IFC Movies’ motion thriller Clear, starring Oscar winner Adrien Brody, is out now in theaters and on VOD.
“Clear, a person with a violent and felony previous, seeks, redemption after being woke up by a private tragedy,” reads the synopsis. “He dedicates his life to his damaged group and the security of a younger woman who reminds him of his daughter. When her life is put in peril, it ignites, a return to the darkness and violence he’s labored so exhausting to go away behind. In his makes an attempt to avoid wasting her, he may very nicely save himself. ”
RELATED: Interview: Adrien Brody Discusses Clear, Scoring the Movie, and Working with Austin Wintory
ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Clear director Paul Solet about his new movie with Adrien Brody, the themes that it explores, and extra.
Tyler Treese: I do know you labored on Bullet Head with Adrien Brody. Was that the primary you two had met or how did that working relationship begin?
Paul Solet: Yeah, that was the primary we met. On the time, Adrien was within the south of France portray. He’s additionally an artist and a musician. I feel on the time he was simply kind of taking the time away from films and we despatched him a script anyway and he actually responded to it and we hit it off instantly. I feel we actually kind of had very comparable sensibilities and sensitivities and…we’re each from again east. Now we have comparable upbringings and had lots of robust individuals in our universes. So we had a shorthand instantly, and I feel after Bullet Head, we have been excited to work on one thing else collectively. He had wished to do one thing like Clear for some time, and he had a kind of a way of a personality, like a really clear visceral, emotional kind of a way about emotions that he was having and discovering unjust and infuriating on this planet and…violence and the opiate disaster, s— like this. He wished to channel it. That was kind of the genesis for Clear.
Are you able to speak about that collaborative strategy of penning this with Adrien? You guys collaborated earlier than, however it is a complete totally different diploma, and I really feel such as you sort of needed to discover your footing as collaborators.
Completely. Yeah, no, it is a very intimate kind of working relationship. It’s a troublesome film. However the improvement course of was truly fairly mild, though we each introduced lots of very private themes to it. Not all of that are mild themselves, however we began spitballing collectively. I went to see him in Manchester to complete some post-production on Bullet Head whereas he was doing Peaky Blinders, and we simply walked round Manchester, sort of simply dreaming and taking on this industrial metropolis with all this historical past and consuming lots of closely caffeinated inexperienced tea and simply sort of spitballing and dreaming collectively. We simply stored it up, we’d go our separate methods, do our separate work, evaluate notes when he was in L.A., we’d meet up, we’d work, we’d grind some s— collectively, after which go our separate methods. After I can be in New York, we’d stroll across the metropolis and spitball and discover a spot to work. That was kind of how we did it. We simply kind of iterated and iterated and iterated.
We each are very a lot involved with in search of out any kind of pretentiousness or bulls—, and attempting extinguish it and permit one thing higher to return as a replacement. That was kind of the method. Clear is a…I really like style films. I imply, I really like motion films. I really like horror movies. I grew up with these films, and I actually am an actual believer that should you do the work to have one thing trustworthy below the hood, they simply work so significantly better. If it’s a personality you actually consider has historical past and that you simply actually care about, the stakes are a lot larger. I wish to know what’s happening with this man, I wish to know the place he got here from, I wish to know what occurred. It’s a really totally different factor than simply kind of exploitation, which…that stuff has its place, and there’s some actually enjoyable stuff, however that wasn’t our purpose right here.
I assumed the movie constructed rather well to its large motion scene on the finish and there are just a few brutal motion scenes right here. I’d love to listen to about your strategy. Deciding what to point out, what to go away to the creativeness, and the way you got here up with a few of the motion scenes right here.
I recognize that so much. It’s a film a few man who’s like a savant at violence. It’s a film a few man who’s a really unhealthy man who’s working his off to be man, and what occurs whenever you then give him a motive to be unhealthy once more, and the f–king beast that comes out. So these motion scenes are very a lot an extension of who he’s, you realize, they’re character scenes. They’re brutal, ballistic scenes, however they’re kind of nearly poetic. You get to lastly get a window into kind of who this man was when he was doing what he was doing, and it’s fierce.
Adrien is a f–king power of nature on this film. I feel this film will depart all people actually clear that he’s completely able to being an motion hero, and an motion hero who nonetheless has what Adrien is already so revered for and recognized for, which is the flexibility to make a personality actual. Even a personality who’s as exhausting as this man is, you get to see vulnerability in him. It’s a lovely efficiency, I’m actually pleased with him.
Clear’s a extremely attention-grabbing character as a result of he has that violent previous and it’s attention-grabbing as a result of, as you mentioned, he’s attempting to be man and we’ve got a really outlined definition of excellent. So, do you view that as him relapsing, by taking place this violent path? He sort of looks like he’s saving himself. What’s your learn on that character arc and sort of embracing that violence when he has to?
That’s an excellent query. Very well articulated. Clear is clearly a man who’s kind of dually addicted in a bizarre sort of a method. , I don’t wanna kind of give an excessive amount of away, however he has like sort of comorbidities in that method, and they’re intertwined with one another. As is the case in actual life, these issues could be exhausting to untangle and so they can have an effect on one another. When one kind of begins to crumble, the opposite can begin to crumble. He’s completely a man who’s working extraordinarily exhausting to withstand the siren name of who he was.
You see it in that scene within the alley, the place he comes upon a man getting the shit kicked out of him by a gaggle of men, and it’s not the expertise that you simply or I may need in that state of affairs. He’s kind of drawn to it and, and referred to as to it. It’s distinctive to him, there’s a kind of a previous, and a life-style that’s kind of haunting him, and man is he working exhausting to get away from it. Anybody who has any expertise with dependancy and restoration. That stuff ought to communicate to them. That stuff may be very private. [It’s] very private to me on this film. I beloved how genuine he was and bringing a brand new kind of dimension and a tackle that manifestation of dependancy. Very attention-grabbing.
Are you able to communicate to the movie’s rating that Adrien Brody did for the movie?
The rating is an Adrien Brody rating that Austin Wintory, who’s a pricey, pricey shut collaborator of mine, he was the rating producer. However Adrien scored Clear, and labored extremely exhausting on that rating. He actually understood, as an actor who’s as apparent as savvy as he’s, {that a} rating is a chance to increase your efficiency [and] to have an effect on your efficiency in a method that’s simply vastly f–king highly effective. In the event you spend any time in editorial, you perceive as a filmmaker which you can make or break a efficiency, you’ll be able to amplify or undercut a efficiency in so many various methods utilizing a rating.
Adrien actually utilized this as a possibility to take even additional what his imaginative and prescient for this character was. To increase the imaginative and prescient all through post-production, in the identical method that his being concerned in manufacturing was a possibility for him to increase the imaginative and prescient that he had for this character. [It was a] actually attention-grabbing factor to see, and I feel an uncommon alternative for an actor to have the ability to have, and actually to totally exploit as he did.
