A GOOD YEAR: An Interview with Director Ridley Scott
By Wilson Morales

November 6, 2006

Having directed many blockbusters over the years, Ridley Scott’s films, from Bladerunner, to Thelma & Louise, to the Best Picture Gladiator, and Black Hawk Down, are certainly films of different genre and ones that will people won’t forget. A Ridley Scott film is usually of epic proportions such as “Kingdom of Heaven and Gladiator, but this time around, Scott has a 360 degree turn and done a smaller film set closer to home. Cast in his current muse, Oscar winner Russell Crowe, in the lead role of “A Good Year” helped the film get produced and distributed in a quicker fashion than the norm. In speaking with blackfilm.com, Scott talks about the film that his friend wrote and his next film, American Gangster, which stars Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe.

Can you talk about the Italian and French influences that are in this film?

Ridley Scott: Everything. Particularly, I live in Provence part of the time, and I've been there fifteen years. That's kind of what started to make an impression. I thought a contemporary film should be made about this beautiful place, and how it has attracted foreign visitors to visit on holiday who then decide to stay there, because it is so special. Inevitably, my experiences there have been, to a certain extent xenophobic, you know, fear of strangers. Them to me, not me to them, because I just want to go there and ignore everything, schlep around in my flip flops and get drunk. You can't. It's a bit like a city boy goes to buy somewhere in the country and fundamentally, you're the enemy. Notwithstanding, the film is still about France because France is so beautiful and has so much to offer. It just sank in after fifteen years. I thought, "I must do something about this." And my old buddy Peter Mayle lives less than eight kilometers over the hill, so I met with him one New Year's Eve. We were, of course, drinking at his house and we were swapping stories about our experiences there. I was there partly by design, my design at the end of that would be to call the next day and say, "What we were talking about would be a good book," and he said, "Yes, it would." So I said, "You write the book and I'll do the movie." It was quick, only about four years ago.

Was it always a comedy?

RS: The whole reason to do it, anything that could easily have a serious undertone, is to make it amusing. You have to do that. My experiences, for the most part, in France, have been spectacular. I bought down there because I was so fed up with the English weather. English weather is not a cliché, it is fundamentally awful. If you live in Iceland in castles for ten years in England, which is an absolutely spectacular place, but it always bloody rains. Once you get done hacking your horse, cleaning it down, you go in and have your lunch… there’s nothing to do. In France, I thought anywhere below Leon would have a definitive spring, a definitive autumn, a definitive winter. You tend to avoid going there between November and March unless you want seriously cold weather with dazzling blue sky or serious thunderstorms. Either way it’s kind of attractive.

This film was done in record time by Hollywood standards, how did you do it?

RS: Sure was. From the onset, from me talking to Peter Mayle who said he supposed this film will happen in 16 years time. When I called him and said, "By the way, here's the screenplay. We're going to shoot next autumn," he was flabbergasted because I think the turnaround was two and a half years. In two and a half years, he had written the book, it became successful, so now you have a reissue, three weeks ahead of our release, coming out everywhere. I hadn't really gotten a leading man and I figured to drive this, it better be someone important. I've got a pretty good relationship with Russell. Apart from "Gladiator," we talk on a fairly regularly, on the basis of, "What have you got?" "I've got this." "I've got that." "What do you think about this?" With the views of working again. We'd been doing one of those big meetings in Hollywood, where we talked about everything he'd got and everything I'd got and I spouted on about this [film] and he called me and said, "You know, that stuck with me. It might be quite a nice thing to explore." Once I had that, they were on-board, flying. Needless to say, Fox, that's the company I'm with, I do well with them. They weren't really sure about me and him doing a comedy. They call it comedy. I don't call it a comedy. I call it a "romantic dramedy," if you like. The word comedy implies slapstick. It's not that at all. I think comedy is usually driven by really good characters in situations that they get put into that for the most part, are amusing. They're usually driven by bad news, not good news.

There’s a similar theme here…

RS: Sure. He uses but gains. He gains by one giant act of generosity. He didn’t have to do that, write the letter.

Do you know if Peter based any events on you personally?

RS: No, not that I’m aware of. I mean, he might have done so secretly and sneakily… I don’t think so, other than we’re both advertising men, so banking and advertising are not far distanced in terms of the kind of people involved in both worlds.

Do you get that quixotic look, “Ridley’s got comedy?”

RS: Well, I always thought Thelma was a comedy and Matchstick Men is a great one. It’s a great scam, isn’t it? Did you spot it? Even until the end, when he woke up at the hospital?

Is it nice for you to take a break from the more grandeur films, after “Kingdom of Heaven?”

RS: “Kingdom of Heaven” was like going to war. What you want to see is the three-hour anniversary that is now on digital… there is no comparison. The silliness that somehow got us, and I say “us” persuading ourselves that maybe it should be two hours and twenty-three minutes long is absolutely wrong. The film should have been sold boldly on the basis that it is about religion and politics.

Is it sad to find out you were right in the end?

RS: Yep. And I think it shows you’ve got to listen to the voice in your head, or not. I’ve learned to listen to my own intuition. Usually it’s based on heavy experience and therefore, usually that first notion is the best one. I try and stick with that. So this on, the enemy is previews. Previewing is the enemy. To begin with a whole group of people who were never asked to answer these questions at all, and you’re going to take what they say as sacrosanct, are you crazy? To actually ask them to be Siskel and Ebert is silly.

How do you put together such an internationally well-known cast?

RS: Easy. I can make a call and usually get them. I had seen a little film called “Somersault” and based on that I asked her if she wanted to do the film and she said, “Sure.” I sat in Paris castings with a French casting director. It’s pretty straightforward, but the hardest thing is to decide who. One of the things I didn’t want anyone to be was a French cliché, so that the French would be happy about what they were watching. So the choice of Didier Bourdon, who is the manager of the vineyard, I saw this film, which I thought this guy was terrific in, it and it was Didier and I wanted him and they said, “Yeah, but the problem is he directed it.” It was his film last year and I wanted them both so I met with him and he really impressed me. It was magic, he was great. He was imminently practical so he know when the clock was ticking, he’d ask all the right questions and get on with it so that was great fun with him. Marion Cotillard is probably now one of the most important actresses in France right now. She had just finished the film with the famous French songstree, Edith Piaf, so that was a big role for her.

Were there any tension between British and American character than the British and French?

RS: Churchill said that we’re two nations divided only by the same island or something like that. I’ve worked here and lived here, I function in Los Angeles even though I live in London, but business is here for me. Sometimes I find I’m wearing a divided, split brain in terms of drama and humor. There’s a marked difference. I think we may be drier, and I’m talking broad strokes. I’m not talking about New Yorkers. New Yorkers are a different ball game, New York is right in the middle. When you’re talking about the rest of the United States, and certainly Los Angeles, the east coast is a very different part of the United States. Since I’ve been here, I’ve been filming for the last three months, I’m feeling very much at home here. But you’ve got to think carefully. When I’m planning and prepping and even functioning with the writers, because again a writer is not necessarily the best judge because very often a writer is too specific for their own good. I’m not saying you have to dumb-down, but you have to communicate. This business is too expensive not to pay attention to that.

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