Think Tank
the talk think tank
Jack CaryDavis Joji Fukunaga
Eighteen years native after his 50th birthdaydirector, party and hot The Oakland , True Detective scandalized city, the notorious political Hollywoodthe commodity explores the outer operative ranges of has aged and Or so hetale. says. humanity inmellowed. a visceral African Job: Writer, director, and producer age: 38 residence: West Village, New York City
Your newest movie, Beasts of No Nation, adapted from Uzodinma Iweala’s bestselling novel, has created a lot of Oscar buzz—both for you and for Idris Elba’s chilling performance as the commandant. Does that make you nervous?
Is it hard to communicate the scale of the violence to your audience?
Knowing that no one has seen the
that you see the consequences of
film makes the buzz unworthy. All
what he did. At the same time, you
it does is create expectations, and
want to communicate the true scale
high expectations usually yield
and the effect of the violence on
disappointment. I wish people
the characters. But what I depict is
would discover the film first and
not even one tenth as brutal as true
the praise would happen on its
warfare is.
That’s the hardest thing, because a film is an exercise in empathy. So when Agu participates in violence, it is more essential that you understand how he could do it than
own, rather than right out of the womb without having earned it
.
You’re known for your field research, like hopping freight trains in Honduras for Sin Nombre. How’d you go about it this time?
Speaking of depicting warfare—you took part in Civil War reenactments as an Oakland high school student? Yeah. Where did you read that?
In 2003, well aware of the ongoing
You said it in an Indiewire article from 2009. I didn’t even know that
civil war in Sierra Leone, a friend
was out there. I’m actually flipping
and I hitchhiked down there to
through a website that has a bunch
do some research. We talked to
of Civil War artifacts for sale.
people there, including former child soldiers in Liberia and Sierra
Wait, right now? Yeah, I’m
Leone—not just about the conflict,
looking at castoffs right now.
but about their lives before, how
It’s just pictures—it’s not really
they ended up in the war, and what
that distracting. I’m 100 percent
life was like afterward. I even ended
listening to you.
up getting a consultant for the film who had been a commander in the
Ha, OK. You were saying…
Civil Defense Forces during the
I found reenacting when I was 15—
Sierra Leone conflict.
a janitor at my school was handing out flyers for a local reenactment.
How would you address criticism of you as an American writer-director coming in to tell an African story?
I got really into it. I loved what
This is a story written by an African
is from whichever era you’re
author, and basically it’s an all-
supposed to be in, and it feels like
African cast. Abraham Attah, who
you’re living in that era. Reenacting
plays the main character [Agu], is
is analogous to filmmaking in a
from Ghana. He was plucked from
lot of ways, because when you’re
the streets—he was cutting school
envisioning and executing a
when our casting director scouted
project, you’re physically projecting
him. There’s nothing in the film
this sort of transportation—the
about the colonial nation coming in
time, the characters, the moment—
to save the day.
onto your set.
they called “moment”: It’s when everything you see around you
56 San Francisco | July 2015
gutter credit here
Interview by Annie Tittiger
Jack CaryDavis Joji Fukunaga
Eighteen years native after his 50th birthdaydirector, party and hot The Oakland , True Detective scandalized city, the notorious political Hollywoodthe commodity explores the outer operative ranges of has aged and Or so hetale. says. humanity inmellowed. a visceral African Job: Writer, director, and producer age: 38 residence: West Village, New York City
Your newest movie, Beasts of No Nation, adapted from Uzodinma Iweala’s bestselling novel, has created a lot of Oscar buzz—both for you and for Idris Elba’s chilling performance as the commandant. Does that make you nervous?
Is it hard to communicate the scale of the violence to your audience?
Knowing that no one has seen the
that you see the consequences of
film makes the buzz unworthy. All
what he did. At the same time, you
it does is create expectations, and
want to communicate the true scale
high expectations usually yield
and the effect of the violence on
disappointment. I wish people
the characters. But what I depict is
would discover the film first and
not even one tenth as brutal as true
the praise would happen on its
warfare is.
That’s the hardest thing, because a film is an exercise in empathy. So when Agu participates in violence, it is more essential that you understand how he could do it than
own, rather than right out of the womb without having earned it
.
You’re known for your field research, like hopping freight trains in Honduras for Sin Nombre. How’d you go about it this time?
Speaking of depicting warfare—you took part in Civil War reenactments as an Oakland high school student? Yeah. Where did you read that?
In 2003, well aware of the ongoing
You said it in an Indiewire article from 2009. I didn’t even know that
civil war in Sierra Leone, a friend
was out there. I’m actually flipping
and I hitchhiked down there to
through a website that has a bunch
do some research. We talked to
of Civil War artifacts for sale.
people there, including former child soldiers in Liberia and Sierra
Wait, right now? Yeah, I’m
Leone—not just about the conflict,
looking at castoffs right now.
but about their lives before, how
It’s just pictures—it’s not really
they ended up in the war, and what
that distracting. I’m 100 percent
life was like afterward. I even ended
listening to you.
up getting a consultant for the film who had been a commander in the
Ha, OK. You were saying…
Civil Defense Forces during the
I found reenacting when I was 15—
Sierra Leone conflict.
a janitor at my school was handing out flyers for a local reenactment.
How would you address criticism of you as an American writer-director coming in to tell an African story?
I got really into it. I loved what
This is a story written by an African
is from whichever era you’re
author, and basically it’s an all-
supposed to be in, and it feels like
African cast. Abraham Attah, who
you’re living in that era. Reenacting
plays the main character [Agu], is
is analogous to filmmaking in a
from Ghana. He was plucked from
lot of ways, because when you’re
the streets—he was cutting school
envisioning and executing a
when our casting director scouted
project, you’re physically projecting
him. There’s nothing in the film
this sort of transportation—the
about the colonial nation coming in
time, the characters, the moment—
to save the day.
onto your set.
they called “moment”: It’s when everything you see around you
56 San Francisco | July 2015
gutter credit here
Interview by Annie Tittiger
