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| Anderson with Pompeii stars Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Kit Harington |
Izay: Aside from the disaster elements of
the story, it’s actually a fairly traditional sword-and-sandal epic, complete
with a number of fairly bad-ass gladiator sequences. I’m curious to know what
some of your inspirations were for this portion of the film were.
Anderson: We obviously
looked at a lot of the classics; we looked at Ben Hur, we looked at El Cid,
we looked at Gladiator, obviously. Gladiator we looked at more to try and
stay away from what they had done, because I felt it was one thing to reach
back into the history of cinema and be influenced by Ben Hur, for example, and the chariot race. But we didn’t
want to feel like we were taking from Gladiator,
especially since we have gladiators in the film. So we were trying as much as
possible to not tread Gladiator
territory even though we had people who had the same profession in the movie.
But definitely Ben Hur was a huge
influence on this; the Charlton Heston version. The chariot race was influenced by this, of course, but it was a completely different way of filmmaking.
They built everything. When you look at the photographs of the set, it’s
staggering how huge the construction was and how many tens of thousands of
extras they had. It’s the same thing when you look at Cleopatra and movies like that. The great thing about all those old
movies is that everything was real. They didn’t have to try hard to make them
look real; they just were, because they had unbelievably large sets and
unbelievably large amounts of extras. And our approach was to try and do that,
but do it with the help of visual effects. But to make the visual effects as
close to real as possible, so that it felt like you were immersed in a real
ancient world rather than looking at a bunch of visual effects.
Izay: With the action especially, it felt very
intentional what you showed, so that it feels like there was little extraneous
material.
Anderson: We did a lot
of preplanning on all of the action scenes. Kit and Adewale, virtually
everything in the movie is them rather than stunt doubles. They gave me
everything and trained very hard for those specific scenes, so it was very
precisely done. You are right; there was little that was left on the cutting
room floor. It was very exact and planned and executed. A lot of period movies
they do battle scenes and the director throws fifteen cameras in there and
films it and the sequence is assembled in the edit with a lot of fast cuts, and
lots of grabs, bits and pieces. Our approach was to do something more precise,
because I thought it would immerse the audience more. And also be really
impressive to see Kit Harington do all of this stuff and know it was really him
doing it.
Izay: If you had the chance, is there
anything you would have done bigger, with a larger scope that wasn’t possible
but you wish you could have done?
Anderson: The movie’s
pretty big. It’s got a lot of really big stuff in it. You know, there was a
sequence that was cut from the script, where we spent more time with the young
boy in Britannia that eventually grows up to be Milo,
the Kit Harington character. That was kind of interesting stuff, and we cut it
because ultimately, the feeling was, in the final edit we’ll want to get the
movie going and we’ll want the little boy to grow up to be Kit. So if we shoot
this stuff, there’s a great danger that it just won’t end up in the movie. But
it’s all set in Northern Britannia, which is of course, where I grew up. So,
for purely selfish reasons, I would have loved to have shot more and immerse
the audience more in that locale before we shifted to Italy and Pompeii.
But that’s really the only thing that I wish that I’d been able to shoot. And
like I said, that kind of thing would have only ended up in a director’s cut of
the movie. I think in the theatrical version in order to speed the movie along,
it probably would have hit the cutting room floor. So, I think we did the right
thing by not shooting it.
Izay: Speaking of director’s cuts, since
you brought it up. Quite a few of your films have had rumors of a director’s
cut. And I know many fans would be eager to know if there are any plans of
releasing any in the future, in particular Event
Horizon.
Anderson: I think
that’s the only one of my movies that I felt there was a lot of material left
on the cutting room floor, and it could have been assembled in a different
fashion. But we did a special edition of it a few years ago, and that really
contained everything. Paramount
approached us because the movie had become a big cult hit and they’d sold a lot
of DVDs of it, and so they said “Do you want to go back in and do a director’s
cut?” And ultimately when we looked at the material, there just wasn’t enough
of the material left. It hadn’t been stored particularly well, because you have
to remember that Event Horizon was
made in the days before DVD and in the days before there was really a great
need for all of this additional material. Director’s cuts were unusual at that
point. All of these behind-the-scenes things that people have gotten used to
now didn’t really exist. So, when you finish the movie, the stuff was put in
the vault and forgotten about, and unfortunately when we came back, the
material just wasn’t there anymore. So really that special edition we did with
a lot of deleted scenes, that’s probably the most there will ever be of Event Horizon. Unless somebody discovers
something in a vault in Philadelphia,
or something at some point. It happened with Escape From New York; somebody discovered a whole chunk of the
movie in storage somewhere and they did a special edition of it. But as far as
I know we’ve put as much into the movie… and it wasn’t worth doing a director’s
cut because the material didn’t cut in particularly well. A lot of it was kind
of low quality, the way it had been stored and the film itself, so it would
have been distracting to cut it into the movie. So we just did it as a whole
series of deleted/extended scenes.
Izay: I would love to ask about your use
of 3D, but I feel like I have to use my last question to ask about Resident Evil 6, to see if there is
anything you can hint at for fans to look forward to.
Anderson: Why don’t
you ask about the 3D? I can’t talk about Resident
Evil 6.
Izay: Alright, fair enough. (Dejected
pause) So, Pompeii is your fourth film in 3D. Do you
enjoy working in this medium? And what steps do you take to plan for this extra
element?
Anderson: I’ve always believed that rather
than seeing 3D as a kind of add-on thing, a kind of late developmental process
four weeks before the movie comes out, I’ve always felt that you should
approach 3D really in the nuts and bolts of assembling a movie, from production
design to lighting to script. I’m very aware even in the script process that
we’re making a 3D film and I try and design scenes and build sets that I know will
enhance the 3D, and that way I think it feels more organic to the film rather
than an add-on and gimmicky. It’s the same way when people started making color
films; you started thinking about the color of what people wore, and what color
the sets should be painted. I don’t think color should be a post-production
thing, and I don’t think 3D should be post-production thing.
Izay: Thanks so much for talking with me.
Anderson: And as far as Resident Evil 6, I’m sorry that I can’t be really elaborate on it,
but its something that definitely Milla and I both want to do. So there will be
a Resident Evil 6. I just can’t give
you any details about it.
Izay: Can I get a confirmation on possible
titles, at least? There are a lot of rumors floating around right now.
Anderson: There isn’t
one. I’ll tell you one thing; it definitely won’t be called Resident Evil. Although in Japan
I am sure it will be called Biohazard.
That’s one of the territories where they go with numbers, and as you know it’s
the Japanese video game’s original title.
Izay: Alright, thanks again, Paul.
Anderson: Alright,
cheers. It was a pleasure talking to you.
Pompeii explodes
onto Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD May 20th, 2014
