My name is Jesse Wente.
I'm the head of TIFF Cinematheque, and I'm here to talk
about the movie Near Dark, which kicks off our Kathryn Bigelow retrospective.
The bar-room scene, I think, is a very clear, direct reference to the Western
iconography of Near Dark.
"Well, I'll be god-damned!"
"It's shit-kicker Heaven."
It opens with that great pool break,
but, I think, key to the Western iconography is the
swinging door that bursts open. And then you get Bill Paxton verbalizing what
we're seeing, which is that we've landed in shit-kicker Heaven, and so the idea
that we're very much in a Western milieu is established right away.
He saddles right up to the bar,
knocks over the drink — a classic Western offence that would
typically lead to a duel or some sort of gunfight,
usually with the bad guy
at this point in the movie winning, which is exactly what happens.
This is a scene
without the bloodletting — or at least the bloodletting from fangs — that could very
well sit in any number of classic Western movies of the last hundred years.
"Hey, I ever tell you the one about Buffalo Bill?"
[laughing]
"Oh, hell, you're all right!"
"Go on, give him another one."
The pacing of the scene, I think, is
in rhythm to the music. So the music plays into the pacing and Bigelow very
clearly had very distinct ideas around the soundtrack and the score and how this
would be paced. But I think the key to why this scene takes so long is that
we, as the audience — this is our moment to actually fully come into understanding
of the power, the depravity of this family,
where this is their display of what
they're willing to do, and we have to understand that these are very old beings.
Jesse, the Lance Henriksen character, wears a Confederate flag in the inside of his coat
because, as he says, he fought for the South, in the film.
And so this is a scene they are very used to.
One can only imagine when we're watching this
how often they've gone into a bar, or a restauant,
and told them, "I only need a few seconds of your time."
(Which is exactly how long you have to live.)
"I'm trying to show the boy something."
[grunts]
"Now hit him back, Caleb."
Bill Paxton ad libbed many of the lines,
particularly the ones most fans now think of —
you know, "Finger-licking good"
or "I don't like 'em when they're not shaved."
But I think when you have a performance like that occurring
as a director, I think it shows great
instinct to not worry, let the pacing take care of itself.
You've got performers who are as dialed in on their characters as they will have been
throughout the entire production.
"Just the glass."
"Just the glass?"
"The glass."
So, Near Dark was not a huge success or critically acclaimed upon its release.
The biggest thing it did for Kathryn Bigelow was prove that she could direct a picture by
herself, and I think you can already see her affinity for action sequences and violence.
Directing violence is a great skill, and
not all directors do it well. Actually, in fact, few directors, even
those famous for making action movies, do it well.
Bigelow, I think, is one of those
that does it extraordinary well.
This scene shows her remarkable confidence, even at
such a young age, and her command, I think, of the space and the timing.
If this movie was made today, this scene probably occurs in less than five minutes and is
probably edited in a totally different way.
This scene is meaningful and more
impactful because of the way it's shot and because of the time given to the
story elements, as well as the stylistic, aesthetic elements that are in this scene,
than most movies would dare to today.
The cinematographer on Near Dark
was Adam Greenberg, who was sort of the indie darling of cinematographers at the time.
He, perhaps most famously, had shot Terminator for James Cameron, and if you
actually look at these two pictures side by side, The Terminator and
Near Dark, there's some great similarities in terms of how they're shot.
What I love about Greenberg, especially in this scene —
this was an entirely constructed set,
so they built this. This was not a pre-existing house. They
built this to spec.
As a cinematographer, Greenberg has never been caught up with
being realistic in his lighting.
He is unconcerned with having sensible sources of light,
and when it comes to the way Henriksen is lit in the scene, you can see that often.
There's the great overhead lighting shot with the fan blade that spins.
There's a moment the song turns to "Fever" and Henriksen
stands by the door and he's bathed in the red neon light.
Red is the prominent colour in the scene, of course, in connection to the blood.
You see red all the time
along with purples and blues — I think references, all references to
plasma and blood, and so you have this incredible sort of colour scheme and
lighting all occurring within this very closed world of the scene, and I think
Greenberg deserves an enormous amount of credit for the look of this entire film,
which I think is extraordinary, but also, in particular, I think some of his best
work is in the scene — just bravura filmmaking.
"Hey, you look like 40 miles of rough road."
"Why don't you sit this one out?"
Sitting here now in 2017, I can't help but think that
Near Dark's still the single best modern vampire movie I've ever seen.
I still think it beats, literally swallows whole, any Twilight movie
and I think virtually any of the other sort of
modern incarnations or imaginings of a vampire movie.
I think this one is grittier and more stylish than
really any of those pictures.
"You havin' a little trouble with your hog leg there?"
[screams]