Alex Proyas Interview: Apocalyptic Movies

Cult Genre Director Discusses Popularity of Disaster Films

Mar 18, 2009

Alex Proyas is a recognized director responsible for works such as Dark City, and The Crow. In part two of four of a series of articles, Proyas discusses the film's theme

While answering questions ranging from filming techniques to the value of collaborating on projects, director Alex Proyas approached the subject of how it is that today's audience are so much into disaster films, and their growing popularity.

Suite 101: With past films such as Armageddon and Deep Impact, not to mention The Day After Tomorrow, audiences are getting more and more into this genre. Why is that?

Alex Proyas: I think when people live in uncertain times, I guess it’s something that we dwell upon and there’s obviously something, you know, we all know what the current potential doom scenarios are for our civilization.

I think everyone’s genuinely concerned and movies are a reflection of that, really. You know, a way of analyzing the situation in whatever dramatic form and helping us perhaps find a solution. Or worse, prepare ourselves. So I think it really is a sign of the times, perhaps

S101: Any opinions about how this fits in, in relation to 2012, the upcoming film by Roland Emmerich?

AP: Well, you know, whenever I work in a specified genre, and I’ve never done a so-called disaster movie before, and it really - it’s sort of doing this movie a bit of disservice to actually call it one. I don’t believe it is one, but you’re obviously aware of the films in the genre that have come before.

I see this movie as a spiritual quest, and there’s a lot of mayhem and disasters that ensue on an escalading scale, but it’s not really about the disasters, per se. The one thing I really wanted to do from day one is I was aware of the sort of set pace that was going to happen in the script, obviously, and I wanted to avoid a kind of glamorizing of the events.

I really wanted to make them as visceral and as real and as unsettling as possible and that was really my premise. And that was really a reaction against what I see as Hollywood movies that kind of glamorize and beautify disaster. I think from the reaction that I’m getting from my audience based on the sequences that I’ve shown people I’m satisfied. I believe that they achieved what I was trying to have them achieve.

You know, I remember years ago watching Saving Private Ryan in the theatre, and I was right at the front of the theater and about, you know, ten minutes into that very visceral, horrific sequence at the beginning of the movie I sort of looked around to see how the audience have reacted to this and I’ve never seen a bunch of more stunned faces who were absolutely riveted to the horror they were seeing. And I really thought that really to me (this) captured the, you know, the horror of being in that sort of conflict in a way that people hadn’t actually seen in a film at that stage.

It was very truthful. I felt that it captured a level of truth to that situation. So that was kind of what I was hoping to do with some of the scenes in my movie.

(Look for Part Three of this four-part interview, when Alex Proyas discusses some of the inspiration for the project)

(Many thanks to Meghan Parnell of Virginia Kelly & Associates PR, for her assistance in arranging access to this Q&A)

The copyright of the article Alex Proyas Interview: Apocalyptic Movies in Sci-Fi/Fantasy Films is owned by Dominic Messier. Permission to republish Alex Proyas Interview: Apocalyptic Movies in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.