Interview with Director Tran Anh Hung.
Director and screenwriter TRAN Anh HungÕs directorial debut THE SCENT OF GREEN PAPAYA (1992) won him a reputation internationally by winning Camera dÕOr at the 46th Cannes Film Festival and the Best First Film Award at the 19th Cesar Awards. The film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Norwegian Wood marks his fifth feature film.
How did you encounter the book and what was the process of developing the film?
I read the French edition, several years after it was published in Japan. I was immediately captivated and wanted to film it. But because I couldn't get positive responses to my proposal, I had almost given up when producer Shinji Ogawa contacted me. He and I began thorough discussions about the direction of the film adaptation. When we met Haruki Murakami, he asked us to show him the first draft of the screenplay. I finished the first draft and showed it to Haruki, who gave me many notes, including additional dialogue not included in his original book. I wrote the second draft based on his notes and after that, I was free to revise the screenplay as I wanted. I believe Haruki felt I had grasped the essence of his book and we were able to finish the film.
What about the book captivated you?
Norwegian Wood is a fantastic novel that brilliantly portrays the radical inner lives of youth, through the character's personal experiences. The book depicts young people, seeking to define their lives and accepting the consequences as they fall in love and honestly confront their emotions. As Haruki himself has said, this leads the characters into dangerous territory. Yet, it was this aching yearning of youth that intrigued me. Another factor is the sensuality. Because everything is structured around the sexual lives of the characters, I knew that visually, I would need to strike the right balance for the audience to experience the sex as more than simple pleasure, without descending into vulgarity.
What was your greatest challenge in writing the screenplay?
The novel begins with a plane landing at Hamburg Airport. The story is told in a nostalgic voice, looking back at the past, but I wanted to recreate the raw painfulness of fresh wounds. That's why I wrote the screenplay in the present tense. That was the hardest decision to make.
What were your casting criteria?
For me, casting is always about the personality of the actor. Especially for someone who has never acted before, what is critical is how much the actor fits the worldview of the film and how suitable the actor is to the character. The next step is to discern how much acting potential the actor has.
Why did you ask Jonny Greenwood to score the film?
My reason was simple. When I saw THERE WILL BE BLOOD, which he scored, I thought it was wonderful. His music is both modern and classical at the same time and I am captivated by that singular harmony. I also experience a rich musicality from his music. His musical phrases are not simple or easy to memorize. Instead they echo the expansive spiritual world with a sound that feels as though it will keep growing and expanding. The characters in this film often find themselves in complex psychological states, involving deep pain and profound dilemmas. I wanted the music to have the depth to express their psychological states. He is a musician capable of naturally melting into the world of this story. I was privileged to work with him.
All of your films to date share the theme of "beauty within suffering." In this film, were you also trying to discover beauty within the pain of mourning?
It's true that I believe it's possible to discover elements of beauty in the midst of suffering. One of the major themes of art is to portray how beauty and suffering co-exist and that is true of this film. One character's mourning triggers much suffering. My goal was to portray that as intensely as possible, in a style that rendered the intensity beautiful. This is because beauty settles deeply into the human psyche and endures. I want my audience to encounter that beauty.
