![]() ![]() And then there were those spontaneous moments that add incredible depth. Benicio brought a vulnerability to the character of Ronald and warmth that necessitated Steven and me looking at scenes that we hadn't shot yet and making fine-tune adjustments to accommodate for that subtle nuance that Benicio was bringing in, humor that he was bringing in. Maximizing the effect of the changes, and that happens a lot in this film. That's why I love to be there every day because the smallest shifts create change. And your job is to constantly be aware of how the film is evolving and write toward that. And you have a choice as a writer, either fight it, which is never a winning scenario, never, or pay close attention to how it's moving and keep track of that relationship between your original intention and what the movie is now telling you it wants to be. It's a tricky part.Ī lot of writers hurt themselves by not being open to this part when the film gets up on its feet and starts moving, it really starts to evolve. But really, and it's easy to assess what those changes are going to be because you're hearing notes verbally, or in writing, but given to you in a specific little period of time. The first big inflection point after you're finished the script is when it's cast and the actors have notes. And by outline, I should say more like the spine or the central core of the story is evolving. Underneath the dialogue, the outline is already evolving. You start moving from outline to dialogue. So going back to the thing I was saying before, you have a concept, this is the type of movie I'm going to write. With Benicio del Toro and Don Cheadle, how did their casting influence how you rewrote those characters? I know you did some rewriting when roles were cast. I think that the viewer has to feel like they're in good hands from beginning to end. It's a one-way conversation, but it's a conversation with the viewer. And to have it end as bleakly as we were originally thinking felt like it would almost be a negation of that arrangement in a weird way, because all films, I think are a conversation. ![]() And it would have been, I think, unfair to the audience, almost like we were making a narrative contract with the audience that you're in good hands here. I felt like we were all inside the characters a little bit too much. As I was probably three-quarters of the way through the script, it started to feel like that thing I initially was going for, which was a much darker, much bleaker kind of experience, no longer felt valid for the film. ![]() What happens is movies evolve, as you're writing them, and as you're shooting them, and as you're editing them. Your assessment of what the roots were is exactly accurate, and even the fact that it had a much bleaker ending is exactly accurate. It is weirdly a spoiler, so we have to be a little careful because I want people to wonder about the fate of the characters. Like Get Carter or Point Blank, you can end on a downer for some characters, too. Although I'll confess, the story I thought I was writing is a lot leaner than the story I ended up writing, but that was just a product of so many great actors and continually adding texture and context to them, that was irresistible to us. But also in terms of what we were trying on a story level. It's in the directorial, let's call it lexicon, of shot lexicon, or whatever you would call it, visual style. He had lenses from that exact era that the film was taking place. So for whatever reason, the movie gods went, "We're going to let you see this, Ed, for tonight, but then we're taking it away." But for the most part, you're totally right, not just about the sort of stylistic language, but Steven even shot it with Kowa anamorphic lenses applied on top of the red digital camera. It's on YouTube right now." Then he's like, "I can't find it." And then I went back on. I watched it, and then I texted him, like, "Dude, the movie is available. But what was funny about that experience was I was like, "Well, I'm going to Google it and see if I can find it anywhere." I found it had been posted on YouTube three hours earlier by somebody, the whole movie. But again, that was about car companies competing. It's called Black Test Car." By the way, it's now available. There's this black and white Japanese film from 1962, which is not available anywhere. There was one that we watched, the one that I watched, he was like, "If only you could see this. We watched Point Blank and Get Carter and Rififi, I mean, just a ton of films, like Desperate Hours. I would say we're on the giants' shoulders that I was going to attempt to hopefully stand on. We watched, or I should say, I watched the old films. Did you and Steven Soderbergh talk a lot about how to capture the cinematic language of old crime noirs?ġ00%. This movie calls to mind noirs like The Killing, The Killers, or I Wake Up Screaming. ![]()
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