Stars, director talk Atonement
British cinema can whoop with joy as Atonement is being hailed as the best British film for, well, quite a while. And as director Joe Wright, along with actors Keira Knightley and James McEvoy, wait with bated breath for those Oscar nominations to start flooding in, we found out what they had to say on the debate about the book versus the film, the sultry sex scene and that Dunkirk shot.
The bestselling and much-loved novel by Ian McEwan was always going to be a bit of a monster to try and live up to and Wright admits the task was daunting. He said: “There’s this perception that great books make bad films and bad books make great films, and I had that paranoia running around in the back of my mind.” But apparently, Wright had no choice in the matter. “When a piece of material gets its claws into me I’m at its mercy,” he said. “That’s how it was with McEwan’s spectacular novel. It just got under my skin.”
There is little doubt that Wright has made Atonement into a beautiful film, but in response to those who will argue that the book will always be somewhat superior to the film, he responds with defiance: “Literary people presume literature and the written word has a monopoly over internal truth and I personally, as a dyslexic, don’t agree with that. I think, to me, the films of Bergman and other great classical masters of the medium told just as much truth as Tolstoy and Dickens. It’s just another medium.” Well that’s that settled then.
Despite giving a brilliant performance as Robbie, McAvoy said he found his character difficult to play because he was too nice to be real. “I didn’t necessarily find him that truthful to begin with, because he was so good so wholesome and I didn’t know many people like that,” he said.
Moving on to the leading lady, Knightley — who undoubtedly gives her best performance to date — seemed to be having a ‘she’s fit, but my gosh don’t she know it’ kind of moment as she responded with a bit of a smirk to a question of how she feels about love scenes. “Its kind of my job, I’m an actress,” she said before explaining about the tools of her trade etc. No, no, no — we want the juicy stuff. Unfortunately, the best we got was: “Obviously it’s never going to be the most comfortable thing to do and particularly when your mate’s directing you and you’re thinking, oh shit.” Yes, she swore.
The specific scene in question is an important one and incredibly erotic. “What is wonderful and clever,” says Knightley, “is not showing anything. You don’t see anything and yet it’s 10 times more erotic than other love scenes when you see absolutely everything.” Clearly the porn industry has it all wrong then. But she does have a point. The scene is highly sexually charged and poignant, and the fact that there is very little flesh on view adds to the mystery which is often lacking in many other more obvious ‘love’ scenes.
One of the biggest talking points though since the first previews of the film was the incredible four-and-a-half minute steadycam shot along the beach at Dunkirk. Was it an artistic brainwave? Pure bravery? A deeply symbolic moment that just begged for something special? Well, none of the above actually — it started off as a joke, says Wright (who, while saying it didn’t all go exactly right, refused to actually reveal which bits went wrong).
“I went to Tim Bevan (co-chairman of Working Title Films) and said we need another $4 million to be able to realise the whole walk to Dunkirk sequence properly and he said ‘I wont give you a dollar over 30 (million)’ ” — at which point Wright says the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. So, he says: “One day, kind of as a joke, I came in and said hey you remember that shot we did in Pride and Prejudice with the long steadycam shot wouldn’t it be cool if we did that on the beach and everyone went haha and that amused me so I did it again.” And that’s that. This is what happens when big studios denies films money — incredibly powerful scenes on a budget(ish). Despite the fact that the joke soon turned into a serious and daunting task, the end result is a beautifully choreographed scene including thousands of extras and McAvoy weaving in and out among drunken soldiers, horses being shot and bibles being burned. All in just four takes, although admittedly on the fifth the steadycam operator collapsed — he did, after all, have to cover a mile on sand, going up and down hills and stairs and carrying, as McAvoy describes it, a small elephant.
• FEATURETTES (all in Windows Media)
Atonement | Dunkirk | McAvoy | Knightley | Wright
• CLIPS (all in Windows Media)
The Investigation | Robbie's Letter Home | A Letter For Cecelia