Joe Carnahan

Narc: Not Your Typical Holiday Fare

By Rita Cook

Joe Carnahan faced numerous challenges filming his latest movie Narc starring Jason Patric and Ray Liotta. I know because his challenges were still haunting him as we tried to talk for weeks before actually getting on the phone together to only then face another challenge, phones that kept disconnecting.

Finally, we talked and it was refreshing how Carnahan seemed to take it all in stride, but he has a good movie and he knows it. His likable phone manner and open demeanor about his decision to live in northern California and not Los Angeles is admirable. Carnahan has various projects in the works at Universal and Working Title. Narc opened in Los Angeles and New York on December 20th, 2002, and went into wide release on January 10th. His career is definitely on the upswing (despite the long commute to work in Hollywood).

You wrote and directed Narc, tell me about some of the challenges you faced?

There were numerous challenges. It was an incredibly difficult script to write … it took me almost a year to write it. So that was one thing. It was an emotionally taxing experience and then the actual shooting of it was kind of a trip through hell. We had financial problems that plagued the shoot, and everyday we were having more difficulty. We didn’t have money, couldn’t afford film, couldn’t do this and couldn’t do that. So it was a real arduous journey, but in between it, was just the actual getting it into people’s hands. In between the problems we were having from the writing to the actual shooting of it, I had a two to three year process when nobody wanted to make the film.

After you had the financing you said you still had trouble with money—did you lose the money or did you just not have enough to start with?

There was never an established account like, okay, we have X amount of dollars in escrow. It was always just one of those things where, I think, they were robbing Peter to pay Paul. The financiers had the film The Devil and Daniel Webster, the remake, that was shooting at the same time, or lensing as they say in the biz. That was in New York and, of course, that was their big, expensive, multi-million dollar film that they were lavishing all their attention on so it was never clear. There was never a set budget and the ones that I did see were the most idiotic pieces of paper I had ever laid eyes on. I still feel to this day that these guys were, I sound like a giant ingrate, but I just thought that these guys were crooks.

The film is great. The opening scene where Jason Patric is running is an incredible scene.

I had never seen a foot chase accurately depicted and what it is like to really run, sprint, a long distance and what that does to you. I thought, I just really want this to be a continuous kind of sequence, a continuous run and we would do it in such a way that there is a touchstone for this particular type of filmmaking. You look at the reality show like “Cops” and the viewer is used to following officers into it—you know what I mean? It is kind of rough and tumble, but at the same time, we wanted to be very cinematic about it and not just be a simple kind of herky jerky handheld, we wanted to capture what that was like. We did a series of runs in the dead of winter in Toronto and a situation came up where I had to throw out all the camera set-ups, I think I had 12 other camera set-ups to shoot. What I really wanted to do, and, I think what I was inspired by, was the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan. I loved that you never got any further up that beach than Tom Hank’s platoon and I thought there was something really brilliant in that. You are really establishing who your protagonists are and you are going to stay with them through thick and thin and that is kind of the philosophy I adapted in the shooting of that sequence. You are never going to get any closer to that junkie than Jason does and at the same time he is doing something and it is kind of cause and effect, action/reaction type of relationship. As the audience is processing the fact that this junkie has grabbed this little girl—Jason’s character begins to fire and make the decision in that moment that this guy intends to kill her and it is not going to be some standoff. I think it is just the fact that we didn’t cheat it and the violence of it is so harsh and quick and real that that is what kind of sucks people in. And I did not want to treat violence on the whole of this film as kind of an almost burlesque manner like Hollywood does, which is a drawn-out, poetic, overly-stylized kind of treatment of something.

You didn’t want to glamorize it?

No, I didn’t want to glamorize it in anyway.

The whole film seemed dark, why did you decide to do that?

A lot of it was discussions I had with the DP. There was something about Alex Nepomniaschy’s style that I really liked. He moved the camera around and after I met with him I realized he was a good guy. This guy fled Russia in the mid-70s when it was the Russia we all know and love. He just understood inherently cold and industrial and hard. A lot of what you see in the flashbacks and the opening sequence is shot on reversal stock and then cross-processed as regular negative film. So you get that great kind of de-saturated look. And what is great is that if it is cold it plays very cold and if it is hot it plays extremely hot. So, we wanted to run that kind of gamut between really hot and really cold. Alex and I kept asking what would be the natural light source in any given room that we were in because those were all practical sets. We moved from the idea that “there is a window here and there is sunlight coming through” so we didn’t correct for that and let it blow out. We exposed for the interior and got this really naturalistic, almost documentary-like look. We made sure we were timing it and we wanted it darker or we wanted it denser and to have this kind of high contrast so we were conscious of that throughout the shooting of the film.

Where did this story come from?

The impetus of it was a documentary done years ago called The Thin Blue Line. I loved the fact that it detailed the murder of this Dallas patrolman in 1975. He was killed at a routine traffic stop in this isolated incident, and it really evolved into this great human drama. I really loved how this one event could set off this chain reaction. That is what I wanted to do with Narc. I wrote Narc as a short film initially and shot it as a short and I saw that it was befitting of better treatment. I thought I had short-tripped it a little bit and that it wasn’t as good as it could be so I developed it into a feature.

How many scripts have you sold and produced?

Up until Narc I had done my own film which is Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane and I had sold a cheeseball script years earlier as well as doing some work for friends. I live up north in Sacramento so it was really difficult and I don’t have the same inroads...

Talking about your craft—what tools do you use when you begin to write a script?

I begin with a basic scene or I will start with an idea or a premise. Depending on how I feel about it and if I think it is going to entail a lot of work then I will do a fairly elaborate outline. Other than that I really begin with just writing the first scene, the scene that I will enjoy the most. I am a sucker for the big beginning. How do we start this film? I like to write in that manner and not have too much of it thought out it advance. I like to see where the journey will take me.

What was the difference between Narc and Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane?

Bloods, Guts was done really on a lark and it was me and my desire to not continue to write scripts that weren’t being produced. To really do something on my own and something I could have fun with that would not be so labor intensive that I couldn’t pull people into the process and worry about paying them a ton of money. We did it for free on weekends. It was absolute hustle, and I think what is funny about Narc is that, invariably on set; it will always deteriorate to all film set experiences. At some point all sets resemble one another because you are losing light, you don’t have enough film, you are going to lose an actor, you are going to do whatever, you know, all those scenarios will intersect. I felt like, if I had not done Blood, Guts I couldn’t have done Narc.

What was the difference between writing the script and then coming to the table to direct it?

I think the difference was that I wanted to write it in a much more linear fashion because I thought to fragment it and to do the things that I really intended to do with it would have put too many people off. I already thought that it was going to be a tough sale given the level of violence and this particular genre, and I was assured by many that television had thoroughly eroded theatrical possibilities for a film like this. I kept it fairly straightforward, and only when we got into the actual shooting, did I kind-of start to mix it up. Then, going into the editing room, that is where I really made it the film that I intended it to be.

You did a good job of developing the characters, what do you think is the key to strong character development?

The key for me was to make it as real as possible and to relate it as much as you possibly can to your own experiences and your own life. I feel like you are always going to have good luck if you do that. Start to resemble caricatures of people you have seen in movies and you are in bad shape. I really tried to keep it a journey like of him being a cop and getting drawn back in that world. This is not unlike my journey in Hollywood where I am being called upon to spend a great deal of time away from home and it can be hard on a family.

What have been some of the biggest challenges that you have faced?

In terms of my career, I think that deciding to live up north and deciding to stay away from Los Angeles and Hollywood and away from what I felt was [different] from my work ethic and the way I wanted to put my stuff together. I didn’t want to get sucked up in everything I thought had nothing to do with writing and making films.

What advice do you have for screenwriters that are just getting started?

I would say, decide very early on if you want to write for somebody else or if you want to write your own movies and direct your own films because that is going to help refine, and by virtue, define your focus. This decision will make it something tangible and something that you know as you are bleeding into your scripts and sweating into them and toiling away. You know, at the end of the day, you are going to be the one charged with interpreting that. I felt it made all the difference knowing that I was going to be the one who was charged with bringing this thing to life. I think that is the key. You have to decide are you going to be someone who writes for others and be content with that and bust your ass, or are you going to direct your own stuff. As much as I love writing I love directing and editing equally.

What is your ultimate career goal—where do you want to see yourself when this is all said and done?

I just want to have made a series of great films. If I can achieve that then that is all I really care about.

How was it working with Jason and Ray?

Fantastic. I learned more about acting in that two months then I will probably ever learn again—it was amazing. The two are very gifted guys and very gracious and I had a wonderful time with them.

Rita Cook is a producer, writer and currently President of Cinewomen Los Angeles. She was an associate producer on Trimark’s Route 666 and co-producer on three films Schizophrenic, Gabriella and Lost Soul. Editor-in-Chief of Insider Magazine and Staff Writer for SCREENTALK Magazine, Cook’s next project is a vampire/erotic thriller called The Kiss Of The Vampire.