CS Weekly Archive > From the Trenches > 2/08/08

Genius Loci:
In Bruges' Martin McDonagh

By jason davis

First-time writer/director Martin McDonagh tells CS Weekly how he transitioned from award-winning playwright to Academy Award-winning filmmaker in three easy steps that find him launching his feature career In Bruges.

Martin McDonagh's plays are performed all over the world. He won the Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film with his first cinematic outing ("Six Shooter"). Now, his first feature film debut, In Bruges, has opened the 2008 Sundance Film Festival with an offbeat tale of two hitmen—the thoughtful Ken (Brendan Gleason) and the loudmouthed Ray (Colin Farrell)—exiled to the eponymous Belgian town to lay low after a botched job.

Why did you begin writing?
Poverty. To pay the bills. A job to avoid getting a job. It seemed like the coolest thing to do. A pencil and a piece of paper—you can travel anywhere and do it anywhere and not have a boss. Then, when I started getting into it and getting good at it, I enjoyed bringing something new into the world.

What drew you to the theater?
I was crap at everything else up until that point. It was the next thing to try that I hadn't tried before. I spent eight years doing other types of writing. Then, when I tried writing a play, everything I learned from those eight years kind of clicked into place. That's how the play thing started. I don't really like very many plays; I certainly didn't back then. So, I was coming with a slight disrespect [for theater] and wanted to shake it up a bit. I think that's why it worked.

How did you move from theater to film with your short film "Six Shooter"?
My first love was always movies. So, I got stuck on this rollercoaster—or treadmill—of the plays, but in my heart, I always wanted to at least make one film. The short was a practice to see if I enjoyed the process or could do it well. It went okay (laughs). I thought, well, I'll take a crack at proper one.

So, you "practice" and win an Academy Award is what you're telling me?
Yeah. (laughs)

How did you first discover the medieval town of Bruges?
I went for a weekend vacation from London. You can get a train there via Brussels. I often just take myself off on crazy little weekend trips to a strange town where I've never been before to discover what it's like and have an adventure. In this place, I was just struck immediately by how beautiful, picturesque, and strange it was. It hasn't really changed in 500 or 600 years. Very medieval and gothic. Beautiful canals and cobble streets. So, I wandered around and went to all the churches and museums. By the end of the second day, I was bored shitless. I wanted to get drunk, meet women, anything other than another fucking church. Then, that kind of became a character in my head, which was arguing with the other side of my head—the cultured, architecture-loving side. That became the Colin and Brendan characters in the film. Then, I thought, why would two guys like that, who don't want to be there, have to be there? That's where the hitmen escaping from a horrible incident plotline came to me.

How difficult was it to get the movie made?
Strangely, there were three film companies that wanted to do it. This was before any of the cast were involved. They just loved the script. They'd seen "Six Shooter." This was before the Oscars, too. They'd liked the script a lot and wanted to do it, so it's an unusual place to be in. You can choose which group of people you want to go with.

How did you feel about telling a story where the location was so integral to the narrative?
Bruges itself was a complete character in its own right from the outset. If we hadn't been allowed to shoot there, I would have scrapped the whole thing. You couldn't change it to Venice of Prague or any of those other places. It had to be that place.

How does your process differ in writing for the stage versus the screen?
It took me a long time to get my head around the mechanics of writing a [film] script. There are so many things to juggle. For the stage, you can write eight simple scenes and that's the whole thing. You don't even have to leave a location, whereas, in a film script, you can have eight scenes in the first half a page of a script. Juggling that kind of jigsaw puzzle of a film script is hard for me. At the outset, it took me a long time to think you can jump anywhere in time, back and forth in locations and scenes, in character's heads—anything is possible. On stage, you have to follow some of the rules, you know? Even though you want to break them, you have to follow them.

Is there anything you missed in writing for the theater that was absent from screenwriting?
Not really. In some ways, I didn't want to make a playwright's film. I wanted to be as visual and cinematic as possible, but at the same time, I didn't want to run away from what I think I do well on stage, which is write nice dialogue and interesting characters. At the same time, I didn't want it to be just a talkfest; I still wanted dialogue and characterization to be a strong part of it. That's why we had three weeks in rehearsal before we started shooting—to analyze the script and talk it over. I think that was fundamental to everyone's process, not just mine.

What sort of influence did the 1973 cult film Don't Look Now have on the movie?
That was the template for making a film where the town is a character. I went back and watched it a few times, and I don't think I really stole anything, but paid attention to how [director Nicolas Roeg] captured the town. That was the template for a town on film for me. And also, the kind of creepy edge to it, too…and the dwarf, maybe. (laughs)

Having never directed any of your stage work, how did you find interpreting your own script for the screen?
It was kind of scary at first, because it's a major leap. I realized that I'd always been in rehearsal rooms for every single play. I'd been learning things without even knowing it, I think. In a play, the playwright is pretty much all-powerful. No decision can be made without his say so, to be honest. Aside from that, I'd always been in the rehearsal room talking to the actors, explaining the lines if they needed explaining, and giving them the reason for me writing each and every line. I think I maintained that in this rehearsal process. Even now, I think of myself more as a writer who happens to have directed then a director. I'm proud of being a writer and I think I'll never be able to call myself a director. It just seems fake, you know? It sounds like something you'd say to a girl in a bar to get her to sleep with you. As opposed to "I'm a writer," which is something you'd say to get her to leave you alone. (laughs)

Did a lot change during the rehearsal process?
No. Going back to being proud to be a writer, if I've written a line, it's there for a reason. I've usually poured over it for a while or lived with it for a couple of years. We pretty much stuck exactly to every single line, but the guys were great about that. They had a respect for my history as a writer, and they were not coming to the table wanting to change anything. They were trying to get inside what was there, to their credit. At the same time, I wasn't too precious. If they were coming up with anything else, I'd certainly listen to it. It didn't happen that we had to change anything, script-wise.

The satire when Harry goes to collect a gun and eschews the offer of an Uzi as grotesquely American is almost effortless in its execution. Do you find that kind of social criticism comes easily into your writing?
Yeah, most of it isn't even my opinion. But you create a character who never censors himself and you just kind of go with that. There's something exciting about creating people who don't have to be politically correct. They don't have to be anything but what they are, because then you never know what the fuck they're going to say. I think there's something exciting about that on film.

What advice would you offer other first-time writer/directors?
Get the script right. Try not to show it to anybody until you believe in it and wouldn't change a line. Start with that and then be very wary of taking notes or listening to outside opinions unless it's the opinion of someone who's going to be working on it, like the actors or the D.P. But even then, stick to your guns and believe in it if it's good. But be honest with yourself if it's bad; cut it out. Then, do whatever you can to get it made.

What's next for you?
I've got a couple scripts that are ready to go, but honestly all I wanted to do was make this one and slip away to see if it was fun or not, or to see if I could do it well. I actually enjoyed the process and I liked the film, but I'm going to take a year or two off and travel, try to become a better writer, and see the world a bit more and grow up. But I've got a couple things ready to go onto if I choose to do another film.

Jason Davis has been the DVD Manager for CS Weekly, a contributing editor for Creative Screenwriting Magazine, and has written for Cinescape.com, MSN.com, and created the TV series Studio 13, which ran on Lorne Michaels' Burly TV network. He lives in the small space left over by his ever-expanding library of books, movies, and music.

Martin McDonagh, In Bruges courtesy Focus Features

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