by James Mottram
One of the very strange images at the centre of the hilariously weird satire Rumours is a giant brain – a pulsating organ found glowing in a forest clearing. Just don’t ask the filmmakers what it all means. “Well, the giant brain is simply an image, an undeniable image,” says Evan Johnson, cryptically. “What you see there is a large brain. We’ve always felt since it was first suggested… we just said, ‘Yes, a large brain!’” His co-director Guy Maddin smiles. “A good image requires no explanation. You can project your ideas onto it…”
In the case of Rumours, there’s an abundance of ideas inside its curious world. It’s all set around the G7, the political and economic forum made up of seven nations: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. The seven leaders come together to deal with an unspecified crisis, forging a joint statement as they wine and dine in a luxurious country estate close to a secluded forest. But as the fog descends, bizarre things start to happen – not least the discovery of that aforementioned brain.
As Evan points out, it’s not the first film in which he’s used a giant brain. See his 2015 feature debut The Forbidden Room, co-directed with Maddin. “It ends with a much bigger, giant brain. It’s something of a recurring image,” he says. “I find brains funny; for some reason, they look funny. For all the work they do and the profundities, they look undignified.” As his brother Galen points out, he took inspiration from a Volkswagen Beetle when designing it with this art department. “We actually just said: ‘[We want it] the size of a Volkswagen.’”
Naturally, the cast is none the wiser when it comes to the meaning of the brain. “I try not to think about it,” laughs Cate Blanchett, who stars as German chancellor Hilda Orlmann. Among her co-stars, British actor Charles Dance plays the U.S. President, Edison Wolcott, complete with inexplicable British accent. Inglourious Basterds star Denis Ménochet is French president Sylvain Broulez, Nikki Amuka-Bird is the British Prime Minister, Cardosa Dewindt, and Roy Dupuis (who featured in The Forbidden Room) is the Justin Trudeau-like Canadian PM, Maxime Laplace.
So, why exactly does Charles Dance sport a British accent? “I mean, we were writing these characters, trying to keep them related to real world figures, but not one-to-one representations of real world figures,” says Evan. “And one way of making your American president not any specific real life American president is giving them a British accent, just to distinguish. There’s also this rich tradition, annoyingly to some American actors, of British actors coming over and stealing roles. Like Anthony Hopkins for Nixon, Gary Oldman who plays Truman in Oppenheimer.”
True to its cheeky spirit, Rumours even thanks the G7 for its co-operation. “We don’t care what they think. Someone was asking about this, ‘What do you think they would think of it?’ I’m actually ashamed to say, I don’t think they hate it as much as I want them to!” laughs Evan. “It is a little bit of a regret I have that I feel like it could have been more caustic, maybe. But we had other things in mind, not just political satire. It’s almost a satire of movies as much as it is of politics.” Maddin wistfully adds that he would have loved to have projected the film at the recent G7 summit in Italy “on the side of their castle”.
As wacky as the film sounds, it was a serious business for the cast, who had to find a way into Maddin and the Johnsons’ minds. Blanchett recalls a piece of music by Galen, a mash-up of the seven G7 national anthems. “It was slightly sinister, almost like a burlesque circus piece of music and you heard all of these anthems in a really fresh way. And I found that like a great portal into what they were trying to reach for, because it was crazy, but vaguely recognisable, but also really elusive. I just found that a really interesting tone to start with.”
The 68-year-old Madden first met Evan Johnson when he was teaching at the University of Winnipeg. “Evan was my best student. We kept in touch. I hired him to be an assistant. I think the first thing I hired him to do is put together my barbecue!” He went from that to researcher to screenwriter collaborator, before Galen (“an unbelievably talented production designer, graphic artist”, says Maddin) joined forces. All three take a share of the story credit on Rumours, although Evan is sole screenwriter. “Luckily, even though we think alike, we’re each better at different things,” adds Maddin. “So, if there’s something I feel I can’t do… luckily, they can.”
Maddin, the surrealist Winnipeg director whose work includes The Saddest Music in the World and Twilight of the Ice Nymphs, has recently been saying he was semi-retired. So, did making the movie make him want to return to directing full time? “I’d like to make more,” he admits. “Besides, I have no savings and no job. All I can do is make movies or teach about making movies. People come to me and say, ‘You’re so brave making the movies you do.’ Brave? I have no choice. When I come down to making a choice, I can’t sell out – I don’t know how to.”
Certainly Blanchett – who met Maddin through the Beau is Afraid director Ari Aster – was impressed by Maddin’s mad musings. “Oftentimes when you read a script, there’s a kind of an over-wash to the dialogue – you feel like any lines can be substituted between characters, but it really couldn’t be the case in this,” she says. “If you took out a word or substituted a sentence, it didn’t have the same flavour, and it felt like they were going for something really particular, which I found really exciting, because you felt like you were stepping into their dreamscape, in a way… to be inside Guy Madden’s mind.”
Now Rumours is about to hit screens and mercilessly rib the pompous rulers of the G7. But would any of these directors consider a move into politics themselves? “Now, that’s a good move!” laughs Maddin. “I have far too many scandals buried in my past. I would last one day on the job before someone just poking around.” He starts to grin. “Yeah, maybe I’ll throw my hat in the ring for a big sash-wearing Mayor!”
Rumours is in cinemas 5 December 2024
