Lodge Kerrigan is that interesting enigma of American cinema. His films are always critically acclaimed and are brilliant but they have never broken out into the mainstream. In fact only a small part of the independent world seems to be aware of his work. But his two previous films Clean, Shaven and Claire Dolan are fascinating and disturbing character studies. Kerrigan is a true talent in film that has been recognized by Steven Soderbergh because that commercial/avant-garde filmmaker has produced his latest work.
Keane is the story of, William Keane, a disturbed man whose daughter may or may not have been abducted from the Port Authority Bus Terminal. He spends his time moving from the bus terminal to different places in Hells Kitchen looking for clues and recreating his daughters abduction.
Keane opens September 9th in select cities
Daniel Robert Epstein: Just to clear something up, I heard that on Claire Dolan, you shot for a long time and all the footage was out of focus, is that true?
Lodge Kerrigan: That wasnt Claire Dolan. That was a film called In Gods Hands. We wrote it, we shot it but then there was extensive negative damage so we had to abandon the film. In Gods Hands that movie was about child abduction too so I was still interested in making a movie about child abduction but I didnt want to do the same movie again. Steven Soderbergh had been the executive producer of In Gods Hands and he stood by me and so we decided to make another movie together. Thats why theres been such a big gap between Claire Dolan and Keane.
DRE: Keane actually reminded me of your first film, Clean, Shaven. They are both about one guy thats really off.
LK: Clean, Shaven also deals with a character that suffers from schizophrenia. But my intent with Clean, Shaven was to have the audience really experience the symptoms of schizophrenia such as increased paranoia, anxiety, feelings of disassociation, auditory hallucinations. I wanted to make the audience imagine what it would be like to live life like that. Whereas the thrust of Keane was really to examine what it would be like to have your child abducted. Just an exploration of that kind of grief and how, if at all possible, to even come to terms with it. Personally I dont think itd be possible to come to terms with it.
DRE: You have a child, right?
LK: I have an eleven year old girl, Serena.
DRE: That must have been in your head while making this.
LK: Oh absolutely. That was actually the impetus for it. My daughter was always very free spirited and Ive always really encouraged that. We live near a Rite-Aid and from a very young age she would go and explore the different aisles. I would encourage her but there were times when I couldnt find her and my heart would drop in my stomach. Id be filled with dread and panic then of course Id find her, but from that sole reaction I decided to make Keane to examine what itd be like to suffer that kind of loss. The role of a parent is to prepare a child to be an adult so part of the process is encouraging their child to be independent. Thats where the difficulty lies. Do you let them go to school? What age do you let them go to school by themselves? Or ride the subways by themselves?
DRE: What made you cast Damian Lewis as Keane?
LK: I saw Damien in Band of Brothers but when I cast I dont do it in the traditional way, meaning there is a role and we look for actors that have played a very similar role. What I do is I look for actors who are really talented, who control their craft and then the rest is very intuitive for me. When I saw Damien in Band of Brothers, I saw how talented he was. He has tremendous control. But theres nothing in that role that has anything to do with Keane. But I felt very strongly that he could do a really good job and I watched the first 20 minutes of Dreamcatcher and that confirmed for me that he could play a parent. The whole idea to Keane is that he could have been a parent in the past. The question of whether his child ever existed is very open-ended.
DRE: So you didnt specifically look for an English guy to play an American because directors do that sometimes.
LK: No I just think talented actors have tremendous range and they can play a wide variety of roles. In Claire Dolan, Colm Meaney played an American although of Irish descent and Katrin Cartlidge, whos English, plays an Irish immigrant in New York. I just look for people who are really talented.
DRE: What made you decide to set a chunk of the movie in the Port Authority Bus Terminal? Usually movies dont get shot there because its a pretty ugly looking place.
LK: Because you get the poverty. The world that Keane lives in and the people that he meets are relatively poor. Bus travel is the cheapest form of travel. It was important to create some sense of poverty because I think that one of the ramifications or consequences of mental illness is that there are devastating economic ramifications. Not only the cost of health care, for those fortunate enough to receive it, but in terms of lost income. A large percentage of them lose their ability to make a living and they lose their support system. So I wanted to include that as much as possible.
DRE: How much research did you do for Keane?
LK: Over the years Ive done a tremendous amount of research on mental illness. Ive gone to Bellevue, talked to doctors. A very close friend of mine suffers from schizophrenia. Ive gone to halfway houses like the Fountain House and different organizations that support the mentally ill.
In terms of the actual landscape, Im from New York so I spent a lot of years here and so I know the landscape pretty well. I wrote a lot of the script in the Port Authority. Id go take a bus and walk through the Lincoln Tunnel like Keane did. Then on the other side of the Lincoln Tunnel is North Bergen and I figured thats where Keane would end up so I lived in North Bergen and got to know it well.
DRE: Did you have shooting permits for all your locations?
LK: Not for some shots, like when he is screaming at cars in the street looking for his daughter. Damien was literally walking into the street in live traffic and started screaming at all the cars. But some of the stuff on the street we stole, but any bridges, any tunnels; anything with the ports was all permitted. I really enjoy working in live environments like Port Authority but since it was a small shoot we had a lot of people walking through frame.
DRE: Did you try to stop them?
LK: We had some production assistants directing traffic and we had some extras that we placed but you cant close it down. Therefore you have to find a way to kind of coexist and integrate it and I think that paid off. Whats really great is the amount of energy that youre able to find in a live environment. The disadvantages are obvious, especially with people looking in the lens but ultimately its still worth it.
DRE: Youve probably been labeled as a more European-type filmmaker.
LK: Yeah, but I dont really think thats true. Ive traveled a lot in my life. I lived in Europe for 11 years so its very possible. I try to be open to different cultures and different influences but I dont really align myself with either the US or Europe.
I think in terms of actual storytelling with being efficient and getting to the point and having a sense of purpose and urgency are much more in the American school of filmmaking than in the European. The films I make are all relatively short. Theyre not languorous or meandering. They may not be ultimately plot driven but I think that it follows narrative filmmaking. On that level I think it falls more into the American school of thought.
DRE: What made you wanted to redeem Keane?
LK: In the very first draft of the script that I wrote, he actually abducts the young girl, Kira, and takes her on the bus and leaves. But when I was writing it theres a point towards the end when he has Kira and he returns to the Port Authority and hes thinking of taking her. He recreates the circumstances of his own daughters abduction and he gives Kira money to buy candy, which is what his own daughter did when she was abducted. He replays out the traumatic event in his desire to change its outcome but of course hes not able to do that. His daughters gone and theres nothing he can do. So I realized that the idea of him abducting the girl at that point would have been really false simply from where he was emotionally. I think everyone is searching for their own form of redemption in life to some degree. But I think that the movie is somewhat open ended but the fact remains that he is still mentally ill.
DRE: Your films havent exactly been huge, financial successes.
LK: Well, lets address that. They certainly havent been big commercial hits. But theyve all made their money back and been profitable.
DRE: Have you ever wanted to make movies on a bigger scale?
LK: Im certainly not adverse to that. I think that perhaps earlier in my life I wasnt interested in that. I wanted only to do scripts that I wrote myself. But now Im much more open to exploring other peoples material and potentially directing it. But the hard thing is to find good material.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Keane is the story of, William Keane, a disturbed man whose daughter may or may not have been abducted from the Port Authority Bus Terminal. He spends his time moving from the bus terminal to different places in Hells Kitchen looking for clues and recreating his daughters abduction.
Keane opens September 9th in select cities
Daniel Robert Epstein: Just to clear something up, I heard that on Claire Dolan, you shot for a long time and all the footage was out of focus, is that true?
Lodge Kerrigan: That wasnt Claire Dolan. That was a film called In Gods Hands. We wrote it, we shot it but then there was extensive negative damage so we had to abandon the film. In Gods Hands that movie was about child abduction too so I was still interested in making a movie about child abduction but I didnt want to do the same movie again. Steven Soderbergh had been the executive producer of In Gods Hands and he stood by me and so we decided to make another movie together. Thats why theres been such a big gap between Claire Dolan and Keane.
DRE: Keane actually reminded me of your first film, Clean, Shaven. They are both about one guy thats really off.
LK: Clean, Shaven also deals with a character that suffers from schizophrenia. But my intent with Clean, Shaven was to have the audience really experience the symptoms of schizophrenia such as increased paranoia, anxiety, feelings of disassociation, auditory hallucinations. I wanted to make the audience imagine what it would be like to live life like that. Whereas the thrust of Keane was really to examine what it would be like to have your child abducted. Just an exploration of that kind of grief and how, if at all possible, to even come to terms with it. Personally I dont think itd be possible to come to terms with it.
DRE: You have a child, right?
LK: I have an eleven year old girl, Serena.
DRE: That must have been in your head while making this.
LK: Oh absolutely. That was actually the impetus for it. My daughter was always very free spirited and Ive always really encouraged that. We live near a Rite-Aid and from a very young age she would go and explore the different aisles. I would encourage her but there were times when I couldnt find her and my heart would drop in my stomach. Id be filled with dread and panic then of course Id find her, but from that sole reaction I decided to make Keane to examine what itd be like to suffer that kind of loss. The role of a parent is to prepare a child to be an adult so part of the process is encouraging their child to be independent. Thats where the difficulty lies. Do you let them go to school? What age do you let them go to school by themselves? Or ride the subways by themselves?
DRE: What made you cast Damian Lewis as Keane?
LK: I saw Damien in Band of Brothers but when I cast I dont do it in the traditional way, meaning there is a role and we look for actors that have played a very similar role. What I do is I look for actors who are really talented, who control their craft and then the rest is very intuitive for me. When I saw Damien in Band of Brothers, I saw how talented he was. He has tremendous control. But theres nothing in that role that has anything to do with Keane. But I felt very strongly that he could do a really good job and I watched the first 20 minutes of Dreamcatcher and that confirmed for me that he could play a parent. The whole idea to Keane is that he could have been a parent in the past. The question of whether his child ever existed is very open-ended.
DRE: So you didnt specifically look for an English guy to play an American because directors do that sometimes.
LK: No I just think talented actors have tremendous range and they can play a wide variety of roles. In Claire Dolan, Colm Meaney played an American although of Irish descent and Katrin Cartlidge, whos English, plays an Irish immigrant in New York. I just look for people who are really talented.
DRE: What made you decide to set a chunk of the movie in the Port Authority Bus Terminal? Usually movies dont get shot there because its a pretty ugly looking place.
LK: Because you get the poverty. The world that Keane lives in and the people that he meets are relatively poor. Bus travel is the cheapest form of travel. It was important to create some sense of poverty because I think that one of the ramifications or consequences of mental illness is that there are devastating economic ramifications. Not only the cost of health care, for those fortunate enough to receive it, but in terms of lost income. A large percentage of them lose their ability to make a living and they lose their support system. So I wanted to include that as much as possible.
DRE: How much research did you do for Keane?
LK: Over the years Ive done a tremendous amount of research on mental illness. Ive gone to Bellevue, talked to doctors. A very close friend of mine suffers from schizophrenia. Ive gone to halfway houses like the Fountain House and different organizations that support the mentally ill.
In terms of the actual landscape, Im from New York so I spent a lot of years here and so I know the landscape pretty well. I wrote a lot of the script in the Port Authority. Id go take a bus and walk through the Lincoln Tunnel like Keane did. Then on the other side of the Lincoln Tunnel is North Bergen and I figured thats where Keane would end up so I lived in North Bergen and got to know it well.
DRE: Did you have shooting permits for all your locations?
LK: Not for some shots, like when he is screaming at cars in the street looking for his daughter. Damien was literally walking into the street in live traffic and started screaming at all the cars. But some of the stuff on the street we stole, but any bridges, any tunnels; anything with the ports was all permitted. I really enjoy working in live environments like Port Authority but since it was a small shoot we had a lot of people walking through frame.
DRE: Did you try to stop them?
LK: We had some production assistants directing traffic and we had some extras that we placed but you cant close it down. Therefore you have to find a way to kind of coexist and integrate it and I think that paid off. Whats really great is the amount of energy that youre able to find in a live environment. The disadvantages are obvious, especially with people looking in the lens but ultimately its still worth it.
DRE: Youve probably been labeled as a more European-type filmmaker.
LK: Yeah, but I dont really think thats true. Ive traveled a lot in my life. I lived in Europe for 11 years so its very possible. I try to be open to different cultures and different influences but I dont really align myself with either the US or Europe.
I think in terms of actual storytelling with being efficient and getting to the point and having a sense of purpose and urgency are much more in the American school of filmmaking than in the European. The films I make are all relatively short. Theyre not languorous or meandering. They may not be ultimately plot driven but I think that it follows narrative filmmaking. On that level I think it falls more into the American school of thought.
DRE: What made you wanted to redeem Keane?
LK: In the very first draft of the script that I wrote, he actually abducts the young girl, Kira, and takes her on the bus and leaves. But when I was writing it theres a point towards the end when he has Kira and he returns to the Port Authority and hes thinking of taking her. He recreates the circumstances of his own daughters abduction and he gives Kira money to buy candy, which is what his own daughter did when she was abducted. He replays out the traumatic event in his desire to change its outcome but of course hes not able to do that. His daughters gone and theres nothing he can do. So I realized that the idea of him abducting the girl at that point would have been really false simply from where he was emotionally. I think everyone is searching for their own form of redemption in life to some degree. But I think that the movie is somewhat open ended but the fact remains that he is still mentally ill.
DRE: Your films havent exactly been huge, financial successes.
LK: Well, lets address that. They certainly havent been big commercial hits. But theyve all made their money back and been profitable.
DRE: Have you ever wanted to make movies on a bigger scale?
LK: Im certainly not adverse to that. I think that perhaps earlier in my life I wasnt interested in that. I wanted only to do scripts that I wrote myself. But now Im much more open to exploring other peoples material and potentially directing it. But the hard thing is to find good material.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
fentopal:
Sounds interesting. I'd heard that he actually wrote some of the script on set to keep it realistic.
miguelitooooo:
yessssss. i love this guy and published a solid article about him in a YETI.. thanks for doign this!