Do you like interviews ?

No. Sometimes I feel like I just wanna make films and speaking about it is a bit strange, like you should just go see the movie. It can be a good laugh, sometimes it’s work-work, sometimes you get asked questions that are irrelevant to the film, somebody else’s point of view, putting you into a category - "are you this kind of film maker, are you that kind of filmmaker". I’d rather be behind the camera basically.

It’s just that your films have a defiant ambiguity, and I can appreciate that you might be reluctant to explain away your work in interviews.

That’s true. Yes.

Have you any interest in working with a Digital format. If not, what is it about celluloid and cinema that attracts you ?

I’m really not against any format. It depends on the piece of work you’re making, some pieces suit digital, or some people do it cause of the reason they don’t have the money to shoot on film but I like to see it used in a way that really suits that. ‘The Idiots’ for example, Lars Von Trier, basically he used the form, the DV completely went before the film. There was lots of [others] jumping on the Dogma band-wagon, which was a bit of a gimmick, although it was a good gimmick. But it was the right format - you still have to make a good film, still have to have a good idea - but for me it works. The actual form, the look of it is [part of] the content of the film. If there’s a film that suits that format I would. Definitely.

Is there anything particular about Celluloid that suits your needs ?

It’s hard to totally say it’s just film, you can make something great on DV that’s atmospheric and looks really beautiful as well. I’m trying to get something really a cinematic experience in terms of sound and visually, I’m using the form at lot, maybe more so than other people do. Some of the narrative has a different kind of feeling to it, not so straight forward, it’s more of an emotional journey, but I like it when you see films when you don’t know what to expect, what’s gonna happen next. It’s enjoyable, an experience.

The cinema’s an event when the lights go down, I get excited, whatever I’m gonna see.

Yeah-yeah. No, definitely. Also, it’s amazing how different an audience can be from one screening to the next. It’s almost like a different experience. I learn things from it, like the silence at the end of your film, it can be a good thing, or a bad thing; you interpret that. It’s always a bit nerve wrecking with your own stuff, but I love to go and have that kind of experience, and I really hate to go and be presented with something that’s dull and homogenous, stuff that otherwise you could have been on TV, in the cinema that’s just a waste of time. I’d rather see it on telly.

It’s obvious that the soundtrack is crucial to this film; the music plays a specific role in the story. Could you explain that a bit more ?

The tape is something that’s left to morvern by her boyfriend, who’s killed himself. He’s written a book, for posthumous fame, a romantic notion, but he leaves her a tape that’s almost like a letter. The character of the boyfriend is never explained in the film, I always saw a bit like Alan Warner who wrote the book, a kind of intellectual thirty-something but a bit unusual like Alan so I based that on him, and I thought this is the kind of music he’d listen to. It formed from there. And it also had to work with modern music, but I didna ever want it to feel like a promo, it had to work in a cinematic way as well.

They were all strong tracks, it seems you allowed both the images and the sound to work together, to concentrate on one or the other, rather than have them compete for our attention.

I was really aware of that when I made it, some tracks are strong in their own right so I tried to choose things that worked cinematically as well, put them in certain places that would work better in contrast with the image, or be stronger than the image. And also as a kind of mind trip with morvern, using the music to cut the world out and you kinda go inside the music. To be honest with you, some of the time we did we did quite simple stuff where you’re going from EQed sounds, like sound of a tape recorder, right up to full sound, but it’s a very gradual process. It’s almost like it’s in somebody’s head, that’s the way I thought about it, as a way she cuts out the world. And I also thought the tracks should never feel like they’re plastered on as an after thought. Or promo-esque because they feel stuck on, something I was really aware of that.

So using sound as a narrative device is that something you want to explore further ?

That was really exciting, I think it’s something Robert Bresson did, it’s an unexplored part of a lot of films. It makes you feel like your getting into someone’s consciousness. Let the sounds work from the image. A lot of people think of me as a visual filmmaker, we’ll actually it’s not just the images, the picture; it’s more about the sound, the sound design. Sound is so much part of a film, we’re bombarded with lots of stuff, and when there’s a space, when there’s a silence, it jumps out at you. You can use these things to create really strong atmospheres, spatially and things like that; I guess I’m using quite simple things, quite simple sounds. But I almost always think of sound like a camera, like I’m focusing on something and when I cut everything else out, suddenly it creates a mood, an atmosphere, which can be right for the psychology of the character. So, definitely, it’s part of the narrative.

Bresson said, ‘The silence creates the soundtrack’

Well, there you go there. I love that book [Notes on The Cinematographer]. I’d never seen any Bresson films, when I read the book. I saw them later, but while I was at film school it was like this little bible. He was someone who was always very aware of what they doing in terms of the form, and the power that sound has, and he spoke a lot about the relationships of music and sound. I was at a quite conventional film school, but that was a book that I loved to finding, it was the opposite of everything that we were being taught.

You mentioned stills and you use silence more than other filmmakers, to me that’s very suggestive of stillness. Is that something carried over from your experiences as a photographer ?

Actually, when I first picked up a camera I couldna move it. But really, it’s such a different medium, stills have their own narrative within them. It’s another language, to do with the rhythm and editing, what you put together, which sound you put with an image, all those kind of things. It’s a way of taking something like the atmosphere and putting it into moving images. I don’t think about it in those terms, I almost think about the whole thing as a piece of music. Sometimes you need a gap in a piece of music, a pause and then you go onto the chorus, or whatever. The entire work is a sound thing.

How is the end result of filming influenced by the process? Are you open to things you see and hear on set ?

We were playing a lot of music while we were shooting the film, and Sam [Samantha Morton] was listening to the music as well, so that was great - I was getting a strong idea of how that would work while I was making it. And often, not all the time, soundtracks are something that’s put on later. But because it was so integral to the story, his letter, the emotional journey, comes first. And then from that you know: how to shot, what music to use, when to use music, how to use sound. There is a kind of logic in it, because you’re filming a character, and you want or you try and empathise [with] how she feels and how that’s going to appear to other people. morvern’s in this catatonic state, so we almost feel we’re in a trance for the first part of the film, and the music has that effect as well, you feel like you’re inside this pretty leftfield character’s head.

Do you have an original vision of the film’s gonna look and sound? Is it still like that or has it changed (through the process) ?

I try not to get too set on things, because then you never notice if something else is happening, something spontaneous on-set. But again there’s a logic to it, cause she’s a drifter and she’s quite free-form and I saw it in that way, when we were shooting in the flat I always felt it was quite eerie and there’s the presence of her boyfriend there, this other point of view. I would choose to shoot something that would let you feel like you’ve going through the same actions, same emotions as her: her numbness, how she feels. Then I find a lot in detail, tiny things that say a lot about the character. I mean Morvern’s almost autistic at times, and we look at things in that kind of detail in the first part of the film.

You’ve spoken about your interest in a ‘stripped back economical non-intellectual cinema’

Ha. And here I am intellectualising. When I make films I’m looking for a way to say something about somebody that isn’t all dialogue based, unless I think the dialogue’s really important, cause I love it when it’s used really well. I’m trying to say things about people and show them in a quite sensual way. That’s how I choose to shoot. Hopefully you go through a sensual journey, an experience because I love in films when you go into something, feel like you’ve gone into a trip, like you’ve taken some drugs, went into a different world. And it’s such a visceral medium, I guess I’m filmmaker who’s really interested in the form, because it gets you to that place.

You’ve also spoken about ‘the power of the image’ I wasn’t quite sure what you meant by that. I heard it in an interview.

Probably been misquoted……… I need to see, think about what context it was used in.

You said that nowadays films you see have the power of the fast editing, the power of the tightly written script and you’re a believer in the power of the image.

We’re just so used to seeing things in a particular way. Some people will find watching things, like something I made, is really slow, or it’s something [that] they can’t relate it to other stuff they see, but basically I think I’m using a different approach but it’s much more, like say a trip, or an alternative kind of experience and you might like that, or you might not. I’m not making any excuses for that. But it’s definitely in the way I approach things, about going into the subconscious, those things that say lots about the character. It’s really hard to explain cause it’s something I do in a quite instinctive way, bringing out what we don’t get to see. You forget about the power of just holding on something, to watch something in real time and how powerful it can be because we’re so bombarded with fast cutting and you don’t have time to sit and ponder, go into something in slow way. It seems that I’m playing a lot more with atmosphere, drawing people in a completely different way, but then some people really want plot-plot-plot-plot and you get no emotional sense from that, it’s all cold, you don’t believe things, don’t believe the characters. For me, it’s about going in there and having an experience where you come out at the end and you’re dazzled by it, that’s what I love going to see, I don’t wanna go and be bored for two hours.

But sometime the most boring films can have the most effect on you. You can be sat there in the cinema thinking ‘My god when is this gonna finish’ then when you get home that night it occurs to you what you’ve just seen and in reflection it matters to you more.

I think what we’re talking about are slightly different things. I hate being bored by cinema when it’s got all the things that should work: fast cutting, loads a plot, loads whatever, everything’s spoon fed on a plate, and I’m actually bored by that. I like to see a film that’s got a different pace and feel like you’re slowly drawn into it, that’s a really powerful experience. I’m talking a different kind of boredom, going to see Attack of the Clones and thinking ‘Fucking hell, this is really… I’m so Fucking bored’. You know exactly what’s gonna happen, it’s just like a product. And it’s a shame cause you were excited by that kind stuff as a kid. I still love the first Star Wars, you wanna ago for the spectacle, but it feels like somebody’s got a formula, pressing all the right buttons but you don’t feel anything. I guess I’m trying no to make films like that.. erm… maybe we shouldna mentioned Star Wars.

In your earlier shorts [Gasman, Small Deaths] you show the family as a place of both innocent and cruelty, like a bittersweet reflection.

It relates back to judging the characters, you’re not just showing something that’s a black and white thing. It’s much more complicated than that. You could maybe say all the characters are stereotypical in Ratcatcher where we’re quite used to seeing that sort of genre - people think it’s a social realist film and I’m not sure it is. The alcoholic dad, on paper it really looks pretty stereotypical but I think the good thing about what I showed in that film was that it’s an ensemble piece. It showed the complexities of all those characters. On one level the father himself he tries to be something, or do a good deed, but at the same time [he’s] caught up in his idea of what’s macho. I guess every family’s full of little cruelty and also love and all those things - just hope I showed that in Ratcatcher.

Those earlier shorts seem autobiographical, how important is that connection with the material for you ?

I think you’ve gotta make films you believe in, whether it’s a book, an adaptation, or about characters you understand. It’s hard to spend two or three years of your life making something you don’t care for, so I started with what I knew. But that doesn’t mean that everything’s about me or autobiographical in any way, I just have to understand the characters.

What is it with Morvern that you identify

I think I love the fact that there’s something. What Alan Warner had done in the novel was kill off the writer on the first page and the girl, this twenty one year old worker from the supermarket, takes over the story. She becomes the central character, a non-intellectual. But in a way he [the boyfriend] takes the kind of easy route, it’s quite a romantic notion, I’ll kill myself and get my life’s work published but she takes something more viable from it. I really loved it when she changes the name of the novel and makes it her own, I thought that’s kinda…. punk rock. I’d never really seen a character like this on screen before. Personally I loved her; she was intriguing and you couldn’t judge her as bad or good, or any of those things, but she’s pretty compelling, and quite subversive, but without meaning to, in kind of an inept way.

Her appropriating the manuscript, was that a deliberate note on female authorship ?

I think it was on authorship in general. What does a book mean to someone who’s dead? She take takes it and makes something living, alive, out of it. Also I love the contrast of the two worlds, where she comes into contact with publishers and she’s no clue what she’s gonna do next but they like ‘WOW she’s the next big thing.’ It doesn’t matter what she says they’ll hang on her every word. But actually she’s the girl who works in the supermarket. I thought that was really bold.

I read a quote saying ‘Morvern’s numbed inaction was an out-growth of her character’s lifestyle’. Do you believe that? Is it specific to morvern or something broader ?

I’d felt there was a sub-text to that in the film. In very black and white terms she needs money to move forward, and the whole drug taking thing isn’t like the sixties peace and love and anti-war. It’s really about hedonism and the fact that she’s looking for something more, but she doesn’t know what that is and maybe it’s something spiritual but it’s not religion either. She’s kinda lost in some respects, though either getting money or fame money or other things, so I related to her on that level. I had a pretty hedonistic lifestyle for a while myself.

Do you think this is representative of our generation ?

I don’t like making big general statements that it’s about our generation. I think she’s quite an unreal, extreme character, but there’s some relevance to now with people of this generation and what they aspire to. But she does it in her kinda way.

You once spoke of the intention to make a film without any moral judgement, does Morvern Callar come close ?

I hope so because I think that some people would be left very cold by her actions. I don’t think she actually does anything wrong but I think that she doesn’t follow convention, do what you should do, but I tried not to judge her as a character, like saying this was good or bad. Taking the audience on different kind of journey, and emotional journey, some people will really be able to go with that character, and some people won’t. I quite like complex character that you can never read on one level. We see in a lot of films the good guys or the bad guys, but I don’t really operate on those levels.

Have you heard of Gasper Noe ? He’s said that he believes cinema audiences have become desensitised by violence in the cinema and he deliberately wants to shock people out of their complacency. Personally, I find your films very disturbing, and they have that effect on me without using sex or violence. Again is that something deliberate, or does it just happen in your work.

If that’s there it’s because I’m trying to show some sort of reality - not movie-land. I’m trying to achieve a deeper more complex kind of experience. Some people might think that’s shocking, but I’m trying to say something about all the idiosyncrasies, the characters persons, situations all those kind of things. And sometimes there’s places in certain films I’ve made there’s a lot of power in some of the subject matter because it’s never ever clear-cut, it’s never what you expect. But neither are people, people are…. worlds. If the audience find it shocking it’s because I’m looking from different angles, different points of view in situations, it’s never plain simple. And it’s hard to explain, it’s [dependant on] the situations in the films, when they’re being shot, or the atmosphere.

I love characters that seem apparently normal, or the situation that seems apparently normal. Even in the beginning, the opening scene, I was very aware that wanted it to feel like a situation where Morvern is with her lover, the first shot, the boyfriend’s dead. And there’s this sort of beauty in that, it’s something we’re familiar with. And then slowly we come to recognise that she has a dead body in her flat. That’s one example I guess, but.. normality’s pretty shocking sometimes. I think David Lynch is the best at showing that.

I was trying to stay away from Lynch. I always seem to bring him up, but would you agree, he’s someone who’s been building up a new vocabulary for cinema, defining a new language. Using technique: rhythm, sound and silence with the image, almost like choreography, or poetry - the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Yes definitely. I think he makes the best horror films, I know that’s a weird thing to say, but it’s almost like black comedy, sometimes .. well… just thank god for David Lynch, thank god, he’s is in this world. But it’s good to see something like Mulholland Drive again, which approaches a narrative in a complete different way, and you never know what to expect. People are going to see that and then, you know, going again. Sometimes not knowing what it’s about, that’s hilarious. But I thought it was fantastic.

Your films have a ‘drift’ to them, one that leaves you open to accusations that you lack a narrative drive. Is this a valid point ?

It’s just a different sort of narrative and we’re used to watching something that’s much more straight forward, that’s fair enough, it’s just a question of taste. I can’t make something that everyone’s gonna like, it’s just not gonna work like that. It’s more about the journey of a character’s mind. The film’s a whole thing, you can’t just take a section, it’s [about] the whole experience of watching it and the way you’re sucked in, some people will be and some won’t. We’ve been presented with a lot of options, but there isn’t only one way to make a narrative.

Have you any interest in non-narrative experimental works ?

Yes, but I’m not trying to make something inaccessible at all but I just using the tools that I have to make it a powerful experience, and it that seems experimental to some people, then maybe I’m an experimental film maker.

How did you become a director, you started off as a cinema-photographer and now you’re directing films, driving narratives , building characters. Were there any defining experiences that made you change from one to the other ?

I guess I was a bit bored with watching crap. To be honest and feeling like I was caught in an environment, that was it was meant to be a college and feeling like you’re making a calling card for an industry that calls films products, and I didn’t believe in things like that. There were a lot of short films being made at film school, but it was a bit formulaic, quirky, nothing to make you think too much, And I thought a short film could be just as powerful as a feature, the short story format so simple and stripped back. I guess I got a bit mad and felt like I’d like to make things in my way and see how far I can take that. I wanted to make films that I believed in.

Have developments in technology influenced the way you work ?

To certain degrees, but like anything technology’s a tool and you use that. It’s a means to an end. I don’t get over excited about the tools, but I get excited about what they can do in terms of what I’m doing. How I can use them in order to heighten what I’m doing in films. I don’t get all stuck in things, like a new piece of equipment. But I feel that if that’ll help me to get somewhere, to do something I really wanted to try, as part of that journey in the film, that’s exciting.

If you had an ideal fantasy project, or perhaps one last project. What would that be ?

I was very interested in sci-fi as kid, so I’d probably do something like a genre film at one point, but my way. So that’s something I’ve always thought about, but there isn’t a big fantasy that this is my ultimate project. Every time you make a film, basically, you always feel that you could have done something better. There’s always that to drive you forward, the whole time. There isn’t a master plan not so far apart from keep trying to make something I believe in, which take risks and not get scared.

Your future ?

I’d like to keep making films, that’s how it feels when you’re making a film, you’re thinking am I gonna to make another. Because it’s so difficult in the first place. People know what to expect of me, but I think I’ve made my parameters quite clear, tight from the outset - that I need creative control in order to make the work. So I’m just in a great position, I’m getting to make films.

Do you have any important influences outside the field of cinema ?

I’m always quite inspired by music. It was great that WARP were gonna release the soundtrack. Steve [Beckett, head of label] was one of the first people to see it who wasn’t from the film industry and he was able to think about it a completely different way. It was fantastic to get him to see it but I admired what he was doing, There isn’t a lot of places like that. I want to get involved in what they’re doing. There isn’t something like that in film, maybe they’ll become it. I don’t wanna arse lick Warp but definitely, it wasn’t like the other soundtracks. A lot of people will go through a much bigger company they’ll be asked to see new bands coming up, then asked to put them somewhere in their film, and you negotiate deals so that you can use the track that you want for something they want. Fucking ridiculous. I was so happy to go through Warp, it felt like it’s been about the music right from the start, and it’s perfect that they’re releasing it.

Do you like the record ?

I think it’s very eclectic, but in some bizarre way it works, it has a kind of coherence, but that’s Greg, he gave it an order that flows well. I like the record.