Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1443816
F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 I 4 3 Director Joe Wright's romantic musical-drama, Cyrano, re-imagines the story of the brilliant Cyrano de Bergerac who can dazzle with a word or a sword, but cannot bring himself to declare his love for his beautiful friend Roxanne, and suffers a complicated situation when she falls in love with a handsome new recruit. On December 12, after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Wright discussed the making of the film during a Q&A moderated by Director Sam Taylor-Johnson, and he revealed what advice he would pass on to fellow Director. "I've got it tattooed on my arm. It says, 'Start with the wide shot.' It's the simple things. You can get so excited about the close-ups that you shoot yourself into a corner with a close-up and then realize that the wide shot doesn't work. I still storyboard everything I do, or shot list. I was very lucky to have a brilliant first AD, Brigitte Rigby, on my first ever TV job. I was so green. I was 27 and didn't know anything about what I was doing. I'd made some short films and I'd suddenly landed this three-part drama for the BBC. In the back of a bus on the location scout she said to me, 'You do do a shot everyday don't you?' and I was like [lying] 'Oh yeah absolutely.' Now I do shot lists. I got into a habit of it and I still do them. In a way they're kind of a safety net. I don't actually have to shoot what's on the shot list, but if I don't have any better ideas on the day then I've always got the shot list there to fall back on. Then they enable me to walk onto set and with some kind of confidence." Photo: Director Joe Wright discusses his romantic musical-drama, Cyrano, with Director Sam Taylor-Johnson (moderator). Joe Wright discusses Cyrano photo by Trixie Textor Director Joel Coen's drama, The Tragedy of Macbeth, reweaves William Shakespeare's tale of the power-hungry Thane of Cawdor who sets his sights on the Scottish throne after receiving a prophecy from three witches and must deal with the aftermath of his treachery. Coen discussed the making of the film during a Q&A moderated by Director Noah Baumbach in New York on December 12, and also in a conversation moderated by Director Guillermo del Toro in Los Angeles on December 19. During the New York conversation, Coen spoke about the challenges of bringing to the modern screen a play that was written to be performed in iambic pentameter. "In one respect it is a foreign language because this is the English that was spoken 400 years ago so people can get intimidated by that. But if you just listen to the music of, it you don't need to understand everything, and it is accessible to everyone. I think this succeeds to a greater or lesser extent. The text is edited so this is only about maybe 80% of the actual words in the play. What Shakespeare does in lots of scenes is he makes a dramatic point and then he elaborates. It's in the elaboration that you can sometimes get lost in the language. So, this is a sort of version that's to some degree stripped of the elaboration. It just moves along and that hopefully gives the play a sort of propulsion that it doesn't always have on stage." Photos: Director Joel Coen with Director Noah Baumbach (moderator) in New York; and with Director Guillermo del Toro (moderator) in Los Angeles. Joel Coen discusses The Tragedy of Macbeth photo by Elisa Haber photo by Marcie Revens Director Paul Thomas Anderson's coming-of-age comedic-drama, Licorice Pizza, tells the story of Gary Valentine, a 15-year-old charismatic would be entrepreneur, who falls in love with Alana Kane, a 25-year-old yearbook photographer's assistant, and they embark on a most unlikely romance in the early 1970s. On December 19, after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Anderson discussed the making of the film during a Q&A moderated by Director Jeremy Kagan, during which he revealed how removing dialogue can empower a scene. "There's a certain point when you realize the most exciting scenes are when people aren't talking. There's something so elemental about it. It's not about the words, something's happening in the scene that they can play. There's a scene [in Licorice Pizza] when they're running away after he gets arrested, that used to be about a three-page dialogue scene. As they're running, they had this whole conversation. The writing was okay, and the acting was good, but it was clearly not what you wanted to do, stop and have a conversation. I remember, in the bag of tricks that you accumulate over the years, you say, 'just do the scene but don't say any of the words.' In other words, it's making a silent movie. And then you just emerge with this beautiful running shot where they're just enjoying each other's company. So any time there's a chance to take dialogue out or to be simple or quiet is an opportunity to seize on." Photo: Director Paul Thomas Anderson discusses the making of Licorice Pizza during a Q&A with Director Jeremy Kagan (moderator). Paul Thomas Anderson discusses Licorice Pizza photo by Elisa Haber Q&As listed in alphabetical order. See more detailed descriptions, additional photo and podcasts online at www.dga.org. DGA Membership Screening Q&As