Theres a part of me that is thoughtful and theres a part of me that is delinquent.
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How are you feeling right now?
Or is that a trick question?Its a fair question.
Selling movies, which is basically what Im doing, is not normal human interaction.
Its always a little bit odd.
This movie is particularly odd, so it amplifies the weirdness.
I do need to ask you it’s possible for you to ask whatever you want.
Why would you want to stop directing?Its a complicated thing.
What I said was for the foreseeable future, and I mean that in a literal sense.
Theyre for other people.
So Im working hard, and I consider screenwriting to be a form of filmmaking.
Prior to directing, I functioned as a screenwriter, and I dont think its lesser.
I just think itsother.
It has different obligations.
You have a family, yes?Yeah, two kids.
I shot a bunch of stuff really back-to-back.
I was away a lot, away from home a lot, away fromlifea lot.
That is a contributing factor to the decision.
Protect them from whom?From whoever the director might be.
I just wanted to remove that voice for a period of time.
And that would have been true with this movie as well.
There would be many moments inEx Machinato do with a specific way something is being described.
Did your concerns have to do with the storys sexual aspects?Absolutely, yeah.
What if Y directed it?
And sometimes I would just have to shrug.
You could actually change the dialogue and hold on to the meaning.
That would be completely unproblematic.
Ive never cared about that.
But themeaningof a scene can completely change, and the role of a scene within astorycan completely change.
Can you give me an example?Id rather not.
Maybe later?Privately, I could do them easily!
I could reel them off!
Does it actually matter?
In theory!In theory.
I think the way I work is pretty collegial!
What is the sequence?
Is it the science-fiction sequence?
The speculative-fiction sequence?I probably lean towards science fiction.
I also think sci-fi sort of allows for or even encourages big ideas, which is nice.
You dont have to feel embarrassed of them, actually.
Sci-fi audiences kind of dig them.
Bear in mind, Im not saying I always manage to do that.
I recently watchedAll That Jazz, which I hadnt seen for a really, really long time.
Would that conversation be helped by Bob Fosse giving me a memo in addition to the film he made?
I dont think it would have helped.
I think the film would have been diminished, you know?
Time out to write?Well, no.
Should this be a close-up?
Should it be a developing shot?
Now should we pop out to a wide shot?
So I said, Lets share this responsibility.
Its not directing in the terms I myself would think of as directing.
That would be a Ray question, but it would go well beyond that.
This is, in a very profound way, Rays story.
What can you tell me about the film?The film is an account of a real event.
Thats basically what it is.
An event for which Ray Mendoza was present?Absolutely.
Notionally, in a credited way, its a co-written script.
That will also be true with the directing.
Lets return toCivil Warfor a second.
What year is the movie set in, more or less?
She says Lee took famous photos of something called the antifa massacre.
And there are a lot of vehicles in the film.
In that respect, you couldnt date this story.
And that argument, I think, probably belongs to that period.
Kubrick was a freakishly influential filmmaker.
And they did do it.
Conversation is in some respects impressionistic.
Its connected but impressionistic.
So my speculative interpretation Is as valid as mine.
And its not necessarily wrong?It isexplicitlynot necessarily wrong.
Which, because Im a fucking science nerd, Im going to demonstrate to you now.
[Garland takes out his phone and calls up the screenshot below.]
Okay, what are we looking at here?What were looking at is a Galton Board.
But a consensus appears as a product of the accumulated states.
That orange line shows the state of the consensus.
It just never appears!
The quest is quixotic, you know?
Refusing to explain everything is not a flaw.
It really does not answer one of its own central questions, and that in no way bothered me.
In fact, I liked it even more for not answering it.
Did she do it or not?
Heres another thing thats interesting: I just dont really care what the filmmakers say, personally.
Does that mean I saw the film incorrectly?
I dont think so.
My whole journey over this sequence of films was a playing out of exactly what you just said.
I felt withCivil War, this is as good as I will ever be able to do.
Every science-fiction film is about the time in which it was made.For sure.
Thats one of the reasons I love sci-fi.
Whats the consequence of silence?
Of silencing oneself or silencing other people?
What is the film warning us about?Two things.
Its about the importance of journalism.Its about reporting.
The film attempts to function like old-fashioned reporters.
And at the moment, the dominant voices in the press are not trusted.
Theyre trusted to a degree by the choir theyre preaching to but not by the other choirs.
Im in my 50s.
That world has gone.
Why is that kind of ending hard to accept now?Its a consequence of three things.
That became more important than unbiased news reporting.
But it doesnt work well for everyone who sits outside of that audience.
How does this relate back to the mentality of the journalists you depict inCivil War?Theyre reporters.
The era I grew up in was an era of reporters in news journalism.
And governments will, at times, regularly, predictably become corrupt.
In two really significant ways.
All of not all, but the vast majority of his close friends were journalists.
My godfather was a foreign correspondent; my brothers godfather was a different foreign correspondent.
They were around the kitchen table; they were sometimes living in the house.
I grew up listening to them.
Whatever you make of all this is up to you because Im on to the next thing.Thats exactly it.
Some people wanted her to take him along or at least free him.
How do you feel about that?Her point of empathy was the robot played by Sonoya Mizuno.
Those two empathize with each other.
They were in the same boat.
She was in a prison; she was trying to get out.
Kyoto, Sonoyas character, empathizes with Ava.
That would be my answer.
I was like, Empathy with who?
Its astonishing to me thatEx Machinacame out ten years ago.
And I sort of think,Eh, youre entrepreneurs.
Theyre just people with a lot of money and a lot of power.
That in itself doesnt make a genius.
WasEx Machinaa warning?I definitely thought about it in those terms.
It was actually in the TV showDevsthat I really went further down that line.
I think people are very, very good at correctly anticipating problems.
Theyre just terrible at doing something about it.
They just dont act.
There were assorted theological readings.
And I can see the delinquency.
What do you mean?
Delinquent in the potential droog sense, or in some other sense?Holistic.
Holistically delinquent?In some respects.
You know, people have different sides to their personality and character.
I can see it clearly inCivil War.
Its thoughtful and its conversational, and I think it would be fair to say its also highly aggressive.
The two things are just right next to each other.
In these films, theres something very restrained and also something unrestrained.
Thats also true of28 Days Later.Danny Boyle and I like working on a long-term sequel to that.
Hes in prep now, and it starts shooting pretty soon.
The larger the searchlight, the larger the circumference of the unknown.
