Cannes Podcast: Blue Valentine

Some things you might not know about Blue Valentine is that director Derek Cianfrance has been meticulously working on this film for a good ten years. He brought it to Michelle Williams back in 2003, and a few years later they brough in Ryan Gosling. The idea was to wait until the two of them were old enough to be believable in the part. Since the film takes place in different moments in time, the actors had to take a hiatus and change themselves physically before coming back to film the later scenes of the couple.

One of the reasons Blue Valentine gets into your own biology is that the actors really lived the parts. They always say that about movies, but very few directors spend so many days with the actors living as those people in such an intimate way.

But the best thing is to listen to the director and the actors explain it. All of their hard work has illuminated their characters in such a real way that at some point you are no longer watching Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, but you are watching two people you come to know, and feel you know. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have the same impact.

Cianfrance talks much about the patterns of behavior that are passed down from one set of parents to their kids and how the cycle will continue until someone takes a brave stand to end it. Despite how messed up they are, we still want them to stay together. And that is how Blue Valentine points the focus back on us. Why do we want them to stay together? Because we watch how they met, how they fell in love, how much they loved each other, how happily ever after had to be in the cards. Little by little, the love evaporates and in the end they have to both look at why they are still together. What is it doing to each of them? What is it doing to their daughter?

The era of “staying together for the kids” seems to be a thing of the past.¬† Much of this territory has been explored on Mad Men, only there you are still dealing with people who are buying into an illusion. In Blue Valentine, Cindy (Williams) is simply too aware of herself and the needs of her kid, to ignore the hole that they are dropping into.

But even still, because we love him so much – we are so invested in the incredibly likable Dean that we refuse to accept the reality that Cindy is handing us.

Of the many truly memorable performances on display here at Cannes, Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling are standouts. Neither of them has ever gone this deep nor played so strongly.¬† They are believable as young versions of themselves, and somewhat older, more damaged versions. It is almost breathtaking when we first meet Gosling’s Dean. Cianfrance had the two of them sleeping in the house they decorated specifically for this family. “I hate fake waking up,” he said in the press conference.

And so Gosling and Williams are really asleep when the camera hits them. In all of the recent scenes, Cianfrance used video, and in the flashbacks he used film. He even used different lenses. The video scenes do feel more like the present because that’s how we view a lot of our media now. And the filmed past give the sense that this really was a long time ago, before everything devolved.

Blue Valentine played at Sundance, but was later cut by seven minutes before it played here at Cannes.

This is another podcast of the press conference. First with the director and next with Gosling and Williams. It is absolutely worth a listen, especially for filmmakers out there. I am the second female voice, not Ann Hornaday.