Richard Kelly: The Box
Tags: Charlize Theron, The Box, Richard Kelly
“Every citizen of this country should be talking about politics,” Richard Kelly says during our interview, and indeed it’s the failure of a contended suburban couple to pay attention to the political headwinds around them that leads to trouble in his latest mind-bending opus, The Box. Like the director’s two previous films, Donnie Darko and Southland Tales, The Box is a surrealist meditation on how we internalize political violence; it acutely examines the way we absorb and reflect back the government-sponsored harm that is done in our names and broadcast to us through the news media. As you might expect from Kelly, the film is also a feast of intriguing, half-explained imagery that’s intended to inspire debate rather than tie everything up with a neat little bow. Why, for example, do several characters suffer from nosebleeds throughout the film? What to make of the sequence in which Cameron Diaz dances solo to mournful 70s rock? And what’s with the constantly recurring imagery of unnatural, gelatinous water? Asking Kelly any of these questions directly would probably only elicit a satisfied giggle.
That said, there is a strong narrative thread in The Box, which was probably a condition placed on its reported $30 million budget, and any Kelly neophyte can easily follow along with the diehard fans. The story follows patriotic government worker Arthur (James Marsden) and his professor wife Norma (Cameron Diaz) as they try to decide what to do after Arlington Steward (Frank Langella), a stranger with an unexplained facial deformity, shows up on their doorstep offering a simple proposition: he promises to hand them a briefcase filled with one million dollars in cash if they will only push the red button atop a little wooden box that he brings with him. The catch, as he gently explains, is that pressing the button will cause someone in the world whom they don’t know to die. Richard Kelly called up SuicideGirls earlier this week from his Manhattan hotel room to discuss The Box and how it fits into his evolving career.
Ryan Stewart: This is your most blatantly political film to date, as I see it. It touches on a lot of interesting themes concerning the power of the American system to exert force over and influence its citizens, or even confuse them into compliance. Do you see yourself as a political filmmaker?
Richard Kelly: I think so. I do think I’m political in the sense that I love movies that aren’t afraid to stir the pot and rattle the cage, and I also love movies that are not afraid to wear their hearts on their sleeves. That’s what makes cinema the greatest art form that we have. You know, there are those who criticize the limousine liberals who love to talk about politics all the time, but I think every American should be talking about politics. Every citizen of this country should be talking about politics and the state of the world. It’s our right to do that, and I think that pretty much any film I ever make is going to have some measure of political content in it. I would guess that even if I were to make a mainstream romantic comedy there would probably be some of that in there.
RS:
It’s interesting that you say film is our greatest art form since you’re known for expanding on your screen stories with a lot of supplemental material, whether it’s elaborate websites or graphic novels or other things.
RK:
Well, film is certainly enough, but at the same time I love it so much that I want to be able to go into it further with those companions. It’s like a Cliff’s Notes thing, you know? I almost wish that I could go and see the Coen brothers film A Serious Man, and then go to a website that had a translation of all the Hebrew or Yiddish elements in the film. As a goy, I didn’t understand it because I don’t speak or read the language, but I’m still fascinated by it. So, yeah, I do love supplemental material, but also I did realize in hindsight with Southland Tales that maybe I had relied on it a little too heavily. I was naïve to think that everyone was going to go out and be able to read a graphic novel prequel that is essential to understanding the story. [laughs] That’s foolish me. I should have realized that, well, no, only a very few people are going to be able to seek that out, because it would require them to make the effort, you know? And then there’s also the fact that it’s not even going to be instantly available to them.
RS:
But that supplemental experience is still a big part of your storytelling. You’ve put a lot of effort into building some web activities for your new film.
RK:
Yeah, I tried to do some of it for The Box. There’s a website called YouAreTheExperiment.com, which is a companion to the official movie website, TheBoxMovie.com, and it has these kind of prequel videos. We put together what is sort of a nine minute prequel to the film, and it features the score by Win Butler, Regine Chassagne, and Owen Pallett. Those were very fun for me to direct. We had all of this additional footage that we had shot at NASA, and I had wanted to use it somehow. That’s the kind of thing that I try to do for the really hardcore fans, who really love to geek out over stuff like that, the different websites and stuff. But at the same time, I am being careful to try and not have the film’s narrative rely too much upon those things.
RS:
I noticed that sitcoms are sort of omnipresent throughout The Box. We keep seeing various show on in the background throughout the film. What was the point of including those?
RK:
The sitcoms were sort of a way of reminding the audience of the absurdity of life. There is a fundamental absurdity to the premise of this film that I think is quite wonderful, for me at least. It’s a very mischievous thing, the idea of a movie about pushing a button, and I wanted to remind people that there is going to be a dark, twisted sense of humor running throughout the course of this entire film. Those sitcoms were a good way of reminding you of that because they are all fairly ridiculous. But I love those shows! I love What’s Happening!!And I love Alice, but they really are absurd. And you know, speaking of absurdity, there’s a monologue in the film by Frank Langella’s character where he says “Your home is a box, you work in a box, your car is a box, and you’re going to spend eternity decomposing in a box.” To which the guy at the NSA, of all places, responds: “It’s quite depressing when you think of it like that!” Then Langella’s character says “Well, then don’t think of it like that, it’s just a temporary state of being.” You know, it’s why Sartre is one of the great French existentialists. They call it theater of the absurd, and I think in a way all of my films that I’ve made feel like they are part of the theater of the absurd. That’s just the theater that I prefer to operate in.
RS:
Specifically, when What’s Happening!! flashed on the screen during my screening a lot of the critics giggled. They’ve come to expect that when watching a Richard Kelly film they’ll be asking themselves “What’s happening?” at least once or twice. But you like it that way, right?
RK:
I think so. You know, the Coen brothers are, like, my favorite filmmakers ever. I think that the last three films that they’ve made have almost solidified them in my mind as the most important filmmakers working today, and in their new film A Serious Man they have this line, “Accept the mystery.” That’s actually one of the huge themes of the hero of that film, but it’s also sort of their way of saying to the audience “Listen…” [laughs] You know? They’re snickering a little bit. I feel like they are in the back of the theater snickering, as if they were the really smart kids in class who think that it’s all kind of a joke. They just love to put these puzzles out into the world. So, in a way, the use of What’s Happening!! was intentional. [laughs] I’m glad that people do get a chuckle out of that because it happens right before you meet Arlington Steward and the movie starts to take off.
RS:
Was it part of your job as director to keep things simple on the set? It’s hard to imagine that you spent a lot of time sitting around discussing Sartre with Cameron Diaz.
RK:
We kind of did, in a way! There was actually a lot of philosophical discussion because of the way Norma and Arthur have to thoroughly vet and debate the offer of the button unit. That was the fundamental spine of the short story, and so we had to do that as filmmakers. What we were trying to do was illustrate what’s hopefully a very realistic portrayal of what would happen if this offer were really presented. Then it takes a journey into the world of magic and the supernatural. So, we had these constant discussions, like, okay, how would they really do this? We were tweaking the dialogue and the delivery of each line to make sure that Arthur and Norma were charting the course properly, in a way that will hopefully allow the audience to identify with them as well as sympathize with them.
RS:
Were you mortified when Cameron spilled some of the film’s secrets during the Comic-Con panel for the film? There was a lot of talk about that at the time.
RK:
I don’t think that she necessarily spoiled the movie at all. If anything, people just weren’t aware that the movie does involve the Viking Mars Project, but I don’t feel like she spoiled the ending at all, because I think the ending has a much greater secret or a much bigger twist to it than what she said. If anything, I felt like it was a bit of a hubbub over something that wasn’t ultimately important. But it is interesting how people want to make sure that they go into a movie sometimes not knowing anything about it. What I hope to do in this case is to reassure people. I mean, listen, there is so much in this movie to chew on and there are so many twists and turns and surprises that they are going to get with the ending that haven’t been spoiled, I don’t think.
RS:
You mentioned lessons from Southland Tales earlier. Is it very important that this film do well in order for you to keep making Richard Kelly films as we know them?
RK:
Absolutely. I obviously need a hit, a theatrical hit. I hope to keep working inside the studio system, and with my new script I’m actually working very hard to make sure that it’s as commercial and as mainstream as it can possibly be. But at the same time, Donnie Darko was a huge hit on DVD and it’s a movie that, when it first came out, a lot of people said “This is a mess, it’s unreleasable, it doesn’t make any sense.” Well, it clearly started to make a lot of sense to a lot of people, and that’s something that I’m trying to hold onto, that formula, because I think it’s exciting. Also, I think that’s maybe what people want from me. At the same time, though, I need to stay viable and I hope to stay within the studio system, so I do need to reach a broader audience and part of that is trying to make my stories a bit more accessible. I hope The Box will function that way for people. While there is mystery and intrigue and the movie does leave you with your head spinning, I hope it’s also something that people are able to access and understand.
RS:
We’re almost approaching the tenth anniversary of Donnie Darko, and I know that it’s going to be appearing near the top of many critics’ Best of the Decade lists. How do you account for its enduring appeal?
RK:
I think it’s the ideas and it’s also the complexity. That would be my answer to that question. It’s something that people can continue to discuss and debate for a long, long time. And it asks a lot of the big questions about our existence, about science and religion, and these are the fundamental questions that everyone asks, every human being on the planet. And if it hopefully speaks to a younger audience – maybe a disenfranchised part of that younger audience that feels alienated -- well, there’s no shortage of t hose people on the planet, you know? There is a lot of alienation out there and it gives me a lot of hope that people can kind of feel unified by it, by the movie. They feel like it sort of drew them together into a discussion, and that’s sort of the purpose of art in my mind, you know? So, I am inspired by it and if anything that’s what makes me try to hold onto that formula. If that formula does indeed exist, and it’s complex and full of ideas, then I just need to make sure that the formula can reach a wide audience so that I can keep on doing this for a living, and I won’t have to go and get a job at Denny’s.
The Box opens in theaters everywhere today.
The Box opens in theaters everywhere today.
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