Dee Rees has been steadily shaking up the Hollywood film industry with her critically acclaimed work in films like “Pariah” in 2011 and HBO’s “Bessie” in 2015. She continues on her streak of critical successes with “Mudbound” which premiered at Sundance earlier this year to great acclaim. The cast of the film stopped by the New York Film Festival to discuss the project and explain why this film is so important in today’s world.
Rees explained it was a script by Virgil Williams who wrote the first draft back in 2015 and “Cassian Elwes my producer brought it to me, then I went back and read the novels by Hillary Jordan.” She said the thing that struck me most were the interior monologues, “how the characters see themselves, how they existed in the world and how they see themselves.” With this ensemble cast, Rees said, “[Mudbound] could’ve just been a film just about two brothers or this could’ve been a film just about two soldiers returning home from war, or this family trying to better themselves. But this film is about all those things and the relationships between each of the characters.”
READ MORE: ‘Mudbound’ Refuses To Let Oppression Have The Final Word
The goal for Rees was to create “good American cinema. I wanted it to feel like an old fashioned film, like the films we don’t make anymore. I wanted to break out of the typical mold,” she said passionately. It’s evident that it was important to her as well as the rest of the cast to “let the story live,” as Rees put it, by adding dimension to the characters and internal dialogue through voice over. The implementation of that internal voice drives the audience to feel connected to each character and the way they are feeling. “I wanted the audience to be invested,” she said.
The cast detailed how the project came to them and when they decided they wanted to be a part of it.
Mary J. Blige – “I was approached by Dee, with the script through my agency. I was already a huge fan of Dee’s so I was [on board] right out of the gate. Then I got the script and read it and saw how powerful it was and how the ending was positive. I saw the character of Florence as my family, she was like many mothers in the world who love their family. So I was happy to be a part of it.”
Garett Hedlund – “I read the script and fell in love with it. I just thought it was a regal, poetic and brutal story and I wanted to be a part of it. Then I watched ‘Pariah’ which Dee had done and I knew I had to work with her.”
Jason Mitchell – “Of course I wanted to work with Dee and this amazing cast! This was the first thing that I was offered that was really serious and something real. They gave me the script and I just knew I had to be a part of it. It was a voice for my family and a voice for many of the black men at the time. It’s a story about a man who is military but chose love at the end of the day. How can you not like that? Plus this was my first film with Jason Clarke which was epic for me! But I just really knew once reading the script that it was going to be epic and I had to be a part of history.”
Carey Mulligan – “I got the script and I had done a couple period films right before that already so I was nervous and resistent to doing another period drama, but I saw ‘Pariah’ and I thought it was a superb film! Just perfect storytelling and really deeply emotional without being sentimental. [Between] the script and reading the book, the relationships are so touching, I just thought that the next thing Dee was doing, I wanted to be a part of it.”
Jason Clarke – “It came down to a Skype call! I talked with Dee who was sitting in a car park, talking to me over Skype. I was terrified that the story was going to shrink and be a bit sentimental [which is the] obvious narrative but I wanted to see if we could deliver what was on the page. Everyone came forward to do it so seeing if we could make an epic film. [My character] Henry is a good, kindhearted, decent racist who benefits from it financially. [editor’s note: Clarke may have had some good intentions here, but this tone deaf comment certainly raised some eyebrows].
“He financially benefits from how the society is and I was terrified at first to play that. I love that Dee totally didn’t let any character off the hook. She built [the story] like this and it kept focus until the very very end. The idea that struggle is a part of life, its part of the meaning of life and it doesn’t have to be a bitter or an angry thing either. Finally, Dee in that car park, convinced me that this was going to be exactly what I think we’ve made.”
Rob Morgan – “I worked with Dee previously on ‘Pariah,’ which was my initiation into Sundance [Film Festival] and it was an amazing experience and put me in a beautiful light. So when Dee reached out and said ‘Hey, I have this character you have to play,’ I said I would do it no problem because I knew it was going to be epic. I appreciated her from working with her on ‘Pariah’ and and through her work on ‘Bessie.’ And I get to play opposite Mary J. Blige! I’m thankful to be a part of it, I think its a special piece that’s rarely been seen in American history. We’ve seen black people enslaved, but we hardly get to see the sharecropping era. That foggy grey period where they say, ‘you are free but you have to do this in order to exist here’ and still have this thing called ‘Jim Crow’ laws, so when I read the script I just said damn I have to be a part of this. This is history, so thank you Dee.”
“Mudbound” was made with an extremely tight production schedule.
“We had only about a week to prep between wardrobe and everything, and in terms of the material I just had to trust that everyone was going to bring their own personal history into it,” Rees said. The director explained she trusted the actors and formed what she likes to call “relationship workshops.” Through pairings and exercises between the actors, the cast worked hard to cultivate authenticity in these relationships which would be pivotal for the film. “Certain words needed to be natural and matter of fact,” Rees said. “I worked with Rob [Morgan] and Jason [Clarke] to make it realistic, moving at the speed of life. I wanted to know exactly what those people’s lives were like then.” Clarke then said, “I just wanted the exercises where so important. This was a serious film and we had very little time to get into it, everyone was very dedicated and worked hard to do it right.”
“Rachel Morrison was my cinematographer,” Rees said proudly, “it was amazing.” Morrison is currently hard at work on Marvel‘s ‘Black Panther‘ where she’s re-teaming with director Ryan Coogler. “She worked on ‘Fruitvale Station‘ and ‘Confirmation‘ and Ryan just said shes great you have to work with her,” Rees said. The feeling of realism was paramount to Rees, “we really wanted the palate of the film to fit the period and Rachel [Morrison] was so thoughtful.” Working inside of actual sharecropping cabins and having to make use of very little space, Rees noted that Morrison was a great collaborator. “I didn’t want it to feel like history, I wanted it to feel present like a living photographic memory.” Because of the tight schedule, Rees said, “I needed a DP that could change things quickly and easily. I needed to go straight to realism and what I wanted depended on the character. I wanted the environment to reflect the character and how they were feeling in the moment. [Morrison] is a master at what she does.”
“Mudbound” was acquired by Netflix at the Sundance Film Festival and was independently produced.
Rees said of the sale of ‘Mudbound’ to Netflix, “For me going into it I saw it as a place for longevity and a place for auteurs. ‘Pariah’ was acquired by Focus Features who gave it a limited release, but people kept seeing that film because it was on Netflix. I was thrilled because it gives you a simultaneous global audience; people in Texas will see it at the same time as people in Portugal.” Rees said, “Netflix is extremely supportive. Actually I’ve never felt more supported in terms of marketing of the film and having a voice on the trailer, she continued, “I think Netflix is going to be the place for edgy and challenging content.”
Finally, when asked about what she hopes people will take away from the film, Rees explained, “I hope people take from the film that we can’t begin to tackle our collective history until we interrogate our personal history. Another way to look at it is through inheritance. It’s not just about race, but rather what ideas we’ve inherited and what we might unconsciously be passing on to newer generations.”
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