“Every great movie has
five things: violence, romance, a great cast, American mythology, and a 90
minute running time.” So says Nicolas Winding Refn, the Danish director known
for his violent and meticulous films Bronson and Valhalla Rising. His
latest film, Drive, is his American
debut, and stars Ryan Gosling as a LA Driver who does movie stunts by day and
robberies by night (read the review here). Filled with a 1980s grunge sensibility smashed with a high-art European style, Mr. Winding Refn won the award for Best Director at Cannes
for his film. He spoke after a screening last night at Brooklyn Academy of
Music’s Bamcinematek. Here is a sampling of the insights he brought to his
creative process, as well as the greatest bromance ever told:
Mr. Winding Refn
almost killed Harrison Ford:
I was in LA
working on a movie with Harrison Ford called The Dying of the Light. It was a wonderful script about a CIA agent
who goes on an existentialist journey and then dies at the end. If I could do a
movie where Harrison Ford dies, I could contribute to society. I had gone to
Los Angeles to work with him. We would hang out, but then he was like he doesn’t
want to die. But then there’s no movie, Harrison! I was so angry for buying
into the illusion of Hollywood, I didn’t want to do it.
On how him and Mr.
Gosling had the worst first date ever, which led to the project:
Out of the
blue, I got a call from Ryan Gosling asking if I wanted have dinner with him. I
had never met him, so I was like why not?—if Harrison doesn’t want to die,
maybe you want to die. The only problem was I had a very high fever because I
had gotten sick on the plane. Harrison got me these anti-flu drugs that they
have in this country that helped put the fever down, but the only problem is
they made you as high as a kite. So I’m stoned out my mind and I got to meet
Ryan. That morning a script had arrived
from Universal, written by Hossein Amini called Drive, but I didn’t read it because I was so stoned. So I went to
dinner and I was the chair. I couldn’t
turn, so I was sitting in profile because I couldn’t move…This man had an aura
of an unbelievable proportion. He was very interested in how I make my films
and had seen all of them, and was very enthusiastic. I was feeling very
euphoric so halfway through I say will you please take me home. It was like a
blind date gone wrong! He said sure, I’ll drop you off. So this dinner which
hadn’t amounted to anything but “you’re great, I’m great, yea!” We’re sitting
in the car, driving along the freeway in Santa Monica, which is a very long
ride, in silence—blind date gone wrong, and no action. So we turn on the radio
and its soft rock, REO Speedwagon’s “I Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore.” So
here I am with Ryan Gosling and “I Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore” and you
know when you’re high you need to turn the music really, really loud. And I’m
getting into the song. I’m from the 80s, and I remember this pop ballad, so I
start singing along. And I can’t sing to save my life, and Ryan Gosling is
driving this car, not saying a single word. And guys we’re pretty weak when we’re
ill. So I’m missing my family and my kids and Harrison Ford won’t die, so I
start to cry. Tears are rolling down my cheek and it’s flowing out of me and
Ryan is just sitting in the car driving. I’m a Finnish filmmaker so I make
films based on what I like to see and ideas come to me in the strangest of
places, but right there I had an idea to do a movie. I turn to Ryan for the
first time and he’s a very good looking man, and I scream at him, since the
music is so loud, “I got it man! We’re gonna make a movie about a man who
drives around at night, in a car, listening to pop music, cause that’s his
emotional relief!” Ryan turns to me and looks at me and says, “Cool…I’m in.”
