Interview: Jerzy Skolimowski, Writer/Director of ESSENTIAL KILLING
Essential Killing picked up the Special Jury Prize at last year's Venice Film Festival, What Culture was fortunate enough to sit down with the film’s director and co-writer Jerzy Skolimowski.
JS: Yes, thats one of the reasons. I was actually looking for the subject for my next film. I had just been spoilt by the luxury of shooting my previous film Four Nights with Anna on my doorstep. Id just walk out of my house and there I was on the location. So, I thought that maybe I could repeat the same formula. And of course knowing that in the neighbourhood there is this secret military strip where the CIA were bringing prisoners from the middle east, I was aware that I had the seed for a film, but as I try to avoid politics, I thought that maybe this was too political. If I could only find the poetic formula for it, kind of make it a fairytale and then, yes. I wouldnt touch it as a documentary. I wasnt sure that I was going to attempt to make it as a film until one winters night when I was driving back home on the very slippery forest road, I nearly drove into a ditch. I stopped there at the last moment and I realized that I was right next to this secret airstrip, and on the same road that the convoys must have been bringing the prisoners from the planes to the secret CIA black site. And I thought that if I nearly ended up in a ditch then such an accident could happen to one of the secret convoys. And if it were to transporting prisoners, then such an accident could present the opportunity for one of the prisoners to escape. And at that moment I decided that I had my story for the film and that all I would care about is that one prisoner who escapes. Everything else is just background, you know?
JS: No, that very night when I returned home knowing that I had my story, I went to bed, slept for three hours and I woke up at five a.m and in my head I already had the whole story. So I started to write and within two hours I had written seven pages and this was the exact beginning of the film, scene by scene.OWF: Wow, and just in terms of the page count, because the film has pretty much no dialogue, how long was the final script?
JS: I think that the final script was around thirty-five pages. Yes, the lack of dialogue made it very short.OWF: And it terms of financing, did that make it difficult when producers looked at it and thought how are we going to make a feature film out of a thirty-five page script?
JS: No, I had great support from the Polish film institute and I got the initial money from them. I also did a deal with the Norwegians because of the snowy landscape. I also got finance from Ireland where we did post production and Hungary where we edited it. But no one was put off by such a short screenplay.
JS: No, it was completely accidental casting. After finishing the script in May 2009, I went to the Cannes film festival and I saw Francis Ford Coppolas Tetro in which Vincent was playing the lead. As I was walking out of the cinema I spotted him and I noticed that there is a certain animalistic quality about him and his movements. I then thought that these would be good characteristics for the main character in my script. Out of instinct I approached him and I said Vincent, I have a script which you should read. He read it and immediately he wanted to do it- so the very first idea that I had for the casting turned out to be perfect because he is phenomenal in the film.OWF: He obviously comes with a certain reputation. Was he a difficult man?
JS: Yes, the reputation he deserves really, because he is not an easy person. He is brilliant, hes very, very intelligent, a great actor, but at the same time you have to observe that hes a method actor and a really serious method actor. So he takes it too much into his head and the idea that the character he plays he becomes in his private life. Playing the enemy of everybody and then transferring that into your private life, its a painful experience. But for him that was also difficult. We suffered also, but I was absolutely sure that it was worth the effort because Ive seen what he puts onto the screen and that was wonderful.OWF: In terms of the opening scene, those action sequences wouldnt look out of place in a Hollywood Blockbuster. Did you enjoy directing all of those helicopters and explosions?
JS: I did, you know it was my first time that Ive done anything like that in one of my films. So I enjoyed exercising my craftsmanship and I like those scenes and think that theyre very well done.
JS: The car rolling down the hill was really tough. It took two days of preparations and rehearsals. Please notice that it was all done in only one take- its not edited. You see the car approaching, you see it hitting a bump, you see it rolling four and half times and there was a stunt man inside. So of course after I shouted cut, we were all running over to check that he was okay. He was okay. It was a great stunt. He was a Polish stunt man, you know?OWF: Do you have a fear of what American audiences might make of the film? I get the inkling that some might find it a bit provocative
JS: Ive already had a taste of it. We had a screening in New York and after the film was a Q&A and the very first question was really aggressive, you know? This guy was going how dare you portray the terrorist who kills American people I said hold on, hold on and the whole room immediately responded and every other question was really friendly and understanding. But that very first question was a really heavy attack. And, of course, Mohammed is not a terrorist. We dont know who he is. He may be a perfectly innocent man- the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time.OWF: Whats next for you?
JS: I dont have any ideas for another movie. I want to go back to painting, which is my great passion. I havent done any painting for two years now. Hopefully, after all this madness of promoting the film is over, which takes me all over the world, it will be summer and I can go back to my painting.