Cronicas director Sebastian Cordero

I think when you tell a story in contemporary Latin America it’s almost unavoidable that the world you are showing will shed light with social commentary. For me it’s very important that the story be very appealing and it is just as important that it will have something to say about the world and mankind. The movie has a lot of social commentary about the role of the media in society, how much manipulation there is and all of these things. The movie deals with human flaws, which have always existed, but nowadays the media seems to be much larger and have much more impact than it should. For instance, when I was writing the script I always had the word arrogance coming back as a recurring theme in several characters of the movie and lack of tolerance as well. So I think I was really writing about these elements of human character and I thought it was fascinating to have a character who just by the nature of his job, the minute they put the cameras on him, the minute he intervenes somewhere, you know what his reporting is going to be. I wanted to do a good story about how the presence of a threat can actually affect the case that you’re seeing. With the irony that as a human being there are a lot of things that the guerillas will do that you completely go for at the beginning. Then it is only after they cross a certain line that you go, “No that’s too far” probably because it didn’t work out.

Not majorly. But ever since I made my first movie there was articles about the movie or reviews or whatever and if there’s an interview with me I always feel that it has been edited or something that I said had been slightly changed. It’s always been very frustrating but I understand also that it’s the nature of the craft. Sometimes the fact that there is someone reporting the story, serving as an intermediary, automatically changes a little bit of the story.

Alright, great [laughs].

I remember seeing him in Summer of Sam and thinking, “Wow, that’s his best performance.” I’ve always loved him so I was glad he could pull off a dramatic role so well. When I was thinking of Manolo’s character I knew I needed someone very charismatic and someone who you would like automatically. I thought John really had that in him. But at the same time you have to perceive his dark side, that there is something that would appeal to this guy about this whole world that the movie deals with. I think the fact that you want to like him makes you tolerate the things that he does in the movie. But there is a point where he crosses the line and even after crossing the line, I wanted to make sure that you’re still with him.

Once they came on board, things got a lot easier. Making a movie in Ecuador is really complicated. It is very hard to raise money and put together a project there. Once it became an international project and the Mexican co-producers got involved, things began flowing much better. But it was still a complicated movie to put together in terms of the locations. There’s a lot of things you take for granted which you don’t have shooting in Ecuador like the fact that you have to rent a lot of equipment abroad. There were a lot of people from the crew that came from other Latin American countries and, to date, it was the largest Ecuadorian production. That makes it more of a challenge, but at the same time there was so much enthusiasm and everyone was so excited about making the film that you really get extra energy.

It was a very complicated scene with a lot of elements. For scheduling reasons we were forced to do that scene in the very first week of shooting which totally freaked everyone out. We had about 300 extras which were all people from the small town where we shot. None of them had ever participated in a movie before. The street outside the cemetery where the lynching takes place had just been paved six months before so we had to cover it with dirt and mud. It ended up being a very exciting scene to shoot. We had two cameras going at once. But I think it went great once everything started rolling. It brought up the adrenaline level and the level of expectations from all the crew in terms of what we were going to be doing. So it really set the tone for the rest of the shoot

It is funny because when I first started writing the script I didn’t think of the script as a serial killer movie. Though very soon I became aware that it was and there were a lot of things that had been done in serial killer movies all throughout film history, starting with Fritz Lang’s M. I love The Silence of the Lambs and I love the Hannibal Lecter character, but after that, there have been so many different versions and in most of them the character of the serial killer is a little bit superhuman. The real challenge to me was to be able make the character of Vinicio, the serial killer, a normal guy with a human side, someone you can believe can be your neighbor or even in your family. To me that had more strength than if the serial killer was some type of superhuman figure.

Yes, absolutely [laughs]. I’m very excited to be working with Harrison Ford. I think Manhunt is a great project. I’m very happy with the story. I thing it’s going to be a very different movie than what I’ve done before. But at the same time there are a lot of themes in common with a lot of elements that I can relate to.

Yes I know. I think someone sent me a link to the page [laughs].

The lead in Manhunt is a great character and I think he’s really going to do an amazing job of it. I completely see the idea of taking him back to some of his best moments. When I think of him there are so many examples like Deckard in Blade Runner. But I think what I’m looking forward to doing with him is creating a very mature character.

First it’s just an amazing story. It’s interesting to me that actually when you look at the US at the end of the Civil War the world is falling apart because it’s been ravaged by the war. Finally when it seems that everything’s going to be over it’s not and this conflict is going to go on. It’s frighteningly similar to a lot of things that are going on in the world right now. I think a lot of the chaos and the mayhem that you had in the US at that time was in many ways similar to a lot of the chaos you see in Latin America. I connect very much the human side of the story. This is a story about a world falling apart where you have these two idealists who are very extreme and very different from one another but they share the ideal of trying to do things right and trying to change the world.

No not yet, it is only Harrison Ford at the moment. We’re working on the script now. Andrew Marlowe is working on a new draft and so far it’s coming along really well.

The movie starts with Lincoln’s assassination. I think that scene in itself is going to be great. It reads incredibly well in the script and I think there’s so much to be done. Of course it is a very important moment.

Yes I am, but that’s probably going to be delayed for a while.

Also I’m working also on a project with Focus Features that Kevin Misher is producing. It is an adaptation of the graphic novel Tiempos Finales.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck