Archipelago - Joanna Hogg interview

JOANNA Hogg talks about her second film Archipelago and reuniting with Tom Hiddleston as her leading man. She also talks about her distinct directing style, how she goes about preparing her scripts and then working with her cast, and why now that she’s found her voice and been able to express it creatively, she’s reluctant to relinquish that power…

Q. Having spoken to your leading man Tom Hiddleston, he was commenting on your bravery in pointing your camera at a part of English society that isn’t usually represented in British cinema – the upper middle class. What draws you to that?
Joanna Hogg: [Gestures towards herself and laughs] Me! But I don’t think about it in those terms. It’s sort of who I am and where I’m from. I don’t think of it in class terms. I didn’t grow up to feel like I was in a particular section of society, so it’s interesting that in people’s response to the film they mention class. It’s not something I’ve thought about. It’s about getting ideas and thoughts and feelings that I have and inevitably that is then connected to what kind of upbringing I had. It’s as much about being a woman as the details of my upbringing. I think it’s harder for women, actually, to express themselves creatively… certainly in my experience.

It’s taken me a long time to make the switch [from TV]. It took me a long time to get to making Unrelated, my first film, and then luckily not so long to get to make my second film. But all those years before that I’d been wanting to use my creative voice and I didn’t have the courage to do that. I don’t know how much of that is to do with being a woman, my education – which wasn’t very good… actually, I didn’t go to university, so I didn’t have the confidence of a university education. I think that really meant something to me not to have that… So, all those things add up to a feeling that maybe I don’t have anything valid to say. So, it was very important to me to break through that. You’re breaking through quite a lot of obstacles. I mean, everyone is in life – I just had a set of obstacles that were specific to me. But it’s not about any grander image of society, or class… I’m not thinking in those terms. I’m thinking very much about the personal.

Q. You mention having to wait… but having found tremendous success with Unrelated you didn’t want to go into the studio system as a result and have been very careful about where your funding comes from in order to retain creative control of your work…
Joanna Hogg: Well that’s right, but that’s only because I had over 10 years in television making a particular kind of programme. I haven’t worked in the Hollywood system, but I’d say there are some similarities between working in television and working in the studio system, in terms of how much power the executives have – and so any reminder of that now I’ve found my voice isn’t appealing to me. But I also realise I could take that too far, so I’m not going to be turning down something that I think would be really interesting if it’s a wonderful piece of work to do. But I guard very closely my newfound creative freedom.

Q. You have a very distinct eye when it comes to training your camera… it’s long takes and a minimalist approach. What made you decide to take that approach? Did someone inspire you? Or was that all your own?
Joanna Hogg: I think it happened quite naturally. I don’t think I thought of it that clearly beforehand. But I was interested in shooting scenes from a particular distance. I’ve always been really interested in dance films, actually, and how certainly dance films from the past – films like The Bandwagon – often used to shoot quite wide so that you could see, particularly because it was dance, the movement of the dancers and the actors within a particular wide frame. I think that is relevant to what I’m doing because I’m interested in the dance of people and the way people interact with each other. I think if you cut things always to a close up or a medium shot you don’t see what the rest of the body is doing. So, I think a lot of the story is told in how the characters are moving and how they move with each other within the frame. I think if you cut too quickly you don’t get time to see those things.

Q. I’d imagine you need tremendous confidence in your cast, so casting becomes incredibly key to the process?
Joanna Hogg: The importance of casting cannot be over-emphasised. That’s probably the most important thing about what I do. If you cast right, you’re a long way down the line already.

Q. And Tom Hiddleston is someone you’ve worked with now twice. What appealed to you about him in the first place? And what made you decide to work with him again?
Joanna Hogg: I think it’s his ability to take risks but really take very personal risks in a way that I’m mining myself for the characters I’m creating, he’s able to go right into himself and pull out an aspect of himself that relates to the character. I mean, what’s extraordinary is that in Unrelated he was playing a very different character… this very, very cocksure, rather arrogant character. But in Archipelago he’s playing the complete antithesis, and yet both are really believable. And now, working with him for a second time, he understands my process and I don’t have to explain too much. He trusts me, which is a big step in the right direction and he’s fun to work with too.

Q. When it comes to script, I know that a lot of it is improvised. So, at what point is the script developed to when you arrive on set? Is it like Mike Leigh? Or do people know where things end up but it’s up to them how to get there?
Joanna Hogg: They don’t necessarily know and also I’m not working with just actors, I’m working with non-actors as well. They know less… in the case of Archipelago I decided that the family would know the story because the family would know the story, but the outsiders don’t, so they don’t know what’s going to happen each moment in time. We’re all in the dark to an extent because I’m shooting in story order, so things change each day. I might decide to turn the storyline in a different direction halfway through the shoot. So, the script that I write is not like a conventional script, it’s more like a piece of prose describing the story but also the characters as well – and that becomes a map for the film. But then, as I say, that changes as we go along because I’ll come up with ideas. It’s a moveable feast in a sense.

Q. So, is that also informed by having your cast live together in the same house during the shoot? Do you see things that might occur between them off-set and decide to include them?
Joanna Hogg: Exactly, exactly! Yeah, it’s very different from Mike Leigh. I don’t have a long rehearsal period, for example. We have a week in the location before we start filming and in that week the actors and non-actors are just sort of settling into the place. I don’t like to rehearse scenes because I want to keep the spontaneity for when we’re actually shooting. So, we’ll discuss things but I’ll keep the level down because I don’t want to waste anything really. So, I want them to immerse themselves in the place and the landscape. In the case of Archipelago, the family were living in the house. So, there was a level of intensity to everyday life… not just filming. It was quite a challenge for them I think. But I think that immersion in the place, continually as we’re working makes the fiction feel very real.

Q. So, how far away were you when you went home at night? And did you feel guilty leaving them sometimes after some of the more challenging emotional scenes?
Joanna Hogg: [Laughs] I was just down the road, because everything was five minutes away. But I did feel guilty, particularly when the locals started telling ghost stories about the house! I don’t know if they were winding them up or not – I thought they might evacuate after hearing that. But they all very bravely stayed there. But it definitely adds a level of authenticity.

Q. What draws you to the idea of using a holiday as a plot device? You’ve done that with both films?
Joanna Hogg: Well, I already knew this particular place – Tresco, Isles of Scilly – because I’d had family holidays there before… but not family holidays like that! Very happy Easter holidays. I’d never been there in the autumn before, though. I hadn’t realised how bleak it was in the autumn… the colours and the character of the whole place changes in the winter. You don’t have so many visitors. So, it’s very, very quiet and there’s a feeling of bleakness which, of course, was absolutely right for the story. But in terms of the nature of this family holiday, it wasn’t something I took directly from my own experience even though the characters are very much based on parts of myself. I sort of know that situation without having been in exactly the same one myself.

Q. There’s a lot of acclaim surrounding both of your films so far, so does that add any pressure on you – to perhaps keep surpassing each achievement?
Joanna Hogg: Well, it’s not about surpassing the achievement. What I’m concerned to hang on to is my own take on things and to keep the courage going, really, for subsequent films. And not become too subconscious about what I’m doing. So, in a way the more feedback I get about both films, the more I have to be careful that I don’t think about those things too much myself: the style of it, the story… each time, I have to sort of reinvent myself and keep pushing myself.

Q. I’ve read that you’d like to work with Tom a third time. I guess one of the headaches now will be trying to find a space in his schedule?
Joanna Hogg: That’s true… I should be so lucky to get him now that he’s coming out in so many big films [Thor, The Deep Blue Sea, War Horse, Midnight in Paris]!

Q. But are you currently bubbling some ideas around together? I’d read that you were working on something…
Joanna Hogg: Yes, I don’t know yet what the next film is going to be exactly. But that’s something that I don’t pin myself down with too early on. I have a number of ideas floating around and I’m quite interested again in exploring someone like Anna, the character in Unrelated who doesn’t have her own family unit in a way, or children. So, that theme will come up again and other ideas. I’m thinking of setting something in London, which will possibly involve a wider spectrum of characters. But you have to take that with a pinch of salt because tomorrow I could have another idea!