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Maybe the name Christophe Gans won't be immediately familiar, but anyone who saw his 2002 period horror piece Brotherhood of the Wolf won't forget that experience any time soon, because it was a truly original take on the horror film.
Since then, Gans has been working on a movie version of the video game Silent Hill, something he's been wanting to make since he first played the game years before making "Brotherhood". After years of hard work and months of CG touch-ups, the movie is finally ready to be seen by avid gaming enthusiasts, and ComingSoon.net had a chance to speak to the director, speaking to us from Toronto, where he was putting the final touches to the DVD and television versions, before returning home to France after almost two years in Canada working on the movie.
ComingSoon.net: You're still up in Toronto working on this movie?
Christophe Gans: We finished the movie just exactly eight days ago, because we have a lot of special effects hoping that everything will be perfect. It's always something with special effects movies. Eight days ago, I saw the film for the first time in one piece, and it was like, "Wow!"
CS: The last time we heard from you was with "Brotherhood of the Wolf", which came out in the States four years ago. Were you working on "Silent Hill" this whole time?
Gans: Actually, I played "Silent Hill" just one year before I did "Brotherhood of the Wolf," and I was talking with my producer, also the producer of "Brotherhood of the Wolf," about the idea of adapting this game on the big screen. For a long time, I wanted to make a horror movie, but it's difficult to come up with something really original. When I played "Silent Hill 1," I had the feeling that it was actually something that I didn't see before on the big screen. It was completely original.
CS: Was it hard to get the rights to it?
Gans: Yes, it was extremely difficult, because the game is Japanese, and the Japanese people aren't always willing to make deals. Sometimes, they can wait months, and in many cases, they wait years on these games. We were chasing the rights since the beginning, and we had no answer. We were sending tons of messages, Emails, and letters and no answer. And then, the second game came, and I played it and I was blown away, and again, I asked for the rights, and no answer. I knew that Miramax was also chasing the rights, Paramount, Sam Raimi, even the company of Tom Cruise was chasing the rights, and no one got answers. So I decided maybe it was not who was asking, but the way we were asking for the rights. Basically, I did a note of intention in video. I shot myself speaking to the camera, explaining why I wanted to do so badly this game on the big screen, and it was 37 minutes. I put Japanese subtitles, and I sent it to Tokyo; two months after, we had the rights.
CS: Did your previous experience in Japan, adapting "Crying Freeman," help your position in getting this adaptation?
Gans: Yeah, I know Japanese people, and I know that for them, politeness is very important. I think that's why we got the rights, because I showed some respect, and that's what they wanted. They also didn't want to sell the rights of the game have no involvement into the project. We didn't want to see the movie be completely disrespectful to the game. They wanted to find somebody who showed some big respect, and basically, I was that person. They were happy to work with us.
CS: Obviously, the second and maybe third game came out before you started this, so did you try to incorporate them into the movie or did you stick pretty closely to the first game?
Gans: When we started to think about the adaptation, we were very attracted by the idea to adapt the second game, because that's the best of the series. In the second game, there's a problem, because the town Silent Hill is just a background. It has nothing to do with the story. We realized it was impossible to tell that story and not explain why Silent Hill is this "Twilight Zone," that bizarre zone where different dimensions can cross. So we decided to go back to the first one, because in the first game, we have the explanation of why Silent Hill became that strange zone. But of course, we decided we will adapt the first game, but taking some things from the second game, using some of the narrative element of the third game, which is a sequel of the first one. I also wanted to use the way they were moving the camera from the fourth one, so basically, I decided to tell the story of the first one, but invite as much as possible the beautiful esthetic of the three other games.
CS: So the time it took you to get the rights actually ended up being a good thing, since it gave you more stuff to work from?
Gans: Oh, absolutely. Each time you're taking some time to do something, it's for the better. At the moment when you decide to do it, I think it's important to live on the energy. This film has been done like one straight line. When we decided when it was the moment to do it. It was July 2004 when we started talking about it, and in December 2004, I came to Toronto and I started shooting in April 2005. I finished shooting in July 2005, and the movie's going to be released now. It's less than two years to just do the job, and I think that's interesting to live on the energy. Especially for a game like that, I think it was good to mature it and just think about it. When I decided to do the film, I didn't necessarily play the game again. Sometime, I was just playing a little, but I didn't try to play again, because I just wanted to make the movie with all the memories that I brought back from the game. When I showed the film the first time to the creator of the series, Akira Yamooka, he was blown away by the precision of each detail. He asked if I played the game again, and I said, "No, I didn't have to because playing your game is like going to a foreign country and bringing back so many memories about each detail." Adapting a game is not like adapting a book. When you're adapting a book, you're building your adaptation on the feeling you had while you were reading the book, but when you're adapting a game, you're talking about your own experience into a virtual world. You're talking about your memories, about life experience. It was very different.
CS: Roger Avary did some rewrites on "Crying Freeman" and he also wrote this script. Did you bring him onto the project?
Gans: Yes, because I've known Roger Avary for a long time. He's a very good friend, a very talented screenwriter, and he's also a really obsessive gamer. I think it was important to get as many gamers as we can to adapt this film, and we had three working on the script: Roger, a friend of mine who was also a director in France and also a big gamer, and myself. We were basically three screenwriters, three directors and three gamers trying to adapt "Silent Hill." Why? Because we tried to find a collective way to describe that journey in Silent Hill. For each of us, it was a different journey, even though we went to the same place, and we brought back some very precise memories about it. We tried to compare these different memories, to try to find a collective way to tell this story. When you want to do the adaptation of a game, you have to figure that each gamer has a different version of the game in his mind. It's a subjective experience, so if you want to make something which actually can satisfy these gamers, you have to find a collective way to tell this story.
CS: How much gameplay is incorporated into the movie, and what is there to offer gamers and make them want to go see a game they've played on the big screen?
Gans: "Silent Hill" is a good example of a game which is not a big gameplay experience. Basically, you have to walk or run, and you have to find clues to find your way out of the town. It's not like a game based on reflex; it's much more the feeling you have and the way you dive into the atmosphere of the game. Actually, "Silent Hill" is one of the games that you can really adapt well, because it's not only about the gameplay. I'll say that a good gameplay is one that can invite the imagination and the intelligence of the gamer. What is important in Silent Hill is that constantly you're trying to imagine what happens, and the game is constantly playing with your imagination, and a good movie can do that also. Hitchcock was working before video game existed, but when you're seeing his film and the way he's playing with the intelligence of the audience, he's doing something attractive. I don't think that cinema and game are so completely different, and I think it's stupid to think that the game is only a way to move your fingers on the joypad. I think that games are a much more noble experience than that. Of course, when you're playing a shooting game, it's only about your reflex, and I think it would be difficult to adapt a shooting game, but with "Silent Hill" is not a problem.
CS: I read that you did most of the creatures practically on the set rather than CG.
Gans: Except the bugs. It's difficult to have [people dressed like] bugs. All the creatures are on the set played by dancers. For each creature, we tried to figure a different kind of movement. Of course, we were basing the concept of the creatures on what we could see in the game. For example, one of the creatures is played by a hip-hop dancer, another one is played by a very small Japanese dancer, and another is played by the choreographer himself. We tried to invent for each creature, a different type of movement. For me, it's important because the creatures in "Silent Hill" are disturbing. You enter into a room and you have something in the middle of the room, naked and screaming, and it's so disturbing. If you want to achieve that on screen, it's impossible to go CG. It was important to have the monsters on the set, so the actors could see and play with the monster.
CS: Was this in response to "Brotherhood of the Wolf" where the monster was mostly CG and some people didn't think it looked very real?
Gans: When we did the monster of "Brotherhood of the Wolf," we were very inexperienced. It's crazy to say, but it was the first monster movie made in France, and we learned a lot from our mistakes, and I realized if you want to have something interesting, first you must have something on the set in front of the actor. You must have an actor or a dancer playing the monster, and then you must enhance it in post-production. That's basically what we did. It's true that I learned a lot about how to do a monster from the mistakes I did on "Brotherhood of the Wolf."
CS: Which was the most challenging creature to bring to life?
Gans: Ah, ha ha. I think the most challenging is the armless monster that the fans call "straightjacket." It's a guy trapped in his own skin, like in a straightjacket. We did that with a costume, and it was played by the hip hop dancer, and then in postproduction, we stretched him, we slightly changed the proportion of his legs and torso, and I think it's quite amazing to see the result on the screen. Actually, each monster was a challenge, because each monster is very different. I also like very much the nurses, they're super-buxom nurses with no faces. That was also very interesting. We used lap dancers and jazz dancers to achieve that, and it was quite difficult.
CS: I noticed that there are a lot of women in "Silent Hill." Was there something symbolic about that?
Gans: Actually, when we decided to adapt the first game, we decided to have the hero of the first game, a guy named Harry Mason, but when we put him on the paper and tried to be very close to the original character of the game, we noticed that he was almost never acting like a man, but much more like a woman. When we decided to make him a woman, we realized that all the game was filled with women. It was almost like a complete feminine world, so then we realized that it was very interesting that "Silent Hill" was dealing with such issues as motherhood, sisterhood, immaculate conception, and we realized that was a good angle to make the film. It started as a convenient thing, making the character female, but then it became the structure of the project, and we realized that "Silent Hill" was a feminine dimension.
CS: Were there any requests to try to make this a PG-13 movie?
Gans: No, no, no. I said that I'd do the film only if the movie is R-rated. If you try to make me do a PG-13 than I will not do the film, because I knew that it would be impossible to deal with PG-13, simply because of the story of the little girl who created Silent Hill. We know that this little girl had been horribly tortured, so I knew that issue would make the movie a R-rated experience.
CS: One of the big things in the news these days is how studios aren't screening genre movies for critics or journalists anymore. Do you have any thoughts about this because you spent so much time working on this, and you obviously want people to see your work?
Gans: I have to say something that maybe you don't know about me. I was a journalist myself. I was a film critic before I became a director. What's happening today is very complicated, because of the Web. In this case, we finished the film very late, but it's true that most of the studios are concerned by the fact that they can't control the information on the Web. I think that it's going to be more and more a problem in the next few years.
CS: I've talked to a few other horror directors in the last few months who are pretty upset that their movies aren't being shown to the genre journalists who might actually appreciate their work.
Gans: Simply because it's adapted from Silent Hill, it's very original. At the same time, Sony Tristar Pictures can do what they want. They have put one third of the budget, and their way to market the film is their way, and I have to respect that, and that's all. In France, just a few days ago, we have shown the film to the critics and there was no problem, and I know that today, they're showing the film to the critics in UK. It's not a problem, but simply, in America, the way to market a movie is very different from the rest of the world, and I have to respect that.
CS: Speaking of marketing, one of the things that has really been amazing is the poster, which has become a popular target for graffiti artists. Have you seen any of that?
Gans: Yeah, it's cool! I love that! The first person who was blown away by that was Jodelle Ferland, who played the little girl in the film. She went through New York and she saw all the graffiti on her face. She's ten, and for her, it was amazing. That's a movie from an interactive medium, and I think it's important to think that what we're doing exists on different media. "Silent Hill" is a multimedia creation. Today, it's a movie, but tomorrow it's going to be a cartoon, and then it will be a new game. We are working on multimedia ground and we have to play with that.
CS: If "Silent Hill" beats "Scary Movie 4" this weekend, do you think your movie will be spoofed in "Scary Movie 5"?
Gans: Oh, absolutely! I hope so. I think it's legitimate to think that if "Silent Hill" is a success, I will see some interesting parody in the next "Scary Movie." As I say, it's a multimedia experience, so why not parody? I have nothing against it, just that it's treated with respect and intelligence, that's all that we hope.
CS: Any idea what you're doing next?
Gans: I'm working on an adaptation of another game, which is very different atmosphere. It's going to be so different from "Silent Hill." (He wouldn't say which game it was, as much as I tried to coax him to tell.)
CS: But are you just writing that or will you direct it as well?
Gans: Yeah, I will have to direct it very soon. They want me to start the shoot next March, because they also want that I do the sequel of "Silent Hill" if this movie is very successful. But it's okay, I'm very happy to work.
CS: Why do you think so many other French directors have had problems breaking into Hollywood here?
Gans: It depends on the project. In the glorious days of the old Hollywood, in the '30s, there were plenty of French and German directors working very successfully in Hollywood, because they were working on good films. If you're coming with a formulaic movie, I don't think you can enjoy success, but if you're coming with something really different, I think that people will notice, especially in genre. I think that "Silent Hill" is expected, because people know that it's an original movie. I can say that simply because I have not created the original concept, so I'm something like the illustrator of this concept, but everybody knows that the concept in the game was so absolutely original that it's interesting. That's what I hope.
CS: Where do you see your place in French cinema these days?
Gans: Oh, I have no place in French cinema. I'm an outsider. I'm not working in my own language. I did one film in French, "Brotherhood of the Wolf," and I could not do another movie in France, even if that was a huge success everywhere in the world, including in France of course, it was impossible for me to build another movie after this one. I'm working in English, so that's why it's difficult for me to think that I have any place in French cinema, because for me, everything is about the language.
CS: Were you surprised by how well "Brotherhood of the Wolf" was received here in the States?
Gans: I was intrigued and at the same time, I was pleased. Basically, "Brotherhood of the Wolf" was a little like a Hong Kong film, like an exotic experience, and I understand why people are so fond of this film. I like that, because myself, I like to watch Hong Kong films and movies from India, and what I enjoy is the experience of the exoticism.
CS: I originally saw "Brotherhood" at the Ziegfield in New York on a weekday afternoon. I was in that huge theatre with less than 20 people, and it was amazing experience seeing it on that big screen.
Gans: When I'm doing a movie, I hope people will come and dive into the sound and the color. I was born in 1960, and I remember very well how it was to go to films, when you were enjoying James Bond and the latest big war movie or Western from Hollywood. Basically, the cinema must be an experience. I showed "Silent Hill" to a bunch of people five days ago, and I know that they were pretty amazed, but it was difficult for them to find the words. Some of them were pretty shocked and fascinated. I think it's important that we don't see a movie that we can rationalize after the film's finished. That's what I tried to do with "Brotherhood of the Wolf" and with "Silent Hill," and I hope that people will feel like that.
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