In 1976, when Rocky Balboa was introduced to the world (by writer/star Sylvester Stallone and director John Alvidsen), he represented every man and woman who strived for greatness in a world that expected nothing of them. He was the ultimate underdog back then and, to most of us, still is today. Now, nearly 40 years later, the Italian Stallion is training a new underdog boxing hero ready to prove that it’s time to pass the torch.

His name’s Adonis Johnson, he’s played by Michael B. Jordan, and he’s the hero at the center of the seventh film in the Rocky series, Creed, directed by Ryan Coogler. Adonis is the son of Rocky’s dead former nemesis turned best bud, Apollo Creed, but hides his paternal lineage so that he can find his own path to glory. He grew up loving to box just like his dad (though he resents Apollo for reasons he keeps close to his chest) and moves to Philly so that the one and only Rocky Balboa can train him to be the best boxer in the world. The aging former champ reluctantly agrees, though he soon discovers that a fight of his own awaits, this time outside the ring.

It’s a simple hero’s tale Coogler, co-writer Aaron Covington and spiritual guide Stallone are working with, though it’s the finer details—the psychological nuts and bolts of the characters, the searing performances, the showstopping camerawork—that make Creed the best Rocky movie since the character’s debut.

Adonis first meets Rocky at his restaurant, Adrian’s, named after his late wife whose absence has left a hole in the former world champ’s heart. Given Rocky’s tight relationship with his father, Adonis decides to address him as “unc” as he picks his brain for boxing knowledge. For two actors who come from completely different eras of Hollywood and schools of acting, Stallone and Jordan match up incredibly well as mentor and pupil, perhaps even surpassing the chemistry Stallone had with Burgess Meredith. There’s always been a fiery energy to Jordan’s performances, from his early days in The Wire and Friday Night Lights to Coogler’s own Fruitvale Station, so he’s a perfect fit for a story about a young man learning to fight smart, not angry.

The issue with Adonis is, well, it isn’t a simple one. He seems to become most emotionally distressed at the thought or mention of his father, but it’s not clear exactly why his resentment runs so deep. The only way Rocky has any hope of unlocking Adonis’ potential is by getting to the root of his uncontrollable aggression, which manifests itself as carelessness in the ring. It’s that same carelessness that got Apollo killed in the squared circle, and Rocky wants no part in helping his best friend’s son meet the same fate. When he receives the news that he’s facing life-threatening health crisis, his will to guide Adonis runs dry. “It was all in our heads,” he says to the heartbroken kid. “We aren’t family.” Stallone’s been playing Rocky for decades, and he hasn’t felt this in-tune with the big lug since the first movie.

This is where the relationship balances out. Adonis refuses to let his mentor call it quits on life by refusing treatment. He strikes a deal: “If I fight, you fight.” The franchise’s classic montages return, with Adonis sprinting all over town and honing his footwork with his coaches and Rocky coping with the side effects of chemotherapy. Adonis isn’t as jacked up and bulky as his dad and Rocky were, but he makes up for it in speed and ferocity, a dangerous gift he works hard to harness. The training’s all in preparation of Adonis’ unlikely title fight in Liverpool with unstoppable Brit “Pretty” Ricky Conlan (ABA heavyweight champ Anthony Bellew).

Providing a welcome, steamy distraction from the rigors of fight camp is his musician downstairs neighbor, Bianca (Dear White People‘s Tessa Thompson, channeling Lisa Bonet in High Fidelity). Something that makes Rocky Balboa such an interesting character is his narrow-minded devotion to his wife. Adrian is his everything and has been from the moment they met. Thompson is terrific as Bianca, but the character doesn’t feel as vital to Adonis’ journey at this point. In future installments, her role will likely be expanded and tread new ground, but for now, she takes a back seat to the real object of Adonis’ obsession: Apollo.

That’s the key here, Adonis’ internal fight with his father’s legacy. Legacy, not memory. They never met: Adonis was born of an affair, his father dying in the middle of the ring before he was born. How haunting it must be, to live under the long shadow of a man you never knew. How consuming the appetite for violent release must be. Creed‘s story comes from a very personal place for Coogler, and you can feel it. The young Bay Area director took a long-running franchise and infused it with his own life experience, and that’s a wonderful thing. It’s a triumph in that it sets a precedent for other filmmakers who work in the franchise bubble to liberate themselves artistically from the clutches of legacy, lineage and fan expectation. Like Adonis, Coogler’s finding his own way.

The character work isn’t what people will see Creed for; it’s the fights, of course, and what Coogler and his team deliver are some of the most dynamic, vicious, tactile boxing scenes ever filmed. Honestly. It sounds like hyperbole, but these fights knock everything else we’ve seen in the Rocky series so far clear out of the ring. An early exhibition fight is done in one continuous shot, the camera as fleet-footed as Adonis, staying close so that we can see the sweat dripping down the back of his neck. The big finale is all about virtuosic editing, staying in the pocket when Adonis is dipping and dodging against the ropes and glimpsing key characters in the crowd at the perfect moments. To say the fight scenes are thrilling is an understatement; by the end of the movie, I was in tears. Talk about exceeding expectations.

This past Thursday in San Francisco, the San Francisco Film Society held their inaugural Fall Celebration, honoring four films that look to be contenders come Oscar season: Nebraska, Fruitvale Station, Her, and The Square. Patrons gathered at elite social club The Battery to celebrate cinema and raise money for the Society.

Filmmakers and actors from the films were in attendance to participate in a panel before the night’s festivities, including directors Alexander Payne, Ryan Coogler, Spike Jonze, and Jehane Noujaim, and actors Michael B. Jordan (Fruitvale Station) and June Squib (Nebraska). The questions tossed at the star-studded panel covered a wide range of topics, from origin stories to locations to budgets to filmmaking processes.

Hometown Hero

Bay Area native Ryan Coogler was visibly proud and humbled to be in San Francisco representing Fruitvale Station, his debut feature which reconstructs 22-year-old Oscar Grant’s last day on earth, before he was shot and killed by a transit officer in a BART station in Oakland. Coogler remembered being deeply affected by the news of Grant’s death, but felt the media lost the human angle of the incident. “Nobody was really talking about the fact that Oscar was a human being,” he recalled. “He wasn’t just a symbol…he was a 22-year-old guy who had hopes and dreams and relationships, and it all got cut short.”

The movie was filmed mere miles from where the panel was taking place, which Jordan (who plays Oscar) emphasized was key. “It was very important–especially to Ryan,” he said. “[Ryan] just didn’t see the film being shot anywhere besides here, where it happened, where Oscar was from.” Coogler got the green light to shoot in the Bay Area with some help from an influential supporter. “It’s always easier when you have somebody like Forrest Whitaker writing a letter or making a phone call,” Jordan said about the film’s famous producer and mentor to Coogler.

When asked about the state and future of the film industry, Coogler seemed to have an optimistic outlook. “The studio films that we’ve seen succeed this year…some have been about comic book characters from pre-existing franchises that studios could put money behind. But, we’ve had others that have been incredibly human. The more we see projects that can make a lot of money and also have human connections…we’ll see studios doing more of those.”

Big Studios and Indies Get Along…in Nebraska

Alexander Payne’s Nebraska–a road trip movie about a father (Bruce Dern) who takes his son (Will Forte) with him on a pilgrimage from Montana to Nebraska to collect prize money he’s won from a lottery–is a studio film shot in gorgeous black and white, with no major stars in its cast, one of those “human” films Coogler was gushing about.

Payne, whose first film, Citizen Ruth was shot over 40 days, was blown away when he asked Coogler how long it took to shoot Fruitvale (20 days.) “It takes me 20 days just to walk to the bathroom!” he joked.

When asked if anyone at Paramount, the film’s distributor, questioned the bankability of the project, Payne assured us that there weren’t any studio heads poking around the production. “To Paramount’s credit, no one [questioned that.] They gave me carte blanche. Once we agreed [on the] 13 and a half million base budget, they left me totally alone.”

Something in the Way She Moves…

Her, Spike Jonze’s latest window into his brilliant, hyperactive imagination, follows a sad-sack writer named Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) as he begins to fall for an operating system named Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), something like a super-advanced version of “Siri” tailored to be Theodore’s perfect companion. Despite a premise absolutely dripping with social satire, Jonze insists no grand statements exists at the core of Her. “I wasn’t trying to make a comment or a satire about society,” Jonze explained. “…the character of the operating system is just a voice, but we tried to create a character that is a fully developed being with their own longings, needs, and passion.”

“One of the things that was important to us when we were designing the movie was to design this very warm world…a heightened version of the world we’re in,” Jonze said of the significance of place in cinema. He further elaborated on geography’s emotional significance: “L.A. is this place where the weather’s always nice, the ocean is there, the mountains are there…but even in that light, in this world, the loneliness and isolation maybe hurts in a specific way.”

The Never Ending Story

Documenting the lives of six protesters in the Egyptian uprising that started in 2011 in Tahrir Square (and continues to this day), director Jehane Noujaim’s The Square went through a major change earlier this year when the state of the revolution continued to evolve. The film premiered at Sundance, where it won the audience award, and concluded with president Mohammed Morsi stepping down, to the joy of the Tahrir protesters. But “the story kept changing,” Noujaim explained.

Morsi’s replacement turned out to be just as disagreeable as he was, so the people, outraged, returned to the square. “Initially, we [followed] the bringing down of a dictator to the election of a new president. That was the political continuum,” she continued. “The more interesting story was when all of our characters were back in the streets again.”

So, Noujaim and her crew returned to Tahrir, filmed additional footage, re-edited the film, showed it at the Toronto International Film Festival, and got another audience award. Despite the ever shifting political landscape in Egypt, Noujaim is positive the project is finished. “Our characters have gone through a full arc.”

For more info, visit SFFS.org

On MVFF’s gigantic penultimate day, a quintet of some of the industry’s most exciting directors gathered for a meeting of the minds, the stars and directors of At Middleton and Beside Still Waters unveiled their respective films to packed houses, and the whole lot of them partied it up in the beautiful town of Tiburon, right down the road.

Filmmaker Superfriends

To start off Day 10 of the festival, a killer lineup of directors gathered to participate in a panel organized by Variety, in which they discussed the industry and their filmmaking processes. In my previous festival recap, I mentioned that Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station) asked Steve McQueen a question during the 12 Years a Slave Q&A; McQueen didn’t seem to notice that the young buck was a talented filmmaker himself at the time, but when the two met officially for the Variety panel they became fast friends. Joining Coogler and McQueen for the panel was J.C. Chandor, who helmed the Robert Redford “man at sea” film, All is Lost and 2011’s Margin Call. We spoke to Chandor about the film, so keep an eye out for our interview next week. Also in attendance were John Wells of August: Osage County and Scott Coooper of Crazy Heart and Out of the Furnace.

Click to view slideshow.

Andy Garcia’s Campus Romance

At Middleton,  directed by newcomer Adam Rodgers, focuses on a sporadic on-campus romance between George (Andy Garcia) and Edith (Vera Farmiga), who meet while accompanying their kids on a campus tour of Middleton University. A walk-and-talk rom-com cut from the same cloth as Richard Linklater’s Before series but with a more lighthearted flare, the film was received incredibly well by the Mill Valley audience at CinéArts@Sequoia, who expressed their enthusiasm during the post-screening Q&A with Rodgers, Garcia, and the films’ producers. “When you have a chance to play with [an actor like] Vera Farmiga,” Garcia gushed, “[the scenes] are all fun.” The chemistry developed between the accomplished actors, amazingly, took no time to develop at all. “We never even read the script together once,” Garcia said, to the surprise of the audience, who had been so taken by the screen romance. “We got to know each other as the characters did on camera. She’s incredible.”

Future BIG Movie Stars CHILL in Beside Still Waters

A few feet down from the At Middleton screening, another movie about people talking was pleasing a separate batch of MVFF-goers. Chris Lowell, an actor best known for his roles in Veronica Mars (the “kickstarted” film version is shooting now) and The Help, hops into the director’s chair for the first time with his nostalgia-driven hangout movie, Beside Still Waters. In it, a tragedy causes a group of old childhood friends to reconvene at the memory-filled cabin in the forrest they grew up playing around in (no, it’s not a horror movie). The cast, comprised of some of some of the prettiest rising-star actors in the game right now (just look a the pictures!), were all in attendance at the MVFF screening along with their incredibly excited director, who was all smiles during the audience Q&A. “I was really excited to direct [and] talk to actors the way I’d like a director to talk to me,” Lowell beamed. “That was probably the thing I was most thrilled about. That, and not having to go through hair and makeup in the morning.” Comparisons to the king of all hangout movies, The Big Chill, are inevitable, and Lowell didn’t shy away from acknowledging the influence of Kasdan’s film, which has a strikingly similar premise. “[My co-writer Mohit Narang] and I obsessed over every conceivable reunion [movie], to see what people did right and wrong. The Big Chill is obviously the big tentpole film for [this kind of movie], which is why everyone comes back to it. It’s a film that you watch when you’re sick because it makes you feel good and right about the world.”

Worlds Collide…Over Cocktails

After the dual screenings of At Middleton and Beside Still Waters, the buzzing crowds and proud filmmakers met again at the Tiburon Tavern just down the road to schmooze, booze, and enjoy delectable bites of delicious food (the coffee-coated cheese was curious, yet excellent). Andy Garcia and the Beside Stll Waters cast were happy to mingle, keeping the good vibes flowing along with the bubbly. Lowell and Rodgers, both elated to have their films so well-received, shared their experiences and a big, congratulatory hug.

Stiller Closes Out With Mitty

MVFF closed out big with what looks to be one of the most visually striking films of the year, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Ben Stiller unsurprisingly drew a blitz of media and fan attention when he arrived at the CinéArts@Sequoia theater to present his passion project, about an office worker (played by Stiller himself) who lives in picturesque fantasy worlds represented onscreen beautifully by Stiller and DP Stuart Dryburgh (The Piano). After the screening, Stiller was given the Mill Valley Award and then headed down the street to San Rafael’s beautiful Elk’s Lodge where everyone–from the hard-working festival staff, to the filmmakers, to industry people, to the excited festival-goers–celebrated as the wonderful 11-day festival came to a close.

But wait…that’s not all! We’ve still got a ton of content coming out of the festival, so stay tuned in the next few days for more MVFF goodness!

Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave, and the Unexpected Guest

Of all the films in the exceedingly strong MVFF lineup, none have generated the momentum and near-universal acclaim of Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, based on the autobiography of Solomon Northup, a free black man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841. McQueen and stars Chiwetel Ejiofor (who plays Northup) and Lupita Nyong’o took the stage in front of a full house at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center to answer the questions of the audience, who were still reeling after seeing the gut-wrenching film.

“I wanted to make a film about slavery because I felt, within the cannon of film, this particular subject hadn’t been tackled,” professed a straight-faced McQueen. “Everybody knows Anne Frank’s diary. Every school should have 12 Years a Slave (the book) on their curriculum. That’s my aim with this film.”

During the Q&A session, something very special happened, though few noticed it. The mobile microphone that had been floating around the theater from person to person wound up in the hands of Fruitvale Station director and Bay Area native, Ryan Coogler, one of the brightest young directors in the game. Funny thing is, very few audience members seemed to recognize Coogler, though he didn’t seem to pay that any mind at all. With wide-eyed curiosity, eagerness, and humility, Coogler–amongst a sea of weighty questions about slavery–chose instead to ask McQueen about filmmaking technique, specifically his proclivity for doing one-shot takes as opposed to traditional coverage.

“I don’t do coverage,” McQueen explained to the intently focused Coogler. “For me, it’s a waste of time because I know what I want.” It’s this confident, assertive, no-bull attitude that so many great auteurs share, and in that moment between McQueen and Coogler, I could sense the future of cinema getting just a little bit brighter.

A Dark Teen Idol Returns with a Powerhouse Performance

No red carpet arrival at MVFF could match the energy of Jared Leto’s. The most likely explanation for the fervor is that he’s one of the dreamiest cinema dreamboats of the past 20 years, but in his new film, Dallas Buyers Club (his first film in four or five years), he proves once again that he’s much too talented to be reduced to just another pretty face.

Based on a true story, the film (you know, the one Matthew McConaughey lost a bunch of weight for) follows Ron Woodruff (McConaughey), a bull-riding man’s man who was diagnosed as being HIV positive and subsequently waged pharmaceutical war on the FDA and other companies in the ’80s in hopes to make alternative treatments available for HIV-positive patients. Leto plays Rayon, a transsexual, HIV-positive business partner of Ron’s who’s got sass and hustle for days. Though McConaughey is likely to get an Academy Award nomination for his turn as Woodruff, Leto is equally deserving of a supporting nod, with a performance so lived-in and remarkable it’ll make you wish he’d quit 30 Seconds to Mars (that rock band of his) and come back to acting for us full-time.

Leto stayed in character even when off-set, walking around with Rayon’s leggings, lipstick, and clothes on. “It was interesting how people treated me differently,” Leto said in the post-screening Q&A session. “Every glance somebody gave me, every time I had an encounter, every time a grip offered his hand when I stepped out of the van…it ultimately helped me deliver a much better performance.”

John Wells Turns the Tables

One of the best things about film festivals are the Q&A’s; everyday people like you and me get to pry the brains of some of the most talented filmmakers in the business. Director John Wells, however, flipped the script on the MVFF Q&A crowd–who had just finished watching his new film, August: Osage County–by asking them questions.

“Did you think it was funny?” Wells asked, earnestly, which was met by an emphatic, unanimous “yes” and a smattering of applause from the smiling festival-goers. Wells was likely concerned whether the film’s humor came through or not because the film–based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name by Tracy Letts, who also wrote the screenplay–revolves around a family tragedy and crises. The feuding women of the Weston family–played by Meryl Streep as the drug-addled matriarch, and Julia Roberts, Julianne Nicholson and Juliette Lewis as Streep’s daughters–are brought together after years of separation to their old Oklahoma home after receiving devastating news about their father, Beverly (Sam Shepard).

Wells went further with his questioning, asking the audience members who were familiar with the play if there was something they missed from the stage version that he cut from his screen adaptation. When several audience members voiced their preference for the play’s ending (which is only slightly different), Wells admitted their feedback could have an effect on the final cut of the film. “I actually have to lock the film by Monday or Tuesday next week, which is why I’m asking these questions!”

When asked about the on-screen relationship between Streep and Roberts and how they approached their roles as mother and daughter, Wells explained just how significant their mother-daughter chemistry is to the story. “One of the themes of the film is, for better or for worse, we become our parents. We reach a moment in our adult lives at which we have to decide what we’re going to use and what we’re not going to use.”

Blues Bad-Asses Rock Sweetwater

In celebration of late Blues guitar legend Mike Bloomfield and the new film detailing his life, Sweet Blues (which played at MVFF), music fans piled into Mill Valley’s historic Sweetwater Music Hall to listen to some of the baddest Blues on the planet played by some veteran virtuosos and some old friends of Bloomfield’s. Amongst the music marvels were Conan O’Brien cohort Jimmy Vivino, Bay Area Blues veteran Elvin Bishop, and harmonica master Charlie Musselwhite. The tiny, excellent-sounding venue was packed shoulder to shoulder with elated music lovers swaying as one, a perfect way to unwind and a perfect lead-in to what’s sure to be a killer final two days at the festival.

Stay tuned to Way Too Indie for all the news coming out of the festival this weekend, including coverage of the directors panel (Ryan Coogler, Steve McQueen, JC Chandor, Scott Cooper, John Wells), capsule reviews, interviews, photo galleries, and much more!

On New Year’s Day 2009, Oscar Grant, a black 22-year-old Bay Area resident was pulled off a BART train and taken into custody by a police officer. Unarmed and defenseless, he was shot in the back and killed on the Fruitvale BART station train platform in front of dozens of passengers. The incident was captured on a cell phone camera and went viral, making national news. The shocking footage opens director Ryan Coogler‘s debut feature, Fruitvale Station, a dramatization of Oscar Grant’s last day on earth which aims to humanize the shamefully under-discussed news story by spotlighting quiet, ostensibly meaningless moments in his final hours. This intimate, personal perspective on Oscar’s story illuminates the magnitude and cultural significance of his death in a way no news story ever could.

The decision to open the film with the raw footage is brilliant, providing weighty context for every scene that follows. After the clip, we loop back from New Year’s Day to New Year’s Eve and the beginning of Oscar’s (Michael B. Jordan) day. He’s bickering with his girlfriend, Sophina (Melonie Diaz) in their bedroom, trying to convince her that a recent affair was a one-time-only mistake. Diaz and Jordan have real chemistry, and their speech dynamic feels natural. When their daughter Tatiana (Ariana Neal) knocks on the door, and Oscar hurries to hide a zip of weed before letting her in. He clearly ain’t no saint, but who is?

Coogler’s unobtrusive camera follows Oscar throughout his day as we’re introduced to the pile of mistakes he’s accumulated. He’s lost his job at the grocery store, he’s an ex-convict (which we discover in an unforgettable flashback scene), and he’s got an explosive temper, but he clearly loves his family and is trying hard to shake his demons for their sake. His life is a mess, but he’s determined to clean it up.

Jordan respects the role and convinces us that he was born to do it. He embraces the ugliness of his mean streak while convincing us that he’s a caring family man deep down, a challenge that would be easily flubbed by most young actors. He’s got the chops to be truly great. Octavia Spencer is characteristically captivating as Oscar’s mother, Wanda Grant, a soft-spoken, caring matriarch with an exhausted patience for his bullshit (she’ll never forget how Oscar going to jail affected her granddaughter.) Still, she loves her son, so when he tells her that he and Sophina are going to San Francisco to watch the fireworks she thoughtfully suggests they take BART instead of driving.

Coogler’s passion for his subjects is felt throughout the film, and he shows that he’s a director of taste and discipline. The key to the film’s success is making sure we get to know Oscar as a person, and he keeps his priorities straight. There are occasional moments of high drama that jar the tone of realism (Tatiana clairvoyantly asking her dad not to get on the BART train is totally unnecessary), and the post-Fruitvale scenes feel a little bloated, but for the most part Coogler makes all the right moves.

Returning to the titular train station for the film’s third act is as terrifying as you’d imagine. Watching the raw footage the first time was hard enough, but now we feel like we know Oscar inside and out, which makes the reenactment of his death simply earth-shattering. The fact that this dramatization is somehow more gut-wrenching than the raw footage is a testament to the power of cinema.

When I got out of the San Francisco press screening for Fruitvale Station, all I wanted to do was rush home, kiss my wife, and tell her I love her. I darted out of the theater in a panic, a sense of urgency compelling me to walk faster, faster, faster. I wanted to get home so bad I could burst. Then, I remembered something that stopped me cold. My ride home? A BART train. Fruitvale Station will rattle you to the core.

At 22 years old, Oscar Grant was shot and killed at the Fruitvale BART Station by an Oakland police officer on New Year’s Day 2009. The incident was captured on video and the unsettling footage subsequently went viral, making it a national news story. Despite the tragic, upsetting, and confounding nature of the shooting, Oscar’s story failed to make the social impact that it should have. First time director Ryan Coogler’s recreation of Oscar’s last day on earth, Fruitvale Station, aims to spark the discussions about justice, loss, family, and empathy that the original headlines weren’t able to by reminding us that Oscar Grant isn’t merely a symbol—he was a human being, a father, a son, a lover, and a friend to many.

We spoke to Ryan in a tiny roundtable interview the day after the film premiered in Oakland. He talked to us about his initial reaction to the incident, being from the Bay Area, the support the film received from Forrest Whitaker, the amazing reaction the film’s been getting from audiences, and more. Check out the edited transcript below.

Read More Fruitvale Station Interviews:

Michael B. Jordan and Octavia Spencer
Melonie Diaz
Ahna O’Reilly

At what point did you realize you wanted to make this movie?
Almost immediately following the incident. I don’t think that’s a rare thing. Artists, we tend to be inspired by things that strike a deep emotion in us. If a photographer sees something that moves him or her, they’ll take a photo. If somebody goes through an intense experience and they happen to be a musician, they’ll write a song about that. My outlet, my art is being a filmmaker. I often see things that move me in different ways and I wonder what it would be like in terms of cinematic structure. I saw what happened immediately after Oscar being killed, and it made me realize that a film could possibly offer insight into why these types of things are tragic, and maybe that insight could trigger a discussion that could help to make these type of things happen less frequently.

This film presents a story that the news can’t. Talk a bit about your decision to follow Oscar on his last day.
It’s not a new idea. It’s a type of cinematic structure that has existed for a long time and one that I found effective, especially in independent films. I can read off a list of films that do that. In American cinema, there’s Do the Right Thing, United 93 by Paul Greengrass. You can look at 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days, which is a Romanian film. You can look at Elephant by Gus Van Sant, a deconstruction of a school massacre. Something that these films have in common is that even though the time is compressed, you feel like you’re hanging out with the characters and you get to know them in the intimate moments and the meaningless moments. You go on a journey in that day, and days in themselves have a scripted feel to them. There’s a beginning, a middle, and an end. A person wakes up, goes to bed, and wakes up, hopefully. That structure isn’t a rare thing. I had that idea in mind for the film.

There were so many inherent ironies in [the incident that I found] when I was researching—the fact that it was New Year’s Eve, the most optimistic holiday on the planet. People are so forward-looking. Everybody’s being introspective around that time on how they can make their lives better or how they can make a resolution that’s going to fix things for this new clean slate. I found out that it was his mom’s birthday, which is crazily ironic. His mom was born on New Year’s Eve and his whole day was pretty much spent preparing for one of the most important women in his life. I found out that he had recently been released from prison, so that was added emphasis to the time and the New Year. I found out he spent most of his day with his girl and his daughter. Tracking those movements, it made perfect sense to tell the story in terms of that.

We seldom see any films about the East Bay. Do you plan on exploring more stories based here?
Absolutely. I live in Richmond and I don’t plan to move. I feel extremely inspired by home. I love home. There’s a history of talented filmmakers coming from this place and a history of amazing stories [coming] out of this place. You think about where the Bay Area sits in terms of its contributions to every landscape, be it the political landscape, the technological landscape, music, athletics. It’s a high representation in terms of contribution. In the filmmaking landscape, it’s not as high as other metropolitan communities like New York or Los Angeles. I would love more than anything to continue to tell Bay Area stories.

I think it’s a unique place with a lot of stories. I think it’s the best place in the world. I’m partial to it, but…It’s such a mash-up of cultures meeting here, right on the Pacific Ocean. I didn’t realize how good I had it in the Bay Area until I moved. I know the difference between somebody who’s Cambodian, Vietnamese, Filipino, Chinese. I knew these things before I was in Kindergarten. I knew that every Hispanic person isn’t Mexican. Racial tensions exist here just like anywhere else, but it is different. I came up with white friends and Hispanic friends, all in the same neighborhood. You see multi-ethnic relationships like Oscar and Sophina’s. It’s not a weird thing here. It’s who we are. There’s acceptance of people with different sexual orientations or political views. It’s an interesting culture that deserves documentation, deserves stories to be told about it.

Can you describe the research process? How long did it take, and was it difficult?
In terms of time, it’s tough to say. Things have been moving fast with the film. We shot the film less than a year ago. At the process [of making the film], research was all I had. I had a friend who was a lawyer on a civil case who I had met when I was in film school, and I was helping [him] organize the footage [for the case] because I knew how to edit. I was lining up footage for them to present in court, so I had access to all the footage. I knew I was going to make a film about [Oscar], and when it was time for me to start building the script, I asked for [every court document] they could legally share with me. I had the testimonies of the police officers, the testimonies of Oscar’s friends and family. From there, I could build out the scope of that day in terms of what happened and people’s perspectives on what went down. That’s where it started for me. I built the first script before I had access to his family. Once I got access, his character started to take on a three-dimensional quality.

How did you feel when they announced that you won the audience award at Sundance?
It was a very surreal experience. It [was] not something I expected at all. I was honored…to even be accepted to that incredible festival and be amongst that energy of so many people who love films, especially since we’d been supported by the Sundance institute. When they called the film up for awards…it’s a mind-numbing experience. I was really, really humbled by the fact that people thought enough of everyone’s work to honor it. Films are made by hundreds of people, so I was just happy and proud of all the work everybody else put in.

Talk a bit about how the film’s specificity makes it so universal and relatable to everybody, even people all the way over in France at Cannes.
That was a goal of mine. It was my goal that this film could be shared with people who had never come in contact with someone like Oscar. Often times, people like that become police officers in communities that are full of Oscar Grants! Often times, police officers come from places that are extremely homogenous—predominately white, predominately affluent. They want to be a cop in a city like Oakland, but they never spend five minutes with somebody like Oscar Grant! My goal with this film was to make it so specific about this character so that somebody who would never come in close contact with somebody [like that] could see a bit of themselves in that character. We focused on the human relationships. Everybody knows what it’s like to have a mom. Everybody knows what it’s like to have somebody they love. A lot of people know what it’s like to have a daughter. A lot of people know what it’s like to be 22 years old, trying to figure stuff out. We hope that in making it specific to Bay Area culture that people can see a little bit of their own culture in it. A lot of my favorite films are from places I’ve never been. I love A Separation by Asghar Farhadi, [which takes place in] Tehran. I’ve never been to Tehran! It’s very specific, but at the same time, when that couple is arguing about what’s going to happen to their kids, I’m right there with them. I think, through specificity, through being honest with things that you know, [the story] can become universal. I hope that it works for our film.

What was the casting process like?
It’s an amazing cast. A lot of it was just good fortune—I’m blessed. Forrest Whitaker and Nina Yang greenlit the film, so that added a lot of validity [to the project.] If we wanted to go out to an actor, it helped to have an Oscar winning humanitarian behind the film. I had the support of the Sundance Institute, which was an added plus. I had Michael B. Jordan in mind very early on. I knew I was writing it for him. In my mind, he wasn’t just the best person for the job, but in many ways the only person for the job. I went to him when I felt the script was ready to be shared and he agreed to do it. I met with him because my style of working is [that I get] very close to the people I work with, so I wanted to make sure that we got along. I fell in love with him as soon as I met him. We looked hard for Sophina. We saw a lot of talented Latina actresses. Melonie was somebody who was brought up by the Sundance Institute. We Skyped and talked about the script and made the decision that she was the best person for the role. The San Francisco Film Society came onboard and one of the ways they supported us was through a program called Off the Page where they pay money for the actors to come into the Bay Area to get the script on its feet. They brought Mike and Melonie out to get a feel for the Bay Area, the slang, and how we talk in the East Bay. We needed someone for the mom role, which is a very important role. My agent said, “What about Octavia?” She had just won her Oscar, so I was like, “Aw man, you’re crazy!” We have no money, and she’s not coming out to Oakland to make a movie at my grandma’s house. [We sent her the script] and she ended up signing on.

How was it meeting Oscar’s family for the first time?
His mom is the executive of the state. It was moving meeting her for the first time because I realized how young she was. When I saw pictures of her in news clips, she seemed like she was a little older. I met her while she was young, so that was heartbreaking. I realized how many moms bury their sons in this community, whether it’s police brutality, black on black crime…that was on my mind. Meeting Sophina and Tatiana was…you’re standing in front of this person who’s been through these things you’ve heard about in the news. You realize that it’s real.

Fruitvale Station opens in theaters this Friday.

]]> http://waytooindie.com/interview/interview-ryan-coogler-of-fruitvale-station/feed/ 0 http://waytooindie.com/interview/interview-michael-b-jordan-and-octavia-spencer-of-fruitvale-station/ http://waytooindie.com/interview/interview-michael-b-jordan-and-octavia-spencer-of-fruitvale-station/#respond Mon, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://waytooindie.com/?p=13319 We spoke to Michael B. Jordan (The Wire, Friday Night Lights), who plays Oscar in the film, and Octavia Spencer (The Help) who plays Oscar’s mother, Wanda Grant, in a tiny roundtable interview the day after the film’s premiere in Oakland. They spoke to us about their reactions to the shooting, meeting Oscar’s family, learning […]]]>

We spoke to Michael B. Jordan (The Wire, Friday Night Lights), who plays Oscar in the film, and Octavia Spencer (The Help) who plays Oscar’s mother, Wanda Grant, in a tiny roundtable interview the day after the film’s premiere in Oakland. They spoke to us about their reactions to the shooting, meeting Oscar’s family, learning to curb their expectations in the movie industry, and why the film is able to touch the hearts of people across the globe. Check out the edited transcript below.

Read More Fruitvale Station Interviews:

Ryan Coogler
Ahna O’Reilly
Melonie Diaz

Before you were approached for the project, how knowledgeable were you on the Oscar Grant story?
Octavia Spencer: I did hear about it when it happened, but to put it in context, that was also the year that Barack Obama had been elected, so I was in more of a jubilant state of mind and decided since I was in that celebratory state of mind, I wasn’t really going to allow anything else to permeate that. I didn’t, unfortunately, revisit it until it was brought up as a project.

Michael B. Jordan: Same here. I remember being on my laptop and somebody posted the video on my wall. I remember looking at it and being disgusted by it, watching it over and over again trying to make it make sense, rationalize it, or justify it, but there was no justification. I felt helpless and a little bit angry. It feels like there’s nothing you can do in the moment, so life goes on. Four years later, this project pops up and I had to jump at the opportunity. I felt a certain responsibility to get the story out there.

What attracted you to the project?
Michael B. Jordan: The opportunity to express [myself] as a person of color, as a person from the inner-city who’s been put in situations like that before. Also the opportunity to give this guy some of his humanity back that was kind of lost over the [course of the] trial. To tell this guy’s story and hopefully prevent it from happening again.

Octavia Spencer: It resonated with me as a woman. I’m not a mother, but I have nephews who would be contemporaries of Oscar’s and Michael’s. I almost didn’t take the part because when I saw the video I felt that all I had to offer it was anger. Because the Trayvon Martin case was so topical, I felt like anger was the wrong emotion to associate with it because it was so public and it was so volatile an issue here in the Bay Area. My agent made me read the script and I found it refreshing to learn that Ryan Coogler—who is also an African-American male—could have written a movie that was an indictment of our judicial system, an indictment of our public service, but he didn’t. What he did was choose to—as Michael said—restore some of Oscar’s humanity, showing his flaws and showing him doing regular human interaction with his family. That was really profound.

How did you approach the movie already knowing the fate of Oscar Grant?
Michael B. Jordan: Honestly, you have to put yourself in that position. That’s the last 24 hours of his life. His death is such a small fraction of the film. I think the movie is about this young man who’s trying to do right by the people he loves, trying to figure out this thing called life that nobody seems to have the blueprint to. You have to make mistakes. You have to get to know him through the family—through his daughter, through his mom, through Sophina, his best friends—and kind of live in the moment, honestly. That’s all this movie [is]—Oscar’s moments.

Octavia Spencer: It’s acting 101. You can only deal with the given circumstances. Wanda has no idea that her son is going to die at the end of the day. Neither does he. You have to really immerse yourself in the world.

Neither of you have kids, so what did you channel to portray such loving parents?
Octavia Spencer: I am not a parent, but I do have family members that I love. It’s about the truthfulness of the relationship and the bonds that we feel with our family members. That was the toughest part for me. It’s about being true to the relationship.

Michael B. Jordan: I love kids. I’ve got little cousins running around, so I’m always interacting with younger kids. Honestly, I can’t wait to be a dad one day. Sometimes when you deal with so many adults in this industry with ulterior motives it’s like one big chess match. You’re always trying to figure out somebody’s angle. When you’re around a kid who has no bad habits, still learning good from bad, it’s refreshing to be around that. Playing with that relationship was a lot of fun.

How was it when you met Oscar’s family for the very first time?
Michael B. Jordan: My approach was meeting everybody and getting as much information up front, before I started doing this thing. Then, just building this guy up. You have the skeleton, then you have to keep layering up, layering up. By the time we actually started filming, you have a pretty good idea of who this guy is, and then you just live with him throughout the rest of the film. That was my approach.

Octavia Spencer: I second that. We had different windows of opportunity to do that, for me much more limited, but I’m also not carrying the entire film as Michael is. It was important to meet Wanda because there’s only so much you can gleam from the information provided via the internet. Ryan is a prolific researcher and he viewed her a lot, so I was given those tapes. When I actually had the chance to sit down and meet with her and realize that we were so different…those are things you can’t possibly know. It was about trying to emulate the essence of Wanda because I had a truncated window of prep time. I knew all that I needed to know except for those intangibles, and meeting her filled in the blanks.

Michael, you played a character on Friday Night Lights, Vince, who is, similarly to Oscar, trying to turn his life around. What’s it like creating a character over seasons as opposed to a single day, as in Fruitvale Station?
Michael B. Jordan: I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some very talented writers that seem to write human relationships so well. With Vince, it’s a different pace because it’s a longer arc. With this movie…I feel like if you spend a day with anybody, from sunup to sundown, through their day to day routine, you can get a pretty good idea of who somebody is. I think that formula works very well with Oscar because that day was so eventful for him. He interacted with a lot of people that he cared about the most and was putting them in a vast number of situations that show different sides of him. You got a chance to see him when nobody was looking…which I think really defines somebody’s character. Then, you see him through different flashbacks and different tools of storytelling. You got a chance to see this guy when he didn’t have such a handle on his temper. You see him in moments with his daughter. You see all these different, complex sides of this guy all compacted into one day. You try to do the best you can to make him as real as possible. You just want to make it real and relatable.

How do you suppress expectations before you begin a project like this?
Octavia Spencer: You don’t have them! You can’t have expectations because the reality of Fruitvale Station, when you look at all the independents that people shoot—usually, they don’t get to go the festival route. Sometimes, they sit in a can and nobody ever gets to see them. You can’t enter into anything like that with expectations. At least, I don’t.

Michael B. Jordan: From a young age of acting, going to auditions and getting your hopes up all the time…you think you did a good job. “I’m going to get it!” When you’re young, you don’t understand that there are so many other things that come into play. When you have a few letdowns, you start to mentally train yourself to not have expectations. You learn how things work in the system. You realize how not in control you are. Once you understand that, it’s easier for you to put your all into [something], walk away and say, “Whatever happens, happens.”

The film is about a specific community, the East Bay Area, that’s generally unfamiliar to people across the country. Why do you think it touches people across the globe, like it did at Cannes?
Michael B. Jordan: It’s universal. Everybody knows what it’s like to lose a loved one, lose life, or to care about somebody, or to love somebody. [Fruitvale Station] is like a love story in so many ways. It’s about Oscar’s love for his family and his family’s love for [him.] Anybody who’s had a best friend or a mom or a daughter who they care about can relate to somebody being taken away from them. I think when [someone’s] taken away in such a fashion that [Oscar] was, it hits people and they’re affected by it. That’s one of the many themes that people relate to no matter what language you speak or where you’re from.

Octavia Spencer: Absolutely. A mother’s love, a father’s love—those are universal themes. Injustice is a universal theme. We all can understand that and I think that’s why the jargon that might not translate into another language…you still see the human emotion on the screen, and it reads.

Was there a particular scene that you read in the script that made you think, “I really have to do this.”
Octavia Spencer: The script as a whole captured my heart. That’s the other thing that you learn as an actor: Don’t fall in love with scenes! It may not make it to the final cut.

Michael B. Jordan: As a whole, I read the script and I was very moved. I cried while reading, which was not an easy thing to do. Favorite scene? There’s a couple, but probably the prison scene. The scene with the dog I had fun reading and shooting at the same time. After shooting, I thought, “That was one of my favorite scenes.” Those two really jumped out at me.

Octavia Spencer: At my second viewing at Cannes I got the profundity of [the dog scene.] I don’t even know if Ryan intended to do this, but the pitbull is a symbol of fear and terror—marginalized. Then, he’s killed and the driver never slows down. It’s not a stretch to say that the character of Oscar Grant was viewed in the same way. It was this beautiful harbinger use of foreshadowing by Ryan. I just thought it was a dog the first time, but when I saw it the second time, I was like, “It’s a pitbull!” It really affected me. You know, I’m an English major, so you always have to look for, “What’s the metaphor?” and all that stuff. I thought that was very profound.

What has the feedback from people in the Bay Area been?
Octavia Spencer: We just got her last night, but I can tell you the feedback in the theater that we were in was very positive. Usually, when you have Q&A’s, a lot of people leave, but they stayed. I guess time will tell, but gauging from the audience last night it was very positive.

Michael B. Jordan: That was the first time anybody from up here had a chance to see it, so we’re curious to see how it affects the community who lost [Oscar.] Time will tell.

Fruitvale Station opens in theaters this Friday.

]]> http://waytooindie.com/interview/interview-michael-b-jordan-and-octavia-spencer-of-fruitvale-station/feed/ 0 http://waytooindie.com/interview/interview-ahna-oreilly-of-fruitvale-station/ http://waytooindie.com/interview/interview-ahna-oreilly-of-fruitvale-station/#respond Mon, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://waytooindie.com/?p=13324 We spoke to Ahna O’Reilly (The Help) who plays Katie, a girl who meets Oscar by chance, shares a pleasant interaction with him, and later becomes a witness to the horrific shooting in a tiny roundtable interview the day after the film premiered in Oakland. She talked to us about her friendship with The Help […]]]>

We spoke to Ahna O’Reilly (The Help) who plays Katie, a girl who meets Oscar by chance, shares a pleasant interaction with him, and later becomes a witness to the horrific shooting in a tiny roundtable interview the day after the film premiered in Oakland. She talked to us about her friendship with The Help and Fruitvale Station costar Octavia Spencer, her first time watching the film with an audience, shooting at the titular train station, and more. Check out the edited transcript below.

Read More Fruitvale Station Interviews:

Ryan Coogler
Michael B. Jordan and Octavia Spencer
Melonie Diaz

How was the premiere?
It was wonderful. I felt more excited for this premiere in Oakland than any one we’ve had.

How familiar were you with the story of Oscar Grant?
Embarrassingly, not enough. I lived in LA at the time it happened, but my parents still lived here. I remember talking about it with them vaguely. One of the things that is most crazy and upsetting about this is that I didn’t have one conversation with people about it in LA. Most people that see this movie, this is the first they’re going to hear of it. One of the main differences between the premiere last night (in Oakland) and the other premieres we’ve had—at Sundance, at Cannes—is that most of those people had no idea who Oscar Grant was. When I’m talking to people about this movie, it’s rarer that they know who Oscar Grant is. That is tragic.

You don’t work with her on the film, but talk about your friendship with Octavia and how she got you involved with the film.
Octavia and I worked together on The Help, but we actually worked together before that. She and I have been friends for years. She’s one of my best friends. I was working on a film in Savannah, Georgia at the time they were shooting Fruitvale Station. She called me and she said, “Can you come be a part of this movie? We need someone to play this part. Please please please?” I was like, “I would do anything for you!” I read the script and I thought, she’s giving me such a huge gift. She’s acting like I’m doing her this huge favor, but she’s just given me such a gift. Being from the Bay Area, to be a part of telling this story, to be working with such an incredible group of artists—it doesn’t get any better.

Is your character is based on anyone?
Ryan told me that [my character] was a combination of a lot of different people. Because it was a combination of people, I didn’t feel I had to base my character on someone 100 percent real. There wasn’t someone I had to go interview. Because this movie came to me so last minute, I was kind of thrown into it. I watched the Youtube footage, I read up on it, but I was kind of thrown into it, which was perfect, because that’s what it was on the train—everyone was just thrown into that dramatic and heart-wrenching and horrible situation. It worked for me to just show up. The grocery store scene is just someone talking to me out of the blue. I actually had no real preparation to do other than I wanted to do my research on Oscar Grant.

Your scene with Oscar in the grocery store goes a long way in showing what kind of a guy Oscar was.
I think the scene is so lovely in that we see Oscar being a great dad, we see him in this moment with this dog, and then we see him having a total random act of kindness with a stranger, and that is such a beautiful trait in him to just want to lend a hand to a community member. Ryan was talking last night about how a lot of what this movie is about is community. I love that little random act of kindness. I think we’re increasingly closed off to the people around us—we’re always on our phone, we’re not looking up and taking people in. That’s what I’m doing in the scene. I’m totally ignoring him, kind of hoping he’s not going to keep talking to me. That’s how I often feel in life, and I have a sense of shame about it. Why didn’t I just say hello to the person helping me out? Why didn’t I just ask them how their day was going? Those little things matter so much. It shows a beautiful side of [Oscar.]

How was it was it watching the movie for the first time with an audience at Sundance?
[It was] incredible. You could hear a pin drop towards the end of the movie. All you heard was people being emotional. [It] didn’t matter—age, sex, race—everyone was shocked. I was a mess. I was sitting next to Michael, gripping him. I knew [the film] would be powerful, but what Ryan did with it really bowled me over. When you have a film going to Sundance, the fact that the film is going to Sundance is exciting, so I was already like, “This is great! We’re here! We made it!” I had no idea [the film] would have the life that it has. I think everyone’s pinching themselves, and it couldn’t happen to a greater group of people who are in this for the purest of reasons—to tell honest, socially relevant stories.

How was it working with Ryan Coogler?
The first scene I shot was the grocery scene, and it was a night shoot. I remember being in [the store] and seeing how he was interacting and talking with everybody and thinking I would literally serve coffee to people on set on his next movie. I want to be around him. He has such a quiet, powerful presence. I think one of the greatest qualities a director can have is finding the balance between being collaborative and wanting to hear everybody’s ideas, but also having a very clear vision. He totally embodied that.

(On the film’s script)
I think it’s brilliant that he started the movie with the real footage. Even if you’ve never heard of Oscar Grant, you know how it ends. The fact that he keeps us glued to the screen, knowing how it’s going to end—that’s an incredible accomplishment.

What was it like filming at Fruitvale Station?
That was one of the most powerful days of work I will probably ever have. On any day of work, you get there and it’s a little chaotic. Who’s going to hair and makeup? Who’s doing what? People are being rushed to where they need to go. Then, we all got [to Fruitvale Station] and it’s like, oh yeah, we’re here. We can see the bullet hole. Ryan took a moment of silence and a prayer circle. It was very, very powerful. Then, you have to get going because you have only until sunlight to make it happen. You’re dealing with a moving train. Those are technically difficult things to have to shoot. It was wild on many levels.

Not all of the train stuff was shot on the same day. The interior train stuff we did down at the Bart repair station. When we were on the Fruitvale Station platform it was a separate shoot.

Why is this film, about such a specific Bay Area community, able to touch people across the world?
I personally wondered how many Europeans watching [the film would know] what Oakland, California is. They know San Francisco, but will they know Oakland? It’s a really American story about a very specific place in our country. You wonder how it will translate [and if] the humor will resonate with them. When [the screening] was over, it got a 10 minute standing ovation. That was incredible. For this [tiny movie]—in terms of budget and scale—[to touch] people from around the world…I’m speechless thinking about it. It’s a universal story. Ryan is asking us, the audience, to think about how we treat each other as human beings. [Can we] erase our ideas about what you are because you’re black or you’re from Oakland or you’re 22 or you were in prison? Can we try to push all that aside and try to look at the heart of this person? People from anywhere should be able to think about that. I think that’s why it succeeds.

The French know about the American South. That’s something people have ideas about. They know about New York, Boston. Oakland? I doubt [it.]

Fruitvale Station opens in theaters this Friday.

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