Festivals - SBIFF 2022 : Outstanding Directors Award Group Discussion & Awards Presentation

By Mulder, Santa Barbara, Théâtre Arlington, 04 march 2022

"The heart and soul of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival has always been the camaraderie and conversation emanating from its panels. After two years of virtual dialogues, it will definitely be thrilling and exhilarating to be in a room listening live to all of this incredible talent," remarked SBIFF’s Executive Director Roger Durling.

Paul Thomas Anderson (Licorice pizza), Kenneth Branagh (Belfast) had received the 2022 Outstanding Directors of the Year Award sponsored by The Hollywood Reporter at an in-person conversation about their respective films. Following one on one conversations, all the honorees will join in a panel discussion. The event had taken place on Thursday, March 3rd at the historic Arlington Theatre, and will be moderated by Scott Feinberg.

Q : i would not like to thank my dog for barking in the background nor my internet service provider that was quite bad the zoom but on a brighter note let's welcome back to the stage Kenneth Branagh and Paul Thomas Anderson . You guys are certainly familiar with directors’ chairs but these are quite nice i think don't you 

Kenneth Branagh : very hairy these are.

Q :  first of all thank you again for being here to do this this is a treat to get to pick both of your brains together now. Both of your films obviously deal with a place and a time in which you grew up and i want to ask you what it was like maybe just compare notes a bit to you know emotionally to go back there for a film. Paul leads us up 

Kenneth Branagh : It was necessary it was. What it was in my case i just felt it was necessary I just felt like i was running away from something i didn't really i wanted to felt as though when I eft Belfast it's interesting that have this happened to you to you whether you had James alluding there to a an introspective moment because of illness i think that i became a reader when i left Belfast from that big communal scenario we were a small nuclear family and we and we and then i got bullied at school and I basically stayed in so by the time i got to 15 my parents would say to me why do you never bring any friends around have you got any friends. Well i did but I kept it very arm's length and it was basically i'd come in and i'd go to my room and i would read and that was so i reckon that really i don't know if you had a moment like that where a sort of real sense of a creativity of a particular kind forming but to answer your question it was necessary and it was illuminating sort of humbling and I felt as though it was going back to sort of shake hands with myself but on the way many other people's stories reminded me which was the reason i was doing this and the meaning of that quiet time in my early adolescence was that i understood that meaning of the phrase we read to know that we are not alone and that's kind of why i made the film as well.

Paul Thomas Anderson : i went to it with such joy to go back to this time and maybe because i have four children you see what they're going through and you can't help but sort of compare or you know try to in an effort to relate to them it keeps it gets you asking a lot of questions about where you were at that time because all you're trying to do is be there and empathize with those feelings that they're going through so it leads you back whether you want to or not to that that time and that as a time probably more than anything was a time without all the technology that we have now and oddly just became more cinematic to have mystery a certain mystery that we don't have any more or certainly that our kids don't have any more that was on my mind 

Q : logistically going back to these periods what was the hardest thing to kind of hide or get rid of  for you Paul lead us off ?

Paul Thomas Anderson : You know luckily the place where i live and the place where we shot hasn't changed that much which is great. You know the odd street sign here and there crosswalks aren't as sexy as they used to be they're a lot more complicated they used to just be like you'd be lucky to get across the street now there's a lot more warnings that there's a crosswalk simple things like that but luckily I live in a place that is you know for better or for worse has kind of remained more or less the same yeah 

Q : Ken i know the street itself was not somewhere where you were going to be able to do this right now  ?

Kenneth Branagh : The half of the street that the street's still there but the half we were in was torn down but we did go back and we went ,we got city bikes and we went on a scout so we did our scouts quite a small i'd call it a sort of village city but we went to all the real places but covid i wanted to find an equivalent street in north Belfast and shoot there but covid meant that some of what we'd have to do which was the practical stuff was taking down satellite dishes and things like that but then we were actually going to necessarily have to move some families for a short time and covid did not permit this this was a became it was just it was a government legislation said it couldn't happen so we ended up building ours to our street on the end of a an airport runway the airport wasn't there weren't many planes flying so we could record dialogue bizarrely enough and then we could more specifically tailor the way we provided, the way we built the set to deal with the idea of shooting it a lot from the physical height of the nine-year-old boy so and in a way you always rationalize everything it goes the way it goes it was going to be a location shoot and then it was a built scenario but i found myself thinking well we're going through it's 50 years ago through the nine-year-old boy's mind and it's a nine-year-old who loves movies so let's start with the sort of magic of movies building a street that that is kind of a street from his my half a century ago's head  

Q : so you also we started to talk about this with Paul when he was on stage earlier that you know the leads of his film and your film are people who have not they're first of all quite young really young for Jude Hill as was how old when he played Buddy 

Paul Thomas Anderson :  : he just turned 10. just learned 10.

Q :  Had never been in a movie before. i believe Cooper and Alana what are the we again we started to get into this with Paul but the greatest challenges and rewards of having somebody who has no experience

Paul Thomas Anderson :  you know what i'm remembering right now i remembering John Riley is a great friend of mine and he was making a movie called the river wild and Meryl Streep was in it and Kevin Bacon but Joseph Mazzello was in it and he said it was unbearable how good he was because there was nowhere to hide it was like you know when you're working with Meryl Streep it's Meryl Streep but you know you're fighting hand-to-hand combat and you're excited by it but here was his 10 year old Joe Mazzello who's also in Jurassic park he said it was just like there was nowhere to hide it was the most incredible experience acting across from him because of this truthfulness and his openness. I just flashed on that .

Q : i know you were saying you really found that with Alana that some of the things that even just you know good luck finding very many actresses who are willing to go without makeup and stuff like that 

Paul Thomas Anderson :  For sure but that's but i'm sure any young actor is get like Kieran Hines has that soulfulness and i work with Karen too but you can imagine like you're everyone's always reacting you're reacting to what's in front of you and everyone gets excited by the kind of energy that's happening so the energy is always going to be led by that 10 year old you know they're because they're the freshest from the source everyone's probably more desperate to sort of you know be connected to them.

Q :  Ken in the case of Jude, there was a brief period where you had to go over some basic ground rules of making movies right 

Kenneth Branagh : well he did he kept looking at the camera for the first couple of days it would be a sneaky one always be a sneaky Pete look but he would do it just at the end you just flick his eyes and i said well you can't you can't do that it was just at the end it was just at the end i said that we might but that might have been like the best bit so you can't do that but it was mainly i realized i thought that it would be a smart thing to start for a day or two with mainly things with just him but in fact he really needed what you're talking about he needed the interaction and you're absolutely right that the Kieran who you know is wonderful in your wonderful film but said that it Jude stops what we call the schmackting so there's acting and then you very quickly you can get the schmackting if you're not careful and but you know, it's like another actor late great Ian Holm I remember working with him and trying to see what was going on and the phrase came into my head anything i can do he can do less of and this kid by this kid, he's a lovely young man, Jude, was had that and clearly at least to us in your a beautiful film was there was just the capacity for those actors to listen in that clip we saw earlier on when he leans over it's such a full non-acted piece of concern and these i think these are sometimes the hardest things to do yeah man runs through night to person he's concerned about that's when the schmackthing can kick in. Suddenly I remember getting a note from that from a director once a very smart director was walking down a hillside doing a scene with the with the rosemary Harris and he stopped me sitting and he was so annoyed and disappointed in me i just remember that look i don't know if you do this to actors it's a terrible thing to see in your director he just looked oh Christ he just said he said what are you doing that's what i mean i said but i'm walking said you're not walking you do walking and then you're doing his other thing as well you're doing acting walking so i didn't realize that he said no of course you didn't realize that's why it's bad so we'll have to do it again 

Paul Thomas Anderson : but that's good directing

Kenneth Branagh :  it is good and it didn't take much longer than that and it was like you know. i tried not to act.

Q : well so you both were dealing with something that i believe this was the first film where you were dealing with this and hopefully there won't be many more under these circumstances but obviously in the middle of a pandemic how it's going to affect certain things you  started to talk about that a moment ago Ken and i just wonder what did you find to be the most tricky part of doing that and we could start with you Paul i mean obviously it's not ideal.

Paul Thomas Anderson : no but the land of unintended consequences was that there was and such a you know we shouldn't have been doing it we had to do it you know and that's what made it wonderful so you felt like you were making a movie in a lifeboat and it gave us all something to do when we desperately needed it and we needed each other and then there yeah there were no for sure there were moments when you looked around and you thought wait why the are we doing this in the middle of a pandemic is this worth dying for maybe it is i guess it is let's just keep going but nobody go out on the weekend just don't go around on the weekend 

Kenneth Branagh :  we are i guess the sweatiest moment every day i don't know if you did this we tested everybody every day and it was just that the next morning when all the results came in and you were just hoping that nobody got ill and if they got ill they weren't and that it because it felt like the dominoes would just go just tumbling down and then you then it was a sort of ritual i mean a side effect that I thought was helpful and like you we felt very lucky we felt, very precious it felt very quiet it felt very there was a sort of relish for what we were doing sense of the privilege of what we were doing and then really just a literal quiet at the center of things that that sometimes the usual well-intended chaos can remove 

Paul Thomas Anderson : completely 

Q : you bot,  your films were both premier both unveiled exclusively theatrically at a time when that's becoming increasingly rare and in fact Paul yours was in 70 millimeter i know at the village where and a lot of other people that was the place you could see it for several weeks and Ken i think with death on the Nile that's been an option for people as well your other recent film and I guess i just wonder why is it still and i'm not i'm asking this to tee it up for you guys why is the theatrical experience so important still and worth fighting for and what is your what is your outlook for its future.

Paul Thomas Anderson : i mean well it's better than your phone you know, like movies now more than ever you know now than like in the player i mean by the way i'm always drafting off Sir Kenneth here as well because he was doing 70 millimeter long before Chris Donner and i discovered it so it was you know that thrill it's the thrill of why i guess while we're all sitting here right now you know it's the thrill that's unbeatable we all know that it's worth preserving. I don't know what to add to it other than we all know i mean you'd only come here tonight if you knew you know if you know you know well is the best  

Kenneth Branagh :  mean i go. I mean we go we go to the pictures all the time so it's a similar. I love it for you know surprising reactions people laugh when you don't you wonder what that is or you have your own five act drama about the guy who's munching his popcorn like a at a level that you think isn't possible for the human ear you know and meantime i'm nudging Lindsay my mrs about don't not allow not in a quiet bit you know so your heart all of that is fun and you don't do it here but i like i like ice cream and i eat ice cream at the movies and this is a so for me that in the dark trailers playing bloody marvelous. It's just great and then you see this on 70 mil. It's like i have really been taken out of myself I really have it becomes meditative the brain disengages with all the other things that you might be beating yourself up about or that aren't helpful so for me uh it's as wonderful as it was when i was sitting back in a in a cinema in Belfast 50 years ago

Q   last two things for me and then we'll free you guys  t is obviously not your first rodeo at this time of year going through you know being nominated and being part of this season i wonder if we gave you truth serum what is the best and the worst part of of all of this ?

Paul Thomas Anderson : well the best part is probably all the gift bags and stuff like that that you get a lot of good soaps and hand sanitizers and like that you know candles and the worst part is just how short it is you know i wish it would just go on forever. It sure beats an editing room you know it meets me I's actually that's all like you know fashionable to complain about it but come on it's great you know.

Kenneth Branagh :  Well the best thing is left and i'm not just saying this because you're sitting here this is a master filmmaker i've not met him before it's a great thrill to be in his company hear him talking and you know this is what you were saying i could see the light in your eyes when you're having just heard Spielberg i felt the same way hearing Jane Campbell hearing yourself talk. it's a that's a big thrill to just also you're hearing other people who are dealing with some of the things you're dealing with you get very inspired it's very nice and there's no listen there's no worse part because you it takes it's a miracle that any film gets made anywhere anytime at any level any price if you then have the miracle that is anybody's bothered to go and see it which this season helps ensure you know we bite your arm off for sure.

Q : well last thing i'm going to ask since you are both certified movie lovers and viewers yourselves seeing a lot of stuff including other films this season. Can you recommend to viewers one other great film that's been out the sheet this in the last year that they might not have bothered to check out yet but that you really get behind

Paul Thomas Anderson : oh, i would like to bring everyone's attention to the most fantastic film from Norway called The Worst person in the world Te worst person in the world which is like a miracle that we should all kind of cherish that exists it's a fantastic film with incredible performance at the center of it that's one that i would say.

Kenneth Branagh :  I would say this has been at least in my humble opinion it's been a great year for films and i have i have not seen a bad film and i've seen the ones we're all lucky enough to be in the company of in the conversation that's going on are all you know really fantastic we like going to see horror films if you haven't seen it i mean this sincerely Candyman 2 is really excellent very well put together so hard to do people oh it's a horror film it's easy daddy to keep it all tense for a while scare them about 70 minutes in and you know have a monster it's really well done beautifully acted very suspenseful really good hard to do that with a sequel all sorts of things that make it shouldn't be as good as it is terrific so for what it's worth. i really enjoyed that well

Q : thank you both so much for this and it is now my treat to turn this over to the executive director of the Santa Barbara international film festival Roger Darling

Roger Darling  : hello everybody i cannot help to think about Agatha christie's and then there were none some sort of cinematic version the fact that we're supposed to have five directors and now we only have two. Don't get any ideas ken or maybe it might make a fun movie. Thank you scott you're tremendous. Thank you for doing this and also you know i had done remarks for Jane and Ryusuke and Spielberg but they're not here so i'm not gonna bore you all with my remarks i'm gonna focus on the two gents that that remain in the room. Ken, Sir,you're an extraordinaire director 've admired and known your work on stage for a very long time and you know you've directed before you know Henry V and got nominated for best director and best actor in in your stage productions that i have seen have always blown me away and i feel that no contemporary actor or director understands Shakespeare the way that Kenneth Branagh does and yet he threw me a curveball this the way he's done this most loving sweet memory film about a family torn apart by war it's a sign of a lasting film that when i first saw it at Telluride i thought it was an allegory about Covid and how life can be quickly be interrupted by tragedy and then two weeks ago when Putin destroyed the peace in Ukraine i couldn't think, i couldn't help to think of your work and how a personal work of love resonates Sir can you open your heart with this film and thank you so much for what you've done. Paul Thomas Anderson might you be America's greatest filmmaker   would argue that yes you are since i saw Hard Eight (1996), your first film. You've been the real thing a master filmmaker such a craft man so freaking knowledgeable about film from you know understanding Robert Altman and Polanski you know how to put a film together and push the boundaries of what film can ultimately be but what i adore about Licorice Pizza is that all the cinematic flair and Brussel dazzle is there but your heart is beating loud in this film the romantic in you has bubbled up to the surface and oh joy we're well the better for it and is there any doubt in my mind that the best is yet to come for the two of you  yeah the best is yet to come for the two of you and we're we you know we're the best for it so it is my honor to give you the outstanding directors of the year to the two of you.

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Photos : Floriane Andersen for Mulderville
Transcription and traduction : Boris Colletier for Mulderville