NBCUni 9.5.23

Veep Creator Armando Iannucci Directs David Copperfield Film

By Iain Blair

Scottish writer/director Armando Iannucci is a comedy god for anyone who appreciates biting satire, sharp political barbs and quick-witted humor. He created, executive produced and helmed the first four seasons of HBO’s Veep, and more recently created and directed the first season of the HBO sci-fi comedy series Avenue 5.

Director Armando Iannucci on set

Not just playing on the small screen, Iannucci was Oscar-nominated for his first film, In the Loop, about the Iraq invasion. He also found the funny in the horrors of Stalin’s reign of terror in his second film, The Death of Stalin.

In his new film, The Personal History of David Copperfield, he takes on Charles Dickens’ ode to grit and perseverance and gives the story a new life and look — with his trademark surreal twist. Co-written by Iannucci and Simon Blackwell (Succession, In the Loop), it stars Dev Patel in the title role and features an all-star cast, including Hugh Laurie, Tilda Swinton and Ben Whishaw.

Iannucci’s team included director of photography Zac Nicholson, film editors Mick Audsley and Peter Lambert, and composer Christopher Willis.

I spoke with Iannucci about making the film and his love of post and editing.

You’ve tackled Dickens before — the BBC TV special Armando’s Tale of Charles Dickens. But this is such a well-known beloved classic. Any trepidation taking it on?
Not really. When I reread it a few years ago I thought, I know how to do this – I could visualize it all. Before I did Death of Stalin I hadn’t done an adaptation or period piece, so that helped me learn a lot about doing both. I had a great crew, and they were all enthusiastic when I told them I wanted to do this next.

Translating any novel to screen is always tricky, especially this book, with all its first-person inner psychological detail. How challenging was it?
Very. First, it’s very long, with tons of vivid characters. At first we tried writing the script consisting almost entirely of Dickens’ dialogue, and it was very readable — it just wasn’t a movie, however. It felt more like a series of scenes, and that immediately made us feel like, “Don’t be so reverential about the book,” as it’s this very modern celebration of creativity and memory and friendship. Once we realized that, it came alive.

When did you decide to go for the comedy?
I definitely didn’t want to make some musty period piece in a glass jar, and it’s easy to forget just how funny Dickens can be. People often associate him with gloomy, foggy scenes of death and disease — of course, there is all that — but there’s also so much humor and comedy, especially in his earlier works, and you can lose sight of that.

So right from the start I wanted to stress the comedy, because the film adaptations I’ve seen are so serious and focused on the heavy drama and the plot — and to me those are the least interesting things about this story. To me, he just uses those as a device to hang on all the amazing characters and comedy and clever one-liners and bits of slapstick comedy.

Some examples: When David gets drunk for the first time, and when he joins the law firm and has to negotiate his way around all the creaking floorboards, or when he falls in love with Dora and starts seeing her face and name everywhere. It’s a very surreal and playful, yet very real. And it’s very contemporary in the way David worries about his place in society.

How tough was the shoot, as you had a lot of locations?
The prep was probably harder than the 10-week shoot, but we had to move around a lot constantly for the locations. It really helped that so many key people — production designer Cristina Casali, editor Peter Lambert, casting director Sarah Crowe and composer Chris Willis — had all worked with me on Stalin, and that we had amazing, sunny weather the whole shoot. Ironically, the heat made it really hard for the cast in all their Victorian costumes, and those were very important to the look. We researched all the clothes, and while people back then didn’t own tons of clothes like we do, they wanted to make statements with their really colorful clothes, and some were quite bizarre.

Talk about the look you and DP Zac Nicholson went for, with its wide-angle shots, use of slo-mo and so on.
We shot digitally on ARRI Alexa XTs with Zeiss Master Primes from Panavision London. It was graded by Adam Glasman at Goldcrest, and we went for a very colorful, beautiful look. I didn’t want the usual dark Victorian, muddy look full of cobwebs. These characters aren’t living in the past. Most of them are young, with their whole lives ahead of them. And when David first arrives in London, I wanted it to feel like someone arriving in Manhattan for the first time — all the excitement and speed of the city. It’s the heart of the Empire, it’s the height of the Industrial Revolution, and it’s utterly modern and fresh and new. I wanted it to be “now.”

Where did you do the post?
We did all the editing, sound and DI at Goldcrest in London. The music was all recorded at AIR Studios. I love post, and I had a great post supervisor, Louise Seymour. I really love the writing stage, and post, of course, is where you do your final version of the script. I also love the whole process of adding all the sound and music.

You had two editors on this one. How did that work, and what were the main editing challenges?
It was a matter of scheduling — Mick did the assembly work as we were moving locations so much. Peter, who cut Stalin for me, came in a bit later.

I actually go through all the rushes on my own and look for little nuanced moments. Just as when I shoot, we follow the script, but there’s also a lot of playing around with alternative ideas and some improvisation. And I shoot from every angle. So there’s a lot of material to cut from, as I always shoot more than we’ll need, and then we spend months on it, and the edit’s always far longer than the shoot. It’s always about finding the rhythms, the best performances, and we ended up doing another day’s shoot of the painted backdrops and then cut that stuff in, so it’s a very organic process.

I like to screen it for people as we go, as it allows you to stand back and get a different perspective. Sometimes you think something’s perfectly clear, but you watch it with friends and then realize you’ve cut a vital bit of information out. Or you think the tempo of a scene is really fast and then realize it’s quite slow.

Can you talk about the importance of music and sound to you?
They’re hugely important to me, as I started off in radio, and just like the costumes, we didn’t go for the usual sounds or the obvious ones. No street urchins and town criers! I get the music going really early in the edit with Chris Willis. It’s never an add-on. It’s a whole new character, and we worked very hard not to score precisely to the drama and action, so it wouldn’t draw too much attention to it as “film music.” And it’s full of pulses and rhythms and beats that really complement all the different moods.

There are quite a few visual effects. Who did them and what was entailed?
They were done by Automatik VFX and Invisible Art Collective, and I was very involved. We had the massive storm at the end, so we did some storm-chasing in October and then used VFX for the shipwreck and other elements, such as seeing the Houses of Parliament being built as David walks across the bridge. And we had a lot of clean-up and removal.

Director Armando Iannucci on set

What about the DI with Adam Glasman?
I’ve worked with him on nearly everything I’ve ever done. He knew exactly what I wanted, which was to bring out all the color and make it look richer, fresher and newer. Adam, DP Zac and I went through it all very carefully, and I just love the way it looks. It’s definitely not your usual period look.

Are you still working on Avenue 5?
HBO renewed it, so we’re writing the second season and we’ll start prep soon. I’ve also got several movie scripts ready to go, but with the COVID crisis it’s all a bit uncertain right now.


Industry insider Iain Blair has been interviewing the biggest directors in Hollywood and around the world for years. He is a regular contributor to Variety and has written for such outlets as Reuters, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe.


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