Having made a name for himself with his double-Oscar winning debut Crazy Heart, young filmmaker Scott Cooper returns with his sophomore production Out of the Furnace – and we had the great pleasure in speaking to talented director on the phone.
Cooper discusses the pressure that comes with making your second feature in Hollywood, following on from a rousing triumph, and why he feels the title has been somewhat polarising in the States. He also tells us about the time that William Friedkin reached out to him, and about his next, untitled project, which he’s working on with Leonardo DiCaprio…
Crazy Heart was a huge success, winning two Academy Awards. Did you feel more of a pressure on you because of that?
Yes, for sure. Your second film after your first is always pressure filled, and you live with that burden of expectations, both from an industry standpoint, and also from a personal stand-point. You want to move people, you want to pierce them, you want to provoke them, and I had no interest in telling stories that are just designed to please. You want people to really be moved and you want people to experience something they won’t get in another film. But I did live with a great deal of pressure and I could have taken a much less risky route for sure, and I could have chosen a more studio friendly film or one that would have reached a much wider audience. But instead I chose to tell a very personal and searing story and boy am I happy I did.
The revenge plot narrative is somewhat timeless, but I got the impression this film really has to be set today, because it speaks volumes about modern America.
It does speak about modern America, thank you saying that, because in these past five years we really have suffered a great deal of economic distress, we’ve been fighting wars on two fronts, and still fighting if Afghanistan – which is the longest war we’ve ever been in. Our soldiers come home and they’ve seen horrors that only you and I can imagine, and they have to live with those on a daily basis. They have a very difficult time getting work and assimilating back into life, and I’m sure even in London you realise how violent a nation we live in. I wanted to deal with all of those themes in a very personal way, and that can make for a disquieting sit for two hours, for sure.
As a filmmaker, do you feel a responsibility to depict what is going on in the world and portray that on the big screen?
Yes. I feel that sense of responsibility to show this side to America. Some of these themes, brotherhood, loyalty, absolution, vengeance, you could set this in Cairo or England or China… They’re universal. The loss of a loved one, it’s important I show it in a very universal way, even if it does take place in America. So I feel a responsibility to show it as truthfully and accurately as possible – because the emotional truth is exactly what I’m going for.
Though Christian Bale’s incredible performance will rightfully take the plaudits – the supporting cast is excellent too, and even the smaller, lesser roles still belong to the likes of Sam Shepard or Forest Whitaker – this is a real ensemble piece.
It really is, and these are actors who I have long admired and reached out to all of them personally to enlist them in the film. Sam is a literary hero of mine, Willem Dafoe has given electric and great performances over his career. I was extremely fortunate to have a cast like this, and hopefully you see them in ways that you haven’t seen them in the past. They’re all fully committed, even though they’re in smaller parts and that’s a testament to them as performers to want to illuminate the human condition. Look, it’s a polarising film here in America but when you have your cinematic heroes, like William Friedkin reach out to you and tell you it’s renewed his faith in American cinema, or Michael Mann, who saw the film and embraced it in ways you could never have hoped – or the great Robert Duvall, on and on, honestly I tell you, as a second time filmmaker it makes you feel extreme gratification I have to say.
That’s quite a quote from Friedkin…
Yeah this is a guy who hosted a Q&A session for me, and it was just stunning the things that he said. When you’re met with criticism for your film, but you have a guy like that who has made masterpieces, to say the things he did, it certainly lifts your spirits.
You mentioned that its been quite polarising in the US – why do you think this has been the case?
Well you know, some people are offset by the violence, others think that I’ve taken a scene from The Deer Hunter – but that scene happened to me when I was 16. Lesser rate film critics who have never made a film, I try to dismiss them. I don’t read film criticisms, but I have people who tell me, but you just hope when you make a searingly realistic, moving piece, that it will be embraced, and the people who I admire have really embraced it. Not only my actors, but the film critics whose work I think is very thoughtful. But then you have others who don’t particularly like it, or who think it’s derivative from movies that I wasn’t deriving from. I’m much more influenced by Ken Loach, Mike Leigh, The Dardenne brothers than I am by some of the filmmakers people have referenced.
Was it a real challenge for you that we always stay on our protagonists’ side? Because both Rodney and Russell and really flawed. The latter even kills someone in a drink driving incident, and yet we remain empathetic to his cause.
I was trying to tell this truthfully and things that come from personal experience. Russell, Christian’s character, is based on someone very close to me and very dear to me, who has suffered even more than Christian’s character – but he’s also a man who continues to inspire me on a daily basis. When you try to tell the truth it can be painful, and he’s a very, very good man, this character, who is beset on all sides by this relentless fate, and there’s nothing you can do about that. Through faith and through community he’s able to persevere, and that’s a testament to the human condition, so I like to write about flawed people, people who live on the margins of society, those who are forgotten about.
The naturalistic elements help so much in that regard. When Rodney owes money, it’s not a million dollars, it’s 15 hundred. When Russell does drink-drive, it’s not like he’s been on an all night bender, it’s just one whiskey too many…
Correct, and yeah it is. If you watch the film again you’ll see he doesn’t even want to take the drink until Willem Dafoe says, ‘Take it!’ cos he’s repaying a debt, so he takes it. Had his brother shown up to have that beer like he promised earlier in the film, it never would have happened.
The opening scene – when we’re first introduced to Woody Harrelson’s character – really sets the precedence for the rest of the movie, and there’s this intensity that sticks with you from there on. What was the reason behind the decision to begin this tale with our antagonist?
Well, precisely what you just said. There’s a couple of reasons. One – you typically start a protagonist and follow him or her for two hours. I wanted to open with antagonist, and with an actor who is known for his warmth, and humour and kindness. I wanted to subvert expectations and to see an actor be as misogynistic and despicable and horrific as he in those opening images, and in such a pubic setting, but also in an American, vanishing way of life – the drive-in theatre, as only few of them now exist, but it’s one that I based on that was down the street from me as a kid and is still operable. So show that a man can do those sort of things in public, every time he comes on screen the entire bedrock of menace has been set, the tone has been set, and when you see him you know nothing good is going to come of it.
The original screenplay for this film was one you discarded – are you still open to other writer’s scripts? Or are you always wanting to direct your own words?
Oh sure, I’m open to that, as long as I can understand the themes and personalise it in some way. Absolutely. I think it’s important because there are a lot of great writers and screenplays that never see the light of day, and there are some great ones that have been sent to me, for sure. Eventually I will direct something I didn’t write, I’m certain of it, but the first two films, it was very important for me to write two films that were personal and came from my pen.
Do you think that’s how you’ll be working for the rest of your career, to be naturally drawn to projects that are very personal to you? Or could you one day see yourself making a big sci-fi or something quite detached from real life?
Well, you know, both Crazy Heart and this film were very personal and I’m relatively young so I can’t always tell personal stories! I don’t know if there’s an appetite in America or Hollywood to tell personal stories like there used to be. If you do, you have to do it on small economies and scale, for sure. But I hope so, I like to tell stories about the human condition and about the human spirit and very flawed people and people who understand and recognise those flaws, or others that do. Those are not easy films to get made, I was recently writing a Stephen King epic, so I’m certainly not opposed to doing a big film like that at all, it just has to be under the right conditions.
So what’s next for you – any projects lined up?
Yeah I’ve written a depression-era crime drama that Leonardo DiCaprio is producing with me that I am going to direct, that deals with racial inequality and racial intolerance and murder in the opium trade in California. I’ve also adapted a William Styron novel called Lie Down in Darkness, about the disintegration of a Virginia family and both deal with themes that are important to me and will continue on a searingly realistic look at the world.
Has the DiCaprio project got a name yet?
No, I like to keep my films untitled until I really see how the narrative unfolds.
Out of the Furnace is out on January 29, and you can read our review here.
