In The King, a stark, Oedipal murder ballad set in Corpus Christi, Texas, Gael Garcia Bernal insinuates himself into his long-lost father’s respectable second family, only to play cuckoo in the grimmest possible fashion. And he looks like such a sweet boy, too.
“That really intrigued me,” explains director James Marsh, as we sit down before the film’s premiere at the recent Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. “The idea of intimate murder. I had been working on a real-life American murder script for some years, but the same incident inspired Larry Clark’s Bully, which I hated. I’m not bitter, but I felt he missed the point completely. He was interested only in what he is always interested in, young lads with their clothes off. So I felt there was still a movie to made about intimate murder, between people who are related in some way. It’s a really disturbing notion.”
The King, co-written by Milo Addica (Monster’s Ball), falls into a distinctively American gothic tradition. Eccentric locals feed pizza to their dogs in the perma-glare. Young people speak out on behalf of creationism. The quaint facade and prim morality is swiftly, mercilessly subverted upon the arrival of Bernal’s stranger.
“I think the America which Griel Marcus referred to as 'the old weird America' is the one I was interested in,” says Mr. Marsh. “The America of southern music and southern Christianity is considered a less presentable side but it’s as much a part of it as the more presentable side. We also thought a lot about Badlands, both during the writing and shoot. Badlands was an important film to us growing up and we took the idea of the anti-hero doing bad things from there. You don’t really hate him for it, but he is a sociopath, and we argued our character is a misunderstood creature of instinct. Charming and seductive, not a traditional killer.”
It also reminded me of a completely different gothic tradition, I tell him, specifically, James Hogg’s Great Scottish Novel, Confessions Of A Justified Sinner.
“It’s so funny you mention that,” he says. “It was almost after the fact when I realised I was thinking about Confessions the entire time. What an amazing, prescient book. Hogg’s ideas form this whole different world. We wrote the script some time ago and the issue of the ascendancy of the Christian right in American politics had not actually taken place then. One of the things I brought to the writing was an understanding of that kind of Christianity. I always felt that dramatically speaking, it was very rich territory. Not in an obvious satirical way, but the fault line Hogg recognises. The idea that you can’t live up to Christian beliefs and ideals, even trying to live a good life.”
After graduating from Oxford University with a degree in English, James first began working in the BBC on the Arena series. There, he directed The Last Supper – a documentary on the last meals ordered and served to death row inmates; The Trials Of The Animals, an examination of the Medieval practice of prosecuting animals for crimes against humans, the Jan Swankmajer portrait, The Animator Of Prague, and Troubleman, detailing the fraught relationship between Marvin Gaye and his father, the fundamentalist preacher and occasional transvestite who murdered him.
Since then, he has made his theatrical debut with the breathtaking Wisconsin Death Trip and a biographical documentary on John Cale.
“John is quite a difficult customer,” smiles James. “The BBC brought three different directors to him and he said they aren’t going to work for me. I was the fourth and I was fairly nervous going in. I love the Velvet Underground. I can still remember the first time I heard ‘Venus In Furs’ and thinking, ‘fucking hell, this is the dirtiest record I’ve ever heard'. We got on extremely well and ended up making this film over the course of eighteen months. We still see each other in New York. I do think John is an artist who has never really got his due. He’s an amazing musician and people love collaborating with him. We managed to get back to this whole relationship with Lou Reed, this poisoned relationship, so it was a fascinating experience.”
Mr. Cale would prove far more amenable than the Presley estate, which proved less than thrilled when James’ film The Burger And The King provided a detailed account of Elvis’ fondness for banana pudding and deep-fried peanut butter sandwiches.
“Oh my God, the Presley estate has chased us around the world”, he laughs. “They came after us big time. We had told thems we were making a film about Elvis favourite meals and I love Elvis and think it’s a very tender film, but they hated it and said I had not pre-cleared six songs. They tried to sue us in America when it showed on HBO, but it was thrown out of court in five minutes. Then they tried to sue in South Africa. I got death threats from Presley fans, a lot of really scary mail from Nashville.”
Don’t mess with The King. Either of them.