The Point Radio: Fairy Tale Fantasy In WINTER’S TALE
Transcript
The Point Radio James Mike Raub, but winners tales in theaters just in time for Valentine's Day. But is it a love story or a fantasy film? We talked to writer-director Akiva Goldsmith and actor Colin Farrell about just how it all comes together.
Plus, Brian Singer buys a comic book and Chu gets a crossover. Let's get to The Point. This is The Point. The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio.
Winter's Tale began as a novel written by author Mark Halperin. However, Akiva Goldsmith decided to take it to the big screen, writing a screenplay and directing the film as well. I ask him as he approached the material if he initially found it to be a little unbelievable in the beginning.
Winter's Tale starts off, always has, as this very elusive genre of magical realism, which is very much not something we do typically as Americans either in film or movies. It's the coexistence of serious, dramatic scenes in a flying white horse. That is either delightful to you or aversive. To me, it has always been something remarkable.
It divided people and drew people in from the first moment the book was published all the way through this object. For me, what it finally became, I think, is the movie is kind of a secret message. It's kind of a decoder ring. It's a wink and a nod to people who have had loss and the need to believe in magic
when you have. That's what drew me to it. So, is this a story about magic? Star of the film, actor Colin Farrell. One of the cruxes and the bedrocks of this film is the presence of a love that defies
linear time and the kind of eternal existence of something that is felt but can't be defined by thought. Poets are still trying to do it centuries later through language and some of them get close but love will never be defined in a quotidian way or an empirical way where it can be judged or measured.
With that in mind, any of the more magical elements to the film, any of the more fantastical elements, whether it's a flying horse or time bending over on itself and someone existing for 100 years and not aging, were things that you became a subject of and they were almost, I think, almost easier to write off as awe-inspiring events than, I mean, the whole depth of the love between Peter and Beverly is the most magical and fantastical element of the whole
film. It's much more magical and much more fantastical even and yet beautifully and gratefully much more possible than a flying horse. So, not really so much. The whole script was kind of the, and the story seemed like this exercise in the defiance
of disbelief in things happening in a person's life that they never thought or comprehended could happen. Peter wasn't looking for love, you know, and all of a sudden this world opens up to him and the world of his former existence and the self-preservation and the kind of defensive strategy with which he had to carry himself through life just to survive begins to crumble
and fade away and this path of love and gentility and light and true interconnectedness presents itself so that was for me the most magical and fantastical element of the film. For Akiva, how difficult was it to take the novel and then create a believable screenplay? The mythology of it is it's some marriage between me and Mark Halpern who wrote the novel.
Mark's book is the cosmology of Mark's book is very, very, very complex, even more complex than the movies. I tried to distill it down to some extent. Part of what is really clear in Mark's book is the notion of light and its grammar as part of magic, as something transformative, the idea that light is operating sort of all
the time in ways that we can't see, that there is more to the world, there is a world behind the world and so what we tried to do with the movie is talk about it but also show it, you know, so there's that sort of scene where, you know, when Jess playing Beverly says the sicker I become the more I can see that everything is connected by light, you know, we jump up and just connect stuff by light.
It's not particularly subtle but, you know, quite pretty and that's the use of flares and what we sort of did is we made believe that the camera could see magic even when the characters for the most part couldn't and that gave us a little bit of an organizing principle to use light when something magical occurs. So even if you're not noticing it when Russell is lurching forward or Will is morphing or
these guys are jumping, we brought out these are all sort of digital anamorphic flares that are used to sort of create the idea of the magic flaring. So was it ever difficult to reimagine Mark Halperin's work as a movie? You know, adaptation is always the same process for me which is it's some version of throwing the book at the wall and seeing what pages fall out.
It is trying to imagine, remember the story, read it, put it down and then write sort of an outline without the book in front of you with some hope that what you like about it will be filtered and distilled out through your memory and that that will be similar to what other people like about it. But you can never tell.
So for me adaptation is just sort of using my own memory and imagination as a template and trying to distill what is important to me out of an object. This one was easier than it appears to be because there are 300 or so pages in the middle of the object dedicated to a character named Hardesty Marietta who existed in one draft in an encounter with Jenny's character from the very beginning and never made it past
the first draft. And so really the book was smaller than it might seem to be when it came to adaptation. So would he turn this a fairy tale? I think this is a fairy tale for grown-ups and I think it is very pointedly a fairy tale for grown-ups and that's I think what we set out to do and it's an interesting object
because the first two-thirds is a fairy tale for kids. And you know there have there has always been in my life in the development of this object those people who say well can it just be over then? The idea that even though it doesn't turn out the way the story book promised there's a story behind it all that we could find.
For Colin I asked him how difficult it was playing a character who in the space of the movie spanned so many decades. It was all very it was all very clearly demarked in the script and it was all very clearly demarked in the shooting of the film. The later Peter Lake is somebody who exists very uncomfortably in the present.
It's an uncomfortable present each day is kind of devoid of meaning because it's a repetition of the day before which he can remember. I think it's almost like a groundhog day. He goes to bed at night and he wakes up the next day and it's the beginning of a life that he has no reference point for.
Has no idea of what his origin is and we as human beings we judge ourselves in our present based on our own origin stories on where we grew up where we were born what our family was like how our cultural references informed our personalities. So it was interesting it was fun it was fun but it was certainly very much more comfortable and very much more grounded Peter at the beginning of the story as flighty as he seemed at the
beginning of the story because as much as he had a battle as much as he had a kind of an internal rub based on his upbringing and his orphan status and his his disassociation from any sense of family until he meets Beverly and her family depends he's okay in his discomfort but it's just later on in life when he is consumed by this sense of loss but he has no idea where the loss comes from that he that he experiences this kind of profound
discomfort that is that is agitating more than anything else and disturbing more than anything else. As much of a cliche as it is this time of year love is definitely in the air. I ask Colin if he thought that whole concept was a little overrated. No I mean possibly underrated the importance of it and how its prevalence in a single person's
life or in the life of a shared community can make incredible changes and can promote the idea of peace and harmony within a society or within a person's individual existence. I think love is it has to be the one thing it seems that defines us as human beings our ability to care for each other our ability to demonstrate through acts of compassion a concern for your fellow man and Valentine's Day I don't even know what that's about really
I mean it should you know it's an excuse for and it's I think it's it's whatever you make it you know but it'd be nice if it didn't take such a kind of publicly promoted or commercially promoted holiday for people to extend themselves in gestures of love. Colin Farrell along with Jessica Brown Finley and Eva Marie Saint and Russell Crowe as well in Winter's Tale in theaters right now.
The flight radio. Coming right into the latest in pop culture if you've been waiting for that unaired sixth season of Star Wars Clone Wars well here's some real good news for you it along with the previous seasons will be streamed on Netflix beginning the 7th of March this will include a 13 episode season number six dubbed the Lost Missions and some directors cuts and
some other extra things as well again be prepared to lock yourself down for a big binge session of Star Wars on Netflix coming up the 7th of March. The cast of Sharknado 2 has been revealed includes people like Kelly Osbourne Judd Hirsch Andy Dick Judah Freelander Vivica A Fox and Martin McGrath they join original cast members and Ziering and Tara Reid in the film which is right now before cameras in New York City
and will be on the Sci-Fi channel in July. Creator writer Dan Harmon's other baby on Adult Swim Rick and Morty has now been renewed for a second season it's an animated comedy in case you didn't know that runs on Mondays at around 1030 Eastern. Dan of course also back at the helm of Community on NBC.
There's yet another new take on Robin Hood this time from the folks at BBC and this time with a couple of major twists. It's done by the folks who created Dracula and the producers of NBC's The Blacklist and it positions Robin Hood and his main foe the Sheriff of Nottingham as the same person. It appears the Sheriff's wife is killed by the King's men.
He becomes enraged so by day he's the Sheriff and by night he plots against the King as Robin Hood. We're told that the tone of the show is very similar to Game of Thrones. If you're waiting for the second issue of Sandman Overdrive to turn up at your comic shop you got a little more time to wait.
It was said to be out in December just a couple of months after the first issue. Then it got moved into February first part of March. The latest release date from DC is that it will be in stores the last ship week of March right around the 26th. Warner's has set a release date for their 3D Tarzan movie although it is a little far
in the future. My first 2016 is the date a few weeks after the now moved Superman Batman movie will also be premiering in theaters. In case you've forgotten Alexander Skarsgard is Thor, Samuel Jackson, Christoph Walter in the movie and recently added was Margot Robbie as Jane.
Fox has added some more names to the cast of their pilot of Gotham the pre-Batman story of the city where he'll later on make his home. Sean Purdway from elementary has been cast as Alfred and Alfred has been recast as a quote tough as nails ex-Marine who looks over Bruce Wayne as his butler. Bruce Wayne of course in this is pre-teen and most of the focus of the show will be
on a young James Gordon. Robin Lord Taylor is playing Oswald Cobblepot you'll know that as the Penguin. Actress Erin Richards from breaking in will be the playing part of the fiance of James Gordon. And how about Harvey Bullock that role goes to Donald Logue recently is most seen in the
last season of Sons of Anarchy. Analyst creator Bruno Heller is writing and executive producing the pilot which will be looked at for a series consideration in just a few weeks. For the 13th year fans of Ask Men were asked to vote for the top 99 most desirable women. It's a poll they've been doing for years now asking for not just reports on sex appeal
but also asking people voting to take into account character, talent and potential. When are they Cher? Amelia Clark from Game of Thrones. Community's Alison Brie came in second in the poll. The point, the point.
Coming off a pretty good Christmas season and an overall good year graphic novels took a huge dip. When you look at the sales in comic stores during the month of January they were down 14.28% when compared to the same month in 2013. A lot of this due to lack of new material during the month as we go through the top
ten you'll hear a lot of familiar titles that have actually been on the shelves for quite a little bit. So in the month of January in comic stores the ten best selling graphic novels started number ten with Marvel's Thor God of Thunder volume one. Batman the Dark Knight volume two at number nine.
The Unwritten volume eight from DC Vertigo at number eight. X-Men Battle of the Atom the hardcover from Marvel at number seven. Second volume of Saga from Image came in at number six. At number five Batman 66 the TV stories trade paperback. At number four Superior Spider-Man the fourth volume in that run.
At number three the all new X-Men volume one trade paperback from Marvel. Second best seller very familiar The Walking Dead volume one from Image and the number one best selling graphic novel in comic stores in January Saga volume one from Image. And as for right now when we're back we'll be joined by comic fan and comedian and guy who turns up at just about every TV show on the air Pat Nosball.
In the meantime plenty of pop culture to share between now and then at Get the Point Radio. That's where you listen free on your laptop or your desktop or take us along on any mobile device Apple or Android with iNet Radio. Get that app for free at iNetRadio.com or in your app store. The podcast is cranked out twice every week by Malkatin Media.
Turns up on websites right now like ComicMix.com and MichaelDavisWorld.com and in the iTunes podcast directory too and you can keep in touch with all that on social media by just following us at The Point Radio. Have a good weekend. See you in a few days.
