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Friday, Nov 27, 2009
Do you think places like the "City of God" slums are better or worse today?
I think today it's worse than it was in the '70s, in which the film is set. Drug trafficking is worse. There are some really strong factions controlling things right now. It's more difficult to deal with them than 10 years ago because they're so well organized. But I think Brazil is just changing a lot, just like how the academy is finally nominating subtitled films. [Laughs.] We have a president really focused on social issues, and I think the country will be much, much better. And corruption used to be the biggest issue in Brazil, and it's not such a big deal anymore. Things are really getting better.
You've said that poverty and crime were foreign to you before making "City of God." What's your background?
I'm a middle-class guy from São Paolo, the son of a doctor. I was trained originally as an architect, but in university I got involved working with experimental video, and that led me to independent productions and then commercials. And then my life became boring. I wanted to do something else. So that's what led me to shooting this film.
"City of God" is very sophisticated visually, with lots of moving camera work and quick editing. Is it safe to assume commercials are where you developed your style?
I think all I know about cameras, lenses, editing I learned doing commercials. It was a great way to learn and get paid for it. I think I must have done a thousand commercials before directing "City of God." The last 10 years I've been shooting every week. So all the kinds of problems you can have in production lighting or actors or whatever, I'd been through it already. I'm really an old director even though this is only my second film.
What about your training in architecture -- has that influenced your filmmaking?
I think so. I have really good relation with space: setting up the camera and trying to picture a set. I'm very comfortable imagining everything laid out. If you watch "City of God" only trying to understand what happens to the city and not the characters by watching the background, there's a story being told there too. In the beginning you see a lot of open landscapes. You can see the horizon. Towards the end there's only boys running through corridors, trapped inside their world. There's a story being told through the architecture. It feels totally different from beginning to end.
You mentioned working in London right now. What are you directing next?
I'm working on "The Constant Gardener," a film adapted from a book by John Le Carré. It's about a British diplomat whose wife was killed in Kenya. He tries to find out why his wife was murdered, and along the way he comes to love her like he never did while she was alive. It's also about how the pharmaceutical industry profits from health problems around the world. And it's also a thriller.
It sounds like a departure from "City of God." Do you enjoy directing a wide variety of films?
I'm really moved by challenges. Actually, I don't know how to do this new film, and I'm trying to learn along the way. That's usually how I like to do it. I really like to learn things as I'm doing them. With "City of God," I had never been to that slum, and I knew nothing about drug dealers. I think that when you're getting into a new situation, something you don't know that much about, you have really a fresh look. You're very turned on to everything that's happening, and you're paying attention to the details.
Are you interested in the interest you'll probably receive from Hollywood after the nominations "City of God" received?
I've already been offered something like 60 or 65 projects from American studios in the last year. But at the time, I was working on a personal project, a film called "Intolerance," about globalization. So I read the scripts they sent me, but mostly just to learn how to write them, not because I was really interested in directing them. But by the end of the year I realized that my script for "Intolerance" just wasn't ready to shoot yet, and that's when I decided to do something else. That's when I was offered "The Constant Gardener," and I thought it was an interesting project with good people involved, so I decided to do it. It was just the right script at the right moment. Some of the scripts I'd been offered before were actually really good, and they were hard to turn down. But it's about timing, and "The Constant Gardener" was the script that came to me at the right time.
