Interview with Tobin Bell on Saw IV
What do you think is the appeal of the Saw movies?
“One of the things these guys have done really well is to not only have all the traps and all the tricks and all the gore and all the murder and mayhem, but they've tried to infuse the film with a delicacy and intelligence that I think offsets that. It's like listening to music or a symphony or whatever. You start out with a very powerful section and it slips into a very soft and easy section that is easy to absorb.
Then you kind of relax and then you go into another section that grabs you again. So I think that's part of the success of Saw.”
How have the new screenwriters captured Jigsaw?
“One of the things that Leigh [Whannell], they captured his voice, they write good dialogue. I miss Leigh's concepts. Leigh, a lot of the concepts, for example the material in Saw II about survival of the fittest, which I think is a very important aspect of Jigsaw's character. I think he feels this world, we have 100,000 years of survival of the fittest and that's all gone to hell. It's now survival of the mediocre. All you have to do is be able to lie and cheat and be hypocritical and do it well, and you're going to get by. That's one of the things that annoys him and drives him. People who climb over the bodies of others to advance themselves. That's one of Leigh Whannell's concepts.
When I was doing Saw II, I came up with 130 things that disturbs this guy. Disturbs him. And there's a whole laundry list of complaints about the world.
Like we all have. If you knew the exact moment of your own death, how would you live your life differently? That was Leigh's. And young kids, 12-year-olds, talk to me about that.”
These villains become almost lovable. How is that possible?
“I try to keep the dialogue, I try to make the moments as real as I can make them. I don't cut the film together. We worked hard on the script and on the material to make it both fresh and surprising. We started to work on this particular film, I remember saying to someone, ‘Look, man, the eyes of the world are on this material. For whatever reason. We have an obligation.’
I was in London last year just before Saw III opened, talking. People came from Ireland and Wales and Scotland to talk about Saw with me. I talked to them for three days. They just kept coming. They were fascinating. They were great new people and were journalists and TV and press and .com and all of them had questions. I could still be there talking because of the interest level. So I'm keenly aware that the eyes of more than just even the US is on this material.
We work really hard, thank God for Darren, because unlike some directors who have a view of something and they go in and it's hard for them to let go of that view of what it's going to be. And not to say that a lot of Darren's pre-view doesn't get realized. It does. And if something doesn't work that we want to do, he knows it and he will keep us on the straight and narrow. But that having been said, he's really terrific in that way, in his ability to be flexible and f**k it up. And he knows. So I'm always grateful for that because we've all worked for people who are little more brittle and who don't work well using the strengths of those around them.”
Are they discussing more Saws?
“Are there going to be more? I said the same thing before Saw III when there was talk about a Saw IV. I said to those people in London, ‘Let's see how you guys feel about III,’ because it doesn't feel good to me to do anything less than the highest quality. So you have to keep fighting for that. If Saw IV is well received, do I expect there'll be a V? Yeah. I expect there will be. It's like Harry Potter. If there's a story to be told and something has an audience, well, what is theater about except to provide story and satisfy an audience. So I see no reason why there wouldn't be. There's nothing sure in this town. The stock market could crash tomorrow and we're all out of work.”
“One of the things these guys have done really well is to not only have all the traps and all the tricks and all the gore and all the murder and mayhem, but they've tried to infuse the film with a delicacy and intelligence that I think offsets that. It's like listening to music or a symphony or whatever. You start out with a very powerful section and it slips into a very soft and easy section that is easy to absorb.
Then you kind of relax and then you go into another section that grabs you again. So I think that's part of the success of Saw.”
How have the new screenwriters captured Jigsaw?
“One of the things that Leigh [Whannell], they captured his voice, they write good dialogue. I miss Leigh's concepts. Leigh, a lot of the concepts, for example the material in Saw II about survival of the fittest, which I think is a very important aspect of Jigsaw's character. I think he feels this world, we have 100,000 years of survival of the fittest and that's all gone to hell. It's now survival of the mediocre. All you have to do is be able to lie and cheat and be hypocritical and do it well, and you're going to get by. That's one of the things that annoys him and drives him. People who climb over the bodies of others to advance themselves. That's one of Leigh Whannell's concepts.
When I was doing Saw II, I came up with 130 things that disturbs this guy. Disturbs him. And there's a whole laundry list of complaints about the world.
Like we all have. If you knew the exact moment of your own death, how would you live your life differently? That was Leigh's. And young kids, 12-year-olds, talk to me about that.”
These villains become almost lovable. How is that possible?
“I try to keep the dialogue, I try to make the moments as real as I can make them. I don't cut the film together. We worked hard on the script and on the material to make it both fresh and surprising. We started to work on this particular film, I remember saying to someone, ‘Look, man, the eyes of the world are on this material. For whatever reason. We have an obligation.’
I was in London last year just before Saw III opened, talking. People came from Ireland and Wales and Scotland to talk about Saw with me. I talked to them for three days. They just kept coming. They were fascinating. They were great new people and were journalists and TV and press and .com and all of them had questions. I could still be there talking because of the interest level. So I'm keenly aware that the eyes of more than just even the US is on this material.
We work really hard, thank God for Darren, because unlike some directors who have a view of something and they go in and it's hard for them to let go of that view of what it's going to be. And not to say that a lot of Darren's pre-view doesn't get realized. It does. And if something doesn't work that we want to do, he knows it and he will keep us on the straight and narrow. But that having been said, he's really terrific in that way, in his ability to be flexible and f**k it up. And he knows. So I'm always grateful for that because we've all worked for people who are little more brittle and who don't work well using the strengths of those around them.”
Are they discussing more Saws?
“Are there going to be more? I said the same thing before Saw III when there was talk about a Saw IV. I said to those people in London, ‘Let's see how you guys feel about III,’ because it doesn't feel good to me to do anything less than the highest quality. So you have to keep fighting for that. If Saw IV is well received, do I expect there'll be a V? Yeah. I expect there will be. It's like Harry Potter. If there's a story to be told and something has an audience, well, what is theater about except to provide story and satisfy an audience. So I see no reason why there wouldn't be. There's nothing sure in this town. The stock market could crash tomorrow and we're all out of work.”
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