SHOOT has chronicled the career of director Garth Davis over the years, spanning such developments as his 2010 Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award nomination as Best Commercial Director of the Year (for U.S. Cellular’s “Shadow Puppets” out of Publicis & Hal Riney, San Francisco) and an AICP Show Advertising Excellence/International honor the following year for Coca-Cola’s “Burn.”
Next came a major splash in television with Top of the Lake, a six episode BBC/Sundance TV series which he co-directed with Jane Campion. In 2013, “Episode 5” of Top of the Lake earned Davis his first Emmy nomination, shared with Campion in the Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special category. Campion and Davis also garnered a BAFTA TV Award nod for directing Top of the Lake.
Now the latest high-profile career milestone comes in the form of Lion (The Weinstein Company) which marks Davis’ narrative feature directorial debut. Based on a true story and adapted from the memoir “A Long Way Home” by Saroo Brierley, Lion introduces us to a five-year-old Saroo who gets lost, ending up on a train which takes him thousands of miles across India, away from his home and family. Somehow he survives living on the streets, escaping close calls before ending up in an orphanage that is far from a safe haven. Eventually he is adopted by an Australian couple who takes him to Hobart where he feels love and security. In respect of and not wanting to hurt the feelings of his adoptive parents whom he loves, Saroo suppresses his past and the hope of ever finding his lost mother and brother. But a chance meeting with some fellow Indians rekindles his past as he struggles to find himself. With a small store of memories, and the help of a then new technology called Google Earth, he ultimately decides to try to find the proverbial needle in a haystack, seeking out his original home and first family.
The film features transformative performances from Dev Patel as an adult Saroo and Nicole Kidman as Sue, the mother who adopts him. Yet for Davis “by far the biggest challenge” that Lion posed to him as a director was “having a five year old as the protagonist for the first half of the film. We needed a boy to hold the story and keep the audience engaged.”
Besides the youngster (portrayed by Sunny Pawar) being up to the task, supporting his performance was the approach taken by Davis and his cinematographer Greig Fraser, ASC, ACS, whose feature credits include Zero Dark Thirty and Foxcatcher. “Greig and I were very conscious of trying to give the audience the child’s perspective,” said Davis. “We needed to follow the young Saroo in such a way that the audience could see the world through his eyes. We never started with a wide angle on him. The camera was always with him, following his experiences as much as we could. The Steadicam was not designed to follow little people so Greig had to reinvent a camera rig and the results were amazing as we were able to smoothly follow the young Saroo around.”
Davis noted that he and Fraser work “very fluidly together. I’ve known him for 21 years. We met at Exit Films [which has offices in Australia and New Zealand]. I was a director starting out there and he had taken an entry level position—anything to get his foot in the door. Eventually he wound up shooting commercials for me and we both kind of grew up in the industry together. We are kind of like brothers and reuniting on Lion was very special. We have an intuitive language and connection with the camera together.”
Davis also fashioned a connection with his editor on Lion, Alexandre de Franceschi, even though the movie marked their first collaboration. Still, Davis was familiar with de Franceschi who served as editor for the venerable Campion on Top of the Lake. During that time, Davis had the chance to observe the editor at work. “I could see Alexandre’s generous spirit, the way he cut for Jane. When looking for an editor for Lion, I felt he understood the story emotionally. He’s a gentleman and a great collaborator.”
Commercial pedigree
Davis observed that his extensive involvement in commercials over the years helped him immeasurably on his first narrative feature. “I have a lot of filming experience thanks to commercials,” said Davis who continues to be repped in the ad/branded content arena by REST in the U.S., RESET at Academy (through a relationship with Academy Films) in the U.K. and Exit Films Down Under. “That experience covers Third World countries, deserts, snow, aerial work, varied storylines and disciplines, seemingly every scenario imaginable. From this you become agile, can work fast on a set or on location. If something goes wrong, you are so used to working with complications that you are able to resolve them very efficiently. The other advantage to having commercialmaking experience is that you can tell stories quickly. Being proficient in compressed storytelling can come in handy when doing drama.”
As for adjustments he had to make for his feature foray, Davis related, “It’s a different rhythm than commercials, in some respects a different language in that you have to sustain integrity across the artform for the duration. You learn a lot more about how to work with actors. You have more time to develop characters and performances. Now I can bring some of that experience back to commercials.”
However, Davis won’t be going back immediately. At press time he was in Italy about to commence shooting on his second feature, Mary Magdalene, with a cast that includes Rooney Mara, Joaquin Phoenix and Chiwetel Ejiofor. The production company See-Saw Films is a common bond uniting Top of the Lake, Lion and Mary Magdalene. See-Saw’s Emile Sherman and Iain Canning approached Davis to direct Lion after being impressed with his work on Top of the Lake. Sherman said, “We followed our instincts. We felt Garth—although he hadn’t yet made a feature film—was exactly the right director for the film [Lion]. He’s incredibly cinematic and can create real visual scope. At the same time he’s just brilliant with actors. He creates such intimacy in his work and we wanted to make sure this felt raw and real.”
As for what he will bring from his first feature experience to Mary Magdalene, Davis said the lesson learned from—or perhaps more accurately reaffirmed by—Lion is “trust your instincts. You need to learn to have the courage to act on your instincts at all times when taking on a new piece of work. Your instincts—after years of filmmaking—kick in no matter what the pressures are, be they budgetary, economic, logistical or whatever. Trust your instincts to tell the story.”
