The Pusher movies are so real that it is almost like watching drug dealers live their lives in front of a hidden camera. The power was going in and out in Astoria Queens while I was trying to watch the movies so I had to view them in chunks. In a way it was almost like visiting a drug dealers house all day and seeing who he has meetings with. The three Pusher movies were done over a decade and have been very popular all over the world and now they are finally coming to the US courtesy of Magnolia Pictures. I got a chance to talk with the auteur behind the films, Nicolas Winding Refn.
Find out more about the Pusher trilogy
Daniel Robert Epstein: I wasnt sure what to expect from these movies when I first read about them, but theyre fantastic. Theyre almost vrit, Cassavetes-like. Was that what you were going for?
Nicolas Winding Refn: When I was 19, I saw the Killing of a Chinese Bookie [directed by John Cassavetes] and I remember thinking, Thats the kind of acting I want. So I went to the same acting school that he did called American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and I hated it. It proved my anti-authority aspect when I was kicked out after a year. But trying to act gives you a lot of knowledge so one of the key things that I always do is that I shoot my films in chronological order. That gives a certain flavor to the actors and allows them to be very truthful. That creates a lot of basis for giving very honest performances.
DRE: In Pusher II when Tonny finds out his mothers dead, there was no swell of music. There was no big over dramatic thing. Do you feel the need to strip all of that stuff away?
Refn: My philosophy is that is less is more and none is everything. So my challenge is to put myself in a situation where I dont have any options besides the one that I do. Whatever comes out of that is the right choice. The making all of my films becomes a discovery process. With a painting you dont start at the middle. An example where it really confused me was when I was directing Pusher III there was the scene were Zlatko Buric, the Milo character, has to walk across the street and tell the Albanians that he doesnt have their money. I decided to shoot the dialogue scene first, which meant I had to go out of chronology. As I made that decision I was suddenly panicking because, would Milo wear his jacket or not wear his jacket? I spent two hours analyzing that with Zlatko. He couldnt come up with a solution. So I said, All right. Fine. Youre wearing your coat. So we shot all the dialogue and it went really well, very quick. The crew was very happy because they thought they were going to have a short day. I said, After lunch well just do him walking across the street. He walks out of the restaurant and I say, Theres something wrong here. You shouldnt be wearing that coat. You wouldnt do that. Thats completely illogical. So we went back and reshot the whole scene. Thats how important it is to have that process of the characters taking on their own lives and dictating how they want to be performed.
DRE: The Pusher movies are so real it almost makes me believe that you could sell drugs.
Refn: I have the knowledge now at least. Some French journalist asked me why I thought that the films were able to travel around the world. I said, First of all, the world does not need anymore gangster films. But I think that my films are not about gangsters. Theyre about people in a criminal environment, which is very different. Its about their vulnerabilities rather than their dangers, which makes them very human. The setting is the concept. Thats like Shakespeare doing a play about the royal family. But the emotions are very universal and thats what the focus is on. I grew up as an upper class kid here in New York with a nice healthy socialistic background in politics and respecting other people. So the environment is not something that is autobiographical. When I made the first Pusher in 1996, I was 24. I was a genre fan. I knew that it was a good commercial commodity but halfway through that film I realized that I wasnt really interested in gangster films. I was interested in the morality tales like Killing of a Chinese Bookie or Public Enemy, films that had a mean streak with a morality tale as a backdrop. The first Pusher is like two films. First it is my own fascination with gangster films. The second half is about a characters downfall, his descent into hell. Pusher I is about a man who is incapable of showing his emotions, which becomes his downfall. Pusher II is about a father/son relationship where the son realizes that hes not about loving his father. Its about killing his father. Pusher III is about a king who is going to lose his empire and his humanity disappears. So in that way, its not autobiographical. But I think the emotional aspects are very bilingual.
DRE: How long after Pusher I did you make Pusher II?
Refn: After Pusher I, I never thought I was going to make these kind of films. I always thought that coming from a background where my parents were in the film industry and I grew up with the French New Wave and very traditional European art house films, so I always imagined I was going to be making films like that. But I very quickly realized it was genre films that I was always attracted to. After Pusher, I made one Danish film called Bleeder and then an American film called Fear X and they were both very experimental. I realized I was making films for a small audience. I ended up going bankrupt on Fear X so to pay off that debt I went and made Pusher II and III more in the tradition that I wanted to do Pusher I in which is to concentrate on the social aspects of them. This time I only cast real gangsters to play the actors.
DRE: Its amazing what kind of art can come out of a bankruptcy. What is your mindset when you are trying to regain a part of your life back?
Refn: Theres a whole documentary made about that called Gambler. It shows my desperation of being on set calling my bank, telling them that the moneys on the way and picking up my child at kindergarten and making the films. I think it made me a better filmmaker because up until then I had basically been able to do what I wanted with no questions asked and no consequences. But when you suddenly owe a lot of money, you have to think in a different way. I was very angry at having to go back and make them because I was afraid of failure. What if I couldnt make films that were better than the first one? I was very angry when I made them but now Im very happy with them. I think they are much better films than my first one. Again it really proved to me that making a film is a commercial commodity and during the making of Fear X, where I ventured into international financing, I learned the hard way that film is a business. My two previous Danish films Pusher and Bleeder, were government-financed and were very easy for me to do for very cheap. Internationally I didnt have that concept on my shoulders. But making Fear X, which was a higher budget for me and was much more of a complex film financing wise and potential wise, I realized I have to find a balance between artistic integrity and a commercial commodity.
DRE: Its interesting that you were talking about being on the phone talking about the moneys coming in. In a sense, you became like the characters.
Refn: An image of my own films.
DRE: Was that very eerie?
Refn: In a way maybe it was a circle that was completing.
DRE: Could there be a fourth Pusher set in America?
Refn: I was approached by one of the American major networks to do it as a television series. But I think that Im going to take a break from making them right now and do something else. If I want to, I can continue. Theyre very much conceived like a television show. Theres a visual knowledge that the audience has whenever they see one of them. Theyre very episodic. Theyre very character-driven. Its about one persons descent. In a way I can always go back to it, which I probably will. But Im also very interested in seeing something possibly spanning the universe, maybe to a different medium, like television.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Find out more about the Pusher trilogy
Daniel Robert Epstein: I wasnt sure what to expect from these movies when I first read about them, but theyre fantastic. Theyre almost vrit, Cassavetes-like. Was that what you were going for?
Nicolas Winding Refn: When I was 19, I saw the Killing of a Chinese Bookie [directed by John Cassavetes] and I remember thinking, Thats the kind of acting I want. So I went to the same acting school that he did called American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and I hated it. It proved my anti-authority aspect when I was kicked out after a year. But trying to act gives you a lot of knowledge so one of the key things that I always do is that I shoot my films in chronological order. That gives a certain flavor to the actors and allows them to be very truthful. That creates a lot of basis for giving very honest performances.
DRE: In Pusher II when Tonny finds out his mothers dead, there was no swell of music. There was no big over dramatic thing. Do you feel the need to strip all of that stuff away?
Refn: My philosophy is that is less is more and none is everything. So my challenge is to put myself in a situation where I dont have any options besides the one that I do. Whatever comes out of that is the right choice. The making all of my films becomes a discovery process. With a painting you dont start at the middle. An example where it really confused me was when I was directing Pusher III there was the scene were Zlatko Buric, the Milo character, has to walk across the street and tell the Albanians that he doesnt have their money. I decided to shoot the dialogue scene first, which meant I had to go out of chronology. As I made that decision I was suddenly panicking because, would Milo wear his jacket or not wear his jacket? I spent two hours analyzing that with Zlatko. He couldnt come up with a solution. So I said, All right. Fine. Youre wearing your coat. So we shot all the dialogue and it went really well, very quick. The crew was very happy because they thought they were going to have a short day. I said, After lunch well just do him walking across the street. He walks out of the restaurant and I say, Theres something wrong here. You shouldnt be wearing that coat. You wouldnt do that. Thats completely illogical. So we went back and reshot the whole scene. Thats how important it is to have that process of the characters taking on their own lives and dictating how they want to be performed.
DRE: The Pusher movies are so real it almost makes me believe that you could sell drugs.
Refn: I have the knowledge now at least. Some French journalist asked me why I thought that the films were able to travel around the world. I said, First of all, the world does not need anymore gangster films. But I think that my films are not about gangsters. Theyre about people in a criminal environment, which is very different. Its about their vulnerabilities rather than their dangers, which makes them very human. The setting is the concept. Thats like Shakespeare doing a play about the royal family. But the emotions are very universal and thats what the focus is on. I grew up as an upper class kid here in New York with a nice healthy socialistic background in politics and respecting other people. So the environment is not something that is autobiographical. When I made the first Pusher in 1996, I was 24. I was a genre fan. I knew that it was a good commercial commodity but halfway through that film I realized that I wasnt really interested in gangster films. I was interested in the morality tales like Killing of a Chinese Bookie or Public Enemy, films that had a mean streak with a morality tale as a backdrop. The first Pusher is like two films. First it is my own fascination with gangster films. The second half is about a characters downfall, his descent into hell. Pusher I is about a man who is incapable of showing his emotions, which becomes his downfall. Pusher II is about a father/son relationship where the son realizes that hes not about loving his father. Its about killing his father. Pusher III is about a king who is going to lose his empire and his humanity disappears. So in that way, its not autobiographical. But I think the emotional aspects are very bilingual.
DRE: How long after Pusher I did you make Pusher II?
Refn: After Pusher I, I never thought I was going to make these kind of films. I always thought that coming from a background where my parents were in the film industry and I grew up with the French New Wave and very traditional European art house films, so I always imagined I was going to be making films like that. But I very quickly realized it was genre films that I was always attracted to. After Pusher, I made one Danish film called Bleeder and then an American film called Fear X and they were both very experimental. I realized I was making films for a small audience. I ended up going bankrupt on Fear X so to pay off that debt I went and made Pusher II and III more in the tradition that I wanted to do Pusher I in which is to concentrate on the social aspects of them. This time I only cast real gangsters to play the actors.
DRE: Its amazing what kind of art can come out of a bankruptcy. What is your mindset when you are trying to regain a part of your life back?
Refn: Theres a whole documentary made about that called Gambler. It shows my desperation of being on set calling my bank, telling them that the moneys on the way and picking up my child at kindergarten and making the films. I think it made me a better filmmaker because up until then I had basically been able to do what I wanted with no questions asked and no consequences. But when you suddenly owe a lot of money, you have to think in a different way. I was very angry at having to go back and make them because I was afraid of failure. What if I couldnt make films that were better than the first one? I was very angry when I made them but now Im very happy with them. I think they are much better films than my first one. Again it really proved to me that making a film is a commercial commodity and during the making of Fear X, where I ventured into international financing, I learned the hard way that film is a business. My two previous Danish films Pusher and Bleeder, were government-financed and were very easy for me to do for very cheap. Internationally I didnt have that concept on my shoulders. But making Fear X, which was a higher budget for me and was much more of a complex film financing wise and potential wise, I realized I have to find a balance between artistic integrity and a commercial commodity.
DRE: Its interesting that you were talking about being on the phone talking about the moneys coming in. In a sense, you became like the characters.
Refn: An image of my own films.
DRE: Was that very eerie?
Refn: In a way maybe it was a circle that was completing.
DRE: Could there be a fourth Pusher set in America?
Refn: I was approached by one of the American major networks to do it as a television series. But I think that Im going to take a break from making them right now and do something else. If I want to, I can continue. Theyre very much conceived like a television show. Theres a visual knowledge that the audience has whenever they see one of them. Theyre very episodic. Theyre very character-driven. Its about one persons descent. In a way I can always go back to it, which I probably will. But Im also very interested in seeing something possibly spanning the universe, maybe to a different medium, like television.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
trocc:
the triple bill is playing in Chicago on October 20th... i'm going to try and get to it, because i loved the first one.
tchort:
if you can, you should definately watch bleeder aswell. one of the most dificult movies i have ever watched... it's fantastic. has a very depressing mood and feeling to it. captures a lonely copenhagen very well, in my opinion.