With AFI FEST almost over, Warner Bros. screened “Live By Night” Wednesday night independently of the prestige event for members of the press (primarily the BFCA). No, ‘Live’ was officially not sneaking at AFI as rumored weeks earlier (amazingly there is no sneak this year). Happily, writer, director and star Ben Affleck was on hand alongside producer Jennifer Todd (also producing this year’s Oscar telecast, more on that in a minute) editor William Goldenberg and co-stars Chris Messina and Sienna Miller.
The film is set in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s and adapted from Dennis Lehane’s novel of he same name. During a lengthy Q&A following the screening Affleck admitted his goal was not to make an awards season player after earning a Best Picture win for “Argo” in 2013.
“This wasn’t a movie where I said, ‘Come on, we’re gonna win Best Picture,’” Affleck says. “This was a crowd-pleasing, genre movie. I wanted to do something really different from ‘Argo.’ I had planned this even before ‘Argo’ came out, but I wanted to challenge myself and this was really more deliberate and more classic where everything was determined and I knew where everything was going to be in each shot. I challenged myself that way and having Bob Richardson made it infinitely easier.”
The film finished shooting early in the year before Affleck began production on “Justice League” and he admitted he had no idea how relevant it would become after the issues discussed during the presidential election and Trump’s subsequent win.
“I’m just very moved by the fact that, I read this book for example and I thought how this country was built not just by immigrants, but by people who were marginalized,” Affleck says. “People who were treated and thought of as less than, in this case, the protestant establishment and those were the people who came and made this country great. I didn’t think it would feel so current, if you know what I mean? But, now all of a sudden it does with the notions of immigration and race and you have the Klan and the ideas of inclusion and the way people are competing for resources and that sort of thing. I thought it would feel distant and now it feels so current I wish I could dial it back.”
The movie is currently embargoed for formal reviews but we can say it is a potential player in the Best Cinematography (Robert Richardson), Costumes (Jacqueline West) and Production Design (Jess Gonchor) categories. The former is one that definitely was something special to Affleck.
“Bob has been my ideal DP. He’s been my hero. When Matt [Damon] worked with him on ‘The Good Shepherd,’ I loved De Niro and idolized him as well, but I was like, ‘What was Bob Richardson like?’ I just wanted to work with him so much,” Affleck says. “He’s got his 10 nominations and three Oscars. I’m not the first person to discover Bob Richardson, but we just got lucky. He was wiling to do it. He liked my other movies and was willing to work with me and of all the DP’s I’ve worked with he was the most established and well known, but also the most collaborative and open. And I thought that was a really interesting lesson.”
Before the screening Affleck, Miller and Todd made their way through an intimate reception chatting with the attendees. Todd was wonderfully forthcoming on her thoughts regarding her current gig as Academy Awards telecast co-producer alongside Michael De Luca. She said one of her goals is to try and eliminate the repetitive questions about “What dress are you wearing?” on the red carpet portion of the show. And while they are still searching for a host she noted there are many other things to deal with such as hiring a set designer (done, it appears) and starting work on clip packages. Todd also said she’s in the middle of an opportunity most producers take, the chance to watch every previous Oscar telecast thanks to The Academy archives. Needless to say, the fact Todd thought Laurence Mark and Bill Condon’s 2009 Oscar show hosted by Hugh Jackman is one of the best ever is a very good sign of things to come.
“Live by Night” opens in limited release on Dec. 25 and nationwide on Jan. 13.