This Friday sees the UK release of Cold In July, the latest film from director Jim Mickle.
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We had the privelege of sitting down with Jim Mickle earlier this week.
When it came to adaptingCold In July,was it the slipperier aspects of it that interested you?
Because it isnt a by-the-numbers thriller, is it?
Yeah, that was the big draw doing something that didnt feel overly familiar.
There are elements that feel completely different, so its a combination.
Yeah, thats right!
[Laughs] I liked the idea that it felt like an ordinary guys story.
It could have been my story or your story.
How important was it to get those in the film?
The first one was in the book, where they clean up after the shooting.
Why dont we cut it?
I was like, No!
If anything, cut the shooting.
This is the stuff that you need.
The stuff that made it feel more real and grounded.
Is it important to you to show violence for what it is?
Im not that interested in spectacle, and I dont think wed have had the budget for that luxury.
I remember saying at the time, Were making a zombie film.
How are we going to make ours stand out in any way?
Our approach was to treat it as real.
Lets make it the most realistic one.
Lets make it the one you could relate to the most.
Why do you think that is?
I know, I know.
I think its the polarisation of movies.
The movie industry, like the economy, like everything else, has grown further and further apart.
So now its giant tent pole movies or found footage movies.
Then you wind up withParanormal ActivityorSaworThe Conjuring.
Because really, in between… its like this movie.
And you have this insanely good cast.
That was what got it made eventually, was the cast .
That was what gave us the luxury to do it.
As you say, theres a huge divide between big tent pole movies and low-budget movies.
Would you want to make that kind of jump, or do you enjoy working independently?
I like it, but I feel weve hit a ceiling, you know?
Especially in the States with unions.
So it gets to be this hard thing where you dont have a lot of room to finesse stuff.
One of the things I might do next is a much bigger film.
Its not quiteGodzilla, but its more in that direction.
Well, then you have the grounding, dont you, which is important.
[Laughs] Yeah, it is.
Then as soon as they settle in, it jerks into something else.
I wanted the film to have that stylistic change.
How important was colour to the film from a design standpoint?
So it was huge.
Tough, because I come from an illustration background I used to do storyboards.
And I wanted to do comic books.
I dont think of a thing until Im confronted by it, and its like, Oh!
What a cool thing to play with!
Colours sort of the same thing.
Moonlight was also something we talked about a lot.
Moonlight, in that era of filmmaking the 70s, 80s and 90s always had that very blue moonlight.
I always loved that.
It was in the movies I grew up with, and its so old-fashioned, to have that feel.
People were saying, Thats what moonlight really looks like.
We should do that.
Ive got written down here in my notes and underlined, look: Argento!
I also have Mario Bava, and CormansMasque Of The Red Death.
Suspiriawas a big, big influence.
Overall, you know?
Then theres elements of the Coens.
And maybe John Dahls thrillers, too?Red Rock West, The Last Seduction…
Very much, very much.
Before we started shooting, I sent everyoneBlood SimpleandRed Rock WestandMemories Of Murder,the South Korean film.
I sent out those three movies and said, This is the kind of film were making.
One ofCold In Julys themes seems to be about masculinity.
Is that fair to say?
That and fatherhood I think.
Which are very similar, but that was the specific part of masculinity [it addresses].
I thought it was about the violence that men are capable of.
Do you think it offers a quite bleak view?
I think the humour was a big part of the book, and we wanted to carry it over.
I understand that it isnt a totally faithful adaptation of the book.
Yeah, mostly in terms of narrative but tonally I think we nail it.
or Oh, we did take that from the book.
I thought wed changed it.
I think theres stuff wed change, but it was so you can keep it focused.
It doesnt connect, so we had to finesse those scenes.
It must have helped that you had a cast who are so good at articulating things non-verbally.
The big one was the fatherhood thing.
The beauty was that Michael sold so much of that, that we didnt need all these things anymore.
Thats more something Im interested in, particularly when it comes from shooting and editing.
Its something I wind up writing myself.
I love the idea that you dont know where or when somethings going to come from.
Thats more during shooting, with Ryan [Samul] the cinematographer, playing with that whole idea.
I had this teaching assistant, he did this whole class on scene direction.
Theres this great sense of claustrophobia, of not knowing where the attacks going to come from.
I was fascinated by that whole lesson.
So he always has all of that to draw on.
One of the hardest parts of this movie was not editing it all myself.
But there were times when it was really frustrating, because Id be saying, Weve already done this.
I dont want to do it again.
I want to push it in a new direction.
But editing is my favourite part of the process by far.
I love shaping the movie, and piecing it together in the way its supposed to fit.
It feels like a while since Ive seen a film that does that.
Theres an interactive aspect to it.
That comes from Joes book, Ive got to give him credit it all comes from him.
Its why I wanted to make it so badly.
Its much easier to lead them through the film.
Once youve surprised them once, you suddenly have the ability to go in any direction.
They watch it in a different way from other films.
You talked about staying true to the spirit of the book rather than its events.
WithWe Are What We Are,I didnt like the idea of doing a remake.
I wanted to do something that was going to be more like an original film.
Its like an acoustic cover of an electric song or something like that.
Its something we really love and we want to do something different with it.
We Are What We Are has these elements, like, we dont want to just translate it.
How do we make it our movie?
Also, as an audience, I never got remakes that just do the same thing again.
And so I felt the same way about this.
Will you be returning to these characters inCold In Julyagain?
Oh, I didnt realise that it had the connection.
Hes writing the new one right now.
I like it, because I love the world and the tone.
Usually when Ive finished something Im, Ah, I dont want to do this again.
At least not for a while.
With this, I could totally imagine staying in it.
I shall look out for that.
Jim Mickle, thank you very much.
Cold In Julyis out on the 27th June in the UK.
