Für die Indie Wire hat James Franco seinen guten Freund Nicolas Winding Refn befragt. Anlass bietet die DVD- und Blu-Ray-Veröffentlichung seines neusten Films The Neon Demon. Im Folgenden hab ich für euch ein Interessantes selektiert und kommentiert:

NWR: When it came to cinema, my mother was very obsessed with the French New Wave. That was her generation. […] Then when I was 14, I saw “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” at a place called the Cinema Village. I was too young to experience 42nd Street, which you’re making a show about. [Franco stars in David Simon’s upcoming “The Deuce,” about New York’s porn industry in the ’70s.] Seeing “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” — up until then, I was used to the French New Wave, which was like the antichrist of good taste, or regular studio entertainment.

But seeing “Chainsaw” was the first time that I saw liberation. That film could be an art-form equivalent to a painting or experimental music. It had no conventional way of telling its story. It was like flicking channels of emotion. It had no sexuality. It was beyond human extinct. It frightened me. I remember my mother being very upset about it. I remember thinking that I never wanted to be a filmmaker, but whatever that movie does, I want to do. I guess that’s where it all began for me.

Ziemlich mutig von ihm sich gegen eine so respektierte filmische Bewegung wie der Nouvelle Vague zu stellen und grade im Slasher-Genre die Kunst seiner Wahl zu sehen. Ich denke das passt ganz und gar zu seinem Filmstil, die so extrem gegen Dialoglastigkeit und visuelle Kargheit arbeitet, die man des öfteren in den klassischen französischen Filmen findet.

NWR: Well, I spent most of my teenage years clubbing in New York. That was probably my number-one goal and activity. I hated my school. I started making short films in my late teens when we had moved back to Copenhagen. I moved back there when I was 17. Then when I was 19, I went back to New York and went to acting school for a year at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. I hated that. I got kicked out for a year. Then went home to Copenhagen and made “Pusher,” as you said. I made it first as a short film. I then was able to get funding and make it as a feature when I was 23.

Das ist wohl bestens als Mutmacher in schweren Zeiten zu verwenden. Aus Rebellen mit Ambition wird doch immer etwas.

Zu guter letzt die Entstehungsgeschichte von Drive, in der Refn von zu viel Hustensaft betört im Rücksitz von Ryan Gosling rumheult. Einfach köstlich, wie aus so einer sentimentalen Grundidee so ein blutiger Film geworden ist:

NWR: But Ryan had been interested in this project called “Drive.” It was a script owned by Universal, who had been trying to make the movie for a decade or something. But our movie was borne out of the experience of the two of us taking a drive together. Me crying in his car and screaming in his car, “I had it.” I was singing REO Speedwagon’s “I Can’t Fight this Feeling Anymore,” high as a kite, while Ryan is trying to drive me to my hotel in Santa Monica. I remember screaming at him that I had an idea. I wanted to make a movie about a guy who drives around at night listening to pop music because that’s his emotional release. That’s what I was going through at that particular moment with Ryan. And he said that he was in.

Hier nochmal der direkte Link zum Interview: http://www.indiewire.com/2016/09/james-franco-interviews-nicolas-winding-refn-neon-demon-1201730026/