Filmmaker Scott Cooper felt both trepidation and a profound sense of responsibility when he took on the feature Black Mass which tells the story of James “Whitey” Bulger, a real-life gangland killer who reigned over the Boston underworld for years with virtual impunity thanks in large part to his secret informant deal with the FBI.
Cooper’s trepidation came from the prospect of entering a genre for which the bar has been set high with the likes of The Godfather and Good Fellas. There was also the challenge of recreating South Boston in the mid-1970s—a difficult task in that the actual area has since been gentrified, leaving little of the grit and character that made the neighborhood so distinctive during that era.
But overshadowing these challenges was the aforementioned responsibility felt deeply by Cooper, which entailed not falling into the trap of so many gangster films. “There are many real victims and victims’ families associated with the Bulger story,” said Cooper. “I never wanted to romanticize or glorify Bulger and his men. I wanted to present them as human beings in a non-showy manner, never trivializing the violence being perpetrated. I wanted to successfully capture their behavior and who these characters were to best serve the story.”
Cooper found himself inexorably drawn to the project which was adapted by Mark Mallouk and Jez Butterworth from the nonfiction book titled “Black Mass” by Boston Globe reporters Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill who broke the story about Bugler’s FBI connection. “When I lived in New York back then, I was aware of Bulger’s exploits. His mystique filtered down the coast. I now live in L.A. where I was a couple of miles from where Bulger was arrested. To see his life as compared to his brother Billy, an influential politician [the long-time president of the Massachusetts State Senate], the story is a balance of blood and power. You can’t make this stuff up. These are characters of a compelling nature.”
Black Mass continues Cooper’s penchant for—and track record of—eliciting great acting performances, dating back to his feature directorial debut Crazy Heart for which Jeff Bridges won the Best Leading Actor Oscar in 2009. Cooper’s next film, Out of the Furnace, featured a tour de force performance by Christian Bale. And now director Cooper’s third movie, Black Mass, has garnered rave reviews on assorted fronts, including the performance of Johnny Depp as Bulger. Also lauded have been Benedict Cumberbatch for his portrayal of Billy, and Joel Edgerton who played FBI agent John Connolly.
“I don’t like to rehearse and if we do, I’m often shooting the rehearsal,” said Cooper. “I don’t want actors to be making decisions in the trailer before they come out on set. I want them to believe in the moment. After the first take, we dial into performance, try to get all the actors in the same key, which can be challenging with a big cast. It’s all to serve the story. Character behavior is critical, particularly for my movies which are character-driven.”
The art of collaboration
Cooper is also driven by collaboration. Among his many key collaborators on Black Mass were cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi and production designer Stefania Cella. The latter is a longtime friend of Cooper yet Black Mass marked their first collaboration. Cooper first worked with Takayanagi on Out of the Furnace, leading to their return engagement on Black Mass.
“I first gravitated toward Masa,” recalled Cooper, “because I was so struck by the film Babel for which he shot the section in Japan for [director] Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. That Japanese section was so humanistic. I could see that this was a photographer in full control of all of his talents—nothing showy but extremely memorable footage. His use of lenses, his naturalistic lighting had an emotional effect. He brought so much to Out of the Furnace and then to Black Mass. Masa has no ego. He’s not one of those DPs whose work says ‘look how clever I can be with the camera.’ His approach instead is how to carefully construct a story, and do full justice to that story, through the camera, lenses and movement—as well as through the lack of movement. It’s easy to always move the camera. But to use restraint as needed for the story is something Masa does so well.”
Cooper paralleled production designer Cella’s approach and mindset to those of Takayanagi. “She is much like Masa—no ego. Her focus is on how you can tell the story through character, behavior and design. She is a real artist. I look back to her work on The Great Beauty for Paolo Sorrentino—how she transported us to Rome, how she helped capture the city of Rome reflected the highest level of artistry. I wanted to bring her attention to detail and European sensibilities to recreate the streets of South Boston [for Black Mass].”
Cooper quipped that he went with a Japanese cinematographer, an Italian production designer, a Polish costume designer (Kasia Walicka-Maimone) and a Dutch composer (Junkie XL, aka Tom Holkenborg) to help recreate South Boston circa 1975. While that may seem incongruous on the surface, Cooper noted that this collection of international talent had the artistry and creative sensibilities to capture the spirit of Boston’s blue-collar, Irish-Catholic neighborhood known as “Southie.”
Yet while Cooper was ostensibly making a period picture, his approach was for it to play “like a contemporary movie. We’re not in 2014 making a film about 1975. We are in 1975 making a contemporary picture. I wanted all those period details to recede into the background so that character and story would come front and center.”
John Lesher
Serving as a producer on Black Mass was John Lesher whom Cooper described as a valued and trusted collaborator. That trust has translated into Cooper embarking on a new chapter in his filmmaking career as he forays into commercials and branded content via recently launched production house Superprime Films. Lesher is partnered with former HSI mainstays, EP Rebecca Skinner and head of sales Michelle Ross, in Superprime.
“I had been asked to direct commercials on many occasions since Crazy Heart,” related Cooper. “I resisted until now because with John I know that the opportunities will be interesting on an emotional and artistic level. So I feel confident starting to explore this new area. John has a great sensibility, is a wonderful filmmaker, was a studio head, a terrific agent and now an Oscar-winning producer.”
Lesher’s alluded to Best Picture Oscar came earlier this year for Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance).
Table of Contents:
Lenny Abrahamson
Scott Cooper
Cary Joji Fukunaga
Brendan Gibbons
Lauren Greenfield
Todd Haynes
Ridley Scott
