Q : When you think about making a film about G7, many assume that making a political satire film, but this film has a zombie apocalyptic, in a sense soap opera vibe to it, how did you come up with such an interesting twist?
Evan Johnson: I think you’re right. Because of the subject matter, it makes it seem okay, we have a political satire here. even knowing we were supposed to be making a political satire, we were not thoroughly interested in entering that realm. I didn’t feel comfortable competing in the realm of political satire with other political satirists. our interests are more in other types of movies. sketch comedy TV can get that stuff out quickly. We always thought it would be funnier to approach the movie in melodramatic or soap opera terms.
Having a bit of horror or B movie horror doesn’t harm that for us. anything to veer away from political satire. It’s not like we were afraid to delve into politics. We thought we could get towards politics from a different angle, less directly or obliquely. As filmmakers, we insist on seizing the freedom that novelists have
Guy Maddin: Just make pretend the canvas is bigger and give room to shift tones. a strange mixture of tones pleases us. And a mixture of gags in a show. Highbrow, lowbrow, everything in between. But also, shifting from genre to genre so that people viewing it are always aware that we’re aware we’re making a movie. But we’re taking the movie seriously at times. And then somebody I don’t know. It’s just, we insist on having the freedom to be playful and shift as our instincts dictate.
It’s time for that. This is the most pretentious thing I’ve ever said. It’s like making a symphony. I don’t know how to compose a symphony. There’s different movements and flavors. Some lighthearted, some darker. I love all that when it’s combined and you’re navigating by your gut. It’s time for this, it’s time for that. you hope viewers don’t get Lost Or resentful just sit back and enjoy the ride.
Q : I heard that you guys study the archival footage of G7, and even show it to the cast members, when you think about G7. there’s some accomplishment came out if G7, such as HIV/AIDS measures, financial assistance to developing countries, and climate change through the 2015 Paris Agreement, but often time news media reported more of awkward moments and laughable thing, what the things that you guys incorporated from the archival footage or siding the research that stood out?
Evan Johnson: On the G7, it seems to be, I think maybe increasingly over the last few years, the media presentation of G7 is more and more just about the G7.
Spectacle. Like it’s a, it seems like directly now it’s a propaganda purpose generally for all the countries just to legitimize their leaders by showing them with other leaders. It makes you seem more legitimate, shores of domestic support back home. And it was true that the country’s G7 summits have resulted in tangible benefits like the ones you’ve mentioned, I think all those things would be easier done, probably, and more cheaply done without the G7 summit itself.
It could be done by email. they’re not done by the leaders, our movie was interested in the surface level, just like the surface image politics, because that’s what these summits are about photo opportunities and pageantry.
We watched and shared with our actors a lot of these videos and there was something hypnotic, really funny, really beautiful about them. I think these leaders. In general, true world leaders are more entertaining and funny with each other than on their own. When you see them with each other, it suddenly feels like it’s a crossover event and they’re cartoon characters it’s like the Olympics of performance,
Guy Maddin: I remember as a kid, whenever I saw my country’s prime minister, I knew how he got elected and what percentage of the popular vote he had and everything and how unpopular he was in our home country.
But as soon as you saw him with the American president, we became patriotically proud and it legitimized him as a leader all of a sudden. And I just know that. Mutual legitimization is going on for everybody and everyone is just becoming the viewer of a soap opera at that point when the G7 stuff is on. It really is just a propaganda opportunity they don’t miss.
Q : Why did you guys choose one of the Top English actors, Charles Dance, to play the U.S president who sleeps a lot, are there any metaphorical intentions there about the current president? I have to ask about Takehiro Hira, could you talk about the casting process, now we see the shogun, it makes sense, but, you guys obviously cast him before the shogun aired, so could you talk about the casting process?
Guy Maddin: The reason we chose Charles Dance is because there’s no one more British and more presidential, in among the male presidential possibilities. But the fact that he had to be British maybe came down to, for me, my discomfort, my only discomfort in launching into a commitment to make a movie about the G7 was that we have to cast an American president. American presidents have been in so many movies, this one at a new angle.
Galen johnson: There’s so much diversity in casting. We just know there’s been diversity in casting American presidents over the last few decades. while I was knitting my brows over this problem. One of these guys said the American president should be British. And we all went, yes! And it was just one of those gestures that we instantly knew would establish our attitude right at the beginning. We never did explain it to each other or question it. It was just a gesture that felt good. We were questioned by state funders, producers, and potential distributors. We got pushback but dug in our heels. I just felt that and we even got some pushback from the actor. But We stuck that on. I think we’re all, even the actor, he’s very glad now.
Q : Throughout this film, I notice that those characters have a certain disconnection with society in some sense, even those prominent people in G7 often deal with economic or political crises, but throwing some crises, adding some humanity to the chapters, what was the intention behind that?
Evan Johnson: I’m not sure, my intentions are a little mysterious on how we ended up where we ended up. Some of it is, it’s just harder and less fun maybe to write a movie where you’re coming only from a place of contempt. In superiority.
Attempted superiority of the characters. I’m just more interested in finding out the maybe uncomfortable ways that I too am like these people or in some way as though I hate them. we would all probably make terrible prime ministers. Yeah, sometimes the depiction is not to be taken literally. Some of what we’re trying to do is produce, like movie tropes, cramming different genres together. We like certain cliches, soap opera melodrama and all that stuff. cramming those together requires certain characteristics.
Guy Maddin: You have to humanize these people to make them fit together watching you, I was struck by your commitment to involution that is taking the premise that it’s just our seven leaders stuck together. And what are they going to say to each other when they’re in this peculiar situation? You kept writing from the conceit that these are G7 leaders, but they just started talking to each other in ways they were never allowed to forget they were G7 leaders.
You kept using the language G7 leaders use in public, the vocabulary they naturally have, and you just opened your imagination to what they would speak like to each other when Things got sexual or childish it was a total commitment to staying within this tiny little microcosm and Involving the writing never going outside of that world and just staying within and just bringing every last drop of flavor out of That’s I was very impressed with that one as he came in with his
Galen Johnson: 10 pages of dialogue every day
Evan Johnson: Yeah. We wanted to imprison them in their own world, their own language.
Q : Are there any political figures that inspire you to write the script? Are there any political figures that actors gave you an idea to add that into the characters？
Evan Johnson: I don’t think there was anyone in particular we ‘re obviously aware of writing something like this. There’s certain dominant personalities in the world. Emmanuel Macron, for us, is big , he was a funny presence. Emmanuel Macron’s scandals are very entertaining. Everyone knows the American president, a gigantic figure and we’re aware of our Canadian Prime Minister.
But except for the fact that all of these figures are there in your head somewhere, looming I think we’re avoiding making direct commentary on any real world figures. I will say that Katie Blanchard’s look of her character is somewhat probably modeled on EU Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen.
We were looking online for how politicians dress and their hair. And she’s a fairly ubiquitous presence in Europe. she used to be the defense minister of Germany, I believe, and now she’s a pretty prominent, powerful EU politician. she has some inspirational stuff in her Wikipedia entry that’s more funny scandals and stuff that amused us. So that was a figure, and I know all the actors studied their own politician’s body language. We were not looking for anything direct.
Guy Maddin: There is a tendency among French leaders to indulge in philosophical and intellectual discourse, exactly the kind of talk that would lose an election for an American president. French leaders have traditionally spoken that way. So it’s not really a trove, it’s just a cultural tradition that we’re just observing. But there was no one particular person in mind.
Q : The title is Rumours, it could lead to thinking something else, but why did you come up with this title?
Evan Johnson: Thanks. we came up with it, because if a title is good and capacious enough It doesn’t matter what the movie is, just use that title. It felt like a title that could contain a movie about seven people and they don’t know quite what’s going on. The scenes, and we’ve said this on the record and it’s true. We looked up a list when we didn’t have a title.
We looked up a list of the best titles of albums. Music albums and Rumors by Fleetwood Mac was on the top of the list and we said Rumors Fleetwood Mac is a band, you know They don’t have seven members, but they are a band and that particular very famous album was very creatively fraught There’s a lot of arguments and lots of couples We’re breaking up and getting together and during the making of it and that felt like it’s somewhat a description of our movie, but mostly it’s the fact that a good title is a good title can Take your brain in many different directions Luis Manuel did the same with Exterminating Angel.
Guy Maddin: Slapped it on his movie, a masterpiece. Exterminating Angel is the perfect title because there’s a legal or aesthetic precedent.
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