With Netflix's Beasts of No Nation officially joining the Criterion Collection on Blu-ray, director Cary Fukunaga took some time to talk about his experience making the wartime drama and how it influenced his approach to the upcoming James Bond adventure, No Time to Die.
The first-ever Netflix Original movie, 2015's Beasts of No Nation centers on Agu (Abraham Attah), a young boy from an unspecified West African country who gets swept up into the realm's ongoing civil war after becoming a child soldier under the leadership of a charismatic yet despicable and morally bankrupt "Commandment" played by Idris Elba. “You’re always trying to improve things, right? You want every shot, every scene to be living to your fullest potential. And even on Bond, I’d get there and I’d see a better version of doing this,” Fukunaga told Empire Magazine.
Fukunaga shot Beasts of No Nation in Ghana, which taught him to be flexible throughout production and provided valuable learning lessons that he would later put into application while filming No Time to Die. "I became so used to just adapting on my feet in Ghana. As chaotic as it seems, it’s a better way of doing things. Why lock yourself into something, if there’s something better that you can do?" said Fukunaga.
As one would expect, the process of making No Time to Die -- which reportedly has a budget of $250-300 million -- was very different from what Fukunaga went through developing Beasts of No Nation, a film with a $6 million price tag. "On a Bond-style production, which is far more traditional -- you pre-vis things, second unit goes out and shoots things, you plan weeks and months ahead of time with storyboards and all of that -- that feels in a way very limiting, because you’re just imagining ahead of time what the best version of it is, and not seeing what the moment gives you," the director noted.
“Sometimes I’d go through the plan, but sometimes I’d be like, ‘I want to see if we can make this better. How about we do the camera like this instead? And move these extras this way?’ Trying to find something that is far more elegant in its execution,” Fukunaga added. “It does create chaos, but it also just gives you much more beautiful things. You’re seeing what the light of the weather of that day provides you. You’re seeing what the actors are giving you at that moment. You’re just taking advantage of every spontaneous thing that’s happening. From my end, I enjoy it. I think for other people, it might drive them crazy.”
After several delays, No Time to Die is currently slated to open in UK theaters on Sept. 30, followed by its debut in the U.S. on Oct. 8. The film marks Daniel Craig's final time playing Bond and fifth overall after his performances in Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall and Spectre.
Source: Empire Magazine