It's been more than four decades Paul Schrader and Richard Gere collaborated on the groundbreaking work American gigolo. Some forty years after showing audiences the power of a well-tailored Giorgio Armani suit, the director and star have reunited for Oh, Canada.
The film, which will premiere in the Cannes Film Festival Competition and is being sold out by Arclight Films and WME Independent, sees Gere play Leonard Fife, a renowned documentary filmmaker who, while dealing with a terminal illness, decides to participate in a documentary to tell the truth about his own life while his wife and old film partner Emma (Uma Thurman) listening in the wings. The story flashes back to his younger, untethered self (Jacob Elordi), who stumbles upon a career as a documentary filmmaker and travels to Canada under the auspices to avoid the Vietnam draft, only to find himself running away from even more responsibilities. The story is about morality, mortality and inheritance, and the inherent conflict therein.
The film is based on the book Forgetby Russell Banks, who also wrote the novel tribulation, of which Schrader made Nick Nolte's 1997 film of the same name. While Schrader adapted Forget, Banks became ill and died before the screenplay was completed.
For his part, Gere began working on the film about six months after his father, whom he had cared for, died at the age of 100, an experience that Gere says influenced his performance. “With any work of art, whatever it may be, you just want people to see themselves in it,” says Gere The Hollywood Reporter. “Specifically, I don't have an ax to grind; it's not like people should take this from it or take that. You want people to see themselves and be open to it.”
Come on CannesGere spoke THR about working with Schrader: “Right now he's making the films he wants, and he's very clear about that.”
You last worked with Paul Schrader American gigolo. How did he approach you to collaborate on Oh, Canada?
Paul and I have met over the years and are always happy when we see each other. He called me out of the blue and said, “Look, I have this script and it's important to me and I want you to do it.” And I said great. He said it came from Forgetthe novel, and I know he had a good relationship with the author. [He’d] has made at least one other film of his work. I said, “I'd like to read it.” I did, and we started talking and then jumped in.
What did you like about the prospect of playing Leonard?
Everyone has secrets, no matter how open we think we are. At a certain age you want to close the loop and be honest, especially with the people you are close to. I definitely think we can all relate to that. I liked that he had to do this, that he had a camera with him to tell the truth, a theme we talk about a lot in the film. He wants this filmmaking process to be as honest as he wants it to be. There is the meta-universe of Paul and me and our 40+ year history and the nature of creating an idea of ourselves. How much of that [idea] is empirically true? And does it really matter?
As a documentary filmmaker, did Leonard influence the way you played him?
I'm currently editing a documentary, and you're really editing reality, even on a subconscious level. You make decisions about what you photograph and what you put in the film. So it is not entirely different from a narrative film. You still make choices and you still have an idea of what you are going to present during those two hours. Sometimes it can be radically different than you thought: your idea of what you want to share and tell. That level of honesty comes from the same place as your artistic impulse to find something that is real, interesting and challenging, both for the filmmaker and for someone seeing the film. I think Leonard is pretty clear about that when he says, “Look, I was shooting this movie and I didn't know what I was doing.” It just turns out that it was an important documentary about Monsanto and Dow and Agent Orange. He got into it, but that doesn't make it any less important just because he got into it. At the stage of his life he is in, he has an idea of himself. There is certainly a view that you can only be honest if you completely abandon the ego or any conceptual idea of yourself. And I can't say he is [honest] in this movie, but he tries.
Is it useful to have an off-script text when it comes to performance?
When you read a novel that spawned a movie, a certain flavor and texture will become part of you as you play the movie. The book is rich; it is very structured and contains a lot of material that would be impossible to get into in the film. You're still making a movie, so you have an hour and a half of experience. But [having a book] will fill you with more material and probably make you feel more confident about where you're coming from in the character, which is always great. The more you can relax and trust that you know this man, the better the job will be. There were things I brought to Paul and I said, “What about this?” He's obviously already thought about a lot of things, but we were still structuring the 78 or 80 pages [of script]. And that's exactly what the movie has become: he's at a point where he knows how many pages he has and he budgets how to make these movies and makes them exactly how he wants without any control.
Jacob Elordi plays a young Leonard in the film. Did you have any conversations before filming about how you would play the character, albeit at different points in his life?
No, we haven't really talked about it. Honestly, he just wanted to watch me and just pick up on what I was doing because that would inform him of what he should do in the flashbacks. You could also watch my early films, when I was around the same age, just to see me as a young man playing characters in films. We haven't done much together, but he's great at it. There was one take where we were in the same take, but it's almost invisible: I walk into the take and it walks out. But I loved him in the movie, and I was excited to see the movie and see what he did.
What about Leonard's relationship with Emma? Have you talked to Uma Thurman about what that on-screen relationship – which is both a marriage and a work partnership – would look like?
That's a more developed relationship and was more of a process. I've known Uma since she was 30 years old, so we have quite a history together. We went with the idea that, yes, Leonard is more of a dominant personality, but Emma has to be strong. She is the partner and producer in this and she is not a number. We all wanted Emma to be a strong woman, even though she might not ask the hard questions. She didn't know everything I told the interviewer, and it's clear to her that I'm doing it for her. I want her to sit there and listen to it and watch it.
What excited you about the prospect of working with Paul Schrader again after forty years?
It has been 45 years since we worked together with Paul. We are in a different phase of our lives and can use what we have learned. Paul is probably 80, and I'm 74 – we have some perspective on things at this point. So I knew it would be interesting for us.
My father died about a year ago, about six months before we started shooting, and he was a month shy of 101. I drew a lot from him and my relationship with him, and from what I saw in him and his mind and body while he must be that age. It's incredible clarity and then disorientation. My father lived with me. Having your father in a wheelchair and having to deal with the toilet and dealing with the disorientation and occasionally drifting away – even though he was funny and singing and very involved in the current conversation until the end – was cathartic for me to get him involved. this process.
Have you noticed a change in Paul's direction or working style?
Paul knows what he is doing. Right now he's making the films he wants, and he's very clear about that. He hires actors who also know what they're doing, so there's not a lot of chatter or in-depth communication on set. He trusts the actors to do their thing. I came up to him at one point and said, “Paul, do you have anything else you want to try with this?” And he said, “No, no.” (Laughs.) I said, “Okay, okay.” He knows the parameters of what he wants, and he writes his script knowing that. After he cut the film, he said, “Richard, I used every setup.” He was very proud: not one scene had been deleted. Every camera setup was used, there was no waste. This is how he makes these difficult films for a [low] price. There is no waste and we moved very quickly, which is good. I've been making independent films for years on a very minuscule budget, and I like working that way. This worked out well for me. I was happy.