Director Jeff Nichols Talks 'Midnight Special', How it Homages Spielberg
Director Jeff Nichols' Midnight Special premiered at this year's Berlinale, and the man behind the movie sat down to discuss it with Indiewire.
Nichols explains that sci-fi films were the first he'd encountered as a kid, that introduced him to "a sense of mystery in the movie theatre."
"'Starman,' 'Close Encounters,' 'E.T.,' obviously there's an aesthetic connection that I have to those films. I love the way they look, the way they feel, the blue lens flares, the inky blacks, the texture is something that we really wanted to emulate, and I think that's where the connection is most on the nose."
Kirsten Dunst describes Nichols achievement in that "he pays homage without copying anybody. That's really hard to do."
"I don't want it to be overly sentimental or anything like that," Nichols said of his film, in relation to criticisms of Spielberg in the 80s and 90s. "So you have to ratchet it down. In doing that I separate myself from Spielberg a lot - not purposefully, that's just how it turns out, because his movies had more magic in them. I don't think I'm a more cynical person, it's just my personal style."
Nichols describes his personal approach to scripting, by imagining terrible things in association to the story he's telling. With Shotgun Stories, it was the death of a brother, something he hadn't experienced but something he thought deeply about in creating the narrative.
Source: Indiewire
