Dateline: 12/11//99

It seems fitting that Mike Figgis should adapt a theatrical play to a film, especially a play that dared to address the bold new themes of 1888. Introducing these same themes to a 1999 movie provides a daring departure from current filmmaking standards.

Saffron Burrows and Peter Mullan.

Figgis' latest film, Miss Julie, is based on the August Strindberg play that focuses on the bitter struggle between different classes and sexes. All of the action takes place in the kitchen of a Swedish count's home on Midsummer Night's Eve, a special holiday for the servants. For Miss Julie, Figgis constructed a 360° one-room stage specially designed to provide the setting for the entire film. The roof of the kitchen was a soft light, which allowed the film crew to move about the stage without having to adjust the lighting. Two hand-held Super 16mm cameras wielded by the director and cinematographer captured all of the action in fifteen-minute takes; the entire story was shot in sequence.

Miss Julie depicts the interaction of Jean, a valet to the Count, and Julie, the Count's emotionally unstable daughter. Both characters desperately want what they think the other can offer-Jean is an obsessive social climber who desires Miss Julie's status, and Julie is a woman who has lost her emotional identity, and seeks a man to save her. Written by August Strindberg, who dealt often with the destructive and damaging nature of the battle of the sexes, Miss Julie is far from the usual period love story.

Mike Figgis, perhaps best known for his Oscar-winning film, Leaving Las Vegas, is not afraid to approach controversial or disturbing subjects. When asked if audiences would appreciate such dark entertainment, Figgis responded, "That's a general malaise of the cinema-- a sort of apparent fear of the dark subject. I never quite understood why that would be, because that's always traditionally been thought of as a good idea in theater, certainly in literature and in painting, and I would say the best cinema is characterized by a certain darkness."

The main characters in Miss Julie are unique in that they are deeply flawed, and sometimes, not even likable. With no clear protagonist in the film, Figgis was questioned as to whether or not he even liked his characters. "No," he answered, "I adore them because they are that rare thing in drama, which is real. There are moments when I feel really so sorry for Jean, genuinely believe what he's saying, and the same for Julie, and other times I despise what he's saying, and the same for her. And it's so refreshing to be able to despise a woman and a man equally in a drama. That may sound perverse, but normally we say, 'Okay, this is where our sympathy's going to be', and it sort of, in a way, castrates a character to say 'Okay this is going to be a good person, or just a bad person'. I love them for their complexity. In terms of, 'Would I want to live in a house with them?' no, I wouldn't."

Peter Mullan stars in Miss Julie.

Scottish actor Peter Mullan, who plays the manipulative Jean, has an interesting take on his character. "He's a sad, lonely, pathetic, destructive, lewd, pitiful soul if you ask me. He's incapable of doing anything other than feeling sorry for himself and hating things," the actor said in a gruff brogue. Mullan, who recently won the Best Actor Award at Cannes in 1998 for My Name Is Joe, explained his acting method. "No staying in character, not for me. There's an intellectual intensity. I think unless you're completely nuts, you're only the character for as long as the camera's running, and as soon as that damn thing stops, then you ain't that character no more. And you couldn't have that guy in your head."

As Miss Julie's title character, Saffron Burrows revealed her initial hesitation performing Strindberg's play. "Having read the play a few times, I found the preface a little later. I was so appalled by it, I thought 'Does this man deserve being performed?' It really gave me second thoughts," she said. "The idea that someone could write something so full of bile and so vicious-- I just thought he should be stamped on."

Obviously, Burrows chose to take the role and she explained, "But clearly Strindberg is a phenomenal writer, and I think Miss Julie is a role that every actress I've ever talked to has either played already, or would love to play. I think it's very clear that the play is a result of an accumulation of experiences and emotions to do with being with these people in one room for one night. So, it's to do with a degree of intimacy, which is about a short space of time, and an element of headiness, and insanity, and all of those things. There's something so special about what Strindberg has created. He's created a very flawed woman, which is very rare in writing. So often, men see women in an entirely unrealistic way, and don't understand class, either, and this story really hinges on class and sex."

If the subject matter troubled the actors, the method of filmmaking Figgis used seemed to make up for it. In regard to the fifteen minute takes, the director related, "My experience of actors is that they want to act, and what they don't get in a film is any kind of uninterrupted period like an actor would on stage, where you go up and do two hours."

Mullan agreed, "I loved the long takes, cause then you can explore. And I enjoyed sort of seeing the world through his eyes, because it's interesting, not pleasant, but it's interesting, how he sees things." The chaos caused by Miss Julie's unique setup also seemed to agree with Mullan. "It makes for a better performance, because the worst thing you can do when you play the classics, is to take it at all seriously, it's absolutely deadly. If you ever play a love scene, and it can be Shakespeare, it can be Chekhov, it can be Strindberg or Ibsen; you must play the love scene as if the roof is going to fall in at any second, for all you know. You must, otherwise, it's not a love scene, it's a great speech. You get a very mannered form of acting. For me, you must play a scene like it's the last thing that's ever going to happen to you in your life, 'cause that's life. And because we had this kinda crazy way of shooting, you didn't know if the table was going to collapse under the weight of two camera crews, so this may be the last thing you get to say to one another. Because your director's gonna die, you know. Exciting!"

The special ceiling light allowed the actors to move about the stage as they pleased, which made for some extra work for the camera crews, who followed the players closely. "It was fantastic, because you've got these lights in the ceiling, these soft lights, which did allow us to roam around. Sometimes you'd see two boom operators colliding over your shoulder, and you try not to look distracted," Burrows laughed. As for working without the special effects Burrows had on her last film, Deep Blue Sea, she said, "Well I love working with an actor who's there all the time, because so often, on films, the nature of the thing is you're talking to a piece of black gaffer tape."

Mullan also emphasized the importance of the human element in filmmaking, particularly how it influenced his performance in Miss Julie. "You're on a set, and the camera crews are all bumping into one another, and the guys with booms are all hitting other guys with booms on the head and Mike was the second cameraman. The fact that the director screws up is a lot of fun. It's really good, because you're thinking, 'At last, he's on set, with you, one of the workers', and you're all in it, quite genuinely, together. Cause the worst thing about being on a set sometimes, is there's this omnipotent being, who, no matter how hard you try, is going to come in, and he'll give you his thoughts, and 'let's do it again', so you have to please the autocrat. So the fact that the director's actually in there, with you, makes him more human, and thus, I suspect, a far better director."

In his advice to future directors, Figgis recommends shooting as much as possible on video. He explained, "I do a lot of teaching, and I talk say to students, 'Look, I really don't understand why you're aspiring to go to Hollywood and shoot 35mm or 70mm. That may happen as a natural consequence of your career. Really what you should try to do now is output as much as you can between now and the end of your career. Because the only way film directors learn is by making films, and you can talk until you are blue in the face, but the experience of actually shooting a film-- there's nothing like it'."

Aspiring directors may have a better chance of success in the future, according to Figgis. When asked about the changes the Internet will have on the industry, he replied, "I think the Internet is such a mind blowing event, a sort of evolution, at this point it's almost difficult to quantify how huge its effect will be. It takes all of the elitism out of filmmaking, which, for the industry, is terrifying. You can, I think, really detect the nervousness around you when you go to production meetings now, and you see the colossal pyramid that exists for one film. For people being paid vast salaries, of course, it's in everyone's best interest to maintain that kind of status quo. The Internet, in one move, has wiped out the need to have that kind of superstructure. I think everybody knows it's going to change, and also change it with a speed that could never have been anticipated."