Interview: Sir Kenneth Branagh on "Belfast"
Tuesday, March 22, 2022 at 1:28AM by Nathaniel R
Kenneth Branagh on the festival circuit early in the season (Middleburg Film Festival to be exact). Photo by Shannon Finney
I had the opportunity to sit down with Sir Kenneth Branagh at the Middleburg Film Festival way back in October and saved that conversation, not quite intentionally, until now. Consider it a last minute gift to you all as near the end of Oscar season. Belfast is up for seven Oscars, three of which are for Branagh himself (Original Screenplay, Director, Picture) but when we spoke he was at the beginning of this awards journey. The famous actor/director was a delight in person, unconcerned with the clock, and very conversational, interested in talking about the movies in general and not just his own! Outside of this official interview we discussed the movies we'd seen at the festival and he even asked for my take on a film that was getting harsh press at the time. He is an avid moviegoer in real life, which is a good personality trait you must agree. Naturally we had to talk about the big moviegoing scene in Belfast.
[This interview has been edited for length and clarity]
NATHANIEL: One of the intriguing things you've said is that you wouldn't have done Belfast without the blessing of your siblings. But what if they'd said no? Would you have really tossed your script?
KENNETH BRANAGH: It would have gone in the bottom drawer, yes. Over the years there's a few in there like that...
Kenneth Branagh with Jude Hill, who plays him as a young boy
I did feel, because it was so all engrosing getting to the stage [finishing the script] that I had a level of satisfaction. Also, there was nothing -- you couldn't build your hopes and dreams on making a film necessarily. I don't know how you remember experiencing it, but every day in the early part of the pandemic, we just didn't know what was happening in our own business. We just didn't know -- are films getting made?
It did take a while for the industry to come back, which is why returning to festivals is heaven.
Yes. This has been utterly restorative for me. You can feel it in the audiences. You can feel it in the room. Obviously these are particular people coming to festivals, but nevertheless they talk and persuade people who may not go to festivals to see [the films]. I go to the pictures as much as I can back home in the normal context of things.
I have to ask about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang which gets pride of place in your movie. I grew up obsessed with that movie as a small child.
Did you really? What got to you about that one?
I mean, I love musicals, period. So that. The characters are so memorable. Maybe I was just the right age when they used to show it on TV a lot?
Well I'm with you on that one. Dick Van Dyke is so wonderful in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The Lionel Jeffries character, the way they serve breakfast, the child catcher, Gert Fröbe as Baron Bomburst!
So funny.
He was a very interesting director, Ken Hughes. He also directed a favorite Shakespeare film of mine called Joe Macbeth in the fifties. It's an American gangster tale version of Macbeth.
I love the concept of autofiction but since this is a memoir of sorts I'm assuming that you had a few options as to which movies to throw in?
Oh, yes! The ones that really grabbed us as a family were the big immersive ones, the big color ones. The Great Escape, The Sound of Music. But there were a lot of them. Cool Hand Luke is a movie that actually burned itself into me. I don't know how I managed to see it at the age, because it was kind of grown-up subject matter but it was amazing. But yeah it was the landscape of technicolor that I loved. It was so different from the monochrome of Belfast. You would go into that darkened space and you were seeing landscapes, and people that were, you know, from a million miles away.
One movie you used in Belfast that I actually haven't seen is One Million Years BC.
An interesting kind of byproduct of this process was that in both cases we had to seek the written permission of both Raquel Welch and Dick Van Dyke. They both waived their fees. Raquel Welch years ago had heard about me loving that film and her in it. And she'd sent me a photo signed "To the boy from Belfast, from the girl in the fur bikini" I have it at home.
That's amazing. Have they seen it yet?
I'd love to show Belfast to them!
I think they'll be very pleased with their spot in the movie. I wanted to talk to you about the warmth of the film, actually. A lot of serious movies lean into their miserabilism, but I was kind of shocked that a film set in The Troubles could have this much joy in it.
I think people are surprised. I suppose it's just an example of that dynamic that people have to deal with most of their lives. However tough life might be, in the small or the large, where do you find the joy? Where does it come? Is it experience? Is it families and friendship? But drink large from it wherever and whenever you can.
I felt this even intuitively as a boy, the intensity of the times we had when these ad hoc family events would happen -- suddenly there's dancing in the streets or, you know, getting drunk. We threw ourselves at them because you're hearing [makes alarm sounds]. Live intensely because tomorrow we may be gone. And the Irish have their own particular gallows humor attitude about that which is often filled with an unalloyed joy.
This is a weird comparison, but when I was watching your movie, I was thinking a little bit about Cinderella because Belfast also has his sort of, uh, fable quality. You're quite gifted at that.
KENNETH BRANAGH: Well, that's so interesting of you to say. I see a sort of connection. One of the things that I think we managed to do or tried to do on Cinderella, which started with Chris Weitz's excellent screenplay, but was then embodied by the actors was to have a large humanity in the film. To not provide a victim Cinderella. We needed her to be morally and spiritually above the cruelty. And so by the end, one of the things that I've always been proud of about that movie, it was a line of mine, the only one. When she is facing the wicked stepmother at the end and looks for a while and then says, 'I forgive you'. That was quite a contentious line in previews, audiences divided right down the middle. Some were outraged -- 'she needs to be punished'. All through the film we were trying to find a more compassionate heart. Lily James did a wonderful job with it. You have to be uncynical. You have to be smart because you've got to face the cynicism of others. I think that that search for the best of ourselves, that search for humanity -- in a situation like Belfast, the only way forward is ultimately, in some small or large way, however much they may not forget they can perhaps find a way to forgive. That is the only way to move on.
The reaction to Belfast has been very positive. But you've been here before with the Oscars as early as your directorial debut with Henry V (1989). Does this reaction feel new to you in any way?
I've been overwhelmed. I am not following the review trail. A long time ago I decided that it was a rabbit hole down which I often find a quite painful experience. But of course I hear things, of course I do.
You get a general sense.
Of course, and it's thrilling now. For me it feels entirely different and entirely new to be perfectly honest. We're in a post pandemic world. We're a small, independent film. We need all the help we can get. And so does every other independent film like us... and frankly every other film that isn't a massive franchise. So we're in the fellowship of film.
And if you're getting some love, then, my god it's welcome. And it feels genuine and unusual and I'm registering, it. I've talked to people [right after the movie] and one of the first things they do is they talk about their own experiences. They talk about what the film set off and activated in them. And that's very pleasing. I love making movies. I love going to the movies. It feels in a weird way, like we're starting again.
A reset.
Yeah. A reset and it's a beautiful reset.
Kenneth Branagh with his cast on the set of Belfast
There were multiple black and white films this year. I understand why you wanted to do that in Belfast but what do you make of it as a trend?
Well, I think it's been a period of introspection for film and for the world, generally. And so we're just scrutinizing what we want to do in a different way. I don't feel it's fashion so much as quite powerfully felt. I saw the excellent C'mon C'mon and I thought that was beautifully done. You know, you were talking about a reset. It strikes me as quite bold in a way, you know, because commercially you're not helping yourself there. You don't choose [black and white] by accident. The filmmaker has a purpose like Joel Coen or Mike Mills or Rebecca Hall.
Belfast, Kenneth Branagh, biopics, interview
Reader Comments (5)
Raquel and Sir Ken who'd have thought they'd know each other.
Thanks for this piece Sir Ken is always a great guest and interviewee.
Belfast was the movie-movie I was looking forward to most post-lockdown, and it didn't disappoint me. A well-made, well-acted perfect little thing that says something important without underlining it.
Very good and smart interview. If Belfast wins the Oscar, it would be nice, it's milles better tan other nominees (CODA).
Great interview, love the man. Belfast is far and away my fav this season.
Good questions, Nathaniel. And as always, Branagh was well-prepared with answers. It must be so nice to tell the filmmaker about a point in the film that was extra special to you (e.g., Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) and get the reaction you did.