But I think I like that you’re focusing on this message of positivity and trying to say, look we’re not perfect, we screw up, and that was actually something that I didn’t even realize at first until when you get later in the movie and realize oh wait a minute, he wasn’t just abandoning his son, there was a depth there.
I think one of the interesting things is, when I was a kid, I was obsessed with Star Wars, and I couldn’t stop thinking about, on a childlike level, does Darth Vader know he’s bad? Or does Darth Vader think the Dark Side is the good side?
That’s a great question.
And I believe that even the worst of us, the people we hate at work, nobody wakes up trying to be a dick. Like, “I’m gonna be a dick to day, I’m gonna be mean to everyone.” I think every human being wakes up trying to do what they think is right, even the worst people, I think, Darth Vader is the analogy, the worst people are deluded, they’re doing terrible, terrible things. But they think they’re doing the right thing, as crazy as that is but that’s really dark. [Laughs] I like to think that people, at least in the movies I do, has the right intentions even if they haven’t done the right thing. I think it’s beautiful about Al in this movie is that he’s a very failed man, he’s a very flawed and failed man.
The journey of a guy trying to do the right thing, every day I wake up and think I’m gonna do better at my job, be a better writer, I’m gonna be better to my wife, I’m gonna be better to my kids, my husband, we all do this, right? And then by the end of the day, we go shit I didn’t do any of that, I didn’t do as good as I’d hoped. I’m gonna try again tomorrow.
Speaking of the human condition, in Al’s character we do get to watch in a two hour movie a guy kind of cinematically represent that, a guy who’s literally waking up and saying I’m gonna try and be a better version of myself. But like all of us, he doesn’t really have the tools or knowhow to do it, so at the end of the film, hopefully, the first 142 minutes of a 145 minute film are setting up him to behave properly in the final 3 minutes, and have a chance and long after the movie ends of becoming a fully formed human being. That’s kind of how I see the film a little bit.
It’s all kind of like the dream of most people, we all have these ambitions to become something, but there’ s also the feeling of well, have I really achieved what I’m supposed to do.
None of us are ever really satisfied with our jobs, etc. You deal with this business, I talk to people who get these critical raves but nobody sees their movie and they’re so jealous that I’ve gotten to make these commercial movies that make a lot of money, and then I’m sitting jealous of the art of theirs and how well-respected it is to the cynics. And I’m thinking, is it the guy who made Birdman? Is he really happy, does he feel completely fulfilled because he made a movie that people love that won the awards? No, he’s probably sitting worried about his next movie or worried about the legacy. Nobody is ever content.
Especially after you win so much, you think, now what am I going to do?
Now what? I’m being judged on that movie for the rest of my career. The whole thing is not just filmmaking but all of us do that, I think that’s a struggle for Al’s character in the movie.
I thought it was interesting that you didn’t include the mother of the child out of wedlock. It sort of was always there but I guess it wasn’t really much hanging over the movie, it’s almost like she was someone that you said, well I made a decision just to cut him out.
And the story’s not really about her, it also gives a lot to Bobby [Cannavale] subtextually. He comes off very clearly as a guy who was raised by a woman who every part of him is trying to repress a part of himself that is a lot like Al and you can feel there’s a genetic coding there when he says that line, which I think Bobby does really well: “I’ve spent my entire life trying to become the man you aren’t, and I’m exhausted.” We either become our fathers or we rebel completely against them, there doesn’t seem to be a real in between. That all comes from having been raised by a single mom, now he’s lost her, he’s trying to recreate a family that he probably never had. It’s all kind of between the lines but I think it’s there.
That’s really sometimes difficult to think about, but I understand what you’re saying. It gives this background to the character, informing everything they’re doing and his interactions even with his own family. Because he’s trying to do something, like, “my father wasn’t really there,” now he wants to be there constantly in a sense, but that’s also impossible.
So he’s also experiencing the same, I want to do better, I want to do better, even hiding stuff from his wife in an attempt to be a good man. The mistakes of our fathers inform us, I think, it’s been like for many, many centuries.
Probably true, at least once people could stop just thinking about, okay, am I gonna live to the end of the day. Now, how I am gonna live at all?
Right, and what is my legacy going to be? We’re in the weird day and age where we’ve almost as human beings, I mean this is getting very, you know, we’ve almost advanced past to the stage where we were meant to advance, I think. We were just meant to want to survive and eat and procreate and now we’re at this stage where we’re like worrying about how the Internet is going to view us a hundred years from now. It’s a very interesting time.
The intelligent machines running the internet in the future, what are they gonna think about all the stupid tweets that we make?
Exactly.
Humans, so much time on their hands. It doesn’t have to be a pessimistic view of the future.
Right, right [laughs].
I did enjoy the movie, and sometimes when you go into these things, you think, okay, I don’t really know anything about this. When you have something that’s supposed to be serious but also funny, there’s always a bit of apprehension, is it balanced? I think in this case you really did pull it off. Sometimes in movies it goes too far in one direction.
It’s hard; in the business we call them execution dependent movies, and sometimes you talk about them, I like the script and I think you’re talented, but I don’t know how the movie’s going to be, it’s how you execute it. As opposed to sometimes you can read a script or hire a director and feel pretty confident. You just don’t know.
I screened this, and people will tell you, I consider the audience and feel the audience in other movies I’ve done before when you’re losing them. And you can’t quite put your finger on it. I screened this film because I felt it’s a movie that will succeed or fail not by any metrics of box office but just as a piece based off how it feels playing in front of a group of people in an audience and how they’re rolling with the movie and where you’re losing them.
There’s some very dangerous stuff, like the scene on the bus with Bobby and Al, and it’s a really tricky subject matter to pull off. The little girl, etc, all this stuff. It’s kind of a high wire, this movie, it’s not an easy one. There are easier movies to make and not in complex way like tracking shots, like Birdman, but it’s complex together or in the ballpark of “right.” So the best thing you can do is show it to an awful lot of people in an awful lot of movie theaters long before it was coming out. And I just watched it with people and felt it with people and talked to people after, and asked them to tell me. That’s the best you can do, and trust your gut and make it.
Well, I think my feeling is that this seems like a successful movie to me. Whether or not it’s going to be successful in the box office, I can’t predict that.
Yeah, right.
I don’t really have a good gauge on that.
Nobody does anymore.
Well, I wanted to thank you again for your time.
Keep up the name!
You too, keep increasing the cachet, that way I can tell my mom, the Fogelman name is doing well.
Gotta procreate, make more of us.
Thanks again.
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