REVIEW
I felt there was a moral obligation to reach out to
Ken and make sure he was okay with his material
being used like that. And he gave us the go sign.
He visited the set of Erin Brockovich when he was
in California shooting Bread & Roses, so we got to
talk a bit there. But we haven’t spoken in a long
time. He’s continued to do what he does better
than anybody. I loved I, Daniel Blake.Stamp has some amazing scenes. The fi rst
to spring to mind is the warehouse
shooting, including the movie’s signature
line, “Tell ’em I’m fackin’ coming!” But
what really stands out is the way the
camera hangs back on the street as the
action happens unseen within.
That was born out of a desire not to cover what
went on in there in any sort of traditional way.
Also, knowing I was setting up the sequence at
Peter Fonda’s house where Terence imagines
shooting Peter, I wanted to — for lack of a better
term — holster my ideas for that sequence. In
addition to the fact that it just seemed funnier
to do it this way.it away and have it be out of focus over Peter’s
shoulder. Plus, it’s one shot and the stunt’s done
and we can move onto the next shot. I’m always
looking for the simple way to do something. I’m not
somebody that likes shooting stunts. They make
me anxious. I worry about people getting hurt.There’s also that awesome cameo from Bill
Duke as the DEA boss, where he and Stamp
trade monologues.
Sarah and I had fi nally worked our way through
the cut to that scene, which was covered in
a reasonably traditional fashion, in that I gave
myself four diff erent angles to choose from. But
as soon as she started putting it together, cutting
back and forth between Bill and Terence, we
looked at each other and went, “Well, that sucks.”
Like, “We have licence to do whatever we want.
So what’s the fun way to do this?” And she said,
“Let’s just cut all the angles from one side together
and then cut all the angles from the other side
together.” I thought, “That’s kind of amusing. Let’s
do that.” It wasn’t just a stunt, because it actually
in my mind lent a more fable-like quality to the
story that’s being told on each side. Whereas
if you’ve just been cutting between someone
talking and somebody listening, it wouldn’t have
the same kind of weird performance aspect that
I wanted it to have. You know what I mean?Yes. It’s like Wilson is putting on a big show,
isn’t he?
Yeah, he is. And then Bill takes that thread and
goes, “Well, if you can do it, I can do it.” It’s a weird
idea as an editorial concept, but we felt like, “It’s
not any weirder than some of
the other stuff we’re doing.”Sadly, as critically acclaimed
as it was, The Limey didn’t do
that well. Was that because
of all the weird stuff?
It’s hard to unpack the reasons
why something doesn’t work
commercially. But I have to say,
when I looked at it again for
the fi rst time while we were
remastering it, I just laughed
and thought, “Why did I think
anybody would sit through
this?” It’s so aggressively non-
linear! It has this revenge-caper
spine, but it’s a pretty abstract
piece. Still, the good news is, a
film fi nding a sizeable audience ends up not being
relevant. People think now that Out Of Sight was
a hit, and it was absolutely not. It didn’t perform at
the level that any of us hoped, but was viewed as a
creative success and a critical moment in my career
and in George’s [Clooney]. I mean, I shouldn’t say
this out loud, because there are people paying
me to go make things as we speak, but I’d rather
have people speaking well of something 20 years
later than it be a huge commercial success that
people never thought about again. DAN JOLINAlamy THE LIMEY IS OUT NOW ON DVD, BLU-RAY AND DOWNLOAD
It’s almost like Wilson saying to the audience,
“Hold my pint. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Yeah, exactly. It’s a more active way for the
audience to participate in that event than going
inside and shooting all that coverage.A similarly violent but humorous scene is
the one where Wilson throws the guy off the
balcony, which plays out in the background
just over Valentine’s shoulder.
Same thing there. It seemed to me if we were
gonna get maximum attention from the audience
for that gag, the way to do it was to almost throw