Ben
Stiller directs and stars in THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY(opening January 22
in Phils.), James Thurber's classic story of a day-dreamer who escapes his
anonymous life by disappearing into a world of fantasies filled with heroism,
romance and action. When his job along with that of his co-worker (Kristen
Wiig) are threatened, Walter takes action in the real world embarking on a
global journey that turns into an adventure more extraordinary than anything he
could have ever imagined.
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| Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox |
In 1939, when James Thurber first published “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,”
he brought a playful, modernist style to the story that lured readers directly
into the experience of Walter Mitty’s fantasy life. In Ben Stiller’s
latest adaptation, he hoped to do something similar, using modern cinema to
open the story up visually in a way that couldn’t have been imagined in
Thurber’s day. He knew there were several ways to approach Mitty’s
fantasizing. But there was only way he felt that was right for what he
wanted audiences to feel: using a deftly crafted hyper-reality that
merges Mitty’s inner stream of consciousness into the fabric of what’s going on
in his outer world.
Check out the movie’s latest featurette with Ben Stiller and Kristen Wiig
talking how the movie is about courage and going into the unknown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
“Everybody can connect with the idea of talking to somebody while actually
having this crazy, imaginary fantasy going on in your head of where you’d
rather be in that moment,” he explains. “That’s what we wanted to
capture.”
Stiller
thought intensively about how to achieve that. Creating Walter’s fantasies
would certainly involve many moving parts, and a sense of spectacle, but
Stiller used his effects judiciously, with an eye towards unbroken integration
into the flow of the action. “In terms of visual effects, we wanted
the overall approach to be very photo-real,” he says. “I’ve always found
that the best results come from doing as much as you can practically in
real-life situations and then just tickling that with the digital
effects.”
Ultimately, Stiller would put together a visual design team including
Oscar-nominated director of photography Stuart Dryburgh(“The Piano”),
production designer Jeff Mann (“Tropic Thunder,” “Zoolander”), editor Greg
Hayden (“Tropic Thunder,” “Zoolander”), costume designer Sarah Edwards (“Salt,”
“Michael Clayton”) and visual effects supervisor Guillaume Rocheron (“Life of
Pi”).
The constant yin and yang of dreams and reality in “The Secret Life of Walter
Mitty” made for an extremely ambitious production – one which would take on the
rigors of shooting in the middle of New York City then jet off to the
other-worldly environs of Iceland, where cast and crew moved from volcanoes to
helicopters to the middle of the frosty ocean.
Each location would host scenes that could not have been filmed elsewhere in
the world. In New York, Stiller had the chance to shoot the epic chase
between Walter and Ted in the live-wire dynamics of a typical crowded day in
the city.
In
Iceland, Stiller would shoot a scene that pushed him to new edges both as
director and actor: when Walter jumps into the raging waves of the North
Atlantic, which Stiller simulated with his own plunge into the ocean. “It
was really important for me that we not do that scene in a tank,” he
recalls. “I felt we had to shoot in real high seas, with a real boat
there, a real helicopter and real waves,” he explains.
“That’s when Mitty literally dives into life,” muses John Goldwyn. “It’s
the big transition moment of the movie, and it looks incredibly real, because
most of it is.” The scene turned out, just as it does for Walter
Mitty, to bring a bit more reality than even Stiller anticipated.
“We were about a mile out at sea with seven-foot swells -- which, when you’re
in the water, are really big,” admits Stiller. “The boat with the camera
in it went away to come back and do the shot, but there was this two-minute
period where I was just in the North Sea with nobody around. I was in the ocean
just by myself with a briefcase, floating there waiting for the camera to come
back and was thinking, ‘I hope they can find me when they come back for the
shot,’” he laughs. “There was a real sense of danger and it was one of those
moments when I thought, ‘oh, this is what real filmmaking is all about.’”
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