About the Production

 

 One of the most iconoclastic filmmakers of his generation, Hal Hartley brings his own unique sensibilities to No Such Thing, which he describes as “a modernist fairy tale and a very modern take on older monster movies.”  Hartley says, “My aim was to make a movie about our current human situation using the elements that classic monster movies like the Godzilla and Mothra films always seem to have.  The Mothra movies always have some young woman who is a journalist or a photographer, and the plot is usually pushed along by this need to ‘get the story.’  The New York section of the movie is very much in the shadow of King Kong, and the Nosferatu and Frankenstein movies helped set the tone.”

The inspiration for the film came from Icelandic producer Fridrik Thór Fridriksson, one of the film’s three producers.  Recalls Hartley, “At Cannes in 1998 when I was there with my film Henry Fool, Fridrik was hoping to make a deal with a German company for a group of monster movies to be shot in Iceland, I think.  He asked me if I would make one, and because I liked him and wanted to travel to Iceland I said yes.”

Hartley enjoyed the challenge of writing a monster film, something seemingly so different from the rest of his work.  But Hartley actually found the genre very conducive to exploring themes that have informed all his films.  Says Hartley, “I feel like I pretty much make films about the same thing no matter what the movie is.  When asked to make a monster movie, I figured it would be fun to provide the requirements for a monster movie while at the same time pursuing my ongoing interests.  My ongoing interests are a little bit harder to talk about, but I guess I am interested in societies and families and groups of individuals and their relationship to what they consider the worst in them.  For this film, I thought, ‘Let’s imagine that we’re the Monster, and that we’re capable of bringing it into existence just by will, collectively.’  I’m also fascinated with the information hitch, a little terrified and fascinated.  A crucial linchpin that got me writing the script very quickly and easily was when it dawned on me that perhaps the Monster will discover that he’s real but nevertheless a figment of someone else’s imagination.  And that, for me, is a metaphor for a lot of contemporary existence.  We really do talk things into existence.”

Unlike the raving and roaring monsters in most films, Hartley’s Monster is very articulate, as communicative and full of emotions and feelings as the human characters.  Hartley sees him this way:  “I think the Monster has been all over.  He has seen everything.  He has probably been pushed further and further North, away from humanity and its noise, and I imagine he dug himself down into that rock in the 17th century and comes up for air every now and again to sink some ship and steal their whiskey.  He’s also a curmudgeon, the type of character I like so much and that appears in a lot of my films.  The Monster here is a different version of all the leading men in my stories, whether it’s Matthew in Trust or Henry Fool.   He can’t stand small talk, he doesn’t like beating around the bush, and he has a well-justified contempt for people.  Then he meets this girl who’s not like all the rest.  She’s mistakenly judged to be naive by a lot of people, but she’s not – she’s just a straight shooter.  She lacks all the posing that most of us acquire just to get through the modern world.  Probably the most special thing about her is that she has absolutely no wants from the world.  She doesn’t insist that she’s owed anything.  The Monster is simply impressed by her self-possession.”

Hartley continues: “The Monster is in pain all the time.  Everything has a right to come into being and then go out of being – except him.  He’d rather die than continue to be in pain.  So he gives Beatrice an ultimatum: ‘If somebody doesn’t help me try to find Dr. Artaud so he can kill me,’ he says, ‘then I’ll just have to kill everybody.  I have all the time in the world and it’s nothing personal.’  Beatrice hears this and feels that if she can’t do it, who can?  Towards the end of the film, the Monster begins to really appreciate her.  And he has second thoughts before the end.”

Sarah Polley, a Canadian actress best known for her unforgettable work in Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter, plays the pivotal role of Beatrice.  She was Hartley’s first choice because, he says, “I responded to the uncomplicated focus that she brought to the various characters she’d played.  And when we met I was struck by her intelligence and her honesty and straightforwardness in conversation.”

Upon reading the script, Polley was instantly taken with the character of Beatrice.  She says, “I really identified with the character and I thought the story was beautiful and epic in a way that you don’t see in films now.  It’s a really intelligent fairy tale like The Wizard of Oz or Beauty and the Beast.  Beatrice is a fantastical character if you’re a cynic.  She’s the purest form of innocence you can possibly imagine without being naive.  She has a true faith in human nature, and playing her was a tough line to walk.  It was very difficult not to waver into playing her like a naive little girl.  I think the struggle was to have enough respect and to make sure I played her with as much wisdom as she’s written with.”

For the role of the Monster, Hartley chose Robert John Burke, who has appeared in four of his films and whom he has known for twenty years.  Says Hartley, “Robert’s got a lot of experience with heavy special effects makeup. And once Robert read it, he just really responded to the script.  He really wanted to be the Monster, and I think he understood a lot about what the Monster is because he’s played so many monsters for me in the past – not literal monsters but guys with problems and grouchy curmudgeons.” 

Burke saw the Monster “as an existence-saturated being who wants out.  But there is no exit door presented to him.  I felt a kindred spirit with the Monster in terms of the level of his frustration on any given day in any given situation.  I think he’s hit a wall in terms of his own searching, spiritually, physically, emotionally and mentally.  He’s asked the ultimate questions and he doesn’t have any of the answers.  And, like Hal says, he’s in a lot of pain; there’s kind of an implosion happening.”  

Burke, whose role required almost six hours of makeup a day as well as wearing 15 pound weights on his ankles, enjoyed playing opposite Polley. Burke says, “She’s an incredible actor.  And what’s interesting to me was that her work I’d seen before had been quite serious, concentrated and intense.  But Sarah herself is just an incredibly giving, generous human being and so much fun.  I’d get to the set at one in the morning for makeup and have to be ready at seven a.m. to shoot a whole day, but I could sustain that schedule working with somebody like her.  I think it’s hard to play the Monster, but the only thing harder than playing the Monster is playing opposite the Monster.”

One of the most respected actresses of our time, Helen Mirren plays the Boss, the sensation-hungry producer of the TV news show where Beatrice works.  Although the character is extreme, Hartley doesn’t think the Boss’s ruthlessness is unrealistic.  He says, “I suspect that happens in our culture all the time.  I think the media definitely does encourage more and more extraordinary violence because it needs it, and that’s definitely where the Boss comes from.  When I originally wrote the script, I wasn’t thinking that I would be doing it with Francis Coppola and American Zoetrope.  I thought it was going to be a much smaller film, and I wasn’t thinking in Helen’s realm of talent.  But once the deal came together, Francis asked if I would consider casting some bigger names in the supporting roles.  And I thought I’d love to, but I’m not in the habit of thinking that way because my films are usually considerably less expensive.  It was great.  Julie Christie and Helen Mirren were my first choices for Dr. Anna and the Boss, and they both liked the script.”

Helen Mirren says she wanted to be part of the film “because of what it was about.  I think it’s a very fascinating concept, that human beings need the mythology of ultimate evil to operate in their world.  They can’t live without this representation of absolute evil, and when evil doesn’t exist they create it imaginatively.”

Julie Christie, who plays Dr. Anna, had been a big fan of Hartley’s earlier films.   She describes her character “as a presence, as are various characters in this film.  As in fairy stories, people represent qualities.  They represent good, evil, humor, mischief – all those sort of things.  I think Dr. Anna represents something very unusual in modern life, which is strength and quietness.  The affection that grows in Dr. Anna for Beatrice is more than mother and daughter.  It’s protector, guardian.  I think her strongest feeling is the wish to protect this girl who actually, as I acknowledge in the film, doesn’t need protecting because she’s very, very strong on her own.  I think Beatrice teaches Dr. Anna that through strength, miracles are possible.  And when you’re not being diverted by all the stuff of life, there is a possibility of achieving the impossible.”

Christie, known for her reticence with the media, also strongly responded to the film’s indictment of the press.  She says, “I feel that the media is a voracious power that completely distorts our brains and the world.”

Adds Hartley, “the film presents the suspicion which I think every healthy person ought to have of the media, which is that we’re informing ourselves out of existence.  We’re beginning to trust as real a world that is really just made up of information.  That part of the film is an expression of a sensible and concrete concern of mine about being a human being in our world and culture.  How much of the things we say and do and hear and act upon is even real in a world that moves so quickly?  And we have such an unwavering trust of information, regardless of whether it’s been proven correct or not.  It’s information, and everything is about faster and more.  I think on some level the Monster is that part of me that’s concerned about that.”

The first half of the film was shot in Iceland, an experience that was new and exciting to director Hartley and most of the film’s cast.  Hartley thought it was appropriate because “Iceland has a rich tradition of monsters and ghosts.  Working in Iceland was very challenging.  It is the first time I really made what I would consider a landscape film, or at least a movie that contains a landscape section.”

Polley made friends with many of the young women on the Icelandic crew.  She describes them as “the strongest, most confident, insane, great group of young women I’ve ever seen in my life.  There’s something much more progressed there socially.  I think every young woman should come to Iceland for a year and learn how to cope with the world.  There’s a quality that I haven’t seen anywhere in North America, a confidence and real curiosity.  I think it was really a great place to be shooting this film that’s about questioning things and being curious – it seems to be a much more fundamentally integral part of everyday life there than it is where I come from.”

Burke recalls that the Icelanders “were fascinated by the story we were telling and took it very seriously.  Then when we came back to New York to shoot, it was very different.  I would walk from the trailer to the set and nobody really looked at me.  And this is the Monster’s experience of New York.  I felt a lot more natural as this character in Iceland than I did when I came to New York, and I hope that serves the story and the character well.  One comes to New York with the best intentions and all of a sudden it starts to really sap your energy.  You find out that, wow, I might be a formidable monster in Iceland, but I’m just a very small monster in this town.  Someone in Iceland said to me that in Iceland they have very good monsters, but in New York they have very bad monsters.  I thought it was an interesting observation and I think it is kind of accurate. New York City gets to the Monster – the situations, the flashbulbs, the partying that goes on.  All these things he’s not used to, they kind of zap him.” 

For Christie, working in Iceland was a pleasure.  “Iceland is one of the most beautiful countries in the world.  It’s full of wonder, and it really was like being in a fairy tale, with all the dangers and the surprises and the magic.  It’s an exciting place to be, as well as a very beautiful, astonishing place.  And, of course, the most important thing is that it’s a civilized place.”

Christie also enjoyed working with Hartley.  What struck her most was “that Hal had a very democratic relationship with everybody on the film.  It’s quite unusual.  He had exactly the same social and professional relationship with an actor as with someone in what is usually considered to be a minor job (though we know there are no minor jobs in films).  Everybody was supporting everybody else, so it really was a bringing together of people.  Each one contributing a little bit, each one as important as the other and absolutely no feeling of hierarchy at all.  I really liked that.”

For Polley, Hartley’s “style of working was unlike anything I’d ever been through.  It was a really amazing exercise for your brain because it was very structured.  Everything is composed very, very specifically.  When the structure is that rigid, it allows you a lot more freedom in what you do emotionally because there’s a real safety net there, so what you do within the frame is really up to you.  I found it a really exciting way to work because it allows you more room in your head; you’re not worried about exterior things.”

Polley was also thrilled to be working with Julie Christie because, as she explains, “I have this really peculiar relation with Julie – I was obsessed with Dr. Zhivago and really still am.  When I was in high school, all my friends and I had this whole language, like a code language, based around her lines in Dr. Zhivago.  I had pictures of her in my locker when I was 15, so meeting her was a completely surreal experience.  But because she’s such a down-to-earth, authentic person, she actually managed to make me see her as a human being, which is very cool.  She’s kind of a goddess to me, an amazing person to be around.”

Although none of the cast would admit to believing in real monsters, they all felt that each person and each culture creates their own monsters in order to put a face on what they fear, from both without and within.  Says Polley, “I think we use monsters as a way to talk about ourselves and what is evil or what is not right with us as a society.”   Adds Christie, “Monster is just a word that usually means something very, very, very frightening.  There’s certainly plenty of things that are very, very, frightening in the world.  Cruelty is one of them.  Exploitation.  Those are things I see as monsters.  Greed. Rapaciousness.  It happens to all of us, and we’re all part of it.”

But, as Beatrice learns, one person sometimes can make a difference.  If one person is working to change things or do something right, hope still exists.  As Hartley says of the film, “It’s really just about this really nice girl who winds up maybe saving the world from a monster.”