Interview with Jason Stutter

by Max Segal | 12:38 am 26/07/2010

Director Jason Stutter’s newest film Predicament screened at the opening night of the New Zealand International Film Festival. He has also directed Diagnosis Death (2009) as well as short films such as Careful With That Axe. Predicament will be released in theatres on August 26.

Predicament is set in New Zealand in the 1930s. What things about that time period are the same as today?

Well, at its heart it's still a universal story with themes of loneliness and wanting to make friends. The main character, Cedric, is a lonely adolescent who is befriended by these two strange guys and at first we as the audience think, “Aw, great, Cedric's finally got a mate,” and as it goes along we actually realise that Cedric, you're the cool guy, these other characters are the dicks. So I guess at its heart it's got this story that I think will resonate with anyone in the world.

What attracted you to this story?

You know it's funny how I got into this story. The musicians that I work with on my other films, Tonga Ninja, one of them had been reading this book and was talking excitedly about it and lent me the novel and it was one of those times when, I started reading and I just couldn't put it down, I loved it I thought it was really funny. It's got excellent language – Ronald Hugh Morrieson, who wrote the novel wrote this amazing rich dialogue, and its not hyping to say that you wouldn't have seen a movie with this kind of dialogue, it’s just really funny. The show that we used, the only show where that dialogue could work was Deadwood, but Predicament has got its own kind of language. The other thing is that when I read it I imagined Jemaine (Clements) instantly as Spook. All those things excited me enough to go, well I really would like to get the rights to make this movie. 

You make mainly comedies, are you much of a comedian?

Haha, people tell me I'm funny, I don't know what they mean ... I don't do standup comedy, but what I do love doing is working with people who are naturally funny. If you see me working on a film set, I'm laughing all the time. I find the whole thing just really fun, and comedy which is very quirky and even sometimes with a violent twist to it. I do like making stuff that makes the audience get a shock, you're definitely gonna see more of that kind of stuff coming from me. My other screenplays are all comedies with elements of violence.

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