Written and directed through Jessica Swale, the war drama Summerland follows Alice (Gemma Arterton), a solitary publishing house with a thorny personality that settles for her solitary life in England during World War II. When she discovers herself on a stage where she has to adopt a frightened young evacuee from London named Frank (Lucas Bond), she warms her centre and allows her to think again about the painful secrets of her beyond freeing her from her own journey.
During this personal phone interview with Collider, filmmaker Jessica Swale talked about what encouraged her to write Summerland, telling a period story with a fresh sensibility, taking part in her cast, the adjustments that were made to the main character so that Gemma Arterton can simply play the role, which she most appreciated in the creation and writing of someone like AliceArray why to publish the most complicated component of the procedure and the projects she is developing lately.
Collider: It’s an original story, but those characters are so vivid and colorful that they feel like other genuine people at that express moment.What encouraged you to the story and the characters?
JESSICA SWALE: It was little by little. At first, he started thinking about writing a particular short story for the movie screen, which I wanted to do. When I started writing, it was a scholarship and I had the opportunity to write something original for a movie. Whereas the two film projects he had had before were adaptations of plays he had written. It was really the first time anyone had said, “Here’s some time and money. Write anything for the movies. It can be anything you need. In a way, it’s a fantastic opportunity and in another way, it makes it literally complicated because surely there were no restrictions as to what this tale could be. So I sat down and thought, “What can cinema do? Why write for the cinema? Why do I like to go to the movies? What am I interested in seeing? Well, I don’t need to see stories about genuine global politics and everyday life. I need to go to the movies to get away from it all and see beyond my enjoyment of everyday life because we have the opportunity to have the big screen. What can he do? And that’s when I started thinking about magical genuinism and how I love stories that push the barriers of genuine life. I started thinking about this question: “What if?” What if there was something beyond our delight? What if magic exists literally? And then I started reading about folklore, and the intersection of folklore and genuine life, and where those stories came from and what other people were looking for when they made up stories about things like islands floating in the sky. Had they really noticed anything genuine? What if they saw something, then what was it? And then I started thinking, “Here’s an attractive character whose task is to uncover the fact of folklore.” From there, I started to think, “What if I was someone who believed in magic and for some reason became skeptical?” This is where the story began.
Now that you’ve come all this way and you can take a look at the finished product, are you surprised that this is the story that this whole adventure has despite everything that has taken you?
SWALE: Oh, yes. But I always wonder as an editor because I don’t like to plan too much. I feel that the most productive tool I have in my toolbox, as an editor, is spontaneity and amazement. I’ve discovered, from experience, as much as I’m sure there are other people who paint in a very different way, that I’m more excited, as an editor, when I don’t really know what’s going to happen. If, for example, I was making plans for this total film in a three-page treatment, I don’t think it will ever surprise the audience, especially since everything I can plan in such a short time, I guess. While what I like to do is locate the character by typing in his voice and get to know him, then locate what he’s going through to do and what he’s going through to say. And occasionally they misunderstand, and that becomes the attractive option. When I started writing this, I didn’t know Alice was gay, and I had no idea That Frank was going to be Vera’s son. This caught my eye halfway through the writing, on the roof of the bus, when I screamed out loud thinking, “No! Of course not! Is that possible?” And then, of course, when you come across something like that, you have to go back and rewrite what you’ve done to hide it and bury it, to make sure it’s possible. This is what I’m talking about in relation to the spontaneity of writing and how much I like to have no concept. Let’s hope the audience also appreciates the wonders that occur. I’ve enjoyed the wonders of the movies. I love movies with twists and turns.
It’s a war drama, but it has a sensibility so fresh that it’s effortless.How complicated is it to balance the impression that anything from the express era is still available to the public now?Is this something that helps through the emotional arc of the story you’re telling because feelings don’t have an express era in time?
SWALE: Yes, I think so. I have done many paintings that take a position at other times, and that is occasionally a comment that other people make. I didn’t take it for granted, but it’s never a huge effort for me, and I think it’s because I don’t think when I think of characters. I see them as other people who have universal feelings, like all of us. Of course, the cases in which they are located can have a specific effect on your reaction, however, other people are still heartbroken and have fallen in love and have had turbulent relationships since other people existed. I think it can alienate other people if you write characters speaking in the form of discussion, which is more formal or more serene than what we use lately. These are other people who have conversations and feel fashionable in the way they interact. I always have the idea that the discussion that I write for any era deserves to be really new, fresh and honest, and other people deserve to speak in short sentences, the same way they do now, rather than the perception of an Edwardian or a Victorian. A way of speaking where other people speak in big, long and intellectual lines, and then accept as true that the cases in which they are located will remind us of all time.
After taking time to write this and live with these characters, what would it be like to locate the actors you would entrust to the curtains and see what they brought?
SWALE: Gemma [Arterton], who plays Alice, is a very intelligent friend of mine, but I didn’t write it with her in mind. I started writing it before I was made known so well, but it was also because Alice, in my head, was a little older. It was only when we were having dinner together and found out that she had read it and enjoyed it. It was an opportunity I thought, “Actually, I can adapt that. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Gemma played Alice because she’s a comedian, as an actress, and she’s so fantastic and versatile? Nor is it the kind of role we’ve seen him play before, so it would be unexpected and engaging to the audience, I hope. And then, of course, we painted it in combination because I was rewriting it thinking about it. Instead of delivering it, as a director you’re there for each and every detail of the actor who lives this story. What I love is that what they bring is more than you could have imagined. They contribute a lot of their own paintings, thoughts and personalities, but you paint with them to do it and you’re there, filming in combination. Instead of being my task and then handing it over to him, it’s much more of an ongoing transaction, where as soon as an actor gets involved, there’s one lovely thing where you do a combined dance and create something. which is more wonderful than one or the other. of you may have done it individually. At least that’s the hope, unless you ruin the change.
Once you knew who would play Alice, besides converting the character’s age, were there other major adjustments to the role you did in particular for Gemma Arterton, or did you just make small adjustments?
SWALE: That was it. That was about age. I knew I could do comedy and I was a brilliant actress, so I sought to make sure there was enough in the story, and that’s my voice too. I think we’re very smart friends because we have a very similar sense of humor. But to be honest, I’m very suspicious of rewriting anything for an actor because the tendency is to turn that character into anything you know the actor is capable of doing because you’ve noticed it before. In fact, I think brilliant functionality comes from an actor who looks at anything and says, “This is an opportunity for it to go beyond what others expect.” One of the reasons Gemma sought to play Alice was because she was the kind of role we don’t know. It would have been really easy to make Alice look a little more at the same rate as Gemma as always, but in fact she would discredit her, as an actress, and make the story less interesting. For example, it’s Alice’s bad temper and the fact that she’s not a great character at first that really seduced Gemma because she occasionally plays the brilliant and adorable heroine. I looked to challenge her because I think that’s where you get the most out of other people.
Alice, as a character, can be very difficult. What did you like most about finding someone like her, especially through writing?
SWALE: Oh, I literally enjoyed it. There’s nothing more annoying than writing to a very sweet, adorable, kind person. For me, writing to someone who speaks absolutely and doesn’t care about one iota is very refreshing. There is a bit of all of us who are limited by the well-educated notions of society. Every now and then I’ve thought, “I literally need to be able to say what I think without worrying about the consequences or what others think.” There are reasons why you can’t do that, so the pleasure of writing to someone who does precisely what they need, infrequently to annoy other people, was simply delicious. The other side is that I try not to judge my characters. Many other people said Alice wasn’t friendly, but I really think she’s pretty justified, most of the time, in her behavior. She’s so intimidated by the city and forced out. The local youth are ruthless with it, hunt it down and avoid it, and have erected a fence. They don’t like it and think it’s strange because she’s an intellectual woman who lives alone and studies. So, in fact, when she doesn’t have the patience and time for other people who necessarily interrupt her work, especially being myself an editor, I literally perceive it. I rarely feel, “If I could tell other people to leave because I’m in the middle of my draft, I’d like to do it.” It’s not as outrageous as other people might think.
What has been the post-production procedure for you?
SWALE: Editing is the most difficult component. I love the opening of the artistic procedure, I love running with other people and I love the beginning of things. I was encouraged to write the story because I liked the query “What if?” When you write, it is at all times imaginable that it will end as you wish. Similarly, when he shoots, he gathers material. The most complicated thing for me about editing is that you have to make complicated decisions to fit it into one thing. Since I’m used to running the theater, in the theater, you never have a definitive product because it’s another one every night. It is a component of joy and also of frustration. While in a movie, it is a wonderful advantage to be able to create a definitive piece, where the joy of seeing it will never change. Frame by frame, it is cropped in the form of components, and that’s the story you’re telling. As a hardened romantic, there is something difficult to make those decisions and make them so definitive, because there are many other tactics to tell this story. There are so many scenes that you have to cut because you need them to have a safe duration, which you like at all times. This is probably the most difficult component of the procedure for me.
It’s one thing to think of a comedy in which the filmmaker has to decide between jokes of choice, but with something like that, it turns out that editing the film would be very complicated because you have to get rid of the scenes you like. Training
SWALE: Yes. Most of the time, it’s about whether you need that shot or that shot of a scene. Sometimes you need to the most of a laughing version, or a time when you really see the vulnerability. But there’s this question of duration and pace, and that sort of thing. At first, there were many parts where Alice behaved even more scandalously, that we couldn’t stay to make sure the pace that followed during the film. But I enjoyed watching how bad it was. I think there might one day be a break from the principal that will last about three hours. It’ll only be for diehard fans.
You know what you’d like to do next? Would you like to go back to the movies or are you more focused on film and television now?
SWALE: Because we shot Summerland two years ago, I have 3 films that will be made, according to COVID, in the next nine months. I wrote a play, Nell Gwynn, which I adapted to a feature film, so we hope to shoot it later this year. And then I have two e-book adaptations. I do Persuasion with Fox Searchlight and Longbourn, which is an e-book through Jo Baker. And they all have administrators attached and they’ll be in the world. And then I have some other secret projects, which I still can’t communicate with, but there’s a movie I’m desperate to make. This is my next original feature film, which I’m writing and which I’d like to direct. It’s a very different concept from Summerland, but it has a similar tone, as it’s a sincere story with a positive ending and elements of comedy and tragedy. It takes position in northern Italy, so it might not be difficult to shoot this film in one of the most beautiful countries in the world.
When you write scripts that you then trust a director, what does it look like? With one of those scripts, do you have any idea about express actors while you were writing it, but you don’t know who will end up being selected for the roles?
SWALE: One of the smart things is that I was consulted in the casting process of those films, so I got a lot involved. And all the administrators who run them know I’m a director too. There’s a detail to make sure I have something to say, but they also feel they can have it while I keep my hat writing and make sure I don’t walk on tiptoes. It’s a complicated transition. If the time or cases had been different, I would have liked to have directed one of the other 3. But having said that, I feel like I’m learning a lot by running around with administrators who have a lot more experience than I am. And so, over the time I’ve been shooting my next movie, I’m not only going to make my feature film, but I’ll have done 3 more with 3 other managers I greatly respect and appreciate. It’s all a component of the learning procedure.
As a director, whether it’s for a movie or on stage, what do you like about running with actors? How do you run a production with the actors? Do you have to adapt to all the other actors because everyone has another process?
SWALE: I am actually pleased to have conducted 10 or 12 years of direction in the theater before I start in the cinema, because the component of the procedure that I know very well is to run with the actors. There have been many new experiences, in terms of cameras, gadgets and the running of a set, however, running with actors, I feel like I’ve been doing it since the beginning of my career. I love actors and I love running with actors. I’m surprised when the administrators say, “Damn actors! I don’t like running with actors. That is the ultimate misleading component of the procedure. I feel that the vulnerability of the actors, their sensitivity and what they bring to the procedure is enormous.” And if you can help foster that and allow them to do their maximum productivity, it can be the most joyful collaboration. Part of it is knowing that each actor paints differently and that, yes, somehow, you can have your procedure as a director, but you also have to be susceptible and flexible, to know how to get the most out of someone. If an actor likes to be very quiet and not rehearse much, and he wants the silence to come in and make his pieces, it can be very different to run with someone who is very full of life and really passionate about seeing anything. For me, what is vital for an actor is to be able to be spontaneous in terms of, if we replace the scene as we go along, but also be satisfied with making offers. One of my favorite things about my paintings with Gemma is that she’s actually passionate. You can give us three, 4 or ten very different versions of the same line, so it would possibly be useful to have other interpretations of that. You can also keep a total story in your head and track the order in which the elements of the movie occur. In the movies, you’re very used to telling a story in the right order, but when you’re shooting a movie, you’re not in the right order at all, so you have to be on your guard to make sure. you get the right tone at all times.
Summerland is available on VOD and digitally.