Cormac mccarthy is one of the most influential American novelists. His 1992 work "All Beautiful Horses" was adapted into "Runaway Wild Horses". In 2006, "No Country for Old Men" was put on the screen by the Coen brothers and won the best film Oscar. The film was adapted from a novel named Road, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Novel in 2007.
This film describes a story of human beings looking for hope and struggling to survive after the destruction of the earth. The most memorable thing in the novel is McCarthy's description of the doomsday scene, so how can we find such a bleak scene in life? Director john hillcoat said: The novel didn't specify what caused the destruction of the earth, so I decided to give up all background explanations and let the audience guess what happened. In order to find this eschatological landscape, we have to exclude all signs of life-colorful things, plants, colorful clothes and small animals-what we need is a monochromatic world. But I don't need an artificial world. I hope that the world in the movie will remain as original as possible. After many troubles, we finally found a suitable position in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is the second largest city in Pennsylvania, and its suburbs used to be residential areas of heavy industry companies. With the last recession, most enterprises closed down and these workers moved out. So in the 1980s, this town was abandoned. Now no one lives here, and even homeless people don't come here. After the director found this treasure trove of geomantic omen, he camped here and made a movie. In order to express the concept of doomsday more appropriately, the director also took great pains in the music of the film. Different from the sound bombing of general Hollywood movies, Hillcourt used sound elements very sparingly in his films. He said: I don't want the sound and pictures in the movie to look out of tune, so I basically didn't add any music to the movie. It can be said that this film is a film without music. And in order to make the background sound as the end of the world, I asked the sound engineer to use a one-way microphone and only recorded the wind. Listening to the whistling, monotonous and even boring and unpleasant wind moans in the movie, I have a different feeling about this movie.
Due to the prolonged shooting time, warmer weather, sprouting of trees and melting of snow on the ground, this is the director's biggest headache. Hillcourt said: I can't wear my thick clothes anymore. The sun is getting bigger and bigger, which gives me a headache. Before each shoot, we have to sprinkle a layer of artificial powder on the ground, and the actors have to pretend to be very cold, and they have to add white fog to their breath during post-production. If there is really no way, everything can only be done in the later stage.
Viggo mortensen challenged acting.
Although viggo mortensen, known as the acting school in the film industry, has rich performance experience, he still dare not treat the role of father lightly in The End. The star, who is good at acting in low-budget independent films, encountered great challenges when shooting this film. He said: when the director found me, I was preparing to have a good rest for a while. I have been struggling to cope with the filming of various fashionable hairstyles in the past two years. I have been working for two years, so I decided to hold some photo exhibitions to relax. Later, Hillcourt found me and showed me the original scripts and novels. I know I can't refuse the role. This exhausted father was in perfect harmony with my mental and physical state at that time. I also felt that although this father was very tired and didn't know what would happen when they went to the seaside, he was still full of hope. So I think it's appropriate for me to play this role. After Martzen agreed to play the leading role, things were much simpler. For director Hillcourt, one of the highlights of this film has been settled. For Martzen, what he needs to do is to stand up his hair and beard and be thinner.
In order to reach the spiritual realm of father's compassion in the novel, Martzen began to shape himself. He began to read selectively, listened to fixed music, arranged his work and rest as strictly as a monk every day, and even changed some eating habits. He said: No matter what kind of living environment you are in, people will have their own ideals and hopes. I talked to some homeless people. They are very different, either violent or approachable. But they all have one thing in common, that is, they hope they can improve their present lives. For such a Taobao life, human beings after the end of the earth will also have sympathy. But under the pressure of layers, they may forget sympathy, and some are just furious. Because living, eating and wearing clothes will make human beings lose their rationality and sociality-this is the earth shown in the novel. I dare not say that movies can surpass novels and become first-class works, but it will certainly give people inspiration different from ordinary movies.
Almost frozen for the plot.
Mcphee, a young actor, tells about his shooting experience. For the needs of the characters in the film, when the man-made downpour poured down on him, mcphee, who originally fantasized about romance, found that the truth was far more cruel than fantasy. Under the director's strict remake requirements, his body was almost frozen because of the ultra-low temperature. This kind of shooting is difficult, and it is far more than once. The little actor who answered reporters' questions without stage fright admitted that he was far more mature than his peers because he was often with adult shooting teams. However, he added mischievously that once he returned to his friends after the filming, he became a child again.