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	Reference Type Unknown Title Return to the Native State Unknown Country Australia Publication Date Citation Date Site URL http://www.theblurb.com.au/Issue67/RayLawrence.htm Comments The natural traits of Ray Lawrence capture the realism of the Australian wilderness, culture and emotions in Jindabyne. I found when researching in his interviews that he is one of the most unique directors in his field and his unconventional manner in putting his work together is one of a kind. Ray Lawrences is inspired by Ken Loach a film director with similar traits to himself, where trusting the actors you selected, and sticking to more traditional methods of filming. Lawrence likes to "spark the truth" which he once said in an interview to give his audience suggestions, implications and feelings and emotions with real life situations rather than give the over indulgence of lights, make up, props and cleche movie situations. The article below demonstrates his traditional manne in film making, the basic trends he forms and how it resonates with Jindabyne as the final art piece. Synopsis “Ray works in the least conventional manner I’ve ever experienced,” laughs the 56-year-old Irish actor. “He’ll take all the things that actors like to depend on, or hide behind; the make-up, the lighting, multiple takes and he’ll take that all away. He doesn’t even say action on set, he’s the only director I know to work in that way. And he’ll talk to you about your performance after the scene is over, but because he only likes to do one take, its more a theoretical exercise at that stage. Ray always says that he’s not directing, he’s only containing what’s happening so he invests an enormous amount of trust into his actors and it’s our responsibility and that’s incredibly liberating.” My hero’s always been Ken Loach and the things he does I marvel at,” says Lawrence. “I mean there’s a traditional way of shooting a film which I understand you know lights, lenses etc, which all help it become theatrical. But if you’re making a documentary you generally sit in the corner and observe, and you know you’re only going to get it once so if I have a dramatic situation with a lot of subtext, I’d rather sit in that corner and just do it once, it’s sort of like a very expensive documentary. And I don’t like using lights and I try to get rid of all the film paraphernalia because it just gets in the way and most of the film is shot like that. And it’s the antithesis of normal movie making and a lot of people can’t cope with it but I generally work with the same people all the time and I keep on trying to push the envelope right off the end of the table and I just find that this process never lets me down.” For Lawrence it’s about “creating some spark of the truth” which will resonate with the audience. “And if you control things too tightly you miss all these other gifts,” he says. “For instance, in the script when Gabriel’s character apologies, the guy accepts his apology. And when we were talking to the elder, I said to him ‘you know if someone found your daughters body and did what they did, what would you do?’ ‘I’d stab him’ he said, and I thought what a stupid thing for me to put in the script. Of course you wouldn’t accept his apology, I’d give him a smack too, and then when we changed that all these other things happened and it became a symbol for Howard not apologising and all these other things came to mind. I started thinking about the ghosts of the aboriginal past and how the town is full of ghosts and then Laura has her own ghosts and then it became a ghost story on an intellectual level and a story about responsibility and about people trying to love each other when they don’t like each other and it just gets more and more dense. So it’s just an interesting exercise for me to create lots of layers and I did that in Lantana but this one is bigger than Lantana, and I was prepared for an audience to be totally mystified and bored because this is not a Mac movie, you’ve got to chew it.” tags: jindabyne  add tagAddPlease Wait...
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