Mother Nature stars in a horror movie

Q: Wow, it sounds as if working on this movie has really brought on an epiphany in your own life. Has there been a change in the way you are approaching things because of the issues that you touched on in this movie?

A: It’s funny, because a couple of friends who saw the movie were like, “I went back to the supermarket and I gave them back the plastic pots that the plants came in, and I said, ‘Do you guys recycle these?’” And the people at the supermarket said, “Yeah, we do, but no one ever brings the pots back in.” And my friend said, “Well, I’m doing it now.”

I guess it’s also a feeling of like, I’ve done nothing. Feeling guilty about it all, how little I’ve done, you know? It’s coming from the feeling of my complete lack of being P.C., and going, “Oh, sh*t… I’m exactly the problem here.”

Q: One of the features of the movie is that the lead actor, Mark Wahlberg, portrays a high-school science teacher as a hero. You do bring a bit of the scientific method into this. Is that something that came organically, or was this something that you really had to think about placing into the movie?

A: Well, it’s interesting: I had thought of the science teacher in the movie as the guy of faith. I guess some people think science is the opposite of faith, right? I don’t find that in my mind. Our family knows a bunch of wonderful people who do research on cancer, and this and that. They’re people of incredible faith.

Q: Faith that the process can be ultimately understood?

A: Faith that there’s a revelation ahead of them. And I really saw that in this high-school teacher. He has no knowledge beyond the high-school science. I kept telling that to Mark: You’re not going to solve the code that’s going to change the world. That’s not what you’re doing. What you do have is you believe that in the gaps of science, there’s something there. You can see something greater. You don’t have a name for it, but you respect it.

Q: I wanted to broaden the discussion out to your other movies. Even though you’ve sometimes said, “Oh, someday I’m going to make a science-fiction film,” one could argue that some of your films – like “The Sixth Sense,” and “Unbreakable” and “Signs” – are science-fiction films. Do you have your own scientific method for devising how the plots are going to work? To create a world that may not be totally realistic, but works within its own boundaries?

A: Yeah, usually I’ll come up with an idea that’s based on some damn thing that I read. Some article, or something I was taught in high school or college, and I’ll go, “What is that? Is that based on something real?” For example, claims of paranormal activity happen around puberty. Is that something I just made up? And then I research it and find out, oh, no, that’s true. And the basis of a movie can come from that. And then, did I read a story about bones that are really, really brittle? I could touch you, and that could break your bones? Is that real, because maybe then the opposite can be real, too. Maybe that explains the guy who brawls in the bar and gets smashed a million times with a chair and never breaks a bone. The bones are just more dense. Maybe it’s simply biology. Wow, if that’s true, maybe that’s a version of a superhero.

So, now, I am so unaware of the fact that I’m dependent on these trees I’m looking at outside to produce oxygen. They’re producing the thing that’s keeping me alive. What if they chose to produce something else?

I’m playing with the science behind a question, you know? If I could have thought of “Jurassic Park,” I would have. But I’m nowhere near smart enough to think of that.

Q: No, I think you’ve come up with some pretty good brainstorms. Can you talk a little bit more about science figured in your own background?

A: Well, it’s light. All my family are doctors. I picked things up by osmosis. As a child, I probably knew phrases that other children didn’t known, like “pitocin drip” or “myocardial infarction.” Some kind of knowledge was always in the air. My parents would always talk about science at the dinner table, saying something about this patient or some other patient. So I guess for a nanosecond in early high school, I thought about going into medicine.

Q: Are you thinking about the next project yet, or are you the kind of guy who just takes one thing at a time?

A: I normally do take one thing at a time, but I’m doing a movie for Paramount next, called “The Last Airbender” – which is actually based, believe it or not, on a Nickelodeon anime series. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s martial arts, it’s mythology, it’s Shakespearean, it has spirituality in it, and Buddhism and Hinduism. Every subject I could possibly imagine that I love is all in one mythology. It’s like a cult obsession for its fans.

Q: Is it live action?

A: Yes, it’s a complete departure. But there’s always some connection to my previous movies. In this new one, the mythology is about a world where there are four colonies of people. Each of the colonies has the ability to manipulate one element of the earth. One colony manipulates fire, one manipulates earth, one can manipulate air, and one can manipulate water. Not every member of that colony can do that, but members of them can, and that’s their identity.

Every generation, there’s one individual born who can manipulate all four. That person is called the avatar, and they are symbolically and physically the ones who keep balance among the four nations, so they all feel represented and balanced. It’s like the Dalai Lama: It’s the same person, reborn over and over.

So this young boy is told, “Well, you’re the next avatar.” And he doesn’t want it. He runs away. The story is about how he got frozen, and when he wakes up, it’s 100 years later in this world, and everything has run amok. It gets to the idea of responsibility and balance.

There are all kinds of wonderful themes in there. … His power, as I interpret it as a filmmaker and screenwriter, is more in what he symbolizes. If you think of the four colonies as religions, they’re all equal. They all have truth, and they’re all balanced. It’s a really powerful idea.

This interview originally appeared as a Cosmic Log posting.

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