On this episode of the podcast, I talk with filmmaker David Gordon Green (George Washington, Undertow) about his fourth film, Snow Angels, which stars an ensemble cast led by Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell. Snow Angels is the first of three surprises that Green has in store for us this year. Green talks about resisting the pigeonhole, about adding humor to dark stories, and about finding moments in editing that you didn't plan.
0:00 Intro
1:40 Situating Snow Angels
7:07 Interview: David Gordon Green
36:10 Outro
Coming Up: the films of Michael Haneke
For such an unassuming guy, Green is quite quotable. "It took a little while to get out of the Southern crybaby genre," he says about his recent hard starboard into uncharted waters. On his unusual casting for such a dark film, he explains, "I don't like jerks and serious people that much," and about the care required when editing humorous moments in a tragic film he says:
It's really about finding the frame that didn't feel inappropriately comedic.... It was literally, in the editing room, finding the frame that gave you the human imperfection of the moment without giving you the hilarity of the moment.
Presumably, Green's fifth film, the Apatow/Rogen stoner comedy Pineapple Express, will operate under a different mechanism.
It was a great experience to do those movies back to back and it's gonna be a funny year to have my name attached to two things that are attractive to absolutely opposite audiences. And it'll be interesting, the weird middle ground of people who will have the audacity to investigate both. [laughs]
Related Links
- Snow Angels trailer
- Pineapple Express trailers: all ages, restricted
- J. Robert Parks reviews Green's first film, George Washington