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HERE WE ARE ALICE TYNAN SPEAKS TO WRITER/DIRECTOR DEREK CIANFRANCE ABOUT HIS NEW FILM, BLUE VALENTINE, A RAW PORTRAYAL OF LOVE STARRING MICHELLE WILLIAMS AND RYAN GOSLING.
Half sublime sonnet, half gutwrenching elegy, Blue Valentine is a film that inhabits your soul. The second feature from writer-director Derek Cianfrance, this critical and film festival favourite stars Michelle Williams (Wendy & Lucy) and Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson) as young couple Cindy and Dean, who fall desperately in love before their bridal waltz becomes a danse macabre as the relationship unravels over the ensuing six years. Moving between the glorious glow of their courtship and their last ditch effort to patch things up in a tacky motel (in a wry conceit, Cianfrance literally places them in a ‘future room’), the filmmaker allows his two characters,
just like the two distinct halves of the film, to perfectly, and poignantly, play off each other. “I’ve always seen the film as a duet, or a duel, between opposites,” Cianfrance explains. “Between a man and a woman; between their past and their present; between love and hate; between their longterm memory and their short term memory; between the aesthetics of film and video. I was inspired by The Godfather Part II, the idea of the rise of the father cross-cut with the fall of the son. “In [the] twelve years I had to think about the movie, I would spend so much time just meditating on a magnet. How it’s the positive and
the negative in one thing, [and] that [it] exists in nature, without any explanations.” In truth, Blue Valentine has been gestating for far longer than 12 years. Cianfrance admits the story stems from his childhood fear that his parents would divorce. And they eventually did, when he was 20, the same age as Cindy and Dean when they first meet. “To me it’s really the child’s perspective in the movie. The movie isn’t about my parents, at all, it’s about me, and people of my generation who are trying to deal [by] not repeating what we saw our parents do. It’s about us trying to avoid our destiny.
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THE GRUEN TRANSFER IS CONSISTANTLY THE MOST WATCHED TELEVISION SHOW ON THE ABC. NOW IT’S EXPANDING INTO PRINT, WITH THE PUBLICATION OF THE GRUEN TRANSFER BOOK. LIZ GIUFFRE TALKS TO ITS AUTHOR JON CASIMIR.
“We have what we call FMMs in the office, otherwise known as ‘fuck me moments’, and literally that can be described as that moment when you turn to someone else in the room as say, ‘Fuck me, did they really do that?!’ An FMM might be an amazing ad, it might be an amazing approach, or a thought or a marketing term; something really revealing about advertising, and we do look at all our episodes and say, ‘Do we have enough FMMs in any given show that we’re happy with? Are we giving the audience enough that they might not
have thought about?’ And we did the book in the same way.” Jon Casimir is describing the process of working in the offices of The Gruen Transfer. A part of Andrew Denton’s production company Zapruder’s Other Films, the proposition of making a show about advertising on the publically-funded ABC is not contentious as it could have been. Not to say that advertising isn’t a serious business, but rather that there is, as public service broadcasting dictates, more to be gained by informing, educating and entertaining.
Casimir is currently on the campaign trail to spruik The Gruen Transfer book as something of a mixture between a coffee table book, toilet read and textbook. Casimir repeats this description happily, saying “I don’t know what it is,” but that the idea was simply to “concentrate on what we think is really interesting.” Building on this, he adds, “TV is finite while books are less finite, so we could just cram stuff into the book. The book starts on the premise that you can see 3,000 pieces of advertising in a day, so the book is the day from eyes open to eyes
“There is this erosive power of time that often comes [into a marriage], and it’s the same power that can turn a mountain into a pebble.” In battling with the spectre of divorce, Blue Valentine is certainly confronting. It’s a film that provokes as much deep self-reflection as it does heated discussion about the characters’ foibles and the recipient of your sympathies. And while Cianfrance describes his film as ‘a cautionary tale’ and suggests discussion is ‘healthy,’ especially for couples brave enough to see the film together, he does admit, “I do know some friends who split up [after watching the film]. That’s always been my dilemma in relationships: you can be one shut, exploring the types of ads you encounter during the day.” A former journalist and continued curious bugger/shitsturrer, Casimir is reluctant to be called an ‘expert’ (“I’ve got five years now of being an interested onlooker, not an expert”), but in putting the book together he made a point of keeping the show’s spirit of keeping dogma at bay while providing insightful information. “I don’t think we’re cynical,” he says, “I think we come from the person-onthe-couch’s angle. We’re sceptical, and we do ask barbed questions, and we do mock and question what we see [in ads], and the reason for that is that we want to know how advertising works and how it works on us.” The Gruen Transfer book is incredibly detailed and does cover interviews with regular Gruen panelists and topics, but also branches out to venture towards those a little more removed from the ad world. Most notably this includes some hard research, interviews with academics (don’t be scared, they’ve been de-jargoned) and words from the good people at Ad Busters. “We’ve broken out and put a sealed section in the middle,” Casimir explains. “But the rest of the book is not judgmental. There are few points where my judgmental side kicks in; [for example] I’m not a huge fan of brands who try and create good will when it’s just for profit... but I came into this probably more black and white about advertising than I am now; now I think advertising is much more grey than I used to.” WHAT: The Gruen Transfer Book (Harper Collins)
hundred per cent of a person, then you meet someone else who is one hundred per cent of a person… What happens when you start living as a pair and you become half of a whole? What happens to the other half of you?” Such questioning ripples through Blue Valentine and at times boldly bursts to the surface as Dean openly questions ideas of success, masculinity and love. The filmmaker, however, is perfectly happy leaving these complex and potentially polarising questions unanswered. “I feel like movies can be very arrogant. So many movies have perfect people up on the screen. They speak perfect sentences, they know what they want, they have exciting incidences in their lives and [at the] end of the second act they’re about ready to have their catharsis. But I don’t know people like that, you know? I know people who are yearning and bewildered and confused and who don’t have the answers. With Blue Valentine, there is no message, there [are] questions. And I don’t pretend to have any answers to any of these questions. I was inspired for so many years by that song by The Supremes, Where Did Our Love Go. That became a perennial hit, so I thought I could do the same with Blue Valentine!” The question mark hovering over Cindy and Dean’s love gradually becomes glaring as the film bounds across the six years of their relationship. Visually, Cianfrance achieves this distinction by shooting the past handheld on super 16mm with lots of warm, saturating reds,
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while the present is conveyed in stark blues with the sharp focus of the HD RED camera. For Williams and Gosling, the years show through weight gain and hair loss, as well as the requisite shift in the emotional landscape. Cianfrance admits this transformation was by no means an easy one. “Shooting the past of Blue Valentine was such a vacation for all of us; it was like making a documentary of two people falling in love, of two beautiful people, Ryan and Michelle, getting to know each other on screen. None of us actually wanted to shoot the present, we just wanted to call the film ‘Valentine’ and forget about the present part! “It was just incredibly difficult to get them to start fighting,” he admits. “[Then] I looked at my son, Walker, who would make these incredible block houses and then at the end of the night he would have to tear them down, and it was so painful to him. So I told Ryan and Michelle, ‘We can’t be so precious about this. We have to destroy it.’ And they did. They set their wedding picture on fire and from that moment forward they were good, they could start arguing.” For Cianfrance’s duel, his duet, everything hinges on the actors’ transition. It’s a raw and exquisite dichotomy that Williams and Gosling masterfully embody. “They’re beautiful, magical people and they showed that they could go to the heavens and to the basement.” WHERE & WHEN: Screening in cinemas from 26 December
CRINGE
JACKI WEAVER, LEFT, WITH JOEL EDGERTON IN ANIMAL KINGDOM
WITH JAMELLE WELLS The theatre world is mourning the loss of Gus Mercurio, who died after complications during surgery. The American-born actor (father of dancer/actor Paul Mercurio) was also a professional boxer, a merchant seaman, a marine and a qualified chiropractor. He starred in television shows that included Power Without Glory, Homicide, Division 4 and Matlock Police. His films included The Blue Lagoon, The Man From Snowy River, Crocodile Dundee II and Doing Time For Patsy Cline. Before the operation Paul Mercurio had put a message on his website: “My dad is at this very moment laying on a table in a hospital getting cut open to fix an aneurysm in his chest. Spare a thought for him if you can. He is a tough old bugger so he should be fine, however he is getting on - 82 and has become a little frailer over the last few years.” Gus Mercurio is survived by his second wife Rita and six children. Best media stuff up of the week was by two BBC presenters who made the same verbal slip over the name of Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt. Jim Naughtie, an anchor on Radio 4’s Today programme, accidentally replaced the first letter of Hunt’s surname with a “C”. Within
hours colleague Andrew Marr did the same thing during his Radio 4 cultural discussion programme, Start The Week. When a conversation on philosophy turned to Freudian slips, the BBC’s ex-political editor promised he wouldn’t repeat Naughtie’s mistake - before doing just that while trying to say: “Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary”. It sparked embarrassed laughter from choreographer Matthew Bourne who was among his guests. Local actor Jacki Weaver has been recognised by the US National Board of Review for her performance as a crime matriarch in Animal Kingdom. She’s been named Best Supporting Actress among selections that are the first major awards of the Hollywood season. The not-for-profit organisation isn’t formally connected to the film industry, but has become a broad guide for voting intentions in film awards that include the Oscars. Weaver also joined actors Geoffrey Rush, Cate Blanchett, John Bell, Hugo Weaving and others to unveil Sydney’s new Walk Of Fame at Walsh Bay. Premier Kristina Keneally said the 21 bronze plaques have been set into Pier 2/3 as a tribute to stars of Australian theatre. Arts Minister Virginia Judge said a 99-year lease over the pier will ensure it’s used for arts activities into the future. THE DRUM MEDIA 14 DECEMBER 2010 • 67 •