Cary Fukunaga - Sight & Sound
Ferinstal
North of Londinium...Posts: 310MI6 Agent
The April edition of Sight & Sound has a one-pager with Cary Fukunaga.
9 Questions - and some interesting answers.
Due to copyright, I’m not going to photo the page, but a couple of interesting snippets...
(You may already know some/all of this. I’m just (still) avoiding any thread with ‘spoilers’ contained in them!).
- the original Danny Boyle script was ‘completely thrown away’. Brocolli / Wilson insisted on that.
- he’s the first Bond director with a writing credit on a Bond film and writing continued through production.
- according to him, ‘there’s a lot of YOLT, OHMSS and Goldeneye in there’!
Like I said, a short one-pager but very interesting. A couple of pics but nothing we haven’t seen before.
Worth having a look if you have Sight & Sound (which is a top film magazine) in a store near you.
Apparently, full review of the film in the next edition - though I figure that is unlikely now.
9 Questions - and some interesting answers.
Due to copyright, I’m not going to photo the page, but a couple of interesting snippets...
(You may already know some/all of this. I’m just (still) avoiding any thread with ‘spoilers’ contained in them!).
- the original Danny Boyle script was ‘completely thrown away’. Brocolli / Wilson insisted on that.
- he’s the first Bond director with a writing credit on a Bond film and writing continued through production.
- according to him, ‘there’s a lot of YOLT, OHMSS and Goldeneye in there’!
Like I said, a short one-pager but very interesting. A couple of pics but nothing we haven’t seen before.
Worth having a look if you have Sight & Sound (which is a top film magazine) in a store near you.
Apparently, full review of the film in the next edition - though I figure that is unlikely now.
Yes. Considerably.
Comments
YOLT, GE and OHMSS, those are some top tier Bond films right there. Goldeneye is the one that surprises me the most, and the series seems to focus on homaging the Connery age. No mention of DN on that list, which is interesting.
-Casino Royale, Ian Fleming
No surprise for me that GE gets a nod, since the 25th anniversary is coming up. I pointed out elsewhere what I think two nods to GE are - and with Cary being a gamer, we can see that in at least one BTS photo, GE64 has inspired him.
Nice to get confirmation though. -{
Hopefully now Boyle can blab about what he was planning.
IMHO the YOLT, OHMSS and Goldeneye references, assuming for the first two it's the films, not the books, he's talking about, are related to
OHMSS - a biological warfare weapon
Goldeneye - the Russians are the baddies in some way
I wonder if as part of Boyle's moving on from the production there is some restriction on (Boyle) sharing details about the Hodge/Boyle script for a certain period of time? One would also wonder whether or not EON owns the rights to that script?
Of course we're all hoping for a Garden of Death scenario, though who knows if that's what Fukanaga means. But I've also thought the phrase "you only live twice" could just as easily relate to the cloning plot we keep suspecting.
I wonder what the Goldeneye references could be? I see no hints in the trailers, except there's two double ohs.
and OHMSS? well, Madeleine seems to be a major character throughout, so it's not her death ... although one of the posters does show a windshield with bulletholes.
But in OHMSS, Blofeld was creating a biological weapon. and there have been rumours the real reason the film was delayed was because the plot got too close to real world events, meaning coronavirus. Could that be the OHMSS content in this film?
What if he's not talking about the movie, but the actual Goldeneye ranch in Jamaica?
Surprisingly, this is the only Fukunaga thread I could find. Since it contains some quotes from an interview hyping the film, its not such a bad starting point.
We've discussed the plot plenty, but what did folks think of Fukunaga as a director?
Did he live up to his potential as seen in True Detective or other earlier efforts?
I remember @Number24 was quite enthused about the lengthy tracking shot in True Detective, hoping there could be something similar in the new Bond film. I didn't notice anything quite like that, but maybe because I was so immersed in the story, which is a good thing. Did anybody notice any bravura filmmaking moments to rival that shot from True Detective?
I did notice the first scenes had Hitchcock style zooms and continuous camera movement, and was thinking such shots might look better in 3D, but as I said quickly became too immersed in the story to notice technique. Did folks who saw the 3D version think it worked better?
also, in the above quote where he says " there’s a lot of YOLT, OHMSS and Goldeneye in there!" ... I think we all spotted the first two, but what was the Goldeneye inspired content?
There was a long tracking shot when Bond was fighting his way up the stairs near the ending.
I hope Fukunaga gets to direct more Bond movies. The action in NTTD gets your pulse up (unlike in SP), the movie looks beautiful and Fukunaga gets some very good acting out of the cast.
Variety has another interview of interest, this time with Fukunaga, Here's the link. I guess theyre doing a series of No Time to Die related interviews?
I'll copy and paste, just because the Variety webpage has a bunch of slowloading emdedded content. In particular Fukunaga talks a lot about locations and set design, including the villain's headquarters at the end. One of my favourite aspects of this new film is how much time we spend exploring the villain's headquarters, just the way the last act of a BondfFilm is supposed to go.
Variety said:
’No Time to Die’: Cary Joji Fukunaga on Spoilers, Billie Eilish and Crafting James Bond
By Jazz Tangcay, Jan 12, 2022
“No Time to Die” heralds Cary Joji Fukunaga’s turn at helming the 25th James Bond movie. Not only did Fukunaga shoot on film, he shot for IMAX.
Fukunaga picked his team of artisans to help keep the emotional arc of the storytelling front and center. Here he talks with Variety about the crafts of the film which dominated the BAFTA and Oscar-shortlists and could very well land a Best Picture nomination.
Tell us about Linus Sandgren and picking him as your director of photography.
What he created and what we did together was just fit together so nicely. There’s a certain feeling you get when a scene is cut together in the order in which you conceived it and shot it. We liked to shoot something where each shot had meaning and where you weren’t recovering you know, there’s different philosophies and strategies for shooting, but oftentimes, it’s not especially we like to shoot something with each shot has a meaning and not that covering a scene 10 different ways. It was about this is the first shot, and this is the order and the logic. When you’re able to see that through in the editing, it’s a very satisfying feeling.
Why did you shoot on film?
Linus and I will always, when we work together, fight to shoot on film. And it is a fight because it’s not a huge costs in comparison with digital, but it is a different initial cost to do it.
These days, everyone is concerned about saving money and digital is one way do it. Ultimately, you spend a lot of time on digital trying to make it look good. The thing about film is that it captures something in a way that instantly hits that part of our brain that sucks us into the kind of magic of filmmaking,
What about working with your production designer, Mark Tildesley, who built sets at Pinewood Studios in London, and transformed some incredible locations for the film?
He built so many sets. With so many places it seemed like they were completely integrated into the real locations that we shot. For example, Mark built that house we see in the opening scene in Pinewood on the 007 stage. He shipped it there and constructed it on this frozen lake.
Similarly, Bond’s house was designed in the Stanley Kubrick building, and it was shipped to Jamaica where a local crew constructed it.
With Matera, it’s an 8000-year-old city with a very specific color of the stone. We built this necropolis across the valley from it and had to match that stone. You see in the background, there’s the town of Matera and everything matches and feels as if it had always been there, but that cemetery didn’t exist a couple of weeks prior.
There’s even a really important Easter egg on that tomb Bond visits in Matera. Over Vesper’s grave — we never make a big deal of it, there’s no focus on it, but for anyone who goes back — two skeletons are holding up a banner carved in stone. It’s a Latin phrase that Mark and I had seen on the main basilica where the bridge is located. The phrase says, “What you are I once was, and what I am, he will become.” So it was written in the beginning.
Let’s go back to Safin’s lair and the conversations you had with Mark about ideas and influences?
We went through three different iterations of that final lair. It’s set in a disputed island chain between Russia and Japan. That is a real bit of historical circumstances. Through that mythology, we created a space that could have had some Imperial Japanese history, Soviet history, and then Spectre history all layered on top of each other. Four years ago, I did a trip to Japan, after shooting “Maniac” and went to the Benesse Art Site. Naoshima Tadao Ando is a Japanese architect. You could say his work is brutalist. I think it’s more nuanced than that, especially with his use of curves and shapes and light. What I love is the slicing of light and where light comes in and how light bounces off walls. Mark and I both gravitated towards this dizzying maze-like structure, that Bond would have to infiltrate, particularly for that final sequence.
What about working with Billie Eilish and Finneas, having her write the Bond song that stays true to the essence of Bond. What was it like hearing her song, ‘No Time to Die’ for the first time?
I heard that song for the first time when we were shooting the trawler sinking sequence. We shot it late because Daniel had hurt his leg so we had to move that to the very end, and it was one of the last set pieces we were shooting. I’d been waiting six weeks to hear what Billie and Finneas would come up with. There’s this thing where you work with people that you love what they have done, but they’re going to do something for you, and you just hope you love it as much as the other stuff they’ve done.
Barbara had the song first, and she put her phone against her ear. It was a rough demo and I remember a distinct shiver down my spine hearing it. It was brilliant and amazing. It’s a bold choice, but inside there’s a lot of Bond heritage and DNA. Finneas, in terms of music theory, is versed in it, and despite how young he is, the melody is constructed in a very John Barry way with a lot of nods there to classic Bond. So, it’s a throwback to the earlier style of Bond songs and music.
What was your approach to visual and special effects for this film?
When I first started making movies I tried to stay away from it entirely. As I’ve progressed through my projects, I have come to know the moments when we can do visual effects and have it be seamless because the last thing you want is for a sequence to feel like it’s coming from a different kind of film.
In a Bond film, where stunts are being done for real, where so much of it is tangible and on-screen, you’re much more vulnerable to VFX that somehow undermine that sense of reality that you’re trying to create. So you have to be much more, judicious in the use of it.
We were still able to use VFX to go even more places, you know, the Faroe Islands doubled for the Sakhalin Peninsula and Pinewood doubled for Cuba. But hopefully, the audience is never jarred out of that seduction and suspension of disbelief.
In this clip here, “Precious Little Angel” there’s a face-off between Bond and Safin — what went into that scene from a craft angle?
There’s a bit of like movie magic happening there, Mark built a long arching set with larger hallway and a smaller hallway. Each of those hallways, we used about five times for five different sets which we reinterpreted. For Safin’s lair, that was the inner hallway of our hallway set. We changed the way that the component spaces were separated in this case, we use the plastic you’d see hanging for oftentimes, in a meat locker. We had this interesting mix of furniture and artwork mixed.
Again, there’s contrasting elements of cold wet concrete with living room with this Monet in the background.
Having the little girl hiding there references the beginning of the film as well in terms of Madeline’s history with Safin. There’s also the emotional payoff of everyone sort of being reunited at the end of this scene.
What do you make of this Easter Egg he mentions in Vesper's tomb? I don't get the significance of it.
"what I am, he will become"
Dead.
Fukunaga mentions Benesse Art Site and the Japanese architect Naoshima Tadao Ando as inspirations for Safin's lair. I actually suggested this in January 2019 after I saw it mentioned by a member of the other place. I feel unreasonably proud of this.
Locations - suggestions, rumours and reports - Page 9 — ajb007
I think we can see the influence:
Fukunaga's next project is inheriting Kubricks' Napoleon. It'll be a miniseries produced by Spielberg for HBO. Cary fukunaga is a big player in the movie/TV world now. I still hope he'll direct Bond26 and I don't think the mini-series is big enough/the time between Bond movies is short enough for it to be a problem.
of course if he makes the miniseries at the authentic Kubrick pace itll take a decade
that is interesting though, a film/miniseries about Napoleon would have to be a vast production, big battle scenes, and all the period appropriate costuming and decor. Someone might need to build a Paris before Haussman. And thinking of that famous tracking shot in True Detective I could see why Fukunaga would be an appropriate choice to continue a Kubrick project. Like a combination of Paths of Glory and Barry Lyndon but made with 21st century technology
Well argued.
The screenplay for Kubrick's Napoleon was published by Taschen a few years ago. I own a copy, and, to be honest, the script is bland and not close to being a final draft. Why Fukunaga wants to film it is a mystery; the script will undoubtedly be heavily revised by the time filming gets underway. I'm guessing Fukunaga agreed to the project because it was so high profile and because filmmakers have a hard time resisting big subjects like Napoleon.
A bland script about Napoleon ... should be avoidable. His life was very far from bland.