Yet that sells a funny, nerdy and quite brilliant film short.
Director John Carney off the back ofOnceandBegin Again made the movie.
And he spared us some time for a chat about it…
Huge congratulations onSing Street, which is one of our favourite movies of the year.
[Laughs] Thats like Bernie Sanders and Trump!
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I did wonder how you felt about it!
AndEddie The Eaglewent on to do good business.
I think its a great idea!
But how is it from your perspective?
You put years of your life into a movie, and it comes up against a massive blockbuster.
Are you conscious of stuff like that?
Or are you more that youve made the film, so itll find its audience somehow?
Im a bit of both, to be honest.
Id like to say that Im just an artist whos in the forge every day beating out some metal!
But realistically, part of releasing a film is the big climax in a sense.
TheX-Menthing is a pain in the arse.
Also, weve done the same amount of work, even though its a small film.
Its sort of like a featherweight getting into the ring with a heavyweight.
Both are tough, both have worked their arses off, but ones going to beat the other.
Its just a fact.
There are no musical numbers in theX-Menfilm…
[Laughs] I think thats true!
Film is always out there.
Christ, it is 15 years.
But youre right: its hard to accept what youre saying is true nowadays particularly.
Yet ultimately I think of course youre right.
But we always think that everythings going to last forever.
But maybe it isnt: thats the other fear.
Maybe there wont be, in 500 years time, a copy ofCasablanca?
Will the world have radically changed?
God knows whats going to happen.
A meteor might come down and blow us all to bits, and we have to begin again.
Was it a sense of fun that was always at the core ofSing Street?
In a sense it was.
The film did change as it went on.
Which to me is crazy talk.
You hire different actors, you hire 100 people to make the film with you.
You work with producers.
Its going to change.
And thats part of the excitement and the journey of making the film.
Seeing what you dreamt of, and seeing what actually came out.
But I realised Im not as good a filmmaker as he is, unfortunately.
So I decided to make a John Carney film and see where that took me!
Not honest in that its any more autobiographical than the other films.
Rather that that was how I was feeling at the time I made it.
Thats how I felt when I was a kid in school.
Not try and put a narrator narrating it, and be a traditional coming of age story.
I wanted it to feel that the kids in the film were making the film.
When I say kids films, I mean adult trying to connect with the kids.
Nothing more embarrassing than that.
For me, a successful kids movie isNapoleon Dynamite.
It seemed a film made by the people in it, it felt more organic.
It seemed like a bunch of kids had gone to a town that interested them to make their movie.
Its hilarious, touching and unpretentious.
Its successful because of that.
And try and get back into that feeling of what its like to be a kid.
That presumably stretches through to the casting, and crucially how you interact with them how they come together.
I think you did open casting.
I know what you mean.
And trying to get somebody to think like an actor who wasnt an actor per se.
People like Yasiin Bey, proper theatre actors who were into the craft of film making.
That was a joy.
Again, it sounds a little hippy-ish, but there is magic to it.
Youll find good actors are entranced by when the camera turns over.
You project that onto a dark screen in a room.
Theres something magical there.
A Victorian magic show feel to a film, and good actors I think really believe in that.
Kids really believe in that too.
Do you find the digitisation of film works against that slightly?
All the more reason to reinvigorate it with magic.
The fact that people can shoot on their iPhones now, and people take that for granted.
All the more reason to create a feeling of magic on set.
That you have Ferdia Walsh-Peelos character Cosmo finding himself, putting more make-up on.
Lucy Boyntons Raphina, meanwhile, takes more make-up off as she becomes more honest about herself.
Thats a really good way of looking at it.
I never wore make up but I think thats a really good point.
And for both those kids theyre moving in opposite directions and one is older than the other too.
Thats in the script, yes.
Whether they choose to go with that part of the story.
For it not to be forced down your throat.
Theres only one bit of the film that drags, for me.
Was this a case of lots of cooks, or lots of investors who werent hands on?
How involved were they?
Theres no involvement editorially in this film, apart from myself and Anthony Bregman, the producer.
There is no involvement in terms of the story.
Its not out of a sense of duty their logos are there, its contractual obligation.
Its just harder and harder to get financing for films!
Can I just talk about the character of Barry, effectively the bully of the film?
But here, you pulled back and let us see whos bullying the bully.
Was that important to you?
Ive not seen someone spend time giving a bit of extra flavour to a bully before.
Im glad it comes across.
I didnt want to hammer it home.
I didnt want it to become a big storyline.
But I did want to touch on that fact.
That the bully is being bullied at home.
Sometimes, though, I think there isnt enough.
I get one or two people coming out saying they think the bully story didnt come out very well.
But I think theres enough of it.
I loved that you put the detail in, personally.
A couple of reasons.
It was an all-boys school, and he was hiding his sexuality, something he was struggling with.
Thats interesting that you say that.
Because in my story, Barry was gay.
And its that youre gay, Barry.
And youre being hammered at home because of it by your dad, because hes an arsehole.
I went to a boys school.
There were 90 people in our year, and not a single person was out.
Simple maths tells you that something isnt right here.
The idea was that Cosmo was ahead of the time in that sense.
Thats what it was like in Ireland.
We saw the music videos of the time and so many people came out.
I dont know Irish television, but did you, for instance, get the same AIDS commercials?
Very heavy, very dark, and with a press that was calling AIDS the gay plague.
So a dont be gay message?
I fully understand why nobody at my school came out.
You also touched on the notion of big brothers in the film.
You dedicate the film to brothers everywhere, but was that the catalyst?
Was this always a brothers film?
Youve talked about how things evolved.
It wasnt the original story at all.
The original story was very much the story of the kids.
I remember that so well.
As did the Raphina character.
The original premise of the film was very simple: a kid forms a band to solve his problems.
Im interested in your views on cinema as it stands, and how people watch films.
Robert Zemeckis did a film last year,The Walk.
And he blatantly made it for IMAX screens.
But also, I couldnt help but think that most people would watch it on a mobile phone.
I watched that at home, and I didnt really understand the film.
I cant see how itd work on a smaller screen.
Its like going into a hotel bedroom to see the Mona Lisa.
It needs to hang on a wall in a big room!
But I think every filmmaker is having this discussion were having right now.
Every filmmaker has to be going what the fuck is going on?
Even withSing Streetnow, its proving super-hard to get traction in America with this film.
The reviews are really good, and the exit polls are way better than Once and Begin Again.
Its hard to get people to commit to it.
Your statement at the beginning of this conversation I believe ever more truly at the moment.
Its ever more pertinent.
We have to look at films in terms of their longevity.
And yet, just before we started talking, I found a website for the Japanese release ofSing Street.
[Laughs] It was always my key concern!
Itd be interesting to see how it plays.
I would hope theyd like the music, and the idea that music breaks down all boundaries.
You talked about your film struggling to get traction.
I spoke to Kenneth Branagh just after hed doneCinderella.
And he was off the back of three big commercial movies Thor,Jack Ryan, andCinderella.
Thus, he wanted to make a few films for a bigger audience, thus took the bigger projects.
So where do you sit?
Relying on longevity, or the attraction of a bigger audience now?
I dont know where I sit with that.
Hollywood is a seduction.
The film industry out there is so much a business, and so much an industry.
Its hard to separate out what were talking about here.
It comes across as the cinema being sold as a meaningful, cultural art form.
Not just entertainment in the IMAX.
In Hollywood, its the exact opposite.
Nobody cares about any of this.
Films are like hamburgers.
Nobody gives a shit what theyre like on video on demand in five years time.
But as a filmmaker?
Are they going to say that my great grandfather was an awful charlatan?
Or are they going to say he made good stuff?
Thats the thing that Hitchcock managed brilliantly.
How to keep the backers happy, whilst making great artistic films at the same time.
And then just after that theres the Hollywood version where its hammered home.
And Im not going to alienate my backers by being too esoteric or obscure.
But Im an artist.
Ill be obscure, and then Ill give them a slice of cake.
Where doesSing Streetleave you, then?
Which would you choose?
Well firstly, its encouraging [were talking aboutOn The Edge].
When you make smaller films that seem like flops you do go ah fuck.
I dont think not that Id get offered one a big Hollywood franchise movie.
I think itd undo the good work that Ive done, and have been doing.
Building my own for want of a better word trademark or stamp.
Itd be fumbling the ball on the yard line to make a big Hollywood movie right now.
And I think it depends what age you are.
I think Im old enough now to have the wisdom not to be dazzled by the Hollywood machine!
But then you were directing Stephen Rea in your late 20s!
I see you often get asked if it was the success ofOncethat changed your life.
I know what you mean.
Its not poetry and its not art in the same sense as other art forms.
It is a commercial, audience-attendance gig.
When I dont have a film out, I feel a bit lacklustre.
And all I think about when Im out is how can I say something that matters to people?
How can I tell a joke that people will laugh at?
Or tell a story thatll get peoples attention?
Even when you walk down the road and you see a busker.
Hes singing and nobody is listening.
You kind of go, cmon man, make them listen.
Figure out a way of turning some heads.
Make people stop when theyre walking.
Its an incredibly hard thing to do, and its so fulfilling when they stop.
John Carney, thank you very much.
Sing Streetis in UK cinemas from tomorrow.
