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or his last film, Ad Astra, writer/ director James Gray headed to outer space. For the one before that, The Lost City of Z, he headed to the Amazon jungle. For his latest drama, whose title Armageddon Time sounds like an end-days epic, the Los Angeles-based filmmaker actually headed back home to New York City, where he grew up and set his first five films, including the award-winning Little Odessa, The Yards and We Own the Night. Far from being a VFX-heavy spectacle, Armageddon Time is a semi-autobi- ographical love letter to his youth and hometown, and a humorous, tender and intensely-personal story of his childhood in Queens during the 1980s. Written and directed by Gray, it deals with such time- less themes as family bonds, the com- plexity of friendship and the generational pursuit of the American Dream. The film revolves around sixth-grader Paul Graff (Banks Repeta), a smart if distracted stu- dent with dreams of becoming an artist. While he struggles to navigate the aca- demic and social demands of school, as well as a burgeoning friendship with an equally smart, rebellious but poor black classmate Johnny (Jaylin Webb), he also has to deal with his loving but chaotic family, a middle-class Jewish clan headed by harried parents (Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong) and anchored by his grandfather (Anthony Hopkins). Gray's creative team included several regular collaborators from previous films, including director of photography Darius Khondji, production designer Happee Massee and editor Scott Morris. Here, in an exclusive interview for Post, I spoke with Gray, whose credits include Two Lovers and The Immigrant, about making the film and his love of post — especially sound. This is a big change of pace from your two most recent films. What sort of film did you set out to make? "That's an interesting question, as my thought process was different this time and I didn't set out to make a film for a specific audience, or even think about its effect on an audience. I just tried to express myself as honestly as I could about a three-month period in my life I could remember as best as I could, and let people judge it however they might. It was a very unorthodox approach, as there's no genre. I wanted to get rid of the barriers and expectations of genre, and not have to think about that stuff at all. I just wanted to make an honest film about my family and me, and make it as personal as I could." Fair to say it's semi-autobiographical, with Paul as your alter ego? "Yes, but it's not so close to the facts of my childhood. It's not a documentary. But I wrote Paul and he is all me, though he doesn't represent all of whom I am." You got an amazing cast. What did they bring to the project? "The thing about great actors like Tony Hopkins is that they're able to conjure an authentic presence in the character, and they do things that are consistent with your original idea, but it's the way they say the dialogue you wrote that brings a vitality to it that you couldn't fully imagine. They surprise you, but not just with some random thought. It's always consistent with your idea, but it's bigger and better. Even for the one day we had Jessica Chastain, who plays Maryanne Trump, and gives the school address, you get this texture and depth that the camera picks up, which you'd never con- ceived of while writing the part." The film has a great period palette. Talk about working with your DP and finding the right look. "I'd never shot a digital film before. I'd only shot 35mm, so we tested formats and in the end shot with the (Arri) Alexa 65 and vintage lenses from the '60s, and then added grain to get the right look. I wanted to shoot 35mm, but the problem is that now Kodak makes very few 35mm stocks, and most are engineered for the digital process and DI, and it's very ex- pensive to shoot 35mm. And even if you did, it's a lot of work to get the right look, as stocks don't look the same as they did 40 years ago. It's easy to forget how bad so many films looked back then. Most were flat, sort of washed out, and very low contrast-y, and Darius (Khondji), and I wanted to reproduce that look, and create a simulacrum as if this was a film from that period that you'd stumbled across. "As for the color scheme, we didn't want it to look at all like other movies. Instead, we looked at a lot of painters, and Darius zeroed in on a painting by Vermeer, "A Maid Asleep," when we went to The Met together to look for ideas. It really inspired him, and I really see that look and palette in the film now. We also looked at a lot of photographs and documentaries from the period, to get that bland look with basic top light in the school auditorium." JAMES GRAY — ARMAGEDDON TIME AVOIDING GENRE LABELS WHILE CREATING A DEEPLY- PERSONAL FEATURE F DIRECTOR'S CHAIR www.postmagazine.com 14 POST JAN/FEB 2023 BY IAIN BLAIR (L-R) DP Darius Khondji and James Gray during production.