Interview by Jonathan Romney 

Jonathan Glazer interview: ‘It felt as if we were under siege’

The British director on taking nine years to make Under the Skin and why he never tires of Karl Pilkington. Interview by Jonathan Romney
  
  

Jonathan Glazer
Jonathan Glazer: 'The Venice film festival was an awful experience. I was sitting next to my wife and I was gripping her wrist.' Photograph: Ian Gavan/Getty Images Photograph: Ian Gavan/Getty Images

Since your film Under the Skin was released in March, critics have routinely used the word "masterpiece". But the first festival reviews last autumn were fairly savage. Did that worry you?
It did feel as if we were under siege. You think, if that's what it's going to be like, that means the film is not communicating at all. It wasn't about whether or not people liked it, it was just, "Have I got it that wrong?"

Apart from various commercials and music videos, you've said that you worked on Under the Skin pretty much continually for nine years.
Pretty much. I had a little lock-up under a block of flats, and the real writing took place in that room with me and (co-writer) Walter Campbell – we really did roll up our sleeves and get on with it. Sometimes you go for a walk, sometimes we'd be looking at newspapers all day, eating sandwiches, having the odd conversation… nothing. We'd go home – I'd call him at midnight, we'd be on the phone till four in the morning. It's not something you can hurry.

The film has Scarlett Johansson driving around Scotland incognito playing an alien. What was it like pitching a project this strange to a Hollywood star? Didn't she have advisers warning her not to alienate her Avengers fans?
If you see it yourself very clearly, you can be quite convincing. I think Scarlett read that off me, so it wasn't that hard to convince her. I was a bit surprised that her representatives were really supportive of the project, I don't know if they knew what they were getting involved with. If you're told not to go in a certain direction, you're more inclined to. I think it was just what she wanted to do, and she was going to do it – and somehow the obstacles just disappeared.

What was it like seeing the film with Mica Levi's score played live at the Royal Festival Hall last month?
That was the only the second time I've stayed in the room for a public screening. The first time I was forced to, as it was the Venice film festival, and that was an awful experience. I was sitting next to my wife and I was gripping her wrist – it was like fear of flying when you're terrified of crashing. But the RFH was a celebration of the music and of Mica, and that was most enjoyable. I had to relinquish control – it felt like Mica was flying the plane with 2,000 passengers.

Your work contains moments that make people think, "What just happened? How did they do that?" That's very rare in the CGI era, when the viewer usually just thinks…
"…they had the people who did Batman." I can't bear anything off-the-shelf. There's a place for that kind of work in fantasy movies, but I can smell it – you realise how quickly people are satisfied with it, how quickly they'll say, "That's good enough."

You seem to prefer doing special effects the old-fashioned way, with real materials – like the ad for Bravia TVs, in which you used 70,000 litres of paint.
The reality of photographing something that exists is completely different, in terms of emotional reaction, from a CGI sequence. You have to photograph the soul of something, you have to have it in front of you.

Is audacity still possible in advertising? Given that new platforms make it possible to skip commercials entirely, there must be a lot of anxiety in the industry.
From what I see on TV and the things that I get offered, it would seem that it's a fearful atmosphere. People are sanding off the edges. But there are still people trying to push things creatively.
You've made music videos for the likes of Blur, Massive Attack, Jamiroquai… Presumably you don't always know in advance what a musician's going to be like in front of a camera.
Yes, and you're requiring different things from different artists. If I'm working with a singer, the song is the script and the singer is my lead, and I have to look at the strengths of that. Part of the reason you choose to work with somebody is because you're captivated by their presence – who they are, how they walk, how they think. Jack White is, I think, a great actor – he reminds me of Orson Welles. And I used to love filming Thom Yorke.

You're famous for casting Ben Kingsley counter-intuitively in your first feature Sexy Beast (2000). He still had a rather exalted post-Gandhi image, and you had him play a foul-mouthed thug.
He just had it in him. When we first sat down, I had no idea that he was going to be that, and it happened immediately. He knew it, and I knew he knew it. After that, it was just calibrating – this shirt versus that shirt, and the length of that goatee.

You've described your film tastes by saying you like Anchorman and Ingmar Bergman, but not much in between.
I like great comedy. I'll be very happy watching Karl Pilkington hour after hour, no problem. And then Pasolini and Bergman, and Fassbinder and Fellini – I want to be taken somewhere. Most of what I regard as in between isn't without merit but it just doesn't take me where I want to go – I know what's happening next, I'm aware of the mechanics, the cogs turning.
After three features, people still don't know a great deal about you. You studied theatre design, you live in north London, you have three children, that's about it… You seem to like keeping a low profile.
My first question is, can I do this film anonymously? I'm interested in the work and the journey and I have nothing to add. I live my life as well as I can with the people I love, and that's very separate. I got a phone call saying, "You have to do four interviews for the DVD release." I was like, "Oh for fuck's sake…" It hurts when I have to do it.

What made you want to study theatre design?
I went to Trent Poly, as it was then. I didn't know what the course was, I just thought, that sounds like a laugh. And it was, and I enjoyed every second of it. The head of our course was Malcolm Griffiths, a real angry man of 70s theatre. Watching him come up the corridor was like seeing Jack Nicholson in The Shining – red trousers, red shirt, red Kickers, long hair and a Lambert and Butler, and he'd shout at you, "Have you read this?" and "You should do that…" He had conviction – he had a profound effect on me and on others.

Under the Skin is out on Blu-ray and DVD tomorrow

 

Leave a Comment

Required fields are marked *

*

*