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NEW YORK, NY, USA - Though Alejandro Amenábar has established himself as a director of thrillers -- he recently did "The Others" (starring Nicole Kidman) and "Open Your Eyes/Abre los ojos" ("Vanilla Sky" was an English remake of that film) -- his latest, "The Sea Inside/Mar adentro" has become a career benchmark for him. Based on the life of Ramón Sampedro, a quadriplegic who fought for assisted suicide several years ago in Spain, the film details a celebration of life as well a relapse experienced through death. Of course, with the help of a remarkably nuanced performance by lead Javier Bardem as Sampedro, Amenábar has made an important and touching film, worthy of the accolades it's been getting.
G21: This film is a big change from your previous films; did you intend to do this to show how you've changed or did you just say, "I found a good story and I'm making this movie?"
Amenábar: This time I didn't pick up [the] story; I believe that the story picked me up. I just thought of the proper approach. It wasn't a thriller or horror [story]; the suspense in this story had to do with these people dealing with their lives and life itself, and I always thought that [combining the] drama and comedy was the proper approach because Ramón had a great sense of humor so in a way I knew it was going to be different from my other films. On the other hand I think that the way I try to communicate with the audience is always as intense as the others.
G21: How closely did you follow the book?
Amenábar: The book is actual ly a philosophy and poetry [collection] so you cannot find the story in there. After reading the book I researched about his life so I knew how he thought about life. He had a whole very intellectually rich war. But I never thought about making a film about that. It was afterwards I met one of his friends and they told me about the real Ramón Sampedro -- a story that hadn't shown up in the papers and it's about how all these women fell in love with him and how he gave meaning to the lives around him, about his sense of humor as well. Then I decided to research the whole story and tell this story.
G21: Javier Bardem gave a remarkable performance. How did you cast him as the lead?
Amenábar: Since I saw him the first time in "Jamon Jamon," I really wanted to work with Javier, but I never thought this would be a suitable character for him. I think he is the best actor in Spain -- if not in the world -- so my producer encouraged me to talk to him. It sounded like a bad idea, so I was really hesitant, and it took him a few weeks to have a conversation with me. Then, we started to talk about the character. The main goal for him was to deliver lines in a natural way, just like Ramón did it. I was sure about that but I wasn't sure about the age thing. What really worried me was that I didn't want the audience to feel something non-organic. When they would be watching the film, would they be saying "Why did I cast this guy in his '30s pretending to be someone in his 50s?" So it had to be really natural. We needed very good makeup. I said that I would like to close my eyes and just listen to you and believe that this is someone in his 50s and that's a subtle difference that he had to do. It was very tricky.
G21: Did you have an opportunity to meet with other paraplegics and discuss this with them?
Amenábar: We went to the hospital for paraplegics; Javier and I were more aware than ever about the big responsibility we have to make this movie. We don't want anyone to encourage anyone to kill themselves. Actually a boy came to me and said I met you last year at a conference. I didn't remember him and didn't remember anyone in a wheelchair. And he said "No, two months ago I had a motorcycle accident and broke my back." So you have a responsibility to them. They all knew what we were doing and seemed pretty okay with the idea.
G21: Oddly, the film offers a great appreciation for living.
Amenábar: I would like the film to be an homage to the people who leave us and provide a comfort for the ones who remain.
G21: How much of this film is a collaboration for you?
Amenábar: There are things that I have to do and this time it was the editing. I needed to be on my own in the editing room. I had to do it alone. On the other hand, once I finished the editing, I showed it to someone for feedback. I wouldn't say I'm a very controlling person but I like anything relating to the process and like to be a part of it. But as to the performances, I'm more open. I talk to the actors and I don't tell them exactly what I want to do. I want them to surprise me.
G21: Do you let them improvise?
Amenábar: Yeah. I encouraged [the actors] to change some of the lines of the script if they wanted to.
G21: Did you improvise on the death scene?
Amenábar: No. We knew how the agony had been and Javier really related to what had happened. And the crew was really shocked.
G21: how long did it take to do that scene?
Amenábar: It was about 15 minutes and shooting it was about five or six minutes. I was scared because it could break the tone of the film but afterwards I knew we had to let the audience know that he suffered.
G21: Since this film came out shortly after Christopher Reeve's passing, will it be harder for people to celebrate Ramón as a hero after they celebrated Reeve? Though they were in a similar situation, Ramon chose to fight a different fight?
Amenábar: Both are heroes. While some people said that Ramón was a coward, I never saw him like that. Christopher Reeve and Ramon were like the different sides of the same coin. I'm curious to know what Christopher Reeve would have thought about Ramón. But actually I not only had Christopher Reeve in mind when I was writing this story but all of those people like him. I wouldn't want it to be an insult to them and at the same time I felt we had to tell this story. We weren't encouraging people to kill themselves. When I got to know the whole story, I asked myself what would I want to do with my life if I were like Ramón. If I were like Ramón I wouldn't want to die but at the same time I think that he was right when he said that his life belonged to him. So I respect that.
G21: Did the laws change after Ramón?s death?
Amenábar: They have changed after his death. There were 10,000 people signing a statement saying that they helped him [so no one would be prosecuted]. So today the laws have slightly changed. You would still go to jail if you actually knew you assisted in [this kind of] suicide. That's why he was obsessed with not having anyone charged; he designed his plan where 10 or 11 people were involved so he didn't want them to get charged.
G21: What were the biggest challenges you faced writing the screenplay or making the film?
Amenábar: My biggest challenge was the directing. Talking to actors -- trying to make things go smoothly. I love the process of writing but I am more comfortable with directing. The hardest part is composing the music. The first three or four days I give up and then I go on and end up doing it.
G21: You said that when you first read about Ramón, you felt very passionate about it; did that bring on the sentimental part in the film?
Amenábar: I somehow felt alive when I read his poetry book. It was brilliant but most of all it was an intellectual thing. Feeling alive means a whole uplifting feeling -- that's what I get from the book and when they told me his story and what he had meant for all the people then I was really moved in an emotional way so yeah I don't try to restrain myself. It's about not understanding what's happening but about feeling it. I wanted people to have that feeling when they see the film. I wanted the film to be a comfort for the people who have to face the idea of losing someone. Obviously the film is dedicated to a friend of mine who died last year and we talked a lot about dying.
G21: What do you think about your movie and the Clint Eastwood-directed "Million Dollar Baby" [with a lead that becomes a quadriplegic] coming out at the same time?
Amenábar: This is a hot topic in many countries because of the situation that medicine has created regarding making life longer. We're talking about quality of life so this says something about life nowadays. I truly think that this will be something discussed [a lot more] in the future.
G21: What is the reaction in Spain?
Amenábar: The reaction has been very good. And I'm talking about lots of people, though the church has been hard on the movie. But there is a big debate right now in Spain again. I don't feel the film has been politically attacked. Representatives from the church say that this is a great film with very bad morality.
G21: When you make a film in a particular genre, do you review the rules of that genre and figure out how to twist them?
Amenábar: Ever since I was a kid I loved everything about movie making. With suspense films, it's very easy to analyze how they do things. Hitchcock was very mathematical and for this film, having known it was going to be a drama, every drama that I would be engaged with and very emotional. You have to analyze that but a lso I think if you're too close to the cliché there's nothing new, nothing fresh, sometime you have to play with the clichés and try to turn them around.
G21: Your original thrillers are obviously very personal. How were you able to make this man's story personal for you?
Amenábar: I think the concept of the sea was very important. When I finished promoting my [previous film] here, I went to the beach in Spain and though I didn't know what my next movie was going to be about, I thought that it should start and finish at the sea. So I found a story where the sea was so important. Maybe the biggest challenge for me was considering that I had all this material, it would be ideal for a TV movie and I didn't want it to be a TV movie. So maybe the biggest challenge too was how long are we going to get out of the room and enter Ramón?s inner war. Those kind of things have to do with me -- the war of dreams and desire and actually exploring human behavior. If you've seen my four films I sometimes use things as an excuse but I end up talking about people.
G21: Your film was nominated for a Foreign Film Oscar and both you and Javier have won other awards. What does that mean to you?
Amenábar: An Oscar means a lot of things its like the ultimate award for a filmmaker so it feels great. But you have to consider awards with some distance and not get obsessed about it. Of course it would help to bring people in the theatres to see the film because everyone is watching at the Oscars so that's good but other than that I don't feel anything is better or worse. Considering that every year you can see masterpieces that have not been nominated, you have to look at it with a distance.
G21: "The Others" was very successful here. Directors come to America to do a movie, and don't usually go back to their country to do another film unless they are not successful here. Why did you decide to do this film in Spain?
Amenábar: It's so difficult to find a good story nowadays. This story was fascinating and had to be done in Spain and in Spanish otherwise I would have felt it would have been a wrong journey for all of us. It would have been a pity letting this story go away. You are interested in a communicating with other people not just going somewhere to make a movie that's Hollywood. That means nothing to me.
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