Episode 10 Film 2015

Hello and welcome to the new series of Film 2015.

We'd like to hear from you, so please do tweet us.

The Hunger Games saga draws to a close.

Sex, love and everything in between in Gaspar Noe's erotic drama

And we have a close encounter with legendary director Steven Spielberg.

I'm not going to tell you a bloody thing. Fair enough!

Plus we'll take a look at Australian drama The Dressmaker,

With me on the sofa, as ever, is always on-trend Danny Leigh,

and joining us is the equally delicious Peter Bradshaw.

First up is the last instalment of The Hunger Games quadrilogy.

Back in 2012 when the Games began, Jennifer Lawrence didn't have

an Oscar and Katniss hadn't even contemplated rebellion.

My dear Ms. Verdeen, make no mistake, the game is coming to its

end. It's a bleak story about the reality of war, so all of the movies

have been a build-up to this final battle. Our future starts tomorrow

at dawn. When we march together into the capital. There's rebellion

building and Katniss is building in her position as the Mockingjay. In

this film it is the final collision of all the conflicts that have been

building throughout the series. One way or another this war is going to

come to an end. Of course it is darker. It has to be by necessity.

It is a gradual progression towards tend of the world or the beginning

of a new world. The movie becomes a war movie. This is a girl who has an

objective to go kill a dictator and she's going to do whatever it takes

oing to do whatever it takes to achieve that goal.

# Are you still trying to protect me? Real or not real? Real. That's

what you and I do. Keep each other alive. I want it to be intense, I

want it to be emotional. I didn't feel the need to explore carnage and

gore and blood and guts. To me it was always about the emotional

impact of everything. These books have always been intense. These

books have always appealed to teenagers and I think they are about

ideas that are important for teenagers to learn about and think

about. What you are seeing is how people have changed through the

experiences of war and how one person manages to stand by her good

morals and values and do the right thing. Tonight, turn your weapons to

the capital. Turn your weapons to snow. And if there's any question as

to what it is an allegory for, of the the powers that be in the United

States of America. It's profiteers. War is for profit. It is not to save

the world, for democracy or King and country. No, bullshit. It's for the

profit of Top 10% and the young people who

will see this film must recognise that in the future blind faith in

their leaders, as Bruce Springsteen said, will get you dead. Snow has to

pay for what he's done. Make no mistake, the game isn't over.

Danny? I feel very sad, very bereft. The longer this series has gone on

the more I realise how rare and special Hunger Games was. The

gargantuan blockbuster franchise, which asked wild and interesting

questions, I'm competing with Peter Bradshaw here. You used the word

interesting I'm pleased it is end ing with this narrative arc clicking

into place and it is still spectacular. I agree. It is still

smart. There's some wonderful Kat acting as well. Is a hug

appropriate? I will cuddle you after. But you're wrong, I'm sad

that it ended like this. I'm not talking about the last 15 minute of

the film but the whole nine hours of the film, which I thought she had

much less power, much loose oomph, I thought hit be taken away. I've got

to say I agree with that. This is the franchise that refused to die.

All the other ones have died. Divergent died and Twilight died but

this for me stayed stubbornly alive. This was a weird nihilist dystopian

power behind it. I don't buy into it, I'm not a believer like Danny,

but I still think Jennifer Lawrence carries it. Oh my God, can you

imagine if she wasn't there?! Oh, I feel physically sick. ? The action

hiller seen where they take the capital and it turns outs the be

booby-trapped, I thought it was a great scene, Tiscali good. I don't

think it is any great shakes, but I do think it stayed alive in the most

interesting way. This felt very drawn out and there were long

periods where it was like group therapy sessions, where there were

long shots of them all having the same conversation. The endless, if

you want to kill me... That's because it is more of an action

movie. It is a sturdy and competent action movie, and that's what it is.

There is an old line about movies you can't make an antiwar movie. As

soon as you show this stuff on scene it becomes exciting and glamorous,

but Hunger Games makes a spectacular thinking action movie which also

brings out how flat out sad it is. There's a very thrilling and

spectacular action scene but that's only 12 minutes. I don't think it is

about war in the sense that Donald Sutherland thinks it is. It is a

really interesting or semi interesting algae about -- allegory

about how young people feel. The way she gets keep getting shot in scenes

unseriously and wakes up the next day in a hospital bed. And in the

books she is so powerful, so strong, she speaks from the heart, she's a

wonderful figure, and here in one miniature speech she goes OK... It

is frustrating. So many movies treat us like kids but this one treats us

like an adult. I'm not. The tigress, I take it all back. It is like face

painting. All Jennifer Lawrence needs to do now is overtake Russell

and we are all set. For lots of people, Steven Spielberg

is the uncrowned king of Hollywood. ET, Schindler's List, Indiana

Jones, Jaws - just one of those films would make an entire career,

but Spielberg made them all, and with his new film Bridge of Spies

opening next week, Spielberg's roll Our own Danny Leigh took him

back to where it all began. He put a generation off going into

the water in Jaws, snatched our breath away in Jurassic Park. And he

created the most loveable alien in movie history. ET... Steven

Spielberg plays with our emotions better than anyone. Is it a boy or a

girl? He's been doing it for 40 years, but it so nearly didn't

happen. Steven thank you for joining us. I wanted to talk to you a little

about Jaws, which has had hits 40th birthday. Famously the story was you

were repeatedly almost fired from that film. Had you been fired what

would have happened? I think they would have shut down the picture.

The head of the studio was never going to allow me to get fired, I

knew that, but a come under him determined I was off the picture. We

were 100 days off schedule. Anybody else would have fired that director

Ben he was seven days over schedule, but he was my mentor, he discovered

me, I owed my career to him and I said, I will finish this picture, I

can't tell you when, I won't make false promises, but I will finish

it, and I can't tell you whether it will be good or not, but the end is

in sights. He said go ahead, finish the picture.

If you hadn't made Jaws would your career have ended up in the same

place eventually? If I hadn't made a movie that was such a quantum

success I wouldn't have had the freedom to decide what movie I

wanted to make next. I would have been a director for hire, attaching

myself to projects that the studios had preapproved as opposed to

creating my own projects and being able to get a studio to agree to

finance a project they didn't see eye to eye with me on. Success

allows you to get the financing, if the studio doesn't believe in the

project but you do. It sounds like you've reached the stage in your

career where a Steven Spielberg movie is a genre in itself. Do you

think these are separate pieces? I try to tell different kinds of

stories, especially stories I'm not personally familiar with. Stories

that are outside my comfort zone. I think I do better work as a film

maker when I'm not in my comfort zone and I have to learn a whole new

set of precepts. Your films are always so good at capturing that

child's eye view. Do you still feel like a child when watching your own

movies? I feel childlike when I watch a picture that evokes those

feelings of innocence and wonder, awe. So when I see a movie like

that, I completely convert to a child. I think all of us do. That's

the effect certain movies have on audiences. It feels like your films

have unique gift of touching everyone emotionally. For me it was

ET. I saw it when I was ten and I was never the same again. When you

realise you have that power and gift, do you feel you have to -- use

it wisely? . I never use that word. It is like kismet, luck and timing.

The movie has to be good but there has to be other factors involved in

it too. Even the culture, the social temperature in the air. Bridge of

Spies is connecting with people for a lot of good reasons, good

performances, and an intriguing story that no-one had ever heard of

until Matt Sharman, the British play right brought it to me. Wow! Not

sure I want to pick that up. This is the fourth film you have made with

Tom Hanks. When you have that relationship with an actor, is it

strictly professional, or do you strike up a friendship off camera.

Is a personal friendship part of that? Of course it is friendship.

You enjoy the company of the actor, and in Tom Hanks' case we were

personal friends for 12 years before making Private Ryan. Private Ryan

was a test, can a friendship survive when two personal buddies become

professional colleagues. And it did. Bridge of Spies I think is your 11th

film in the last 15 years. That's a scary work ethic. Does there come a

moment when you think, actually I'm going to walk away for a while? I

have walked away twice for three years. After shinned shinned,

because -- of Schindler's List, because it was a very tough and

emotion experience to get through that. After private Ryan I didn't

work for three years. It is not that I'm ever not working or active but I

have taken breaks from directing. Especially when the movie has had an

impact on me personally. Are there any films of yours which

you feel were underrated? Munich perhaps. I think that was

underrated. And there is of movie I am really fond of called Always, and

perhaps that is the most underrated movie I have directed. That is one

of my favourite films that I have made which nobody has seen.

Literally I have spoken to people who have never seen it. I have seen

that movie, it is a great movie. If the director of Bridge Of Spies

could go back and give some advice to the Steven Spielberg who was

making Jaws in his 20s, what advice would you give? If I could go back

in time and talk to myself? That is a movie, you see! That is a very

good plot! The most important advice I could give myself is to say, I am

not going to tell you a bloody thing because the most important thing and

the greatest thing about life is the surprises. Just take them in your

stride. So, did you love him? He is adopting me. Excellent!

And we'll be reviewing Bridge of Spies next week.

Next up is Love 3D, a seriously erotic drama from French

director Gaspar Noe, featuring unsimulated sex and a memorable

ejaculation in 3D, which we can't show you, even on late night telly!

Even so, there are some scenes of a sexually explicit nature coming

They are not many movies which portray passionate love for what it

is. In my case, I really wanted to do a movie which seemed to me to

portray what these universal experiences are. What happened? It

broke. Did you come? The story of a young guy who wakes up in the

morning on the 1st of January and he is next to his girlfriend and they

have a baby. This guy is remembering his passionate love affair with a

girl which lasted two years and it was very extreme. The movie

describes how it goes when you are at it did to someone. Got to take

care of that baby. Leave me alone, please. Trying to get the movie

financed was not so easy, because when people ask you how you are

going to shoot those love scenes, I say... Yes, but how much are you

going to show? Yes, but what will the rating be? I do not see why when

people get naked touching each other, you should cut and go to the

next morning. Watching them naked is fascinating. I could have done the

movie also with other people. I don't know if the movie would have

been that touching. Because it seems they make a perfect couple

on-screen, although the guy is not always bright, there is some kind of

perfection. It is touching. All these sex scenes or the love scenes

are tainted with that sadness of somebody who lost a lot. They are

emotionally arousing. From a heartbreaking point of view, yes,

you can get aroused but I have not heard of anybody masturbating in the

cinema. All right, then! I have not heard of anybody doing that, either.

I think like all of his films it is about basically three things. It is

about hard-core penetrates sex, cocaine and sulphate, really. It is

about depressive self-hate. And of these things I think the third is

the most important. It is what is driving it. I was fascinated by this

film. It is less technically ambitious than his other films. It

is lower budget even though it has this 3D novelty thing going on. I

think you need a sort of a sense of humour to buy into it. But there is

something fascinating about it. It is just fascinatingly obsessed with

sex. And it is unapologetic about that. I think it is great, because

everybody pretends not to be affected by sex. There are lots of

sophisticates who will say when confronted by a film like this, it

is very boring. Absolute rubbish, it is not boring at all. But I think it

is such a strange thing. Clearly it is a film with a lot of bare flesh

and so many tongues! But actually... It is not about sex or rather it is

about sex and also the Messi stuff which goes on. I think once you have

wiped off the surface of this film and see what is really going on, it

is quite a poignant, plaintive, old-fashioned, doomed romance. It is

briefing counter, but more sticky. That is how I took it. It is about

men and women. And his stupidity. Absolutely. I think we are allowed

to quote. He actually says, I am addict. And he is, here's a massive

dick. I could not cope with the whispering voice over, and actually

the dialogue. The sex is excellent. It is surprisingly soft core in a

way because it is all about consenting sex with a condom. It is

very, very responsible stuff. Considering it is Gaspar Noe, who is

usually the most shocking, hard-core of them all. And if you listen to

who is being asked and told to do what, who is really interested in

who, it does tell its own story. So I will go and see the film again. So

when people see me watching the film, be aware that while I am

sitting there watching it, all I am thinking about is narrative subtext

and compositional... You mentioned controversial - there is that scene

which is 3D, straight at the lens, I had never seen anything like that

before? It sticks in the mind. You do find yourself flinching. I think

the most outrageous character is the one played by Gaspar, the gallery

owner who has a sex scene in the film. It is not beyond the bounds of

possibility that Gaspar Noe has made this entire film simply to get

himself a sex scene with a very beautiful woman. It is the most wish

fulfilment film ever. His last film left everybody who saw it fried and

twitching so he is allowed to be melancholy and reflective and expose

himself in every way. Next is Aussie costume drama

The Dressmaker. Set in 1950s outback Australia, Kate

Winslet plays seamstress siren Tilly Myrtle, you grew up, you got out.

The murderous is back! I need to remember the truth. They say she

killed a boy. Where do you go from here? I reckon you came home for one

of two things - revenge or... A dress cannot change anything. Watch

and learn, Gertrude. I can make you the most striking girl. Take your

clothes off. A murderer and a lesbian.

This film is completely and utterly unhinged. I think I might mean that

as a condiment. It is not the film you think you are going to get. You

think it will be a quite sweet tale about Kate Winslet arriving in this

dusty place running up these lavish frocks for the bored ladies. But

actually it is not that movie. Real movie is the evil twin of that

film, which is this quite dark movie, which is actually like

Carrie. It is a better remake of carry them Carrie was. I don't know

what to make of it but it is not the film you think. I saw it... We saw

it altogether. Not altogether! No, but I found it unbelievably

enjoyable. Oh, my god! Please tell me... I think the choking awfulness

of this film settles on you like acid rain. It is just appalling. It

is not! It is an unfunny, small-town comedy which tries to be an an

interesting tragedy. And the sheer tonal misjudgement is just terrible

and horrible! It is totally odd. I don't know what genre to put it in.

You can put it as terrible. Kate Winslet is so strong, so brilliant.

For her alone... I think Kate Winslet does a professional job of

work but she is marooned in the middle of a terrible film. A bit

like Juliette Binoche in Chocolate with that same sticky horribleness.

She is not saying dressmaking is life affirming! And tries to get

away with it! I am completely with you, Claudia. I don't know how this

film got made the way it was. The Coen brothers talk about directing,

and the job of directing is time management. But that is what is so

fascinating about this. The town has been totally mismanaged. I do not

know what the tone is, how would you describe it? It is dark, it is

weird, it is like nothing you have ever seen. It stays with you. It is

profound humourlessness. Come of it! The tone is left home alone with a

box of matches. Fantastic! Please! Have you abandoned all... I would

like to say that this was kept between the three of us, but I like

this film. Even five minutes of this film! Each minute lasts an hour how

can you say that after you watched nine days of Mockingjay?! That went

fast in the blink of an eye by comparison. I think this is really

darkly funny. I do not want to give anything away. It is darkly

unfunny, yes, sort of. I am saying it is darkly funny but I'm not sure

it is trying to be. Yes! I think it is trying to get points. It is

trying to be darkly funny or darkly this, that or the other. OK, Film of

the Week? I will give it to me Love. I will give it to Hunger Games.

Playing us out tonight is Quentin Tarantino's True Romance

You Said Last Night Was One Of The Best Times You Ever Had. Yes, but I

am talking about the whole night. I never had such fun. It is true, you

are like Elvis, you are like Elvis, UI like kung fu movies, you are like

the Partridge family. I don't like the Partridge family! I feel really

goofy saying this after only knowing you one night. Me being a call girl

and all. But I think I love you. Wait a second. Let's try and keep

this whole thing in post. You just said you loved me. If I say I love

you and we throw caution to the wind... I am not lying to you. I

will never lie to you again.