On October 18th, /Film got the chance to sit down with Todd Field, the Academy Award nominated director of 2001's In the Bedroom, and this years oscar bait Little Children. The following is Part two of a two part interview. In Part One, Field talked about using third person narrative, screenwriting with the author, Little Children as a fable, his maturing family life, leaning on your kids, telling New England based stories, recreating his childhood, the problems of modern day suburbia, modern day distracting times, and the loss of self reflection.
In Part two, Field talks about R. Lee Ermey's slanderous comments about Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, how Fear drives America to be terrific consumers, mysterious minimalistic marketing, his hatred towards plot and synopsis's, how comedians are unfunny and laughter on a dramatic set.
Todd Field: The polite thing would to say No comment. But the truth is that... Let's put it this way, you've never seen two actors more completely subservient and prostrate themselves at the feet of a director. Stanley was absolutely thrilled with the film. He was still working on the film when he died. And he probably died because he finally relaxed. It was one of the happiest weekends of his life, right before he died, after he had shown the first cut to Terry, Tom and Nicole. He would have kept working on it, like he did on all of his films. But I know that from people around him personally, my partner who was his assistant for thirty years. And I thought about R. Lee Ermey for In the Bedroom. And I talked to Stanley a lot about that film, and all I can say is Stanley was adamant that I shouldn't work with him for all kinds of reasons that I won't get into because there is no reason to do that to anyone, even if they are saying slanderous things that I know are completely untrue.
Question: Going back a little bit to Little Children, you talk about the character of Ronny, and there is information that has purposefully been left. And I think, one is product of the fear that helps drive the community but the thing I wanted to ask you specifically about him - have you received any comments about Ronny, about how he's been depicted? Because in the movie there are people who are fearful of him for various reasons...
Todd Field: Sure, clearly that's the character that people want to talk about because what that character represents to them, and what side of the fence they come down on. Or they come down on the side of the fence of that character. Part of the reason that we don't meet that character until well into the story. And part of the reason that we don't know the particulars of what that character has done, from what we learn from the mothers in the park or we learn from the television person in the beginning is that he's been convicted for indecent exposure to a minor. The reason we don't know anything is because he does represent that central fear, and he's a very very convenient scape goat or not for that fear and judgement that people are projecting on each other and themselves throughout this film. There have been people who have come out after screenings who have said all sorts of things about that character. And there are people who come out and have been very adamant and judged that character in a way that feels true to them and a little bit angry. That makes me happy. That people would argue. Some are polarized and that they are engaging in constructive dialogue about that. Because fear effects everyone differently.
Question: You also said that the play structures that don't exist anymore, and that's all about liability issues. People stopped building them because parents were suing. You bring in that type of character and he becomes the boogeyman. They want to protect their children but they're kinda being smothered...
Todd Field: Yes, absolutely. And hypocritically, I'm guilty of that as a parent too. As a child, I had the most incredibly private interior life, which is absolutely essential to figuring out who you are. And my parents allowed me that even though there were plenty of boogeymen around. I had someone try to abduct me when I was a child. There's always been that kind of element around since the beginning of man. But my parents never let me be affected by that kind of anxiety even though I'm positive that they must have had it because they understood the value of letting me be faille and letting me be like a child should be. My life wasn't scheduled, there was no such term as play-dates. We didn't have car-seats. My parents never really asked me what's going on, and I'm really glad that they didn't. I didn't have a pseudo psychology where my parents were my best friends. I had friends. I wanted them to be my parents, you know? Their quality of matriarchy or patriarchy were not defined by having this clawing smothering, in some ways, very creepy relationship with their children which we accept as the price of doing business as a parent these days. We're shoved fear down our throats. There's all these terrible things out there. We've shoved all these definitions about what it takes to be a good parent because it makes us terrific consumers. Fear drives a market. The first thing they said after 9/11, 'don't worry, America will be back in business tomorrow.' That's a thread that runs through our entire society right now. And my childhood was very very different from my children's childhood. I wish that weren't so, but I too have been effected by that fear. I'm not as confident as my parents were. I wish I were. That's probably the greatest gift that anyone ever gave me.
Question: You said that in working on a film you like to choose material that you haven't entirely mastered yet because the process is so long and you want to have those discoveries. What were some of the discoveries you came to during this process, especially during your rehearsal conversations with the actors?
Todd Field: Oh boy. I think... this is a long conversation. ::laughs:: Things were absolutely always there, that you could... It's one thing to intellectualize connections, thematic connections or from primordial to plain on your face visual connections, of a process. There's another thing to feel those connections as your working on them and have them dawn on you, the truth of something. It's the same way as somebody can give you advice, very good advice, but it's completely cheap until you realize it for yourself. It's just words. And that's what, in the best possible sense, working on something for a long period of time is, which is, that certain things that were self evident, you start to feel are real for you. And that keeps happening through process so that you're, yes you're exhausted but you're not bored or indifferent, which are killers. And when we view hollow at the end of two years. You hope that you've chosen wisely when you chose material because, if you haven't, you're going to figure it out pretty quickly, and say 'Oh my gosh, what am I doing.' And you know, 'I've got another year on this, I'm gonna die.' But I didn't have those fears with this movie because there were things with Tom's book that I responded to in a way that it was complicated enough for me, that I had a pretty good notion that those things would keep happening. To actually sort of tell you what those things were, we'd run out of time. ::Laughs::
Question: The trailer is very mysterious. Inter-cut footage with the train sounds you mentioned from your childhood. And the marketing seems to be taking the same mysterious road. Even our press notes only have like a one or two sentence description of the plot (as opposed to the norm of a long detailed many page synopsis). Is that something that was your decision?
Todd Field: Yes it was. Yeah absolutely. I did it with In the Bedroom as well. I personally am much more engaged in a film or a book, even this book, not knowing anything about it. Going in, or knowing as little as possible and having as little preconceived notion as possible. This movie will be defined by the audience, defined by the people who choose or not to write about it. And that's who should define it. It shouldn't be defined by a marketing team, and it certainly shouldn't be defined by me in some kind of synopsis. Because the truth is that if I could write a descent synopsis for a film, I wouldn't make it. If I could actually explain it in a paragraph without being ridiculously reductive, I wouldn't make it. There was one thing at the American Film Institute, when I was a fellow there, they had a pitch class. And I thought 'Oh my god, you know?' ::laughs:: 'No Thank you.' If I could do that, then I'm in big trouble. Going back to the thing I was just talking about. If I could do that, I'd be like a janitor for two years. You know what I mean? Did it trouble any of you that you didn't have a synopsis laid out in your press materials or anything like that?
Interviewer: No. It was refreshing going in to it because you didn't know what to expect.
Todd Field: That's good. I'm excited to hear that. Because the truth is that the plot is really boring. ::laughs:: The plot is like a big excuse to spend time with characters as far as I'm concerned. It's so overrated. And you get stuck writing plot. I mean, who wants to write about plot? No really. You can break anything down really simple, and I would never go see a film based on the plot, ever EVER. I'd never say 'Oh god, that sounds like a really good plot let me go see that movie.' I think I'll go see a movie because people say it's an interesting film and you should go see it. And it's hard because I guess people I know I can read who write about films and where it's not going to queer it for me and than I know there are people who I can't read because typically three fourths of what they will write will be plot. And I can't read them. And I understand people are on deadlines. People don't really want to write about film anyways, you have to, you're on a deadline and they say give me 600, 1000 words on whatever. So you're just like, I'll cut and paste that. And I can do an intro. Get in there, get out there, boom. Now I've got another thing I can write. I understand it's an occupational hazard. I never want to go see a film based on a plot.
Question: Given the nature of a film, and I think this goes back to a question asked earlier, do you think there were any conditions that you put on the set to create the tense or claustrophobic environment?
Todd Field: No, you just try to find what feels appropriate for every film or every scene that you're trying to execute. But no, that's the thing, I think a very understandable misconception is that if your doing comedy that in between takes everyone is like 'HA HA, Let me tell you another one!' But it's not that way. If you go on a comedy set, you'd be surprised at, like, you want to talk about a downer set? The most depressing people in the world are comedians.
Interviewer: And there are a lot of comedians with no sense of humor...
Todd Field: No sense of humor what-so-ever. They refuse to laugh at each others jokes because it's like a point of pride. I hung out with a lot of comedians when I first came out to Los Angeles as a young actor and I fell into this crowd of very funny people - Bill Maher and a very young Adam Sandler and David Spade and a bunch of other guys before they got their breaks.And they were so competitive, they refuse to laugh at anything. I said 'God, these guys are comedians?' Now on the other hand, on this film we laughed a lot between takes. A LOT because there is something very heightened about, it's not really drama. Even the melodrama requires the actors to take a certain almost musical theater approach in certain places. Slightly heightened, the feeling is real but the execution is very different. And sometimes very funny stuff comes out of it that you don't use. But no, we had a really good time.