| Cineaste: Incest seemed like more of a submerged theme in your other films. In The Sweet Hereafter, it moves to the forefront.
Atom Egoyan: On reading the book and working on the adaption, it was one of those situations where something had become a cliché; the entire depiction of incest in films had become very banal and lazy. I felt that there was another experience of incest that many people have experienced, but that has not been depicted in films—instead of it being a coercive act it becomes something where distinctions are blurred. Lines are crossed, and characters find themselves in situations which are just as damaging—or more damaging—than the other kind of incest. It’s more confused; guilt and responsibility are not as easy to assign. These are the incestuous relationships that perhaps have a deeper impact on the individuals involved, because they don’t quite know how to extricate themselves from the situation. The reality is that if the accident hadn’t occurred that relationship would probably have continued until Nicole was in her twenties and she would have been even more messed up. As it is, I think what happens is not so much that she realizes that she's abused but rather that, seeing her father in such an extreme state of denial, and then seeing him bartering her broken body for a reward, she becomes outraged in a quiet but very determined way. So the effect is quite different than it is in the book. I also wanted to see if I could shoot an incest scene from the point of view of the person who is involved as it is occurring. That scene in the barn is my attempt to show how Nicole would have described that scene at that particular moment. It’s challenging for the viewer, because you’re not quite sure how to evaluate it. But I think it contributes to the extraordinary power of the ending.
Cineaste: So the point was to compress the experience of one shot so the event takes on a greater resonance by the end of the film? Egoyan: In some ways, it’s not dissimilar from the way the accident itself was shot—from Billy’s point of view, as Billy would have experienced it at the moment. As opposed to the more expected Hollywood money-shot point of view, which would be to cover that accident from as many angles as possible, and to try to experience the visceral effect of what it would be like to be in that bus. That wasn’t where I wanted to position that camera. As as independent filmmaker, I have the privilege of being able to construct this incredible stunt and shoot it with only one camera from quite far away. I don’t think a studio would have ever allowed me to do that. Cineaste: Jonathan Rosenbaum links your work to films by other Canadian filmmakers like Guy Maddin and David Cronenberg, who treat incest as a symptom of puritanism and repression. Egoyan: It’s perhaps a cliché to think that we’re all bundled up so we play each other. But, perhaps it’s fair to say that one of the residual effects of our colonial experience is a very particular view we have of parents or people who are in positions of responsibility. We are all just now understanding our relationship to both what the explicit British colonial influence in Canada was and what the American cultural colonial experience continues to be. We probably have to define ourselves throught that very complex relationship between these two forces. Cineaste: Do you view the concept of the ‘sweet hereafter’ as a utopian antidote to repression? Egoyan: Of course, because it is a community that is entirely virtual and that exists entirely on principles that the individuals need to sustain themselves in that community. Certainly, at the end of the film, Nicole has arrived at a point where what she does effectively destroys the community as it existed before but paves the way for a new one. To me, that’s what makes it such a crowning moment. It’s a complete reappropriation of her own dignity by that decision. Cineaste: There’s also a connection between what seems to be the father’s key line in Family Viewing—“I like to erase.” Nicole’s struggle is against erasure. Egoyan: Yes. It’s a struggle against cultural and personal erasure. Cineaste: After reading the novel, I was struck by the fact that all of the characters, even the less intelligent ones, were unusually self-conscious. I’m sure that this must have appealed to you, but it’s also apparent that you’ve restructured the novel so that Mitchell Stephens becomes the central character. Russell Banks seemed to regard him as only one link in the narrative chain. Egoyan: I guess it was just the way I read the book. When I noticed that character, I became very inspired by him. As a director, I’m always drawn to the characters who are close to conducting themselves in the way that I do. There’s an aspect of my job that involves manipulating people, that involves trying to seduce people and gather people and follow me into a project. In a way, I, like any filmmaker, am a pied piper. You try to seduce people in order to get money, you try to seduce a crew, you try to seduce a cast. It’s all very much about having other people believe that you have a vision that’s worth dedicating themselves to. So when I encountered Mitchell Stephens, with his audacity of going into this town and believing that he had the answer for their grief with his claims of moral responsibility, there was something that made me feel very uneasy, yet quite sympathetic towards him and his projected mission. Cineaste: I understand you were quite impressed by Holm’s performance in Pinter’s The Homecoming. How did that influence your decision to cast him in The Sweet Hereafter? Egoyan: One of the thrills of working with Ian was being in such close contact with someone who had worked with Pinter—one of my gods. One of the best gifts he gave me after the shooting was over was a signed edition of The Homecoming. He’s a remarkably generous man. Cineaste: Of course, with the exception of Calendar, all of the previous films have been set in Toronto. The more pastoral millieu of The Sweet Hereafter also transforms your view of the characters. Your earlier films seemed to focus on the erosion of community, as traditional communities were replaced by so-called ‘virtual communities’ governed by technology. Egoyan: They have a sense of community; they know where they’re from. They’re not lost like urban individuals. This, more than anything else, was the gift Russell Banks gave me. I’ve never lived in a town like that and I wouldn’t have known how to begin telling a story based in a town like that. In making the adaption, there was a huge challenge, which is that this community is, in some ways, quite virtual and unrealistic. In order for the drama to work, we have to feel that the children of the town completely disappear. If you look at it realistically, there is a school bus picking up kids from the outskirts of town, and there must be a central community, there might be kids who don’t need to take the school bus and just walk to school. So the town is bigger than you feel in the film and yet you never see that. That’s why in doing the adaption, I couldn’t show the crowd scenes, I couldn’t show the funeral. If we represented the whole town, we’d diminish the dramatic effect of the story. A writer has the privilege of being able to do that because he’s able to emphasize particular people so the background becomes abstract. But the moment you train a camera on a huge fairground and see other children, it takes away the fairy tale-like feeling that I wanted to create.
Cineaste: And your choice of a wide screen format gives the film the feel of an intimate epic. Egoyan: Yes, and this large canvas that you have gives you a feeling of vastness. There’s no question that it transforms scenes to an epic level. And there’s also this relationship to other films about strangers coming into town. Cineaste: Some of the casting seems to reflect your fondness for narrative ambiguity. For example, was it accidental that the actress who portrayed Alison looked quite a bit like Nicole? Egoyan: That was entirely intentional and very much a part of my casting. That’s what Stephens is spooked by as well. It’s probably why he confesses to her as much as he does. Cineaste: Didn’t a controversy erupt when you decided to show The Sweet Hereafter at a benefit for your son’s school? Egoyan: It only created controversy among the people who were subjected to it. That was a classic example of complete denial—showing this at a benefit to a group of parents who every morning send their children off to a school bus was a perverse decision. But it was not intended to arouse the degree of shock that it did. Russell told me that he couldn’t understand how someone who had just had a child could have made this film. I couldn’t understand what I was doing until the film was finished and I had some distance.
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