Cate Blanchett, Guy Maddin and the Cast & Crew of 'Rumours' on Creating a Farcical G7 Summit | Variety Studio at TIFF 2024 - video Dailymotion

Variety

Directors Guy Maddin, Galen Johnson, writer/director Evan Johnson and actors Cate Blanchett & Roy Dupuis discuss their film 'Rumours' at the Variety Studio at TIFF.

Transcript

00:00You can see the coaching of how one has to behave,

00:03the codification of how a world leader behaves in public,

00:07and the triple, double speak that these strategic plans

00:13that come out of the G7 every year, you think,

00:16what does this mean?

00:30Guy, Evan, and Galen, what was the mindset behind satire versus drama

00:38in tackling what would be an otherwise weighty subject?

00:44Wow, I don't know if satire interested us very much, did it?

00:49We made, we've been told we made one, but that was by accident.

00:52I think we thought we were making,

00:53you didn't even know we were making a movie that would be funny,

00:56that anyone would find funny, I don't think.

00:58Yeah, I don't know, it's a matter of just having a story to tell,

01:02and let it, I like the way it, the words lifted off the page,

01:08and stayed airborne, and floated around in a kind of a charming way,

01:12and I just felt that if everybody just delivered their lines

01:17with a straight face, it would be, it would just be whatever it would be.

01:23So satire was never really, we didn't really have a political agenda.

01:27I mean, the subject matter just makes it satire.

01:30Yeah, the G7, so by definition is satire.

01:33But we kind of tried to zig and zag away from satire as much as we could,

01:38because satire didn't really interest us as much

01:41as like soap operas and B-horror movies.

01:45But you got me, okay, I confess, it's a satire.

01:51Canada has produced so many funny people,

01:53how would you describe the Canadian sense of humour?

01:58Dry, I don't know, I'm thinking now of Jim Carrey, and Dan Aykroyd, and you know.

02:07People funnier than us.

02:09I mean, for us, it's just like, there's a lot of self-loathing.

02:11I think like the idea for us of writing a movie,

02:15and making the Canadian Prime Minister into something like an action hero,

02:19something like that, was not done entirely sincerely, I wouldn't say.

02:25Not entirely.

02:26But partially, you know, we're dreamers.

02:28So imagining Canada as some kind of leader of the other nations

02:33was at least entertaining to us.

02:35Yeah, like maybe we're all children of film,

02:39or whatever I think of the world, often through film mythology.

02:43And I just thought it would be fun,

02:46that things are just a little more real when they're committed to film.

02:50And so the idea of presenting our Canadian Prime Minister in this way

02:54just made it a little more real,

02:56even though it exists in a parallel reality with the real reality.

03:01But it's just a way I wanted the country to be perceived.

03:06And in my head, it officially now is perceived that way.

03:11Kate, as the great dramatic actress of your generation,

03:15do you get sent comedic scripts often?

03:21People ask me that question.

03:23Um, yeah, I mean, I think in a strange way, everything is funny.

03:28We are all absurd in some way.

03:31And we all think we're the heroes and the tragedians of, you know, our own stories.

03:39Yeah, sometimes, I mean, you make decisions about what you can be involved in

03:45based on a lot of things that don't have to necessarily do with choice.

03:49Sometimes it's to do with whether it fits in with your kids' holidays.

03:52So there's been some funny things that I haven't been able to do.

03:56But yes, I wanted to be in the forest at night for eight weeks in Budapest.

04:01And my kids were really happy about that.

04:03So I thought, yeah.

04:04No, but I mean, this was a laugh out loud script.

04:07But it was also confounding and bewildering and deeply distressing.

04:12And obviously, I knew the work that these three guys had done together.

04:16And I knew Roy's work.

04:17And the ensemble was so eclectic and weird and wonderful.

04:20It was just an impossible thing to turn down.

04:23So yeah, it's funny and weird.

04:24But all of that stuff, you can read the funniest script in the world.

04:28But then it's who's looking down the lens and who's editing it.

04:32Because a lot of that stuff is in the way it's put together.

04:37And these guys put their films together in such a particular way.

04:40And I think that's why people ask a lot of questions about the tone of Rumours.

04:45Because it sort of is its own tone.

04:48And I think we so easily try and say, that's a comedy.

04:51That's a drama.

04:52That's a satire.

04:53And I feel like this is a mashup of all of these things.

04:59Did you or Roy, in preparation for this film, talk to any G7 leaders, say?

05:07All of them.

05:08All of them.

05:09And in fact, they were on set all the time.

05:11Yeah.

05:12Consultants.

05:14That was a question for me.

05:15Did we talk to them?

05:17If we talked.

05:18To the G7 leaders?

05:19No.

05:20These guys sent us some video of different G7.

05:24I find it was important for the beginning of the movie.

05:27So it looks like really, it's credible.

05:32So that when the movie takes off, then it makes a bigger leap.

05:37But the thing about that footage is it's so incredible.

05:41I mean, the theatre of it.

05:42The bad theatre of these cultural events that they go through.

05:47And the vagina, or whatever it is.

05:52The way that they speak.

05:53You can see the coaching of how one has to behave.

05:56The codification of how a world leader behaves in public.

06:00And the triple, double speak.

06:04These strategic plans that come out of the G7 every year.

06:08You think, what does this mean?

06:11And I think somewhere in the actual tone of the G7

06:14lies the absurd tone of this film.

06:17So all that footage, it was literally like,

06:21can we make something as funny as this?

06:23Yeah, that's what you want.

06:24Yeah, we got hooked on actual G7 footage.

06:26Just the ritualistic choreography of it.

06:29And I don't know, we just were delighted in it.

06:32And I guess it was a matter,

06:33you can almost never hear the dialogue of these things.

06:36Because the camera's so far away.

06:37You're not allowed to.

06:38No, and they may not even have dialogue.

06:41They might just be flapping their gums

06:43without any words really coming out at each other.

06:45But I guess the aim of the film

06:48was probably to capture in dialogue

06:51what these people might actually be saying to each other.

06:55And I think partly what was interesting from the footage

06:57is how monitored they all are.

07:00I mean, we think we're scrutinized by the media.

07:02But they're constantly followed around by cameras.

07:05So they're very aware that their body language

07:08and who they're speaking to is gonna be read

07:11as being something that's gonna be a photograph taken.

07:14They're constantly aware of their external image.

07:17And what happens in this movie

07:19is they become unmoored from that.

07:22And who are they without the observers?

07:25Who are they without mobile phone reception?

07:28Who are they without their aides?

07:31And I think that's really fascinating and ridiculous.

07:35And without their aides or entourages and iPhones,

07:39it becomes this very interesting dynamic.

07:43Do you think that the actual G7 world leaders

07:46would do well with sort of being stripped

07:49of their entourages and iPhones and devices

07:54and get in a room to talk about the fact

07:57that the world's on fire?

07:58Would they benefit by spending time

08:00with masturbatory bog monsters?

08:02Would they?

08:02I think we all would.

08:03Possibly.

08:03I mean, that's a team building exercise

08:05that I'd like to see.

08:07I think they do about the same

08:09as the characters in the movie.

08:11Yeah, I think it's pretty accurate representation

08:13exactly what would happen.

08:15It's a fever dream.

08:16Yes.

08:20What was the wildest scene of all the scenes in the film

08:23for the two of you to film?

08:27Wildest?

08:28Wildest.

08:29Well, my point of view,

08:35for me, it's, I mean,

08:37it was one of the most demanding things

08:39I've done in my career.

08:41I never told these guys

08:42because it was the ending, the monologue,

08:46which we shot, I think, the fourth day of shooting.

08:49Yeah.

08:50And I knew that Kate and Denis and Charles

08:54would all be listening to this monologue.

08:57Judging.

08:59And it was the end of the movie.

09:01And English is not my language.

09:03And it took me a month just to learn it,

09:06to be able to say it rhythmically, interestingly.

09:10Anyway, so it was, for me, it was a big dive.

09:14That's memorable for me, that moment.

09:17You seem so calm and cool and collected.

09:20When I did it?

09:20When you did it.

09:22Yeah, that's called acting.

09:24That's what that was.

09:26I'll have to try it sometime.

09:28I mean, the situation, Al.

09:30But to have, at the middle of the monologue,

09:33come for, how do you say that

09:36when a director gives you a direction?

09:40And the direction was...

09:41No, we don't do that.

09:44No, you don't.

09:45But in the script, they are.

09:47It was, he says it as his life depends on it.

09:51So that's where I had to go.

09:53So yeah, that was memorable for me.

09:55Yeah, I love that.

09:56I love that scene.

09:58Kate?

09:59I think when the brain catches on fire

10:02and when we're all trying to work out

10:04what language, Alicia Vikander's,

10:10what language she's speaking,

10:12it was quite great around the campfire.

10:15But the boiling brain or the kind of

10:19the fluid-leaking bog monster was, you know.

10:23Right.

10:23Yeah.

10:24And also seeing the circle of bog monsters

10:26and thinking that is ancient and sexual,

10:29but, and I could not even find language

10:31to describe what they were doing.

10:33Those extras dressed up as bog monsters,

10:34that was...

10:35Powerful.

10:36That was powerful.

10:37It was quite powerful.

10:37We were all moved and blessed to be there.

10:40I wept.

10:41Yeah.

10:42Yeah.

10:44Well, thank you for coming to the Variety Studio.

10:48Thank you for having us.

Cate Blanchett, Guy Maddin and the Cast & Crew of 'Rumours' on Creating a Farcical G7 Summit | Variety Studio at TIFF 2024

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