Get Frank
Talking Crime and Noir with the Man Behind The Lookout

Although I was sitting in a hotel room in downtown Seattle's luxurious Fairmont Olympic Hotel to discuss Oscar-nominated screenwriter Scott Frank’s directorial debut The Lookout, I couldn’t help but word vomit out my exuberance for the man’s incredible script for the 1991 Kenneth Branagh classic Dead Again. Without a doubt, this reincarnation thriller is one of my absolute favorites, a true stand-out I’ve probably had the pleasure of watching a good dozen or so times.

Scott Frank, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Matthew Goode on the set of Miramax Films' The Lookout

“Thank you,” said Frank hiding behind a humongous smile. “I have to say, more people talk to me about Dead Again then just about any other movie I have ever written. Whenever I speak somewhere it is always about Dead Again. Always. Which is something of a surprise. I love that movie and I had a great time making [it] but I don’t remember it being particularly successful.”

We laugh at this thought for a moment before I remind the filmmaker some of the best pictures in history weren’t all that successful either. So why has this one still held its luster 16 years later? “I think it has had quite a DVD life,” says Frank matter-of-factly. “People have seen it and discovered it after the fact. But people want to talk about that movie more then anything else. It’s just funny.”

It was at this point, with more than a couple of nasty glares from the usually pleasant publicist pointed in my direction, I decided we need to actually get back to why were here and so I asked Frank where the idea for the noir crime thriller The Lookout first came from. “The script actually began life in the mid-90’s,” he answers. “I had pitched it to Amblin before they became Dreamworks, so that’s how long ago.”

“But, I had the idea long before that. I had a character in my mind. I had known someone peripherally whom had a traumatic head injury and they became an entirely different person and I was fascinated with the idea one day you could be one person and the next day you wake up another person. You could remember who you were but you’re not that person anymore and you’re dealing with this new person who is just getting in the way. You are completely hobbled by your own self and I thought that was a fascinating idea for a character.”

Interesting stuff, but what does any of this have to do with robbing banks, the central suspenseful dynamic inside the director’s picture?  “I’d read quite a bit of stuff about these little banks,” explains Frank. “These little farm banks that would get these large cash deposits a couple of times a year. They were in the middle of nowhere. Not the most high security locations.”

“For some reason, these two stories became one story in my mind as I thought what a great idea it would be to locate that guy inside a thriller. He becomes an unbelievable underdog and there is something really interesting about that. And that’s how it was born.”

Hollywood is full of great ideas, however, many of them never to be made into motion picture, exactly the fate it looked like The Lookout was headed for. Over the years countless directors and actors were associated with the project (including Leonardo DiCaprio, David Fincher and Sam Mendes) only to have studios get cold feet over the potential cost. All looked lost, but things were going so well for Frank as a screenwriter he decided it was time for a change and this script was just the perfect one to make it with.

“A couple of years ago I had nothing on my plate as a writer,” he explains. “I was really comfortable. Too comfortable. I was bored with myself and I had grown really [content]. I felt I went as far as I could as a writer and I wanted to go deeper. I thought directing might be a way to really explore other things and see a [project] all the way through.”

“I also just wanted to scare the shit out of myself,” Frank continues with a laugh. “This was the time and this was the script. I wanted to have a totally new creative experience which I did. It was fantastic.”

Thus started an odyssey the filmmaker almost couldn’t believe. He was able to cast who he wanted, film where he wanted and pretty much do it all without any studio interference. “I’m assuming it is all downhill from here,” Frank chuckles. “It was a really, really, really good experience. A really wonderful experience.”

Isla Fisher in a scene from Miramax Films' The Lookout 

Still, the first day on the set still had to be pretty disconcerting. “It was alternately terrifying and strangely comfortable,” he answers without hesitation. “I felt like I’d been doing this for a very long time. It was a weird thing. I want to see how it feels the next time.”

“I think part of what made it so satisfying was that it was one of my own scripts. I think if I was standing on a set direction someone else’s script I’m not sure I could answer all the questions in a way I’d want to be able to answer them. The [crew] always has a lot of questions and you want to be able to answer them.”

Watching The Lookout a person can’t help but think of other Frank adaptations like Get Shorty and Out of Sight. There is a pure Elmore Leonard-like vibe drifting throughout the picture, a vibe so strong the author had to be an influence on the director’s screenplay.

“Definitely,” he responds instantly. “But there is also a little bit of Charles Willeford and a little bit of James Lee Burke and any of those guys that I admire in it. I think that what is different [here] then in an Elmore Leonard movie is that the characters are not so enmeshed in popular culture the way his characters tend to be. All of them are really plugged in to music and TV and music, and the guys in this are not as well informed. I really wanted to do a bunch of guys from a rural High School who every night it’s just a case of beer and a bong.”

Which is all well and good, but what exactly is it that keeps drawing the filmmaker to film noir and the crime genre so frequently? “It’s wish fulfillment,” says Frank. “I mean, look at me. I’m not a tough guy, and I think it is total wish fulfillment and I love those guys are so direct and so confident. I think two of the most attractive qualities in a character are confidence and a sense of humor, with intelligence coming shortly thereafter.”

“I think I like the variety of characters you have and also the fact that in the crime genre you can have melodrama, you can have an emotional story. You can even imbue humanity. You can talk about all kinds of things [because] of that. Whereas in a romantic comedy that is a very specific thing and it can only accommodate that very specific thing.”

Are talk proceeds in many different tangents at this point, but one thing keeps gnawing in the back of my mind. Frank has been there to see Soderbergh, Branagh, Speilberg and other greats at work and his knowledge of film and genre borders on encyclopedic. Still, did the freshman filmmaker feel a need to go back and watch other noir crime pictures for inspiration before proceeding on with filming?

“I don’t know that I did [that] to be honest,” he answers. “I looked at a lot of footage of car accidents, but in terms of the visuals for this movie I don’t think I really had a model. I looked at photographs. I said to cinematographer [Alar Kivilo] one day when we were looking at the bank and how the bank was shaping up [to] imagine that Edward Hopper painting ‘The Nighthawks,’ the famous one at the diner, and the guy at the counter starts shooting people. That’s this movie. That’s what the bank [had] to be.”

“We talked about that and we looked at some [David] Plowden photographs that were a beautiful [template] for the kind of open vistas we wanted. The production designer [David Brisbin] looked at those and went to Kansas City and get things started. We had also pre-established a very tight color palette. There is no green in the movie unless it is on a tree. Green is completely absent from every set.”

“Not for any gimmicky sort of reason. I wanted to control everything so it would have its own specific look and feel. I love the way that Mike Leigh uses color with the costumes and with the sets, everything all works really well. David Fincher also does that, color a really important part of his films.”

Jeff Daniels and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Miramax Films' The Lookout

Now that it’s all said done (and now as the film makes its way to DVD), Frank can’t help but keep his expectations for audience response rather minimal. “I hope people feel like they were told a good yarn,” he says with a confident smile. “That’s all I ever want. I just want people to feel like they were told a good story, that they felt like was something different and that they aren’t mad at me.”

Considering how good The Lookout is, and how strong the critical response to the picture was, that’s probably a worry Frank didn’t have for long. Still, as out conversation came to an end I couldn’t help but wish we had some more time. I still had questions about Dead Again, after all.

The director laughs as we shake hands and slowly walk to the door. “If we talk again, you can count on it. I still remember that film like were yesterday. I’m really glad you liked it.”

Additonal Links:

-  Interview with Joseph Gordon-Levitt & Matthew Goode by Sara Michelle Fetters

-  The Lookout Movie Review by Sara Michelle Fetters
-  The Lookout Theatrical Trailer

-  The Lookout DVD - Buy it from Amazon and Save!