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SIDEMEBACKTOTHEBIGSCREEN HARD-BOILED IN OKLAHOMA
he ‘pulp’ fiction of Jim Thompson – once Tdubbed “the dimestore Dostoevsky” – has
long been admired by Hollywood. The Getaway (twice), The Grifters, After Dark My Sweet, and The Kill-Off have all, variously,
been filmed down the years.
The Killer Inside Me, published in 1952 and
arguably his best work, was first adapted for the screen a year before Thompson died in 1977. Now, the small town West Texas tale of schizophrenic sheriff Lou Ford has been re-visited by British director Michael Winterbottom.
The project marks the first totally American based
production for the prolific Winterbottom and his regular collaborators, producer Andrew Eaton and Danish cinematogra- pher Marcel Zyskind.
According to Eaton: “A friend
of both of ours
recommended
the book to us
and Michael fell
in love with it
straightaway. We inquired who held the rights and found they were owned by someone who’d been developing it for about 14 years but had never got it done; we got onto him and from there it moved forward quite quickly.
“ We first met with him at Cannes last year and had all the money in place just as the ‘credit crunch’ happened; so then it all went South. We eventually got the money together again and shot it in April/May this year.”
From a screenplay by John Curran, the film stars Casey Affleck as Ford together with a cast that includes Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson, Elias Koteas, Simon Baker, Bill Pullman, Liam Aiken and Ned Beatty.
Says Eaton: “The cast stayed with us through thick and thin. Even when we lost the money first time round, we managed to keep them all together. I think, however, if we hadn’t got Casey we’d have been hesitant about doing the film at all because his character needs a very charismatic, sympathetic actor to play the role.”
Although the film, like the book, is set in West Texas, the production shot instead principally in Guthrie, a one-time state capital of Oklahoma, and in another neighbouring state, New Mexico, which stood in for various crucial desert locations. The filmmakers also moved the original setting forward by five years to 1957 – “ a more interesting moment historically between the old world and the new,” notes Eaton.
For Zyskind, not yet 30 but now on his 10th film with Winterbottom since they first collaborated in 2002, The Killer Inside Me posed a series of exciting new challenges following
up. Decorated it and we also used the lawn and the house next to it so we had a nice area in which we could shoot.
“When you read the story it’s kind of noir-ish so we used more lights than we usually do. We didn’t deliberately go for a noir look because that can quickly become outdated; but what with that setting and the era, it kind of appeared by itself. We used Steadicam quite a bit so there’s quite a lot of movement to the film. On some of the locations the light was very harsh; you’d have
to push light into the house sometimes,”
said Zyskind.
Added Eaton: “There’s
a wonderful thing about period where the colours are quite vibrant. Yougetalotof strong colours set against big skies, which is fun. I happen to think it’s the best thing Marcel’s shot.”
Again, as with some of his previous
work for Winterbottom as well as for other filmmakers
including Harmony Korine (Mister Lonely) and, more recently, Lukas Moodysson (Mammoth), Zyskind chose to shoot on Fujifilm.
“I tend to to stick mostly to the daylight stocks because I can shoot with them unfiltered. I like doing that, it’s just much more straightfor- ward as far as I am concerned. The ETERNA 250D is, I think, one of the best stocks.
”Mind you, the ETERNA 500T is a beautiful stock as well; it’s perfect for doing a whole project on. For instance, I did a commercial on it for Gucci last year, directed by Chris Cunningham, and it was great, I thought.” QUENTIN FALK
The Killer Inside Me, to be released in 2010, was originated on 35mm Fujicolor Super F-64D 8522, ETERNA 250D 8563 and ETERNA 500T 8573
IN PRODUCTION
freewheeling films together ranging from In This World and The Road to Guantanamo to A Mighty Heart and Genova.
“It was, for instance, the first time for a few years since we’d shot on 35mm [since Code 46 in 2003]; we had a dolly for the whole film, used zoom lenses and also had a crane which I’d never used with him before. I remember speaking to Michael when he’d started editing and he laughed, ‘you know, we’re following the script quite a lot...’ For us, it’s much more normal – or formal, whichever word you like to use – kind of filmmaking.
“We were meant to have started the film in January, it was to be a winter film, but when the money was delayed ended up shooting in May, in the middle of the tornado season. It was very humid, green and lush which made it a little more difficult to give it that West Texas ‘look’.
“The film was entirely shot on location, and we found this big house where Lou Ford lives in Guthrie, about half an hour north of Oklahoma City. It was for sale so the art department made it
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