The extraordinary story of Eric and Pattie Lomax has now been immortalized on screen – after years in development, The Railway Man has finally reached completion due to the driving force of the team. TOM Magazine sat down with producer Chris Brown and director Jonathan Teplitzy to discuss the importance of bringing the Lomax’s story to the world.
TOM: How did you first come across the story of Eric and Patti Lomax?
Jonathan: It took 15 years from finding the book to where we are now, I’ve only been involved for 2 or 3 years. Originally our other producer discovered the book and bought the rights in the UK, and the original writer got involved and worked with the producer for ten years developing it, which is when Chris (Brown) got involved. When Andy (the original director) couldn’t do the film, I became involved in it. That’s the bare bones of how we all got here.
Chris: It’s funny because stories that are difficult to translate to the screen quite often go through that process – you have a period with the initial group of people, and you get to a point where they collapse exhausted on the ground. Then somebody else comes in with a completely different set of eyes and they solve the problems. Then you get to another stage and then somebody else comes in. That’s basically how the development of the subject worked.
Jonathan: Trying to condense a whole man’s life down into 2 hours is a very difficult, tricky balancing act so it’s always about what you leave out rather than what you put in. It’s about honing the story you want to tell, and finding the components you need to do that.
TOM: Speaking of balancing acts, Frank Boyce the screenwriter has been quoted as saying “it was hard to write the script, to find the balance between the darkness of its heart and the light of its conclusion”, were you conscious of The Railway Man delving too far into the dark considering some of the serious themes?
Jonathan: It’s not about delving too deeply in the dark side, it’s more about ‘what do you need on the dark side to make the light side legitimate?’ It’s what you work at all the time, you go through that during the script, the shooting, the editing, so the darkness informs the narrative and the drama, and also gives it a good dramatic contrast where the reconciliation that happens feels legitimate.
Chris: It’s very interesting because that is always the problem, looking at it in terms of being the producer and getting the film made, that’s a problem with the financiers and distributors – the natural thing for them is to shy away from anything that has extreme violence or confrontation. Unfortunately not extreme violence if someone’s on a Jet Ski going through a window, but in terms of a personal journey, they always want to pull back from everything. It was very difficult to negotiate that, especially in terms of some of the violence – there’s always that opinion of ‘oh you’re alienating the audience’. As Jonathan said its always about maintaining that balance.
Jonathan: We’ve found a lot as we’ve screened it, overwhelmingly people are not put off by any violence, because it’s not gratuitous, it’s contextualized because everyone said we had to go through that to really feel and understand the impact of where the film goes. That’s the problem with modern distribution these days; they pick up on that one thing and say ‘oh the violence alienates the audience’ without any relationship with the context. In this film hopefully it gives a sense of what this man survived.
TOM: I imagine any film that is based on a true story with such sensitive subject matter would bring with it a sense that you need to ‘do the story justice’ – did you have any trepidation approaching the filmic adaption of Eric Lomax’s story?
Jonathan: Not really, it’s all about the challenge of it. We had a really good relationship with both Eric and Pattie, so it was very much on our minds, the casts, everyone who was involved because it’s such an extraordinary story. Everyone wanted to do their best work to do justice to their story and their lives. There’s always a consciousness of the real people are here to see it – if you respect them and the story you’re telling, you naturally want to honour that.
Chris: I think also it was a very inclusive process. Colin and Nicole spent a lot of time listening to Pattie and Eric talking about their lives – a lot of things that weren’t in the book at all is in the film. Also [Eric and Pattie] read every single draft of the script. Not saying they made notes, but they weren’t just told we were making the film.
Jonathan: They understood you can’t put every minute of someone’s life into a film. It’s about capturing the essence of it, and the important dramatic moments that come together to create the emotional response.
TOM: What was it that shone through Nicole, Colin and Jeremy Irvine who embodied the Lomax’s so perfectly?
Jonathan: Apart from the fact Colin’s one of the best actors in the world, for a film like this it’s important to have an actor who can lead the film. This is a character that doesn’t really talk or explain himself – part of the narrative is motivated by Pattie trying to get information from him and other’s about what happened to Eric. So we needed someone whose internal life was very powerful and strong on screen. Casting Jeremy, who looks not only like a young Eric Lomax but a young Colin Firth, the two of them working together was incredibly important. Against all that we needed someone who was as powerful on screen to play Pattie because of her crucial role in his life and what her narrative takes us through. She’s an icon. In many ways, she has to dig out all these tiny nuggets of information, but also it’s about her emotional landscape. She does that in a beautiful way.
Chris: We had two masters of the craft, and it was a very difficult, emotional film. Colin does that so incredibly well – he can say so much without ever saying a line, and that was absolutely crucial. The power of performance comes with the territory of those people. One of the great revelations was the fact that Nicole gave a very different performance from what she’s given in the past. She was playful, which is something we hadn’t really seen. She looked even more beautiful as an ordinary person; we hadn’t seen that for a while. There were little gems in there over and above what was expected.
TOM: The film was particularly shot in Thailand, where the real Death Railway is located. Jeremy Irvine was quoted as saying when he went to the Death Railway for the first time, it was a “big moment, it brought it home for [him]”. How did the authentic location contribute to filming?
Jonathan: I think that’s hard to define. It bought very much a sense, to the crew and the cast. It brought it home as to what the men must have gone through. They didn’t have a hotel, swimming pool and cold beer and we did. And it was still really hard! It gave us a miniscule taste of being able to imagine what these guys went through – and on top of that they were brutalized by the Japanese, on pain of death every minute they were there. It bought a palpable feeling both for the actors’ preparation and the atmosphere.
TOM: Was it difficult to get permissions to shoot in those locations?
Jonathan: Yes, it was. A lot of the areas we used had to be dug out of the jungle. A lot of it was completely overgrown.
Chris: The assumption is that the Death Railway and the Hellfire Pass is the only pass. It goes all the way to Burma. We used places that had never actually been cleared.
TOM: Tragically the real Eric Lomax passed before the film’s release, but I understand that he heavily contributed to the film in pre-production – can you tell me a little bit about his involvement?
Jonathan: He probably would not have sat down and watched the film – it would’ve been too traumatic and not necessarily something he would have wanted to go through again. As Chris said before, Pattie and Eric read all the drafts of the script. The project started as an adaption of Eric’s book but really became about the relationship between Eric and Pattie, which involved them telling us a huge amount of things that ended up in the film.
Chris: A lot of that was about the relationship between them. That was the basis.
Jonathan: Just to get Eric’s account of what happened to him that may not have been in the book, his face-to-face recollections were very useful.
TOM: What do you think audiences will take from The Railway Man?
Chris: It always makes me full of hope. Whenever I walk out of that film I always feel hope, that there is an answer, a way of finding peace. That’s what I get from the film.
Jonathan: Ultimately the film’s about the worst and the best of human nature, it defines what it means to be human.
The Railway Man is the opening night film of the Brisbane International Film Festival. For more information on times and the program, visit biff.com.au
