Susanne Bier, the Danish director of Things We Lost in the Fire, is obsessed with catastrophe. Her best films are devastating slow burns, as characters make impulsive choices derived from their own loneliness and slowly watch the ramifications mount. Few contemporary directors are as effective in dealing with the struggle between the head and the heart.
After directing several successful comedies, Bier made a sudden shift to serious territory with the Dogme 95 film Open Hearts (2002) and the tragic Brothers (2004), both of which received rapturous critical acclaim and surprisingly strong numbers at the box office. In 2006, Bier’s international exposure broadened with After the Wedding, which was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars.
This month sees the release of her first English language film, Things We Lost in the Fire. Benicio Del Toro plays Jerry, a heroin addict who everyone has given up on except for his childhood best friend, Brian (David Duchovny). Brian’s life has turned out better: he’s married to a lovely woman, Audrey (Halle Berry) but he still feels a loyalty to Jerry. After Brian dies suddenly, a lonely Audrey finds herself inviting Jerry to stay with her, and filling her husband’s role as his friend/rehabilitator.
Bier recently discussed making Things We Lost in the Fire with The Varsity.
The Varsity: Thematically, Things We Lost in the Fire reminded me a lot of Brothers and Open Hearts in the way that it deals with loss and loneliness. Despite the fact that it’s a Hollywood movie with someone else’s script, it’s very much in keeping with your sensibilities.
Susanne Bier: You know, I was interested because when I read the script I felt very connected to it, and I felt very familiar with the subject matter, and I was kind of wondering, is it too much like something that I’ve already done? But then I felt that I hadn’t dealt for a very long time with a female lead, which I thought was really interesting. I thought she was a really interesting character, this woman who closes down out of grief, puts all her emotion into the fridge. So I thought that was very interesting, and then I had never dealt with addiction. For somebody [who doesn’t] really have any addictive traits, it’s very fascinating, and it’s kind of scary, but it’s very interesting, and I was very compelled by that. I thought, yeah, I can recognize it.
V: Also, you’ve said in interviews that you have a fascination with the potential for catastrophe, and there’s definitely a lot of that in this film.
SB: I don’t know whether I’m fascinated by it…I think I’m kind of obsessed by it.
V: This is obviously your first film for a major Hollywood studio. Did you find the transition between the Danish film industry and Hollywood to be a challenge?
SB: You come with all the European prejudices of the big evil studios that eat your artistic integrity, and kind of swallow it, and everything that is going to come out of you is going to be popcorn. You have these prejudices, but I met with DreamWorks and I felt that they were very open and very supportive and very interested in making a good movie, and were asking me really relevant questions about the script and were very open to the sort of cast I wanted. It’s a different thing anyway…I came onto the set and I felt it was like a camping site, and it was all the trailers that had to do with the set, lots more makeup artists and hairdressers and strange cappuccinos. There’s a different layer onto it. But as a filmmaker, what you do is the same always. You are telling a story, and you should concern yourself with that, and I decided that I wasn’t going to be overwhelmed by all of it.
V: How did you find working with Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro? I think these are some of the best performances they’ve given.
SB: Movie stars are not necessarily great actors…but these ones are. These are great actors. And they want at all moments to make a deep description of the state of mind they are in, so it was very fun and stimulating. I would rehearse with them every morning. I would rehearse with them before the crew would come onto set, and they would change dialogue, we’d do a whole lot of stuff to it, and that sort of gives the actors a space to be creative and yet maintain their integrity. So when the crew comes, we feel very comfortable with what we’re doing. Benicio came to set every morning having re-written each scene, and most of it was brilliant, and some of it might have been brilliant but did not necessarily work within the story but might have worked for his character. It was like a constant exchange of thoughts.
V: What also struck me about this film was, while I wouldn’t exactly call it “upbeat,” I would say that it’s certainly a little more hopeful than something like Open Hearts, for example. Was this a conscious decision?
SB: This one certainly has a lot of hope in it… it’s not like a conscious decision: “This one is going to be different.” But my purpose with making this movie had to do with the hope. I think it’s very important that you leave the movie and you feel that these people actually might make it, and you might talk to whoever you went with about what’s going to happen to them in a few years’ time. There is a kind of sense of future, which I like.
V: You made very striking use of closeups in the film.
SB: They’re extreme close-ups. They’re almost like wide-shots in that they’re abstractions. Like, you look into an eye and it becomes an abstract image of an eye, because you don’t really see it as part of a face. It gives you, in a positive sense, a weird alienation, and so you kind of know what they feel. Their eyes tell you what they feel and not what they look, and I find it very important in my filmmaking.
V: Both Open Hearts and Brothers are set to be remade in America. What is your reaction to that?
SB: So is After the Wedding. It’s odd, it’s strange… I mean, I hope they’re going to make good movies out of them. It’s a little bit like your baby being adopted by some strange parents. You really hope that the new parents are going to be very nice. So it’s kind of odd. It’s also flattering.
Things We Lost in the Fire opens October 19.
