BY TIM GREAVES
Tony
Earnshaw, one of our contributing writers, has trawled his extensive archive of
interviews with prolific directors – accrued over some 20 years of attending
press junkets – and cherry picked a selection of the most worthy material for
his new book "Fantastique: Interviews with Horror, Sci-Fi and Fantasy
Filmmakers" (a title which, on the copyright page, is tantalisingly
suffixed with a parenthesised Volume I).
The
bulk of the content comprises 30 interviews with genre directors (a few of them
in the company of their stars or writers), each speaking primarily about one of
their films. Adopting an A-Z format by director, each interview is preceded by
cast, credits and a brief synopsis for the film under discussion. There’s a
diverse collective of talent represented too, from the big boys (Quentin
Tarantino discusses 2007's Death Proof,
Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale talk about 2005's Batman Begins, George Lucas promotes 1999’s Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace) to the possibly less
familiar, but no less significant (Frank Khalfoun on his imaginative 2013 restaging
of Maniac, André Øvredal discussing
2011's Troll Hunter).
Though
around a third of these interviews were conducted in the more intimate environs
of one-on-one sessions, the remainder derive from press junkets mounted at the
time of each film's release. Whether the responses gleaned to questions posed
under such circumstances can be considered entirely honest or not is debatable,
the very purpose of those (usually contractual) gatherings being for directors
and all manner of other associated creative parties to sell their movie as the
best thing to ever hit the screen; it can often take a bit of distance and the
benefit of hindsight to extrude more candid comments. However, given that most
of the films under discussion here were bona fide critical and financial
successes adds considerably to the veracity of the directors’ words.
Some
anecdotes harbour a ring of familiarity (again, being the product of press events,
they were repeated often), but this reader found enough fresh meat and potatoes
to compensate. Everyone will have their favourite chapters (as likely to be dictated
by one’s liking for a particular film as they are a partiality to the director
at hand); among the highlights for this reader were Tim Burton (on 2000's Sleepy Hollow) revealing Christopher
Walken's apparent fear of horses (he must have had a tough time on the likes of
1978’s Shoot the Sun Down and 1985
Bond caper A View to a Kill too then!),
William Friedkin (on 1973's The Exorcist)
dismissing the stories of the much-publicised curse surrounding the production
and his disinclination to ever integrate the legendarily shelved "spider
walk" sequence into the film (which, in a new cut some years later, was), James Mangold talking about his
multi-layered mystery masterpiece Identity
(2003), and literally everything a tirelessly enthusiastic Frank Henenlotter
had to say in a 2012 retrospective discussing his movie-saturated youth and in
particular his barmy 1982 comic horror film Basket
Case.
Opening
with a foreword from noted genre writer Bruce G Hallenbeck and rounded off with
a listing of director filmographies, “Fantastique†is an irresistibly worthy
addition to the library of anyone with even a passing interest in fantastic
cinema. Roll on Volume II.
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