Fede Alvarez: Making His
Own Path
"It's always easier the second time around". This was
advice that I was given by an experienced peer after I completely bombed my
first interview with a filmmaker. And they were right, it was easier second
time around because it couldn't have gone much worse than that first time out.
I often think about this piece of advice when talking with filmmakers,
especially when the discussion inevitable focuses on future projects.
Coming off a successful first film, many talented directors fall
victim to the dreaded "sophomore slump". The second film in a director's
catalog that builds so much hype, anticipation, and expectation that it's
nearly impossible to find any sort of success.
Hype and expectation couldn't have been higher in 2013 when a
relatively unknown director, with only a few short films under his belt, took
the reins of the rebooted "Evil Dead" film. With Sam Raimi, Bruce
Campbell, and Rob Tapert providing support, director Fede Alvarez crafted a
stunning, gory, and terrifying film.
"Don't Breathe" is Mr. Alvarez's second feature film
arriving in theaters August 26th. We had the opportunity to talk with Mr.
Alvarez about his success, inspirations and influences, cinematic pairings, and
guilty pleasures.
______________________________________________________________
THE CODA:
Congrats on all the success Fede. EVIL DEAD is one of my favorite
reboots to date and DON’T BREATHE is fantastic. It had to have been both
exciting and terrifying helming the new EVIL DEAD with people like Sam Raimi,
Bruce Campbell, and Rob Tapert so involved in the process. Sam and Rob are back
for your second film. What did the screening room feel like this time around
for DON’T BREATHE when you showed them the film for the first time?
FEDE ALVAREZ:
So, Sam is there and basically I show him the movie and as soon
as the movie is over, that's the moment when you’re a filmmaker and you just
turn around and say "so?” And just waiting for the first, you know, real audience
that has seen the film to express an opinion and the first thing he says is,
"you have conquered the inevitable sophomore curse".
THE CODA:
I see some parallels to a film called WAIT UNTIL DARK with Audrey
Hepburn. Where you familiar with this movie? What kind of influences shaped
DON'T BREATHE?
FEDE ALVAREZ:
It wasn't even an inspiration on any level because I didn't
really know about the film, I've probably heard the title but I haven't seen
the film and I had no clue what it was about until I think I was done with the
script and we were about to make the movie. I called my mom and she asked what
the movie was about and I explained to her what it was and she said,
"that's just like WAIT UNTIL DARK". And I was like "what is
that?" and she said, "it's this wonderful Audrey Hepburn movie that
she was nominated for an Oscar for". So I thought I should check it out
and I did and there are obviously similarities that come out of the natural
premise of having motivation and a blind person.
THE CODA:
We always talk about originality in horror. And what you did with
the EVIL DEAD film is so fresh and innovative while also paying tribute to the
original but not is a way that makes the new version a carbon copy of the old.
I feel in many ways the same about DON'T BREATHE. You can feel influences from
different places but you also make it so original and different from the
mainstream. Was this a story that you had in mind for some time?
FEDE ALVAREZ:
Not for a while, we were basically promoting the EVIL DEAD
Blu-ray coming out at Comicon and it wasn’t until that point that we realized
people who really liked this EVIL DEAD. And we knew that it worked at the box
office but a lot of people don’t follow or create a following after. You know
sometimes movies are big and a lot of people watch them but maybe they don’t
like it as much as they thought, they like it but they forget about it. We were
at Comicon and I was talking to people and I found out that people actually
loved EVIL DEAD and I was excited about that. And I felt like I needed to give
those people another movie so that’s why I decided to kind of stay in the genre
a little bit more and do something that wasn’t exactly straightforward a horror
movie but was still something for what I felt was the audience for EVIL DEAD.
So on the drive from San Diego to Los Angeles I was with my
cowriter just chatting and talking about what we were going do next, something
that would be very suspenseful and we didn’t want to do something that was
about the shock like EVIL DEAD was. Though this one gets pretty shocking at
moments, we wanted something that was about the suspense and trying to make the
most suspenseful film that you had ever seen, especially for the younger
audience because they don’t make movies like this anymore. Usually movies have
breaks and different scenes, even very scary horror movies have these moments
in the middle to relax, to have some drama. But this one is different, a major
set piece that once you start 50 minutes into the movie is hasn’t let go and
won’t until it’s over. That aspect hasn’t been done in a while so we were
excited about that and we always wanted to tell a story about robbers, we were
fascinated by those characters and I thought it would be interesting to show
the audience where they are and what they do, get them to decide who they like
or not, and then put them against a worthy opponent.
We had to figure out a character that was bigger than life and
could be very cinematic as well and that’s when we realized that he should be
blind. After that the idea came together very quickly. The idea and how it
clicks is the hard part, how you come up with that concept and once you have
something.... it’s very fertile and all the scenes and everything you see in
the movie comes together. And when you put a bunch a robbers in a house trying
to steal money from a blind man you create situations that become interesting
to the story.
THE CODA:
You create a great opponent for the robbers. They underestimate
him and you accomplish some great scenes with real subtlety on the part of the
blind man. He’s a war veteran, he has unsuspecting abilities and this brings so
much tension at times because the viewer is seeing these small yet important
things develop over the course of the film. That’s something that isn’t often
thought of in horror films these days. Everything is so big and loud.
FEDE ALVAREZ:
Regarding the loud stuff, we weren't really looking for that.
This movie has a few jump scares to keep you on the edge but, funny enough,
most jump scares in movies are when the music hits and that's what scares you,
the big slam of the music. Here, because we were trying to be really honest
with the filmmaking, there is no music with the scares. It's the small things
that scare you here, the sound of the dog hitting the window and the creak in
the floor when the blind man comes out of the cellar right in front of her
face, those are the things that I'm really proud of. We all know cheap scares
and here we tried not to do that.
THE CODA:
Let's say you were going to program a double feature with DON'T
BREATHE, what would be the film you program?
FEDE ALVAREZ:
I would do something simple and show them PSYCHO. They would be
good together because they have some similarities; the way we set up the story
because we have a robber trying to get away with some money and bad things come
their way because of that. The big twist in the middle that really takes the
story in a different direction, PSYCHO does that as well. It was a big
inspiration but they are completely different movies.
THE CODA:
Final question. We all have guilty pleasure movies or television
shows. What’s your guilty pleasure movie or show?
FEDE ALVAREZ:
I guess when I think about guilty pleasure films I have to think about bad films, but there must be a reason why I enjoy them so much. THE WICKER MAN is a movie I always enjoy a lot, it’s a bizarre one. But now that I think about it there are some similarities, with the twist and how nothing is what you think it is, the story starts in a place and goes to some very bizarre destinations, and were talking about the original Christopher Lee one and not the Nicolas Cage remake. They’re really helpless, they’re going onto someone else’s land. The rules aren’t the rules of the world, they are the rules of the owner of that land. It’s one of those classics, it’s very hard to understand and I’m not really sure why it’s so good, but I loved it.
I guess when I think about guilty pleasure films I have to think about bad films, but there must be a reason why I enjoy them so much. THE WICKER MAN is a movie I always enjoy a lot, it’s a bizarre one. But now that I think about it there are some similarities, with the twist and how nothing is what you think it is, the story starts in a place and goes to some very bizarre destinations, and were talking about the original Christopher Lee one and not the Nicolas Cage remake. They’re really helpless, they’re going onto someone else’s land. The rules aren’t the rules of the world, they are the rules of the owner of that land. It’s one of those classics, it’s very hard to understand and I’m not really sure why it’s so good, but I loved it.
No comments:
Post a Comment