Sunday, 13 March 2011

Duncan Jones on Source Code

The director on why the follow-up to Moon owes a debt to Hitchcock, and why his films have such cross-cultural appeal

Two years ago Duncan Jones wore a high-tog lemon jumpsuit to present his debut film at SXSW. It was a hot ticket in many ways ? Moon, in which frayed astronaut Sam Rockwell battles a computer that sounds like Kevin Spacey ? turned into the breakout film of the year, rocketing Jones instantly into the A-list of go-to young directors.

So, it might have looked a bit hit and miss whether he'd return to Austin to present his followup. Yet Jones has found it easy to resist come-hither looks from other fests. "SXSW really fits our vibe; it's becoming a bit of a specialist festival for those films which are not big massive blockbusters but are at the same time have kind of got a genre edge to them. And because it's a film and music festival there's a really good mix of people, it's not too snotty. There's a sense of exuberance; everyone's just excited to be there. It's real people who are just there to enjoy films, not necessarily film critics or buyers."

They've repaid his faith ? Source Code was whoopingly received when it opened the festival on Friday night, queues ringing the block beforehand; crowds and critics raving afterwards. An unabashed piece of entertainment set largely on a Chicago commuter train heading to certain doom courtesy of a deranged bomber, it stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a soldier who must nip in and out of wormholes trying to save the world and woo the girl (Michelle Monahan).

Despite the high concept, it's a surprisingly low-brow entertainment, all pretension exorcised from the original script. "It look itself very seriously. We needed to lighten the tone and inject some humour into it." What with the mysterious women and mistaken identities, the train fixation and the heady pace, it recalls Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, a nod Jones confirms. "If we were ever talking about a reference, it was to Hitchcock. The score, the way that Jake was dressed, even the clock towers at the station. All these little things we were doing to try and bring this classic feeling to it."

He's quick to dismiss superficial similarities to Moon, in particular the scenes in which Gyllenhaal grapples with his sanity in an isolation capsule. "If you have a producer's hat on, it's clearly a very smart suggestion of a project for me. But from my perspective, when I was reading the script, I was seeing nothing but differences. I was like: 'Fantastic ? I'm going to work with more than one actor! I'm going to be on different locations!' It wasn't actually until we finished the film and I was working with my editor and he said: 'You know what, there are quite a few similarities' ..."

It's also a very American-feeling film ? a grand tub-thumping hymn to stars and stripes heroism; and unless you knew Jones was English, you'd struggle to guess. Yet Jones himself confesses to "still feeling like a little British director". So why such keen antennae for cross-cultural cinematic tastes? "I do have a somewhat unique upbringing," he admits (his father is David Bowie, his mother the model Mary Barnett). "I'm kind of transatlantic Eurotrash. I've lived all over Europe, spent a lot of time in London, went to school in Scotland, college in America, so I do think I have sort of a sensibility on a fairly global level."

Source Code will no doubt escalate Jones's fame yet further when it opens worldwide. Till then, he's just planning to kick back and enjoy Austin's charms. "This time I'm here with my lovely girlfriend and hopefully we can go and see some of the crazy things that the town has to offer. There's a great museum of the weird that i know she's get a kick out of."

? Read all our latest coverage of SXSW film at guardian.co.uk/sxsw/film. You can also follow us on Twitter at @GuardianSXSW or @GuardianFilm. And sign up now for our weekly Close Up email newsletter to get all the week's film news straight to your inbox.


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/mar/13/sxsw2011-duncan-jones-source-code

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