a SIFF 2007 review

Crafting the Perfect Evening

Lajos Koltai on Color, Casting and Making a Movie with Love

The movie Evening is a star-studded event picture unlike just about anything else this summer. Staring Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Vanessa Redgrave, Natasha Richardson, Eileen Atkins, Glenn Close and Meryl Streep it is a film dominated by some of the best female acting talent there is, its story (based upon the best-selling book by Susan Minot and co-adapted by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours Michael Cunningham) of a woman remembering her most sacred love on her deathbed one sure to tug at the heartstrings of many an audience member.

During the Seattle International Film Festival I got the opportunity to sit down with director Lajos Koltai (Fateless) to talk about the picture. The following are some of the highlights from our conversation.

Claire Danes and Mamie Gummer in Focus Features' Evening

Sara Michelle Fetters: Congratulations on the film. Talk a little bit about the relationships in this film. What was it that drew you to them? Where their elements of your own life you called upon for inspiration?

Lajos Koltai: Everyone asks me so much about the two sisters’ relationship in the film. I always say, my sister and me, we are always having totally different memories about the same things. And that is a great base on the tension that is going on, always, again and again and again, between [Toni and Natasha].

When I talk to my sister I’ll say, “Remember that beautiful Christmas and we were setting the table?” And I would recall things from my memory, and she would say, “Why are you talking about that? It wasn’t like that.” It was totally opposite. We remember differently.

So Michael used this memory about my sister [in the script] and we changed a little bit the sisters’ relationship to use this. But that really was the only thing. We didn’t really change the script. It was a good script and, when we change something, two days latter we always end up putting it back.

SMF: A lot this film takes place in some pretty grey areas, the realm between life and death; sleep and awake; fantasy and reality. How hard a line is that to walk?

LK: That is absolutely right. Yes. That’s where the movie is.

Everything we do in this [film] is to follow Ann Lord’s memory. And, actually, I like to use this freedom of what she has in her memory because she is under total control of the medicine so she is going in and out, in and out, all of the time. So, I wanted to use this [device] very much so it would become completely natural, so when we step back into that other area fifty years ago at this wedding the audience could understand where we were.

We think of her room as having no walls. She has no walls there, just her memory. So free. She’s just trying to reach those moments, let’s call them the “Golden Moments,” and to collect them all to her in her bed. We stay with her, in her bed and in her memories, and we wanted to make this natural for people to follow.

SMF: It seemed to me color was a very important device for you to use in order to make sure the audience knew what was going on.

LK: Yes. Very true. We used a special color in the room, made it kind of a colorless room. Not much happening in there anymore because, what is now happening in there? She is trying to say goodbye to life. Everything else is just life, out of this bed. So, when you step [out] of it, you see the grass, you see the water, you see the sky; everything is just bright and fresh and beautiful because this is her youth. She is seeing her youth.

So, after a while, after two times you go in and out of her memory, you know where we are, what time period. It’s not a flashback anymore; it’s just a step out of [her] memory or a step inside [her] memory. It works beautifully, and no one has confusion.

Meryl Streep and Vanessa Redgrave in Focus Features' Evening

SMF: This floating between life and death is such a literary concept, and yet you do manage to make it very cinematic and easy to grasp.

LK: That’s because I was looking for a way to make sure to find a way to do this that stays focused on [Ann], which is what was most important. Of course, there is some poetry behind it. You always want to find how you can lift the story up over the earth just a little bit, in the air and not on the ground, and that is what my goal was with this.

I could use my background as a cinematographer to do this. Because, if you have these great actors and if you have this great location, as we did, then how can I make the visual equal to them? So, that is what our goal was, as you said, to try and find the right beautiful image that works with the writing so you can center and entertain the audience. I think that is what we do.

SMF: Speaking of great actors, you did manage to get some spectacular ones for this now didn’t you? That had to make going to work each day a lot easier.

LK: Everybody came immediately [to this]. They loved to do it. And, the big thing, was we wanted to find out how we can make the movie [with] love. So, we made the whole movie with love, from the morning to the evening, and no matter how hard the day would be we never say goodbye to each other with anger. It was always with love.

But nothing easy. Not even to wake up is not an easy. Making that first step no matter what it is never an easy thing to do. Always had some complication. Always had some problem. What looked like on paper the most easy day would become most difficult day. So, making [Evening] not ever easy.

Natasha Richardson and Toni Collette in Focus Features' Evening

What was easy was we had this atmosphere which create good work. The actors would always say I made an atmosphere [for them] that was very easy to be in. They would say, “You would always give to us and you never left us.” I think, they say this because I make [the film] in kind of an old way. I’m never behind the monitor, I never watching the monitor; I am watching them at the camera. Always. And I never have the headphone on I listen to them with my ear, and if I want something I go to them and I hold the hand and I talk to them [directly].

And they loved it. They don’t even believe I do that. And this was with everybody. Not just Vanessa or with Claire or with Meryl, but with everybody. And they like it. They like it very much to go this way because it is a very personal way to work. So, it was easy to be together. The movie was not easy, but the movie was easy to make together. That is the answer.

Additional Links:

-  Evening review by Sara Michelle Fetters