Our Artistic Director of Film Jason Wood catches up with director Ira Sachs to discuss the formation of his latest work, Little Men which opens here at HOME on Friday 23 September…
JW: One of the subjects at the heart of Little Men is gentrification. This was alluded to in Love is Strange but is very much up front and centre here. What made you want to tackle the subject? It’s forcing many people out of major cities across the globe.
IS: Economic difference between neighbours, and how those difference create drama in individual lives, is not a new subject — look at Dickens, or Henry James, or Edith Wharton, for earlier examples, to name just a few of many — but what I hope to do as a filmmaker is be both very attentive to the details of my time and city, and understand how our moment reflects deeper truths about human lives more universally. I moved to a neighbourhood of Brooklyn in 1988 that was primarily Italian, my street had a lot of Dominican residents, and I was a white college kid arriving in a U-Haul. I saw within a few years a profound change on that one corner over who could stay and who could leave, and it’s stuck with me since as a microcosm of conflict that you can find in any city at any time.
JW: The film to my mind is also a very acute observation of the transition from adolescence to adulthood and a sense of innocence being lost. I was struck by the fact that Jake and Tony, despite their youth are quite often the most level-headed characters. Brian and his family have to act in a pragmatic fashion but this feels at odds with justice and parity as the kids see it. Was this a conscious move on your part?
IS: I think partly that comes from these wonderful boys who play the two leads, Theo Taplitz and Michael Barbieri. These are two very different boys — one is like out of a Bresson movie; the other straight-up Scorsese — but what they have in common is a precocious sense of emotional intuition that makes them feel older than the rest of us.
JW: I imagine they were found through a traditional casting process but what makes their relationship and situation so believable is their easy rapport. How did the two actors establish this? Was it natural or did they hang out and bond to achieve it?
IS: One of the wonderful things about kids is that they can make intimate relationships very quickly; they aren’t frightened to step across difference, the way adults are. I don’t have traditional rehearsals with my actors; I don’t find it useful in cinema because it leads to making decisions in conscious ways that I would prefer are captured more spontaneously. That said, I do have my actors spend time with each other in advance. So I sent Theo and Michael out for a day together. They spent time skating in Prospect Park; they went to the movies; they talked about movies and music they liked. By the time they came to set, they had a history that they could access as two boys, even more than as two actors.
JW: Gloria is one if the great performances of the last decade. Paulina Garcia plays a very different role here. More subdued, less effervescent but still with a strong survival instinct. Was she someone you sought to work with?
IS: My co-writer Mauricio Zacharias and I wrote the part of Leonor with Paulina in mind. We had both seen her in Gloria, and loved her in it, so when we were constructing the story about a single immigrant mother in New York, our first idea was Paulina. Luckily for us, she loved the script and dove in. What I love about her performance in both movies is her fearlessness; she’s not looking to be liked. She’s not worried about showing flaws, or imperfections, physically or psychologically. In that way, she’s much like that other “Gloria,” Gena Rowlands: you can’t keep your eyes off her.
JW: Brian obviously has kindness within him and is conflicted and also somewhat dictated to by his sister. One of the scenes I find most shocking is where Jennifer Ehle waits patiently for Leonor and then quite calmly demands that the rent increase must be met. There is a kind of violence to this scene. Was this your intention?
IS: Jennifer plays that scene so beautifully. In many ways, she’s the character who refuses to sugar coat the problems. She’s out in the world; she’s not protected the way Leonor has been by Max, the store’s previous owner, or Greg Kinnear’s character Brian is by his wife. I admire her ability to call a spade a spade.
JW: You work again with Dickon Hinchcliffe. What did you seek for the score and what qualities attract you to Hinchcliffe’s work?
IS: This is my third film with Dickon, after Forty Shades of Blue (2005) and Married Life (2007), and what I love about the work he did on this film is that it’s both deeply aligned with the innocence of the children, and yet at the same time, musically and cinematically, it has a great and mature sophistication. This mirrors my own intentions with the film as well: to be a film about childhood, for kids and adults, that also relishes in the depth of an adult perspective, and cinematic intention.
JW: Your films are incredibly humane, no matter what the subject or the sexuality of the characters. Do you see this as one of your virtues as a filmmaker and does it also allow you to be more expansive when choosing your subjects?
IS: If I wasn’t a filmmaker, I think the only other job I might have been good at would have been a psychoanalyst or therapist. The job of both is to be both acutely analytical about life and action, but at the same time maintain a consistent empathy for one’s subjects. Too much analysis, you can be cold; too much empathy, you can be sentimental. The challenge is to find the balance between the two, and as a filmmaker that’s where I try to situate myself when making a movie. Jean Renoir said it perhaps best, “The terrible thing is that everyone has their reasons.” The deeper I understand and accept that truth the better I am at my job.
Ira Sachs’ Little Men plays on our screens from Fri 23 September. And we are also joined by Ira himself for a special preview and Q&A on Fri 16 Sep. Book tickets and find out more information here.
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