Paul Risker chats with director Steven S. DeKnight…
Director Steven S. DeKnight’s Pacific Rim Uprising sees the once promising, yet rebellious Jaeger pilot Jake Pentecost (John Boyega) having abandoned his training and family legacy for the criminal underworld. When the Kaiju return, it presents Jake the opportunity to live up to his father Stacker Pentecost’s (Idris Elba) legacy, who gave his life in a victorious battle with the Kaiju. Together with gifted rival pilot Lambert (Scott Eastwood), 15-year-old Jaeger hacker Amara (Cailee Spaeny) and a talented group of young cadets, he faces the next chapter in humanity’s possible extinction.
Prior to spearheading the sequel to Guillermo Del Toro’s 2013 film, DeKnight has written and directed episodes of Daredevil, Smallville and Angel, also with producing credits on these and other series including Starz’s Spartacus, and Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
In conversation with Flickering Myth, DeKnight discussed the transformation of the spectatorial experience and the audience’s misunderstanding of the filmmaking process. He also reflected on the regretful reality of making a timely film, the irony of bleak cinema to inspire and the juxtaposing effect of the passage of time on cinema.
Why filmmaking as a means of creative expression? Was there an inspirational or defining moment?
The bulk of my impressionable years were in the 70s and early 80s, and I grew up in a very small factory town in New Jersey, miles away from any signs of civilisation. Reading books and watching movies on TV was the only creative outlet I had, and in many ways was the only connection to the broader world. Of course, this is way before the internet, in the early years before even VHS tapes. So I spent a lot of time watching old movies on TV and going to the movie theatre. But my town didn’t even have a movie theatre, so I had to ride my bike a half hour to the next town over to catch a movie. It was pretty grim and there was something about that flickering image, whether it was on the small screen or the big screen that just captivated me and my imagination.
I had always loved movies, but my defining moment like so many people my age was that I was twelve when Star Wars came out, and that just changed my whole perception of what you could do on the big screen. From that moment on, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do in movies and television, but I knew I wanted to be a part of that. For much of the time early on, I was interested in more the technical side of special effects, makeup, stop motion animation and such. Then slowly you discover where your talents lie and mine was not in art, it was more with the written word. When I was in college I wanted to be an actor and then I just started writing plays because that was the best outlet to express myself, and that then turned into TV and movies.
I recall stories that Martin Scorsese would be late to lectures when he taught at New York University because he’d be up all night watching films on television. It was a different time to today’s world where so much is on tap. At one time you had to put effort into seeing films, and when I was young, when a film was on television you recorded it as you never knew when you’d next get the chance to see it. Do you think the ease of accessibility has changed our reception to and the way we appreciate cinema?
Absolutely, and that’s not to knock technology today; it’s fantastic. If I want to track down an obscure movie or try to remember something that I saw when I was a kid, it’s at my fingertips. And as a writer it’s invaluable to have all of that immediately, right there. But yeah, there was something particularly special in regards to the movies, where you didn’t know that much about a movie that was coming out. You only knew as much as the studio wanted you to know and for me one of the big regrets is over the past how many years, there has been a push with trailers to show the whole movie. The reasoning behind that is the numbers indicate that the more you show, the more people will go to see it. But if you talk to anyone who actually watches trailers, they hate the fact that they are shown the whole film, and so it’s a bit of an odd schism. The biggest thing to me is that I miss the mystery. When Star Wars was coming out I didn’t know anything about the film except those cool images they were teasing me with. If they were releasing Star Wars today, they would have told you the whole story in a three minute trailer, and they would have had nine more trailers leading up to it that would tell you more. What I usually do now is I watch the first trailer of a movie, and then I stop watching anything else, just to keep myself as pure as possible. It’s also hard unless you are right there on opening day not to have it spoilt, because people on the internet love to tell you everything, which is a shame.
Rarely do audiences enter a film without expectations, and as Sam Raimi has spoken about, with any sequel the audience’s expectations are more fully defined in their own imaginations. How do you personally feel about the expectations the audience bring with them to a film?
I remember seeing Blade Runner when I was a teenager and not liking it at all because I went in expecting Indiana Jones and Han Solo, and that’s not what I got. Years later when I watched the movie again, it quickly became one of my all time favourites. It is absolutely brilliant, but that kind of expectation can give you an immediate visceral reaction of not liking what you are seeing because it’s not what you wanted. And especially when you are working on a sequel because I think that is even compounded when the persons spearheading are not the original creative team. People have an expectation based on the first movie and yeah, I have had tons of comments that you should have done this and you should have done that, or I wanted to see this. But of course what none of the general public understand is, and while they have this concept that the director is the God of all things, which if you are Spielberg sure, but if you are a guy hired to do his first movie, then no. There are a lot of voices in a lot of the decisions made that you have no control over. I have to chuckle because somebody asked me something and I said: Yeah, that didn’t really work…really not my choice, but you know.” And some guy on the internet popped up and said: “What are you talking about? You have final cut don’t you?” The general public knows what final cut is, but they think every director gets final cut, which very few directors do these days.
In essence a story of heroism, the theme of unity seems to offset a contemporary world that is becoming increasingly divided.
The whole hero’s journey is deeply embedded in a lot of science-fiction fantasy, and was definitely a major part of this movie. That classic story of being called up to save the world, often reluctantly or unprepared was one of the reasons we wanted to send the cadets into the final battle as an unpolished team. Insurmountable odds and being able to face them, and more than that external threat, being able to face your internal fears and overcome them in a time of great need. It was a message that when we first started working on this story, the world had taken a sharp left turn towards fascism and racism, that old spectre of authoritarianism raising its head, and not just in the United States, but across the world. It is baffling to most of us with a heart and a brain, but yet there it is. So I wish this idea of coming together no matter what your race or your religion, that it doesn’t matter who your parents are, and if you work together you can accomplish great things, wasn’t quite so timely. But this was a real cornerstone of the message we wanted to embed in the movie.
Does this cast cinema as a beacon of hope in a world that justifies feelings of despair?
On one level, movies of this type just have to be purely entertaining because they are so expensive to make, and just need to recoup their investment. I totally agree that cinema at its best can resonate and inspire, and I have felt inspired by many movies that even on the surface felt bleak. I remember when I was in college I saw Brazil and feeling massively inspired, even though Sam Lowry didn’t win in the end. He was standing up and fighting against a totalitarian and indifferent society, and that was powerful. And even going back to Star Wars, the amazing thing about that is for a lot of people who saw it in the 80s or 90s or when they were older, what they don’t realise is that it was on the tail of the Vietnam war. It was a completely different thing and it brought the country together. It was just so much fun, inspiring and such a great story of the common man becoming the hero that it was something the country and the world to some extent needed at that point. Cinema can have a fantastic impact and sometimes you can’t tell the impact until much later. You look at a lot of movies that when they came out they were critical and financial flops. Blade Runner did not do well when it came out and the biggest example of all is of course Citizen Kane. It just bombed when it came out, and flash forward to now and it is almost always number one on the greatest movies in the history of cinema. Sometimes you are just a little too early or a little too late, but eventually history catches up with you.
Do you perceive there to be a transformative aspect to the filmmaking experience?
Definitely, and like with any creative venture, I find it is much like the audience going in with expectations, you go in with expectations. And your expectations are almost never what the experience or the final film is; sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. Especially on a film of this size, it is such an experience and movies like this usually take about three years to put together because of actor schedules and release dates. We had two years and so it was a two year, seven day a week sprint, and I used to joke that I felt like Jimmy Carter coming into office, and when we were done I was Jimmy Carter coming out of office. It ages you like a president before you get a chance to recover.
The experience goes far beyond what’s onscreen. Besides learning a lot about what to do and what not to do when making a movie of this size, because I think there were things that were very successful and things that were not so successful, my biggest takeaway is the people I worked with. I learned so much and particularly working with the amazing cinematographer Dan Mindel, my knowledge and understanding of cinematography grew in leaps and bounds, which is massively important in filmmaking.
Many thanks to Steven S. DeKnight for taking the time for this interview.
Pacific Rim: Uprising is now available on Digital and is released on 3D Blu-Ray, Blu-Ray, DVD and Steelbook on July 30th 2018 by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.
Paul Risker
