Author Emma Donoghue adapted her best-selling novel into a screenplay about a mother and son being held captive; National Geographic Society CEO Gary Knell says it will maintain its mission even though 21st Century Fox now owns a controlling interest; The Toronto International Film Festival is huge, and hugely influential.
Novelist Emma Donoghue waited to find the perfect director for 'Room'
The movie “Room,” adapted by Emma Donoghue from her novel of the same name, has a terrifying premise: The book is narrated by a young mother’s five-year-old son, named Jack. As far as the child knows, all of the real world is contained within the walls of the tiny room in which they live. But the truth is his mother was abducted as a teenager and repeatedly raped by her captor. Her abductor is Jack’s father, and he has locked them into a room from which they can never leave.
To protect her son, the mother has never explained to Jack their actual circumstances. But when the kidnapper grows even more dangerous, she not only has to give Jack a brutal education in what is really happening, but also teach him how he might help them escape.
The movie version of “Room,” directed by Lenny Abrahamson, just had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival. The film stars Brie Larson as the mother and newcomer Jacob Tremblay as Jack.
Emma Donoghue wrote the screenplay for the film, and The Frame’s John Horn caught up with the Irish writer in Telluride.
Interview Highlights
How long has “Room” been in the making?
I always date it by my son because he was four-and-a-half when I started writing it and he’s 11 now. So it feels like a long time in parenting terms, but I suppose in publishing terms [it's] not so long.
But it’s not just in parenting that your son is relevant to this book. He was also partially the inspiration for it, wasn’t he?
Yes. Because when I heard about — it happened to be an Austrian captivity case — the Fritzl case, it suddenly stuck me that parenting quite often feels like you’re in a locked room. And then it struck me again that being a child probably feels like you’re locked in a room with this unreasonable person for the first 18 years of your life. I know that sounds flippant, but it struck me that these very rare and weird cases of women basically giving birth to babies in captivity actually captures something very universal about the appalling intimacy of the parent-child bond.
One of the things that sets your book apart is the conceit that the mother of Jack has decided that she’s not going to tell him the circumstances of their situation. She has decided that, since he has no other reference, the room is going to be what it is. That this is a normal way of living.
I was just extrapolating from things like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy. I remember before we had kids I thought, Oh, I’ll never lie to them. And then as soon as they’re born you start to lie to them because you want to make the world explicable in safe ways. So, I tell my children historical anecdotes, but then I always sweeten them up a bit, for instance. So if we’re in France and I see a plaque saying someone was hanged by the Nazis, I’ll start telling the story and then I’ll suddenly think, This is a downer. And so I turn it into a kind of a fairy tale: Then the Allies arrived and opened the camps and everything was fine. So we all simplify, we distort, we try and make the world in some way understandable for their tiny little minds. And I think Ma just does the logical thing and just tries to pretend that where they’re living is not a prison.
When the book was published it was immediately very well received — critically and commercially. At what point did the conversations about turning it into a feature film begin?
That was my idea really. And even as I was writing the book I thought, This is my seventh novel, but it’s the first one that really feels to me like it has a story that could work really well on film. Not just because it’s high concept, but because having a child see the world, I thought it would be wonderful to actually see that. Not just be in his head, but have that kind of double perspective of seeing him and seeing what he sees. So before the book actually came out I started writing the screenplay because I thought it would be easier to tackle it before anybody started advising me on how to do that.
So you had written the novel — it had yet to be published — but before it hits bookstores you decided to start writing the screenplay?
It sounds a little cocky but it was more that I felt less intimidated that way. I didn’t want to wait for filmmakers crowding around me telling me how it should be done. I wanted to have a bash at it myself.
The book was published in 2010. You were writing the screenplay around its publication. We’re in 2015 when the movie is finally appearing. What happened in the intervening years and was it clear from the inception that you would be able to continue to be the screenwriter? Was there any pressure to bring in somebody else to adapt this book?
No, because I didn’t get in bed with any film companies who would have put such pressure on me. I felt I was in a uniquely lucky position that I had written this well-received best-seller. I didn’t feel that I needed to sell the film rights desperately to feed my children. So I thought, There doesn’t have to be a film of this book at all. I can afford to wait for the perfect filmmakers and I can afford to say to them, “I’m the writer.”
And you did that, right?
I did. And of course I was very lucky, I’m not saying it’s always easy, but I think I made the right decisions. There were a lot of approaches from quite big names and none of them seemed right to me. And I was particularly afraid of a bad, bad film being made of this book, which had been such a great experience to write and to publish. I thought it could have been a creepy rape movie and I thought it could have been a schmaltzy I love you mommy [type of movie]. And I just couldn’t bare to have my name put to either of those things. So I kept saying no. And at a certain point my partner said to me ,“Are you going to say no forever? Are you ever going to make a film of this?" And I kept saying, “The right director will come.”
Would you ever consider writing an original screenplay as opposed to adapting one of your upcoming books?
Definitely. Yeah, there’s no reason for cinema to have to go through fiction first. It just seems to happen to me that ideas arise as novels first. But I would definitely write an original screenplay. I mean, I’ve got the bug now. I want to be part of filmmaking. It’s deeply exciting.
Film festival season madness continues in Toronto — here’s what to expect
Film festival season is now in full swing. The Frame covered the Telluride festival last weekend, the Venice Film Festival just wrapped, and to cap the madness off we wanted to hear what’s happening over the next week in Toronto.
The Frame’s John Horn dialed up Steve Zeitchik, who writes about movies for the L.A. Times and is at the festival.
Interview Highlights
Compared to last Labor Day weekend’s Telluride Film Festival, Toronto is much, much bigger. There are hundreds of movies, probably more than a thousand journalists like yourself, and a lot bigger studio presence. And it’s also a sales market, where independently financed movies go looking for a distribution deal. So how would you compare Toronto to all the other festivals you attend and especially the ones right around it?
Most of the other gatherings — whether it’s Venice in Europe around the same time and then the New York Film Festival a little bit later — you really get less of a sort of rarified, curated feel and a sort of more is more philosophy. You pretty much have one premiere after another, often several of them going at the same time. And essentially they’re sort of announcing themselves to the world and to the film community for the first time. So how a movie is received here, both to the local audience, but more importantly I think by the film industry and journalist community, really does determine a film’s fate going forward.
What are filmmakers looking to get out of the Toronto Film Festival that they haven’t gotten so far?
It's really a sort of a North American announcement that you’ve arrived [and] in the awards conversation. Bloggers [identify] a best picture or best actor or best screenplay contender, and once it’s sort of solidified, I think it’s much harder to move a contender off that spot — which is why of course the competition is so fierce.
There are a couple of premieres from some Hollywood studios and their art house divisions at Toronto. Those include “Demolition” from director Jean-Marc Vallée, starring Jake Gyllenhaal. And then there’s “Trumbo,” about the blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who is played by Bryan Cranston.
I’ll start with “Demolition” first because that is opening the festival. This movie is actually not coming out this award season, but [it's] still a movie high in a lot of people’s radar because Gyllenhaal gives a blackly comic performance. The script hovers between tragedy and comedy. He basically is an unhinged Wall Street trader. Jean-Marc Vallée, of course, directed “Dallas Buyers Club” and “Wild,” so a lot of buzz for that.
And then “Trumbo,” it’s a little tough to gauge what that movie is going to be. Jay Roach, known mostly for comedies, [is] stepping in with that. But getting a chance to see Bryan Cranston play a historical figure — he’s played L.B.J. of course on Broadway and on T.V. — and now to see him play Dalton Trumbo. Those movies — for those reasons and more — have a lot of expectation attached to them.
Unlike Telluride, Toronto can be a big market, kind of like the Sundance Festival. Are there any big acquisition titles that will be playing in Toronto this year?
There are. And it's funny — amid all the celebrity poses and awards buzz, films do screen for buyers and get picked up. Last year, “Still Alice,” Julianne Moore’s movie about an early onset Alzheimer’s patient, was acquired in Toronto and ended up winning her the Oscar. This year I think the Michael Moore film [is a distribution contender]. It’s called, “Where to Invade Next.” It’s kind of a secret film he [made] under the radar about American foreign policy. That one is going to be very much in the conversation.
Another movie that we haven’t talked about, which was up at Telluride and Venice [and] also up for acquisition here is Charlie Kaufman’s “Anomalisa,” which is a sort of animated, stop motion movie. Charlie Kaufman, the writer of “Adaptation” and “Being John Malkovich,” is making a return as a director. And so those are some of the movies I think people will be keeping an eye on.
National Geographic CEO: Fox deal won't affect our programming
It was announced this week that National Geographic is expanding its partnership with 21st Century Fox. They've been partners for 18 years on Nat Geo’s TV channels, but now Fox will own controlling interest of the entire company, including National Geographic Magazine.
Gary Knell, President and CEO of the National Geographic Society, joined us on The Frame to talk about the company's history with Fox, the benefits of the new deal, and how National Geographic plans on staying just as committed to science, exploration and education as they were before.
Interview Highlights:
How long has this deal been in the works? What convinced the board of directors at National Geographic that it was the right deal at the right time?
We've had an 18-year partnership with 21st Century Fox around the National Geographic Channel, which reaches half a billion people around the world — I think it's the largest distributed channel in the world. And as I came onboard here at National Geographic a couple of years ago, we've had a series of discussions about the future of media and how we can best work to make sure the channel is successful, which is an important source of programming and revenue for the society.
At the same time, the Society's products around print, digital and social media also were in need of a way of integrating with the different parts of the media offering. So these were organic conversations over the last year, I would say, that took place between the two parties. It was really a natural progression coming out of the long-standing partnership.
How would you describe the nature of that creative partnership?
I think it's a terrific partnership. We've had a shared vision for programming that's had strong leadership, there's an equal number of board members who are very respectful, and I've been impressed by the professionalism on both sides.
I think there's tremendous respect for the National Geographic brand, and I think 21st Century Fox is a company that tends to invest in brands, that invests in respecting the people who run them and the kinds of imaginations and programming qualities that make a brand great.
I assume that, as part of the deal, National Geographic will be giving up its non-profit status. How will that change the nature of the organization?
That's actually not true. What's going to happen is the National Geographic Society will stay as a non-profit, and as part of this transaction it will be massively bulked up in its resources to invest in science, exploration and education.
The scientists and explorers who are given grants by the Society have in many ways been the fuel for programming in the magazine, on digital platforms, and on the channels — the storytelling engines, as we like to call them.
And those kinds of things will not only be safeguarded, but they'll be more than doubled in the future through a $1 billion endowment that will now be permanently created for the Society as a result of this transaction. That's a very important component, and a reason to do this.
Let's talk about the magazine itself for a second. In a recent story, the Washington Post described it as "troubled," and its circulation has been plummeting. What kind of commitment is there from all of the parties to keep it alive as a print product?
We're very committed to the print product and I think this [deal] actually gives it a longer lifeline. And I would not say it is troubled. I think that's not true. But as anyone knows, the print industry is seeing a fairly rapid decline overall, so it's no surprise that National Geographic, like others, is seeing those difficult headwinds in a very turbulent time when digital engagement, especially through mobile platforms, has taken over for many consumers.
Reasonable people can disagree about what National Geographic's brand means, but there are some people who look at the cable channel and say that shows like "Doomsday Preppers" or "Banged Up Abroad" are not really quite in the spirit of the quality of the journalism that the magazine has done. Plus, now you're in bed with a media mogul who really doesn't believe in climate change. When you look at those two things together, how do you weigh them?
First of all, we've been involved with 21st Century Fox for nearly 20 years and there's never been a moment of editorial interference. The programing decisions that were made were jointly made, and I think the new slate of programming is more closely connected to the brand that you've described.
And that's more in line with shows like "Cosmos" or "The Years of Living Dangerously," which is a huge show on climate change that aired globally on the National Geographic international channels.
We're connecting a cover story in the magazine in November around climate change to an Explorer's show on the channel in November around climate change, so people are going to have to judge us by what we do, not what's said about us.