THE BEAUTIFUL EYE OF ALLEN DAVIAU, R.I.P.

Cinematographer Allen Daviau, the five-time Oscar nominee whose collaborations with such directors as Steven Spielberg, Albert Brooks, Peter Weir and Barry Levinson would earn him the American Society of Cinematographers’ Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007, passed away in Hollywood on Wednesday, aged 77.

His final hours were spent at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, his home for the last eight years. It is understood his death is Coronavirus related, making him the fourth resident of the facility to succumb to the virus.

Born John Allen Daviau on June 14 1942, the Louisiana native became enamoured with the moving image in the early days of colour television. In a 2004 interview with Moviehole, Daviau said, “I was 12 years old. I said, ‘I have to find out how that works’. The more I learned about photography, the more fascinated I was with the cinematographer, the director of photography and what that job was.”

Daviau was mentored by fellow Loyola High School graduate and University of Southern California Cinema Department student Bob Epstein. “Epstein introduced me to filmmakers like De Sica, Fellini, Bergman, Bresson, Ozu, and Kurosawa,” Daviau recounted in an interview with MovieMaker magazine. At the age of 16, Daviau gained access to the set of One-Eyed Jacks, the directorial debut of Marlon Brando, and watched as cinematographer Charles Lang lit an enormous sound stage. “I thought to myself that this man has the very best job in the history of the world,” said Daviau. 

By the mid 1960s, with a 16mm Beaulieu camera by his side, Daviau became a sought-after cameraman in the music industry (he shot concert footage of The Animals and Jimi Hendrix) and the advertising sector. In 1968, the 25 year-old Daviau teamed with a young director named Steven Spielberg to shoot the now iconic short film, Amblin’. When Spielberg (pictured, above; with Daviau, right) was first contracted to Universal, he tried to bring his friend on board, and the studio sought to sign Daviau. 

But the deal was struck down by the International Photographers’ Guild, the hardline cinematographers’ union that oversaw the sector at the time. Daviau recalled, “Back then the union was nepotistic and, if you didn't have a close personal contact, you just did not get in. It literally took me, and a handful of other now-prominent DP's - Caleb Deschanel, Tak Fujimoto, Andy Davis and others - a decade to gain entrance into the International Photographer's Guild. And, we finally had to file suit to get in.”

While Spielberg conquered the world, Allen Daviau spent the best part of the next decade shooting documentaries (including the Oscar-nominated Say Goodbye, in 1971) and made-for-television movies. He lensed three features - Richard Erdman’s western comedy The Brothers O’Toole (1973), Bob Hammer’s martial arts documentary New Gladiators (1973) and the Bruce Dern western, Harry Tracy, Desperado (1981) for William A. Graham - but honed his art and craft on short form work, including commercials and music videos.

He reunited with his friend Steven Spielberg briefly mid-decade, when he shot the ‘Gobi Desert’ sequence of Close Encounters of The Third Kind for one of his idols, the film’s cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond. But it would be 1981 when Spielberg and Daviau’s first feature film collaboration came together. Working from Melissa Mathison’s script, then titled ‘E.T. and Me’, Spielberg convinced a sceptical Universal he could make the film for US$10million. Recalls Daviau, in an interview for Henderson’s Film Industries, “I was lucky that it was such a low budget, because he was looking for someone who was fast and inexpensive, and there I was.” (Pictured, above; Daviau, with Spielberg, shooting E.T.)

E.T. The Extra-terrestrial (1982) became the most successful film of all time and Daviau, with his first Oscar nomination under his belt, gained entry into the top-tier of Hollywood cinematographers. Of Daviau’s contribution to the alien’s lifelike appearance, Spielberg told American Cinematographer magazine in January 1983, “It took a lot more time to light E.T. than to light any of the human beings, and I think Allen spent his best days and his most talented hours in giving E.T. more expressions than perhaps (inventor) Carlo Rambaldi and I had envisioned. He found by moving a light, by moving the source of the key from half-light to top-light, E.T.’s 40 expressions were suddenly 80.”

His working relationship with his lifetime friend continued for another 15 years, with Daviau shooting the Spielberg-directed works ‘Kick the Can’ for Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983; he also shot Dr George Miller’s segment, ‘Nightmare at 20,000 Feet’); the Amazing Stories episode, ‘Ghost Train’; The Color Purple (1985), for which he earned his second Oscar nomination; and, Empire of the Sun (1987; pictured, below, with actor Christian Bale), again deemed Academy Award standard and for which he won the BAFTA Best Cinematography prize. 

He also shot the Spielberg-produced adventures Harry and The Hendersons (1987) for director William Dear, and Congo (1995) for longtime Spielberg producer Alan Marshall. In 1985, he teamed with veteran director John Schlesinger for the politically-charged true story, The Falcon and The Snowman.

Allen Daviau’s mastery of source light and ethereal imagery came to the fore in three of the most beautifully shot films of the 1990s. He would earn his fourth Oscar nomination for his first collaboration with director Barry Levinson, on the director’s autobiographical drama Avalon (1990), and his fifth for Levinson’s gangster drama, Bugsy (1991), with Warren Beatty. In 1993, Australian director Peter Weir perfectly utilised Daviau’s visionary eye on what many consider his finest work, the PTSD drama Fearless, with Jeff Bridges. “We agreed that image clarity was the critical issue,” Daviau told the Cinephilia Beyond website. “I like images that are open and that speak very clearly photographically. This film is often a study of faces and eyes. Peter is very respectful of the power of close-ups. He speaks about that topic very eloquently, stating that even painters can’t equal the power of the motion picture close-up. We often came in a lot tighter than you normally see on close-ups, often using Jeff’s eyes to pull the audience into scenes.”

His diverse talent was utilised by writer/director Albert Brooks for the afterlife comedy Defending Your Life (1991) and by filmmaker Rand Ravich for the thriller The Astronaut’s Wife (1999), starring Johnny Depp and Charlize Theron. His final feature would be Stephen Sommer’s horror/adventure Van Helsing (2004), with Hugh Jackman. 

In the wake of Daviau’s passing, Steven Spielberg released a short statement via his production company Amblin. “In 1968, Allen and I started our careers side by side. Allen was a wonderful artist but his warmth and humanity were as powerful as his lens. He was a singular talent and a beautiful human being.”

THE DUNE GALLERY

Vanity Fair overnight revealed exclusive first-look images from Denis Villeneuve’s forthcoming adaptation of Frank Herbert’s iconic 1965 science-fiction novel, Dune. The director’s first film since Blade Runner 2049 will unfold in two parts, the first of which is scheduled to premiere December 18. “I would not agree to make this adaptation of the book with one single movie,” Villeneuve told VF writer Anthony Breznican. “The world is too complex. It’s a world that takes its power in details.” (All photo credits: Chiabella James)

(Above: Timothée Chalamet, as Paul Atreides, and Rebecca Ferguson, as Lady Jessica Atreides)

The French-Canadian director, who co-wrote the script with Jon Spaihts (Prometheus; Doctor Strange; Passengers) and Oscar-winner Eric Roth (Forrest Gump; Munich; A Star is Born), shot the film in several countries to capture the landscapes imagined in Herbert's series of books. Exteriors were lensed in Jordan, Norway, Slovakia and the U.A.E., while mammoth studio sets were constructed on the Origo Film Studio lot in Budapest, Hungary.

(Above: Villeneuve, left, on-set with star Javier Bardem, as Stilgar)

Protagonist Paul Atreides is played by Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet, who recalls the sandstone valley locations in remote southern Jordan which served as the otherwordly landscape of the planet Arrakis. “There are these Goliath landscapes, which you may imagine existing on planets in our universe, but not on Earth," the actor told Vanity Fair. "I remember going out of my room at 2 a.m., and it being probably 100 degrees. The shooting temperature was sometimes 120 degrees. They put a cap on it out there; if it gets too hot, you can’t keep working.”

(Above: The House Atreides, Left to Right: Timothée Chalamet, Stephen Mckinley Henderson, Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin and Jason Momoa)

Cast announcements ignited the internet, with the rabid fanbase weighing in on every production development. Alongside Chalamet will be Oscar Isaac as his father, Duke Leto Atreides, and Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica, Paul’s mother and member of the mystical Bene Gesserit sect. Other cast members include Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho, Zendaya as Chani, Javier Bardem as Stilgar, Charlotte Rampling as Gaius Helen Mohiam, Dave Bautista as Glossu Rabban, David Dastmalchian as Piter De Vries, Chang Chen as Dr. Wellington Yueh, Stellan Skarsgård as the villainous Baron Harkonnen, and Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck.

(Above: Zendaya, as Chani)

In 2017, Villeneuve told Variety that the opportunity to direct an adaptaion of Dune was too good an opportunity to let pass. "Since I was 12 years old, there was a book I read, which is Dune, which is my favorite book," he said. "After Prisoners, the producer [at] Alcon asked me what I would like to do next. I said, ‘Dune, if anyone could get me the rights for Dune’. And I knew it was very difficult to get those rights. I have images that I am haunted by for 35 years."

(Above: Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Liet Kynes)

Though a devotee of Herbert's novel, Villeneuve understood a 2020 adaptation of a 1965 story would need to be made contemporary, regardless of how visionary the source material had been. As Lady Jessica Atreides, Rebecca Ferguson had her part expanded considerably. "She’s a mother, she’s a concubine, she’s a soldier,” says Ferguson. “Denis was very respectful of Frank’s work, [but] the quality of the arcs for much of the women have been brought up to a new level." Arrakis ecologist Liet Kynes has been gender-swapped entirely, with Sharon Duncan-Brewster playing the part written as a white man. "This human being manages to basically keep the peace amongst many people," says the actress. "Women are very good at that, so why can’t Kynes be a woman? Why shouldn’t Kynes be a woman?"

(Above: Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho)

Key contributors to the production include composer Hans Zimmer (Dunkirk; Interstellar; Crimson Tide); director of photography, Australian Greig Fraser (Lion; Vice; Rogue One; Zero Dark Thirty); editor and longtime Villeneuve collaborator Joe Walker (Arrival; Sicario; 12 Years a Slave); and, production designer Patrice Vermette (Vice; The Mountain Between Us; Cafe de Flore). Crucial to the production are veteran costumers Bob Morgan (Three Kings; The Lord of War; Inceptions) and Jacqueline West (The Revenant; Argo; The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), who supervised the construction of the functional desert-wear known as 'stillsuits'.

(Above, from left: Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck; Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica Atreides; Oscar Isaac as Duke Leto Atreides)

ALL PHOTO CREDITS: CHIABELLA JAMES. First published by Vanity Fair on April 15, 2020.

MOSLEY: THE KIRBY ATKINS INTERVIEW

Sometimes the most meaningful journeys come from the humblest beginnings. Twenty years ago, a young animator named Kirby Atkins, drawing upon both his own upbringing and new life as a parent, began crafting a story about a species of domesticated creatures called Thoriphants, bound by human chains but always clinging to their rich heritage and powerful tribal bonds. The result is Mosley, a thrilling and very moving celebration of family and destiny that was brought to life as a $US20million New Zealand/Chinese co-production “They are absolutely phenomenal,” says Atkins of his Chinese artists. “I had five studios in China that were doing animation for me remotely.”

SCREEN-SPACE chatted at length with Atkins (pictured, above) only a few hours before the 2019 Asia Pacific Screen Awards, for which Mosley had earned a Best Animated Film nomination.  

SCREEN-SPACE: What did you base the design and functionality of the Thoriphants upon? What research went into their movements?

ATKINS: I wanted Thoriphants to feel like something that you hadn't seen before, but also to feel familiar as soon as you saw them. Most of their body is very elephant-like and there's this certain nobility that is attached to elephants and elephant bodies. Then there are certain aspects [that are] like donkeys, this sort of melancholy quality. It was about not making something that was going to be bizarre, but something that felt like you could just see grazing in a field somewhere. Yet the whole hook to them is that they can speak, and that their faces are expressive. That's what makes ‘the orphan’ different, at least in the movie, than a horse or an ox or anything like that.

SCREEN-SPACE: I believe that Thoriphants want to be like humans, but they want to be the best part of humans. They're striving to be upright and to have hands, but also to represent what's best about us.

ATKINS: A good thing about fairy tales and fables is that people read their own story into them, and there are no wrong answers to that. The concept of standing upright, if you were to take the angle of social injustice, recalls the experience of being black in America. Where you feel like you're treated like shit in one part of the world, but you were kings in another part of the world. It's about discovering what you are meant to be, and using the concept of evolution or devolution as a means to say, "How tragic would it be that you couldn't evolve as far as your heart was meant to go." That existential longing of wanting to recapture the thing that you were intended to be, and not the thing that you turned out to be. You can apply that to any working stiff out in the world who feels like he was meant for greater things. That allegory can be very personal or you can talk about societies like the Maori in New Zealand or the native American experience. People reclaiming dignity based upon a heritage, haunted by the fact that life was not meant to be this.

SCREEN-SPACE: That first act, the first half hour, is quite dialogue heavy. There's an establishing of character and personality in all the creatures. I sensed then that this movie was, yes, beautiful family entertainment, but also it was going to be deep. It was going to be more from that point on…

ATKINS: I know anime does this all the time, but generally Western animation is pretty much fart jokes; cartoons that you put on to keep the kids busy while you do something else. This is the animated film that I always wanted to see, but it didn't feel like anybody was going to make. Animation can do other things besides comedy, right? And what I've always wanted to see is an animated film that had weight to it. That had teeth to it. It's sort of like the family films that they use to make. I remember when I was a kid watching The NeverEnding Story, there was a scene where the horse drowns in the quicksand, and I was devastated when I saw that and it marked me; for some people it was Bambi that marked them, or Watership Down. [It reinforced] the fact that animation can do drama, can deal with character. Animation is about stylizing an entire narrative in a way that that shouldn’t just be fart jokes, pies in the face, pop songs and pop culture references. Let's just tell a straight story with animation. Let's let the tense parts be tense. The last fight in Mosley, I wanted it to feel like a fight, that somebody could get hurt, not a fight in a cartoon movie. There's something about cartoon and cartoon physics that allows you to think, "None of this is real, nobody's going to get hurt." And I wanted you to forget that you were watching animation.

SCREEN-SPACE: You set the emotional stakes very high from the start. The auction scene is a heartbreaker…

ATKINS: Exactly. You're going to care about this movie in the first two minutes, or this isn't going to be worth your time. I want the audience sucked in and engaged, and rooting for these characters to make it as soon as I can. And so that opening sequence was all about that. Obviously comedy follows pretty quickly. But that first sequence I wanted to knock the breath out of you. So you're going, "Okay, this movie's not playing around. This is going to be a real story. This isn't just packing peanuts (laughs)."

SCREEN-SPACE: A voice-cast like Rhys Darby, Lucy Lawless, John Rhys-Davies and Temuera Morrison is remarkable…

ATKINS: I'll tell you, it was a blast! Sonically, think about what you have. John Rhys-Davies, Mr. Classically trained, I- Claudius, Lord of the Rings, an Old Vic kind of actor, right? And then you have Rhys, Mr. Improvisation, think on the spot, come up with some gag right there. You put them together, you’re going to have peanut butter and chocolate; a whole new flavour comes out. There’s very little that goes off the script, but there are about three or four moments where they added a line or something. And it just wasn't Rhys, but John did some of this too, and it was pure gold. And everybody was in the room together. I worked on Warner Brothers’ The Ant Bully and we had Julia Roberts and Nick Cage, right? They were never in the room together. And usually good actors can make it sound sort of natural, right? But I knew that if I got Rhys Darby and John Rhys-Davies in a room together, bouncing off of each other, I knew nothing but good was going to come out of that. I don't know if you remember these lines, but there's like, "You distract, I'll ambush,” then “Your whole life has been a distraction." And John made up that line. (Picture above, from left; Atkins, editor Kathy Toon, and actors John Rhys-Davies and Rhys Darby) 

SCREEN-SPACE: Mosley is every bit as good as most of the things that Disney Pixar puts out; better than the last few, quite frankly. One opinion suggests maybe this kind of film wouldn't be made without the path laid by Disney Pixar. Then there's the shadow that Disney Pixar casts and how tough it can be to break away from that legacy…

ATKINS: Yeah, I'll tell you, the industry is fickle in this regard. Another Disney film will come out and you’ll hear, "Oh God, why does everything have to be like Disney?" And there’s me saying, "Well, this isn't like Disney. We'll make something." And they're like, "Well, why isn't it more like Disney?" Sometimes you can't win, right? (laughs) People who work in animation want animation to do more. The invisible powers in the larger studios that fund animation stories [determine that they] must be attached to a pre-existing franchise or some sort of merchandising. Generally, studios create such narrow categories for animation. But my editor, Kathy Toon, came from Pixar, moving to New Zealand to make Mosley. My animation director Manuel Aparicio came from Walt Disney, from working on Moana. So all of these guys came for the express purpose of going, "This is the sort of movie we all wish the industry would make. We can tell stories that are full of heart and whimsy and humor, but they're not just the same old thing. We can tackle big themes. We can have some teeth to it. It can be a little scary." It can be more cinematic in that regard.

MOSLEY will be released April 8 in Australia and New Zealand on DVD and digital platforms; other territories to follow. 

DEADHOUSE DARK IGNITES THE CANNESERIES COMPETITION LINE-UP.

CANNES: Flying the flag for the Australian genre sector at the 2020 Canneseries Short Form Competition will be the highly-anticipated web-series, Deadhouse Dark, created by Australia’s own horror mastermind Enzo Tedeschi. The series is one of ten international entrants in the competitive strand and will face off against productions from Canada, Finland, Sweden, Argentina, Norway, Poland, The USA and France.

Running concurrently with the annual television mega-market MIP-TV, Canneseries takes place from March 27 to April 1. In 2019, the Australian series Over and Out took top honours and was quickly shepherded into long-form development. This year, the judging panel consists of actors Jamie Bamber (Band of Brothers; NCIS; Battlestar Galactica) and Erin Moriarity (True Detective; The Boys) and French director Timothée Hochet (Relationship; Studio Bagel; Calls).

An anthology of six interconnected horror short films, Deadhouse Dark is anchored by a narrative concerning a woman who receives a mystery box via the ‘dark web’; within the box are items that gradually unveil dark and troubling truths. Slated for an online release in late 2020, the project features actors Nicholas Hope, Zoe Carides, Lauren Orrell, Jenny Wu and Barbara Bingham and directors Rachele Wiggins, Rosie Lourde, Megan Riakos, Denai Gracie and Joshua Long. Tedeschi himself steps into the helmer’s chair for the first episode, an online dating-themed chiller called ‘A Tangled Web We Weave’.

"It's an honour to be premiering this project in such a hallowed space,” says Tedeschi (pictured, above), whose status as one of our leading genre producers is unrivalled in the wake of his features, The Tunnel (2011), A Night of Horror Vol. 1 (2015), Skinford (2017) and Event Zero (2017). “It's the perfect way to kick-off getting the series out to audiences. We're also proud to be representing as the only Aussies in the mix of ten series selected from around the globe. I'm hoping we can find the right partners to be able to move into a longer show format as soon as possible."

One of the sectors’ most vibrantly creative young producers, Rachele Wiggins further enhances her industry standing with her debut behind the camera, directing the segment ‘Mystery Box’. “To be recognised internationally at such a prestigious festival is a huge boon for the Australian genre filmmaking community,” says Wiggins, who co-produced Deadhouse Dark with Tedeschi. “I’m incredibly proud of the wonderful mix of diverse creative voices who made [it] possible, most of whom are emerging talents within the industry. A World Premiere at Canneseries will be an opportunity to showcase that talent and get people to see more of what Australia has to offer.” (Pictured, right; clockwise from top left - Rachele Wiggins, Megan Riakos, Rosie Lourde, Joshua Long, Enzo Tedeschi and  Denai Gracie). 

‘That talent’ includes Rosie Lourde, who directs Naomi Sequeira in the unsettling ‘Dashcam_013_20191031.mp4’, a car-crash drama told completely from the perspective of a dashboard camera (pictured, below); Megan Riakos, writer and director of ‘No Pain No Gain’, the story of a competitive runner desperate to win at any costs; Denai Gracie, whose ’The Staircase’ follows a group of adventurers as they face what lurks in the supernatural darkness; and, Joshua Long, director of ‘My Empire Of Dirt’ about a ‘death midwife’ tasked with helping a woman ease into a peaceful death despite being haunted by her past.  

Principal funding was sourced from Screen Australia, with support granted from Screen Queensland and Silent Assassin Films. Especially developed for an online audience, Deadhouse Dark reflects the changing nature of industry investment, with government funds for the sector increasingly slated for non-theatrical projects. The project provides further evidence of Screen Australia's ongoing re-definition of the production sector, as detailed by Screen Australia's CEO Graeme Mason's recent comments regarding funding and sector development at the Berlin Film Festival. 

Established in 2018, the Canneseries Festival was formed with the aim of becoming the voice of the new, popular and ultra-creative short-form visual storytelling, by spotlighting new, promising and innovative formats.  The award of Best Short Form Series will be handed out during the festival's Closing Ceremony, which will be broadcast on French broadcast giant, Canal +.

SEBERG: THE BENEDICT ANDREWS INTERVIEW

The new film from Australian filmmaker Benedict Andrews explores a time in modern American history when those elected to enforce the will of the people instead turned on society’s progressive left. It was 1969, and the symbolic target of the conservative law enforcers was actress Jean Seberg, an expat American adored by those of her adopted homeland, France, but targeted by The F.B.I. for her views on racial injustice. Starring a remarkable Kristen Stewart, SEBERG captures an America at the dawn of a new, darker time and the young woman who bore the brunt of that shift in values. 

Fittingly, SCREEN-SPACE spoke to Andrews as the impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump kicked off. “Over the course of production, history felt like it was accelerating at such a terrifying pace and things in the movie seemed to become more and more relevant,” said the director, from his home in Iceland, “It reflected a deliberate manipulation and lying and you see that in an institutional way.”

SCREEN-SPACE: At the Deauville Film Festival press conference, your leading lady defined Jean Seberg as impulsive, idealistic, naive, but well intentioned. Was Seberg the right sort of superstar at the wrong point in American history?

ANDREWS: Oh, that's an interesting question. The movie is certainly quite transparent about impulsive aspects of her behaviour that might have led her into the mixing up of her romantic life and her political life. But I don't believe that that was what caused the FBI to destroy her. The character ‘Hakim Jamal’ (played by Anthony Mackie) says that she got caught in the crossfire of white America's war on black America. You had a very conservative, reactionary, racist FBI mandate in the COINTELPRO program to basically destroy any chance of black power and change in America, and she allowed herself to be involved in that. Her husband, Romain Gary, said that she had a case of sympathy at first sight and I think she genuinely couldn't stand the injustice in America and unequal playing field in terms of race. So I believe everything that she was doing there was actually extremely well intentioned and from a really strong, clear place. And I think she believed in truth and she believed in having a voice. (pictured, above; Kirsten Stewart as Jean Seberg)

SCREEN-SPACE: Her activism had a public face, via her celebrity, but also a very private, personal aspect…

ANDREWS: I think she genuinely couldn't stand the injustice in America and unequal playing field in terms of race. And, yes, a lot of her activism was relatively private if you compare to her to a much more outspoken, perhaps even grandstanding figure like Jane Fonda. The activism is very much of her time too. It's what became derided by Tom Wolfe [who] invented this derogatory term of ‘radical chic’ for the big Hollywood people being involved in politics. But I think that was very much a move of the Conservative Right’s to undercut [activism], certainly in Jean's case. He wrote that about a buddy of Leonard Bernstein's case and I think there were just attacks on an engaged left within the cultural industry. (Pictured, above; Jean Seberg)

SCREEN-SPACE: Your film comes along at a time when US politics and its very dark undercurrent is being exposed. Does that put a spotlight on this film's view on American politics? Does it give it a pertinent relevance that you may not have otherwise counted on?

ANDREWS: I always kind of knew that 1969 was going to speak to 2019. Jean says, "America, this country's at war with itself." On one hand, the unresolved questions of racial injustice in America, but more especially the question of what we see in the movie, in an embryonic DNA form, the culture that we now live in. You see all the seeds of a culture of mass surveillance. In a very personal way, our narrative shows what happens when privacy is violated and weaponized and turned against somebody for their beliefs. And we see the horrific cost of that in the emotional toll on Jean and the political cost of that in terms of the relationships that are undermined and destroyed. That's something that in a terrifying way is speaking to our times.

SCREEN-SPACE: I get the feeling that there's a lot of people in Washington at the moment who are a lot like FBI agent Jack (played by Jack O’Connell) – patriots torn between allegiance and morality.

ANDREWS: That's what I think is really interesting. There's an echo of an Edward Snowden in there and I was quite aware that the story was ultimately, in a way, going to be about truth. In these early stages of the impeachment hearings, we’re seeing these career bureaucrats stepping up and saying, "Actually I have to speak the truth, even if I'm going to risk something in that. I don't believe in what's going on." And Jack goes from [being] a soldier who believes in the war, to realizing that the institution he's in is fighting a dirty war that he can't believe in any anymore.

SCREEN-SPACE: I'm hopeful that if any good is going to come out of the current political climate, it will be a return to what I think is the last great era of American filmmaking, the 1970s, and cinema's strength at interpreting the times; films like The Parallax View, The Conversation, All the President’s Men. Hopefully Seberg is at the forefront of a new introspection in our cinema.

ANDREWS: I hope so. They were very important movies for me in this. I mean you've touched upon nearly all of them. Medium Cool was also really important for me, which is a little looser, freer film, in a way. I love the tensions of those cooler thrillers. Klute was really important, too, because it has a woman at the centre of it and that strange relationship with her and Donald Sutherland that reminded me of the Jean/Jack relationship. Those films are so important because they come at a time of absolute crisis in the political identity of the country. We used the similar lenses, the Panavision C-series lenses in order to reference them and we have a couple of nods to The Conversation. One of my favourite shots in the movie is where the camera drifts through the van, Jack's there and the two black girls come up and do their makeup. That's a really deliberate homage to a scene where Gene Hackman's looking out and you see the two women come and do their makeup. It's just a beautiful metaphor for the screen of cinema, but also it shows us the drug of surveillance that Jack has there, which you don't want the audience to think about this while they're watching It's exactly the same drug they have watching on a screen. (Pictured, above; Stewart and Andrews, on-set)

SCREEN-SPACE: We should have a chat about your leading lady. I love the line describing Jean that says she's bigger in France than she is here and that talks very much to Kristen. What was the methodology you and she employed in crafting the Seberg character?

ANDREWS: Yeah, she was the perfect fit. There is no version of this movie without her in it. I think that the movies happen when they're meant to happen. This was a story that people have been trying to get made at different points in time and the script had a couple of other lives before I came on board. I really believe that things come to life when the film gods want them to; the political relevance of the movie is one of those reasons, but the other really is Kristen. It's kind of a miracle to have this young American actress who has an understanding of what it means to work in mainstream Hollywood and to work in French cinema. I think she and Jean Seberg, and maybe Jane Fonda, are the only people to achieve that. For both of them to be style icons, for both of them to have this forward looking yet classical fashion sense and both of them have such a singular idiosyncratic and androgynous look was also just incredible. They were both thrust into the public eye at a very tender age, Jean with the competition for the Saint Joan film of Preminger and Kristen obviously following on from the Fincher movie (Panic Room) with the Twilight films and both of them, perhaps Jean more so, had a tough time with the domestic press, were both treated a bit unfairly. (Pictured, above; l-r, Anthony Mackie, Zazie Beetz, Stewart, Andrews, Jack O'Connell and Margaret Qualley)

SCREEN-SPACE: Her unconventionality suits a film that is an unconventional biopic.

ANDREWS: I'm bored shitless of one-way biopics. And I was never interested in an actress who would only do an impersonation. I knew very quickly from Kristen and just also having an impulse about the type of actress that she was that that wasn't really the case. We were going to be able to find Jean together from the inside out. And I'm just so incredibly impressed and proud of how she puts herself on the line and how in this performance she transforms in a way that she hasn't in other movies. She has a huge emotional range in it. We watched a lot of Jean's films together. She had a voice coach, but we decided to only make the smallest alteration to her voice. She was just really prepared to put herself on the line and to really go there. And I felt we just had a really good trust and then this special thing happened that you hope for in a director, actor relationship, where it starts to become a dance.

SEBERG is in selected Australian cinemas from January 30 through ICON Films.