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Behind The Seen: Garth Jennings
Posted by Rob Ortenzi on 06-Jun-08 @ 11:37 AM
After cranking out videos for R.E.M., Pulp and Blur, English-born director GARTH JENNINGS made his big-screen debut with the 2005 adaptation of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. This month, he returns with the self-penned Son Of Rambow, a story of two unlikely early-'80s schoolmates (one a latchkey kid, one from a strict religious sect) who shoot their own homemade Rambo movie. Why did you choose First Blood as the main characters' inspiration in Son Of Rambow? When we were growing up, that was the first film my friends and I saw that was not meant for our age group. We lived on the edge of a huge forest, and we were always mucking about in it; then we saw this film where this one guy takes on 200 men in the forest with a knife and some twigs. He could sew up his own arm as well. When you're 11 or 12 and see something like that, it's just marvelous. So from there we started making our own Rambo-style movies. So it sounds like Son Of Rambow is semi-autobiographical. Yes, I think you're right with the word "semi." It started off based on some notes I'd made about these stupid movies I'd make with my friends as a kid. But that was only a starting point. Our ambition was to make a movie that captured the feeling of that time period for us, rather than being a slice of real life. For instance, I do not come from a Plymouth Brethren family. However, my next-door neighbors were. It seemed like a much more interesting way to set the story because it really captured the impact [Sylvester] Stallone had on us. Comparisons will probably be made to Rushmore, and maybe Napoleon Dynamite. Were those films in the back of your head while you were shooting, if only to avoid too much overlap? In many ways, the film does tread a classical, well-trodden path about friendship at that age. The things I like about the films you mentioned--especially Rushmore--is that there was this lovely, very eccentric, very personal view of life; but whoever you were, you could understand it and get it. But to be honest with you, I was thinking more of films like Stand By Me and Harold And Maude, which took peculiar relationships and made them universal and really quite endearing. But then again, maybe Wes Anderson was thinking of those movies, too. Is the process of selecting child actors different than that of adults? Yes. When we did A Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, we were picking from a list of people--adults--who you'd seen a million times and had opinions on. When we found [Son Of Rambow leads] Bill [Milner] and Will [Poulter], neither of them had acted before. And that was a big thing for us. We wanted to find youngsters with ability, but we still wanted them to be kids and not have all the kid trained out of them at some kind of theater school or something like that, where they just become professional small people. Although, it took us five months to find them, but we allowed for that much time because we knew we were going a less conventional route. Both Bill and Will were fantastic. It seems like you made a couple of real discoveries there. I think we have. I know they're already being asked to do all kinds of things, but they come from very level, very grounded families. They might do the odd thing, but they're also very happy just playing football, you know? Directors for whatever those two do next should give you some sort of kickback for grooming them, huh? Could you mention that to them? [Laughs.] I could certainly do with whatever kind of percentage they might be offering. -J. Bennett Son Of Rambow is currently open in limited release. |
