GREEN =w= DAY
Superhero
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screw what the critics say. what the hell do they know?
Nicolas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives
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MadVillainy
C'mon Son
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i think they know their own opinons...
Blitzkrieg Bop
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Sounds like Refn, haha.
BestGirl
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Then presumably Tarantino did something right and Refn did something wrong.
Dispatch Ninja
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[quote author=dorian_j link=topic=140494.msg22292037#msg22292037 date=1369415620]
Only God Forgives Director Nicolas Winding Refn on Getting Booed at Cannes
Nicholas Winding Refn: [looking at my black ballgown] Well, youre dressed for the rain.
Im going to the Robert Redford premiere. Its about a guy stuck alone on a sinking boat in the middle of the ocean. If he can survive that
Oh, thats why its raining. Its a production stunt.
You said at the press conference that Kristin Scott Thomass speech about one son being more endowed than the other came from a discussion you and Ryan were having in your shared apartment about your cocks.
Yeah. [Laughs] Careful what you say. Well, the conversation was more about how could a mother humiliate her son the most. Like, what would be the most degrading, but in an oddly sexual way, to kind of push her weight or have this shadow over him? He is chained to his mothers womb, so coming up with that as a subject matter just made it very, very aggressive.
Theres not much dialogue, but what you do have is so incredibly vivid and biting. Were you coming up with it on the fly?
Yeah. I would ask Ryan, So whats the worst thing you can call a woman in America? He goes, "We call her this, and then "
He said you call her a ***-dumpster, right? Were there other insults he mentioned?
He had a long, long list, but I think KST [Kristen Scott Thomas] really liked this one, even though it took her ten takes to actually get the words out of her mouth. But it became very much like, If youre sitting there and she has to poison you, what would you react to? So, it was very much in terms of the POVs of the characters.
So you can confirm definitively that ***-dumpster comes from Ryan.
Oh, 100 percent. Thats all his.
What about other lines? Because Ryan doesnt say that many.
[Laughs] I cant tell off of the top of my head right now because a lot of it wed cut out at the end when we were doing it, a bit like Drive. Cinematically, were so resolved on dialogue: The spoken word is a lot of the time what moves story, what adds facts and so forth. If you eliminate that, its like a blank canvas and it becomes much more about cinema and how you sell this story without having this obvious tool. The last couple of movies, Ive just really liked that kind of filmmaking. In a way, it forces any viewer to activate themselves within the story because you have to. Its not going to say what it is, you have to ask or figure out what it is.
I was concerned when I read that you came up with Kristins character during your wifes difficult second pregnancy. How does your wife relate to this character, who is basically the most evil mother ever?
[Laughs] My wife said to me, Sons and their mothers and she rolled her eyes. I think the concept of the original film was very heightened and it came from this awkward situation that I was in, that I couldnt you know, what happens in a woman, I have no control over and the fear of what will happen is so terrifying.
You mean, with the pregnancy?
Yeah. That you dont know, as a man; it is like a mental castration. You have no idea, you cant feel it, you cant touch it, you cant go through it, and thats why women are the center of the universe. But I needed some kind of plot around that, and I came up with this mother character, so it became more of a Western: two brothers, Cain and Abel, they run a city, one of them dies, and the mother comes and says, I want revenge.
Youve said you made KSTs character a cross between Lady Macbeth and Donatella Versace. So I want to know, what did Donatella Versace do to you?
Well, its what she did to KST, because the whole look is hers. After KST agreed to do the film, she was very much like, I need to transform myself. I cant walk in looking like one of my other films doing this. I said, So what would you want? So she said, Look, I have this picture from this photo shoot that Ive done. And she sent it to me, and she had this long blonde hair, long nails, very creaturelike, very this Versace sensibility, and she tried to emulate something, and I said, Thats very, very fetish.
Fetish? A Versace fetish?
Yeah in a way, because the KST character is a woman that almost has an armor. Shes frightening, but at the same time she is also very sexy. Shes like a predator but shes fragile, and all those palettes of emotions she had to really play out.
Did Donatella do something bad to her?
Not that I know of. I doubt it.
What is your relationship with your mother?
Mine? I have a very healthy relationship with my mother [laughs].
Well, in the press conference a woman journalist asked you to justify the extreme violence of the movie and you said, Oh god, that sounds like my mother.
Because that is something she is like, but afterwards she said, I never asked you that question. And I was like, Well, thats the truth. She did never ask me that question. But it is of course something that a lot of people bring up and I wish I could answer that better besides just saying, I dont really know. We live in a society where violence is controlled, its kind of written all out of our body because we no longer need to be violent. But instinctually, we are born with the desire of it, but its through art that we can exercise it in a nondestructive way.
Have you experienced real violence, something like a mugging that would make that instinct well up?
No, thank god. I would just give them what they want: Please dont hurt me! Please, no!
Im not sure if youre aware, but at the press screening this morning, there was a smattering of boos and some walkouts.
Oh, cool.
Youre excited about that?
I mean, how can I expect someone to not react like this when on one hand you are dropping what you do in everyones face and at the same time saying, Love me, please, you know? Youre going to get that. You know, great art horrible thing to say but art is meant to divide, because if it doesnt divide, it doesnt penetrate, and if it doesnt penetrate, you just consume it.
Any idea what they were booing about? Either its the violence or they thought it was too stylistic. I dont know what it was.
People have so many strange opinions, and also, a lot of a people begin to own you and they want you to do things in a specific way.
What the reviews seemed to say was it was too much style over substance.
Wasnt that the same critique they gave Drive? And I think its a strange critique. I mean substance, God, theres so much going on. What else would they want?
The Brooklyn Academy of Music has a film series called Booed at Cannes, and Taxi Driver is in that.
Well, I think we are in pretty good company then.
Your next project is adapting Barbarella as a TV series. What do you plan to do with it?
We are just writing it still. I kind of went back to the original comic, and really began to close my eyes and fantasize about women in outer space and it looked pretty good.
Do you have someone in mind for the Jane Fonda lead?
No, I havent started casting yet.
And I also read youre doing a horror movie that will only cast females?
I have this two-picture deal, Only God Forgives being the first one, so I have another one that I have to do contractually which I want to do, of course but I thought itd be fun to do just a horror film with only women.
Why only women?
Because women and horror is so sexy.
But Only God Forgives is kind of a horror movie about a woman. Here, the embodiment of evil is KSTs character. Shes like the worst human possible.
Maybe its the stepping stone into the next one. I think I set out to make films about women and I end up making films about violent men. So now I have to force myself, by casting only women, so there are no men in the shots.
Source
[/quote]Nicholas Winding Refn: [looking at my black ballgown] Well, youre dressed for the rain.
Im going to the Robert Redford premiere. Its about a guy stuck alone on a sinking boat in the middle of the ocean. If he can survive that
Oh, thats why its raining. Its a production stunt.
You said at the press conference that Kristin Scott Thomass speech about one son being more endowed than the other came from a discussion you and Ryan were having in your shared apartment about your cocks.
Yeah. [Laughs] Careful what you say. Well, the conversation was more about how could a mother humiliate her son the most. Like, what would be the most degrading, but in an oddly sexual way, to kind of push her weight or have this shadow over him? He is chained to his mothers womb, so coming up with that as a subject matter just made it very, very aggressive.
Theres not much dialogue, but what you do have is so incredibly vivid and biting. Were you coming up with it on the fly?
Yeah. I would ask Ryan, So whats the worst thing you can call a woman in America? He goes, "We call her this, and then "
He said you call her a ***-dumpster, right? Were there other insults he mentioned?
He had a long, long list, but I think KST [Kristen Scott Thomas] really liked this one, even though it took her ten takes to actually get the words out of her mouth. But it became very much like, If youre sitting there and she has to poison you, what would you react to? So, it was very much in terms of the POVs of the characters.
So you can confirm definitively that ***-dumpster comes from Ryan.
Oh, 100 percent. Thats all his.
What about other lines? Because Ryan doesnt say that many.
[Laughs] I cant tell off of the top of my head right now because a lot of it wed cut out at the end when we were doing it, a bit like Drive. Cinematically, were so resolved on dialogue: The spoken word is a lot of the time what moves story, what adds facts and so forth. If you eliminate that, its like a blank canvas and it becomes much more about cinema and how you sell this story without having this obvious tool. The last couple of movies, Ive just really liked that kind of filmmaking. In a way, it forces any viewer to activate themselves within the story because you have to. Its not going to say what it is, you have to ask or figure out what it is.
I was concerned when I read that you came up with Kristins character during your wifes difficult second pregnancy. How does your wife relate to this character, who is basically the most evil mother ever?
[Laughs] My wife said to me, Sons and their mothers and she rolled her eyes. I think the concept of the original film was very heightened and it came from this awkward situation that I was in, that I couldnt you know, what happens in a woman, I have no control over and the fear of what will happen is so terrifying.
You mean, with the pregnancy?
Yeah. That you dont know, as a man; it is like a mental castration. You have no idea, you cant feel it, you cant touch it, you cant go through it, and thats why women are the center of the universe. But I needed some kind of plot around that, and I came up with this mother character, so it became more of a Western: two brothers, Cain and Abel, they run a city, one of them dies, and the mother comes and says, I want revenge.
Youve said you made KSTs character a cross between Lady Macbeth and Donatella Versace. So I want to know, what did Donatella Versace do to you?
Well, its what she did to KST, because the whole look is hers. After KST agreed to do the film, she was very much like, I need to transform myself. I cant walk in looking like one of my other films doing this. I said, So what would you want? So she said, Look, I have this picture from this photo shoot that Ive done. And she sent it to me, and she had this long blonde hair, long nails, very creaturelike, very this Versace sensibility, and she tried to emulate something, and I said, Thats very, very fetish.
Fetish? A Versace fetish?
Yeah in a way, because the KST character is a woman that almost has an armor. Shes frightening, but at the same time she is also very sexy. Shes like a predator but shes fragile, and all those palettes of emotions she had to really play out.
Did Donatella do something bad to her?
Not that I know of. I doubt it.
What is your relationship with your mother?
Mine? I have a very healthy relationship with my mother [laughs].
Well, in the press conference a woman journalist asked you to justify the extreme violence of the movie and you said, Oh god, that sounds like my mother.
Because that is something she is like, but afterwards she said, I never asked you that question. And I was like, Well, thats the truth. She did never ask me that question. But it is of course something that a lot of people bring up and I wish I could answer that better besides just saying, I dont really know. We live in a society where violence is controlled, its kind of written all out of our body because we no longer need to be violent. But instinctually, we are born with the desire of it, but its through art that we can exercise it in a nondestructive way.
Have you experienced real violence, something like a mugging that would make that instinct well up?
No, thank god. I would just give them what they want: Please dont hurt me! Please, no!
Im not sure if youre aware, but at the press screening this morning, there was a smattering of boos and some walkouts.
Oh, cool.
Youre excited about that?
I mean, how can I expect someone to not react like this when on one hand you are dropping what you do in everyones face and at the same time saying, Love me, please, you know? Youre going to get that. You know, great art horrible thing to say but art is meant to divide, because if it doesnt divide, it doesnt penetrate, and if it doesnt penetrate, you just consume it.
Any idea what they were booing about? Either its the violence or they thought it was too stylistic. I dont know what it was.
People have so many strange opinions, and also, a lot of a people begin to own you and they want you to do things in a specific way.
What the reviews seemed to say was it was too much style over substance.
Wasnt that the same critique they gave Drive? And I think its a strange critique. I mean substance, God, theres so much going on. What else would they want?
The Brooklyn Academy of Music has a film series called Booed at Cannes, and Taxi Driver is in that.
Well, I think we are in pretty good company then.
Your next project is adapting Barbarella as a TV series. What do you plan to do with it?
We are just writing it still. I kind of went back to the original comic, and really began to close my eyes and fantasize about women in outer space and it looked pretty good.
Do you have someone in mind for the Jane Fonda lead?
No, I havent started casting yet.
And I also read youre doing a horror movie that will only cast females?
I have this two-picture deal, Only God Forgives being the first one, so I have another one that I have to do contractually which I want to do, of course but I thought itd be fun to do just a horror film with only women.
Why only women?
Because women and horror is so sexy.
But Only God Forgives is kind of a horror movie about a woman. Here, the embodiment of evil is KSTs character. Shes like the worst human possible.
Maybe its the stepping stone into the next one. I think I set out to make films about women and I end up making films about violent men. So now I have to force myself, by casting only women, so there are no men in the shots.
Source
Rowsdower!
Avenger
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Shame that this is getting a lot of negative buzz. I'm still looking forward to it though. It seems like it's just going to be one of those uber-polarizing movies.
DaRkVeNgeanCe
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I could care less what the critics say about this film, I'm still super excited to see it.
echostation
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Again the ending is going to piss lots of people off... it's kind of ridiculous and you wonder just why the hell the film was even made.
Btw DarkVengeance, it's "couldn't care less" not could care less... if you could care less you already would, the phrase is "couldn't care less"
Btw DarkVengeance, it's "couldn't care less" not could care less... if you could care less you already would, the phrase is "couldn't care less"
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Hmm... I hope this isn't like Valhalla Rising. Because that was ****ing boring. It very well could be. But I'll still see it. But I'm pretty sure now people are either gonna love it or hate it.
DaRkVeNgeanCe
An Epic Film Guy
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Drz
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It depends how you view the word "a lot" because Cannes isn't a wide festival that defines how the movie does with other critics or box office wise. Still it is funny how much online hype this movie somehow received when Cannes was coming around, then bam you got all these reviews that just slam how non-Drive it is.
Visceral
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t:
echostation
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LOL dark vengeance, i wasn't being pedantic... I was just correcting a phrase, take it easy brother of Sethu
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... or you might fall asleep. Refn's films have that quality to them if you're not in the right mindset.
Have you seen anything else by Refn?
jacobed
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This movie was god awful
Everything you hear from the critics is completely true. It's a complete boring, pretentious movie with absolutely nothing going on with characters that you could care less about. Easily the worst performance if you want to call it that of Gosling's career. It gets 2/10 for being pretty.
Everything you hear from the critics is completely true. It's a complete boring, pretentious movie with absolutely nothing going on with characters that you could care less about. Easily the worst performance if you want to call it that of Gosling's career. It gets 2/10 for being pretty.
bapi
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Yes, Valhala, Bronson and bits of Pushers...
bapi
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Agree! My rating would be 1-2/10 too.
