The Good Thief is inspired by the Jean Pierre Melville classic "Bob Le Flambeur". It's a clever caper rich with deception and duplicity. Bob Montagnet [Nick Nolte] lives in the twilight zone of the French underworld - a seedy universe blurred by drugs and gambling binges. Nick Nolte gives the best performance of his latter day career as the loser junkie gambler who cleans himself for one last heist.
Neil Jordan, director of The Crying Game and The Butcher Boy, masters the film noir genre and breathes new life into it just as he did with the big budget vampire picture, Interview with the Vampire. I definitely didn't expect Jordan to be such a small man. He was about 5'5, but his films are often so rich with detail and ambiguous sexuality, that I just expected him to waltz into the room wearing a big costume and very flamboyant. In fact he is a quiet soft spoken man who often says the phrase "Know what I'm saying", although not like a rapper more like an intellectual from Ireland that he is.
Check out the website for The Good Thief.
Daniel Robert Epstein: Let's get the Nick Nolte thing out of the way. Was he nuts to work with?
Neil Jordan: He's wonderful and an American treasure. He's one of the best actors you have. Everyone asks me that question if he's wild. He can be wild after shooting at night.
If one of those 20 million dollar American stars was in it. It would have been even more genre based. I needed someone who could become the character because the movie was all about the character. There were various names mentioned and it's difficult. I went up to see him in San Francisco and I thought he was perfect because he almost is the role. I'd written a whole 12 step recovery metaphor into the film and he knew he could do that.
DRE: How did this project come to you?
NJ: I was asked to do it. My producer, Stephen Woolley, had affection for the original movie, Bob le flambeur [released in 1955]. Then Warner Bros asked me. I watched the original film, it's a lovely film but the plot is barely there. When I wrote it I decided to double the plot, use the original plot as a decoy for my character. It became like doing a variation on a theme. When I started to write the character of Bob and he emerged as this compulsive man. That's when I decided to direct this movie.
I was loathed to doing a remake because that's all people seem to be doing. I decided to do a remake about remakes. What's faked and what's real.
DRE: Its kind of Ocean's Eleven, is that why Warner Bros turned it down?
NJ: No it was just that they had another casino movie that's got Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts in it. You don't have that. Maybe it was the drugs that Bob uses. I was going to do something else. Then this nice man Seaton McLean from [the production company] Alliance Atlantis Communications called me up and said that he read the script and he wants to produce the film.
I kind of compared The Good Thief to Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye [released in 1973]. That was a remake. But it was a real jazzy kind of freewheeling ride around the original story. It had a lovely freedom to it. It's so different from the original film but it reminded me of it nonetheless. So remakes aren't always an unhappy task. It can be fun to do but I wouldn't recommend it.
DRE: The noir genre is so malleable. What is it about that genre that you could put any themes in it and make it work?
NJ: This film in particular is more about the scam. The idea of the impossible task is a challenge. I've never made a film like this before. The one thing I took from the original movie was that somebody said it was the only example of a film noir that ends happily. That's intriguing. It goes from the dark into the light. That's the kind of journey I made Bob go on which I've never done before because my films are generally dark.
DRE: I was surprised when it ended up happily.
NJ: So was I [laughs]. It's easier to take an ordinary environment and move it into a very dark place then to do the opposite.
DRE: What was the most difficult scene to do in The Good Thief?
NJ: Probably when Nick is in withdrawal and the girl is naked trying to seduce him. That was difficult because it's emotionally raw. He's vomiting and he's chained to the bed. But the casino scenes were difficult because we wanted them to be very elegant.
DRE: I read that you said that European films lack punch.
NJ: We tend to think of the European film as the art film. You don't find the kind of broad stories that American cinema tends to make.
DRE: Is that why you used Tcheky Karyo [star of La Femme Nikita] in The Good Thief? He seems to be one of the few people that makes European films with punch.
NJ: He's just a great actor.
DRE: How was it directing the Polish brothers? [directors/stars of Twin Falls Idaho]
NJ: It's great. To find absolute identical twins isn't easy. They used to play tricks on me like one talking to me and then other would ask me the same question.
DRE: Knowing your other films, the beginning where Nick Nolte is junkie is very much in tune with them. But after he kicks his habit it seemed like the tone of the movie changed. Did it change for you?
NJ: Not really. I think the tone changed when they decide to rob the casino and it becomes a heist movie. But I wanted to make it about character. There are better people than me who can make heist films. That was not what interested me. It was the character coming back to life for an amoral purpose and becoming a fully cognizant human being.
DRE: When you directed Interview with the Vampire [released in 1994] you gained not only worldwide fame but a specific audience of Goth/outsider crowd. What do you think of that audience?
NJ: I think the only audience I gained there was the Anne Rice audience. Though not entirely because they all came the first night. It's like when a huge rock band makes a movie and all their fans come the first night and the second night its empty.
I loved the book. I thought it was about guilt. Living with the horror.
DRE: You seem to move in and out of Hollywood pretty easily. Do you consider yourself an outsider from there?
NJ: I don't think there are many directors who would consider themselves a Hollywood director.
DRE: Maybe Michael Bay [director of Armageddon and Pearl Harbor]
NJ: Yes. I like America and Hollywood movies. The great thing about America is that people make up their own minds about their entertainment. When The Crying Game played in England everyone hated it. When it came to America it took off. Then when it got re-released in England everyone decided they loved it. I would never only want to make Hollywood movies.
DRE: Would you only want to make non-Hollywood movies?
NJ: If I could get the money I would. Hollywood's got the money.
DRE: What would you say is the common thread that runs through your films?
NJ: They are often about looking at people that would be considered unsympathetic but then seeing them in a sympathetic light. Even Interview with the Vampire made you empathize with the hell of living forever.
DRE: Ambiguous sexuality seems to be another theme in your films. In The Crying Game there is the obvious thing but again The Good Thief there is a bodybuilder of ambiguous sexuality.
NJ: Yeah that made me think that maybe I shouldn't do that. But people who do take steroids change their bodies. I could imagine a muscle bound hitman having a sex change. I thought it was an interesting character. It was difficult to find someone to play the part. We went to all these bodybuilding clubs
DRE: Was it a man?
NJ: I don't know.
DRE: That comes into the idea of what I was saying before. In a noir everything seems to fall into place. It being a she-man tied into the ending of the movie. Was that intentional or did it just come together that way?
NJ: It just came out in the writing.
DRE: You just wrote the comedy film The Actors. Why aren't you directing it?
NJ: I don't think I'm very good at it.
DRE: You and Stephen Rea have worked together on eight films. Will you be working together again?
NJ: I hope so when the right project comes along.
DRE: What is your favorite film of yours?
NJ: Maybe The Butcher Boy. That's what some people say.
DRE: The Butcher Boy still has resonance today with violent children. What were you trying to point out with that film?
NJ: Well what attracted me to the book was that the boy was so ordinary and the emotions he had were so large. The larger the emotions the less defense he had against the world. It was examining how an ordinary person becomes a psychopath.
DRE: All your main characters are confused.
NJ: They're bruised, beaten sinners.
DRE: I heard your trying to put together a movie called The Borgia about the Vatican's connection to the Mafia.
NJ: I hope its going to happen. It's very good and I hope they will let me make it someday. I'll make it in Italy.
DRE: What's the most you ever won gambling?
NJ: There was this casino in Nice where I could never lose. I think it must have been a money laundering place because every time I went there everyone I was with won.
DRE: What was that name again?
NJ: [laughs] Casino Ruhl.
DRE: What's coming up next?
NJ: I'm writing a novel of ghost stories.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
Neil Jordan, director of The Crying Game and The Butcher Boy, masters the film noir genre and breathes new life into it just as he did with the big budget vampire picture, Interview with the Vampire. I definitely didn't expect Jordan to be such a small man. He was about 5'5, but his films are often so rich with detail and ambiguous sexuality, that I just expected him to waltz into the room wearing a big costume and very flamboyant. In fact he is a quiet soft spoken man who often says the phrase "Know what I'm saying", although not like a rapper more like an intellectual from Ireland that he is.
Check out the website for The Good Thief.
Daniel Robert Epstein: Let's get the Nick Nolte thing out of the way. Was he nuts to work with?
Neil Jordan: He's wonderful and an American treasure. He's one of the best actors you have. Everyone asks me that question if he's wild. He can be wild after shooting at night.
If one of those 20 million dollar American stars was in it. It would have been even more genre based. I needed someone who could become the character because the movie was all about the character. There were various names mentioned and it's difficult. I went up to see him in San Francisco and I thought he was perfect because he almost is the role. I'd written a whole 12 step recovery metaphor into the film and he knew he could do that.
DRE: How did this project come to you?
NJ: I was asked to do it. My producer, Stephen Woolley, had affection for the original movie, Bob le flambeur [released in 1955]. Then Warner Bros asked me. I watched the original film, it's a lovely film but the plot is barely there. When I wrote it I decided to double the plot, use the original plot as a decoy for my character. It became like doing a variation on a theme. When I started to write the character of Bob and he emerged as this compulsive man. That's when I decided to direct this movie.
I was loathed to doing a remake because that's all people seem to be doing. I decided to do a remake about remakes. What's faked and what's real.
DRE: Its kind of Ocean's Eleven, is that why Warner Bros turned it down?
NJ: No it was just that they had another casino movie that's got Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts in it. You don't have that. Maybe it was the drugs that Bob uses. I was going to do something else. Then this nice man Seaton McLean from [the production company] Alliance Atlantis Communications called me up and said that he read the script and he wants to produce the film.
I kind of compared The Good Thief to Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye [released in 1973]. That was a remake. But it was a real jazzy kind of freewheeling ride around the original story. It had a lovely freedom to it. It's so different from the original film but it reminded me of it nonetheless. So remakes aren't always an unhappy task. It can be fun to do but I wouldn't recommend it.
DRE: The noir genre is so malleable. What is it about that genre that you could put any themes in it and make it work?
NJ: This film in particular is more about the scam. The idea of the impossible task is a challenge. I've never made a film like this before. The one thing I took from the original movie was that somebody said it was the only example of a film noir that ends happily. That's intriguing. It goes from the dark into the light. That's the kind of journey I made Bob go on which I've never done before because my films are generally dark.
DRE: I was surprised when it ended up happily.
NJ: So was I [laughs]. It's easier to take an ordinary environment and move it into a very dark place then to do the opposite.
DRE: What was the most difficult scene to do in The Good Thief?
NJ: Probably when Nick is in withdrawal and the girl is naked trying to seduce him. That was difficult because it's emotionally raw. He's vomiting and he's chained to the bed. But the casino scenes were difficult because we wanted them to be very elegant.
DRE: I read that you said that European films lack punch.
NJ: We tend to think of the European film as the art film. You don't find the kind of broad stories that American cinema tends to make.
DRE: Is that why you used Tcheky Karyo [star of La Femme Nikita] in The Good Thief? He seems to be one of the few people that makes European films with punch.
NJ: He's just a great actor.
DRE: How was it directing the Polish brothers? [directors/stars of Twin Falls Idaho]
NJ: It's great. To find absolute identical twins isn't easy. They used to play tricks on me like one talking to me and then other would ask me the same question.
DRE: Knowing your other films, the beginning where Nick Nolte is junkie is very much in tune with them. But after he kicks his habit it seemed like the tone of the movie changed. Did it change for you?
NJ: Not really. I think the tone changed when they decide to rob the casino and it becomes a heist movie. But I wanted to make it about character. There are better people than me who can make heist films. That was not what interested me. It was the character coming back to life for an amoral purpose and becoming a fully cognizant human being.
DRE: When you directed Interview with the Vampire [released in 1994] you gained not only worldwide fame but a specific audience of Goth/outsider crowd. What do you think of that audience?
NJ: I think the only audience I gained there was the Anne Rice audience. Though not entirely because they all came the first night. It's like when a huge rock band makes a movie and all their fans come the first night and the second night its empty.
I loved the book. I thought it was about guilt. Living with the horror.
DRE: You seem to move in and out of Hollywood pretty easily. Do you consider yourself an outsider from there?
NJ: I don't think there are many directors who would consider themselves a Hollywood director.
DRE: Maybe Michael Bay [director of Armageddon and Pearl Harbor]
NJ: Yes. I like America and Hollywood movies. The great thing about America is that people make up their own minds about their entertainment. When The Crying Game played in England everyone hated it. When it came to America it took off. Then when it got re-released in England everyone decided they loved it. I would never only want to make Hollywood movies.
DRE: Would you only want to make non-Hollywood movies?
NJ: If I could get the money I would. Hollywood's got the money.
DRE: What would you say is the common thread that runs through your films?
NJ: They are often about looking at people that would be considered unsympathetic but then seeing them in a sympathetic light. Even Interview with the Vampire made you empathize with the hell of living forever.
DRE: Ambiguous sexuality seems to be another theme in your films. In The Crying Game there is the obvious thing but again The Good Thief there is a bodybuilder of ambiguous sexuality.
NJ: Yeah that made me think that maybe I shouldn't do that. But people who do take steroids change their bodies. I could imagine a muscle bound hitman having a sex change. I thought it was an interesting character. It was difficult to find someone to play the part. We went to all these bodybuilding clubs
DRE: Was it a man?
NJ: I don't know.
DRE: That comes into the idea of what I was saying before. In a noir everything seems to fall into place. It being a she-man tied into the ending of the movie. Was that intentional or did it just come together that way?
NJ: It just came out in the writing.
DRE: You just wrote the comedy film The Actors. Why aren't you directing it?
NJ: I don't think I'm very good at it.
DRE: You and Stephen Rea have worked together on eight films. Will you be working together again?
NJ: I hope so when the right project comes along.
DRE: What is your favorite film of yours?
NJ: Maybe The Butcher Boy. That's what some people say.
DRE: The Butcher Boy still has resonance today with violent children. What were you trying to point out with that film?
NJ: Well what attracted me to the book was that the boy was so ordinary and the emotions he had were so large. The larger the emotions the less defense he had against the world. It was examining how an ordinary person becomes a psychopath.
DRE: All your main characters are confused.
NJ: They're bruised, beaten sinners.
DRE: I heard your trying to put together a movie called The Borgia about the Vatican's connection to the Mafia.
NJ: I hope its going to happen. It's very good and I hope they will let me make it someday. I'll make it in Italy.
DRE: What's the most you ever won gambling?
NJ: There was this casino in Nice where I could never lose. I think it must have been a money laundering place because every time I went there everyone I was with won.
DRE: What was that name again?
NJ: [laughs] Casino Ruhl.
DRE: What's coming up next?
NJ: I'm writing a novel of ghost stories.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
joking when he said that during the course of the film he
did heroin a tiny taste at a time to get the feel for the character's motivation???
did anyone else hear him say this in an interview?