THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 65 SEPTEMBER 4, 2019
It would mean the world to her to know her
name was still an inspiration to women.”
Pickford’s contributions to the business
went far beyond United Artists. At the end
of World War I, she came up with the idea for
the Motion Picture Relief Fund to help actors
in need. She used the leftover proceeds from
war bonds she sold to help the organization,
founded in 1921. And in 1927, she was among
the 36 co-founders — and one of only three
female members — of the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences (she won the second
best actress Oscar for the 1929 hit Coquette).
Pickford retired from acting in 1933 but con-
tinued to be a force in the industry and didn’t
sell her UA shares until 1956. She died at age
87 in Santa Monica in 1979.
“This new award represents the pride we
have for the 100-year legacy of UA, but it also
represents outstanding females who may
not be completely known in the world arena,”
says Jonathan Glickman, president of MGM’s
motion picture group. “This isn’t an award
for the most successful female directors or
actresses. It’s about people who represent the
desire to disrupt and who don’t necessarily
fit into a specific category. Mati Diop’s work
felt ideal.”
Diop this year became the first female black
director to have a film accepted into competi-
tion at Cannes, and her drama Atlantics went
on to receive the festival’s Grand Prix. Diop,
whose father is from Senegal and mother is
French, often visited Senegal as a child, and
when it came time to shoot her first film, she
returned there to make a documentary short
about the harrowing, and often deadly, ocean
journey that many young Senegalese people
make in order to find a better life in Europe.
Atlantics is a feature adaptation of that short.
“Mati Diop is a force and trailblazer, original
and vibrant,” says Joana Vicente, executive
director and co-head of TIFF, which has
pledged to improve gender parity. This year,
36 percent of the films in the overall lineup
were directed, co-directed or created by
women, up from 35 percent in 2018.
The Mary Pickford Award is another way
to promote inclusion. “Mary probably never
imagined that another 100 years would go by
and things are so far from being fair,” Vicente
says. “How could you go from that to a century
of very little room for women to really have
that voice? I associate her with being a force of
nature and how things should be.”
F
or Rian Johnson, Knives
Out arrives like a light
sorbet between the
heavy meals of his Star Wars
gigs. Johnson, 45, wrote and
directed the ensemble murder
mystery featuring Daniel Craig,
Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis
and Michael Shannon, in the
downtime between helming
The Last Jedi and revving up
a new trilogy set in a galaxy
far, far away. The universe of
Knives Out, which hits theaters
Nov. 27 via Lionsgate, is
light-years from that of Luke
and Leia, and will resonate
with anyone who’s familiar
with Agatha Christie-style
whodunits: The dysfunctional
family of a wealthy crime
novelist (Christopher Plummer)
gathers in his dusty mansion
to celebrate his 85th birthday.
When the birthday boy turns
up dead, a master detective
with a foreign name (Craig
as inspector Benoit Blanc) is
called in to investigate.Why did you want to make an
old-school whodunit?With his TIFF entry Knives Out, the Last Jedi helmer is
light-years from the Star Wars universe and knee-deep in a
murder mystery with humor BY SCOTT ROXBOROUGHRIAN JOHNSON TAKES
A STAB AT A WHODUNITstyle. It was really nice to get
back to writing dialogue that
was a bit more florid and gave
the actors something to really
sink their teeth into.The whodunit is a genre
that’s been heavily parodied
and done to death on TV.
How difficult was it to balance
the humor and the gravitas
required for people to buy
into the story?
That was really important. On
one hand the fun of it all is an
essential element. And what
I was really aiming for was
not just the Agatha Christie
books but the movies I grew up
watching, with Peter Ustinov
as [Hercule] Poirot — those
always had a sense of play to
them. But on the other hand,
you’re right. I was very clear
that this was not going to be a
parody or a comedy. And so it’s
just a matter of balancing, mak-
ing sure it doesn’t get too arch.
And also constructing the story
so it is not just a movie about
murder mysteries, but it does
actually have an emotional peg
to hang your hat on.This film came together very
quickly. That’s surprising
because this is the kind of
film — an original script, not a
horror movie, with a substan-
tial budget — that is almost
impossible to get made in the
independent space right now.
I’ll be honest: It came together
very, very quickly. Obviously
we had the wind at our backs
for a number of reasons. We
were coming off of Star Wars.
The biggest thing was when
Daniel signed up for it. Then
everything clicked into place
very quickly. But even before
that, MRC [the independent
studio, which shares a parent
company, Valence Media, with
THR] — we had wanted to work
with those guys for a long while,
and they were very passionate
about it. They were on board
from the script stage. It’s always
a miracle when everything gets
made. This is just one of those
crazy moon shots where it all
snapped together.Above: Johnson (right) on the set of
Knives Out. Right: The all-star cast
plays a dysfunctional family whose
crime novelist patriarch is murdered.From left:
Pickford,
D.W. Griffith,
Charlie
Chaplin and
Douglas
Fairbanks
on the day
they formed
United
Artists
Corporation.I just love them. I’ve actually
been a big Agatha Christie fan
since I was quite young. I don’t
want to give too much away,
but this movie was my attempt
to get everything I love about
Agatha Christie up on the
screen while doing some new
genre mechanics that seemed
interesting. And doing some-
thing with it that people maybe
haven’t seen before.After the intense pressure and
fan scrutiny that came with
The Last Jedi, did you feel you
could cut loose with this movie?
Oddly no. That’s a credit to
all the folks at Lucasfilm and
Disney. I felt very free with
The Last Jedi. It felt creatively
rewarding in the same way this
did. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, finally
the handcuffs are off.’ But it
was a different animal. And one
thing I really had fun with is how
dialogue-based this movie is.
Especially with these actors, it
was so much fun — as opposed
to in a Star Wars movie. I had
done a few films that lent them-
selves to just economy of words
and a very sparse dialogueQ&A