You could forgive Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance for smugly screaming from the rooftops, with the plaudits his deeply personal drama is receiving. When I offer him the obligatory congratulations on the lauded flick, adding that he might now be sick of such compliments, he laughs and says, "No no no, I'm not, go ahead." That's fair enough: after all, the New Yorker did spend twelve years trying to get the film off the ground.
Instead of dwelling on its long gestation period, though. he views the struggle to bring it together as more of a blessing. "For whatever reason, the movie didn't get made for those twelve years - but I think the biggest reason is I wasn't ready to make it," he explains. "I think it was the exact right moment, because I was ready to make the movie and Ryan and Michelle were in the right places in their lives to make it."
The independent production about an initially sweet but ultimately doomed relationship is pretty much the antithesis of your regular Jennifer Aniston/Katherine Heigl romantic comedy. That's just how Cianfrance planned it. "For so many years I would go to the movies and see people up on movie screens that were so perfect, and I would always feel so lonely because my life wasn't like that," he says. "I love fantasy - but I think after a while of being hit over the head with fantasy. you need a bit of a reality check."
Reality is a large composite of Cianfrance's background in filmmaking; since his well-received 1998 debut Brother Tied, the director has mostly concentrated on documentaries, with subjects ranging from Puff Daddy and street kids, all the way to deaf heavy metal drummers. He agrees that "documentary film taught (him) how to listen", but also that the craft isn't about "being a fly on the wall", as some filmmakers would have you believe. Rather it's "the connection between the subject and the director" something that proved especially vital during the Blue Valentine shoot.
It was the same process the helmer took into his second feature, too. He wanted to be "in synch" with Gosling's character from the very first frame, so they both took it to another level. "My job with Ryan and Michelle, at least initially, was to get them out there and get them engaged in real moments," he explains. "We could trust in the script enough that we could let it go." One such real moment involved beer and a couch - not exactly regular tools for the filmmaking process. "I managed to convince Ryan to drink a lot of Budweisers the night before we shot the opening scene, and to sleep in the chair where we would be filming the next morning," he chuckles. So far, so method. "I then convinced my crew that we were gonna sleep on the other couches, have the cameras ready and that we're gonna have our body clocks tuned so precisely that we're gonna have a real moment." Other scenes, like the much talked-about sexual encounter between Gosling and Williams in a motel room that almost got Blue Valentine a dreaded NC-17 rating in America, was more technical. "That became much more specific to the script so the actors could be in a safe place," he says, before adding that "There was another moment where I didn't let them shower for two days." Hopefully not before the sex scene.
All of the purposeful grubbiness, all of the repressed emotion and anger, and all of those years of frustration that had built while Cianfrance was trying to get the movie made undoubtedly comes across on screen. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams are both superb, and when I mention to the director that he may now find himself a hot property in Hollywood with thespians because of the way he works, he replies simply and modestly. "I like working with great actors and courageous actors. I love actors." And is there anyone in particular that he'd like to work with? "I just saw The Fighter recently, and Christian Bale was amazing," he gushes. A match made in heaven? "Oh yeah," he laughs again. "Definitely."