The Hunter was one of this writers favourite films of last year- at once thrilling and heartbreaking, mysterious and involving, it tells the tale of Willem Dafoes silent hunter, hired by a shady corporation to attempt to track down the legendary Tasmanian Tiger, thought to be extinct for years. But once he starts to get involved with the family whose house he is living in, and gets on the wrong side of the aggressive townspeople, things start to go terribly wrong. It is a well-acted, well-paced, poetic and original film of which we see little these days. I suggest you seek it out. Another factor to praise it for is its direction, and that is entirely down to Daniel Nettheim. Having previously directed the likes of romantic comedy Angst and family dramas like K9 and Dance Academy, Daniel was able to realise what had been a long-brewing passion project by adapting Julia Leighs text. He is now based in London and working on the likes of Whitechapel and Line of Duty. Daniel was kind enough to grant me an interview, where on top of providing a fascinating insight into the making of the film and what it is like working in the filmmaking industry today, we discuss all manner of things from the state of British Television and Sin City, to shaping the script for Willem Dafoe and the joys of Post-Production. Who, or What, would you say were your inspirations for getting into Film & TV? Did you always want to get involved in those industries?
Probably from about the age of 12, I started thinking about it. I became aware of it thanks to Peter Weir and his early films, particularly Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Last Wave- they really struck me as a kid. Hes a genius filmmaker- but I think before that I was really into British TV, the great movies and Kids TV series. Things like The Goodies MAD Magazine taught me to be cynical about the world, and I used to love watching 60s Horror films at night. So all those things accumulated to pique my interest.
Getting onto The Hunter, what exactly was it that attracted you to the source material? What was it specifically about that text that made you think it would work as a film?
I certainly was attracted to the central characters journey. It was a minimalist(ic) story with very strong dramatic narrative and a very charismatic, existential lead character. I knew the landscape a little bit having travelled to Tasmania as a kid. Ive also always been haunted by an Australian film made in the 1980s called The Tale of Ruby Rose, that fits into the kind of Australian Gothic tradition of landscape cinema that I really love. I remember seeing it, and it left me with this location yet to be explored by Australian filmmakers. So I think something about reading the book and its description of this landscape- which also tapped into a pre-existing sense of a place worth shooting in .
So then, in your opinion is there such a thing as an Australian sensibility that comes across in cinema?
I think that Australian cinema is a culture still trying to work out what its identity is. Ironically, Australian were making films as early as anyone in the history of Cinema, and then at some point our industry got eclipsed by Hollywood, and was always dominated by UK films as well. Its part of that cultural cringe of audiences not really believing in our own creative output and looking overseas to see whats important. When Australian films have succeeded, its because theyve been unique pieces of cinema that on the one hand could have come from any culture, but on the other hand capture aspects of our country that are really unique but isn't being done in a self-conscious way- the really successful films havent attempted to tap into some kind of Australian culture or Australian identity, theyve just told unique stories in a unique way. I think were we fall flat is when we try to imitate models from other countries, particularly American models. Our audiences dont want Australian filmmakers just making American-style films, you know? Its actually hard to get them to see Australian films at all, which is a real shame. But you look at the success stories and it comes down to an individual voice- its probably the same with any international cinema.
Someone like Andrew Dominik, for example.
Ive got to say, Chopper was an outstanding Australian film and Andrews now applying his talent to very much American stories with the occasional token Australian cast member. I think thats what tends to happen- Ive done it myself- where Australian filmmakers get the chance to come and play on a broader playing field and enrich wider audiences. Were very much a nation of first-time filmmakers.
The Hunters got a pretty phenomenal cast- Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill, Frances O Connor How did you go about directing people who may have had very different acting styles? The children in the film gave very interesting performances- how did you go about directing them?
With the children, I realised it was always going to be a matter of casting properly- casting kids who resembled the characters. With child actors, you cant really fall back on training or technique- its really about their instincts and natural intelligence, and their natural responses to the world. So it was really the result of taking risks on the bets , and then hoping and praying it would all run smoothly! One of the big advantages of having actors like Willem, Sam and Frances I had time to devote to the children- those guys didnt need a lot of my attention. With Willem, ninety-five percent of our work was done in pre, over a couple of phone calls when he was in New York and I was in Sydney, and a couple of meeting in the final weeks before we started shooting. Really, that work was about clarifying and streamlining the story, and shaving the script to suit Willem. The way he wanted to play the character, and the choices he wanted to make- to keep very pared back, with very little dialogue, and always find a physical action he could occupy himself with as a way of bringing the character to life.
To me, The Hunter is like those great adult films you rarely see nowadays, and though Willems performance is his own thing, theres something about it that feels like Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, or The Mission- perhaps thats due to the nature of the genre the film sort of inhabits. Would you disagree?
Im a huge fan of 70s American films- that Hollywood new wave- and theres a lot of them that are about men struggling with the landscape, like Deliverance, Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter and I rewatched a lot of those films as a kind of reference when I was prepping for . They were films from pre-tentpole-cinema days, where it was about finding great stories and using classic filmmaking techniques to tell them.
So what are your thoughts on the state of Cinema now? The dependence on Tentpole franchises, the prominence of 3D, the emergence of Foreign Markets, the rise of internet distribution It must be pretty hard for a small, deep and sophisticated film like yours to get financed- even with a name like Willem Dafoe attached
It absolutely is- maybe its always been like this, but I find it quite a dispiriting time to be a film practitioner. Its easy to reflect nostalgically to the days before Home Video when I was a kid, when going out to the movies was really the only alternative to Television. You had to sit and see stories be told on screen and you had a very captive audience- people who would to the cinema for the occasion as much as the film; people who wanted to go out every week- so they were always looking for the new things that are on. I think generated an with wider tastes, because theyre exposed to so much more. I dont want to sound like an old fuddy-duddy The flipside is the amazing stuff being done on Television at the moment, in terms of aspiring to the same quality an ambition of cinema but reaching far greater audiences, and discovering a different model to tell stories.
Youve started to make a name for yourself in British Television on shows like Whitechapel and Line of Duty. How have you found working here?
I love it! And one of the things I love about it is youve got a really big potential audience. When programmes rate well in the UK, you could have 10 million people tuning in per episode. In Australia, maybe 3 million is the most youre going to get for a drama. Whether its a film seen by a few hundred people or a TV show seen by 10 million, the work you do is just as hard- so its gratifying to know youre working on stuff thats going to reach out to audiences like that. Ive also found the crews and Producers here to be very welcoming to me, as new blood to the industry! Theres great opportunities , really.
So, you seem to be enjoying it, and The Hunter was quite a passion project for you would you ever want to return to Cinema? Is this a particular genre youd love to tackle? A certain type of film you think has potential, and you could contribute something unique to?
Definitely! I want to make more film projects my criteria is less about genre and more about the craft- finding new ways to push the craft, to use screen language, to tell stories. Id love to take the style of Sin City- I thought that was a remarkable technical achievement with lots of black-and-white, German expressionist, CG sets and actors working in front of greenscreen to take a model like that, but use it to tell very sophisticated, adult dramatic storylines. Theres so much great technique being wasted on dumbed-down content.
Would something like traditional animation interest you, whether it be aimed at children or not? Youve got A Scanner Darkly and some of the best stuff being produced is for kids. Its very smart, well put-together
I love kids stuff, I work in Kids TV all the time in Australia. In fact, I used to work in animation as well. Theres this great liberty of imagination- youre not constrained by the normal logic of the real world. That applies even more son in animation. I love what animation is capable of- what Ari Folman did with Waltz With Bashir was amazing and apparently his new film (The Congress, starring Robin Wright) is equally groundbreaking. Im very excited to see that- hes someone whos playing with the form in a new way while attempting to appeal to a sophisticated and adult audience- thats a great model to aspire to.
Is there an element to filmmaking you appreciate more than others- score, cinematography, sound design, costume? Obviously every element is important to a film, but is there a particular aspect of the process you have a soft spot for?
I love post-production. I love being in an editing room, I love working with composers I think its because of the comparative calmness of that side of production. I love cinematography, researching images and lighting, but when youre in the thick of it, that becomes an indulgence you dont really have time for. Pre-production is taking up by so much administration and meetings- the practical side of getting the job done- that theres a risk of the creative side kind of falling away. I love Post, but its also good to have limitations- you could keep cutting forever really, and the results are going to be exponentially less noticeable. So its good to have a cut-off point to work to. Its really the cheapest part of the process, just in terms of your outlay. So if you really need to take more time to get it right, its a valuable investment. Theres something about the actual production side of things Ive always found quite chaotic. All the image-gathering gives you the best possible chance in the edit room. Youve got to be very prepared, youre working to a plan, youve thought about what youre shooting. But its particularly taxing, emotionally draining, it requires intense focus its really hard. But in Post-production you turn up to a nice little office and make magic all day and enjoy it. Its a special time I really love it.
Youve made your debut feature now, and worked in certain budgetary constraints within Australian film and British Television- does tackling Hollywood appeal, with the potential creative constrictions but mass audience available?
The creative constrictions dont appeal, but the thought of being able to work on that Hollywood scale and reaching that kind of audience is very appealing. Ive heard all the stories of how you can get your hands tied within the studio system, but theres really great medium-budget independents being made in the US that are kind of breaking over into mainstream audiences so Im very interested in that. As a place to live, Im much more interested in London and Europe than LA, which is a disadvantage because I think youve got to live there, pounding the pavement and doing the meetings to get those kind of breaks.
Do you get much of a chance to catch films in the cinema? Has there been anything recently thats impressed you?
I saw The Hunt- I love what the Danes are doing with their cinema. I saw Rust and Bone- I love a lot of what the French do with their cinema. I saw the Place Beyond The Pines, which I thought was a really interesting piece of American Independent Cinema.
Coming back to The Hunter- its the kind of film where the location is just as much of a character as any cast member. How did you go about constructing your set from the landscape?
We shot all over different parts over the period of 5 weeks, where we based ourselves in a particular town. All the locations were within a 45-minute drive. It gave us a lot of diversity- I think when we got there and we were scouting for locations, I was overwhelmed by the diversity of the landscape and what was available. But what really helped narrow it down was the decision that the landscape should always have either a physical or emotional connection to what character was going through at that point in the story. In the script wed written, he just goes into the wilderness and sets traps then comes back. But each time he goes up into the wilderness, hes at a different emotional place in terms of his relationship with the family, the townspeople I looked at all the photos I had taken and was matching them to the emotional journey of character that we had chartered. It then became a question of is he big and present in the landscape at this point, or is he small and becoming overwhelmed by it? Is he feeling optimistic? Is he feeling barren?- so that really helped limit the possibilities and gave me a framework to work within. Once you get in there, you start to pick out what makes it so unique.
How do you manage to balance filmmaking with your home life and your family? Do you find it hard to separate the domestic with your career?
It is pretty hard, actually, just because production hours arent very family-friendly. Ive got a couple of young kids who go to school, I like to see them when youre in the thick of a shoot and youre working sixteen hour days- thats one of the reasons I like post-production, is because youre working business hours and its predictable, it allows you to return home most nights. Working away from home is hard, because you go away for a job and you work flat out and then you go back home to see your family on weekends, with your partner whose been at home with the kids an really needs your support. You feel like youre working all over again. So the whole thing is very exhausting. Sometimes its preferable for me to be away from home on a job, because I get back at the end of the night and I feel like I dont have to be nice to anybody- I look over my paperwork for the next day and then I go to bed and get to live like a recluse.
What advice, if any, would you give to aspiring filmmakers? Whats the best way to make a name for yourself and get your distinct vision out there?
Its very handy to have a vision of where youd like your career, or your creative output, to be in 5 or 10 years time and then start to steer yourself in that direction. Once you get locked into a particular area, whether that be commercials or drama or animation or documentary, whether youre a director or an editor or a cinematographer, it is quite hard to cross over. You hear stories of commercial directors who made an amazing debut and then become Hollywood starts, but theyre the minority. Its like relying on winning the lottery to get wealth- you cant guarantee thatll happen. Work out where you want to be, then steer yourself in that direction- in my case, it all started with being in film school and making a short that got noticed- it allowed Producers to trust me with episodes of television series. Long before it was fashionable, I targeted television as a viable place I could keep working as a Director and earn money, whereas all my fellow film school graduates were all snobbish about Television.
Youre very positive about British television, and though weve recently had a slew of great stuff- Derek, Utopia, Black Mirror- but theres a part of me that wishes someone would adopt the US cable model like Netflix or HBO- a way for content to be produced here without clashing with talent shows and reality programmes.
The good thing is that at least with the catch-up and digital channels available, people can tune into it. Im not sure how that works in terms of monetizing it, but Netflix is an interesting distribution model thats proving to work. Despite its setback, British TV is travelling the world and getting noticed by US audiences more than, say, Australian content is. I lived in The UK when I was a kid, and I think Britains always had a great tradition of quality television drama. Even when the local film industry was doing nothing, there was always interesting television.
Whats next for you? Are there any upcoming projects you can discuss? Are you purely focused on Television at the moment? Maybe Theatre or Radio?
Certainly not theatre and radio. Its kind of between television, and Im trying to generate some of my own projects. Im reading the occasional script that gets sent my way and meeting with people who feel like theyd like to work with me. I guess television is the active part of my career. Hopefully it wont take ten years to get to whatever my next film project is.
The Hunter is available on DVD, Blu Ray and VOD now.