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Video: Robert Redford and Director J. C. Chandor Talk ALL IS LOST At The Academy
Photo Credit: Daniel Daza. ©2013 ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS.
Every once in a great while, a movie comes along that leaves you truly riveted to your seat and resonates with you long after you’ve left the theater. ALL IS LOST is unlike any other.
It is one of those rare experiences when simplicity of story and intensity of emotions come together consisting entirely of prose description, with no dialogue. What’s most impressive about the film is that ALL IS LOST does not feature a single shot set on dry land. Camera crews filmed in various parts of the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean, including off the coast of Ensenada, Mexico, about 80 miles south of San Diego.
Where it really triumphs is when Chandor occasionally lets his camera linger on Redford and relish his quiet, simple activities in a way seldom seen on film.
Filmmaker J.C. Chandor knew he wanted to make some form of open-water thriller long before his feature writing and directing debut, MARGIN CALL, was nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar. But it took almost six years for him to finally hit upon the startlingly original idea for ALL IS LOST, a harrowing nautical adventure that takes place entirely at sea and features a single nameless – and nearly wordless – character.
“It’s a very simple story about a guy late in his life who goes out for a four-or five-month sail,” Chandor says. “Fate intervenes, the boat has an accident, and essentially we go on an eight-day journey with him as he fights to survive.”
Two-time Academy Award winner Robert Redford and writer/director J. C. Chandor recently discussed their amazing film at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, CA. The event was moderated by LA Times writer John Horn.
Redford’s two Oscar wins have been for directing (ORDINARY PEOPLE) and an Honorary one at the 74th Academy Awards in 2002. He’s never won gold in the acting categories. Redford received a nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role for THE STING (1973).
This could be the year that AMPAS voters give him the statuette.
Robert Redford stars in ALL IS LOST, an open-water thriller about one man’s battle for survival against the elements after his sailboat is destroyed at sea. Written and directed by Academy Award nominee J.C. Chandor (Margin Call) with a musical score by Alex Ebert (Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros), the film is a gripping, visceral and powerfully moving tribute to ingenuity and resilience.
Deep into a solo voyage in the Indian Ocean, an unnamed man (Redford) wakes to find his 39-foot yacht taking on water after a collision with a shipping container left floating on the high seas. With his navigation equipment and radio disabled, the man sails unknowingly into the path of a violent storm. Despite his success in patching the breached hull, his mariner’s intuition, and a strength that belies his age, the man barely survives the tempest.
Using only a sextant and nautical maps to chart his progress, he is forced to rely on ocean currents to carry him into a shipping lane in hopes of hailing a passing vessel. But with the sun unrelenting, sharks circling and his meager supplies dwindling, the ever-resourceful sailor soon finds himself staring his mortality in the face.
In a film so devoid of dialogue, the musical score assumed special importance. Chandor turned to acclaimed singer-songwriter Alex Ebert, leader of the band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, to compose the film’s score – his first such project.
“It’s about beauty,” he says. “It’s emotional and everything that comes along with life and death, and nothing less. I think that’s the primary subject of humanity – and it’s something that you might want to stay away from because it would be overdramatic. But this dude’s in the middle of the ocean on a raft. Let the music be emotional because it is emotional. We followed the movie’s lead.”
Listen to composer Alexander Ebert’s score here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/all-is-lost-original-motion/id695153793
ALL IS LOST opens in NY & LA – OCTOBER 18; Nationwide OCTOBER 25.
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