Connect with Deadline online!
https://www.facebook.com/deadline/
https://twitter.com/DEADLINE
https://www.instagram.com/deadline/
https://www.facebook.com/deadline/
https://twitter.com/DEADLINE
https://www.instagram.com/deadline/
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00Well, it's Pete Hammond here again for contenders and today have a contender for Best Picture
00:06and Best Adapted Screenplay.
00:09One of the most acclaimed movies of the year ever since it premiered at the Telluride Film
00:14Festival way back on Labor Day weekend and it has had quite a run.
00:19It's called Nickel Boys based on the Colson Whitehead Pulitzer Prize winning novel which
00:27actually was inspired by real life events at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in
00:33Mariana, Florida.
00:35This was a reform school that operated for over a hundred years in horrifying ways which
00:42is what we're going to find out about when we talk to Rommel Ross, director and co-writer
00:48of the film and Jocelyn Barnes, co-writer, producer of Nickel Boys.
00:55It is quite the story and quite the film.
00:58So before we start on this, let's take a look at Nickel Boys.
01:03How would you do it?
01:10Well, I wouldn't run into the swamp, hiding until the coast is clear then hitch a ride
01:18somewhere west or north.
01:19All right, that's how they get you.
01:23You can't watch Los Santos, that's only in movies.
01:33So what would you do?
01:42So I come out here into the free world, snatch clothes from a wash line and then head south
01:53because they ain't expecting it.
01:54Put as many miles between me and the dogs as I can, tire them out.
01:59See, the trick is not doing what they know you're going to do.
02:04Yeah, why wouldn't they think that you're not going to do it?
02:08And don't take no one with you.
02:09I ain't not one of those dummies.
02:12They'll just take you down with them.
02:16You gotta go it alone.
02:23Wow, Ramel, that is another outstanding aspect of the film and the camera work here, cinematography
02:39by Jomo Frey and your choices here as director in how to shoot this.
02:45And I think it goes back, though, to the whole development of the screenplay and the
02:50idea of what you're trying to do here.
02:52Can you explain your thinking here in adapting the Colson Whitehead novel for the screen?
02:58Because it's wildly different in that way than just reading the book here.
03:02Yeah, man, I love that moment, too, in the film.
03:06It just took me back to watching it and making it.
03:09But yeah, the point of view, as you see in that clip, is vital to the way in which we're
03:16inside of the characters and the way in which we're able to see what they see and be in
03:22their world as they are.
03:24And it's a gesture that I think Jocelyn and I pin to trying to give the Dozier School
03:30boys a type of life or a type of vision or existence beyond what we know to be a narrative
03:37that unfortunately ends with them dying at that school.
03:42And the writing process was therefore about Jocelyn and I trying to get into the heads of
03:46Elwood and Turner and as opposed to, as we normally do, seeing a character in the scene
03:54interacting with the scene, but to be in their bodies and in their heads and see where
03:59they're looking to make meaning.
04:01And that process is quite interesting.
04:03It's a visual process, I would say.
04:06Yeah. So Jocelyn, from the point of view of writing, though, and getting into their heads
04:12and things, what was that experience like for you?
04:15You've worked with Rommel before in a documentary.
04:19Hale County this morning, this evening, was nominated a few years ago for the best
04:24documentary feature.
04:26Both of you are nominated for Oscars, Writers Guild Awards for your adapted screenplay.
04:31So congratulations on that.
04:34Yeah, well, I, you know, Rommel had this, he came up with this great idea of this idea
04:40of what he calls the sentient camera to make the camera an extension of consciousness.
04:46And I think that because we had worked together on his film, Hale County, this morning,
04:51this evening, because I produced that together with him and also was part of the sort of
04:56edit feedback process as he edited the film.
05:00I understood what it was that he was trying to get at with the cinematic grammar he wanted
05:06to create for this adaptation.
05:08And I think that creates the room then for the viewer to be invited into the film.
05:14And in this case, sort of entering, like aligning the viewer's subjectivity with the
05:19character's subjectivity was his premise.
05:22And that was a really daunting task in terms of just thinking about how to write it.
05:26So we agreed that we would write the treatment as an edit.
05:29Firstly, knowing that this kind of specificity of images, both, you know, narrative images
05:36with scenes and archival and adjacent images would do a lot of the labor of the
05:40storytelling. So a lot of the what you would normally see with dialogue was distilled into
05:46image movements.
05:47And that was Rommel's idea to create an experience using image movements.
05:52And this was something that also had evolved out of the previous film.
05:56And so then I think, you know, as the treatment then expanded into a screenplay, we
06:00started to develop scenes where, you know, the characters there that you could really
06:05understand their evolution across the film, where you could where the story would
06:11unfold. We used archival images that we had found during the research process, during
06:16the writing of the film.
06:18We also came up with a lot of images that we then set out, set the archival producers
06:24out to go and find or to find something aligned with what was already in our in our
06:29minds. And Rommel had this idea that he wanted to do this montage sequence towards the
06:35end. So, yeah, we we tried to expand the imaginative world, convey the actual
06:41investigation that the main character in the film is undertaking as these revelations
06:45about the Nicoll Academy's legacy come forward.
06:48The unearthing of bodies on the ground was something that happened at the Dozier
06:53school. And that's inside of the film.
06:57And also archival images that just expand the imaginative world of the viewer.
07:02So these were all things that we did and we just kind of passed it back and forth.
07:05I mean, it was it was the process was actually just, you know, it was very rigorous,
07:11but we had I think we had a really good time doing it.
07:15And we have a funny story about the first draft to remember if you want to share that.
07:19Pete, I don't know if you've heard this one before, but.
07:22I'm happy. We we finished our draft and, you know, we send it to Jeremy and Dede and
07:30Jeremy Kleiner and Dede Gardner, Dede Gardner, the producers with Plan B or with whom
07:35we made it. Yeah.
07:36And also goes to Alanamayo, of course, at Orion.
07:39But it's funny with Dede, we jump on the phone with her and she's like, oh, man, I
07:44really love it. You know, she's you know, she's been talking with us through the
07:47entire process and she's pointing out things that are really, you know, kind of came
07:52together really well. And then she says, yeah, but it's un-fucking-readable.
07:59What do you mean? She's like, no one wants to read camera movement like this is not,
08:04you know, because we were we had gone through such a rigorous process of literally
08:09trying to ensure that even the producers understood that we're looking in a specific
08:14order of operations that we had way too much detail.
08:17And so we went back, of course, and gave it a more writerly touch.
08:21I think that's especially the way Jocelyn just explained the whole process here.
08:28When you do read it, I mean, screenplays can be read when you're filming the thing, but
08:33it's got to be what's on the screen.
08:34And I find it fascinating that you approach it that way.
08:37I've never actually heard of a screenplay written with that kind of cinematic detail
08:43that you put into it, Ramel, which was important for you as a director, obviously.
08:48Yeah, I think so. I think one of the assets of our film is that we've, you know, all the
08:52departments really work together.
08:54And, you know, Jocelyn and I were able to see the process from development to, you know,
09:01writing through production and then through pre-production.
09:05And so it's not often that you have the writers going through the entire thing and that
09:11I guess there's therefore a level of fidelity to the original idea, you know, through that
09:16process.
09:17A lot of times directors won't allow writers on the set, you know, they're done.
09:24Well, as a producer, also a producer across the whole thing.
09:29And I think Ramel inspires, you know, people to also one of the great things about him
09:34as a director is the way he inspires people to bring their best.
09:37But he's also really fearless about, you know, eliciting great ideas from people because
09:43he himself has no shortage of good ideas.
09:45He's not threatened by that.
09:46So we were able to desilo departments so that they could be in much more communication all
09:52the way through. So, you know, we have the editor and the sound mix.
09:54We would have the composer in the sound mix.
09:56We'd have the editor and the composers talking about that and then, you know, talking about
09:59the sound design, production designer Nora Mendez, who's so fabulous, you know, was
10:04communicating with Ramel and Jomo about the, you know, the production design, the options
10:09that they would have to remember that the film was shot in one or single shots from a
10:13single point perspective rather than just writing like omnisciently about what you will
10:18see. You're actually taking into consideration how the characters responding emotionally
10:22in terms of where they're looking.
10:25And then, you know, the design team is giving you options as to where they could look and
10:29what you could land on.
10:31But you're also thinking durationally about you're not cutting away.
10:35There's no reaction shots.
10:36There's no close ups.
10:37You know, this is this is not that kind of film.
10:40So you have to write it with that in mind as well.
10:43And you have to be quite specific in order to do that, because when you're on the shoot,
10:48you don't have the time to like, you know, you just don't have to play around.
10:53Yeah. You don't have that kind of time.
10:55Yeah. It's a whole thing.
10:56Well, that's what makes it a best picture overall, what you just described to all of
11:01those departments and everything that goes in.
11:03Rommel, I wanted to ask you about the impact of this film at this time.
11:10There's a lot going on in the world and there's a lot continuing to happen day by day
11:15in this country since the election and things.
11:17The timing of this movie, especially with an attack on DEI going on daily like it's
11:25I've never seen before the timing of it, that it's out now and that it will be
11:29continuing to be seen when it hits streaming platforms and everything else in
11:33theaters now is remarkable.
11:36It's perfect. Yeah, it's it's kind of well, it's unprecedented what's being rolled
11:41back, you know, such common things or such taken for granted things as, you know,
11:46Black History Month or the idea that we need multiple voices in the room.
11:50I think the thing that's most fascinating is just the idea of erasure and the amount of
11:55stories that are already lost fundamentally to history.
11:58But then this sort of inclination to erase all of the sites and spaces that were set to
12:06preserve those stories.
12:07And I think in that sense, Nickel Boys definitely has something to offer, at least as a
12:13sort of response or a site of resistance to stories that were fundamentally buried.
12:19And and, you know, I like to say it's the irony is not lost on me that we're we're
12:24elevating their story to the to the annals of cinema.
12:27Yeah. And if I could, Pete, if I could just add to that, I would just say, you know, the
12:31emotional coherence of this film is really tied to Dr.
12:35King's conversation about his belief in agape and selfless love.
12:41And I think that what it says about the people who murdered him was was really that a
12:48lack of understanding that he was trying to build a world where hatred could not take
12:53root. Like how do we create ourselves without finding it necessary to create an enemy is
12:59really something important to look at at this time.
13:01And I think that what we tried to do here is conceive a kind of new narrative and create
13:07a way for people to be situated in an ethical relationship.
13:12You know, there's so many people who are marginalized, whether they're immigrants or
13:18undocumented or whether it's people of color or LGBTQ people in this country and
13:25other groups, you know, whatever's being done to you, it's not being registered as
13:30unethical because you don't exist in an ethical relationship already.
13:35And this is why so many people are living in a situation of violence.
13:38And I think what we tried to do as artists was to respond and to respond by supporting
13:45human dignity and this story of the Dozier boys and their and their survival and their
13:53witnessing for each other and the people that went to the trouble of unearthing those
14:01graves and bringing this to light.
14:04This is this is, as Ramel said, it's a resistance to erasure, but it's also about trying
14:09to set a new a new world like we we have to create a different world.
14:15And this love is is it's not namby pamby.
14:19This is like something that is real.
14:21This is like active, not passive.
14:25Well, the power of cinema, which you've delivered here with Nickel Boys.
14:31And thank you to MGM, Amazon and Orion for letting us have this opportunity to talk to both of you
14:39today. And good luck going forward.
14:43You've got a lot of award shows you're going to and it's well-deserved.
14:48And congratulations.
14:49Thank you for joining us on Contenders.
14:52Hey, thanks for having us.
14:54It was a lot of fun. Thanks, Pete.