The fact is, this issue is so relevant today, and it’s been relevant for so long, sometimes you have to hit people square in the temple with things to make them think about what they’re watching and remind them how easy this is, and that kids need to be spoon fed things sometimes. He would subject us to films that were far beyond what we were capable of understanding-Goddard, Truffaut, Antonioni, Kurosawa.
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All of the film stuff is owed to Jim Posney, who was my film teacher in high school. Were you worried that might have been a little too on the nose?Īnthony: There have been some comments about that, and it’s funny. So, it’s been in the popular culture maybe a little more than it has been…Įxactly. It’s a weird coincidence that that film has been talked about a lot recently, because of I, Tonya taking a somewhat similar approach to telling different versions of the same story. Anthony, I have to ask about the Rashomon reference in the film, which got a laugh from a few folks in the audience last night. But this reminded me that some part of that time, he’s thinking about what he’s not doing, what he’s missing out on by being there. Whenever I see a film set in prison, I always think all that person is thinking about is surviving in prison, and what happens from minute to minute in prison. That made me go, “I really want to be a part of this, and I feel like I need to tell that story.” It doesn’t feel that different if I walk down the street than if Steve walked down the street. I’m not in any of those places, because I’m in prison right now.” It made me go, “Wow, this really cool, free-spirited, intellectual kid from Harlem is being stifled and has been robbed of his childhood and his humanity and his identity simply because he was curious and trying to grow up.” That struck a chord with me being young. But he’s remembering these moments from jail, so he was like, “That’s not me, that’s not me, that’s not me, that’s not me. It was like “This kid’s skateboarding, and he’s at home with his family”-all of these moments that a kid should be doing at 17. Kelvin: Well, I got the script one day, and I remember reading the opening, which has been changed in the movie, but I remember seeing this kid traveling through all these beautiful moments in New York. How did you find out about this role, and what do you remember reacting to specifically about your character? Film spoke with the two about the process of bringing the novel to the screen and the movie’s fluid definition of “the truth.” Monster has yet to announce a distributor or release date. This interview with Mandler and Harrison took place at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, where Monster debuted.
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However, he was also in the Oscar-nominated Mudbound and was in two other Sundance films this year: Assassination Nation and Monsters and Men. Harrison delivers some truly rage-filled inner monologues in Monster that add a depth and level of frustration to both the character and the experience of watching the film. Harmon is played by Kelvin Harrison Jr., best known as the son in last year’s It Comes At Night. Various versions of the truth are told, and Mandler illustrates how a kid who wanted to capture the reality of his neighborhood got caught up in way he could never have imagined or wanted. Told in a non-linear fashion, Monster moves from Harmon’s life just before the crime to his time in prison and the eventual trial, all culminating in a look at the actual events surrounding the robbery. Music video veteran and first-time feature director Anthony Mandler has been desperate to bring Monster to the screen for years, and now he’s done so with a cast that includes such heavyweights as Jennifer Ehle, Jeffrey Wright, and Tim Blake Nelson, as well as musicians-turned-actors like Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson, Nas, and A$AP Rocky (real name Rakim Mayers) as Harmon’s co-defendant.
MONSTER WALTER DEAN MYERS QUOTES THAT SHOW CATHARSIS TRIAL
Was this kid from a supportive home a part of this crime? Or is he simply guilty of being young, black and on trial when he walks in the courtroom? Originally published in 1999, Walter Dean Myers’s novel Monster has been a favorite among young-adult readers, using both a third-person screenplay device and first-person diary format to tell the story of honors student Steve Harmon, a black teenager with dreams of becoming a filmmaker, who is arrested and tried for felony murder in New York City after a bodega robbery goes wrong and the owner is killed.