After getting spooked out by The Eclipse, Street sat down with director Conor McPherson (also a well-known playwright) and actor Ciaran Hinds (Munich, There Will Be Blood) to discuss ghosts, choirs and Irish things.
Street: Conor, you wrote and directed plays before making the transition to film. How do you approach plays differently than a film? Which are you more comfortable with? Conor McPherson: They’re very different things, but they have some similarities, obviously. With a play it happens in a live environment, so there’s a tremendous compression. In films you have the freedom to get in very close to the actors, so you’re able to tell more with their eyes, what they’re thinking. Seeing someone walk along is enough for a scene, whereas in a play someone just walking around the stage isn’t enough. They’re very very different, so in terms of making the transition from one to the other, yeah, it’s a big transition, but it’s natural to me.
Street: You both worked together before The Eclipse, but what was it like working with the actors that you didn’t know so much, like Iben Hjele and Aidan Quinn? CM: They were both a real joy. They’re both very intelligent actors. They have that great talent of not really seeming like they’re acting, but also they’re both very smart people. They brought a lot to it. When we all sat down together and read through the script we were able to change it all quite quickly to make everyone feel comfortable and mold the characters into how they felt would be the best way to convey them. So even though Aidan is not like Nicholas Holden there is something of Aidan in that character. And the same with Iben — she’s like a common sense actor. There’s no mad preparation. Ciaran Hinds: She has a wonderful gift of really listening, and she will really answer. There’s no embellishment, no showing off.
Street: In the movie, there was a strong parallel between memory, grief, loss and the ghosts that appear to the characters. Why this connection? CM: I suppose when someone dies, they’re gone, but when you think of them, some of them is here. I suppose it’s that he has to let go of his wife, but you hang on to the pain. He’s hanging on to all the wrong stuff.
Street: The choral soundtrack was really interesting and different. Was it a conscious choice to make the film more eerie? Where did it come from? CM: You know that scene in The Deer Hunter where Robert DeNiro is up there in the mountains stalking the deer? There’s a kind of choral music when he’s up in the mountains. I remembered that and I thought that choral music would be kind of awesome. We got a choir to come and help us arrange the choral elements. That was a real joy, doing that and then putting it on film and watching how the soundtrack changes the film entirely when you’re watching it.
Street: How do you see this film fitting in with other Irish films? CH: Theoretically the movie could fit into any culture anywhere, you know? CM: Yeah, I wanted it to be more of a European film than an Irish film, really. I deliberately shot it in a town that had very old British architecture to really make it not very Irish, to give it a kind of history. Whereas a lot of Irish architecture is very modern, very soulless, I wanted to make it very original, like something we’ve never seen.
Street: How do you see Michael at the end of film? CH: I think he’s gone to a place where he now understands, he’s relieved of the massive blockage of grief. He’s in a much better place. And also he’s made a true connection with another human being that’s beyond lust and libido. So its something that’s really positive, to move on.
Street: Do you believe in ghosts? CM: I think I do. I’m not sure what a ghost is, or if it’s really a dead person coming back. I definitely believe people see things. I’d never turn around and say, no you didn’t! CH: I don’t disbelieve it at all. I suppose it depends on our senses. I guess there is sometimes an energy.
