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Miniature Interview
Marleen Gorris
(2000)
A charming director from the Netherlands. I interviewed her in the year 2000, just prior to the release of The Luzhin Defence. A not-so thrilling love story, starring Emily Watson and John Turturro and set against an illustrious chess tournament (bombastic). We're talkin' Nabokov, bro. Do you know his work?
Could you compare and contrast for me what it was like working with someone else's material as opposed to what your used to, working from your own.
I felt quite liberated to tell you the truth. If you write your own work, you know exactly what you want. You've gone through draft after draft and you censored your own work before sending it to anybody else and before discussing it with anybody else. So, you have already done a lot of work, and when you're finally happy with it, you think, "this is it." And you don't really want to change it all that much anymore. Then of course, sometimes you have to, because actors need to make it their own. And then in the end, as a director you have to make it your own again, but now from a different perspective. As far as directing somebody else's material, I think the difference is, I'm a bit more flexible when I do that. I allow more influences. If a writer is susceptible to it, I like to work with the writer. I enjoy the process of working together and honing it down. With this writer, it worked very well. He was very receptive to working with me.
Did you specifically select the Nabokov story?
No, no. I got the script first, and then later I read the Nabokov book. Do you know the book?
I haven't read the book, but I read a bit about it. It was one of his earlier novels right?
Yes, I think it was the last novel he wrote in Russian.
I assume that working from your own material has been a growing experience. Did you find things about yourself and your creative processes that you hadn't discovered before?
Like I said before, what I liked to find out, was that I could be more flexible in a sense. That it can be a good thing. That you're less, sort of mulish. I really liked finding that out.
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