Rodrigo Cortés on the “Statistical Improbability” of Filmmaking
In the intensely competitive industry of filmmaking, adaptability is invaluable. Mastering the ability to navigate different genres is a rarefied skill that, although not bestowed upon all filmmakers, but is highly valued. And for Rodrigo Cortés, it is a crucial prerequisite when taking on a new creative venture. “If I feel like I've already made that film and therefore know how to make it, I dismiss it,” he says boldly.
Given the diversity of his creative canon, this is not hard to believe. In his career so far, the Spanish director, writer and producer has traversed a whole gamut of genres, tackling almost every filmic format imaginable: from award-winning commercials to cinematic accomplishments such as his critically acclaimed musical drama, Love Gets A Room; heart-racing survival thriller, Buried; and supernatural psychological mystery, Red Lights. As a result, Cortes has firmly asserted himself as a “genre-fluid” storyteller capable of occupying any space he enters.
Sitting down with LBB’s April Summers, the Wonderful Content filmmaker weighs up the similarities and differences between shooting films for adland and Hollywood. The conversation gets introspective, as he ruminates on the secret to effective storytelling, his love of strong narrative components, and the full circle feeling of working with one of his great movie heroes, Martin Scorsese.
LBB> When did you first discover your affinity for storytelling? What was the project that kickstarted your filmmaking career?
Rodrigo> When I was a kid, I wrote non-stop. As a teenager, my best friend and I decided to steal his uncle's Super-8 camera and we started making a short film on the weekends – I wrote and directed, he acted. It's not easy to know when I decided it was possible to direct, there's no flash of light that knocks you off your high horse; I knew there were directors like I knew there were astronauts, but I didn’t know I could become one. One day I came out of the cinema after watching A Fish Called Wanda and I said to my friend, "That's it. We have to steal that camera. We have to do something.”
LBB> In what ways has your creative approach changed since then?
Rodrigo> In every way and in no way. I try to remember that magic everyday, the reason why I loved going to the movies, so as not to lose it. I am not willing to fall into cynicism or constantly talk about figures, I want to remember why I do what I do. To be that amazed kid who didn't come out of Karate Kid wondering how much it would gross, but wondering how to do the crane kick.
LBB> Having worked on a wide array of filmmaking projects, what is the biggest difference in your approach to a commercial treatment compared to a film script?
Rodrigo> In movies you tell something, you don't sell something – although something is always sold, even if it's the idea itself; there's always an exercise of seduction. In cinema my creative control is total (although this is not always the case), in advertising you work for someone, you try to be as creative and efficient as you can, to elevate an idea as much as possible, and you concentrate on doing the best job you can. Inevitably, it's less personal, but in exchange you don't leave shreds of your life behind and it can be a lot of fun if you have a stimulating project ahead of you.
LBB> Your commercial Scary Clown Night was a big hit that received multiple industry awards. How did you put your own signature spin on this creative brief?
Rodrigo> I really enjoy it when commercials have a strong narrative component. We had to work very fast which I love, actually, as there is much less room for bullshit. I received a very general, very good idea and, as we were shooting in only two days, that same night I was locating and composing a possible sequence on the fly, which the agency was delighted to receive the next morning. Also, there was only a night and a half to shoot, so there was little time to waste, we would just shoot and move on to the next shot.
LBB> What would you say is the secret to an effective commercial?
Rodrigo> Perhaps that it does not make too many calculations, that it defends the sensation of the first impact, that it does not protect itself too much, that it trusts the ideas and that, for all this, it is remembered. No matter how good you are, you need to start with a good idea. When this process is diluted in the opinions of several committees and a thousand people with indeterminate positions, when everything is filed and consensual, it is difficult for ideas to fly.
LBB> What is your favourite aspect of the advertising business? How is it unique?
Rodrigo> Speed, I insist. I like a certain pressure; I live well with it. In film, the process of having an idea, writing it, financing it, producing it, shooting it, post-producing it and releasing it can take, hopefully, two years. In advertising, that same process, from idea to broadcast, can sometimes take a month or less. It's more like writing a song.
LBB> Your first big feature film was Buried, starring Ryan Reynolds. Given the fact the protagonist spends the majority of the movie trapped in a coffin, did you face any unique challenges when shooting this?
Rodrigo> The key was to think of the film, not its challenges, to think of what drove the story as taking place in the desert or in New York City, and only then to figure out how to make it possible in a box. We had to build seven different coffins for different needs: one divisible into sections, one more elongated, one more robust, one with movable walls so we could raise and lower them on the fly (and even make 360 dolly shots possible). Also, we had to shoot the film in only seventeen days, so I've rarely suffered more (although Ryan Reynolds can say the same).
LBB> Your film Red Lights - which you wrote and directed - is a captivating look at paranormal activity. What was the inspiration behind the idea? And why did you want to tell this story?
Rodrigo> I wanted to talk, I suppose, about paranormal hoaxes as a way of exploring the unreliability - under certain circumstances - of our brain as an instrument of perception. Not to mention the objective parallels between the art of prestidigitation and cinema. I imagine that I tried to set a trap for the viewer (a film structured as a magic act) so that the viewer could not trust themselves.
LBB> Cillian Murphy recently won an Oscar for his role as Oppenheimer, but his first taste of portraying a physicist was in Red Lights. In what ways did the all-star cast - Cillian Murphy, Sigourney Weaver, Robert De Niro - elevate your vision for this film?
Rodrigo> Playing a Stradivarius is no more difficult than playing an ordinary violin. It is, in a sense, easier. The music is the same, but it sounds better. It's not so much about having an all-star cast as it is about having extraordinary performers.
LBB> As a musical drama set against the backdrop of WWII Warsaw, Love Gets a Room, is quite different to your other films. Can you tell us about how the process of making this film differed to your other work?
Rodrigo> I don't think of films in terms of genre, but in terms of story and challenge. I try to get into trouble and express, through the actors I collaborate with, real emotions, ideally contradictory or ambivalent. In Love Gets a Room we have a play - which was actually performed in the Ghetto in the depths of the winter of '42 - at the heart of the story: songs, dances, and jokes in the middle of hell. A three-ring circus (the actors' point of view on and off stage, and that of the spectator, who ignores what is really happening) had to be coordinated in real time. An actor goes from having a naturalistic and dense discussion backstage to singing on stage in a matter of seconds, without cutting the shot. I thought a lot of Billy Wilder's luminous pessimism and Orson Welles' bigamous love for film and theatre: not bad ghosts to invoke.
LBB> Your films traverse a range of genres and the story at the heart of your next feature film, Escape, is intriguingly unique – where do you find inspiration for new projects? How do you get inspired?
Rodrigo> In this case, it is the very free adaptation of a novel by Enrique Rubio that I could read before its publication. The story of a man who, against all odds, wants to enter prison, not get out of it. I suppose I react, among other things, to "fear" -- the fear, so to speak, that a project gives me, which is usually a good symptom. I need to not be entirely sure that doing something is a good idea, not entirely sure if I'm going to get out of there alive or not. At the same time, I try not to let the films be editorialising, not to give lessons, not to provide all the answers I don't have myself. Films are stories, after all, not life lessons or role models.
LBB> Escape is EP’d by none other than Martin Scorsese – how has the project benefited from the backing of such an industry titan?
Rodrigo> What can I say? He's not only the greatest, he's the most respected: a great master and a wise old wizard. And, personally, the reason I'm in film. The Color of Money, Goodfellas, Raging Bull, and After Hours all taught me that the what is the how and the how is the what! To have him so close now, with such generosity and respect, is, more than a gift, the culmination of an inadvertent act of patient witchcraft, cemented by decades of deep respect for his attitude, work and teaching.
LBB> Robert De Niro also called you an ‘extraordinary director’ after working with you. How does it feel to receive this kind of praise?
Rodrigo> In De Niro's case it's doubly amazing, because he doesn't speak! (Laughs) If he can use six words to summarise a sentence of twenty, he'll do it, and if he starts a sentence and someone else concludes it, he won't have any problem, he prefers it that way. That's precisely why, when he speaks, every word counts. Working with him was fascinating, he is incapable of acting, only of being. He explores and explores, looking for real things to happen, for the "click" to sound, completely relaxed. There's no way to catch him lying.
LBB> You have been repped by Wonderful Content since 2016, what do you like most about their approach to the filmmaking business? Why does Wonderful feel like the right fit for you?
Rodrigo> They are brave, they have integrity, they are solid, they are not afraid to go to war, they are not submissive or complacent, they know how to defend their professionalism, they are fair and, surprisingly, they are very good people. When I work with them, I know that we will always have a good time.
LBB> And finally, are there any creative projects you are yet to achieve but hope to accomplish in the next few years?
Rodrigo> I try not to talk about future projects. Each project is a statistical improbability, and the amount of energy to make them possible is so great that the least convenient thing for them is to waste it before its time. Projects should only be talked about when they are no longer projects.
