George Miller Discusses THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING Saying It's the 'Anti-MAD MAX'
Director George Miller recently sat down with Deadline for an interview and discussed his next two upcoming film projects Three Thousand Years of Longing, which is he’s currently directing, and Mad Max: Furiosa, which is the next film he’s set to take on.
Three Thousand Years of Longing stars Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton, and it’s an epic fantasy romance film that revolves around a genie. When talking about that film, Miller said:
“I see the title of this film as a riddle, and it’s more or less at heart a two-hander, even though it’s way more complex than that. Tilda and Idris are the two characters at the center of this thing. I can’t even decide what genre it is, to be honest. And that’s a good thing. I like to think in these days that to have a chance of people taking notice of what you’re doing, without being overly flamboyant, your film needs to be uniquely familiar. That’s the term I use. The audience is looking for that, something that seems fresh and atypical. In this case, every time I think, oh it’s this kind of film, I say yes but also it’s that kind of film. I would hope that translates into people feeling that what we’re trying to do is interesting.”
Miller went on to explain that the film is going to the the “anti-Mad Max”:
“One thing I can tell you; it’s not [another Fury Road]. It’s a movie that is very strongly visual, but it’s almost the opposite of Fury Road. It’s almost all interior and there’s a lot of conversation in it. There are action scenes, but they are by the by and I guess you could say it’s the anti-Mad Max.”
Miller sahred that he’s still working on the Mad Max: Furiosa story and explains that it’s “coming down the pike.” When talking about working on multiple projects at the same time, the filmmaker said:
“It’s an interesting question, the idea of multi-tasking. I discuss this with other filmmakers and I think what happens to me is that when you’re working on one thing, and you get so distracted and focused on that one thing, it’s like a creative holiday to focus on the other one for a bit. It helps you achieve that objectivity, to look at the thing afresh each time and say, I thought I was doing this, but it doesn’t seem to be the case now.”
Miller also shared his thoughts on the superhero genre and whether they qualify as cinema, which has been a debate among some filmmakers. In Miller’s opinion, “it’s all cinema.” He explained:
“I watch all of them. To be honest, in terms of this debate, cinema is cinema and it’s a very broad church. The test, ultimately, is what it means to the audience. There’s a great quote I saw that applies to all we do. It was from the Swahili storytellers. Each time they finished a story they would say, ‘The story has been told. If it was bad, it was my fault because I am the storyteller. And if it was good, it belongs to everybody.’
“It’s a mistake and a kind of hubris if a film does well at the box office to dismiss it as clever marketing or something else. There’s more happening there, and it’s our obligation as storytellers to really try and understand it. To me, it’s all cinema. I don’t think you can ghettoize it and say, oh this is cinema or that is cinema. It applies to all the arts, to literature, the performing arts, painting and music, in all its form. It’s such a broad spectrum, a wide range and to say that anyone is more significant or more important than the other, is missing the point. It’s one big mosaic and each bit of work fits into it,” he added.
That is one of the best responses to the question of what qualifies as cinema that I think I’ve seen. What are your thoughts on Miller’s comments here?