And yet, this little boy overshadows her great poetry. Parker is incredible in this movie.
Colangelo: There was a sort of looseness and openness to him that I certainly loved and in that first meeting while [speaking to Maggie] it was so moving, and it was on tape, and there was such a beautiful dynamic that you guys had and the civility. He had this kind of advanced ability to go on and off script, in a way that he could memorize a scene, but you could take him off script, have him recite a poem and then go back on-script, and he didn’t get confused by that because he was too young to think structurally, he would just talk to you during a shot in a way that didn’t feel like play acting at all. So we cast him because he was very moving, he also had this ability to be a regular kid and play with a soccer ball that was around.
Gyllenhaal: Two things to say about Parker. He’s five; I had a five-year-old at the time, we all felt that it was essential to protect him from feeling any of the things this little boy might be feeling, it’s just not worth it. We never asked him to try and imagine the situation, we would instead just put the camera on him and say, for example, “Stand in the big red x and look out the window, now look at me, now look back at the window” we’d even make him sing his lines, I especially remember us asking him to sing “I don’t want to go” and it came out exactly like a boy his age would say it. He didn’t have to actually act, because I don’t believe a five-year-old can act, let alone on a full-scale 22-day shoot.
That’s a fast, quick shoot.
Gyllenhaal: We had spoken earlier today about equality. We didn’t have enough money to make our movie about a woman, and yet we were a group of women that still maintained a positive atmosphere, and we would tell each other “Of course we can finish this film in 22 days” [laughs]. “No problem I’ll change my clothes in the on-set bathroom,” and yet it would have been nice to have a couple more days
That limitation has somehow made this film feel raw and organic; it has this authentically rendered feel that can only come with a small-scale production
Gyllenhaal: Totally and that limitation is what the movie is about.
Has Nadav seen it?
Colangelo: I’m not sure actually, I know he was on-set for a day.
I was wondering how he would react to this picture because it is essentially an American re-telling and you fill it with American themes — make no mistake about it, this is a new “Kindergarten Teacher.”
Colangelo: There’s a gender dynamic in the original that just doesn’t work in this version, and so I thought we have to try to create somebody new. And I do find that Maggie’s character has this new kind of agency, there’s this kind of fire in Lisa that I feel is made whole by Maggie as she invests so much of herself in this character.
Gyllenhaal: The thing that was on my mind, and still is today, is the pertinent question of what does it mean to be a woman today? I’m talking for real here [laughs]. Let’s go so deep inside this woman’s mind that is starving and suffering in this culture, which is what we’re all talking about right now. What does it feel like? What does it really look like? And when I read Sara’s adaptation it went straight in, there was something about what she was articulating that spoke directly and clearly to what was on my mind and to what I wanted to articulate myself. It was amazing to watch it at Sundance and feel the effect of telling the truth about the right now. Telling the hard, painful truth to all these people in the room and to feel the way people would gasp and the way they would laugh and I felt so proud to have been a part of putting that out.
What is that truth to you?
Gyllenhaal: What are the consequences of starving a vibrant woman’s mind? Which is what we’re basically all saying and what’s happening to all of us. My character thought her life was ok, her marriage was fine, her work, her family life was fine, her spiritual and artistic life. But she comes to a point where it’s not fine; where fine is not enough. If this story were being told from a masculine point of view the conclusion of what are the consequences of starving a young woman’s mind would be “Oh poor her, it’s awful,” but because we were all mostly women on-set, starving a woman’s mind feels fucking dire [laughs]. It’s a horror movie.
I read this thing that Wim Wenders said that some movies are meant to comfort you, to make you feel better, and there’s a place for those movies. Sometimes I feel like that’s just the kind of movie I want to watch but then there are movies that make you want to get up out of your seat and change things, and I think that’s what “The Kindergarten Teacher” is.
“The Kindergarten Teacher” is playing in NY/LA limited release and is available on Netflix now.
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