Thomas Vinterberg Talks Adapting Astrid Lindgren’s ‘The Brothers Lionheart’ About ‘Faith and Doubt,’ Contemplates Return to U.S.: ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go?’
Thomas Vinterberg is ready for “The Brothers Lionheart,” based on Astrid Lindgren’s fantasy novel.
“I’m writing it myself with the brilliant British writer Simon Stephens, so it’s a mix of things. The book is there, it’s not mine, but it’s a great journey we’re on. I really love it,” he tells Variety about his upcoming project.
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Considered a children’s classic, Lindgren’s story focuses on two brothers and a mysterious land Nangijala where life conquers death.
“It’s about faith and doubt, which goes straight as an arrow right into my own life. This book has the courage to step into what every child is asking when they’re about 8 or 10 and about to go to bed. ‘What happens when we die?’ There’s so much courage in these characters and Lindgren’s story, and I hope it can be encouraging for viewers, too. I’m sure it can be,” says Vinterberg.
The Danish director, picking up a Nordic Honorary Award at Sweden’s G?teborg Film Festival, is no stranger to English-language films, having delivered Joaquin Phoenix starrer “It’s All About Love” or “Dear Wendy.” But working in the U.S. was never the ultimate goal.
“I see my career as a row of events. Going to America, making films with movie stars, it’s not what I’ve been targeting. I’ve been targeting stories that stayed with me and resonated with me as being challenging, adventurous and courageous, sometimes even scandalous,” he says.
“It’s a question that has been on my mind for 25 years. I’m asking myself all the time: ‘Should I stay or should I go?’ I’ve never found the answer, so I’m keeping it open. There’s a new thing that’s happening to me now: I’ve started to develop my own projects in English. The ones I’d done before, with the exception of ‘It’s All About Love’ [co-written with Mogens Rukov] were other people’s scripts, which is completely different,” he admits.
“I’m going to watch Almodóvar’s new movie [‘The Room Next Door’] because I’m super curious if [shooting in English] has given something to him or taken something away. Over the years, I’ve learned that what makes things universal is the specificity. People are indifferent to your movie when it’s generic, and that risk sneaks in when you enter foreign territories.”
His next idea for a film is “sort of related” to Oscar-winning “Another Round”. Whether he’ll shoot in English or Danish remains to be seen.
“I’ve been walking around with this dilemma for quite some time now. It’s that kind of decision I can’t just take. It has to come to me. My films float out of a sense of reality. My teacher at film school, who’s no longer with us, used to say: ‘Thomas, if you make American movies, set them in a place that’s not recognizable. In a spaceship, so you’re not depending on all that research and shit.’”
Some of his current projects “would be a part of the Hollywood system.”
“If they surface. But I also have Danish things in mind. It’s two very different ball games. Having art support for your movie, which we have here, gives you complete artistic freedom. Plenty of my movies have depended on that, including ‘Festen’ [‘The Celebration’]. Imagine I go to financiers, saying: ‘So I want to make a movie about a pedophile father and his son making a speech.’ I wouldn’t raise a dime. With ‘The Hunt,’ I called my agent because I wanted to make an American movie. He said: ‘Forget about it. No banker will risk his job for a story like that.’ You make it at home and then people will want to remake it.”
Czech and U.S. remakes of “Another Round,” about four high-school teachers launching a rather unusual drinking experiment to see if it can improve their lives, are already looming on the horizon.
“That’s what happens in the theater with my things. ‘Festen’ is now becoming an opera in London. With ‘The Hunt,’ ‘Festen’ and ‘Another Round,’ there’s strength in the spine of their dramatic core that can survive all sorts of translations. That’s why I look forward to the American version of ‘Another Round,’ too. All cultures have an interesting relationship with alcohol.”
Throughout his career, Vinterberg has been “balancing hope, humor and love with very dark topics,” he admits.
“I’ve been defending all my characters. I remember being on a jury once and all these movies were so incredibly dark. I felt ashamed of being a part of that. There’s still an undercurrent of catastrophe in my movies, so it’s a complex issue. My mind’s occupied with what happens after our lives here on Earth. My mind has always been occupied with goodbyes and. obviously, even more so after losing my daughter. The big topics in life are what keeps me awake at night.”
His show “Families Like Ours,” depicting people trying to stay together as and after Denmark faces evacuation due to rising water levels, terrified viewers.
“People were incredibly shocked. They were torn apart by it. In Venice, someone came over and grabbed my arm, weeping: ‘This can’t happen.’ I’ve met a lot of people in the streets having that reaction as well. I enjoy the fact they are engaged, but I’m still swimming away from the current I was describing before. When they come to me, I ask: ‘Did you see the hope?’ They might not find it important, but I do,” he says.
“When I wrote ‘Festen,’ I dried out after 15 pages. It was simply too depressing and hopeless. I added an element of humor and started thinking about it as a film about a dinner party. There was still this mention of child abuse on the side, but it really gave us the opportunity to breathe. In ‘Festen’ it was about humor. In my last series ‘Families Like Ours,’ it was about hope. Hope was necessary for this tale. My wife, who’s an actress in the series but primarily works as a Protestant priest, read my first draft and was in tears. It was, and to some extent still is, an extremely dark period in my life. I’d lost my daughter. My wife said: ‘You should allow some hope into your story and possibly into your life as well.’”
Vinterberg tries to remain open as a filmmaker – also about his own painful losses.
“I regret that often. If you want to become a legend, you should probably make yourself less accessible. But that’s who I am: that’s my transparent self,” he notes.
“I’m interested in communicating with people. I talk about my private life, my experiences and failures, because in film school I found it incredibly important when people did that. It’s more than that: I use test audiences a lot, as I want to communicate. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I am attracted to the American model. We tested ‘Another Round’ in front of 19 audiences before the balance was right. You get brutal honesty from them, which is very useful. I asked them: ‘How do you like these guys?’ They said: ‘We hate them. Their friend dies and they just start dancing and drinking.’ The balance was off, we adjusted it and then – boom! This is the kind of connection you dream of. This openness should go both ways.”
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