Bullseye

Read a lot of comics

Since his childhood, Michaël R Roskam has been a fan of comics and graphic novels. He thought he would grow up to draw comics himself, but instead he became a painter. Take a good look at his Oscar-nominated film Bullhead, and you will see both skills. Roskam doesn’t, like so many other filmmakers, tell a story only through the narrative and dialogue. He uses the image to convey emotions, to set a mood, to relate an entire lifetime of rage in one long shot.

Roskam (pictured) did not go to film school. “It was from comics,” he tells me, “that I understood how editing works. How do you create sense and meaning between two separate images? Some comic artists can make beautiful drawings, but conveying all the little things that happen between one panel and another – not many comics are really good at it. And it’s two panels that make a third one. In comics, one plus one equals three. That’s how I like to make a film.”

Roskam, 39, studied painting at the Sint-Lucas Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, which further reinforced his filmmaking method. “Not only is painting a lesson in style and light and contrast, it also shows you what you can do with just one frame.” It’s a reference he constantly drew on while shooting Bullhead. “If you don’t need to cut the scene, don’t cut the scene.”

Choose a subject no-one has ever heard of

Bullhead is the story of Limburg cattle farmer Jacky Vanmarsenille. Wanting to beef up his cattle, he gets involved in the illegal hormone trade. And he’s well suited for it: Threatening anyone who might question his tactics or decline to deal in his meat, he’s quite the local thug.

That part of the story is based on actual events that shocked Belgium in the 1990s, when a government meat inspector was murdered by what came to be known as the “hormone mafia”. With the EU ban of hormone drugs in meat production in 1989, a black market established itself across Europe and was particularly prevalent in Belgium. “I knew I wanted to make a film noir, something that was really original and from Belgian soil,” explains Roskam. “I didn’t want to imitate some Italian mobsters or Russian gangsters because that doesn’t really exist in our country. And what we have doesn’t really exist in other countries. You can only tell a universal story by being authentic.”

Bullhead’s character Jacky becomes more complex – and a bit more sympathetic – as his past unravels, revealing the horrific childhood incident that changed his destiny. He has spent his entire adult life trying to compensate for this tragedy. Jacky is, we come to find – in scenes that are indeed reminiscent of Neoclassical portraiture – himself addicted to hormones. He sits in a darkened room, injecting himself from dozens of vials and tubes.

“Audiences – especially in America – understand the feelings, the impotence of this life,” says Roskam. “People feel a familiarity with the film because of the universal aspect of that, but, at the same time, the exoticism works because they don’t know this place. So it’s something strange, yet familiar.”

Hire Matthias Schoenaerts

To play the hulking Jacky, Flemish actor Matthias Schoenaerts put on 27 kilos, a prosthetic nose and pumped a lot of iron. Already popular in Flanders for roles in films like Loft and Pulsar, he became the man of the moment. It was a phenomenal performance, and he has been compared to Robert De Niro’s Raging Bull and hailed as Europe’s next big thing. Many international critics who wrote less than glowing reviews about the film still recommended it for Schoenaerts’ performance alone.

Roskam could have chosen from a number of good Flemish actors, but no one else even crossed his mind. “I just knew he was the one,” he says. “There was never one split second of doubt.”

Hire Nicolas Karakatsanis

Although a director of photography can make or break the entire look of a film, it’s a job with few accolades outside of the film industry. Nicolas Karakatsanis has built a solid reputation as someone with a clear understanding of film as an art form and a commitment to long takes rather than a lot of short jumps from character to character. This technique was crucial to the success of Bullhead’s dark and brooding atmosphere.

“He understands perfectly what I want,” exclaims Roskam. “He thinks the same way as I do. Don’t cut the scene if you don’t need to cut the scene. If you watch the scenes in Bullhead, you know full well that other filmmakers would have cut into the scene because they think they have to.”

From the beginning, the pair, plus editor Alain Dessauvage, had a blueprint for the visual style. “We knew if we followed this concept, we would never have problems with the continuity of our style. I think that’s one of the strong points of the movie – it’s consistent in its style and in its rhythm.”

Remain calm

We knew a week ahead of time that Bullhead had made the shortlist for an Oscar nomination. Where was Roskam when the Oscar nominations were announced? “In my car, driving back from a job.” He purposely timed the drive to coincide with the announcement so that he could be alone and chill out. He didn’t turn on the radio; he’d find out soon enough. “Last year, I discovered a new part of my personality that I wasn’t aware of,” he says. “When things happen to me, my reaction is silence. It’s never excitement or ecstatic behaviour. Every time we hear good news about the film, I’m always calm.”

Not that he isn’t happy, he insists, with the course the film has taken – the awards, the attention, the talk of him directing in Hollywood. Ecstasy, however, comes in the form of a good idea. “When I have a good thing happening, and I find something where I’m like, wow, this is going to work, then I jump out of my chair, and I’m like, ‘yes!’”

Also, he admits, he’s moved on. He’s working on new scripts, doing technical work on trailers, getting on with it. With Bullhead, which released in Belgium in February of last year, he feels a bit like he’s living in the past. “Other guys who are done with their movies are halfway to the next one, and I have to keep talking about this one!”

The Academy Awards will be broadcast live in Flanders on PrimeStar and will be free to Telenet digital subscribers. Local start time is 2.30am on Monday, 27 February

WITNESS

Pierre drouot, director Flemish Audio-visual Fund
Pierre Drouot is the general director of the Flemish Audio-Visual Fund, which helps fund and promote Flemish film both at home and abroad. “Although the recognition Bullhead has received is unusual for a first film, Michaël Roskam hasn’t come out of nowhere. He has made four shorts, and in the short Carlo he proves that he really knows how to direct actors and has a feeling for atmosphere. "One of the things that makes Bullhead special is that it’s a subject no one has ever seen in a film before. The film is different; it’s unexpected. Roskam also has a very good sense of tension. And the photography builds up a kind of mystery. In terms of winning the Oscar, we are the underdog. Bullhead is the kind of film that gets a lot of attention, but I’m not sure it’s the kind of film that wins that particular prize. There are a few people who told me they think it will win, and I bet all of them a bottle of champagne that it won’t [laughs]. So if I lose, it costs me. But, well, for an Oscar, it’s a small price to pay.”

Jeroen Perceval, actor
Jeroen Perceval plays one of the leads in Bullhead – a double agent whose childhood past comes back to haunt him. “From the moment I saw Michaël Roskam’s short Carlo, I knew his first feature would be great. The pure talent in that film just jumped from the screen. During the shooting of Bullhead, you could feel that everybody believed in it very much, and that made everybody – from the gaffers to the actors – work very hard and stay very focused. There were magical moments where, after the assistant director yelled ‘cut!’, you could just hear everybody think: ‘Wow, WTF!’ "Michael has the guts and the intelligence to think outside the box. What Bullhead is doing now is very good for Belgian film internationally. But it’s not only Bullhead. If you take a look at the last 10 years – I’m talking about the Flemish films – a generation of talent rose up that internationally has improved, and continues to improve, the image of Belgian cinema.”