Hugo Weaving, The Interview, Eyes

n.  Hugo Weaving ~ The Interview 

AU Movie 1998:     Hugo content: approx  94%   (103 mins )
Character: Eddie Rodney Fleming ~ mild mannered looser, murder suspect
Cast: Hugo Weaving Eddie Rodney Fleming, Tony Martin Detective Sergeant John Steele, Aaron Jeffrey Detective Senior Constable Wayne Prior , Michael Caton Barry Walls,  Paul Sonkkila    Detective Inspector Jackson 
Dir: Craig Monahan   Wri: Craig Monahan and Gordon Davie 
Availablity: not available in UK. DVD and video available in AU/US.
(try DVDcrave.com and amazon.com )

Hugo Weaving: The Interview Plot/Comments:

An incredibly tense film, looking at how we judge people, how we manipulate them, how The System works for and against the Accused and 'who watches the watchmen?', this superbly self-assured piece of film-making is surprisingly from the hands of a first-time writer/director. 
Hugo Weaving, The Interview, Anger, Aaron Jeffrery
Eddie Rodney Fleming, an anonymous, unemployed, no-hoper, is abruptly awoken by police breaking down his door and placing a shotgun to his head while they ransack his dingey apartment on a charge of vehicle theft.
     Bullied and humiliated (a terrified Fleming wets himself and is forced to change while still handcuffed), he is herded into a blackened cell where he is repeatedly caught off guard, intimidated, befriended, belittled and ignored by his interrogators, who are obviously after more than just a stolen vehicle conviction.
     Put in this position, the stuttering, helpless Fleming has a choice: he can either cave in under the attack or play them at their own game.

Tony Martin and Hugo Weaving both give amazingly intense, sensitive, multi-layered and magnetic performances (both nominated for AFI awards: Weaving winning).
     In the Director's Commentary on the DVD, Monahan explains how Weaving would give three different versions of Fleming's reactions for each scene~as looser victim, angered citizen, and hyperactive talkative confessor~and they took a mixture of each throughout the editing process.

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Web Weaving

The film is shot in muted tones, making excellent use of the gothic Melbourne architecture, off-kilter angles, and beautifully lit and framed shots which use an amazing variety of techniques to avoid the 'two men in a room' cliches. If there is one complaint about this film, it's that it is a little too clever in avoiding this: there is not one shot of the two main actors eyeball-to-eyeball. Monahan says how amazing it was on set watching them do this and yet he never captured this magnetic pull onscreen; we are seeing it from either the Accused or Accuser's positions.
    With repeated viewings, The Interview becomes increasingly impressive as you watch the protaganists react to each other, changing tactics to suit their position.
Hugo Weaving, The Interview, Tony Martin, joke

Audiences will have strong views  on who they believe to be innocent from the outset (itself an interesting experiment) and these views will probably change several times over the course of the film. That said, the film is not a 'Whodunnit?' but a 'who do you believe and why?', or a 'how are they playing the game?'.

This is a simply stunning film, which cries out to be adapted for theatre ; perhaps with a cast of 2-4 actors who change roles each night/randomly (imagine Weaving and Geoffrey Rush doing these roles for a limited run).

Typical Hugo Weaving Quotes:

  • "Someone out there describes me: Mr Average; average height, average build…"
  • "You really are a corrupt little man, aren't you?"
  • "I'd belt whoever, with something"                                 Steele:  "It's a very significant thing, killing someone"             "It's not anything much"
  • Steele's Boss: "He'd confess to killing his own mother for five minutes of attention"


Comments and Queries:

  • AFI winners: Best Film, Best Original Screenplay, Best Lead Actor (Weaving)
  • Another stuttering part (see Russian Doll , Priscilla,That Eye The Sky )
  • Montreal winners: Lead Actor (Weaving), Grand Prix des Ameriques
  • Unusually, a huge amount of preparation and rehearsal time was given: a total of around 6 weeks reading and rehearsal (with a break) and all the interrogation scenes shot in one block, largely in chronological order.
  • Originally scripted with a 'Hollywood vigilante cop' ending which Monahan and the crew hated but needed to include to get the financing. The scene was still shot, and thankfully never included: the open-ended  tour de force is a killer that doesn't need adding to.
  • Nominated for 6 AFIs, Weaving won the Best Actor, though he apparently feels that Tony Martin (by then thought of only in terms of teen series Heartbreak High) was the more deserving candidate.
  • Monahan later directed Weaving in Peaches; Aaron Jeffrey also made Strange Planet   with him. See The Usual Suspectsfor a huge list of recurring Weaving co-workers.


 

Hugo Weaving content:

Weaving gives one of his key movie performances in this film. Fleming is a sympathetic and wholly believable character, and in the intensity of the interrogation room,  tiny habits such as sweeping imaginary crumbs/dirt from the interrogation table (Martin also emulates later) become important.
     In the first section of the film, Fleming is a very Of Mice and Men character: socially inept, intellectually confused, lacking confidence or hope, shoulders and head slumped: he soaks up the shafts of light which stab through into the dark room like rays of hope, he stutters and slurs slightly; his strained voice often breaking with emotion and desperation. In contrast to this,  as he becomes more self-righteous, so he becomes more confident, more aggressive, sitting up straight, trusting his voice more.
    In the second section of the film, Fleming changes completely: he is confident, matter-of-fact, chirpy, talkative; his voice is as relaxed as his body language; he has a good vocabulary and knows how to play the game. As he becomes more confident, more talkative, so he becomes more fidgety: not above the table, but hidden below, where his feet tap and bounce out of control.

Weaving gives an astonishing piece of acting in final scene: a pale, flustered, floppy-haired Fleming leaves the police station and transforms totally in body language and facial expression: hair back, walking through crowds, putting on his tie and jacket; unable to supress feelings or smiles, looking happily/smirking smugly at passers-by until he passes the focus point of the camera.
    Monahan has said how good Weaving was here, how much he "relished it", and it shows: isolated, stuttering looser Eddie Rodney Fleming is transformed into Hugo Weaving, Grinning Movie Star (TM).
Hugo Weaving, The Interview, Endgame or relief?