Scott Hicks
Scott Hicks return to the director's chair this week with his latest movie The Boy s Are Back starring Clive Owen.
I caught up with the filmmaker at the London Film Festival to talk about his new movie, working in feature film and documentary, and what lies ahead.
- The Boys are Back is your latest movie so can you tell me a little bit about the film?
I read the script and I was totally taken by the sort of look at fatherhood in a way that I felt I had never seen it before and it struck me, I didn’t realise that it was based on a true story, but it struck me as being real, how people related to each other, the conversations that they would have.
So I was hooked very quickly but to me the whole world of single fatherhood is relatively unexplored in cinema, sure there have been some films, but this seemed to be a completely new take on it.
- The film is a real life story based on the memoirs of Simon Carr so what was it about his story that drew you to the project?
I think it was just the sense of realness I felt when Joseph tells Artie that his mum is going to die Artie says ‘Will she die by dinner time? Not only have I not seen that moment in cinema before but it just felt to me totally authentic the way incomprehension of the kid was captured, it didn’t go for easy choices emotionally, I found it totally compelling.
- We have seen movies about fatherhood and bringing up children, such as Kramer vs. Kramer, so what makes The Boys are Back so different?
Well you could say on several levels it’s about bereavement and not divorce but it’s also the complication in the Boys of Back of the arrival of the fourteen year old son from a previous marriage.
You are also dealing with completely different fathers, in Kramer vs. Kramer you have this guy who struggles against all the odds he does all the right things but no one gives him a break.
But Joe is a very flawed individual who is at odds with a lot of things in the world and unashamedly politically incorrect in his views so it’s more, in a sense, a more rough edged character and I think that made it a very interesting and new approach.
- How did Clive Owen fit in, did you always envisage him in the central role? And if so why?
Very early on I zeroed in on Clive, it was the year that he did Closer, so there he was and when I saw that film he has this powerful intensity abut him that draws you into to feeling for him, it’s not very demonstrative he doesn’t act it all out he thinks it and I found that very compelling.
Joe is a character that is struggling to control his emotions and we need to see him break down and that was a very crucial and really important thing with Clive that he had to go there but then he has to go there to know from there on in that he is holding all that back. So I thought all of those things felt like a really interesting challenge for Clive.
- And how about casting Artie as the character has a lot of intense emotional things to cope with in the movie so how difficult to cast that role?
Very difficult, very difficult because where do you find a six year old that can do that? And that was my greatest terror, it was fabulous to have Clive that was great but I couldn’t possibly find a child who could do all this and hold his own against an actor of Clive’s calibre.
But it’s a big search you look at hundreds of kids and you try to identify someone who has signs of life that you are looking for and Nicholas was a standout, he’s an exceptional little boy. He’s very intelligent and very self willed as well as having a lot of attitude, good for him he needs all of that, and I thought this is what we need as well because this boy has to go almost feral.
So I felt that he was the right choice and Clive was absolutely exhilarated by the idea of working with him.
- I read that this movie has been in the pipeline since 2004 so what’s taken so long to get it into production?
Basically both Clive and I have been very busy since 2004 so it’s been a matter of being available at the same time, literally, Clive would be available I would still be on a film and vice versa. We were beginning to wonder if this film was ever going to happen so it took a lot of patience on behalf of the producers to realise that this combination of Clive and me was really going to work and to keep the faith. So that was how that came about.
- And how did this movie resonate with you on a personal level being a father of two boys yourself?
Well I think that was part of the attraction if you like because a huge part of my life has bee involved in parenting, and actually they are two boys who are sixteen years apart, but we are all from the one family if you know what I mean? So definitely it had huge resonance for me, not in necessarily in specific actions or scenes, although there are some pieces that derive from my own experiences.
- No Reservations was your last big release back in 2007 so what have you been up too since then?
Well I made this movie about Philip Glass it’s was a documentary about Philip Glass and it was at Toronto Film Festival two years ago, in fact it through to the last fifteen for consideration for an Academy Award nomination.
- And how did you find the transition between feature film and documentary? Do you prefer one over the other?
I enjoy doing either, the Glass film was the first documentary that I had made in at least ten years, and it was a welcome return as I love making documentaries. The subject is fascinating it’s just a great journey so doing that film with Philip was just wonderful because he is an extraordinary man.
Each one has its own kind of discipline but, funnily enough, there are links there are connections there are ways that my documentary experiences have informed my experience as a director of actors.
And some of the things that I was doing on The Boys Are Back were really inspired by documentary experience in the sense that with an untrained six year old inexperienced child you have to be ready to capture things as if they are never going to happen again, it’s almost like capturing wildlife, you can’t tell it what to do sometimes it’s just going to do what it wants to do and you have to capture it. I wasn’t afraid of that given my knowledge of documentaries shall we say.
- How are you finding the London Film Festival?
Well I haven’t seen any of it yet because I have been doing this and talking to people like you, this is what happens you come to film festivals and you never get to see anything.
- Is it exciting to be here as a filmmaker?
Oh I love it absolutely it’s a great event. It’s the first time I think that I have had a film in the London Film Festival so I am delighted and it’s a great event on the cinema calendar.
- Finally what’s next for you?
To be honest I don’t know, there are a couple of things that I’m looking at but nothing is set, there are two things that are just sort of swirling around at the moment I just don’t know what might crystallise.
The Boys Are back is released 22nd January
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Scott Hicks return to the director's chair this week with his latest movie The Boy s Are Back starring Clive Owen.
I caught up with the filmmaker at the London Film Festival to talk about his new movie, working in feature film and documentary, and what lies ahead.
- The Boys are Back is your latest movie so can you tell me a little bit about the film?
I read the script and I was totally taken by the sort of look at fatherhood in a way that I felt I had never seen it before and it struck me, I didn’t realise that it was based on a true story, but it struck me as being real, how people related to each other, the conversations that they would have.
So I was hooked very quickly but to me the whole world of single fatherhood is relatively unexplored in cinema, sure there have been some films, but this seemed to be a completely new take on it.
- The film is a real life story based on the memoirs of Simon Carr so what was it about his story that drew you to the project?
I think it was just the sense of realness I felt when Joseph tells Artie that his mum is going to die Artie says ‘Will she die by dinner time? Not only have I not seen that moment in cinema before but it just felt to me totally authentic the way incomprehension of the kid was captured, it didn’t go for easy choices emotionally, I found it totally compelling.
- We have seen movies about fatherhood and bringing up children, such as Kramer vs. Kramer, so what makes The Boys are Back so different?
Well you could say on several levels it’s about bereavement and not divorce but it’s also the complication in the Boys of Back of the arrival of the fourteen year old son from a previous marriage.
You are also dealing with completely different fathers, in Kramer vs. Kramer you have this guy who struggles against all the odds he does all the right things but no one gives him a break.
But Joe is a very flawed individual who is at odds with a lot of things in the world and unashamedly politically incorrect in his views so it’s more, in a sense, a more rough edged character and I think that made it a very interesting and new approach.
- How did Clive Owen fit in, did you always envisage him in the central role? And if so why?
Very early on I zeroed in on Clive, it was the year that he did Closer, so there he was and when I saw that film he has this powerful intensity abut him that draws you into to feeling for him, it’s not very demonstrative he doesn’t act it all out he thinks it and I found that very compelling.
Joe is a character that is struggling to control his emotions and we need to see him break down and that was a very crucial and really important thing with Clive that he had to go there but then he has to go there to know from there on in that he is holding all that back. So I thought all of those things felt like a really interesting challenge for Clive.
- And how about casting Artie as the character has a lot of intense emotional things to cope with in the movie so how difficult to cast that role?
Very difficult, very difficult because where do you find a six year old that can do that? And that was my greatest terror, it was fabulous to have Clive that was great but I couldn’t possibly find a child who could do all this and hold his own against an actor of Clive’s calibre.
But it’s a big search you look at hundreds of kids and you try to identify someone who has signs of life that you are looking for and Nicholas was a standout, he’s an exceptional little boy. He’s very intelligent and very self willed as well as having a lot of attitude, good for him he needs all of that, and I thought this is what we need as well because this boy has to go almost feral.
So I felt that he was the right choice and Clive was absolutely exhilarated by the idea of working with him.