After his dark version was watered down in edits, the director returned to himself inCyrano.
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Joe Wright had, lets say, an interesting 2021.
He released two films last year.
But hes still proud of the fact that he at least attempted it.
(I suspect that Im personally one more rewatch away from declaring it as great an achievement asAtonement.)
And his work is surprisingly personal.
Similarly, the techno-action thrillerHannawas a direct response to the disappointing reception of his mental-illness dramaThe Soloist.
That Wright finds ways to make everything he does personal is clear from the sincerity in his work.
I felt a kind of responsibility.
We hunkered down in this small town in Sicily and created this bubble.
But it was tough.
People couldnt go home and see their families as they normally might on weekends.
All the above-the-line people took pay cuts to get it made.
I found the experience of watching Peter Dinklage playing Cyrano, without the nose, far more relatable.
Youre just somewhere in the middle, probably.
Pete brings a lifetime of experience to that role.
You also play a bit with how much Roxanne seems to know whether its Cyrano sending her those letters.
There is a very knowing gaze that she gives him throughout much of the movie.
I have this idea that there is magic in what you dont cognitively perceive, but do subconsciously.
Thats not to say that she was using Christian.
I think she did love Christian.
I think its possible to love two people at the same time, dare I say it.
What was the wildest idea you had onCyrano?Shooting up Mt.
We chose to shoot at 16,000 feet near the summit of the volcano.
The whole thing was conceived as these red soldiers uniforms against the black volcanic lava.
Wed been told that no snow fell in December, so we built a set up there.
Two meters of snow fell, completely burying our set and our camera platform and making everything inaccessible.
And it was interesting.
Well, at first it didnt feel interesting.
First it just felt really emotionally appalling.
I like those kind of challenges.
It gives something to the actors.
The actors are really up there and its really freezing and they dont have to act cold.
I dont think he takes female intellectual pursuit very seriously.
It wasnt seen as serious.
It felt incumbent upon us to respect and take Roxanne a bit more seriously.
With Christian, I didnt like the idea that he was just dumb.
I thought it was more interesting that Christian is not dumb.
Hes not a wordsmith.
Hes not been brought up with an understanding of literature.
But he does have an emotional intelligence.
For me, Christian is innocence.
He doesnt understand this strange, sophisticated society, where everyone is scheming.
Hes guileless and without cynicism.
Hes open, and openhearted.
But is able to laugh at them as well.
Thats a character that often is the central character of a lot of my films.
Music is obviously very important in your films.
Things like the song Every Letter developed into a kind of menage a trois.
I wanted a sexuality to the piece.
If this is a love story, there has to be sexual desire involved.
Its not just a cerebral love that Cyrano has for her.
I love how imperfect and fleeting it all is.
We would listen to the evening concert every night at home after dinner.
So music and its dramatic use was definitely something that I was thinking about at a very early age.
It was this complete little fantasy world.
In the world of the puppet theater, everything was beautiful.
The world is not fair and not kind.
The puppet theater is probably why the aesthetic of my films has this kind of handmade feel.
My dad was a big influence.
Because we dont like audience participation.
And my dad said, Yes, madam, there is.
There is the participation of the imagination.
Thats something that Ive been thinking about ever since, really.
That was the spark for the journey inAnna Karenina.
Theres two puppets at the beginning ofCyrano,and both those were made by my dad in 1948.
The film that was finally released was not the film that I originally made.
It was like,Oh, fucking hell.
You live and you learn.
It got watered down.
It got watered down a lot.
It was a lot more brutal in my original conception.
Unfortunately, audiences like women to be nice in their movies.
They dont want to see them get messy and ugly and dark and drunk and taking pills.
Its fine for men to be like that, but not for women.
So the whole thing was watered down to be something that it wasnt.
The cuts were really hard.
There was something of that inWoman in the Windows cinematic style.
And would you believe it?
They didnt like it!
And when people go, Hmmm, thats not really what we …, I get surprised.
I think that sort of thing is fine if youre working with a Gaspar Noe budget.
If youre working with a Hollywood budget, its probably not such a clever idea.
But it would be fun.
Id love to do it.
Theres a great scene where she had sex with the bloke downstairs and stuff like that.
It was very different.
Im not going to delude myself.
It could just be that it was a film that didnt work and thats okay, too.
We have a right as artists to fail.
We have to keep pushing ourselves.
EvenDarkest Hour, which was the third movie about Dunkirk that came out that year.
(And you yourself had also tackled Dunkirk before, inAtonement.)
Also, my dyslexia meant that I didnt get to read these books when I was a kid.
I refuse to be cowed by the expectations of culture that people place on certain things.
When I readPride and Prejudice, I was like, This is an amazing book!
There are as many versions ofPride and Prejudiceas there are readers.
You have to get away from all of that.
Without that kind of freedom, I imagine you wouldnt be able to make a film likeAnna Karenina.
Because I think thats probably the height of your formal experimentation.Its formal experimentation that comes from necessity.
Tom Stoppard had written this beautiful screenplay adaptation of the book, at my request.
It was all set in various palaces in Russia, so it was naturalistic in its presentation.
We scouted a lot in Russia and Saint Petersburg.
In the end, we just realized we didnt have the money to make the movie in Russia.
So we started trying to find British locations that would work.
I thought,Wouldnt it be fun to do it all in a stage set?
The screenplay was the naturalistic setting screenplay.
Thats what all the actors received.
I love moving figures in space, how we relate to each other.
Where does choreography start and blocking finish?
Were you disappointed by the reaction to it?Im not today.
In Poland, Russia, Germany, they always talk aboutAnna Karenina.
We met and I told him what I was going through, this crisis of confidence.
He listened and he went, Yeah, its normal.
I was like, What?
But you just madeGravity, what are you talking about?
And he said, No, I had done this script and it was terrible … and so on.
I realized that we all suffer from that.
Hannais one of your films that has aged really well.
I was interested in how he shot action.
I found that to be just fucking beautiful.
So there was a lot of exciting formal experimentation onHannathat I really enjoyed.
You have a top shot of a vehicle passing over a hole, and then shes disappeared.
Its all within the cuts, its all in-camera.
We did light shows for raves.
I also loved the immersive nature of the music.
God, I can sound pretentious!
If I talk about that stuff in words, I just cringe.
I think about the character of the maid inPride & Prejudice.
Theres a shot that takes place at the end of a day.
Then it goes to the other window and you see one set of daughters.
Then it goes to another window, and theres another set of daughters.
Suddenly you feel like,Oh, she has a whole romantic life too.
[Laughs] Wed made the film very specifically for what they called the tween-y audience.
Which I believe is 10, 11, 12, 13.
So, it was bold and dark and difficult, specifically for that audience.
Why are all these tiny children in here?
Theyre all going to be scared out their wits.
And they said, Well, yeah.
And I was like, Did no one think of this before?
So we screened the film for these tiny children, and they wereterrified.
And their mothers and fathers wrote these really angry replies, saying, How dare you?
They really went to town on us.
Theyre completely tonally inconsistent.
So I decided to make a film that was representative of them, which was completely tonally inconsistent.
Then when the movie came out, people said, This film is tonally inconsistent.
I was like, Yeah, thats the point.
The film didnt work, but thats what we were trying to do.
I remember walking into the after-party after the premiere.
I thought wed done rather well.
[Clasps his hands and gives a big, fake smile.]
I was like, Is there something wrong?
That was my first real indication that we had an absolute fucking turkey on our hands.
Since the beginning, withPride & Prejudice, youve made films that have been in the Oscar conversation.
And you were there again to some extent withCyranorecently.
I imagine you were pretty green when you didPride & Prejudice.
Has your attitude toward awards changed?The whole world felt greener when we madePride & Prejudice.
We were like, Wow, thats amazing.
We werent even aware that that was the day when nominations were coming out.
There was no buildup.
There was no campaign.
It felt like a different time.
And possibly a lot healthier time, too.
But I enjoy the whole dog and pony show to a certain extent.
I get to hang out with people and make friends.
So thats a lovely aspect of it.
The whole competitive nature of the awards thing is anathema to creativity.
So, its a double-edged sword really.
I always want to challenge myself.
I always want to be pushing myself in terms of form and content.
Thats what gets me up in the morning.
