Jason Reitman is a 4-time Oscar nominated director, whose films include Thank You For Smoking, Juno, and Up in the Air. His latest film is Young Adult, written by Juno collaborator Diablo Cody and starring Charlize Theron (Monster). We had the opportunity to sit down and discuss the film during a recent stop in San Francisco.
The interview took place on Friday, December 2nd, at the Ritz Carlton in downtown San Francisco. Do to length, we have divided the twenty minute interview between Reitman, Hypable.com, as well as Marco Cerritos at Gman Reviews and Jason LeRoy at Spinning Platters. Part one of the interview can be seen here, with the second part available below:
Q: You touched on this earlier, but one of the most striking aspects, while watching [Young Adult] was just how minimalistic the soundtrack was, was that from the onset a goal? Or was that something you found out while exploring the screenplay that would work better?
Reitman: I wanted this film to feel hyper real. [Mavis] is such a tricky character that could so easily be misinterpreted as like a character, not a human being. That it is very important to make every decision based on what will make the movie real. So we shot in digital, we shot most of the film handheld, we shot most of the film primarily on location — except for just a couple things. We tried to make the color palette very real. We tried to cast actors and extras who looked and felt very real. And when it came to music, one I worked with Rolfe Kent, who I’ve always worked with, but he’s really great at doing a minimalist score, very few instruments, something that doesn’t tell the audience what to think much. Just is kind of intelligent and adds weight. And when it came to the songs, really only try to play songs if there’s a reason. So if she’s in a car listening to music, great. If she’s in Macy’s and there’s a song playing over the speakers, great. But otherwise, keep it clean. I wanted the audience to feel so right next to her, that by the time [SPOILER], you felt like you were a right there with her.
Q: When I was thinking today about why I can’t think of any easy references to what this film is like, I realized that because in so many films about a harkening back to high school there are always flashbacks. And I was thinking about what a completely different film this would be if there were flashbacks, and how it would just really kill a lot of the momentum of the characters. Was there ever a discussion of doing a flashback sequence?
Reitman: No..This a movie where there is such a eschewed vision of what the past was, that it would really be bad if we saw a flashback. There’s a great moment that Charlize did when she goes back to her childhood bedroom, and she’s going though and picking up little pieces, and she goes to this little box of scrunchies, and she puts one in her hair and she looks in the mirror. And I don’t know how she did it, but she does this thing where she puts [the scrunchy] in, and she becomes a teenager like that, for like a split second, and then goes back to being her. And I think those are strangely the flashbacks in the movie, because for her she never left.
Q: In all the Q&A’s and the screening tour and all that, Diablo said you feel protective of your characters. Do you ever find yourself defending Mavis?
Reitman: Yeah you’re right, I do. I love her. I find her much more complicating and interesting than hanging out with Buddy and Beth, I don’t want to hang out with the calm, collected, normal people. I like to be around the broken people, I consider myself a member of the broken people. So yeah, if someone tries to classify Mavis as just a bitch, I think that’s so simplistic and doesn’t give credit to the fact that just everyone wants to be loved. And nobody has it figured out. Now, does she make a lot of mistakes and do horrible things? Yes. Some people do that, and they don’t do it for the wrong reasons. So yeah, i like her, I like her a lot, and I want to hang out with her. [laughs]
Q: There’s a tricky balancing act in keeping the tone just right for this kind of story. Is that something that was always there in the screenplay, or did you find it in the editing room?
Reitman: I find tone is a thing I pick up the first time I read the script. Everyone reads a script differently, you know you give the same script to twenty directors and they’ll make totally different films. And when I read a script, there’s a tone that I see that I see it as, and I’m reading it in. And it’s my job to hold on to that key, and keep everyone in pitch throughout the film. So, while things to change in the editing room, and you learn to use different devices and ideas to manipulate the audience differently, I find that the tone is always there. That’s doesn’t change. The reason you make a film never changes.
Q: This is just an aside, a curiosity thing for me, is there a reason you never took [Young Adult] out to the fall festival circuit?
Reitman: Yeah, I’ve done that before. [Young Adult] was such a different film for Diablo and I that I didn’t want to just throw this film out there and have it viewed in the same lens. I wanted people to really get right from the onset, which is to say even in the way that we presented the film, that this was different. This is unique, this is a different step, you can’t go in expecting Juno or Up in the Air. I shouldn’t have done that, I mean I can already tell in advance now when people started to see this film, they knew this was different, they knew this was darker, they had an impression that it was a movie that was going to make you squirm and make you uncomfortable. I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that we started in the right place, and on another note it goes back to something we started talking about here, I didn’t want to spend another six months on the road again and I didn’t want to feel like I was selling my film all the time. I wanted to feel like I was sharing my film with people who love movies. And when we went to the Kabuki (in San Francisco) and when we went to the Alamo, and we went to the Light Box and the Music Box, and the New Bev in LA, all I ever felt was that I was sharing my movie with people that love film, and that’s how I used to feel going to Sundance and Toronto [International Film Festival] when I was a like 19 and a short filmmaker, and it was strange to return to that, it felt great.
Q: Speaking of this idea of people who love film, I was at the Castro [Theater in San Francisco] whenever you participated in the [Roger] Ebert tribute…
Reitman: That was one of the great nights of my life. Do you remember the phillip kaufman speech, when she punched him in the fact? Let’s just make our own movies… That is one of my favorite stories of all-time, I think I can get goosebumps just retelling it.
Q: Well I loved what you said about Ebert, and how what you love about him is that he’s just someone who loves film…
Reitman: Even when he hates a movie…[Laughs] “I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate this film.” [Laughs]
Q: So I thought that was great, and I read that his show is going on hiatus now, and it’s just such a bummer. But I guess I was just wondering if you have any other comments about how writing about film can be done well? in relation to Ebert and loving film…
Reitman: I think that writing about film goes well for the same reason that making film goes well. And I think it usually has to do with not worrying about pleasing the audience. Filmmakers kind of go south when they worry too much about pleasing an audience. It has to come from a true place. And writing about film goes well when its a true personal exploration of film, when I read cinema critique, and I can sense the author is really trying to understand the relationship with the movie and how it made them feel. It’s great. it goes south when you can tell the writer is just trying to be cute, and play to the audience, and is so worried about making an audience think that the reviewer is clever, or just trying to be funny, or even worse, is creating an opinion of the film based on what they think the audience is going to think of the film. Then it goes south. And Roger Ebert is just a great writer, take away whatever he writes about. Is he one of the only — the only critic to ever have a Pulitzer, do I have that right? And for good reason. That’s what is great about him, and [Kenneth] Turan, and all the greats. Is you never sense they’re writing because they want to please the reader, they’re writing because you’re watching their journey through the movie.
Q: Based on this tour, what is the one question that you just wished would stop being asked?
Reitman Ha! Well, I haven’t done much of a tour, this is the only city I went to. I mean, I did New York, I did the junket. Let me think if there’s a question i don’t like being asked…No, it goes back to the lame one, “So how did this film come together?” [Laughs] And you’re never sure if this is just a warm-up to get me talking, or is this just because you’re lazy? And I always want to be an asshole and be like, “Well, first Diablo had an idea, and she opened up her laptop and opened up Final Draft. She wrote: Interior..” I’m always like, “REALLY? How did this film come together?”
Q: So you said this is the only city you have done so far? Or is this the only city you are going to do?
Reitman: Well, I did two weeks in New York. I did the Press Junket, we did the National Board of Review and the HFPA and we did international press and local press. So I did here, and I think I’m going to do one more city. But for the most part no, we don’t really need it.
Q: Well I guess the followup to that would be: What makes us so special?
Reitman: You’re like…a 45 minute plane ride? [Laughs]
Young Adult is currently playing in limited release; the film opens nationwide on December 16.
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