LikewiseThe Neon Demon,another fantastical horror-thriller which depicts Hollywood as a kind of colour-saturated purgatory.
In 2015, however, the directors filmmaker wife Liv Corfixen madeMy Life Directed By Nicolas Winding Refn.
Have you been here long?
[Slightly weary] I got here an hour and a half ago.
So you just got off a plane?
But I flew from Copenhagen so its only about an hour and a half.
I lovedThe Neon Demon.I actually found it very funny.
Well, its a comedy.
A black horror comedy, I guess.
I wonder if you think that aspect may have been a bit overlooked in some quarters.
Well, some of the people who laughed probably thought it was very funny.
Its not that I have this kind of, like about anything Ive ever done Its misunderstood.
The more diverse everything is, the more confusion you’re free to create.
I think the film, in a way, created its own audience.
Do you think Neon Demons representative of the digital age, in a way?
Definitely… [waiter comes in.
Mr Refn orders a double espresso]
…so yeah, is it a film for the digital age?
The way we process images.
The Neon Demonis very much designed to be like a YouTube movie.
Its designed to be chopped up.
you’re free to cut it up into seven or eight pieces and theyre, like, vignettes.
So it was completely out of the consumers control.
Now its the exact opposite.
So its like, the identity is very quickly taken and something new comes out of it.
I find that very interesting.
Im a big advocate of that kind of nourishment.
Because I think that in the end, creativity is not a thing, its an experience.
So for me the thing is essentially dead, but the experience of seeing it still really lives on.
I think thats something very important to remember.
Whereas I get the impression that you dont.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, a lot of things.
The future of entertainment is really not going to be about content, but about experiences.
Its what it says that you as an individual person [that will count].
And the only way to access your emotions, which is the origin of creativity, is diversity.
I think that sometimes, maybe, theres a clinging to the past, of what film should be.
My world is just one big chaos!
[The double espresso arrives with an odd-looking object on a separate plate.
The object may or may not be a biscuit.]
But also very structured in a visual sense: colour, composition.
Is that something you conceive in storyboards?
Is it in your head?
[Points at the odd object on the plate] What the hell is this?
It looks like an installation or something.
I noticed it, but didnt want to ask!
[Laughs] I assume its edible.
Did it break along the way?
[Laughs] Sorry, what were you asking?
Yeah, so obviously your films are very visual.
So how do you generate the ideas for those images?
Do you storyboard…
No.
Its all on set.
I shoot in chronological order, so everything is a constant creative freefall.
And then it starts with me waking up going, What do I want to see today?
Then I work it out with my actors, and then its whatever makes them comfortable.
Then you figure out how to shoot it.
So thats usually how I go about it.
Sometimes with action you better choreograph beforehand, which I find a bit boring because its very sterile.
What I enjoy more than anything is the act of creativity Im not particularly interested in the result.
So the colours…
Well, Im colour-blind.
I know you are.
But Ive read it’s possible for you to see high-contrast colours.
Theyre the only colours I can see.
So how do you go about figuring out these distinctive palettes?
A lot of that is in post-production.
But I dont really find the look of the film until were there in the whole digital grading system.
I do that together with Matt Newman, the editor, who does all my movies.
So its a bit like working backwards, in a way.
I remember reading you saying that Bronson was an autobiographical film, even though its about a real person.
Is The Neon Demon, in a certain way?
There is a very seductiveness to LA, you know?
And when I mean LA, I should say I mean Hollywood.
Because LA is just like, a city.
Built in the desert.
Is it quite scary, offering yourself up to be consumed in some way by this big machine?
It would be for me.
Its nerve-wracking, because you very quickly become… [pauses for thought] a non-identity.
Is that what the public persona youve created is about?
Your film has your signature on it.
Is that part of your fight back against the machine taking your identity?
You saying, This is me.
This is my personality.
Certainly… [seems to chuckle at the question] its my act of individualism.
The idea that the future of entertainment is a lot more about brands.
Thats here now, isnt it?
Everything is about a franchise.
everything is about branded content you’re able to do other things with.
I felt that, essentially, thats the definition of a brand.
I mean, the movies about branding.
You create an identity.
Because of the digital revolution, we have so many alter-egos that we live through.
And I find that very interesting.
That, of course, is the moral of Bronson: he lost himself in his own alter-ego.
He can never return from it.
…but Ive changed my mind.
Now I think Id watch it withVideodrome.
Yeah, the morphing and the feeding which is essentiallyVideodrome: it starts to feed on its own flesh.
And funnily enough, people were really horrified by that film when it came out for some reason.
I was very young when it came out.
I lived in New York, so I remember it coming out.
And I remember reading stories about the reactions… A good film, still, but…
I thinkVideodromewas an absolute philosophical masterpiece.
Ironically, I discovered it on videotape.
Well, thats the proper way to see it!
Yeah, which is strange, isnt it: the medium and the movie reflecting each other.
I think nowadays you make entertainment for many ways of experiencing it.
It really celebrates culture in a very interesting way.
Very soon itll be Google glasses, you know?
So Id say you have to make films for an iPhone and a stadium.
And they both have to work.
That sounds like a tricky balancing act to me.
It is, but its also very interesting, because it opens up possibilities.
Technology doesnt create creativity, but it gives it opportunities to evolve.
Do you think youll get to make a science fiction film?
I mean, in some ways, your films already are science fiction.
But youve often said, I come from the future.
So I wonder what the future would look like according to one of your films.
I would love that.
Im a huge science fiction fan.
Ive always loved it since I was very little.
But its hard to make it interesting.
I dont so much technology to be interesting.
Is it the social change [technology] brings about that interests you?
I think, theres physical science fiction and then theres mental science fiction.
And Im far more interested in mental science fiction.
[To waiter] Do you have any biscuits?
Besides that art installation?
[Laughingly points to oddly-shaped biscuits]
Oh look, theres more of them!
[To waiter again] Do you have any hummus and vegetables?
Waiter:yes we do.
That Id love to have.
So its finding that balance.
I look at the television and I think, Jesus…
They can do that?
But again, a lot of thats about technology.
Yeah, because he [the central character] was like an astronaut, wasnt he?
So do you know what youre going to make next?
Not a very exciting question, I realise, but Im not sure what youre up to right now.
I dont know yet.
I have this spy idea Ive been working on that Id really like to do.
Im very interested in this kind of morphing of what we call traditional cinema and now streaming.
That has actually opened up the possibility now that hasnt been previously acceptable.
Because the digital revolution allows a whole new way of consuming entertainment.
I like what that technology allows as a canvas.
I just dont know what Im going to put on it yet!
[Points to myRoboCopT-shirt] Cool shirt, by the way.
I actually met him at Cannes this year, where we both had films in competition.
I said, Im a younger version of you!
Hes such a great filmmaker.
I likeShowgirls, too!
Nicolas Winding Refn, thank you very much.
The Neon Demonis out on DVD/Blu-ray/Digital/VOD on the 31st October.
