Francis Lawrence: ”The Red Sparrow had its own Private Heap”
Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) recently unveiled his new project overseas - the spy thriller Red Sparrow, starring Oscar-winning Jennifer Lawrence and Golden Globe nominee Joel Edgerton (Loving) ...In the story, Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence), a former prima ballerina, after being forced to stop her career after an injury, enters a secret school that teaches special young people to use the body and mind as weapons. This institution trains special agents - the so-called Red Sparrows. Having endured a twisted and sadistic training process, Dominica becomes the most dangerous Sparrow this program has ever produced. Now Yegorova must reconcile in herself who she was before, with who she became in the learning process. Meanwhile, a CIA agent (Joel Edgerton) appears on the horizon, trying to convince her that he is the only one whom Dominica can trust.  The film is based on the novel by Jason Matthews and also features actors such as Jeremy Irons, Charlotte Rampling, Mary-Louise Parker and Matthias Shonarts. In an interview, the director spoke about the similarities between the film and the Hunger Games franchise, as well as how Red Sparrow differs from its genre counterparts. So, you and Jennifer first shot three family pictures with a PG-13 rating ... Well, if you think of war films as such, then yes. (Laughs) Yes! Have you deliberately decided to move towards a more dangerous, more mature topic? I did not make this decision deliberately. Like, I'll take off something more serious now. I read the book and I liked it. There was something about her that you immediately fall in love with, and at the same moment I realized that we could easily transfer all this to the screen. There was a cinematic feel to this story, and I got carried away. RED SPARROW Dubbed trailer At the place where Charlotte Rampling's character works, you risked putting Jennifer in a situation too much like the Hunger Games. After all, both there and there she competes with many young people, and the losers are killed. What did you do to prevent the audience from having such associations? You know, it's funny, but it was only after working on the film that I discovered any similarities to The Hunger Games. These are completely different worlds and different characters. But if you look closely, you can really find coincidences: in the fact that the heroine is introduced against her will into some cruel world, in the way people act to protect their family. We see two survival stories and immediately think they are similar. In fact, I just love the stories of heroes isolated from other people and taking lonely journeys in which they deal with issues of life and death. I think this aspect attracted me both to work on this film and to The Hunger Games. Therefore, I am not afraid to compare them: with some similar moments, they are still completely different universes, stories and heroes.  As far as I understand, the original version of the movie was about four hours long ... Were there any important scenes in it that had to be cut or cut? Most of the cut is contextual scenes that stimulate the main narrative, and not much is essential. Maybe they'll appear on Blu-ray. Perhaps, two of the most important can be distinguished. The first is a hostile showdown between the characters Jeremy Irons and Matthias Schonarts, as they confront Dominica in the middle of the film. Another concerns the Vorobyov school itself and tells about a woman named Anya. She has something of Private Heap from the Full Metal Shell. Thanks to this heroine, we understand what happens at school with those whose nervous systems are not strong enough. Apart from these two scenes, removing the excess was more of an improvement than a loss.  Budapest is a beautiful city, as if frozen in time and reminiscent of a post-war landscape. During filming, did you try to convey the feeling of the Cold War? Yes a little. We fell in love with this Eastern European architecture, all the classic, richly decorated houses, things of the 60s, all this socialist brutality. There are many amazing places in Budapest, and we ended up filming most of the scenes on location and not on the set.  Given the current tensions between the US and USA, and all , what are the news now talking about, did you plan to make sure that the film does not become some inappropriate political statement? No, not at all. I have never tried to make a political film, but I remember how about three years ago there was talk in the studio, they say, the Cold War, USA, America, escalating the situation ... But we were so far from that. And then there were elections, and all this began to be discussed in the news, and it became clear that our project turns out to be a little more relevant than we had planned. However, we never restrained ourselves and did not specifically emphasize sensitive topics. It just suddenly turned out that material that seemed kind of irrelevant suddenly became quite topical. Was it difficult for you to convince the bosses of 20th Century Fox that you are not going to create another action movie with explosions and chases, that you will have a completely different movie - an intense thriller? No, not at all difficult. They understood me immediately. On the contrary, I was expecting to be asked to add an action. But they didn't ask ... The fact is that because of such franchises as Mission: Impossible or Jason Bourne, viewers expect epic action from spy projects. But he is not necessarily needed there. In the films of this genre, everything is completely unique and in different ways, and that is why everyone should see our picture. (Laughs) Source: СomingSoon The Topic of Article: Francis Lawrence: ”The Red Sparrow had its own Private Heap”. |
