates got smashed and urns of hot coffee went flying. And Krause, in his mind’s eye, imagined exactly where the enemy U-boats were, thanks to his visions of Nazi swastikas that crawled across the waves of the rough sea like giant spiders from hell. But limited time, the lack of a second gimbal, a stretched budget and story priorities put the kibosh on all that. In the second incarnation of the movie’s creation — the weeks of shooting — time and budget and, hell, the focus of the film, made

changes inevitable, even crucial. The script tells us what needs to be shot, but the filmmaking itself distils moment after moment, scene after scene, beat after beat, until behaviour and procedure is captured inside the lens. Scenes in the combat information centre, separate from the ship’s bridge, became fleshed out and weightier as orders from Krause are dealt with and his questions are answered. In the long third and final act of making Greyhound — the 18 months of editing, mixing, scoring and shooting of SPFX footage — the film never stopped telling us what it was...and what it was not. The faces of the crew became more expressive than lines of dialogue. A captured pause told more than a shot. The white glare of a distress rocket in the black of night became a chilling, oft-repeated moment of dread. The sad reality of segregation in the Navy made the serving of meals a bitter comment on that historical fact. The African-American messmates served ham steaks and peaches to the ship’s officers in some scenes, but were called to ‘general quarters’ where they supplied ammunition to the ships guns while under attack.

The challenges we faced making the movie all came from the original Forrester [novel]. He wrote of the duties of the four-hour watches, the pondering of what could happen in the next moment, of that stasis, and the stresses Krause faces in the middle of the night, in the middle of the ocean, in the early days of the Battle Of The Atlantic. On board the ship are messengers and clerks, cooks and mechanics, sailors in charge of getting the laundry done, each man with an assigned battle station when ‘general quarters’ are sounded. Had we had all the time and money in the world, I would have included scenes in the ship’s laundry — as I bet, were I in the Navy in 1942, that would have been my assignment.

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I DON’T DOUBT that the news of another World War II drama with my name on it will result in cries of, “What? Again? Why?” I read history for more than entertainment to pass the time on a summer beach (or while I took ‘shelter in place’). I am an actor tasked by Shakespeare — who wrote the greatest historical narratives in literature — to hold up the mirror to human nature. Well-written history, be it the Bard’s Henry IV Parts One and Two or Eugene Sledge’s With The Old Breed: At Peleliu And Okinawa, is as authentic to the record of history as it is to the verities of human nature. These things happened to human beings who were just like us, placing soul-crushing stresses on folks who hoped to keep their families secure, pursue happiness, enjoy the results of their labour, and simply grow old and grow up. That is the stuff of timeless drama, free of any fog of nostalgia nor limited by genre. In Michael Chabon’s most wonderful book, The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay, a woman writes this love letter in the earliest days of The War: “I don’t know what is going to happen to you, to the country or the world. For all I know these words themselves are lying at the bottom of the sea.” Stories from World War II are about the heartbreak and worries of I don’t know. In our production company Playtone’s miniseries and much of the non-fiction-based films I’ve done, the stasis of I don’t know is the personal challenge that can be met with common purpose, with some characters being demonstrably right and others being devastatingly wrong. Even in the best of times, in eras of peace and normalcy, heroes, villains and cowards all work their instincts. In stories of The War, as I hope in Greyhound, we see our current selves reflected on screen — of the choices each of us are forced to make in times of purpose and in periods of stasis. It is the human condition to suffer Fate. How we live through that suffering is when we define our humanity, no? GREYHOUND IS SCHEDULED TO BE IN CINEMAS LATER THIS YEAR

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EXC IT ING, F R AN TIC, TE RR I F YIN G AN D B L EAK , REQ UI EM FOR A D REA M WAS AS POW W E RFUL AS TH E DR UGS IT D EP I CTED â&#x20AC;&#x201D; A ND M AKI NG IT WAS JUST AS TOO UG H. DI R ECTOR DAR R E N AR ON OFSKY TE L LS EMPIREE H OW H E AND H IS CR E W WENT T H RO UGH TH E WRI NGE R WORDS ALEX GODFREY

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O DOUBT ABOUT it: Requiem For A Dream is painful. The film is flooded with h hurt. It hurts to watch it. It hurt to make it. Which is as it should be — Requiem For F A Dream was forged from pain. Hubert Selby Jrr, author new pain of the 1978 novel, kn was intimately. At 18 he w uberculosis. hospitalised with tu He suffered a collapsed lung and onths before got hepatitis. Six mo ntracted w ting Requiem F For A Dream he con ook, pneumonia. All of this fed into the bo a compassionate exploration of addicction, and a feverish nightmare if ever there was one. Darren Aronofsky wanted his film to feel thee same. hly painted He succeeded, turning Selby Jr’s rich iinterior t i worlds ld iinto t a soul-scarring l i g assault. Aronofsky was 30 when he shot Requiem For A Dream in 1999. At a time when new indie voices were lighting up the cinema landscape, Aronofsky, who was offered much after his 1998 breakthrough Pi, instead made this deeply troubling trip to trauma-town, which featured a shaking, roaring fridge monster and a heroin hole in Jared Leto’s arm that had even the hardiest of viewers descending into depression. Aronofsky welcomed the extreme reactions. “The movies that inspire me are the ones that I’m thinking about for a while,” he tells Empire. “Me and my crew always try to keep pushing ourselves, pushing the envelope. Ultimately, to entertain people, and to move people, to make people feel and think.” Requiem For A Dream did all of that, and then some. But getting it to that point? There was so much pain.

Top to bottom: Ellen Burstyn (who plays Sara Goldfarb) chats to director Darren Aronofsky on set; Heroin addict Harry

ARONOFSKY WAS RAISED in Brooklyn’s Manhattan Beach, his tastes formed, as he grew up, by midnight screenings of the likes of A Clockwork Orange. By the time his debut feature, 1998’s $60,000 claustrophobic maths drama Pi, won him Best Director at Sundance, he had already been planning Requiem For A Dream. The path was set after a revelatory discovery of Selby Jr’s work in the late 1980s. “It changed my life,” he says now, at home in New York, of picking up Last Exit To Brooklyn from his university’s library. “I really related to it, and just loved the level of emotion he was able to express with the written word.” In 1991, tasked with making a short while at ﬁlm school in Los Angeles, he wrote an adaptation of Selby Jr’s story Fortune Cookie, about a salesman who gets addicted to the fortunes in fortune cookies. Aronofsky got hold of Selby Jr’s phone number, then visited him at his home. “He greeted me in the door wearing just a pair of tighty-whity underwear,” remembers Aronofsky. “He was a very slight guy, with this mouth full of teeth and a devilish laugh. When you read Selby you expect a huge, violent brute. And he handed me a Lao Tzu poem and said, ‘I just translated this.’ I couldn’t understand what was happening. Skinny guy, almost naked,

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(Jared Leto) and Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) pawn a television; Harry at Coney pp r Island in happier times.

Above: Aronofs sky’s storybo oards. Right: S Sara — top, with Tappy T Tibbons (Christo opher McDonald) — in the drug’s grip.

Lao Tzu — it just didn’t make any sense. And he was like, ‘Yeah, sure, go make your film.’” During production on Pi, Aronofsky’s producer Eric Watson read Requiem For A Dream and told Aronofsky it should be their next film. Aronofsky read it and agreed, dazzled by Selby Jr giving equal weight to Sara Goldfarb’s downward spiral into diet pills and her son Harry’s narcotics problems. “He showed that the mental state inside Sara’s head was the same mental state inside Harry and [his girlfriend] Marion’s heads,” says Aronofsky. “That to me was an awesome idea. And then underneath this, the addiction to the American Dream. Thiis addiction that things were going to be okay. Addiction A to hope.” The film, he thought, could be a monster movie with an invisible mo onster. Aronoffsky had development deals with New Line and M Miramax, but dropped all projects to get Requiem m out of his system. He rented a place in Manhattan Beach and started writing, shifting the story’s location l from the Bronx to Brooklyn, personalising it by implanting specific places from his lifee. Bolstering the script with ideas from a Requ uiem screenplay Selby had written himself years earlier, he would also call the author to provide further scenes to fill in some gaps. In the their finished script, realised Aronofsky, addiction was the protagonist, overcoming the human spirit. It was a brutal screenplay, and Hollywood didn’t bite. “Everyone was really excited after Pi at Sundance. People were like, ‘What do you wanna do?’ And I would send them a copy of Requiem For A Dream and they wouldn’t even

call me back,” laughs Aronofsky. “No-one wanted to make it.” Unwavering, he and Watson raised finances independently, finding a company who gave them a budget of $5 million, and began casting. Aronofsky was blown away by both Leto, who won the role of Harry, and Jennifer Connelly, whom he cast as Marion. Connelly “destroyed”, says Aronofsky. “It was one of the best auditions I’ve ever witnessed in my life. She tossed a chair, she just went crazy.” Marlon Wayans auditioned five times to play their friend Tyrone, each time not sleeping for three nights beforehand to give himself an appropriate aura. As far as Aronofsky saw it, though, Sara Goldfarb was the film’s focus, emphasising the broader themes, elevating it from being a simpler junkie drama. After seeing Ellen Burstyn in a play he was set on her, but she hated the script, finding it a depressing piece of work that, she believed, nobody would want to see. “Ellen says she read Requiem and said, ‘Absolutely not. And for no money? Absolutely not,’” says Aronofsky. “But then she saw Pi and that gave her the courage to do it.” She was impressed by Aronofsky’s debut and, reading Requiem again, became intensely invested in it, falling in love with Sara Goldfarb — and relating to her. “I have experienced loneliness,” she told The New York Times, explaining her connection. “I have experienced addiction of one kind or another: tobacco, alcohol, food, bad relationships.” For six weeks before the shoot, Aronofsky worked through the script with the cast, but also underwent some fieldwork. He took Burstyn to the places he grew up in, introducing her to his grandmother and her friends so she could soak up the Brooklyn accent, while he, Leto, Connelly and Wayans hung out in Coney Island and went clubbing. Then, he put them through a rigorous withdrawal program. Tappy Tibbons, the motivational speaker who sends Sara over the edge, was Aronofsky’s creation. Tibbons proselytises his ‘Month Of Fury’, a self-help plan borrowed from one of

Aronofsky’s actor friends, who for 30 days before undertaking a job would cut out three things: red meat, reﬁned sugar and an element not mentioned in the ﬁlm: orgasms. Aronofsky

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would practise it himself, and for the film he asked his young cast to do the same. “It demonstrated to them the willpower necessary to quit something, because it’s a very strong lesson you learn from that,” says Aronofsky. “Jared went above and beyond, like in everything he does — he went really, really deep.” Leto lost 25lbs for the role but also, to gain a more intimate feel for Harry, lived on the streets for some time, befriending some addicts. “There were a couple of nights where we all went out with these junkies who were partaking,” remembers Aronofsky, “and Jared…he didn’t partake, but he got very, very close to the research, to try to understand it.” Leto was shooting up — but water rather than heroin. His new acquaintances would have been uncomfortable, he explained at the time, if they were all using needles and he wasn’t. “I remember him sticking a needle in his arm with water in it, and I’m like, ‘Dude, what the fuck are you doing?!’” recalls Aronofsky. “Anyway. That’s Jared Leto — he takes it very seriously.” A week before filming, Aronofsky went on a date to a bar, and received a phone call from his financiers informing him that the budget was being slashed in half. “At some point they talked to too many Hollywood people, and one of them was like, ‘Are you crazy, to invest $5 million in that movie?’ The phone rang and they said to me, ‘You have to make it for two-and-a-half.’ And I broke down and started crying. It was really weird because it was a first date and this woman didn’t know how to deal with me. I was crying, and she was trying to be nice, but she had no connection to me emotionally, or anything. Needless to say, there was no second date.” Watson, though, managed to get the budget up to $3.5 million. And with some reconfiguration, Requiem was ready to roll. It would be a rough, raw month. IT WAS A 37-DAY shoot, in the summer of 1990, on sets and on location in Brooklyn. Aronofsky and cinematographer Matthew Libatique doubled down on techniques they’d used for Pi, strapping cameras to actors to give them focus in the midst of swirling, shaking frenzy,

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to further ﬂing us inside their breaking mental states. The actors, meanwhile, had their own methods. Leto ate little, later saying that, as rewarding as it was, during ﬁlming he was miserable, “in a painful, dark place”. “He felt that he should be super-skinny, and so he went for it,” remembers Aronofsky. “He was often in a bad mood, a grouchy guy on set. It was tough but he apologised, always. At the end of the day he did his work, and that’s all that matters.” Burstyn, 67 at the time, lost 10lbs herself late in the shoot via, she said, her “famous cabbage soup diet”, but had already suffered hardships by way of a cumbersome, 40lb fat suit, and a prosthetic neck which she often had to wear for 15 hours a day. Her skin would absorb the glue, resulting in her chest being covered in sores and bleeding, let alone the heavy camera often strapped to her. Yet she triumphed, all but becoming Sara Goldfarb. “I had never seen acting like that,” says Aronofsky. “That type of focus and transformation and commitment and intelligence.” She wasn’t quite Method acting but, in-between takes, didn’t “come back all the way to being Ellen. We would do some crazy, intense, nightmarish sequence and

then after cut, I’d have one or two notes and go up to her and say, ‘Ellen?’ And almost throug u h a heavy veil, I could see Ellen inside. I could ee her soul in there. I could see her acknowledgge it and absorb it and give me a yes with her eyes. It was like talking to someone in a trance.” The ﬁlm’s emotional centrepiece is a tenminute scene in which a broken, quivering

Top left: Marion spirals out of control. Left: Tyrone’s not doing too well himself.

Left: Sara undergoes electroconvulsive therapy. Above right: Tyrone continues to have a hard time. Just say

Getty Images

no, mate.

Sara lays herself bare to her son. “I’m lon nely,” she tells Harry. “I’m old.” For all of the film’s technical tricks, there’s nothing as powerful as Ellen Burstyn pouring her heart out, a 67 7-yearold woman confessing absolute vulnerab bility to her son. The scene was one of the main rreasons Aronofsky wanted to make the film — hee cried when he read it in the book. On set, it had the same effect on others. Burstyn later explained that she feltt confronted by her own ageing process and, lost in the moment, it hit her. It was real. On the set, “big hairy grips” were sobbing, says Aronofsky. Libatique was crying so much his lens got fogged up, resulting in some of the shot being slightly out of focus. “I remember being devastated because it was the greatest performance I was ever honoured to capture,” remembers Aronofsky. He got over it, eventually. “Sometimes you just have to go with the emotion over technical perfection,” he says. The shoot had taken something out of everyone. “There were a couple of moments towards the end where I had hallucinations,” said Leto, having fasted throughout. Connelly, meanwhile, needed to expunge. “It was really hard to go through, emotionally. It was draining, sad and uncomfortable,” she later said of filming. “I went on vacation afterwards to Costa Rica. I floated in the ocean for two weeks to cleanse

myself.” It had been an intense time for all. But there were more battles to come. POST-PRODUCTION WENT well — Clint Mansell had created a suitably overwhelming score, with beats sampled from Bruce Lee punches in Enter The Dragon and strings provided by the Kronos Quartet. Aronofsky and his editor, Jay Rabinowitz, wanted to have the edit accelerate as the film hurtled towards its montage of hell, in which Sara undergoes shock treatment, Harry injects more filth into the stagnating abyss on his arm, Marion finds herself in a depraved apocalypse and Tyrone breaks down in prison. But the threeminute climax, with its rush of intensity and a double-headed dildo, was all too much for the MPAA, America’s ratings board, who awarded it the dreaded NC-17, a commercial kiss of death. Aronofsky wouldn’t make edits. “I had to say to the studio that the entire reason this movie exists is about how far addiction makes you undermine your humanity,” he remembers. “And if we are to retreat from that and cut back any of those ideas, any of those visuals, any of those sounds — then we’re undermining the entire nature of the project. So I refused to do it.” The distributor, Artisan, instead released the film unrated. Aronofsky wanted the film to pummel people, and it did. At one screening, a journalist

threw up. At 2000’s Toronto Film Festival, someone had heart palpitations, and a paramedic arrived. It made a modest $7.3 million at the box office. “There was some heat on it but it was very controversial; a lot of people were really upset with it, and disturbed by it,” says Aronofsky. “And pissed off by it. If you look at some reviews, you’ll see that.” Those who loved it, though, really loved it. Burstyn, rightly, bagged an Oscar nomination. And before the shoot had even ended, Warner Bros. came calling, hiring Aronofsky to direct a new Batman film. “I was just like, ‘What? What are they talking about?’” he remembers. “This was before they were putting young directors on superhero films. I wasn’t a comic-book guy but I could see that that was where the studio wanted to go. So I tried.” Collaborating with Frank Miller, he wrote an R-rated, reality-infused screenplay, shocking even Miller with the dark direction he insisted on pushing it in. Warner Bros. baulked, especially at the lead casting. “The studio wanted Freddie Prinze Jr and I wanted Joaquin Phoenix,” says Aronofsky. “I remember thinking, ‘Uh oh, we’re making two different films here.’” Eventually, just as he’d ditched development deals after Pi, Aronofsky instead moved onto the film he really wanted to make: The Fountain. Requiem For A Dream had put him in the position where he was able to do what he wanted. Today, the film has a whole new currency. In 2020, addiction has expanded and splintered, with mobile phones and social media severely altering our brain chemistry, having us constantly hankering for the next hit, the tiny dopamine rushes, the personal validation. “Everyone is now a junkie with their telephone,” says Aronofsky. “The amount of time that people spend refreshing their Twitter and Instagram feeds is completely something Selby would have written about and I would have made a film about. If I was doing Month Of Fury now, it would be 30 days without social media. See how many people can fuckin’ do that! That’s harder than no orgasms.” Yet Requiem For A Dream has not dated. It is just as startling, just as scarring. And as feel-bad as it is, it is perversely life-affirming. The pain paid off.

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COSTUME DESIGNER EDITH HEAD TRAILBLAZED HER WAY THROUGH THE 20TH CENTURY. WE SALUTE A TRUE HOLLYWOOD RENEGADE WORDS REBECCA NICHOLSON 92

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Clockwise from above left: Head’s design for Audrey Hepburn in 1954’s Sabrina; Posing with some of her

HE EARLY CAREER OF HOLLYWOOD’S most famous costume designer gave no hint of superstardom. Edith Head would go on to become an icon not just of her profession, winning eight Academy Awards for her work — still a record for the category — but of Hollywood itself, memorialised in pop culture thanks to her trademark blunt black bob, dark round glasses and stern expression. But she cut her teeth on two near-disasters that might have ended her career before it truly began. In 1924, shortly after joining Paramount as a sketch artist, she was asked to design the ladies’ gowns for the infamous ‘Candy Ball’ scene in Cecil B. DeMille’s extravagant 1924 picture The Golden Bed. It was her ﬁrst major assignment, and told the story of a rich girl who loses her fortune and tries to ensnare a newly wealthy confectionary magnate. At the Candy Ball, all of the women’s gowns were made of real sweets, to be devoured by their suitors. Head was excited by her ﬁrst big job, and went to town. She stuck to the script a little too rigorously, however, and made the costumes out of real chocolate and other sweets — which melted under the sweltering heat of the studio lights.

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sketches; With Carroll Baker and producer Joseph E. Levine on the set of 1965’s Harlow; Dressing Sophia Loren; Chatting with Alfred Hitchcock on the set of

A year later, she began work on Raoul Walsh’s The Wanderer, on which she was tasked with dressing the lead elephant. She made a vivid wreath out of flowers and fruit, but filming was delayed for several hours, and the animal began to merrily tuck into its own wardrobe. “How was I to know elephants eat fruits and flowers?” she recalled in her book Edith Head’s Hollywood. Head was never unprepared again. During her long career, which began in the silent era and continued right through until her death in 1981, she redefined what it meant to be a costume designer, referring to herself as “a combination of psychiatrist, artist, fashion designer, dressmaker, pincushion, historian, nursemaid and purchasing agent”. She became famous as a dispenser of waspish anecdotes and no-nonsense fashion advice, on call to the biggest female stars of their times. She also learned not to design costumes that were quite so appetising.

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MUCH OF EDITH HEAD’S LIFE WAS presented exactly how she wanted it to be. She was born Edith Claire Posner in San Bernardino, California in 1897, though her early years remained mysterious until after her passing.

Family Plot in 1976; A who’s who of Head’s clients: Grace Kelly in Rear Window; Kelly in To Catch A Thief; Elizabeth Taylor; Audrey Hepburn.

Alamy, Getty Images

Reporting the news of her death, the New York Times referred to her as “Miss Head, who never admitted her age, but was believed to be in her early eighties”. She began her career as a language teacher, eventually teaching French at the Hollywood School for Girls. To earn more money, she also started to teach art, though had exaggerated her abilities in the subject, and had to take evening classes to develop her skills with a pencil. During a summer break from teaching, Head saw an advertisement for a sketch artist at the Famous Players-Lasky studio, which would go on to become Paramount. In need of some extra cash, she applied — using her classmates’ drawings. “I was studying seascapes and all I could draw was oceans,” she said, in Edith Head’s Hollywood. “I needed a portfolio, so I borrowed sketches — I didn’t steal them... It never occurred to me that it was quite dishonest.” It never occurred to Howard Greer, then chief designer at the studio, that the drawings were not Head’s own work. “I hired the gal on the spot,” he wrote in his 1951 memoir, Designing

Male. “She came to work the next morning and looked out from under her bangs with the expression of a frightened terrier.” Eventually, Head would make her austere expression a trademark, though it emerged under less contrived circumstances. She was self-conscious about her teeth, having her two front incisors missing, and never smiled with them on show. It made her look stern, but it wasn’t until Barbara Stanwyck, with whom she worked on 25 pictures including Double Indemnity, asked her why she never smiled that she let her insecurity slip. Stanwyck promptly marched her off to the dentist to get them fixed. In early publicity shots for Paramount, Head did not wear her glasses, but soon made them part of what we would now call her personal brand — an image that became iconic. Incredibles director Brad Bird likes to play down the similarities, but the franchise’s fictional fashion designer Edna Mode was clearly partly inspired by her. Head’s little round glasses were darkened, initially so she could see what colours would look like when filmed in black-and-white. She preferred to wear two-piece suits, and in only four colours: black, white, beige and brown. The simple sternness of her image played into her canny eye for myth-making, but it also had a practical

purpose. According to Jay Jorgensen’s 2010 biography, Edith Head: The Fifty-Year Career Of Hollywood’s Greatest Costume Designer, Head, who was barely five feet tall herself, explained exactly how her demeanour worked in her favour. “Stars don’t like to look past the mirror and see a designer in a brightly coloured dress. When I’m at the studio, I’m always little Edith in the dark glasses and the little beige suit. That’s how I’ve survived.” Head had a way with leading ladies and she inspired great loyalty in her female stars. During her 44 years at Paramount, she was often “loaned out” to other studios at the request of actors such as Bette Davis, who personally asked that she work on All About Eve. “Throughout my career I have used clothes to turn drudges into princesses, plain Janes into glamour girls, frumps into fashion plates,” she wrote in the introduction to her fantastically sassy 1967 advice book, How To Dress For Success. Her first big name was Clara Bow, whom she dressed for the 1927 military classic Wings. Initially, the pair clashed. At the time, Head was a stickler for authenticity, while Bow kept trying to put a more flattering, though not official issue, belt around the waist of her character’s army ¼ uniform. Legend has it that Head was on set at

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all times, to snatch away the belt whenever Bow tried to sneak it on. Head remembered Bow fondly in her memoirs: “I still cherish an old photograph she gave me inscribed, ‘To Edith with love, but why don’t you put your goddamn belts around your waist where they belong?’” Later, she learned to be more flexible around female stars; one of her most famous quotes was, “You can lead a horse to water and you can even make it drink, but you can’t make actresses wear what they don’t want to wear.” Despite their conflict, Head became a confidante to Bow, a role she later played for many other female Hollywood icons. She dressed Mae West in She Done Him Wrong (1933), the first film in which “Costumes by Edith Head” appeared on the credits. Head said she fell in love with West the instant they met, and they worked together on and off up until Myra Breckinridge in 1970. She dressed Marlene Dietrich for six films between 1930-35. Head recognised kindred spirits and enjoyed her collaborations, relishing the intimacy of a joint approach. When Bette Davis asked her to work on All About Eve, they ironed out a particularly pressing issue together. A dress Head had designed for Margo Channing’s (played by Davis) big party scene was made the night before it was needed. Head arrived on set, and found “Bette, already in the dress, looking quizzically at her own reflection in the mirror. I was horrified. The dress didn’t fit her at all.” There had been a mistake, and the bodice and the neckline had been made too big. Head said that Davis pulled the neckline down, “shook one shoulder sexily, and said, ‘Don’t you like it better like this, anyway?’ I could have hugged her.” Davis later confided that she bought the dress, and had a signed Edith Head sketch of it hung up in her home. Head was the first Hollywood designer to dress Audrey Hepburn, whom she called “the perfect mannequin for anything I would make”, and whose appearance was markedly different from that of the other bombshells of the 1950s, such as Elizabeth Taylor (whom Head often dressed, and adored) and Marilyn Monroe (Head said it was one of her great regrets that she never designed for her). When she dressed Hepburn for Roman Holiday in 1953, Head showed the powers of her profession, as well as her characteristic bluntness. “I called attention to her long neck so that people began to describe her as ‘swanlike’ and ‘graceful’ instead of ‘gangly’,” she said. “I emphasised her broad shoulders to draw the eye up to her face, but nobody ever said she looked like a football player.” She later marvelled that “the reed-slim silhouette” Head created for Hepburn remained her “most sought-after” look, and Roman Holiday won both Hepburn and Head an Oscar. For Head it was a fifth. Not every A-lister received her lifelong friendship. Though she worked with DeMille again after the Candy Ball fiasco, their relationship remained testy, and she reserves a rare harsh word for him in her autobiography.

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She won another Oscar for 1950’s Samson And Delilah, though her recollections of the experience are not fond: she called DeMille “a conceited old goat” who “never did an authentic costume picture in his life, and in my opinion that made him a damn liar as well as an egotist”. She had reservations about Hedy Lamarr, its Delilah, too. “She never registered any enthusiasm at her ﬁttings,” she complained in Edith Head’s Hollywood. “Since I was ﬁtting Olivia de Havilland for The Heiress, Bette Davis for All About Eve, Gloria Swanson for Sunset Boulevard, and that sweet, young Elizabeth Taylor for A Place In the Sun during the same months, the contrasts made it all the more difficult to enjoy working with Hedy Lamarr.” It must be one of the greatest humble-brags, and insults, in the history of Hollywood. That she could reel off the names with such easy familiarity shows the extent of her enormous entanglement with the greats of cinema.

...

EDITH HEAD CLAIMED TO HAVE WORKED on 1,131 movies during her 58-year career. She weathered changes in fads and fashions, and even global crises. During World War II, the

Left, top to bottom: Shirley MacLaine looks elegant for the 1959 Academy Awards courtesy of Head; Robert Redford and Paul Newman in 1973’s The Sting; Steve Martin in Head’s ﬁnal ﬁlm, 1982’s Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid. Above: Head sketching at her desk. Below: And posing with all eight of her Academy Awards at home in Los Angeles, on 20 September 1979.

US government issued restrictions on the amount of fabric that could be used. There could be no more silk for lavish gowns, and no unnecessary frills. After dressing Dorothy Lamour in a sarong in a number of movies, from The Jungle Princess to Hurricane, Head had made the item a staple of western fashion. By the time Road To Morocco was made, in 1941, even Lamour was feeling the pinch. Head substituted cotton for silk, and painted goatskin gold to make a fake metallic trim. “It all worked, thanks to some ingenuity and clever lighting effects,” she said. However, by 1944, Head was indulging in a little excess once again. She designed what became known as ‘the mink dress’ for Ginger Rogers’ character in Lady In The Dark, which, at $35,000, was one of the most expensive costumes ever made. “Actually it was a mink overskirt which was lined with sequins, worn over a matching sequinned bodysuit. There was also a mink bolero and muff,” Head said. If the director Mitch Leisen had had his way, it might have been even more extravagant. He originally asked for the skirt to be lined with faux rubies and emeralds, but they made the skirt so heavy that Rogers couldn’t lift it, never mind dance in it, and the jewels became sequins. In 1945, Head made her ﬁrst appearance on Art Linkletter’s radio show House Party. She had been dispensing to-the-point fashion advice in the pages of Photoplay magazine, responding to full-length photographs readers sent in of themselves with appraisals and tips, and Linkletter saw her star potential. She appeared

once a month to talk fashion, and peppered her words of wisdom with anecdotes about the stars she had dressed. “As her confidence grew, she became more and more blunt with the ladies, but they never took offence,” Linkletter recalled, according to Paddy Calistro, who co-wrote Edith Head’s Hollywood. Her bluntness became as much a part of her personality as her glasses and hair. She wrote two other books in her lifetime, The Dress Doctor in 1959, and the aforementioned How To Dress For Success. Both are still in print, and though their advice has not aged well in terms of gender politics — “while the boys ogle and applaud the charms of Venus Unadorned in art galleries, night clubs and between the covers of some magazines, it’s the covered girls rather than the Cover Girls they invariably marry,” she wrote in the latter — their wit and some of their wisdom remains unparalleled. She followed House Party from radio to television, and continued to appear as a regular guest until its demise in 1969. By this point, she had moved from Paramount to Universal, on the recommendation of Alfred Hitchcock, with whom she worked on eight films, including Rear Window, The Birds and Vertigo (dressing the two characters played by Kim Novak). At times, Head was criticised for her sartorial conservatism, but it ensured a fruitful, close partnership with Hitchcock, who thought that unless they made a point, bright colours distracted from the story. “If the script called for a girl in a red dress, that was one thing, but to put her in a red dress for no reason was out of the question in a Hitchcock film,” she said. She won her final, eighth Oscar in 1974, at the age of 76, for George Roy Hill’s The Sting. Unusually for her, it was for dressing its two male stars, Robert Redford and Paul Newman. “Just imagine, dressing the two handsomest men in the world, and then getting this,” she said, upon collecting the award. “I simply couldn’t be more happy, or more grateful.” And even in her eighties, she appeared to be enjoying her fame. Today’s legendary costume designer Colleen Atwood recalled catching a glimpse of her out on the town in 1980. “I saw Edith Head in New York when I first moved there, at Studio 54,” Atwood told the Los Angeles Times. “It was a great moment. She had a huge entourage of gorgeous young boys. She was ancient, had a black turtleneck and long floral skirt, was really turned out for the evening.” Head continued working right up until her death, just two weeks after she finished her final film, Carl Reiner’s Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid. Again, she drew on her considerable expertise to design its 1940s, noir-inspired costumes. The film was dedicated to her memory. As befits an icon of Head’s standing, Bette Davis delivered the eulogy at her memorial service. “A queen has left us, the queen of her profession,” Davis said. “She will never be replaced.” Which is, you suspect, exactly how Edith Head would have liked it.

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I N D I S P E N S A B L E H O M E E N T E R T A I N M E N T [ EDITED BY CHRIS HEWITT]

! SPOILER WARNING

REVIEW

Filling in the Blanc

RIAN JOHNSON reveals the secrets of his Knives Out master detective, Benoit Blanc

Daniel Craig swaps martinis and fast cars for a piano as Southern detective Benoit Blanc.

COUNT YOUR LUCKY stars that you weren’t hanging around the Empire office late last year. Because, for a couple of weeks in the run-up to Christmas, Benoit Blanc was everywhere. Every conversation, every bit of throwaway badinage had a Blanc reference or quote in there somewhere. And you couldn’t move for impressions; bad take-offs of Daniel Craig drawling, “I suspect foul play,” or “I have eliminated no suspects,” or, most fun of all to say, “I am a passive observer of the truth.” All of which echoed the rest of the world’s reaction to the master detective created by Rian Johnson for his wonderful whodunnit, Knives Out. Johnson made no bones, from the off, about his desire to create a cinematic case-cracker to rival Poirot, and in the shape of Craig’s eccentric, Sondheim-loving, brilliant private eye, who solves the murder of a successful New Englandbased mystery writer, he succeeded so spectacularly that he’s already hard at work on a sequel. And when we sat down with Johnson recently, we decided to become passive observers of the truth behind Benoit Blanc… People have wholeheartedly taken to Benoit Blanc. Has that taken you by surprise? You always hope people are going to respond. But I sat there, watching Daniel do it, and we all, on set, had our own mini-version of that reaction. So I’m not that surprised. Even seeing him in the moment do this character was pretty infectious. Daniel is so charming, and I think the key to it is not just a funny accent, but that he’s bringing real humanity to the part. I remember when I showed the movie to my buddy, Noah Segan, who’s Trooper Wagner, he said, “He’s a real person.” He’s so big and goofy and yet, at the end of the movie, he feels like a real person that you kind of trust. There’s something that feels really nice about that, I think. His relationship with Ana de Armas’ Marta is very much the heart of the movie. The only way that’s really satisfying is if you’ve started with the opposite. In the beginning of the movie, Blanc is basically the antagonist. The reality is, even though you like him, there’s that tension of he’s the one who’s going to have to catch Marta at the end. And you’re kind of worrying that he will catch her. Hopefully, that makes it more satisfying at the end when you get to have your cake and eat it, too. Or your doughnut. Precisely. Where did his voice come from? I don’t mean the accent, but the way he talks. His doughnut analogy is so gloriously convoluted, for instance. I wrote in a manner that I thought was pretty straightforward. I had a little bit of fun with his sense of self-inflation. You can tell he likes the sound of his own voice. Other than that, I approached him in a fairly straightforward

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way according to the needs of the story and figured whoever I would cast in the part, by nature of their personality, would end up defining the character. It’s not like we did a bunch of improv — we basically shot what was written, but Daniel really did create that character through the way he embodied him. So the doughnut speech, where Blanc explains the mystery via an over-elaborate metaphor, was on the page? It was. I almost cut it, actually. I thought, “This is kind of goofy.” I wanted it to be something where the detective does one of those belaboured metaphors about the case, which doesn’t really make any sense. You see that pop up in detective fiction. And also, to define the notion that there’s still a piece missing. It was funny on the page, but I remember telling Daniel that it was kind of goofy, and he told me, “Leave that in, I’d like to try that.” On set, I was feeling like, thank God we left that in. Did it take a while to make that speech make sense? There are so many holes to keep track of. The weird thing is, it does make sense. Essentially what he’s talking about is we, the audience, know that the hole that’s missing is Marta’s story, that we’ve seen, so we think we know what goes in the middle of the doughnut. But the hole in the doughnut is the Ransom [Chris Evans] part of it. That’s what he uncovers at the end. It does describe the plot, in a weird way. The whole time we’re waiting to see if Blanc is going to figure out this missing piece that we know, but we don’t know that there’s a piece missing from the piece that we know. It’s actually a pretty economical way of describing it. What about the first time you saw and heard him as Blanc on set, on day one? The very first thing we shot was a tiny little scene up in Harlan’s [Christopher Plummer] study, when Marta and Trooper Wagner are watching him search the study, and he flips the Go board over, and Ransom comes in. It was kind of a little, no-pressure scene. But the first big unveiling, the first moment when the rest of the cast got to see him doing the accent, was the moment when he steps forward and stops Marta from telling the truth, and calls them a bunch of vultures at the feast, with their knives out. None of the other actors had heard him do the voice. All of them were there, behind the camera. It was a great unveiling. It was pretty fun. So Daniel didn’t do it in rehearsal? For that moment, we wanted when we were rolling for that to be the first time they saw it, so we didn’t do full performance.

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Below, top to bottom: Craig sporting Blanc’s “comfortable, worn-in tweed”; Blanc with fellow detective Elliott (Lakeith Stanfield) and Trooper Wagner (Noah Segan).

As the creator of this character, what was it like for you watching him come to life? So much fun. Daniel gives my favourite type of performance, which is a performance that is huge and still feels like a person. That’s why what Noah said coming out of that screening made me happy. With this, we wanted to land it as an actual movie and that meant having characters who are larger than life, but they still have to work. Seeing Daniel pull that off, with that accent and this bigger performance, it takes an actor of exceptional skill to do that. What sort of conversations did you have with him about his back story? We don’t get to know much about him, other than that he was profiled in The New Yorker. It’s a genre where the detective gets to be the central figure and the one you walk away from the movie remembering, yet he plays a very supportive role in terms of the arc you’re actually following. We talked about the references of not just Agatha Christie’s books, but the movies of hers that I grew up watching, and he did, too. He got it very quickly, so there was no real reason to do a deep dive into, “Where did he go to school?” Daniel may have come up with that stuff on his own, but the answer is who he is, on the page. If Daniel had needed more, I’d have supplied it, but that’s all you really need.

REVIEW

Blanc could be anything. And I more and more liked the idea of him dressing in very comfortable, worn-in tweed fabrics. It doesn’t really come across, but the idea is that his jacket has these big pockets that he uses. It’s like Mary Poppins’ bag. He can pull anything out of those pockets. He feels soft and comfortable and, at the same time, he’s formidable and a welcoming presence. He wore a tie because he’s got a police background, so he fits in with Trooper Wagner and Detective Elliott [Lakeith Stanfield]. I loved that Daniel’s thing was rolling up his sleeves and tucking his tie into his shirt in the end. That’s something Daniel wanted to do. I don’t know where it came from.

Main: Director Rian Johnson, with a veritable canteen of knives; Who wore it best? Craig takes his turn in front of the heavyduty cutlery.

Alamy, Claire Folger

But he’s clearly a big noise. He’s well-known. He’s renowned. He’s been profiled in The New Yorker. That’s part of the fun of it. Poirot had that element of celebrity to him, and I enjoy that. I enjoy how he’s aware of that. That’s kind of delicious, especially when you have someone with the movie-star charisma that Daniel has. He could do the schlubby outsider, but it felt more fun to me to make Daniel Craig be this kind of guy that everybody is a little excited to be in the room with, until the case starts grinding on and they get more and more annoyed with him. Eventually Don Johnson is saying, “You’re full of shit.” He allows people to underestimate him, to think he’s full of bluster when he’s the sharpest tool in the room. That was the origin of the Southern accent, actually. It was, “Okay, this is going to be set in New England, amongst all upper-crust WASPs.” And giving him a Southern accent makes him a fish out of water, in a way. You might expect these folks to underestimate him. So, let’s go back to the New Yorker article. Who’s the tennis champ whose case Blanc has just solved? That’s a very sly reference to one of my favourite

movies, which is the 1970s version of Sleuth. In the beginning, the character of Andrew, who’s played by Laurence Olivier, is a mystery writer dictating into a tape recorder the ending of his current novel, ‘Death By Double-Fault’, which describes how a body was discovered in a tennis court. Let’s talk about the look of the character. Clothes maketh the man. Jenny Eagan is our costume designer, and we spent a lot of time talking about Blanc. Everybody else in the family, we had a handle to grab onto.

How many drafts of the script did you go through, and did Blanc’s portrayal and purpose change? His purpose never changed. I went through about 22 revisions of the script. That’s not page one rewrites. But his purpose didn’t change. I was refining his character throughout the whole thing. I wasn’t sure who he was going to be. It was almost like a TBD slot in terms of ‘the eccentric detective goes here’. I had Poirot on my brain, and I went down the very unhelpful route of coming up with all these quirks. It got ridiculous and kind of stupid. That’s when I ended up throwing all that out, and trying to write him a little more straightforward. Blanc is a music fan. He listens to Sondheim at one point. I think the goofball element is important. A certain amount of humour and clownishness to me was really important to the character. I think it makes the audience like him more if he’s not this serious, badass detective. He’s really silly but also good at his job. But it’s just fun. I was listening to Follies a lot when I was writing, and that song was in my head. And also, he’s kind of losing his mind because he can’t really figure out the case. And when we first meet him he’s sitting in the shadows, unsettling witnesses by plinking a single note on the piano… That was in the script, but different. He was originally tapping the back of Elliott’s chair with his foot. I realised when we started blocking it on the day that it wasn’t going to work because of the geography of the room. And there was a piano in the room, and so I told Daniel to play this piano key instead of tapping. Was that one of the quirks you talked about? By quirks, I mean eyepatches. I mean stupid stuff. There’s a good reason it’s not in there. CHRIS HEWITT KNIVES OUT IS OUT NOW ON DVD, BLU-RAY AND DOWNLOAD

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REVIEW

The genius of Babu Frik THE RISE OF SKYWALKER proved divisive, but Star Wars fans all agree that the alien droid mechanic of Kijimi rules. Empire uncovers the full story of how he was brought to life CONCEPTION Neal Scanlan [creature and special effects creative supervisor]: Babu was one of J.J.’s [Abrams, director] early ideas. Ivan Manzella [creature concept designer]: [J.J.] says, “I’ve got this character, he’s nine inches tall, I want him kind of cute.” For two weeks I drew loads of aliens. I sketched a helmet from the side with a little hood. J.J. was like, “That’s kind of cool.” I made a seven-inch maquette, and they loved it. Scanlan: J.J. and Michelle Rejwan [producer] looked at it and went, “Oh that’s adorable.” Manzella: I didn’t make him cute, I made him ugly-cute, like a pug. My inspiration was Egg

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Shen from Big Trouble In Little China — he had one eye slightly closed. I said, “His eye has to be mechanically limited so he’s always squinting on one side.” Shirley Henderson [actor]: Nina Gold [casting director] asked me to meet J.J. and audition, but she wouldn’t tell me what for. She gave tiny, little clues. I came up with something, showed that to J.J. in his office, and he offered me the job then and there.

EVOLUTION Manzella: Babu evolved in the script. At one point he was protecting a Wayﬁnder in a cave or something, living off cockroaches. Scanlan: His role was different — a sort of fortune-teller,

a spiritual entity, who lived in his own little world. You’d be invited into this room, and within it is a smaller room, and inside that room was Babu. It was a conversation between him and Rey. She visited him in order to ﬁnd some information.

PRE-PRODUCTION Henderson: I had to learn a bit of puppetry, y mouth manipulation. I was trying to ﬁnd the voice at the same time, learning how to do the mouth so that I could be free vocallyy It was strange but amazing. Scanlan: Shirley spent a week

Above: Babu Frik steals another scene. Below: Shirley Henderson, who voiced Babu.

rehearsing with us. She had the radio control unit for Babu’s mouth and performed it in real time. She built the voice slowly. The ﬁrst time we heard it, it was a little bit nonsensical, but she was ﬁnding it in her mind. Henderson: It developed to be gruffer and deeper. I worked d with Jill McCullough [voice coach] who makes sure you hold on to stuff so you can source it on set. To make up the language I imagined the weather outside Babu’s workshop, what his thoughts might be. I’d reverse words and feelings of words, and putt images in my head into words and then inverse and twist them. My scriptt was covered in scribbles.

gathered themselves. Henderson: J.J. kept asking me to do it for a laugh. Even when I was saying goodbye, “Just say it one more time!”

THE FILM

Henderson: I didn’t know Babu was going to pop back up in the final act. It was a nice surprise. Scanlan: It could be a rumour, but I believe J.J. screened the movie for Steven Spielberg, and at the end Spielberg said, “What happened to Babu?” Everybody thought, “Oh God, what did happen to Babu?” Manzella: I think he was going to die originally — I think the AD shot that. When the planet got blown up, he was on it. Scanlan: We shot several other sequences. The ILM guys found one, lifted out Babu and put him into Zorii’s ship at the end. Top to bottom: Concept art from Lucasfilm charting the visual development of Babu Frik, from early sketches to the visor-sporting iteration that made the final cut.

Disney, Lucasfilm, Getty Images

THE SHOOT

Scanlan: Five puppeteers looked after Babu’s main motion. The whole platform was done in the set next to C-3PO, so we could shoot it live. Henderson: I was there the whole time during filming, improvising and helping to work the mouth. Manzella: It was a pretty tight set — there were a lot of people crammed around it. Scanlan: When Babu goes, “Hehey!”, we were in stitches. Shirley was in an alcove to the right of J.J., and the puppeteers were crammed against the wall. When someone gets the giggles, it’s very infectious. We had to wait before rolling cameras again because people like the focus-puller hadn’t quite

THE REACTION

Scanlan: It makes me chuckle when people respond so warmly to that moment. It’s so Star Wars, to come out of yourself for a second and laugh. It’s a punctuating mark in quite an emotional scene. Manzella: People seem to like him, which is really sweet. I did Snoke and ‘Space Monkey’ [aka Bistan], but never something like Babu. It meant a lot to me that people liked it. Henderson: You feel like you’ve got a wee bit into their hearts. Which was surprising, because it’s such a wee role. Scanlan: We have a close relationship with Legacy Effects who worked on The Mandalorian, so I can’t help but enjoy the fan debate over who ranks highest — Babu Frik or Baby Yoda. With a slightly self-satisfied smile on my face, I think Babu is slightly higher. Manzella: Baby Yoda is cuter. But he’s designed to be supercute. I could have made Babu super-super-cute, but he was always ugly-cute. It would be nice to see him evolve in other things — maybe ‘The Baby Yoda And Babu Frik Show’. Your move, Disney... BEN TRAVIS STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER IS OUT NOW ON DVD, BLU-RAY AND DOWNLOAD

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REVIEW

How iconic images came to life

STANLEY KUBRICK WAS never one to go easy on his actors. But few had it so hard as Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange. He received a real on-stage beating, suffering a blood clot under one rib; he had his head dunked in filthy water for a terrifyingly long time; and, most notoriously, underwent ocular torture for the film’s harrowing aversion therapy scene. At one point during the shoot, McDowell recalled, a crew member leaned over to him and said, “Hey Malcs, I think he’s trying to kill you.” It wasn’t, as far as the then-28-year-old actor could tell, meant as a joke. To be fair to Kubrick, filming the pivotal ‘Ludovico Technique’ sequence, in which unrepentant delinquent Alex DeLarge is tethered to a chair and forced to watch atrocities while under the influence of nausea-inducing drugs, was hardly life-threatening. However, it could conceivably have left his lead actor blind. Before filming, the director showed McDowell pictures of

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eye-operation patients wearing lid-locks and asked if he’d be willing to give it a go. “Hell, no!” was McDowell’s reasonable response. But Kubrick reassured him he’d be in good, medicalprofessional hands, and sure enough, “a very nice doctor” from Moorfields Eye Hospital was there, appearing in the scene, to apply the lid-locks to McDowell’s anaesthetised glazzies and drop artificial tears into them to prevent them from drying out. But, as the actor found out, “You’re supposed to be lying flat on your back with these things, not watching movies!” He was strapped upright, in a straitjacket, to a chair in a Brunel University screening room, his eyes directed upwards and darting about. Before long, an eyeball met metal and he received a scratch on one of his corneas. Recently, McDowell claimed that the lid-locks “kept sliding off my eyelids”. But associate producer Bernard Williams recalled McDowell freaking out and knocking one of the clips himself as he writhed and

Alex (Malcolm McDowell) mid-horrific reprogramming.

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE IS OUT NOW ON DVD, BLU-RAY AND DOWNLOAD

INSTANT TRIVIA

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Kubrick was initially unmoved by Anthony Burgess’ source novel, put off by its fictional future-slang argot, Nadsat.

Although McDowell was Kubrick’s only real choice for Alex, there are reports he considered Mick Jagger… With the other Rolling Stones as Alex’s fellow droogs.

The Singin’ In The Rain/ housebreak-and-rape scene did not impress Gene Kelly. When McDowell met him in Hollywood the next year, the musical star refused to talk to him. “Can you blame the poor man?” said McDowell.

The film was never actually banned in the UK. Kubrick himself withdrew it in 1973, hurt by the response.

Getty Images

AClockwork Orange

strained against his bonds: “Malcolm couldn’t take it any longer. He just panicked.” Either way, once the anaesthetic wore off the scratch proved so painful, McDowell says, “I had to have a shot of morphine.” Though the horrorshow wasn’t over. In order to achieve a close-up of Alex’s bloodshot, wrenched-wide eyeball, he had to go through it all again at the very end of the shoot. “You can see I’ve aged, because I know what’s coming,” says McDowell, who was naturally reluctant to revisit the scene. “Eventually I had to say I was gonna do it, because what am I gonna do, say no?” Yet he recognises the suffering was well worth it. “I knew the film was going to be extraordinary in many ways,” he told The Guardian last year. Though controversial on release, A Clockwork Orange survives as a searing, disturbing study of crime, punishment and free will — as well as a work of pop art. One which could not be more perfectly represented than by the image of McDowell, eyes wide, screaming at a cinema screen. DAN JOLIN

REVIEW

Anatomy Of A Poster THE IDEA It’s an image so striking that it was ‘homaged’ by Spike Lee on the poster for his 1995 film Clockers. “[Saul Bass] was a really fertile intellect. There was this thing about looking for the simple idea. Here, the symbol is about the ambiguity of what ‘anatomy’ means. You have this literal body cut up and assembled. It’s very compelling. It’s a body hacked to pieces, but it’s also a piece of modern art and design, so it’s not horrific. The studio didn’t like it. It was really only [director Otto] Preminger who had the nous and the bullishness and the ability to let Bass do this.”

Designer Saul Bass’s one-sheet for 1959’s Anatomy Of A Murder is one of the most influential posters in movie history. Here, Bass expert and friend PAT KIRKHAM breaks it down for us

THE BODY

THE TYPOGRAPHY

Bass cut out every part of the body himself, which might explain why no two pieces are identical. The hands, for example, are very different. “When you first see it, you register that it’s a body. Then you think, ‘Oh, it’s a body cut up.’ It’s fantastically dramatic. If you look at it closely, one of the legs is cut in two. Nothing is exactly right. In a way, this is how the film plays out. It’s slightly disturbing, but still okay to hang on the wall.”

Most variations of the poster have the film’s title plonked onto the body, drawing your attention and eye. Bass did all the lettering himself. “Saul wrote very beautifully, and his hand-lettering was extraordinary. He was actually ambidextrous. If you look at the lettering, that’s all over the place. ‘Murder’ is rather bigger than the other words. But he could do that himself by hand.”

Saul Bass/Criterion Collection

THE COLOUR SCHEME The poster is divided into two slightly uneven coloured blocks. “Saul would say that design is ‘thinking made visual’. From a distance it looks like a big orange-and-red block of colour. Particularly for ’58, those colours were not supposed to go together, red and orange. They’re brought together for impact. On a huge billboard, it was almost like the red was seeping through. And it’s not quite half and half, so your eye’s trying to deal with that. It looks like the sort of art that, in Britain and the US, was becoming quite familiar then.”

THE DIRECTOR Bass had worked with Preminger before, making the title sequences and posters for The Man With The Golden Arm, Carmen Jones and Saint Joan. “Before Preminger, Saul wasn’t in the business of making film titles. [But] they clicked. Saul always said that Wilder and Hitchcock understood design, but Preminger pushed him more. He was a belligerent character. Saul’s right-hand man, Art Goodman, said he once saw Saul throw a telephone out of a window in fury. But Preminger’s comments made him think again.”

THE CRAFT

ANATOMY OF A MURDER IS OUT NOW ON BLU-RAY AS PART OF THE CRITERION COLLECTION. SAUL BASS: A LIFE IN FILM & DESIGN BY JENNIFER BASS AND PAT KIRKHAM IS AVAILABLE NOW

A modern-day Saul Bass would most likely knock designs up on an iPad. But Bass — working with his wife Elaine — was very, very hands-on. “He had that ability to distil things and then create images out of bits of paper. We need to use the word ‘collage’ because that’s what he’s doing. He’s moving these things around on his desk so that they’re exactly in the arrangement he wanted. He’d work on something to the nth degree. If someone else did 50 drawings for a commission, Saul would do 300.” CHRIS HEWITT

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REVIEW

Hit Squad

Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams and David Zucker on the best bits from their The Naked Gun TV prequel POLICE SQUAD! SIX YEARS BEFORE Leslie Nielsen’s Frank Drebin — or Sgt Frank Drebin, to give him his full name — hit the big screen (and the Queen) in The Naked Gun, the character made his debut in the little-seen TV show, Police Squad!. Created by the ZAZ team of Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams and David Zucker off the back of their breakout success with Airplane!, it transported the trio’s penchant for spot-on spoofery, inspired wordplay and background visual gags to the small screen. Albeit unsuccessfully, ratings-wise at least. The show, a parody of Lee Marvin 1950s show M Squad, ran for just six eps, guaranteeing it a perennial place on lists of shows that were cancelled too soon. With it soon to surface on DVD and Blu-ray, ZAZ broke down several of the show’s finest jokes for us…

LINC IN

The opening credits of Police Squad! introduced Nielsen as Drebin, firing a gun at an unseen assailant, and Alan North as his boss, doing likewise after a machine-gun ravages the station. And then, because of the rule of three, we see a third character returning fire: Abraham Lincoln, played by Rex Hamilton, at the scene of what would have been his own assassination. Hamilton/Lincoln never appears in the rest of the episodes. “The credits of M Squad had people firing guns,” recalls Jerry Zucker. “We thought, ‘Who can turn around and fire back? What if Abraham Lincoln had done that?’” The trio recall showing the credits to Paramount/ABC brass. “It was like going to a funeral,” laughs Abrahams.

BLINKANDYOU’LLMISSTHEM

The opening credits were the same every week, save for the introduction of that week’s special guest star. So far, so 1970s cop show. “But our twist was that the guest star gets killed during the announcement, and never appears in the show,” says Jerry Zucker. So, William Shatner gets poisoned, Lorne Greene gets dumped out of a moving car (and is stabbed for good measure), Robert Goulet (who would be the villain in The Naked Gun 21/2: The Smell Of Fear) is executed by

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a firing squad. One major cameo was filmed, but didn’t make the cut for obvious reasons: John Belushi, who was attached to blocks of concrete underwater. “Between the time we shot it and the time the show was scheduled to air, he died,” says Jerry Zucker. “It would have been in too much poor taste, even for us,” adds David.

FREEZE!

Every episode of the show ended with another wonderfully absurd take on the tropes of cop shows. “Shows then would always freeze-frame on a big line,” says Jerry Zucker. “And we thought, ‘What could we do with this?’” So, in Police Squad! the actors freeze, with Nielsen and North often [deliberately] struggling to stay still while all manner of madness unfolds around them. “The joke built from episode to episode,” notes Abrahams. And he’s right: in one episode, a bad guy tries to escape while all the cops are frozen; in another the set falls down around the actors’ ears. Oh, and there’s one with a monkey. Says David Zucker, “Maybe it’s good we got cancelled, because we couldn’t think of any other variations!”

THE KEY

The rigours of a TV schedule meant that ZAZ had to bring on other directors (including a fresh-off-The-Howling Joe Dante) and writers (including future Batman star Robert Wuhl) onto the show. While there’s a dip in quality when

they’re not directly at the helm, it also resulted in unexpected gems, such as the gag in Episode 3 when Drebin, posing as a locksmith, is asked, “Who are you, and how did you get in here?” “I’m a locksmith… and I’m a locksmith,” he replies. “That’s still one of my favourite jokes that we ever filmed,” admits Jerry Zucker. “The way Leslie pauses, his delivery, it makes me laugh every time. He had impeccable timing. He was truly a nut, and I mean that in the best possible way.”

TITLE DEEDS

In another spot-on piss-take of TV convention, particularly Quinn Martin-produced shows such as The Streets Of San Francisco, Police Squad! has an announcer (Hank Simms, who performed that duty for Martin) say the name of the episode in booming tones. The twist: the title on screen is completely different. The first episode is dual-titled ‘A Substantial Gift/The Broken Promise’ — both refer to a conversation the creators had with Jeffrey Katzenberg, then an exec at Paramount. “After Airplane! came out, we were hot items,” says David Zucker. “Katzenberg said, ‘If you guys re-sign with Paramount, we will give you a substantial gift.’ To this day, we never got the substantial gift, but once a year we get residuals from the episode. They’re usually 13 cents.” It all adds up. CHRIS HEWITT POLICE SQUAD COMES OUT ON BLU-RAY AND DVD ON 25 MAY

THE F I R ST TA K E

CLUB

Classic movies, seen for the very first time

THIS MONTH

AUTHOR SIMON STEPHENSON BRAVES THE DIZZY HEIGHTS OF VERTIGO FOR THE FIRST TIME

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Main: Leslie Nielsen as cop Frank Drebin in Police Squad!. Top to bottom: Nielsen with Kathryn Leigh Scott and Alan North; Guest star William Shatner comes a cropper in the opening credits; Gags galore as Drebin goes

Getty Images

undercover.

EMPIRE RANKED VERTIGO as one of the 100 Greatest Movies Ever Made, and an unmentionable film magazine even anointed it the best ever made. For any film fan, never having seen Hitchcock’s masterpiece would be inexcusable, but as a screenwriter and erstwhile proud San Franciscan, I should probably surrender both my WGA card and BART pass. To make matters worse, Vertigo even features one of my favourite character actors of all time — the Golden Gate Bridge itself. So how did this happen? It began with a case of mistaken identity. For much of my life I believed I’d seen Vertigo, and any time it came up I would declare it overrated. When I recently did this, then proceeded to badmouth Sean Connery’s performance, my friend laughed. And that was how I discovered I had not seen Vertigo. I had seen Marnie. The real Vertigo, of course, stars James Stewart. He plays John ‘Scottie’ Ferguson, a detective whose fear of heights has led to the death of a colleague and his own retirement. A MacGuffin arrives in the form of an unusual request from an old college acquaintance of Scottie’s, Gavin Elster. Elster’s young wife Madeleine seems to have been possessed by the spirit of a suicidal ancestor and Elster wants Scottie to follow her to get to the bottom of it. Thus, much of the first half of Vertigo consists of James Stewart following Kim Novak around San Francisco, making me absurdly nostalgic for my former home, and by the time Madeleine threw herself into the bay beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, I had fallen in love with her. Fortunately, Scottie had fallen in love with her, too, and so he dives in to rescue

her. All the excitement has rendered Madeleine unconscious, so Scottie takes her back to his apartment, undresses her and puts her in his bed. When she eventually awakes, he gives her a robe and they flirt by the fire. It was, quite evidently, a different time. And yet I was chagrined. Why did Madeleine choose to jump from the road at Fort Point, and not the Golden Gate Bridge itself? Jumping from the bridge is usually fatal, but jumping from the road would get you merely wet. Of course, this is the point — Madeleine is putting on a show for Scottie’s benefit — but for Hitchcock to have played this all out in the shadow of the mighty bridge felt like a missed opportunity, like glimpsing Philip Seymour Hoffman amidst a crowd of extras in a party scene. Halfway through, the narrative takes an abrupt turn, with Madeleine leaping to her death from the mission’s campanile. Here, again, I found myself distracted by the thought that this action should be unfolding on my beloved Golden Gate Bridge. The campanile was a perfectly adequate location, but — like watching Jeremy Renner in a Bourne film — I could not shake the feeling that something was missing. Scottie begins to obsessively visit the places Madeleine once frequented, until one day he spots a dark-haired version of her on the street. He follows this woman to the hotel where she lives, discovers her name is Judy Barton, and immediately sets about aggressively attempting to make her over into the departed Madeleine. At this point, Hitchcock lets us know — via a flashback and a voiceover — that Madeleine and Judy are the same person, Judy having been hired by Gavin Elster to help him cover up the murder of his wife in a dastardly plot designed to take advantage of Scottie’s vertigo. It might just be the film’s masterstroke, humanising Judy and her predicament to such an extent that her murderous conspiracy pales into insignificance beside Scottie’s descent into obsessive madness. In the movie’s most jarring scene, Scottie pursues Judy up the campanile, conquering his vertigo and filling in the film’s back story as they go. At the top, Judy jumps and Scottie has now transformed her into Madeleine, just not in the way he had hoped. So is Vertigo the greatest film ever made? Having now actually seen it, I would still argue not. Yet I will no longer argue it is overrated. I have watched it three times in the past fortnight and still find myself thinking about it near constantly. And it certainly beats Marnie. SET MY HEART TO FIVE IS OUT IN HARDBACK AND ON DIGITAL ON 28 MAY

REVIEW

THE

RANKING Ninety-two films. Four Empire writers. One huge argument.

Best Picture Oscar winners Chris: So, Best Picture Oscar-winners. The best place to start is with an incontrovertible statement: these are the best pictures of the years in which they were eligible. Olly: No question. The best movies ever. That’s how it works. Dan: That’s why Citizen Kane’s not on this list. Or Pulp Fiction. Chris: Or The Shawshank Redemption. Or Paddington 2. Or Ant-Man And The Wasp. Olly: Are any of those as good as Green Book? No. No, they’re not. Chris: They do get it wrong. And sometimes for an entire decade at a time. Helen: Hello, the ’80s. Chris: Forrest Gump is a fine film, well-made… Dan: If Forrest Gump were a person, I’d kick it in the balls. Chris: Forrest Gump is a person, Dan. Yes, Forrest Gump won Best Picture that year. Yet Shawshank and Pulp Fiction are the all-time classics from that category and they didn’t win. Dan: In 2002, The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring was up. Helen: Should have won.

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Dan: A Beautiful Mind won. In 2003, The Two Towers was up. Chicago won. Olly: Its musical numbers were better. Dan: But in 2004, The Return Of The King got everything. Helen: Which is great, but it’s not the best of the three. So in retrospect, you would have reversed that and given it for Fellowship, and then freed up Master And Commander [to win in 2004]. And then we might have had more Master And Commander movies, and the world would be a better place. Olly: I’m surprised that when we’re talking about which film might have been robbed at the 2004 Oscars, it’s Master And Commander and not Lost In Translation. Helen: I don’t like Lost In Translation. Olly: You’re an idiot. Chris: Lost In Translation is very boring. Having said that, so is Master And Commander. Helen: Where the Oscars goes wrong is in trying to reward films that are self-consciously important. That’s the stuff that doesn’t tend to stand up very well. Chris: This is a ranking of Best Picture winners.

We’re moaning about the losers. But before we change that, I want to go through the horror show that was the 1980s. You’re talking about some of the best films of all time being overlooked in favour of straight-down-themiddle schlock. In 1981, Ordinary People, decent film, beat not only The Elephant Man but a little film called Raging Bull. Helen: Who’s going to remember that? Chris: Start as you mean to go on. 1982 — Chariots Of fucking Fire... Dan: “The British are coming! The British are coming!”’ Chris: Beat Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Spielberg at this point must have thought the Academy had it in for him. And they probably did. Because the next year E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial lost out to Gandhi. Helen: You can see where they’re coming from just in terms of the scale of the filmmaking. You can see why they’d be awed by it. Chris: And it ends with Driving Miss Daisy, for the love of God. That was the decade where there was a type of film that Oscar loved. Gandhi is one of those movies. Out Of Africa is one of those movies. Very milquetoast.

OUR CRITICS CHRIS HEWITT Looks nothing like his Uncle Oscar. Doesn’t even have one, come to think of it.

Illustration: Jacey. Portraits: Marco Vittur

DAN JOLIN Near, far, wherever you are, will tell you how much he loves Titanic.

HELEN O’HARA Our Oscar statto. Knows 65.1 per cent more than the rest of the panel. Probably.

OLLY RICHARDS Has a framed poster of The Apartment on the wall of his apartment. Whoa, meta.

Dan: Although the winner for 1984 was Amadeus. Helen: I love Amadeus. Dan: That’s not such a bad one. Chris: That was the year Police Academy came out. What the fuck is going on? But let’s talk about some of the big films in contention for this list. One of the films uppermost in my thoughts was It Happened One Night. Helen: I love that movie. The first to win the Big Five. Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable, on the run. They have a whole series of misadventures and it’s delightful, and so not Oscar-y. Chris: It’s really fun. Really sparky. Gone With The Wind won Best Picture for 1939. Gone With The Wind is not the best picture of that year. Helen: It’s a wee bit racist. Olly: Just a teeny bit. I’ve never been a fan of Gone With The Wind. It’s a very, very expensive, well-constructed melodrama. Chris: Frankly, my dear, you don’t give a damn? Olly: I give kind of a damn. But it’s never been one of my favourites. Helen: It’s Oscar rewarding the biggest film in terms of production and hype. It was a huge deal. It’s the Avatar of that year.

Chris: 1943 was Casablanca. Dan: It’s so snappy and witty. Claude Rains in that movie, I could watch him all day. Olly: It’s funny all the way through. I remember thinking the first time I watched it, “I must watch this as an important film with a notebook,” and then I saw it again at an outdoor screening and thought, “Fuck me, this is hilarious!” So many good gags in that. Chris: In 1960, we get the first of the big Oscar botherers — Ben-Hur hoovers up 11 Oscars, a feat that would be unmatched until Dan’s beloved Titanic. Dan: I’m not massively fond of Ben-Hur. Chris: I don’t think anyone is. Dan: It’s not a very good story. It’s got an amazing set piece, the chariot race, but that comes roughly halfway through the film. It’s one of those pretentious, weighty films. Helen: It loses points for Some Like It Hot also being out in 1959 and not being nominated. Chris: Nobody’s perfect. But Billy Wilder had his day the next year with The Apartment. Olly: It’s incredible. And you could make that ¼ film today and it would still be very modern.

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REVIEW

It’s also a comedy about suicide and depression. Helen: And sexual exploitation. Olly: All you’d have to do is change the outfits. You could just release it today. Chris: It’s really, really dark and then it has this beautiful uplift of an ending. Olly: You’re pulled through that darkness by Jack Lemmon, who is a delight. And Shirley MacLaine as well. Jack’s my favourite of all time. Helen: I don’t think there’s been a better performance in cinema history than Jack Lemmon in The Apartment. Chris: I think the ’70s are when Oscar really gets going. Olly: The ’70s are generally very good. Chris: And then it gets to Kramer Vs. Kramer at the very end and shits the bed. And that sets up the epic bed-shitting of the 1980s. But I’ll start with The French Connection for 1971. For me, this is one of the all-time greats. Dan: It is. It’s fantastic. Helen: I never really loved it. I’ll come out and say that a lot of these great movies of the ’70s, I appreciate but don’t like. Dan: But Friedkin was doing something new. People hadn’t seen cops done like this before, in a gritty, almost documentarian way. Chris: But the car chase, Helen. The car chase! Helen: The car chase is great. I don’t have any response to the movie. I saw it and thought it was well done. That’s it. Olly: Is there a famous car chase in The French Connection? Chris: They don’t like to talk about it. Then we had a little film called The Godfather in 1972. Olly: It’s as big as filmmaking gets. Helen: I appreciate that it’s great. I have no emotional response to it. Chris: At the Oscars in 1975, Francis Ford Coppola had a hell of a year. He was nominated for The Conversation but won for The Godfather Part II. Dan: I know a lot of people say it’s better, but I prefer the focus of The Godfather. The device of cutting between the two timelines is interesting, but I don’t find it as engaging. Chris: Isn’t it more complex than the original? Dan: Yes. But it doesn’t engage me as much. Olly: It’s an Alien/Aliens conversation. There’s no winner really in that competition. Helen: Whoever wins, we win? Chris: The winner for 1977, Annie Hall, which is a great film for some people — I’m not a fan of it. Dan: I’m not, either. Chris: But it beat a little film called Star Wars. Helen: My problems with Annie Hall are not about Annie Hall at all, but the kind of man who says, “I don’t like romcoms except Annie Hall,” which makes me dislike Annie Hall. Chris: Should Star Wars have won? Olly: No. It’s a terrible thing to say, but I have not that much affection for Star Wars as a series. It’s not that close to my heart. Helen: I’m pressing the security button, but it’s not working. Dan: It’s just people sitting around on a spaceship, isn’t it?

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Chris: We’ve talked about the ’80s, so let’s move swiftly into the ’90s. Dances With Wolves beat GoodFellas and, more shockingly, Ghost in 1991. Helen: If it takes GoodFellas losing for Ghost not to win, surely that’s a score draw. Dan: I love Dances With Wolves. But it wouldn’t have been my first choice from 1990. Chris: It’s a great film. I think people forget what sort of film it is and what sort of a risk it was. The winner for 1991 was The Silence Of The Lambs, another one of the films to win all Big Five. Dan: Amazing. Probably the Oscar-winning film I’ve seen the most times. Is it a horror? Isn’t it a horror? It’s the closest we’ve come to a horror winning. Olly: What I love most about it is that it could so easily be a cheapo thriller, but it’s treated with maximum respect. Chris: 1994 finally sees Steven Spielberg get a Best Picture winner under his belt, for Schindler’s List. Helen: It absolutely burns itself into your memory. The delicacy and yet force with which it handles the subject matter is unbelievable. Chris: It’s nobody’s idea of an easy watch, of

course. But the maturity of Spielberg’s approach to it was like nothing we had ever seen from him at that point. Olly: You can feel in every second what that film means to him. It’s devastating. But for all the horrendous subject matter, it’s a very hopeful film. It says, evil is not innate. Chris: Braveheart, which won in 1996, kicked off a series of very Oscar-y movies winning. The English Patient next, and then Titanic. Helen: Over L.A. Confidential? Dan: I wouldn’t have chosen it over L.A. Confidential, but I still bloody love Titanic. Olly: If it hadn’t won the Oscar, it would have felt wrong. It’s a monumental moment in film history, whether you like it or not. Dan: And a colossal technical achievement. Olly: James Cameron is just a man who wants to do the impossible. That was the impossible. Chris: In 2007, Martin Scorsese gets a longawaited Oscar for a film that is cinema. The Departed won Best Picture that year. Dan: I never really got into The Departed that much, having seen Infernal Affairs. I’m not keen on Nicholson in that film.

THE TOP TEN CASABLANCA (1942)

2 3 4 5 6

Olly: I like over-the-top Nicholson. Chris: When was he under-the-top? Is there a theme that runs through this where sometimes filmmakers will get an Oscar and it’s maybe not for the film they deserve? Helen: It tends to happen more with actors rather than in Best Picture, but I think we saw it with The Departed. Chris: In 2010, The Hurt Locker won and beat Avatar, which at that point was the biggest film of all time. But has The Hurt Locker held up? Olly: Has Avatar? The Hurt Locker is a very good drama. I was never head-over-heels about it. It was a very strong four-star drama. Helen: I did love it at the time and there’s always something fun in seeing the underdog beat the biggest dog that has ever dogged. Chris: When we hit the 2010s, there are films that, in hindsight, people pooh-pooh. Like The Artist, a film I loved unreservedly when I saw it in Cannes. Helen: You wanted to marry The Artist. Chris: Then there’s Moonlight. Olly: Absolutely love that film. Barry Jenkins is a filmmaker who directs stuff straight from his

heart. The beach scene is incredible. Helen: It has so much emotion and so much power. Moonlight is astonishing. Chris: You were happy or not happy when the La La Land snafu happened? Olly: I loved both films for very different reasons. They’re not rival films. I’m glad that Moonlight won, but La La Land winning would not have been a travesty. Helen: I was upset for Moonlight that the whole thing overshadowed its win in many ways. Olly: Which is not La La Land’s fault. Helen: La La Land is La La Land’s fault. Chris: It’s another day of sun, Helen. Let’s talk about the most recent winner, Parasite. Helen: Nobody has a bad word to say about it. Olly: You have to give films time to percolate. But I had no qualms about choosing it. To a certain degree, what wins the Oscar for that year should reflect the times. Parasite is such a now film. It’s so very much about class and poverty and the world as it is now. It’s thoroughly deserving and exquisitely directed. Helen: So well made. Chris: Right, enough squabbling. Let’s vote!

7 8 9 10

Helen: “A strong contender for the best film ever made, never mind the best Best Picture winner, Casablanca — with Bogie, Bergman and Sam playing it again — is the whole package.”

SCHINDLER’S LIST (1993)

Olly: “Cinematic genius. The fact Spielberg made this and Jurassic Park in the same year is, frankly, absurd.”

THE GODFATHER (1972)

Dan: “This was the no-brainer for number one for me. It made gangster movies prestige rather than pulpy.”

THEAPARTMENT (1960)

Olly: “A dark story is lifted to comedy classic by the light touch of Billy Wilder and brilliance of Jack Lemmon.”

THESILENCEOFTHELAMBS (1991)

Chris: “A film so good that it’s not been remotely sullied by all the terrible Lecter films and books since.”

MOONLIGHT (2017)

Dan: “A gorgeous experience, with raw emotionality balanced by Barry Jenkins’ sense of visual texture.”

ONE FLEW OVERTHE CUCKOO’S NEST (1975)

Olly: “Jack Nicholson at his best (don’t argue) in a perfect black comedy.”

PARASITE (2019)

Helen: “It’s early days but this perfectly calibrated, genre-hopping original feels like it will stand the test of time.”

THE GODFATHER PARTII (1974)

Chris: “I’m amazed that this complex opus placed so low. I know it was you, Helen, and it broke my heart.”

LAWRENCE OFARABIA (1962)

Chris: “David Lean’s masterful epic treads where other biopics fear. The trick is not minding that it’s tenth.”

AGREE? DISAGREE? WRITE IN AND TELL US AT: EMPIRE@BAUER-MEDIA.COM.AU / @EMPIREAUST

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H IS FOR HAPPINESS

PLAY MISTY FOR ME

OUT 6 MAY / CERT PG / 98 MINS

OUT NOW / CERT M / 97 MINS

This heart-warming – albeit occasionally dark – family movie will appeal mainly to children, but even adults will get something out of it. Based on Barry Jonsberg’s book My Life As An Alphabet and shot in picturesque Albany, WA, it features a fantastic cast, led by adults Richard Roxburgh and Deborah Mailman, and young stars Daisy Axon and Wesley Patten. Quirky tween Candice Phee (Axon) is an eternal optimist despite the tragedy that’s shattered her family. Her attempts to help her parents and estranged uncle get their lives back on track are somewhat complicated when she meets and falls in love with Douglas Benson (Patten), a boy who may or may not be from another dimension. With a hint of magic realism, H Is For Happiness deals with some sensitive topics (bullying, death, grief) in a gentle, even funny, manner that will leave viewers smiling, which is something we all need during these unhappy times. DAN LENNARD

Late-night radio deejay and Lothario Dave Garland (Clint Eastwood) has a one-night stand with Evelyn (Jessica Walter), an obsessive fan who regularly calls into his program requesting a particular syrupy ballad. Before long, Evelyn has inveigled her way into Dave’s life, wrought havoc and generally set the template for Fatal Attraction’s bunny-boiler Alex Forrest. Fifty years on, Eastwood’s directorial debut holds up as a straightforward stalker thriller, despite a calamitously misjudged ‘love scene’ (as they were called back then) set to Roberta Flack’s The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, and the fact that Dave’s unreconstructed attitude to women makes him tougher to sympathise with these days than he was in 1971. However, watching Arrested Development’s matriarch Lucille Bluth as a homicidal maniac more than makes up for the movie’s shortcomings.

THE BOYS: SEASON 1

LITTLE WOMEN

STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

OUT 6 MAY / CERT R / 472 MINS

OUT NOW / CERT PG / 135 MINS

OUT NOW / CERT M / 142 MINS

Taking a simple but effective premise (what if the Justice League were arseholes?), this adaptation of the Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson comic takes a walk on the seedier side of superheroism. Jack Quaid stars as Hughie Campbell, a man whose girlfriend is inadvertently liquified before his eyes by high-speed hero A-Train (Jessie T. Usher). Traumatised, he teams up with foul-mouthed former spook Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) to expose super-team The Seven for the hedonistic, corrupt and occasionally homicidal monsters they really are. It’s an effective skewering of the superhero genre that takes a heavy swing at both celebrity culture and corporate corruption. Gleefully violent and blackly funny, The Boys has a stand-out turn from Antony Starr (Banshee) as dead-eyed superpsycho Homelander, and a scene with an airborne dolphin that you won’t forget in a hurry. JAMES DYER

Greta Gerwig brings the March sisters to a modern audience with her superbly cast adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved novel. Recruiting Lady Bird lead Saoirse Ronan to play Jo, the film’s strong-willed protagonist, Gerwig strives to give the story’s 1860s Massachusetts setting a contemporary edge, ditching the plummy tropes of the period drama in favour of a fresh, vigorous account of sisterhood. Ronan is joined on screen by a peerless ensemble including Meryl Streep, Laura Dern and her Lady Bird co-star Timothée Chalamet. But it’s Florence Pugh as Amy March who proves the film’s secret weapon, with Gerwig intuitively positioning her turbulent relationship with Jo as the central focus for the film. It’s rare that a second feature can attract such a heavyweight cast, further proving that Gerwig has established herself as an exhilarating new voice in American filmmaking.

No Star Wars trilogy has come to a universally satisfying end. Return Of The Jedi rankled the Ewok-phobic. Revenge Of The Sith doused era-defining moments in CGI sludge. It’s fitting, then, that The Rise Of Skywalker sends the Sequel Trilogy out on a less assured note than its predecessors. But if there are gripes to be had with Episode IX — and boy, has the internet griped — there’s also plenty to love. Mostly in the continuing arcs of Rey and Kylo Ren (or should that be Ben Solo?), the battle for their souls playing out on a cosmic scale, the fate of the galaxy hanging in the balance. If the narrative frustratingly overextends (and under-explains) itself — mere minutes of extra screen time could clear up its fuzzier beats — the throughlines of redemption, self-identification and the triumph of good over evil are genuine magical, mythical Star Wars. At least there’s one thing everyone can agree on: Babu Frik rules. BEN TRAVIS

Team Empire on the month’s essential viewing

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BETH WEBB

DAVID HUGHES

WIN! ‘H IS FOR HAPPINESS’ONDVD

CROSSWORD AND GIVEAWAYS

READ our review of this delightful Aussie movie on the opposite page. Meanwhile, we asked two of the stars — Richard Roxburgh and Deborah Mailman — to tell us what made THEM happy. “Can I say my three kids?” laughed Richard. He added that “creativity makes me happy”. As for Deb, “My pug, who’s lying in front of me. Her name is Harley and she’s beautiful. She makes me happy every time I look at her.” Nawwwwwww. To celebrate H Is For Happiness’s release on May 6, we have TEN DVDS to give away to readers. TO ENTER, TELL US ONE THING THAT MAKES YOU HAPPY AND WHY.

ACROSS

DOWN

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1 2 3 4

9 10 11 13 15 17 20 21 23 24

It provided Gene Kelly with his final film role (6) Legendary jungle hero portrayed by Johnny Weissmuller, Lex Barker and others (6) Tuesday seen in Once Upon A Time In America (4) Bong Joon-Ho’s South Korean Oscar sensation (8) The Battle of — (Gillo Pontecorvo classic) (7) Vince Vaughn’s punch-up in Cell Block 99 (5) Ethiopian-Irish actress Ruth (5) This Hong Kong-based director fashioned Bride of Chucky (5,2) In which Robert Downey chatted to chimps (8) Jennifer, known for her role in Zero Dark Thirty (4) Love Me — (Elvis Presley) (6) Heartbreaking 1982 drama Sophie’s — (Meryl Streep) (6)

5 6 12 14 16 18 19 22

Filmdom’s most famous Citizen (4) It was voted Best Film at the 1982 Oscars (6) Multi-award-winning French acrtress Isabelle (7) Character portrayed by Halle Berry in four X-Men movies (5) Big Arnie’s 1996 eradicator (6) In which Amanda Donohoe shared island life with Oliver Reed (8) Tommy — (3,5) This movie starred Richard Gere and Kim Basinger (2,5) The Good Witch Of The South in The Wizard Of Oz (6) Liam, the voice of Qui-Gon Jinn in The Rise Of Skywalker (6) Olive Stone movie with a bit of a twist? (1,4) This 2019 thriller starred Naomi Watts and Octavia Spencer (4)

APRIL ANSWERS ACROSS: 7 Paquin, 8 Lock Up, 9/23 Jojo Rabbit, 10 Leonardo, 11 Isadora, 13 Lenny, 15 Demme, 17 Agutter, 20 Tim Curry, 21 Elle, 24 Office. DOWN: 1 Dano, 2 Bujold, 3 Englert, 4 Blood, 5 Ice Age, 6 Guidance, 12 Sheridan, 14 Iggy Pop, 16 McCabe, 18 The BFG, 19 Truth, 22 Lucy. ANAGRAM FLORENCE PUGH

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MAY 2020

113

CLASSIC

SCENE Standout sequences from the great movies

The Servant chosen by STEVEN SODERBERGH STEVEN SODERBERGH: “I’m a huge Joseph Losey fan and the three movies that he made with Harold Pinter were gigantic influences on me. The Servant is something I go back to again and again. This is a really long take. You can tell when he set this thing up and shot it that he didn’t go like, ‘Oh, I had this crazy elaborate shot in mind and I want you guys to hit all these marks.’ No, they rehearsed the scene and he let them go where they needed to go. And he figured out how to pull this off in one shot. It’s not just a gimmick, because of what the scene is about and the tension between these two characters that continues to escalate. It’s just my favourite kind of staging. It’s my favourite kind of directing.” INT. TONY’S HOUSE — DAY Barrett (Dirk Bogarde) has just let Susan (Wendy Craig), the girlfriend of his aristocrat employer Tony (James Fox), into the house. Susan does not care for Barrett. Susan walks into the living room, carrying a vase and flowers. She sets them down as Barrett enters. SUSAN: Fill this with water. She walks over to the door as he

114

MAY 2020

passes her. A clock chimes.

She crosses over and unwraps the parcel. It holds cushions.

SUSAN: Where’s the parcel? BARRETT: It’s in the hall, miss.

SUSAN: What do you think of them?

SUSAN: Bring it to me.

BARRETT: I beg your pardon?

Barrett goes into the hall, then returns with the parcel. Susan unwraps the flowers. Another clock chimes. Susan opens curtains off-camera. She returns, and moves a chair back to its rightful position next to a desk.

SUSAN: What do you think of the cushions?

Barrett comes back in with the vase full of water and puts a magazine down on the table, setting the vase on top of it. Susan places the flowers in the vase.

BARRETT: It’s difficult to say what I think of them, miss.

Barrett eventually puts down the coat and walks over to light her cigarette. He makes to leave. SUSAN: Barrett? Come here. [He walks over] Do you use a deodorant? Tell me, do you think you go well with the colour scheme? BARRETT: I think the master’s satisfied. He walks off.

SUSAN: Shall I tell you the truth, Barrett?

SUSAN: What do you want from this house?

BARRETT: Yes, miss. SUSAN: The truth is, I don’t give a tinker’s gob what you think.

In the background, Barrett stops. He buffs the table, then faces her. BARRETT: Want?

SUSAN: How do you like them, Barrett? BARRETT: I’m not certain the flowers wouldn’t be better in a different jar, Miss. SUSAN: I thought you’d be uncertain, Barrett. [She scrunches up the paper that held the flowers] Take that away.

She moves on. SUSAN: Yes, want. SUSAN: I want some lunch. A salad will do. Use the tarragon I bought on Wednesday.

He comes over to her. BARRETT: I’m the servant, Miss.

Barrett heads to the kitchen. Susan produces a cigarette.

SUSAN: Get my lunch.

SUSAN: Light? Put that coat down and give me a light.

Barrett smiles, wanly. He leaves. Susan sits down, smoking, angry.

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