Words by Jean Lynch
Andrea Arnold’s rise to success has been nothing short of
phenomenal. The former kids TV presenter from Dartford in
Kent came to the public’s attention when she secured the
Oscar for Best Live Action Short in 2005 for Wasp, and memorably
told the worldwide audience of one billion that winning was
the ‘dog’s bollocks’. The only real British winner that year,
she captured the imagination of an audience who usually,
it’s not unfair to say, pay less attention to her winning
category than those of Best Director or Film. Meanwhile,
the gritty realism of Wasp, which features Nathalie Press
as a young single mum on a council estate looking to escape
for a few hours drinking down the pub with old flame Danny
Dyer, caught the attention of Lars Von Trier, the originator
of the Dogme style of filmmaking. Trier had the idea that
three filmmakers should make their directorial feature debut,
with each film featuring the same set of characters in the
same location, shot on digital. Red
Road would become the
first of those films.
Set in Glasgow, the film follows the story of Jackie (Kate
Dickie), a CCTV operator for the police who one night spots
a man she recognises roaming around the Red Road area. Before
long, she’s physically stalking him. It’s a tight thriller
that is more atmospheric because of the all-too-real depiction
of desolation that Arnold evokes.
Her approach to filmmaking is very direct, very grassroots,
very hands on. Arnold writes and directs what she knows,
saying the estates that feature in her films are similar
to the ones she herself grew up on, and her personal integrity
and loyalty remains with their inhabitants. For Wasp she
held open castings and literally scoured the streets to find
likely looking children for the roles, in one case spotting
a girl and telling her to go and get her dad. It is this
sense of responsibility to her roots that makes Arnold’s
work so authentic and honest. Despite being a winner at Sundance,
Cannes, the Oscars and now BAFTA, Arnold’s commitment to
her subjects remains to the forefront.
“I was asked to get a title for the
film early on and I could not think of anything right at
that stage” she says. “I had not finished writing it and
everyone always wants a title for documents so I had to
think of something and just said: well, maybe "Red Road" for
the time being, just as a working title because it is the
area we are going to be filming in. It never really got
changed and I never had the sense to change it which I
regret because I think the film could have been made in
a lot of areas like that and I did not mean to associate
it with that area and I actually apologise to the people
there for keeping the name of the area connected to the
film because it could have been made anywhere. There are
a lot of places like that. It is a universal story and
I did not mean to do it directly.” This admission, clearly
a matter of some concern to the director, is endearing
and admirable as most others in her position would surely
attempt to divert attention from their perceived mistake
rather than draw people to it, but then people are important
to Andrea Arnold.
She says: “I was always very determined when we made the
film to incorporate the people who lived in the area as much
as we possibly could and we always worked alongside them
as much as we could. We had a small crew, I tried to keep
the crew small so we did not look like a great big intimidating
crew.
“We always talked to anybody who stopped to talk to us,
we had a lot of people in the film from the area, people
in the pub and we paid them and, you know, we just -- we
did not sort of descend on the area like a spaceship and
consume it. We tried to work alongside the area.”
Arnold’s previous work has all been set in towns around
the Medway area of Kent, so how difficult was it to shoot
in a completely new area?
“I tried very hard to make an emotional
story. I was not trying to be specific, I was not trying
to say, "This
is Glasgow". Like I said earlier, I think there are
a lot of places like that all over UK, all over Europe, all
over the world and I was not deliberately trying to say, "This
is Glasgow".
“For me, the place that we picked reflected the emotional
sort of temperature of the film and that was always what
I intended. I was not trying to make a statement about Glasgow
at all.
“I didn't know Scotland when I accepted the project so I
just had to get to know it as I went along and actually I
was there for three months. When I was making the film I
had a fantastic time, I think it's a fantastic city.”
The film also features a particularly frank and demanding
sex scene. How did Arnold prepare Kate Dickie and leading
man Tony curran for this?
Arnold tells us “Both Kate and Tony were always very aware
of what was required and the script was always the script
and it was always the way it was so they did go into it eyes
open. All I can say about them, you know, is that they were
incredibly committed, sort of dedicated and really, really
focused. They treated some of the more intimate scenes as
the same -- the way they treated all the other scenes.
“I mean, obviously, they, I am sure, felt a bit vulnerable
during that. We did go out and had a lunch just before we
shot the sex scene ... and we had not had much chance to
talk to each other because Tony had come straight from LA
and we were all busy and we had not rehearsed. We were so
pleased to be at lunch together, we went out to discuss really
their fears and we ended up having a good old chat amongst
each other and getting to know each other a bit more aside
from just the filming.
“But we did cover everything that
anyone was scared about and we looked at what they were
worried about and I think they both know that I never would
have made them do anything that they didn't want to do.
But as Kate often says - I've done some Q&As with her
- she finds emotional scenes more difficult and it's more
difficult to show yourself emotionally than it is just
to see yourself naked or whatever and I think she would
say that if she was standing here now.”
Having won so many accolades, what’s next for the debut
feature director?
“I'm trying desperately to sit down and write at the moment
and finding it quite hard to find the time, but I'm just
going to make another film that is something that -- I always
say I don't choose the ideas, they choose me and the next
thing I'm going to make is something that has chosen me.”
What that is she won’t say nor reveal the merest inkling.
The moment doesn’t feel right just yet, she worries that
people talking to her about it will be distracting whilst
the project is still in the early formative stages. Her philosopy
on life exhibits similar caution.
“I never expect anything and I think that is the best way
to go through life, don't expect anything and then if you
do get anything it's great.”
If the past couple of years are anything to judge by Andrea
Arnold is going to be permanently living on cloud nine.
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