James Grey: A Conversation

[lounge music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [Narrator] On Story is brought to you in part by the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation, a Texas family providing innovative funding since 1979.

"On Story" is also brought to you in part by the Bogle Family Vineyards, six generation farmers and third generation winemakers based in Clarksburg, California.

Makers of sustainably grown wines that are a reflection of the their family values since 1968.

[waves] [kids screaming] [wind] [witch cackling] [sirens wail] [gunshots] [dripping] [suspenseful music] [telegraph beeping, typing] [piano gliss] From Austin Film Festival, this is "On Story."

A look inside the creative process from today's leading writers, creators, and filmmakers.

This week on "On Story," award-winning writer director of "Armageddon Time," James Gray.

- This degree of personal filmmaking that you're talking about, it's not quite the same as autobiographical.

Autobiographical means I've recounted the facts of the case.

Personal means you're putting yourself into it and remaining vulnerable.

And that is the work of the artist.

Not to be autobiographical, but to be personal.

[paper crumples] [typing] [carriage returns, ding] [Narrator] In this episode, writer director James Gray discusses the evolution of his creative process and career, starting from his first feature film, "Little Odessa," to his newest film "Armageddon Time" inspired by his childhood.

Gray expands on how he translated his personal experience into a story with broad audience appeal.

[typewriter dings] - I was just so floored at the end of the film, because I think the impact of the story that you are telling in there really hit me, because it's a lot of the things I'm thinking about all the time right now, you know?

So I would really love to hear what spurred that idea for the film for you.

- The simple answer is I went back to the house where I grew up.

I hadn't been there in 30 years.

I took my children there, they wanted to go see it.

I was fond of telling them bedtime stories.

I said this last night, I don't do it anymore, because now they're all teenagers, but they loved them when they were actually of the right age and they were always truthful, the stories.

And mostly I would try to end them with a happy ending or some kind of, not a happy ending, but some kind of moral or ethical teaching if I could.

And I realized this story didn't have that kind of answer or ending.

I wanted to go back home with a bit of distance and say the people in this movie are all ghosts.

You know, they're all gone now.

- There's a couple of moments in this film that surprised me because I feel like people are writing very personal stories, but sometimes it's difficult for them to distance themselves enough from that story.

And it was the two scenes in the car with the father where you're trying to really figure out the father.

And so that was a distance to me that seemed really evident.

You know, like not judgmental.

- What you're getting at is one of the most important things for me, if I use this nasty term art.

You have to be like a complete raging narcissist to actually want to make a film and to get it made.

And that's true.

I'm certainly that.

And then the trick is though, the minute you start working, you have to forget it.

This degree of personal filmmaking that you're talking about, it's not quite the same as autobiographical.

Autobiographical means I've recounted the facts of the case.

Personal means you're putting yourself into it and remaining vulnerable.

And that is the work of the artist.

Not to be autobiographical, but to be personal.

[typewriter dings] - So that makes me think about "Little Odessa," was early in your career.

[seagulls squawking] - I wanna come home and see Ma.

- They think you're dead.

What'd you do?

- Did some things.

- There's a lot of rumors.

- Biggest killer in the world's a rumor.

Brooklyn should be called "Rumors."

How you doing, you okay?

- Mm hmm.

- We'll do something this week.

Hey, let's go.

Go home now.

[bicycle clacks] I'll race you!

- I remember in film school, I was a totally contemptible pompous [bleep].

Twenty-three years old, "Oh, I'm so great."

Vanessa Redgrave, Tim Roth, great, great, great, great, keyword word there is great, and then March 4th, 1994 happened.

And that was the day I went to the editing room to watch the assembly.

And it was the worst thing I ever saw in my life.

And all of a sudden all of that [bleep] ego that I had built up just totally crashed.

And you realize... this is really hard to do.

Rigor and craft and all of these things that go into storytelling do matter immensely.

You realize that it is always a fight for clarity and for emotional impact.

- Are you gonna say anything?

You're a big man, is that it?

You're a big man?

- I don't need a gun to be a man.

[snow sloshes] [dramatic music] I don't know what made you what you are.

All I ask you is to leave Ruben alone.

Please.

Even you must know there's nowhere you can't go anymore.

You have destroyed us.

You have destroyed our family.

Joshua?

Joshua?

- I walk into one of your movies, and I know I'm gonna be emotionally engaged from start to finish, and I'd really like to hear about some of the things that are common in all your films.

Family, certainly.

Duty.

You have this respect for history, encouragement of looking at it through whatever lens.

Are these things you think about regularly or is it just so part of you?

- I think as Americans, we have an excellent tendency in some ways to try to erase or forget history.

So I find that it's very important to examine it, because there are certain myths and cruelties that it's our job to uncover, unearth, dispel, explore.

The idea of family also, it's the central, unifying principle, or the only one we have as a species that forms the core of our emotional life, like who we are.

Our family relationships are governed by such a complexity really from birth.

And our relationships are almost necessarily fraught and demand unpacking.

So I think it's ripe for drama.

My own obsession started with my relationship with my brother and my father and my mother.

They were nuts, and I was nuts, and the situation was insane.

So I wanted to explore it.

- And I think one of the my favorites of that exploration is "We Own the Night."

- And it's funny, that movie was hated when it came out.

- Oh, I loved it.

And I think that one of the things I really loved about it was the relationship of the dad, and clearly also trying to get his father's approval.

And it was something that is the crux of so much, you know, of parental approval.

And I thought that was more what the story was about.

It was the rest of it was just the box you put it in.

[dramatic music] - Morning, chief!

♪ ♪ - Ready to go home?

You have a home.

♪ ♪ Your brother wanted me to let you out.

If it'd be up to me, I'll let you stay here another couple of days or a week, maybe a month.

- Well, would you thank him?

- Disgusting.

[man laughs] You're uncontrollable, you know?

Give him a bat.

Try to wrap you one.

[keys jangling] - So genre is almost always the excuse by which we tell another story.

You know, that's the idea of exploring the subtext of value to us.

In the case of that film, I was trying to do a genre interpretation, if you will, as pretentious as that sounds, of "Henry IV," parts one and two, that you had, once I say this, it's quite obvious that there's Prince Hal would be Joaquin and Hotspur would be Mark Wahlberg and Bolingbroke would be Bobby Duval, and so I was just trying to do that, 'cause the Shakespearean histories are great for cinema.

"Henry IV," Shakespeare, he's got the thing where Prince Hal is finally the king, isn't that glorious, and his buddy Falstaff comes up to him and basically says a version of, "Now that you're the king, we're really gonna have a chance to party."

And he looks at his friend, who he's loved throughout these plays and he looks at him, he says, "I know thee not, old man," and Falstaff is devastated, but he's the king.

So it's both.

In the end of the "Godfather," he lies to his wife, he's killed all those people, he's a terrible guy.

But what happens?

He gets his hand kissed.

He's the king, you're in awe of him.

It's both, it's incredible.

So that's what I was trying to do in that film to try and introduce kind of history in the family.

You know, you aim for the stars and sometimes you hit Hoboken, you know what I mean?

- The one that I wanna talk about now, is again "Armageddon Time."

Going back to what was in "We Own the Night," I mean, he's really looking for approval from his parents and obviously from his grandfather, and I'm particularly interested in the relationship you set up with him and his grandfather, because that's a sacred relationship... with your grandparents.

- Can you sing the funny song?

[Grandfather] Which one is that?

- The one that goes mares eat oats.

And, I forgot, but you sung it to me once.

What is it called?

- It's called "Mares eat oats and does"-- ♪ Mares eats oats and does eat oats ♪ ♪ and little lambs eat ivy ♪ ♪ A kid'll eat ivy, too, wouldn't you?

♪ Hey, lady!

[boy laughs] - I've had people say to me about the film that, oh that's, you know, the grandfather's like a saint and how beautiful it is.

And my attitude was, I know you didn't say that, but my attitude is that the grandfather does something quite damaging to the kid.

There's a level of cognitive dissonance that he gives to the boy, in one scene basically saying your name is Graph.

That's a better name, you can fit in.

Play the game.

The game is rigged, we're gonna play it.

We're gonna try and get you in.

And then the next scene he says, basically be a good guy.

Tries to give him some moral lesson.

But the moral lesson is tempered by the fact that he's told the kid fit in.

And so when the, he says, "What did you do when they said that awful stuff about your friend?"

He says, he says, "Nothing, of course," with a smile.

Because that's what he thought the grandfather told him basically to do earlier.

- Yeah, okay.

And, uh, what'd you do when that happens?

Come on, tell me.

- Obviously nothing, of course.

- Nothing, of course, yeah.

You think that's funny?

You think that's smart?

I'll tell you what I think.

I think that's a crock of old horse [bleep].

I said the bad words.

You got problem with that?

Tough.

- And that cognitive dissonance is terrifying and brutal for a child.

It's why children are not born with a complete understanding of the world, with an understanding of what is ethically or morally correct.

That's a struggle.

A constant struggle.

[typewriter dings] - One of the things that I think you explore a lot in your films is failure.

And I see that a lot in your characters and then them wrestling with their failure.

- You're absolutely right.

[Barbara] Yeah, and about the choices before failure.

- I think failure is more interesting than success.

Success, who cares?

Person wins.

Great, congratulations.

You're on a Wheaties box.

Failure's about who we are, because failure often speaks to some measure of ambition.

People are doing things that are self-destructive all the time.

So trying to unearth the reasons for that, that's fascinating.

That's to me what the artist's job is.

[typewriter dings] - There's so much heart in all your writing.

Do you approach your scripts in any way that is structural?

- The script is everything.

It's everything.

So I think structure and craft in writing is 99% of it.

And I'm very dogmatic about it.

I think outlines are critical.

First process in the outline is you start making lists.

You just start writing lists of scenes that come to your mind and you start seeing some kind of connective tissue and usually you do, because your unconscious is working on those connections.

But, I kept thinking of the same idea thematically.

You're making a movie essentially, in that case, it's about the levels and the structures of what we call right now white privilege, and everything has to be filtered through this idea.

Every scene has to contribute in some way to this idea of privilege.

That was my filter for trying to get rid of things and to only focus on the moments that contributed to that idea.

I think that part of art is craft.

I think you have to be, my dream is to be such a good craftsman that it transcends craft.

Yesterday or maybe it was two days ago, they released this new deluxe-o version of the Beatles album "Revolver."

And you hear the song "Yellow Submarine," which I'm sure most of you know.

♪ We all live ♪ You know, the kid's song which Ringo Star is singing and it feels very fun.

And you hear the very first version, which is John Lennon and his guitar.

And it's a like a plaintiff lament.

It feels almost like something Dylan would've written.

And you realize the craft of those guys that they kept working and working and working and working and working.

It's take 96 on the record.

They didn't just throw something out there.

My point being that it's a collaborative effort even in as a solo effort, it's a collaborative effort, and this idea of genius and just having inspiration, it's not really true.

You work at it, you work it, you work at it, and eventually maybe it becomes something.

- Okay, we're gonna ask you a question about "Lost City of Z."

So that's an adaptation.

And why did you stray?

[dramatic orchestral music] ♪ ♪ - In that story, what I thought was great was the white European feeling of superiority over the indigenous peoples of South America which I thought was so fascinating and how there was such a desire to assert that superiority that they would not literally seeing what was right under their feet, right?

They would step on pottery that was 10,000 years old and they'd say, "Oh, I wonder how did that go there?

Don't worry about that!"

I found that fascinating for a movie.

And whether I wrote that or not, it didn't matter.

I would love to do more adaptations.

And I had an incredible time making that film.

Now it damn near killed me.

The jungle doesn't want you there.

- Are we close?

- I remember we had some of the indigenous people come help us with the shoot.

We didn't, I mean I, we offered of course to pay them.

They didn't ask for money, they asked for help with irrigation, and it was one of the most thrilling experiences of my life.

But it was mostly driven, I said, I'm saying mostly driven by this idea of the imperialism of the English and, and frankly also the Spanish, in that conquistador period and the devastation they brought to Central and South America, that motivated my goal on the film.

- Then you go into "Ad Astra" from there, which are different in a sense.

I mean it's still family, very much a part of "Ad Astra."

But different in the sense that they're not your usual streets of New York- [indistinct radio chatter] [Astronaut] Space, I understand.

Control A, visual on the arm, over.

[Control] Affirmative major, proceed.

[Astronaut] Copy that.

Moving to the unit now.

[distant clanking sound] [fluttering noise] [explosions] Control, I'm seeing a power surge on C-post.

You're getting that?

[Control] Roger that, Roy.

[Astronaut] Control, we got a lot of people up there, over.

[Control] Stand by, we're working- [muffled explosions sounding] [Second Astronaut] Control, they're happening everywhere!

[metal creaking] [explosions] [screaming] - Well, that was a devastating experience for me, "Ad Astra" because I had thought after the rigors of the jungle that I would go to space, that it would be easier somehow.

The technical apparatus is such a wall between you and the emotion of the scene, and to always to deal with this idea of no gravity, and I had started out wanting to make the most realistic, whatever that means, depiction of space travel.

And then I lost interest in doing that, because you realize that that A, doesn't mean anything.

And B, the picture was kind of a fable.

I was trying to do the Odyssey from Telemachus' point of view, that what would happen if, you know, you long for your father who had been gone for all this time.

And that was a very worthy thing to pursue.

And I loved putting Applebee's on the moon and all of that.

But it was so, I mean I spent so much time in the edit looking at version 103, you know, and giving them notes about the movement of a robot arm or whatever it was, and after a while I just realized, this is not what movies are, at least not for me.

Movies for me are like what it means to be a person in the world that struggle to be a person, and it's like your dream.

And to get closer to the emotion, break down that wall between you and the actor, you and the film, director and character, all these things, and all that apparatus did was create the wall.

Plus it's not my cut of the movie finally that got released in theaters, and that was devastating to me, and I didn't want to ever go through that again.

- That Ukrainian piece that runs through a lot of your films, is that just something that you grew up with people around you who are from, you know the immigrant part of your family?

- The area that my family is from, Ostapol I think is the pronunciation, which is in Ukraine, was at first continually attacked by the Cossacks, the Czars troops, a series of pogroms, and then later was leveled by the Einsatzgruppen, which was Hitler's forces when they invaded Russia.

Now it is simply apparently a Jewish cemetery.

There's no city left, no town left, no nothing.

And that's very powerful for me, because the idea was always, you don't have to experience trauma firsthand to feel it anyway in the house.

And it stays with you for generations and generations and generations.

- She was born and raised in a small town called Ostapol in the Ukraine, and her parents had a store there in the main street, a little shop, but there were troops of soldiers in the garrison who were drunk and Cossacks who were crazy, always were, and sometimes they'd go out looking for Jews.

They said, "We're looking for the Jews."

And one night they rode into the town and they broke into her parent's door and they stabbed both of them for no reason, just stabbed both of 'em to death right there in front of my mama.

And she was a young girl, she was 15, 16.

She told me she had nightmares about it as long as she lived.

She said she'd never ever forget the past, because you never know when they may come looking for you.

And she, she was right.

Yeah.

- So in this film, Anthony Hopkins tells the story to the kid.

It was my way of saying, trying to say, the grandfather didn't even experience it firsthand, but now he's handing it on to the kid.

So yes, it figures prominently in the films, 'cause it's was figured prominently in my life.

[typewriter dings] [Narrator] You've been watching James Gray, a conversation on "On Story."

On Story is part of a growing number of programs in Austin Film Festival's On Story project that also includes the "On Story" radio program, podcast, book series, and the "On Story" archive accessible through the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University.

To find out more about On Story and Austin Film Festival, visit onstory.tv or austinfilmfestival.com.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [projector clicking] [typing] [typewriter ding] [projector dies]