Dan Reed, Writer and Director of Straightheads tells us a bit about his first movie release and why Gillian Anderson was perfect for the role of femme fatale in this dark and terrifying drama.
Dan Reed:
Getting your first movie out on general release is something that’s denied to a great many UK movies, good, bad or indifferent – just because unlike television, a movie MUST have an audience willing to get up and leave their homes, travel to the cinema, pay for a ticket etc… And getting them to make that effort is no simple task. It’s down to the stars and whatever “buzz” is generated by the movie’s basic premise, its core idea and whether or not it plugs into the zeitgeist of its time - but making all this count is the job of your distributor, and for a small movie like Straightheads, it really pays not to go with one of the giants but to be looked after by a smaller indie company like Verve Pictures, who will put not just money but passion and initiative into making a small release work for them and for you. By contrast, Straightheads was sold to Sony Pictures in the USA and I very much doubt they will go to the trouble of giving it a theatrical release, even though from reading the phenomenal response to the Straightblog I get the impression there’s a substantial “niche” audience out there that would make a limited release worthwhile. But I don’t want to draw any hasty conclusions. This is my first movie, after all. And just getting it out there on a couple of hundred screens in the UK, plus the subsequent theatrical releases in Europe, is a real buzz.
The make-or-break moment in the getting Straightheads made was the day - I think it was in June 2005, just five months before we started filming - when I sent the script to Gillian Anderson, whom was actually the only actor I could envisage playing the part of Alice, the 30-something femme fatale and the principal character in the film. The script was forwarded to Gillian through her agent i.e. through the normal channels, there was no special “connection” or introduction. In order to make sure that Gillian understood where I was coming from with this rather extreme and unusal script, I wrote her a covering letter along more or less the following lines:
“"Straightheads" grew out of a decade of my life when, through my work as a documentary film-maker I spent a great deal of time with people for whom extreme violence (and the fear of it) was an inescapable reality: criminals, their families, soldiers, rebel militias and ordinary people trapped in cycles of relentless bloodletting. I became fascinated with how people had adapted not only to the pain, fear and loss but also the alluring possibilities and the power that violence could bring.
I also began to wonder: What would happen if we, as inhabitants of a peaceful, sheltered enclave with few living memories of war, were selectively engulfed in violence, and faced the choice of whether to respond in kind?
Once we do resort to violence, the consequences of doing so are always fascinatingly unpredictable: it's a force we can't control, though we often imagine that we can.
So "Straightheads" was conceived as a kind of fairy-tale, a life-like fantasy drawn from my own post-traumatic dreams.
The protagonists are by turns seduced, corrupted and seemingly liberated by their recourse to violence. And although "Straightheads" is frank and raw, I will never allow it to feel titillating or gratuitous….”
Or words to that effect… Anyway, I met Gillian for coffee and we struck up an immediate rapport. She was down to earth, unpretentious and every bit as intriguing and complex as I had imagined, and I got a real sense of someone who, whilst being very discriminating about her choices of material, was completely ready for the kind of adventure this script represented. And so it was… Neither of us I think saw this as a sensational film, although no doubt it will create something of a stir when it’s released, not just because of the extreme violence but also the unrelenting sense of anxiety and hostility it breathes all over an audience... Once the shock / nervous laughter wears off I’m hoping my audience will be arguing about this film for a good few days after walking out of the theatre.
I’m writing my next two movies, and looking forward to getting to grips with the behemoth all over again, but this time armed with a little more insight and a few more street-moves earned during the three hard years that it took to propel Straightheads from the first draft to the big screen.
Straightheads is released UK-wide on April 27th.
See www.straightheads.com for the official website and www.straightblog.typepad.com for the director’s blog.
Dan talks to Gillian about why she chose to act in his film:
Danny Dyer talks about his part in Straightheads and Outlaw and more importantly getting people to the cinema.
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