David Michod roams into Animal Kingdom
I was raised in New York City during the years when gangs and the mob were pretty cozy with the NYPD. So I was raised within that common ground, but I never got in too deep and so I am familiar with the characters and the dangers but I was not aware of the crime world in Melbourne, but David Michod changed this with his first feature film “Animal Kingdom”.
After winning the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance 2010 Film Festival, the Los Angeles Film Festival wanted this winner. I am very involved with Australians in Film in Los Angeles so it was great to see the Aussies celebrating at this screening. David and I spoke there and then we continued our conversation when he was in Chicago.
IFQ: So here you are in Chicago, Al Capone’s old stomping grounds which is such an appropriate setting for us. Tell me how did you come up with the film title “Animal Kingdom”?
David Michod: Well, I knew I wanted to make a film that was a sprawling representation of a whole lot of different kinds of characters in a kind of world which in a sense is a big tapestry of a world of people and on an obvious level there is a kind of metaphor where there. Is a jungle of characters that have a form of antagonism with others and some which are completely oblivious to what is just around the corner?
IFQ: So you created a different kind of a family film, which reminded me of the old gangster films with James Cagney and his mom and in your film, Jacki Weaver as the mom character resonated that for me.
DM: I always had in mind that Jacki’s character would be very unusual, but I didn’t want a grizzled old criminal matriarch but someone who is a beguiling, deceptively benign and complex enough so that it would creep upon you. I always wanted Jacki to play this part because she is talented and delightful and very knowing in a way so she could give the character the weight.
IFQ: Well, you created a very memorable character who was still this loving mother but off center then bringing in Ben Mendelsohn who is also a very well respected actor in Australia but not well-known here.
DM: Well, I think he is one of greatest actors in the world. It is surprising to me that he isn’t as well- known as he should be and it was exciting to have him in the film in a meaty role that he could really chew on since he has a very personal touch and a very quiet kind of charisma and can be really quiet. I know it is sort of a cliché, but he shows so much without saying anything.
IFQ: He is not your typical Joe Pesci kind of gangster like we see in these NYC mob films.
How did you come up with his name Pope?
DM: Well, I like the confusion that Ben as that character carried with him. More often than not, it manifests an uncomfortable silence. Then somebody is not necessarily an erudite person at some point associated his name with taciturnity and his quietness with some sort of pious reverence and is very dangerous, which is a little off the mark with what is bubbling inside this incredibly volatile dangerous guy.
IFQ: Exactly, because he was so different from the other characters with his quietness and he is the most violent of all.
DM: Not so much a bad guy, but he is just an incredibly damaged guy who makes bad decisions.
IFQ: Then you cast Guy Pearce whose role as this good cop with a soul trying to save the James Frecheville character from going down that same road as the rest of the family.
DM: That is one of the challenges that we faced, like building a character like the one Guy plays, who is this detective who wears his clothes and body language like a disguise. It is all about not revealing your inner life and finding an actor who in his way can find this exterior and richness of detail and finding those particular moments when that armor that they wear. Guy is great at that, being so quietly powerful and he such a gifted actor who is very capable of playing high status and lower status.
IFQ: He is truly a classical actor in the truest sense, handsome and talented. Then on top of this cast, you find James Frecheville who also has that ability without saying anything but showing deep feelings inside.
DM: He had a difficult job. I wanted an actor who could play an emotionally shut down and damaged character, and not just a generally awkward and inexpressive [character] as 17 year old boys often are. Yet he was in a sense guiding us through the film and there needed to be a level of detail which would also communicate that he had a rich inner life. His audition was awesome in presenting these details and we tested him in that big interrogation scene between him and Guy Pearce where there was a lot going and he filled the moments which was remarkable for a kid his age.
IFQ: Was his character always going to be the central focus or did it just evolve that way?
DM: From an early stage, I knew that I wanted a young man guiding us through the world and I liked the idea of hitting at some point on a kind of cinematic way the film would work. The forming of a moral spine in a completely morally treacherous world and in that sense it felt completely logical that you would have a young man of about 15 at that point in his life where you are kind of working out who you are and what you believe in and what the difference between right and wrong and to have that character guiding us through a world which is fraught.
IFQ: So when his character makes that choice at the end of the end of this film you are taken off guard with the way you shot it.
DM: Yes, a cinematic choice.
IFQ: In my opinion, your film moved us out of a comfort level like the other films where they put the comedy bits and yours exposed us to the gritty world in Melbourne. I mean, you spent time there and infiltrated that city for a few years and came up with this story. What was their reaction after putting Melbourne on the map as this unsafe city?
DM: Well, it has been suggested that I haven’t made huge friends with The Melbourne Tourism Commission, but my response is I beg to differ. My experience of American cinema when I was a kid was watching crime films with very dangerous cities and all I wanted to do was to go to those cities. I wanted to go to Miami after seeing “Scarface” and New York after seeing “Taxi Driver” because they are big, interesting, complex and exciting. I knew when I started out and if I was going to contribute to the genre, I wanted to do something different. I wanted “Animal Kingdom” to be a film that would be characterized by its’ breeding menace which is not only serious, but had within a strange and unsettling tension that on some levels it feels like a horror film.
IFQ: So here we are 9 years later which is the time it took to get this script to the screen. You started with your brother and then Liz Watts, this incredible producer who is blown away with your short film and says I am on your team and we will make this film.
DM: I think that in many ways that is how all good producers should be able to operate and have a fluid move into the upper echelons or which ever kind of part of the industry that they are working in and being able to identify new talent.
IFQ: Were you blown away at Sundance when you won the big one?
DM: Yes. I was, but I was already blown away from the reception the film had already received. We went there feeling good about the film, but we had no idea that it would explode the way it did and we were already dizzy.
IFQ: I really felt that you as a director/writer made all the right decisions regarding casting and locations and I commend you for that. Well, as they say in Hollywood, see you at the Oscars.
Sony Pictures Classics USA release date is August 13, 2010.