Philip Ridley Interview For Heartless
“I’m a very particular tree and I grow very particular fruit.” Director of Heartless, Philip Ridley, recently talked to me for the wonderful people over at Film4.
As an acclaimed author, painter, photographer, screenwriter, playwright and director it comes as no surprise that Philip Ridley’s first film in fifteen years works on so many different levels. Set on the gritty streets of East London, Heartless follows Jamie (Jim Sturgess), an unsettled young man who’s deeply affected by a large birthmark on his face. Hiding from the world, he photographs it, leading him to catch on camera a group of hoodies that even David Cameron won’t be keen to hug anytime soon. I caught up with the film’s director to find out what inspired him to make Heartless.
I loved the imagery of the film – when writing the script, did you have that look in mind?
Philip Ridley: Thank you. Yeah, absolutely, the first thing for me was that the film had to be cinematic. I had been doing a lot of photography in the East End of London – I live in Bethnal Green, right in the middle of the area the film was shot – and having always said I would never go digital, it’s film or nothing, suddenly I bought a digital camera and thought ‘fucking hell what have I been waiting for? This is fantastic!’ So I did these cityscape shots of the East End of London, and what’s great about digital photography is the night photography; it works in a way film would never work. And I thought, god, that’s such a great template for a film set in the East End, so I had that in the back of my mind for a few years, and then the character of Jamie Morgan started to take shape.
I had been doing some work with kids who had been excluded through school, and I write stage plays as well, for young people in particular. I had done work with excluded children and children who suffer from bi-polar disorder, some of them slightly autistic, so it was interesting to me how all of these young people between the ages of fourteen and eighteen said the same sort of things about how they thought the world works and how they fit into that world.
How demanding was the creating the film, emotionally and physically? As a viewer it’s very intense, emotional and chaotic, it works on so many different levels.
Philip Ridley: It was very time consuming because a lot of the imagery connects; it’s like a huge Chinese puzzle, everything links together, every image and echoing image. You could almost go through every scene and say ‘well, that becomes that, where the father is born becomes the Cinderella story, back by midnight, and he has to kill the boy by midnight, the image of the butterfly in the cocoon on the television becomes the boy in the cellophane…’, so that was a fucking nightmare (laughs). That was a case of literally sitting down and working on how that can happen, and how everything is colour-coded. So yeah, there was a lot of work in that, but fun, it was great work to do, not work that was arduous, it was a great thrill.
I think because there are so many interlinking aspects of the film I’m going to have to watch the film again…
Philip Ridley: Yeah, I really think the film is made for that, which is why I’m so excited about the way it’s being released [in cinemas and on DVD in the same week]. With all films our journey with the film is both a journey and a process, we experience it first of all, but the films we feel something for, we process that experience for the rest of our lives. I think it would be great for people to see it on the big screen and just experience it, and then watch it on DVD or Blu-Ray and then maybe work it out more.
What I’ve found that has happened a lot, because it’s done quite a few film festivals, going back to when it premiered at Film4 Frightfest last year, is it seems to divide an audience very strongly, people either get it and they really like it, or they resist it and they don’t get it and they think it’s really jarring. Which is fine, but I’ve found with a lot of people that saw it the first time and thought it was very jarring and didn’t get it, was when they saw it a second time, it begins to make sense for them. Yes, it does go from genre to genre, and does deliberately have this experimental thing of playing around with the audience, but for me that’s a part of the film – it never declares what it is, you have to go on this ride: it’s a roller-coaster, then it becomes the dodgems, then it becomes this sort of sleigh ride, then it becomes something else, it’s always changing, but the experience is linked together by Jim Sturgess – that is the thing that threads the film together.
I thought the cast was great, and with a film like this you really need a great cast. When writing the film did you have any people in mind?
Philip Ridley: Not while I was writing it, but definitely when we started casting I wanted Jim; I said unless we get someone like Jim it’s not worth making the film. Jim is the best of two things, he’s a tremendous actor but he’s also a star and I felt like I needed that star quality and I need the great acting, because the narrative of the film is this different brightly coloured jewelled thread on a string that keeps on changing – you get a diamond, you get a sapphire, you get a rusty bolt, you get a blood clot, all threaded together and the string has to be REALLY strong and Jim is the string.
With the rest of the cast, I was very lucky, I got my first choice on all the actors I sent the script to, they all wanted to be a part of it. Some of the actors I had worked with before, like Luke Treadaway, who was doing a play of mine in the West End at the same time as doing the film, so we had to get him to do his scenes, then push him into a taxi quick. Ruth Sheen who plays the mother, I got my first choice, Eddie Marsan, he had to be the weapons man – there was no one else on the planet who could have played that character.
I know you’re prolific in many aspects of the arts, as a playwright, as an author, as a photographer, but do you think there is going to be such a big gap between this and your next film? I was in Year 6 when your last film came out…
Philip Ridley: Don’t tell me that! I feel like Gandalf sitting opposite you now [laughs]. We had a screening at the Prince Charles Cinema last night, and I said I had a niggling suspicion half of you weren’t even born when I made my last film. It wasn’t intended like that – as I’ve said to people before, I’m a very particular tree and I grow very particular fruit. It’s getting increasingly difficult, as that gap of time indicates, to make the kind of film that I want to make, they don’t fall into a nice neat category, they’re not easy to release, they’re films you have to come to, and it’s not easy making those kinds of films. It’s a tricky thing to do and I’m not prepared to compromise on what I’m trying to do – I’m very particular with what I do and what I think cinema is.
I’m hoping with some of the attention this is getting, it will make the next one easier and there won’t be such a big gap, because I feel there’s definitely an audience for it. I really do believe audiences are beginning to crave these sort of films – I really believe we are underestimating the audience out there endlessly by what we’re giving them. They don’t want to sit there and see Saw 20, I think they really crave a new idea, they crave something different and I feel if you give it to them, the audience will come, which is what I’m hoping anyway. Famous last words!
Check out the full interview here. <<<<<You can also found out my name if that sort of thing interests you!
Heartless is in cinemas now and out on DVD and Blu-Ray the 24th of May
