{"id":2790,"date":"2016-05-20T22:20:33","date_gmt":"2016-05-20T22:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/05\/20\/pulling-focus-a-conversation-with-ben-wheatley\/"},"modified":"2016-05-20T22:20:33","modified_gmt":"2016-05-20T22:20:33","slug":"pulling-focus-a-conversation-with-ben-wheatley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/05\/20\/pulling-focus-a-conversation-with-ben-wheatley\/","title":{"rendered":"Pulling Focus: A Conversation with Ben Wheatley"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taste of Cinema \/ Shane Scott-Travis<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s evening and a violet shadow\u2014pale\u2014spreads over the city like ink dispersing in water. We\u2019ve gathered at the Vancity Theatre in Vancouver for a late night special preview screening of High-Rise, the fifth feature from British firebrand Ben Wheatley.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a film for audiences who want to see dogs being killed, and Tom Hiddleston naked,\u201d deadpans Wheatley to the sold-out and enthusiastic crowd who can\u2019t help but cheer him on with what he calls \u201cthe last big counterculture adaptation to go through.\u201d Just before the lights dim Wheatley adds that, \u201cNo animals were killed during the filming, a few of them were very upset though.\u201d<\/p>\n

High-Rise is the film that Wheatley is in town to promote, but it\u2019s certainly not all he\u2019s willing to knock around as I\u2019d discovered earlier that day.<\/p>\n

An engaging artist, Wheatley\u2019s tireless wit, lively conversation, and contagious love of cinema further underscores his own trenchant, imaginative, and somewhat thorny body of work. Truly I can think of no filmmaker today whose work is as dangerous, as exciting, and as unpredictable as Ben Wheatley\u2019s is.<\/p>\n

Anarchy in the U.K.<\/p>\n

Wheatley, who was born in Essex in 1972, laughs good-naturedly when I ask him how he feels about all the Stanley Kubrick comparisons that seem to fall all around him like common confetti.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t help,\u201d he chortles, adding, \u201cI think it\u2019s an impossible thing because if you\u2019re criticized you feel cross but if people think your stuff is good then you just feel cross as well, so there\u2019s no two ways about it. You can\u2019t take any of that stuff to heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wheatley\u2019s jolting body of work is yet to garner the same effervesce decoration as Kubrick, but by comparison, he\u2019s a far more prolific and persevering force considering that in the last seven years he\u2019s made five films, with a sixth, Free Fire, already in the can and due in cinemas later this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the thing about being like other filmmakers is you can be in the tradition of them maybe, but when they made their films there was a certain financial system and a mindset that existed at that moment that can never exist again. So I don\u2019t think that you could ever be like those filmmakers because it\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n

That moment\u2019s gone and they were the only people that could do it at that time. Kubrick\u2019s experiences and mine are so completely alien and different they can\u2019t compare. I mean, things can look a bit the same but they don\u2019t mean the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Growing up outside of London\u2013\u2013where he\u2019d later attend art school\u2013\u2013Wheatley sauntered and skimmed on the periphery of film and television a while before making it as a director. But even before that calling, at 17, he met his muse, Amy Jump, whom he\u2019d later marry, and she\u2019s written and co-edited pretty much every project together since.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get to 25 years-old and you haven\u2019t made Citizen Kane and you feel a little bit sad inside,\u201d shares Wheatley to the rapt crowd at the Vancity Theatre. \u201cThen you\u2019ve got Tarantino at 29 and I was like, \u2018I\u2019m 29 now, I haven\u2019t made my Reservoir Dogs, fuck! Then you get to 40 as I was and you still haven\u2019t made a film and you\u2019re like, well, I\u2019ve still got Ken Russell. Russell didn\u2019t make a film till he was 50, so I was holding out for the Ken Russell backstop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wheatley paid his dues as a runner at a post-production facility\u2013\u2013\u201cbut not a very good one,\u201d he chuffs\u2013\u2013and some erratic employment as a storyboard artist before eventually making it, via a viral internet video with pal Rob Hill (Down Terrace) called \u201cCunning Stunts\u201d that would bring him to the BBC to do an eccentric comedy show, Ideal. This stint was, in Wheatley\u2019s words, \u201cmy film school.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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