Complete Watchmen coverage at Dark Habits:
WATCHMEN REVIEWED BY DARK HABITS
"If you thought The Dark Knight was good just wait till you see Watchmen…"
You can read an abridged version of this review at 3D World.
AN INTERVIEW WITH ZACK SNYDER
"Right when you start to like a character or you start to think you understand them, they do something that makes you go ‘oh fuck, that’s right he’s a Nazi’."
AN INTERVIEW WITH DEBORAH SNYDER
"I think a lot of times Hollywood wants to tie everything up in a nice little bow and happy package."
AN INTERVIEW WITH JEFFREY DEAN MORGAN
"[The Comedian] is a little bit misunderstood, I like to say he had some communication problems. He really needed to go to the Hallmark store"
AN INTERVIEW WITH MALIN AKERMAN
"Poor Billy, everyone just laughed in his face. It was just such a silly costume and he’s supposed to be this larger than life type of character and here he is looking like a human Christmas tree."
DARK HABITS FIRST REACTION TO WATCHMEN
"For the uninitiated I envy the wild ride you are about to embark on"
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Film review: Watchmen
Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Jackie Earle Hayley, Patrick Wilson, Malin Akerman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode
Country: USA
Year: 2009
“Never compromise, not even in the face of Armageddon” – Rorschach
The camera slowly zooms out from the iconic yellow smiley face badge worn by Eddie Blake. He flicks channels on his television set as talk show hosts discuss the likelihood of nuclear Armageddon imminently faced by the human race in this alternate 1985 Cold War universe where Trick Dick Nixon is still president and the US won in Vietnam. Finally he settles on a channel with promise of a better life as Nat King Cole sings ‘Unforgettable’. It’s the last momentary ironic pleasure of his life because The Comedian dies tonight.
Welcome to the world of Watchmen, an unparalleled comic book world that was for 20 years deemed unfilmmable and yet now finds itself released in a hail of cinematic glory. The so-called Citizen Kane of graphic novels massively anticipated by a rabid fanbase should not disappoint in its big screen debut because director Zack Snyder’s (300) loving adaptation is all and more that they could have reasonably hoped for. And for the curious uninitiated whose perception of the comic book genre is about to change forever? If you thought The Dark Knight was good just wait till you see Watchmen…
Contained within the glorious opening punch-up and the wonderfully vaudevillian credits sequenced played out to Bob Dylan's 'The Times They Are A-Changing' are the beats, themes and spirit in which Snyder has captured the essence of author Alan Moore’s opus to masked heroes and a world consumed by madness. Darkness, the loss of innocence, human determinism and mutually assured destruction are all-pervasive.
Some of the novel’s elements such as the ‘Tales Of The Black Freighter’ (to be inserted in Snyder’s ultimate director’s cut) have been mined out altogether while other subplots (the home lives of psychiatrists) are stripped down in order to do justice to the story’s central narrative inside three hours. But Snyder, using David Hayter and Alex Tse’s screenplay, resolutely stays true to the mean streets neo-noir of Rorschach’s (Jackie Earle Hayley) pursuit of The Comedian’s (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) killer. As Rorschach was to the novel Hayley is to the film, brilliant as the menacing, snarling vigilante with sociopathic tendencies to be found wandering the rain and vice-drenched city at night.
What makes Hayley’s performance so impressive is the fact the vast majority of it takes place behind Rorschach’s ink-oscillating mask. Reciting portions of his character’s journal Hayley is able to convey every drip of bitter disgust, anger, suspicion and resoluteness that lies underneath the many faces of Rorschach and when he is called upon to unleash all the rage he can muster in his origin story we feel the ripples of a character changed forever. Remove the mask and Hayley is simply terrifying as Walter Kovacs, a man whose fierce nature belie his appearance and stature. This is an outstanding performance, one that will be remembered as one of 2009’s standouts.
And this is just one of Watchmen’s casting success. Hayley finds his equal in Patrick Wilson’s excellent realisation of washed-up Nite Owl II Dan Dreiberg, always with a simmering strength beneath a bookish exterior. Wilson plays Dreiberg as the geeky wannabe who never felt like he fitted in with the cool kids perhaps because he wasn’t insane enough. He needn't have feared, turns out Dreiberg has mental problems of his own and is literally rendered impotent by an inferiority complex, anxiety and his refusal to accept that being a masked vigilante was what he was supposed to be all along. When the Keene act signed by President Nixon outlawed his chosen profession, he complied willingly whilst his partner Rorschach continued recognising what Dreiberg failed to see, that he was giving up not just on vigilantism but on a world gone to pot.
Whilst Wilson and Hayley seamlessly translate their character from page to screen, it is worth noting that Morgan perhaps elevates his, finding untapped charisma and new depths of tragedy in one of literature’s greats. This dystopian Captain America who actions horrify at every juncture is the mirror of the world we have come to inhabit, a parody of a dream lost and an innocence sacrificed. Just as Rorschach says, The Comedian “saw the world for what is really was”: capitalism, war, fascism/greed, violence, moral corruption – these are the things that have largely come to define civilisation. Yet despite a modus operandi that is sheer nihilism, Morgan finds the conflict within the man Eddie Blake and his creation The Comedian. He’s a murdering, would-be rapist sonofabitch, but damn if we don’t find ourselves empathising with him in the end thanks to Morgan.
Malin Akerman bravely assumes the mantle of the slightly thankless role of Laurie Jupiter/Silk Spectre II sometimes struggling with clunky dialogue but always bringing some sense of depth to her character, finding hurt, pain and wonder in equal measure. She also looks great and kicks ass in leather. Then there is a motion-captured Billy Crudup as the only real superhero in the movie Dr Manhattan, somehow finding emotion in the naked blue-luminous being who claims to have none. Of all the origin stories in Watchmen his 10-minute arc told during his self-imposed exile to Mars might be the most breathtaking visual and narrative achievement in the film.
Snyder revels in his 300-style speed ramping action sequences, executing them with stunning effect, without ever allowing these moments to become stylistically distracting. Punches land with thunderous impacts, bones snap and split sickeningly, knifes plunge into flesh, glass shatters and blood splatters. But this is just one element of Snyder’s visual accomplishment here, many of his frames literally pop off the graphic novel panels and are filled with just as many textured layers that Watchmen will reward repeat viewings. The film may be ripe with style, but it is never at the sacrifice of substance.
That all said, Watchmen is not without its flaws. Firstly Matthew Goode feels miscast as the world’s smartest man Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias and is largely disconnected from the audience in the overall narrative despite his centrality to the climax. Though Goode manages to find a certain leering arrogance in Veidt we are never given a chance to consider his character beyond his actions, which are admittedly significant but revealed hurriedly by a film already clocking up some serious minutes. This has the added effect of making his role in Watchmen’s third act somewhat jarring even for knowledgeable members of the audience: it’s for this reason if anything, and not the absence of giant squids, that the ending suffers.
There are other minor quibbles, the worst offender being a pretty erotic sex scene cut to Leonard Cohen’s version of ‘Hallelujah’ that’s a leather boot fetishist’s dream come true (especially disappointing given all the other excellent music choices made by Snyder and the fact that Jeff Buckley’s really is the definitive version of ‘Hallelujah’, albeit an overplayed one).
But for now space is almost certainly better spent focussed on Watchmen’s successes as a comic book movie for the ages: one that is deeply intellectual, emotionally satisfying, uncompromisingly violent and a visceral, unrelenting assault on the senses. This is “as dark as it gets” says Rorschach; and Watchmen is all the more astonishing for it.
Scott Henderson
Watchmen is released in Australian cinemas March 5.
An abridged version of this review appears in 3D World #949
Friday, February 27, 2009
Interview: Zack Snyder (Watchmen)
For 20 years Watchmen has been lauded not only the Holy Grail of the comic book genre, but also its poisoned challis. This graphic novel set in an alternate 1985 where Tricky Dick is still President, heroes don’t have superpowers, and an entire meta-fiction can be woven into the fabric of a neo-noir murder-mystery. A comic book that takes on themes of human determinism, the loss of innocence, nihilism and apocalypse. They said it was unfilmmable.
Years of Development Hell passed by, seeing Terry Gilliam, Darren Aronofsky and Paul Greengrass all attached to direct at various stages until in 2006 Zack Snyder got the call that would send him on a three year journey to this point, sat in Sydney’s Intercontinental Hotel with a journalist also a long way from home.
When I met Zack he is a bundle of energy and enthusiasm on this first leg of the press tour. A one point in our interview he stands up and paces a little, gesticulating with his all of his arms and hands to convey some point how crazy all this is whilst talking a dozen words a second. It’s infectious and it is in this moment I can see how this Zack Snyder could have be entrusted to direct such a treasured property as Watchmen – it's not completely tangible, but it is absolutely apparent,,,
This is the first leg of the press trip then?
Yeah, these are our first interviews for the world. It’s good practice: you get all the crazy shit.
How are you feeling about the film now it’s completed?
It’s pretty exciting for me. Honestly, we’ve been working on it for three years so it’s good to have it come out.
Can you remember the first time you read the Watchmen?
It was in '88 was when the book was first novelised; I missed it as singles for whatever reason, my friends were all reading it. But Watchmen really had a big impression on me, it’s weird and interesting, I haven’t analysed it too carefully but it was one of the few things at the time that – I was in film school at the time – I didn’t think about making it into a movie. I was like it is its own thing and it can’t be a movie. So it was odd when the time came around it was me they called to say ‘hey, do you wanna make this into a movie’? Cos I’d thought about everything else, Frank Miller’s Dark Knight, Sin City, everything that came out I was like ‘I can make that into a movie’! But Watchmen for whatever reason I was like ‘man, I can’t make that into a movie’.
How did it feel then that day when they turned round and asked if you wanted to come do that with them?
It was scary. I got the first call from the studio actually, they said ‘we’ve got this thing Watchmen, would you be interested? We’ll send it over’. I was like ‘send it over, what do you mean’? The guy says to me ‘well, we’ve got this script, it’s called Watchmen, I think it’s based on a graphic novel’ [laughs hard]. Really, you think it’s based on a graphic novel – that’s scary. These are the things you hear and think ‘man are we in trouble’. The process was really about me trying to make them realise that it was based on a graphic novel and that it was something that was important to me.
That being said Warner Bros have done something special here in that you weren’t a name director at the time, the budget has been huge, R-rated, no A-listers in the cast…
Absolutely, 300 hadn’t come out yet, they didn’t know. They absolutely have done an amazing work; I mean the movie is bizarre and challenging and violent and sexual. It’s right out there. My editor and I would sit around and we’d be like… I remember when we first screened my director’s cut of the movie he looked at me and I looked at him and said ‘How are they going to release this movie? This is a crazy movie’. And I was just talking about distribution, this movie is going to play on like 5,000 screens in America. That is an assault on pop culture on an epic level. And a movie like this which I defy any to show me a movie with more male full frontal nudity in it, more real sexuality, pretty stunning violence and that’s just all the visual stuff let alone the intellectual challenges it presents too. I really think they have done an amazing job of keeping the movie intact.
How difficult a balancing act has that been content-wise? Obviously there are massive political undertones, thematically themes of humanism, determinism, and science, all on top of the violence and so on – how hard was it to honour and stay true to these element of the novel?
I think that was the process of making the movie to be honest. In a lot of movies the process is making sure the performance are real… it’s interesting because I never really thought of it from that perspective, cos normally the job of the director is to make sure there is truth, reality in the moment. Maybe he is designing shots, maybe he is thinking about story, but you know the moment-to-moment job is ‘yeah, that was real’. I never had that job, my job was never like ‘yeah, that was real’ [Snyder gets up from his chair for water and start punctuating his insights with his hands] because the movie is symbolic a lot of the time. You are constantly measuring tone, I was constantly going ‘gosh, did that feel, inexplicably Watchmen’, which, you know, is crazy hard. The most things I felt was geared around that inexplicable quality the movie had to have.
And hitting all those notes, they had to so specific because the characters are so fleshed out in the book, and it seems to me like you have struck the right tone with Rorschach and The Comedian and Dr Manhattan. Obviously Rorschach drives the story and Comedian is really important to so many of the most significant themes, they all are really but The Comedian in particular...
The Comedian is so super-important. You know, these are the kind of meetings you have. Again the studio has done an amazing job, but you can imagine the knee-jerk reactions where they are like: ‘listen, I’ve read the script, here’s a suggestion I would have: if you cut out The Comedian’s funeral, Dr Manhattan on Mars and Rorschach talking to psychiatrist you really streamline the film. That’s a way to really get the film [snaps his fingers] smoking along’. And I’m like, ‘well that’s a superhero movie, that’s a bad superhero movie that’s what that is’.
For me it was really important that The Comedian’s funeral we get that feeling he was all of their fathers in some way, he’s literally Laurie’s father but in the end he is all of their fathers. That idea of that influence he has over all of them, breaking down Dan, losing all of his idealism about what they are doing and basically planting in Adrian the seed of that the only way to win is to go all the way and also identifying with Manhattan that he has lost his connection to humanity.
Two of my favourite scenes, and it ties into what I wanted to ask you about the music choices, the opening scene with Nat King Cole, but especially the choice of Simon and Garfunkel’s 'Sounds of Silence' for the funeral, a song because of The Graduate that I always associate with the loss of innocence, American innocence specifically, and so bittersweet… it played to the whole contradictory nature of The Comedian…
Exactly. We had a great shot from the title sequence that I didn’t put in that I had to cut because it was just so long. One of them was Blake raising the flag on Iwo Jima by himself. It was just this awesome shot of him raising the flag and these two planes fly over him and I just thought it was interesting because it was the peak of his innocence. From there the atomic bomb drops on Hiroshima and I really tried to use that moment to begin the loss of innocence for American culture, and world culture by the way because that is the moment that you can mark in time where everything challenged. Adrian’s idea of killing hundreds of thousands to save millions is illustrated exactly in real life.
And it’s so interesting that this dystopian Captain America is the one who cracks…
You mean Blake? Absolutely, under that stress he becomes a monster. In some ways he goes through this naïve innocence to the complete opposite. He is completely broken and unimpressed with the world to the point of disdain.
To what extent do you think the Comedian is the sane one in this story then? While everyone else is completely insane he has a perfect understanding of it all…
That’s the argument that Rorschach makes at the end you know about who The Comedian is and I think it’s a strong argument. Look, Rorschach is insane, one of the lines I took out of the movie was the line, Debbie wanted me to take it out and I begrudgingly did, because I didn’t want people to think I was homophobic or anything because clearly I’m not, but the line where he says “possible homosexual, must investigate further” with regard to Adrian Veidt. And the reason I like the line is because right when you’re thinking you really like Rorschach and thinking he’s awesome, like ‘he’s my man’, suddenly he’s this homophobic psychopath. And you have to re-evaluate constantly how you feel. Those are the things the film does for me, right when you start to like a character or you start to think you understand them, they do something that makes you go ‘oh fuck, that’s right he’s a Nazi’.
Was that then the most controversial element of the book then that you had to translate for the film…
Well the attempted rape was a huge deal for the studio…
Which you guys have gone all the way with, I'm mean, that's a wow scene...
Yeah, all the way, it’s pretty hardcore. I just felt like if we were going to do it we had to go all the way and illustrate it. It doesn’t serve anyone, least of all the story, if you sugarcoat it. And also Blake killing the pregnant woman by the way was another huge deal. The studio were just like ‘what the fuck’? The problem is that moment is Manhattan’s, Blake could do that all day long, he’s going to walk out the door and kill someone else. But this moment is for Manhattan, Manhattan does nothing and that’s what is so interesting.
Well I just got my wrap up sign…
And I know I’m ranting, sorry.
It’s ok. So the book and the film are this fascinating examination of the human condition. How important do you this story is today? The book was written 25 years ago, and it’s still so relevant…
It’s incredibly relevant. When I first got the script it was updated to the war on terror, sending Manhattan to Iraq. ‘Are you kidding me’? I thought this is the lamest thing I ever read. It made the metaphor, it made the book irrelevant in some way because what it did to me was it said, ok, the movie comes out in a year and who knows, America leaves Iraq and Iraq is its own country. Suddenly the film has no relevance.
And the book is supposed to be an alternate universe anyway…
Absolutely. I was like, don’t you think it is way more powerful then us trying a comment about me trying to make a comment about the war in Iraq? What the fuck do I know really? I’m not on a political TV show commentating about politics, I’m just trying to comment on the human experience, which the book does really well and allows those metaphors to then say ‘that makes me feel this way about the war in Iraq’. That’s much more powerful to me than my point of view on the war in Iraq – who gives a fuck? It’s me, what do I know.
The book is amazing well written. A reporter asked me, ‘now that Barack Obama has been elected President, do you feel like the movie is less relevant’? Wow, that’s really optimistic, it’s only been a couple of weeks. I mean I hope that’s true – it’d be awesome if the movie became obsolete because we were living and everyone was holding hands and singing songs at the end. Is that a post Veidt world or a pre-Veidt world?
That was one of those things I found very fascinating, the cyclical nature of the world, now the Russians are coming back and things are crazy – it never finishes. The book really points out, so we have Vietnam, we have Iraq, we have the Cold War with the Russians, we have the war on terror – there is no end. Just like in the end of the movie we see, “I know what Jon would say.” That line in the graphic novel is given to Manhattan, “Nothing ends, nothing ever ends.” But it is interesting coming out of Laurie’s mouth because it comes at the very end of the movie and because of the cyclical nature of things it’s not the very end. It’s closure but it’s not at all. Sorry, I didn’t mean to rant.
Watchmen is released in cinemas March 6, 2009.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Interview: Deborah Snyder (producer, Watchmen)
As the press machine for Watchmen slowly began to start turning over, I was first in line to interview Debbie Snyder, Zack’s partner in production and in life. Her feature debut as a producer was on 300 which was made the company Debbie and Zack’s co-founded Cruel and Unusual Films (one suspect’s Zack came up with the name). In this interview Debbie reveals the plans for the director’s cut DVD to be released in July, the lawsuit that made us wonder if we’d ever see the film and Zack’s Watchmen mixtapes…
So the copy of the film I saw yesterday didn’t have credits – you guys really have been working right up to the last minute finish the film…
Yeah, you use all the time you can! The more you can steal for the visual effects, we just kept pushing it and pushing it.
How long have you been in top gear for then?
It’s been crazy. We finished shooting in February, and the other thing is we did three versions of the film. We have the version you saw which is two hours and 36 minutes; and Zack’s director’s cut which will be released on the DVD in July is three hours long; and we did the ultimate Watchmen which has the Black Freighter story that goes in and out with the newsstand stuff – that is three hours and 24 minutes I think. That’ll get released around Christmas time. I was like, wow, that’s an hour longer.
It’s almost a whole other movie!
It really is. We were trying to do it the most efficient and economically, we tried to finish them all at the same time, which lengthened our post-production a little bit.
When was the first time you read the book?
Zack was a fan but it was until Warner Bros, Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin came and said do you want to do Watchmen that Zack was like ‘oh, I don’t know’. I was not a comic book fan and he told me I really needed to read this. It really was at the beginning of our process when I started reading it and I got to the first Black Freighter bit and I was suddenly, just, woah. Zack told me to read it first skipping the Black Freighter bits, which is what I did, and then go back and read it all the way through. I think it took me two weeks to really digest what it was.
I started to do research and you start to realise all the annotated Watchmen that break down every frame, and which really intrigued me as a non-fanboy or fangirl. It’s very genre and there was question of how it’s going to appeal to a mass audience, I said I thought all the things that Watchmen does really makes it accessible only because, even if you’re not a fan of superheroes, there is so much more. There are these great characters that aren’t just black and white, it’s not like there is a bad guy and a good guy, there’s dimensions. It’s about real people with real problems and it asks bigger questions. For me this as not a big comic book fan, I didn’t think it would be possible in a comic. [The film] scared me because it was so big and it is the Holy Grail, but I also felt that there was so much more to it, it was so intriguing to me the more I learned about it.
How difficult a time have you had as a result of the lawsuit as a production company and a team just trying to put this film out there?
Listen, it’s been extremely difficult for Larry and Lloyd because really with out their tenacity, I mean if it wasn’t for them working so hard, and every time people said no and they got into production, they kept going and going. I mean it’s incredible that the movie has gotten made and it is all to their credit. But listen, no-one wants there to be a lawsuit and for us, because Zack and I weren’t really a part of that, we were in the middle of finishing the movie which, luckily for us, gave us something to focus on because we were still worried about how long it was and whether it was the best cut. So we had practical things to worry about and also not being lawyers, while I think in the back of our minds we were a little nervous, we just figured they would figure it out. It was in everybody’s best interest for the film to be released.
Lloyd Levin also published a very candid and emotional letter…
A very heartfelt letter…
Yeah, I think when he came out and said those things people realised at that point what a labour of love this movie was for himself and Larry Gordon… what were they like to work with?
They are awesome, supportive and complete experts. They’ve been down the road so many times and have read the graphic novel probably more than anyone else out there. In every way they were just perfect partners. Everyday there was knowledge that they could bring to it and they were supportive of Zack’s vision. We’ve had a really great relationship with them. Again, it’s their passion, 20 years is a long time to get something made. After a while you would just want to thrown in the towel and they just kept going.
There are so many things that make this film unique despite the fact that it is this long established product. How special is this film and how important are Warner Bros in this story considering that it’s gone out of it’s way to make this $100 million movie with no real established A-list actors, Zack as an up and coming director?
Extremely. They have been so supportive of us, even when we were making 300 I don’t think they fully understood that it wasn’t going to be another Troy or Alexander that we wanted to do something different and really transform that whole sword and sandles genre. Zack was very clear in his vision and even though they didn’t know exactly what is was going to be they supported him, and because of the success of this extremely violent film based on a graphic novel, that enabled us to move forward with Watchmen. Listen, it’s scary, it asks a lot of an audience Watchmen. It is violent and it is sexy and it is long because it has such a story to tell.
And it has intellectual depth…
And it has depth. I think Dark Knight set it up because it has changed the way we see things – it was a great stepping-stone for us. Absolutely it is unique for a studio to sit there and take a chance to do something bold. When you are in these uncharted territory it is really scary, there is a lot riding on it and a lot of money riding on it. Everyone’s inclination is to take the safe road, but I also think that audiences are becoming so sophisticated and they are so sick of things being regurgitated that if you want something new you are rewarded. Audiences are a lot smarter than a lot of Hollywood gives them credit for. I also feel that with everyone now having these huge plasma TVs at home you need to give people reason to go to the movies, an experience, because otherwise you can get you Blu-ray DVD and sit at home. The films that we make I think you want to see on a big screen.
What are you favourite memories coming of the back of making the film?
I think the first time we saw Dr Manhattan, because Zack didn’t want to just paint someone blue. We had this idea, what if we made Dr Manhattan a light source and we put [Billy Crudup] in a suit and put these tracking marks on him. It sounded like it could work… the first time we saw a test and Sony Image Works did Dr Manhattan, it was a shot of his head one of the animators had him talking we were just ‘oh my God, this could work’. It’s a moment when you realise you could pull of everything you’ve been talking about. That was a good day.
It a large ensemble cast, what were they all like to work with?
I think they were only ever all together when we took the photographs of the Minutemen and the Watchmen, which was actually at the beginning and we had Dave Gibbons there. That was a really special moment. We were really nervous because while Zack had talked to Dave a lot on the phone and Dave had drawn some concept work and the storyboards, you’re out there in Vancouver making choices and you’re aware Dave is coming, ‘is he going to like it’? There’s this nervous anticipation coupled with the fact that it was the first time we had everyone together and also the first time we had everyone in their superhero costumes, so that was exciting. We all breathed a sign of relief because Dave seemed happy.
How much time did you guys spent bashing out the decisions over the music because they are some amazing choices in there: Nat King Cole in the opening sequence, Bob Dylan in the opening credits and my favourite bit The Comedian’s funeral…
The Simon and Garfunkel… which I think is only the second time they’ve licensed that song, the first of course being The Graduate. The way Zack’s process works is that he draws every frame and when he is drawing he listens to music, that’s how he visually and sonically does that. We had a really good guide because there are a lot of references in the graphic novel to particular songs, to Bob Dylan and so whenever there was a reference we pulled the song and made a mixtape. Zack as he was drawing would get inspired by certain songs and put it on that mixtape. Actually before we started shooting when we were still working on development he hadn’t out a cd with I think 15 songs, of which 12 made it into the movie I think, of the songs that were either from the graphic novel or had inspired him as he was working on it and we gave it to all the departments to inspire them. It was kind of an interesting process with the music. Tyler Bates did the score and he had worked on Dawn Of The Dead and the 300.
Dr Manhattan’s theme was another element of the music I felt was pitch perfect…
We licensed Phillip Glass’s music for his origin story. We were playing around with it while we were working on the edit and there was something about it that was just visceral and we immediately wanted to see if we could get it because it was just perfect.
I’ve got the signal for last question so, given the themes of the film, would you rather live in a peaceful world predicated on a lie or in a world of honest good old fashioned violent humanity?
[laughs] God, well, that is the question isn’t it? Was Adrian right or was he wrong? Is he the villain or is he the hero, right? Which kind of world would I live in? God, that’s a hard one, I don’t know if I can answer that.
How do you think audiences will deal with that question? It’s still amazingly prescient…
It really is and it is one of the other things with the ending, when the studio first say it they were like, ‘you need to kill Adrian, he has to die in the end’. And there was a version of the script when we first started the movie where Adrian died and it was one of the things we changed. Zack said this isn’t Watchmen, if you don’t come out of that theatre and say was he right or was he wrong – and I want some people to think he was not the villain at all and other people to think ‘what, are you crazy’? That’s the question Watchmen asks, if you lose that you don’t have Watchmen. So it was interesting because that was a big struggle for us to maintain. The studio were like how is that going to make people feel, it’s going to make them uncomfortable. Absolutely, it should make uncomfortable. I think a lot of times Hollywood wants to tie everything up in a nice little bow and happy package. If it gets people talking that’s what you want, whether people like it or not. If it gets people to talk about it and analyse it then I think we’ve done our job. We’ll see what happens…
Interview by Scott Henderson (Feb 12, 2009)
Watchmen is released in Australia March 6, 2009
Check back in on Dark Habits for interview with director Zack Snyder.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Interview: Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen)
Jeffrey Dean Morgan is lying down on a bench far too small for him when I walk into the room set aside for our interview. A former dying patient on Grey’s Anatomy Morgan looks nmore like an LA rock star right now; all black clothes, silver rings and chains and bits of leather wrapped around his wrists. The grizzled star of Watchmen – in which he plays Eddie Blake, aka The Comedian – is wired on the coffee infused with dashes of Bailey’s that have been kept in fresh supply by the publicists. Regardless of his jetlag-compromised state of mind Morgan is funny and charming as he regales stories of seeing Archie for the first time and why The Comedian is just misunderstood. But before I’m even ready to begin, The Comedian starts the interview for me…
How are things?
I’m really well thanks, how are your things?
Good, good. It’s been a long day and I’m feeling it a little bit.
Jet-lag?
Yeah, at about two o’clock today, just boom [claps hands]. But I’m doing well, hanging in there.
The journalists have all been kind to you?
They’ve all been great, thankfully everyone has liked the movie so that’s helped a great deal doing these.
The film really is an amazing accomplishment, I loved the music… I think perhaps you get one of the best funeral songs of all time.
It’s great, one of my favourite things is that soundtrack and I love that they got all the songs that are mentioned in the novel as well, that Zack fought for and got them is great.
Had you read the graphic novel yourself before becoming involved?
I hadn’t no, I never came from the world of comic books or graphic novels. I’d never heard of it and you know when I found out about this project I was told you’re going to meet with Zack Snyder who directed the 300, you’re meeting him tomorrow and we’re going to send over some material and what they sent me, which was really funny, was a Xeroxed copy of Watchmen, someone had Xeroxed everything. So it wasn’t even the novel and devoid of all colour.
Cheap bastards…
Yeah really [laughs], that’s exactly the thought that went through my head. And then of course I read it, got to page three and I was like ‘I’m dead? You send me this phonebook and I die on page three. The response from my agent was can you just finish it, can you just read the whole thing before you pass judgment? I put it down after I read it the first time and was just ‘what the hell did I just read’ you know? It’s just such a massive, dense and epic piece of work. I’ve since read that thing I can’t even tell you, like 30 or 40 times and I’m surprised how continuously whenever I read it there is something new I notice, or some nuance about the book. It’s an amazing piece of work, I don’t know how I could ever get sick of reading it and I don’t can’t say that about a whole lot of things I’ve read. And that’s not just cos I’m in the fucking thing! We all became such rabid fans of Watchmen in the process of doing this it’s just been a thrill.
I saw the film for the first time three weeks ago having been a part of it for two years now I guess, really just kind of living and breathing it Watchmen for so long and finding out about the fans of this novel and the passion everyone has and frankly being a little bit scared about it you know. Everyone has questioned if Zack is the right guys, if these are the right actors, all sort of impassioned blogs on the Internet about the potential fuck ups we were gonna make. I know how hard we’d worked on it, but to finally see it and what Zack has done, it exceeded my expectations that were really high.
Of all the characters Eddie Blake, The Comedian, was the one you really had to have the courage of your convictions to translate to the screen. How was it for you playing the anti-Captain America?
The world where I had come from being this really nice guy on a television show who dies this was the polar opposite. Reading it the first time I knew this was what I’d really love to do as an actor. It’s a complete flip flop from what I’ve been doing, not that I don’t love what I do in being the nice guy and all, but I really wanted to show what I could do with this. It’s a testament to Zack for deciding after meeting me that I could pull it off. Not to say there weren’t moment that were really hard, Blake has some serious stuff that, I don’t care if you’re only working in a movie, that’s hard stuff to even shoot. Beating the crap out of Carla (Gugino – Sally Jupiter), that was a hard couple of days of filming.
But it was also a really cool thing, and this shows how complex and crazy the Watchmen world is, what I loved about The Comedian/Blake was I didn’t hate him. No matter how many times I’ve read this thing, no matter what he does, I never hated him. I had kind of a sympathy for him. I still can’t quite put a finger on it, but I know that it was really important in one of my first meetings with Zack when he said ‘it’s yours if you want it’, it was really important to me to somehow humanise this guy amidst all the shit that he causes. Assuming, uncaring, doesn’t give a shit about anything kind of guy, I mean he really doesn’t give a shit about anything, then you find out that he in fact does and there’s this humanity to him that is sort of crazy. Trying to bring that to the screen in such a short time-span is difficult.
Despite the fact he is this vigilante, murderer and rapist, do you think he is just a little bit misunderstood?
He is a little bit misunderstood. I like to say he had some communication problems. He really needed to go to the Hallmark store, get a couple of greeting cards for Silk Spectre along the way, that might have solved some problems [laughs]. I always play him like the love of his love was the original Silk Spectre and when he fucked that up, you know I always think he was a very hard man. When he was 16 or 17 I think there was still maybe some hope for him, but what happens that night with the attempted rape whatever chance he has of having a relatively normal existence is gone. That’s when the hard man emerges and relishes being the hard man. That’s way he’s so successful in Vietnam and other efforts.
Obviously you had some of the much heavier scenes to film, but to get away from that what were some of your favourite memories from the set?
My single memory, I mean I’ll remember all of it, but the one thing that I will remember forever was when we were doing the Keene riots. It was so cold and we were working all night, getting the age makeup was a long process, I remember walking out and they’d already lit the buildings on fire and the bus was on fire and Archie is floating about my head and there’s 500 extras freezing their asses off, and this alternate reality was right there in front of me: it was a panel right out of that fucking book come to life. It hit me in that moment, I was just ‘oh my God, we are making this movie’. And we’d been living that movie a month, I’d been training and all this stuff for five or six months, but that moment and seeing that was so weird and surreal. I was just ‘oh right, this is for real’. I knew what Zack’s vision was all of a sudden. There was some moment there as I was getting ready to jump out of Archie that I knew we were making something special. It was cool.
Talking to Malin I just really got the impression from her just how onboard everyone was, 150 per cent believing in what they were doing. How much of that is down to Zack and what he brought to the table?
He’s the captain of the ship, he brought everybody together from the director of photography Larry Fong – I mean it’s beautifully shot, an amazing piece of work – all the way down to craft service, this all comes from Zack. The cast, he put together not a well-known group of actors, he could’ve got anybody to do this movie and instead he went this alternate route. But what he did that was really impressive was the love that everybody kinda had, it wasn’t like we were doing this $150 million movie at all, it was like we were doing a $1 million movie and we were all pitching in our own money. Everyone cared about it and were like ‘let’s not fuck this up’, so it became this humongous passion project for 600 people. That was trip.
I don’t know anyone else who could have done it other than Zack. It was a hard shoot, it was long, winter in Vancouver, colder than shit, there were a lot of night and the hours were stupid and in the middle of this is Zack keeping the ball rolling. He kept everyone happy and we all wanted to work and do our best for him, he’s that kind of guy. Extraordinary man. And now that I’ve seen the movie…
How did you feel about the ending?
Unbelievable, I thought it was great. Did you?
I thought it was great… like a lot of people I knew what was coming and I was still just hanging on the edge of my seat.
Yeah, I think he did it man, he made the unfilmable novel. That’s an amazing thing to say, the unfilmable novel and everyone has been saying it for 20 years. I saw it and he did it. And to be a part of that is the coolest thing ever. I can’t believe it. I’m still pinching myself and I was a part of that thing. And I’m The Comedian, come on… holly shit! Best role in the movie I reckon.
Interview by Scott Henderson (Feb 12, 2009)
Watchmen is released in Australia March 6, 2009
Check back on Dark Habits for interviews with director Zack Snyder and producer Debbie Snyder.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Interview: Malin Akerman (Watchmen)
Until recently Swedish born Canadian model turned actress Malin Akerman would probably have done well to be recognised as that crazy blonde psycho from Ben Stiller’s The Heartbreak Kid. Not so much anymore: Malin it seems is destined to become the next Hollywood household name if Watchmen hits a home run, and probably even if it doesn’t.
When I caught up with Malin I found her to be quite a genuine, unassuming and fun-loving character with honest, smiling eyes, and one who has come a long way to find this role. As Silk Spectre II/Laurie Jupiter, Malin puts in a solid performance that at times is very good. Her dialogue might not always hit the mark, but I was impressed by the sense of wonder she brought to the character. Here she tells me how she became involved in Watchmen, her thoughts on Laurie and about singing karaoke with Patrick Wilson and Billy Crudup…
How are you doing?
I’m alright.
Feeling pretty excited yet?
Oh my God, you know what’s really cool has been getting all of people’s reactions to the film today. This is our first view into what people are thinking and feeling about it.
Is this the first press you guys have done since finishing the film?
We haven’t done anything yet, you guys are the first. You’re popping our cherries! We’re still excited at this point – I can’t say what we’ll be like by the end of the month… we’ve got a long way ahead.
So, the inevitable question you'll be asked a hundred more time: had you read the novel before casting?
Not before casting, I read the script and after reading the script I went out and bought the book right away. I read the script, did the initial audition just off the script then bought the novel and started reading it and was amazed at how allegiant it was apart from few scenes cut out because of length issues. I read it and fell in love with it like any fan and I get the craze for it, it’s so well written and such a thought-provoking novel. Yeah, that was my first time and I got to read it before I went in for my second audition.
What was your impression when you read the script; was it something that surprised you?
Yes, I didn’t understand what had just happened to me. I mean I did understand, but it was one of those things where you just could never have expected, at all. When I was told it was based on a graphic novel I was expecting Superman, Batman, but it’s nothing like that at all. It’s very disconcerting and it turns your stomach at certain times and makes you happy at others. It really is an emotional rollercoaster you go through that leaves you thinking at the end going, ‘shit, so who is the bad guy’?
What was that casting process like and talking through those themes with Zack Snyder?
The casting process was quite quick, just two times. One was I sent in a tape and he responded to it and I went and met with him and we just connected just as people. You know Zack has so much energy and he’s so enthralling and gets you excited. We talked about Laurie a bit and it’s easy to relate to her aside from the fact that she’s a crime-fighter, which I’ve never been. She is a girl who has a complicated relationship with one of her parents, her mother, and she’s going through a crisis figuring out who she is as an individual and what she wants to with her life. You know we all go through that soul-searching coming of age. So we were just talking about making her a real person who happens to be a crime-fighter. I mean that’s basically what it is, we’re not superhuman, we don’t have powers, it’s a real story and the struggles are more within us than it is bad versus good in the real world.
Laurie is an interesting character and has a lot more to her beneath that surface level, a sense of pent up anger and frustration with her life and also these other scenes in the film where she has a total sense of wonder about the world around her…
Absolutely, for me it was almost as if she had grown up in a family where she had a stage mom who pushed her into something she didn’t necessarily have a choice in and I think there’s a lot of resentment in her toward that. That’s where her anger comes from fighting crime and doing her thing. She’s go that fire within her but at the same time she’s feels very innocent because I think she’s been very sheltered at the same time. She’s has lived with Dr Manhattan for 15 years, she doesn’t really know the real world, it’s such an alternate world for her compared to everyone else living around her. I think that’s why the range of emotions is such, because she gets out into the real world and finds a real man that she falls in love with and she gets to take out her anger and reconcile with her mother. It’s very real for her, almost like a child coming into age when she leaves Dr Manhattan.
All the characters have some kind of arc but Laurie’s does feel like one of the largest and most tangible…
It’s a nice sort of journey that most people take over a matter of years, finding out who they want to be and what they want to do.
How hands-on is Zack as a director?
He’s very hands on in the sense that he is super supportive and he knows what he needs to get out of us. But you know he was very collaborative, a lot of times we’d all come in and be like ‘this line in the book is really cool, can’t we incorporate it into the scene’, and he’d be like ‘yeah sure, let’s give it a shot’. He was always excited and his energy level was always a 100 per cent, he never lost his cool. He was phenomenal to work with, I put all my trust in him working on this.
It sounds from what you’re saying, and some of the other impressions I get from the film and the people I’ve spoken to, that what everyone has brought to this project. Everyone brought 110 per cent and really gone for it… it must have been an amazing cast and crew to work with…
Yeah it was incredible and I think that anyone what reads Watchmen automatically becomes a fan – it’s just too good. So when we had all read the novel and started working on this film we knew what we were getting ourselves into and we all wanted to make it the best it could be because we were all now fans. It was a fabulous experience, the actors were great, I’m so happy Zack choose the people he did, every single one of them was perfectly cast. It just felt like everyone just fell into their characters and it was an amazing thing to watch. The crew were amazing, it was just such a supportive environment and we needed that because it was six months of work.
How difficult was it for you as an actress to work opposite Billy Crudup covering in blue LED lights?
It was crazy, the first week it took a bit of getting used too. Poor Billy, everyone just laughed in his face. It was just such a silly costume and he’s supposed to be this larger than life type of character and here he is looking like a human Christmas tree. We poked a lot of fun at him. There was a lot of imagination that you had to use in scenes with Billy, but you got used to it after a while of course and it wasn’t hard because he is such a wonderful actor as well. Once you start to get into it you forget about all of the dots on his face and the light. But yeah, it wasn’t easy at first, it was a little challenge to overcome.
Always with these big ensemble casts that strike up a repartee there are some great stories, anything you could share?
There are stories that I can’t really talk about… no I’m just kidding. We all hung out a lot together. I can’t remember anything on set…
Off-set is good too!
Off set, well you know I had one really fun night with Patrick (Wilson) and Billy and all the rest of the boys out of town…
It must have been a bit of boys club…
It was a bit of a boys club going on and I love it, you guys are so cool. We were walking down the streets after dinner in an area where there were a bunch of Korean stores and we said, let’s go do some Karaoke. And so we walked upstairs into this very random Korean shopping mall and at the very back there was these tiny little karaoke booths and so there I was singing karaoke with Billy Crudup and Patick Wilson. Billy was singing Sinaad O’Conner and it was just a surreal amazing moment and we had so much fun. It was so random. Patrick Wilson is an amazing singer, he was Phantom of the Opera at some point, yeah, he did the show as the Phantom.
You didn’t get some cast and crew karaoke going in later then?
We wanted to, we never got around to it…
Obviously you wouldn’t let Patrick Wilson play.
Yeah, he’s not allowed. Well he had to add a lot of foul words to the songs to make it kinda fun you know cos otherwise it’s not fair.
What your take on the ending? Would you rather live in the peaceful world with the lie or continue on in this honest violent world we live in today?
I would prefer the first, because there’s this old saying what you don’t know won’t hurt you. And there’s some truth to that. If the end result is what matters, then however you’re going to get there – actually let’s not put it that way because I don’t know how I feel about the people who have to die to get there. It’s a really tough question. I’d prefer the little white lie, just a little white lie you know.
Has working on Watchmen opened doors for you? Are you already finding that to be the case you think?
Absolutely, I feel like it’s opened doors to not only comedies now and this was exactly what I was hoping. I wasn’t specifically looking for Watchmen and I’m so glad that’s what it became, but I was looking for something that wasn’t comedy and when I read the script it was phenomenal and a great opportunity and I still can’t believe I got it, it’s just crazy. But definitely it has opened more doors to non-comedic roles, so now I can do both.
Interview by Scott Henderson (Feb 12, 2009)
Watchmen is released in Australia March 6, 2009
Check back on Dark Habits for interviews with Zack Snyder, Debbie Snyder and the Comedian himself, Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
Watchmen review: some early thoughts
So the embargo (Australian at least – already a punch up brewing between US critics on twitter as I write) has been lifted and today I saw Watchmen for the second time. I haven't as yet been able to sit down a really bash out all my thoughts on the film in a critical fashion (that's for later tonight) but here I just want to share with you my impressions and reflection on the experience as well as my reaction to the film...
There's going to be something like two distinct groups of people who go to see Watchmen at the cinema: those who have read the graphic novel and have experienced the months and months of endless anticipation and build up to the release; and then there will be those who haven't read the novel and are just going because the trailer looks great, it's full of superheroes and the advertising spend is huge.
Falling into the previous of those two my feelings are that the film is absolutely a success and can bare the weight of expectation for anyone reasonably-minded. For the uninitiated I envy the wild ride you are about to embark on, the transformation the comic book genre might take in your perception and that as a result you too might be encouraged to seek out the original book and read it for the first time, experiencing a property that has meant so much to so many for so long.
Contained within the glorious opening punch-up and the wonderfully vaudevillian credits sequenced played out to Bob Dylan's 'Times They Are A-Changing' are the beats, themes and spirit in which director Zack Snyder has gone about capturing the essence of Watchmen. Darkness and the loss of innocence is all pervasive.
Stripped from the film are elements such as the Black Freighter (to be inserted separately and in its entirety in the director's ultimate cut on DVD), sub plots with psychiatrist's home life, and police detectives. Snyder, using David Hayter and Alex Tse's fission-fused screenplay, resolutely stays as close as possible to Rorschach's (Jackie Earle Hayley) mean streets noir pursuit of Edward Blake's (masked 'hero' The Comedian) killer. Hayley is brilliant as the menacing, snarling, ass-kicking masked vigilante with sociopathic tendencies. Rorschach looks and moves the part as he slopes about the rain-drenched city in his fedora, trechcoat and ink-oscillating mask before leaping into action with the reflexes of a puma when called upon.
Patrick Wilson hits all the rights notes as washed-up Nite Owl Dan Dreiberg, always with a simmering strength beneath his bookish exterior. Malin Akerman doesn't always convince in her line delivery, though this might be do to some too literal page to screen transfers of slightly clunky dialogue, but does reach levels of wonder, hurt and innocence in the character of Laurie (Silk Spectre II). She also looks great and kicks ass in leather. And Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian? He nails it, you'll wanna hate him, but he's just too fucking good... argh.
I don't have time to write much more at this junction, I've another screening to go to, but the bigger themes of Watchmen are truly to be found within Snyder's film. Questions of humanity, determinism, mutually assured destruction are all handled well and concisely for the discerning viewer – never lost amid a flurry of slo-mo action sequences that are frankly stunning. Punches land with thunderous impacts, bones snap with sickening cracks, knifes plunge into flesh, glass shatters and blood splatters. Snyder showed up what he could do with 300, and revels in his style here whilst never going overboard.
There are definitely flaws: Ozymandias is largely a disconnected figure hard to associate with and the tougher philosophical questions his character asks, as well as his place in an argument of good and evil, is not as well-delineated as I would have liked and as a result the ending suffers just enough to notice. Second time round this came across much better, but I think I was filling in more gaps this time round. Also Matthew Goode might be the weakest of all the castings – which is disappointing.
Watchmen is a wholly satisfying intellectual and emotional experience as a film removed from its paper context, and one hell of a action ride. For my money it was better than The Dark Knight, which people forget was far from a perfect film itself.
WatchmenQ&As to appear here this week with Zack and Debbie Snyder, Malin Akerman and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
Watchmen is released in cinemas March 6, 2009.
Scott Henderson
