Director Joe Carnahan Confronts Personal Fears in ‘The Grey’

25 May, 2012 By: Erik Gruenwedel

---

Early in actioner The Grey, marksman Ottway (Liam Neeson) places his hand on the stomach of an outsized wolf he just shot before it picked off an unsuspecting oil pipeline worker. Ottway’s compassion for the mortally wounded animal supplanting a disgust for the “men unfit for mankind” he’s been hired to protect in this “prototype for hell” in the Alaskan outback.

Strong stuff indeed when man confronts the devil, and it is him.
 
Filmed in Smithers, British Columbia (north of Vancouver), in the dead of winter on a modest budget, The Grey (distributed by Universal Studios Home Entertainment) presents an alternate (and entertaining) take on Jack London’s The Call of the Wild. To director Joe Carnahan (The A-Team), working in sub-zero conditions on the side of a mountain while experiencing snow blindness added to the gravitas of “earning it” on the movie.
 
“There were no bells and whistles on this project,” Carnahan said, alluding to the scant use of CGI and animatronics in the movie in which a group of plane crash survivors, led by Ottway, must deal with a pack of ravenous wolves. “You were pretty much out there in the elements. I’ve never experienced the condition of being snow blind, which is just the most bizarre optical freak out that you can have. The good thing is you’re aware of the [actual] time you were on this adventure, first and foremost. And you just happen to be making a film secondary to that. In that way I loved it, because that doesn’t happen enough.”
 
Newbie producer Open Road Films scored a coup (and financing) of sorts when Neeson agreed to do the movie, according to Carnahan. Filming began four months after the actor came on board the project (reportedly replacing Bradley Cooper), which the director said is almost unheard of in Hollywood. Carnahan said it’s no surprise the Oscar winner (Schindler’s List) has become a midlife action star.
 
“You got a guy [Neeson] really working at the top of his game,” he said. “A galvanizing force like Liam is as an actor to pull all [of the pieces of a story] together. Otherwise, [the movie] could become very disparate and just a bunch of personalities, and not one guy pulling them all together.”

Characterizing working on the The Grey as more of an art-than-commerce project, Carnahan said it helped him confront personal hang-ups and fears about being a man, his mortality and faith or lack thereof. 

"That is probably the only time I’ll be able do something purely for artistic purposes," he said. "There is something very harmonious and lovely about that."
 
Working on a “man vs. beast vs. man” movie in such a remote location would seem to call for numerous of behind-the-scenes material, but that never materialized beyond requisite deleted scenes (including one in which Ottway appears to confront the Coca-Cola Christmas bear).
 
“It was one of those situations where we got a late jump,” Carnahan said. “Open Road Films being a relatively new company, I don’t think they were prepared to do the level of behind-the-scenes stuff and some of the other things we wanted to do, unfortunately.”
 
The director had no interest in repurposing video from the electronic press kit — material he said wasn’t “up to snuff” for bonus content. As a result, video clips of the cast and crew being transported daily in an unheated snow cat, the harsh weather and logistical challenges (“I can’t believe we did that!” Carnahan reflects) were left off the release.
 
“We’d rather just release a more stripped-down version [home entertainment release] and circle back around and do something more elaborate next time,” Carnahan said. The director is reportedly working on a reboot of Death Wish, the 1970's classic that resurrrected Charles Bronson into midlife action hero.
 
 
 

Bookmark it: