{"id":89865,"date":"2016-08-05T06:00:24","date_gmt":"2016-08-05T05:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=89865"},"modified":"2016-08-05T08:15:16","modified_gmt":"2016-08-05T07:15:16","slug":"jeff-nichols-midnight-special-is-about-being-a-father","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/news\/jeff-nichols-midnight-special-is-about-being-a-father\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Nichols: Midnight Special “is about being a father”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Out of all the films we’ve seen in 2016 so far, few have topped Midnight Special<\/strong><\/em>, Jeff Nichols’ heartfelt chase movie that sees a mysterious young child transported across the United States, all the while pursued by shady government forces.<\/p>\n

Featuring such solid performers as Michael Shannon, Kirsten Dunst, Joel Edgerton and Adam Driver, it represents another excellent addition to Nichols’ already exemplary filmography, as anyone who has seen Shotgun Stories<\/strong><\/em>, Take Shelter<\/strong> <\/em>or Mud<\/strong><\/em> will testify.<\/p>\n

With Midnight Special<\/strong><\/em> available to buy on DVD and Blu-ray from Monday, we were lucky enough to speak to the director about his thought’s on the reaction to the film, the process of creating it, those Aquaman<\/strong><\/em> rumours and what else he has planned…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Firstly, how have you found the reception to Midnight Special<\/em>?
\n<\/strong>Mixed, you know. It didn\u2019t do too well at the box office, which was a little disappointing on my end, and that was a little disheartening. That being said, now that it\u2019s starting to come out on DVD and streaming in the US, I\u2019ve gotten a lot more of a response, which helps it out.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tricky film admittedly: it\u2019s hard for a lot of people to wrap their heads around it, but once they do, I got what I wanted to get out of it in terms of the feelings that I had as a young father, I think those are getting translated.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s kind of a mixed bag, to be honest \u2013 I\u2019m really, really proud of the film, and I think it very much represents the film that I set out to make, but I\u2019m a little bit disappointed that audiences didn\u2019t knock down the theatre doors to go and see it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But it did well critically\u2026
\n<\/strong>For the most part yeah, the reviews I read were pretty good! I don\u2019t read them all, but yeah, I think that the critics for the most part gave it their time and attention, which I appreciated.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Throughout the course of production, did the film change much from your initial conception?
\n<\/strong>There were two big scenes that changed, and this just kind of happens in every one of my films. It\u2019s in a scene about two thirds of the way through the film, and this happened on Mud<\/em><\/strong>, Take Shelter<\/em><\/strong> and Shotgun Stories<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The scene that, if you asked me at the script stage to cut out, I\u2019d have been like, \u201cAh, that\u2019s crazy, this is a really important scene, I need that,\u201d and it seemed so obvious when I was in the editing room I was like, \u201cYeah, that\u2019s got to go,\u201d and that happened on this film. There\u2019s a scene where Michael Shannon\u2019s character has to walk his son outside to watch the sunrise for the first time, which I hoped people would understand was a very dangerous thing. And that scene, as written, went on for another few minutes, and it was totally the wrong choice! [laughs]<\/p>\n

It was one of those things where in hindsight it seems so clear \u2013 that\u2019s probably the biggest thing that changed, and it\u2019s happened on each one of my films.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"MIDNIGHT
Midnight Special was written with Nichols’ feelings about becoming a father in mind.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And what were your original inspirations for the film?
\n<\/strong>In equal parts, two things: one was I wanted to write a film about how I felt about being a father; a young father, and this realisation of being powerless in the face of the world and what nature throws at us.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a really physical thing, being a father, to come to terms with: that you just don\u2019t have any control. That feeling gripped me strongly over the course of making this film, and it still does. That\u2019s really the heart and soul of the film.<\/p>\n

At the same time, I wanted to make a government sci-fi chase movie. I wanted to make something that had a bad-ass scene at the beginning, with a really fast car moving down a dark road in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n

There were these things that I wanted to explore and felt were really cool, and so as a storyteller I start to grasp these things on top of one another, and that\u2019s what Midnight Special <\/em><\/strong>comes from.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nostalgia seems to be a big thing at the moment in cinema, and Midnight Special <\/em>has been compared a lot with various 70s and 80s movies. Do you think this does it a disservice in a way, or are you okay with the comparisons?
\n<\/strong>With hindsight, I could have cracked that dialogue a little bit more. I was certainly inspired by films from the 80s, obviously. When it came to the way we sold it though, we sold it like ET<\/em><\/strong>, and it\u2019s not ET<\/em><\/strong>, it\u2019s not a Spielberg film; it\u2019s a Jeff Nichols film, for better or worse.<\/p>\n

It serves as a homage to films from the 80s, but it has a very strange narrative structure, and marches to the beat of its own drum, and so\u2026 it\u2019s a tough one to call. There are people who are watching the film wanting to see ET<\/em><\/strong> or other Spielberg films from the 80s, and they\u2019re going to be disappointed. If they\u2019re walking in to see a film that was inspired by these films, then maybe not.<\/p>\n

Maybe that\u2019s just semantics, but it\u2019s just so tricky when you\u2019re at the front end of these marketing campaigns, and you\u2019re trying to break through all the crud and the noise that exists out there and just make people aware of your film. Maybe that point was oversold a little bit.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Notably, the ending is unconventional in that the lead characters don\u2019t exactly ride off into the sunset: two are in prison, and another a fugitive. What was the thinking behind this ending?
\n<\/strong>Other than Mud<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 Mud<\/em><\/strong> had a full-on happy ending, and I got knocked for that by some people \u2013 some people don\u2019t like happy endings, but I think they\u2019re in a minority \u2013 but my other two films, Take Shelter<\/em><\/strong> and Shotgun Stories<\/em><\/strong>, both had\u2026 these aren\u2019t \u2018happy\u2019 endings, but I\u2019d like to say they\u2019re hopeful endings.<\/p>\n

For some stories, happy endings seem a little too dishonest, but for a film like Mud<\/em><\/strong>, Mud<\/em><\/strong> was built to be a bit of a fairy tale, and the clarity of that ending made me happy for that kind of film.<\/p>\n

Midnight Special<\/em><\/strong> is not that kind of film; it\u2019s designed to ask more questions than give answers, and is designed to leave you with strong emotions, and the way I look at the end of that film is you see a father who\u2019s not in a good place. He\u2019s had to give up his son, and he\u2019s in prison, and you see on his face one of two things: satisfied with what he\u2019s done for his son, and all that he\u2019s done for his son, but he\u2019s paid the ultimate price in prison and having to give him up.<\/p>\n

But he knows he\u2019s out there somewhere, and that\u2019s hopeful. It\u2019s not clear, nobody knows what the hell\u2019s going on, but it\u2019s hopeful in my mind.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Is the world of Midnight Special<\/em> one that you can ever see yourself potentially revisiting at any point, or are you satisfied that the full story has been told?
\n<\/strong>I\u2019d love to. I don\u2019t see \u2013 given what it did at the box office \u2013 anyone lining up to watch it anytime soon. I designed it to go further, but I don\u2019t think anybody\u2019s getting in the queue to pay for it!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"STILL-14\"
Nichols singles out Adam Driver as someone he’d happily work with again – and has recently directed Joel Edgerton once more in Loving.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unless you include Take Shelter<\/em>, Midnight Special<\/em> is your first real sci-fi film. Was it always a plan to create a film from this genre?
\n<\/strong>Yeah, for sure. It\u2019s a genre I\u2019ll go back to, I really like it. It\u2019s an interesting thing about movies, there are a lot of parallels you can draw between them, but one really important one is this sense of mystery, and that\u2019s what I love about the genre: this idea of the unknown unfolding in front of you.<\/p>\n

This happens in Mud<\/em><\/strong> too; it\u2019s just a different style of mystery: more of a hearty boys\u2019 kind of mystery: who is this man, what\u2019s going on? It\u2019s the same with Take Shelter<\/em><\/strong>; there are these narrative questions \u2013 I don\u2019t know that you would call them \u2018mysteries\u2019 \u2013 but there are these questions that are unfolding in front of you.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d call Take Shelter<\/em><\/strong> a psychological thriller, and Mud<\/em><\/strong> a coming-of-age getaway film. All of them deal with this kind of narrative ambiguity, but more importantly narrative questions that they kind of take the audience\u2019s participation in order to unwrap them, and that\u2019s really interesting to me, no matter what genre I\u2019m working in, but I love sci-fi.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s kind of funny when you\u2019re looking at moving forward, and I\u2019m looking at the report of my career, like, \u201cWell, I want to make a bigger movie.\u201d I\u2019ve got a comic-book movie I could make, or I could make a sci-fi movie that goes to outer space. There are only a handful of things that allow you to utilise all this technology that\u2019s there, so I would be surprised if I don\u2019t ever return to the sci-fi genre.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You were linked with Aquaman<\/em> at one point. If the circumstances were right, is a comic-book movie something you would take on?
\n<\/strong>Yeah definitely. I grew up reading up comic books, and I\u2019m a fan \u2013 it\u2019s such a business now though. It\u2019s tricky to find your voice inside that. I\u2019m really interested to see what Ryan Coogler does with Black Panther<\/em><\/strong>, and Doctor Strange<\/em><\/strong>\u2026 I\u2019m a comic-book nerd, so I like to go into the genre, but in terms of Marvel and DC, it\u2019s really hard to jump on that train.<\/p>\n

The situation I had with DC with Aquaman<\/em><\/strong>: all these moving parts were already going, and it was very hard to find myself in the middle of the machine, you know? But I think it\u2019s possible, and something might show up.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With people like Michael Shannon, Paul Sparks and Sam Shepard, you seem to have quite a solid roster of actors who are ‘regulars’ on your films. Is there anyone from Midnight Special<\/em> who you hope will join them in this club?
\n<\/strong>Sure – I\u2019ve already made another film called Loving<\/em><\/strong>, and that has Joel Edgerton in it, so Joel is one of them \u2013 he made the cut [laughs].<\/p>\n

He\u2019s just a great guy, and Adam Driver\u2019s somebody that I would pretty much put in everything. I think he\u2019s that good. And I just worked with this comedian, Nick Kroll, I thought ge was fascinating\u2026 there\u2019s a guy called Bill Camp, who I\u2019ve worked with on Midnight Special and Loving, he\u2019s phenomenal\u2026 Shea Whigham\u2019s a guy I worked with on Take Shelter who I haven\u2019t had a chance to work with again, but he\u2019s on my list.<\/p>\n

I repeat all these male actors, but pretty every actress I\u2019ve worked with, starting from Jessica Chastain to Reese Witherspoon, I\u2019ve found these people massively talented. I like working with the same people again and again, mainly because there\u2019s a shorthand there, and you just know that these people will show up; they aren\u2019t prima donnas. They\u2019re there for the right reasons.<\/p>\n

Right now I\u2019m trying to write a script for Matthew McConaughey, because these are people that I really respect, and there\u2019s just something about working with people that you\u2019ve worked with before that\u2019s really fun and comforting.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"MIDNIGHT
Kirsten Dunst lobbied for her role in Midnight Special.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You also have the, for lack of a better word, \u2018bigger-name\u2019 actors like Kirsten Dunst and Michael Shannon. Were they people you had in mind from the beginning?
\n<\/strong>For Kirsten [on Midnight Special<\/strong><\/em>] it was later on \u2013 Kirsten lobbied for that part, which I was\u2026 I\u2019m always shocked whenever famous people want to work with me\u2026 but that was definitely, again, I\u2019m terrified that one day I\u2019m going to show up on set and the actor isn\u2019t going to be as into it as I am.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m lucky that I haven\u2019t experienced that yet \u2013 it\u2019s one of my greatest fears \u2013 but I also think that if you\u2019re talking about really successful actors, famous people, they usually don\u2019t get that way without doing the work, you know. There are exceptions, but that usually outs itself over time. There\u2019s no doubt that guys like Christian Bale and Matt Damon, those guys do the work.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Are your films influenced by stories you\u2019ve already had in mind, or are you ever influenced by real-life events?
\n<\/strong>I think\u2026 a little bit of that is just coincidental, I think it\u2019s a little bit disingenuous to call it luck when you\u2019re talking about something like the racial crisis that\u2019s happening in the United States right now.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s also\u2026 I sit down to write these things, I\u2019m thinking, \u201cThey need to be important, and they need to be important to me, chiefly.\u201d They need to be important enough to commit 3-4 years of your life to, and I\u2019ve been thinking about Midnight Special<\/em><\/strong> since I was in pre-production on Take Shelter<\/em><\/strong>, and here we are talking about it, so you have to be ready for a marathon with these stories and these characters.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of stories, I\u2019ve been sent a lot of scripts, and they\u2019re really good. People have sent me scripts that I want to work with, and I read the scripts and I\u2019m like, \u201cThis is a good story, I understand how to make this, I could make this very well, and it\u2019d probably be more successful than my other films!\u201d [laughs], but they just don\u2019t mean anything to me in the moment.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m working on an alien idea right now, and it means something to me, and it has representations in my personal life, but also talks about society as a whole, which the sci-fi genre really is really good at.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re able to make these social constructs that represent society, and that allows us to look at it in a different context, and that\u2019s pretty exciting, but I mean, with Loving<\/em><\/strong> for instance, I had my own personal reasons for making that film, and you\u2019d have to be a moron in 2012 when I was pondering the choice of whether to start working on that, to think that racism and bigotry wasn\u2019t an issue around the world, much less in the United States, so you\u2019re aware that this has social significance.<\/p>\n

At the time in 2012, focus was being put on marriage equality, and that debate was happening in the US, but growing up in the American South, I knew for a fact that racism and racial issues continue to be an unsettled issue.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Midnight Special<\/em> is out now on Digital Download, and Blu-ray and DVD from Monday 8 August. Read our review of the film here<\/a>, and watch our video interview with Michael Shannon here<\/a>. For all the latest movie news, pick up the new issue of SciFiNow.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeff Nichols on Spielberg comparisons, Aquaman & the future<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":89870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[2617,1718,7,3],"tags":[5273,3360],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/STILL-12-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89865"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}