{"id":85566,"date":"2016-03-16T14:58:57","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T14:58:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=85566"},"modified":"2016-03-16T18:05:41","modified_gmt":"2016-03-16T18:05:41","slug":"theres-something-about-the-70s-i-find-frightening-ben-wheatley-on-high-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/interviews\/theres-something-about-the-70s-i-find-frightening-ben-wheatley-on-high-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"“There’s something about the ’70s I find frightening” – Ben Wheatley on High Rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise<\/em><\/strong> has proven to be somewhat divisive. His star-studded adaptation of JG Ballard’s classic novel, written by his partner Amy Jump, of an increasingly savage class war played out within the confines of an apartment block has found as many admirers as detractors at the various festivals it’s played at. With such a starry cast (Tom Hiddleston, Luke Evans, Elisabeth Moss, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller…) and such a well-known, well-loved source, everyone will have turned up\u00a0with their own idea of what’s coming.<\/p>\n

“Yeah, but you can\u2019t help that, there\u2019s nothing you can do,” the Kill List<\/em><\/strong>, Sightseers<\/em><\/strong> and A Field In England<\/em><\/strong> director shrugs when we sit down with him.\u00a0“It\u2019s great that they do come at all! Expectations or no.”<\/p>\n

The result may be divisive but you will have an opinion. We thought it was great; a witty, dark, stylish and biting satire with superb performances (our review is here<\/a>), and we were very excited about talking to Wheatley about ’70s nostalgia, Tom Hiddleston, controlled chaos and the importance of ABBA’s SOS.<\/p>\n

Is the book something you’ve been interested in for a while?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019d read it\u00a0when I was a teenager and it had always been kicking around in my head.\u00a0After A Field In England<\/em><\/strong>, Amy and I were thinking about what were we going to do next and we were looking at licensing books and that was one that we had. We were just thinking “Why hasn\u2019t it been made?”<\/p>\n

I contacted my agent and he said that Jeremy Thomas had it, and then within three days I was chatting to him about it. We went straight back to the book, we didn\u2019t look at any of the other scripts.<\/p>\n

What is it about the book that makes it so resonant?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s\u00a0so prescient. Ballard\u2019s stuff is weird because, even though some of it is very specifically period, it still feels like it\u2019s happening now. That\u2019s possibly the way that we seem to go in and out of recession, it\u2019s like a permanent ’70s then ’80s all the time. Slightly different pop music, but the reality of everybody\u2019s houses are all fucked and they\u2019re being turfed out, and after, oh no, everyone\u2019s drinking champagne, you\u2019re alright again.\u00a0It\u2019s just by a quirk of when you\u2019re born and when your career hits its stride whether you get screwed by that or not.<\/p>\n

It felt like there were many things happening now that were similar to the ’70s. You just change the names of the terrorist groups and the same kind of paranoia and government control seemed to be happening again. So it wasn\u2019t a massive problem, it wasn\u2019t like a story that was set in aspic in the past; it was something that was happening now.<\/p>\n

But I think that\u2019s a general thing about science fiction and about period dramas, they\u2019re not necessarily about the future or about the past, they\u2019re usually about now, they\u2019re just dressed in a slightly different way so that you don\u2019t feel like you\u2019re being talked down to or talked at. You could do it now, right now, about what\u2019s happening in London and people just wouldn\u2019t want to know. They\u2019d be tired of it. \u201cOh right, are you criticising me personally, directly about this?” It would be hard.<\/p>\n

\"Tom
Tom Hiddleston contemplates power failure in High-Rise<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Is that why you decided to keep it set in the ’70s?<\/strong><\/p>\n

That was part of it. I was born in ’72 and Amy was born in ’72, so we know that period and we wanted to make something that was a little bit of our parents, and looking at it from that perspective. I\u2019d also been thinking about things that made me feel uneasy and afraid, and the ’70s was one of them. There\u2019s something about the ’70s that I find quite frightening.<\/p>\n

But also there are bits of the novel that get really broken by the modern world. Mobile phones and Tweeting and Facebook and all this stuff really fucks up lots of types of films! High-Rise<\/em><\/strong> would be very different film with social media in it. Even though in the book they do have their own form of it, they\u2019re filming stuff all the time and projecting stuff on the walls. That recording and self-regarding thing is another bit of Ballard seeing the future quite clearly. But yeah, that felt like it would break it.<\/p>\n

It always feels like there’s a lot of nostalgia for the ’70s in movies.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are different types of ’70s. For me, one of the things I liked about the ’70s was that it\u2019s the last point in history I think that there\u2019s an understanding of what the future will be. Towards the end of the ’70s, the future is Mad Max<\/em> <\/strong>and post apocalyptic stuff and I guess Blade Runner<\/em> <\/strong>is the end of it. Before that it was jet packs, and travelling to planets, and exciting stuff. And after that it isn\u2019t. When you see modern science fiction, everything looks like iPads, doesn\u2019t it? That doesn\u2019t feel like the future, it just feels like now, only a bit better.<\/p>\n

The future was a mystery in the ’70s and it doesn\u2019t feel like a mystery anymore. That\u2019s probably partly\u00a0to do with the fact that postmodernism has kind of fucked it up, there\u2019s no dreams of that stuff anymore because it feels a bit naff, but then you could have those big thrusting dreams and thoughts and it would feel right.<\/p>\n

Was it intimidating to take on such a well-known book? Was it important to put that to one side?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Any film is intimidating, any time you step up to the bat you\u2019ve taken a load of people\u2019s money and you\u2019ve got to make something, and then it\u2019d better be good otherwise you don\u2019t get to do it again! [laughs] That\u2019s fucking absolutely harrowing every time, and also this film was complicated because it was a lot of characters and big set builds and all that kind of stuff, so that stuff was [intimidating].<\/p>\n

But in terms of the dealing with the legacy of Ballard and stuff, you can\u2019t really think like that otherwise it\u2019s too scary, and you don\u2019t want to double-guess it. The film is ours, Amy wrote the script and I filmed the script, and that\u2019s the only way I can protect myself from Ballard and the book.<\/p>\n

\"Luke
Luke Evans as the irascible Wilder<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The cast is amazing, did\u00a0you have specific actors in mind when you were writing it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Definitely Hiddleston, we wanted him for Laing from the start. You look at who\u2019s out there and Tom\u2019s so perfect for that control, and he\u2019s erotic but he\u2019s kind of like…neurotic! And he\u2019s kind of a threat but he\u2019s super intelligent as well. That was perfect for us. We wanted to work with James Purefoy since seeing Rome<\/em><\/strong>. And working with Luke was great, I didn\u2019t really know his stuff that well before but\u00a0I remember seeing him in The Hobbit<\/em><\/strong> and thinking \u201cFuck, who\u2019s that guy?” Then I saw him in The Great Train Robbery<\/em> <\/strong>and he was fucking fantastic in that, so I met up with him and I just could see that apart from being a really nice bloke he has that seething angry kind of quality to him, yeah that was good!<\/p>\n

I wanted to ask about Dan Skinner as well, he’s so perfect as Jeremy Irons’\u00a0threatening right hand man!<\/strong><\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t tell him till the wrap party but we didn\u2019t open cast, we just saw Dan and that was it. Amy was like “Come on; let\u2019s get Dan Skinner to do something because he\u2019s brilliant!” So we got him in and he just nailed it straight away. It\u2019s an energy that\u2019s very different from the other actors because of his comedy stuff, and as a person Dan\u2019s own energy is interesting. And he\u2019s big as well. You never realise how fucking tall he is, he\u2019s a menace! And that\u2019s great; I was really chuffed with all that.<\/p>\n

Laing is tricky in a way because he doesn’t really come down on either side. Was he a tough character to get right?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, it\u2019s scary and it\u2019s in the heart of the book that he doesn\u2019t. I remember when I re-read it I made a lot of assumptions about what was going to happen, “He\u2019s going to be the alpha male and oh, he\u2019s not, OK, and then Wilder is, and he\u2019s not either, shit, and Royal\u2026shit, he\u2019s not either,” and that was really interesting for me.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s slightly nervy when you make a film where basically your matinee idol main character just doesn\u2019t get involved and steps back, but I think that\u2019s good because it\u2019s the cowardice of it is the centre of the modern problem, isn\u2019t it? It\u2019s not doing anything and just letting it all slide and I think that felt more human.<\/p>\n

\"Jeremy
Jeremy Irons as the tower’s architect Anthony Royal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are some brilliant sequences of chaos, were they carefully constructed?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The more chaotic things seem, probably the more controlled they are to make. It\u2019s just dangerous! I think the scene where Luke and Tom dance in the party was the last day of the shoot, so it was a great day and they really let rip. It\u2019s the tough thing of making sure those sequences feel alive. The kid’s party was good, basically we just had a kid\u2019s party, just got them and riled them right up and up and they just went for it.<\/p>\n

I really hate that in movies where you see there\u2019s no energy in those parties. The hard thing is smoke, I was trying to get them to make it as smokey as things were then and it\u2019s really difficult! I remember it as being just like a fucking fog! Not being able to see anything! We didn\u2019t quite get there but it was nice to see so many people smoking in the film, it actually looked like it used to look. It\u2019s going to a party when you\u2019re sober, isn\u2019t it, when\u00a0everyone else is drunk is a terrifying experience!<\/p>\n

There are some quite dramatic shifts in tone between quite manic dark comedy, violence and calm. Were they difficult to manage?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s structured in the script and we\u2019ve done a lot of movies now that have those moments in it. On a very simple level, to maintain chaos, you need calm. If it\u2019s all chaos it just becomes overwhelming. You need to\u00a0pace stuff.\u00a0When you look back at a Bogart movie from the ’40s there\u2019ll be a song in the middle of it. They\u2019ll always break for a song\u00a0and that\u2019s not by mistake. They\u2019re like cabaret things. There\u2019s a bit of action, a bit of romance, a bit of music and a family scene, and it\u2019s part of that general package of entertainment. Without that it just becomes samey.<\/p>\n

\"Laing
Laing connects with Helen Wilder (Elisabeth Moss)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How have you found watching it with an audience?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I always love watching stuff with an audience, and US and UK audiences are very different. It\u2019s a difficult one because the film is\u00a0funny and there\u2019s lots of jokes in it,\u00a0and the laughs are all in different places every time. It\u2019s not\u00a0consistent! You go \u201cand the laugh\u2026oh, ok?\u201d and then they laugh at something else. So I think it\u2019s interesting.<\/p>\n

It’s had quite a mixed critical reaction…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, positive and negative, but that\u2019s fine as well you know? [laughs] It\u2019s interesting reading that stuff and seeing which way people go with it, and if they go with it. I think it\u2019s a movie that grows as you watch it again and again.<\/p>\n

Did\u00a0you had any adverse reactions to the opening dog scene?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, it\u2019s really weird! No one said anything about that. But we\u2019ve slaughtered so many fake animals in our films!\u00a0People always mention it in the reviews. There\u2019s a special website now you can check if any dogs have been killed before you see a film if that\u2019s important to you.<\/p>\n

Finally, was ABBA’s ‘SOS’ always going to be in there? The Portishead cover is amazing, and the string quartet playing it is brilliant!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, it\u2019s written in the script. And it\u2019s something that we\u2019d been working with; Sightseers<\/em><\/strong> had the use of double cover versions, before and after. I like that idea of taking pop and turning it into classical music so it was like a high and low culture moment vibrating, and then taking the brilliant lyrics of ‘SOS’ and refeeding them back in a more downbeat way.<\/p>\n

High-Rise<\/em> hits UK cinemas on 18 March 2016. Read our review of the film here.<\/a> Get all the latest horror news with every issue of SciFiNow.<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>
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