Movies Features

Director John Curran talks Stone

By Anne Brodie Oct 7, 2010, 15:49 GMT

As parole officer Jack Mabry (De Niro) counts the days toward a quiet retirement, he is asked to review the case of Gerald "Stone" Creeson (Norton), in prison for covering up the murder of his grandparents with a fire. Now eligible for early release, Stone needs to convince Jack he has reformed, but his attempts to influence the older man’s decision have profound and unexpected effects on them both. Stone ...more

John Curran directs Robert De Niro and Edward Norton in Stone, a dark drama concerning a convicted arsonist who wants parole and the officer who stands in his way.
 
The convict, a master manipulator, engages him in loaded conversations about faith, redemption, and morality and in a cynical move, arranges for his wife (Milla Jovovich) to seduce him. 

Monsters and Critics spoke with Curran about this challenging project.

John Curran - We like each others’ ideas for a start which is the basis of any collaboration.  I’ve been on some films where talented people can’t work together.  It’s happened with me before, but we complement each other.  You’d have to be around us to know why.  We keep each other in check and I encourage him and he encourages me. 

He’s always to analyse and talk about his character in the films on any level and any way you go to in an intelligent way.  I’ve always experienced having to draw enthusiasm from people and that’s much harder attitude to deal with for me.  And were friends and I’d happily work with Edward on whatever. 

Doing a second film together is easier in one way.  We know each others’ boundaries, we know what were most passionate about or weakest at, so for me it made one element really reassuring – his part in it – trust.

M&C - Stone has terrific performances but it’s a dark story.  Did you see it as commercially risky?

JC - It I didn’t take this film on with the expectation that it would be a film for everyone. I recognised it could be a provocative film in a good way and in a bad way. 

So I got into it with my eyes wide open, I felt personally I could pursue it in a way that was very authentic about the themes and faith and God in particular – I was aware that that could be interesting and work against people’s interest in the film.
 
My reaction to reaction is what I expected and I hope that the more critical positives waves swamp the negative you know we’re going to be you there.

M&C - It must be tough to make art when Hollywood works on high octane/retread/CGI models.

JC - It’s a business and I don’t pretend that it isn’t – I want everyone to be happy and make money so I keep working.  I’m not immune to the purposes of it is all about, having said that, I got into films through my inspiration by filmmakers of the 70’s, and that was a very different time.

My earliest influences were of a different era, and market.  More challenging films found their way in.  It’s very cutthroat now and it’s difficult to get this film made.  I really hope there can be a happy medium where we can have a bit of both. 

The ultimate aim is to do both, but the idea of analysing a script for pure entertainment potential versus what you can put in or provoke in a personal experience, I would like to think I would make all kinds of films. 
 
This film was made to provoke questions.  I was watching TV two nights ago and I caught the middle of Badlands (Terence Malick, 1973). 
I wondered if we would we still recognise those sorts of films today if they came out, the French New Wave filmmakers?  I don’t know if audiences would have the same kind of patience, I suppose. 

M&C - How did that manifest itself in Stone?

JC - What I thought was fun about Stone was the pace, anti- action film, drawn from the character of Jack.  You can work it where you have someone like De Niro and Norton and expect it to ramp up into violence and become something entirely different.  Can it sustain itself?  Is there any answer?  How do you when you’re talking about the responsibility for those personal failings under the eyes of God, whatever your belief system is.
 
What closure is there in that?  The answer on that, a character like Jack, is inevitable.  No matter how we looked at it, it kept calling for the same sort of ending open to interpretation.
 
It was the only honest one to pursue.  That’s my contribution to the discussion if you’re going to deal in those themes and ideals.  It’s how I feel about the film, it’s honest, and the best I can do.
 
M&C - I’ve read that you’re working on a film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful and the Damned and then a film about Napoleon starring Al Pacino.

JC - I don’t know what im doing next.  I was working on Beautiful and the Damned based on F Scott Fitzgerald’s book, I was working on that before Stone.  Every project has its time and it wasn’t the right time for that. But it’s still there in my mind. 

Fitzgerald’s story as a Hollywood screen writer is really sad, when it was all over for him.  He was the kind of guy who was the last to leave the party.  And Betsy and the Emperor is a great idea looking for a script; there has never been one that was right.  I would love to do it soon.  How many more years can Pacino play Napoleon?

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