Not Exclusive! Hammer & Tongs talk ‘Rambow’
Garth Jennings (right) directs Will Poulter on the set of Son of Rambow
To spread the word about their newest film, Son of Rambow, the British filmmaking team known as Hammer & Tongs (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) recently subjected themselves to a roundtable interview at Paramount Studios; sort of the journalistic equivalent of a gangbang minus most of the bodily fluids.
LiC was there and one of the monkeys even managed to make some sense of the thing. [Editor's Note: Read all the quotes with English accents. You'll be glad you did.]
Though Garth Jennings is tagged as the directing half of the team and Nick Goldsmith is tagged as the producing half, they’re both quick to acknowledge that their actual roles aren’t so clearly defined. They’re a team in the truest sense.
“We’ve worked together on everything we’ve ever done since we met at art school, really,” says Garth. “Or since we left art school, when we started doing music videos. Even though Nick is the producer and I’m the director we do it all together. We think the best way to do this job is as a team.”
Nick agrees. “It takes a team to make a film and even though you have titles and specific roles, you’re working on it from beginning to end together and I think that’s how you get a better movie. At least that’s how we see it.”
The first thing one notices about them is a certain boyish quality. They’re not immature, but they haven’t lost that sense of fun or the excitement of possibility that kids have. And they both seem to realize they’ve found the perfect outlet for their energies. Says Garth: “I’m really happy growing up and having children and all that sort of stuff, it’s great, but this job is kind of stupid and funny.” Nick adds: “It can be hard at times, but It’s quite a fun job. You can’t forget that. You can’t help but remain a bit childlike.”
It’s an attitude that not only infuses their playful music videos and their work on Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but it’s the literal foundation of Son of Rambow, a film about two boys in a small town in England in the 1980s who set out to make their own version of Rambo: First Blood and become unlikely friends along the way.
Nick says, “[Rambow's] about that time in your…well in our lives…when anything was possible and you didn’t really understand fear of the consequences. You just do stuff and if things went right they went right and if the went wrong they went wrong, but it didn’t matter. It was the joy of doing it and I think that’s a universal theme.”
It’s an attitude that helped them through a long stretch of time where the completed film’s release was being blocked over rights issues. Just a week after it was completed, Rambow premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival where it was quickly purchased for distribution. Unfortunately, the film uses several sequences from the original Rambo film and it took longer than expected to secure the rights. The film is only now coming to theaters in the United States nearly a year and a half after it first premiered (It hit the UK on April 4).
According to Nick, “On a positive note, it was great for us because we got to show the film at film festivals. We were getting to basically release the film in a way with audiences and it was a wonderful time for us because there was no pressure of performing or box office or any of those things. We were just getting to experience the film with audiences who got to discover it.”
Garth agreed, “We’d spent so long getting this thing made and we were so proud of it that actually it was even nicer to have this little life inside the film festival circuit. It was really, genuinely great fun.”
Nick added, “We always knew eventually everything would get worked out because it’s not like we were showing a bad portrayal of the original film First Blood. It’s a celebration. It’s showing how it inspired these kids to make a film. We never thought it wouldn’t happen. We were always very positive that of course it’s going to happen. It’s just going to take time.”
The latter point about Rambow being a celebration is an important one. The Rambo character has become controversial since First Blood, but Jennings and Goldsmith aren’t making a political commentary, nor are they making an ode to American imperialism. This is a kid’s-eye-view of a character who, in the first film, survived with just a stick and a knife. Enjoyment of the Rambo franchise is not required and hating it should not be a detriment.
“As kids,” Nick explains, “you don’t see it as anything other than: Here’s this amazing character who can sow up his arm himself, and he can build all these amazing traps and can survive in the forest. You don’t take into account the whole Vietnam war thing.”
According to Garth, none other than Rambo himself approved of the film. “Stallone saw the film in January and he really liked it. He sent a lovely message through to us via the studio and he was so complimentary it was really very nice. We sort of got his blessing really, so you couldn’t ask for more.”
You couldn’t ask for more, indeed. The same might be said of the movie itself.
Check out Son of Rambow when it opens in limited release tomorrow (May 2) or when it begins a wider rollout in the weeks that follow. In the words of Rambow’s young Lee Carter, it’s going to be skills on toast.
I’ll have a full review of the film Friday morning.
Filed under: Interviews
Related Posts: - Movies You May Have Missed: 8/23/08
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- First Impression: Son of Rambow
- Review: Son of Rambow (2008) *** 1/2
Look forward to that review, then you can tease me more with the fact that I will only get to see this film closer to the end of 2008.
Them’s the breaks, Nick. At least you got to see Iron Man before most of us. :-)
Yeah, I know, thanks to public holidays, else I would have been behind as usual.
I think I might have to find a way to see Rambow sooner..don’t know how, but there must be a way.
Gol dang it, I missed this duo when they presented Rambow here at the fest, and now I have to tip toe around this post for another week. Nice work getting in on the interview, Craig. I know I’m crazy, I even like to read the production background afterwards. Your promotion of this over the last few weeks (along with my spidey sense) tells me it’s a green light to see.
Your instinct is correct Daniel. It’s really a film best discovered rather than having it jammed down your throat.
On the other hand, it’s going to get buried in the summer hubbub so I wanted to do what I could to bring it to people’s attention.
Plus it was my first press day so I wanted to milk it for all it’s worth :)
I was offered a phone interview with them, but couldn’t make the press screening, so I had to turn it down. I ended up catching it at a festival last week, though…lovely movie.
Glad you got a chance to talk with them, they seem like fun people to talk to.
Thanks for the terrific post, Craig. As always your writing pleasingly flows. You’re good at not drawing attention to the considerable craft responsible for the effect.
Having you attend this type of event is like having our own eyes and ears there. Someone we can rely on to report back in an even-handed, thoughtful, and informative way, and who reads people and situations in a manner that is astute, trustworthy and BS-free.
Which one is Hammer and which one is Tongs?
That’s really great that you got to interview them. I like what you said about how this relates to the original Rambo. It’s just about admiring the character for some of his specific achievements, not necessarily taken in context with the war or the violence. Makes for a much broader audience. Almost everyone can respect a guy who can live on his own in the middle of the jungle with minimal tools. I hope that universalism translates into ticket sales, as this seems to be a movie that everyone would enjoy.
Great interview, Craig. I really enjoyed reading this.
Ah hah - since it’s official, congratulations, Craig. I second sartre’s emotion of hope for future opportunities that come our way through you.
Neato. Craig’s got press bona fides now. Or have you just stopped playing hard-to-get with the publicists?
This looks like a fun little movie. Do I have to see Rambo first to appreciate it? I’m a Rambo virgin. I’ve been saving myself for the right time, I suppose.
Thank you all, but my only real input to this was shaping the chaos into a readable and hopefully informative whole. These round tables really are a free-for-all and the most aggressive people aren’t usually the smartest.
There is little opportunity for follow up and the questions come out at random with little regard for what has come before.
My questions weren’t especially fruitful and the answers didn’t really fit in the piece as a whole so they will be lost to history.
This is good practice though for when I own the Internets.
They were cool guys though. They’re rightfully proud of the film they’ve made yet they came across fairly egoless. I think the Brits are given a self-effacing sense of humor as part of their birthright.
You absolutely don’t have to see any of the Rambo movies Jennybee, though if you do, just watch First Blood.
The main thing is these kids’ amazement over this larger than life hero and the way it inspires them. It could be any movie really that blew us away when we were little. Star Wars, Raiders, Debbie Does Dallas…whatever.
Congrats, Craig. You’re a big boy now.
Or, at least, that’s what I’ve heard…