Today I was lucky to attend a private screening of War Horse, the new film directed by the legendary Steven Spielberg. I was thrilled to go into Manhattan on a Monday morning and sit in a dark theater for several hours at the beautifully restored Film Society of Lincoln Center. No kids, nowhere to be until much later in the day. This was an atypical morning for me and I didn’t take it for granted.
The film is about a strong friendship between a boy and a horse. Their bond is fierce and when they get separated at the outbreak of World War I, the film focuses on both of their experiences until they are reunited.
The cast is made up of an interesting group of English actors, including the fabulous Emily Watson, who I have loved since discovering her in Breaking the Waves and Hillary and Jackie. I was thrilled to be in her presence this afternoon and to learn about her experience shooting the film and her career. She was pretty much what I expected her to be like – very down to earth and like someone I’d get along with really well with.
In the film Watson has one line that stands out in particular. “I will hate you more, but I will never love you less.” She repeated that line at the start of the interview, per the interviewer’s request, and said that it resonates with any mother. In the film she plays the boy’s mother with conviction and love.
She said when she was contacted by Spielberg to be in the film, it was a “wonderful day” in her career. She is very appreciative of being in this film. She had seen the play at the National Theatre before she had anything to do with the film, when she was eight months pregnant with her last child. She found it to be incredibly emotional: “In Britain, every family has a story. When my grandmother was in her 80s, she told me about her brother who was 17 and died in the trenches. That kind of grief is very powerful and that is why they created the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Britain that everyone could believe was their boy. It created a kind of poetry.”
On the experience of working with Spielberg, she said, ”He is one of those people utterly compelled to tell stories. I’ve known a few in my life
and it’s a very, very special thing. He’s awake all night worrying about a shot. He’s a student film maker, he’s so excited to be doing it. The great film makers are philosophers in a way, they have a view of the human condition which they give to you through their storytelling. This is a great, big, beautiful, lush cinematic piece, a love story between a boy and a horse but it quietly looks down the barrel of man’s inhumanity. The fact that we as a race were prepared to sacrifice millions of young men, a whole generation of Europe was wiped out for nothing. This was the context through which this film took place. It was hell on earth.”
On working with the horses Watson said it was a lot easier than working with actors, which made me and everyone in the audience laugh. They don’t answer back have a real “spirit that you can’t repress”. We learned that there were fourteen different horses on set. The scene at the beginning where she is berating her husband for buying a plow horse, it means they are going to lose their house. Throughout the scene, the horse was nibbling his act, and she was like, “This is my moment! Please stop that.” She said that all the actors laughed a lot while shooting the film. She was afraid of horses at first, but that her fear subsided throughout the making of the film.
On being a mom, Watson said that having a young family requires a lot of patience, it’s “testing”. Her biggest battle is consistency and really being present, really being in the moment. But she loves every minute of it. When asked about traveling with her kids, she said it’s hard and remembered a very funny story. On one trip with her kids, even though they were sitting in business class, her daughter started projectile vomiting – all over the place, during the entire trip. Her mother panic’ed, didn’t know what to do and it was a disaster. It helps to sit in business class when they’re traveling for work…especially when someone else pays. You have to love her honesty.
Of course, I asked her about what it was like to be plucked out of obscurity by Lars Von Triers and cast in Breaking the Waves, one of my all time favorite films. She said the first thing she did was to go off the dole, which made me laugh, and that it changed her life.
But Watson said she lives a very normal life. She lives in London, doesn’t have a film life. She is quite domestic, running after children all day, taking them to school. She limits their TV and tries to instead keep them reading and pursuing other things.
The difference is that she gets to shoot these epic films. Look for War Horse in your town in a few weeks time.
Disclosure: I was a guest of Moms and the City for this special event. All opinions expressed are my own.
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