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Movies & TV News & Features

J.C. Chandor

ALL IS LOST written and directed by J.C. Chandor, with Robert Redford. An eOne release. 106 minutes. Opens Friday (October 25). For venues and times, see listings.


J.C. Chandor doesn’t want to burden you with the baggage of backstory. Or character, or dialogue. His new movie, All Is Lost, exists entirely in the moment, as a sailor played by Robert Redford struggles to keep his damaged boat afloat in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

“I don’t want to call it a procedural,” he says over the phone from New York, “but you are essentially just there – it’s like an experiential action film. By giving the audience space, because there is that space within action, meaning is created. And that meaning starts to be a very cool moment-by-moment thing.”

All Is Lost is structured as a series of challenges that Redford’s character must overcome in order to survive. The lack of dialogue means we have to watch our hero work out each new solution in his head, even in the midst of a howling storm – and it’s fascinating. But it also means that describing it can lead to some confusion.

“I giggle when people call it a silent film, because it’s not silent at all,” he says. “We rely on sound effects more than almost any other film this year probably.”

That said, Chandor admits the comparison is valid in at least one way.

“I directed the film very much like a silent film,” he says. “Emotionally, I would tell [Redford] what was about to happen: ‘This is gonna happen, which is gonna make fear turn into perseverance,’ or whatever. I would sort of call out those cues to him, and he really was reacting to them. And of course he has that ability to communicate complex emotional transitions non-verbally, which was certainly a helpful tool in this case. But when he was having to do that, I would be yelling out to him: ‘Here comes the noise, and that means you gotta run!’ And that would allow him to react.”

Chandor says that after the dialogue-heavy Margin Call – which saw him nominated for a screenwriting Oscar – he wanted to do something radically different for his second feature.

“The script is 31 pages long, and it’s very precise,” he says. “It lays out the film almost exactly: not shot by shot, but sort of action by action. It wasn’t the kind of thing where you could just throw spaghetti at the wall and hope something sticks. The film only works because it’s really taking you on this very kind of up-and-down, in-and-out journey.”

But as carefully as he constructed it, Chandor says he always knew the film would live or die on Redford’s performance.

“He’s you,” Chandor says. “He’s the audience. So as long as he felt like he was always reacting and overcoming, and all those things felt fresh, then it worked.”

Interview Clips

J.C. Chandor on the intensity of Robert Redford’s performance:

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Chandor on shooting the film’s final movement:

Download associated audio clip.

Chandor on how he plans his next project:

Download associated audio clip.

normw@nowtoronto.com | @wilnervision

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