Index of Kurt Wimmer Comments About Equilibrium @ CHUD.com

Comment Index

Nov. 11, 2002 (5:19 PM) - "Hello Sewer-ites. As the director of this film I'd like to thank all of the contributors on this thread and site who went out of their way to make kind remarks about it..."
Nov. 11, 2002 (8:48 PM) - On music. "... my post super informed me that I had naturally selected the most expensive arrangement in the world (Karajan's by the Berlin Philharmonic) which, to use the 90 seconds I would have needed would have cost $75K..."
Nov. 11, 2002 (9:07 PM) - Action choreography - "I didn't use wire-work because I've never liked it...for me the camera is an integral third party in any action dance..."
Nov. 11, 2002 (9:34 PM)
- On the Production Design - "...I ended up shooting at Hitler's Olympic stadium a lot... A good DP can make a cheap set look like a million buck if he knows what he's doing."
- Studio Influence - "...Basically, they let me do what I wanted... I love screening for an audience and sitting there in the dark with them and listening to every nuance..."
- "...I think directing your own work is always easier..."
- "...the shooting scheddule was 54 days, preproduction 11 weeks and I cut for nearly a year..."
- About an Official Website - "It just doesn't exist"
Nov. 12, 2002 - On next possible project - "I have several scripts - foremost of which is one called The Far-Reaching Philosophy of Edwin A. Salt - kind of a high-action spy thriller..."
Nov. 14, 2002 - "It was a pretty brutal shoot because we were trying to accomplish so much with so little..."
Nov. 17, 2002
- Ideas for action set-pieces - "...So I just did the cheapest thing I could - which was to paint a room black and show the whole fight strictly in muzzle-flash flash frames...."
- On Christian Bale - "...as soon as Christian got into the costume, he literally became Grammaton Cleric John Preston and never made a mistep...by the end of the film, he understood the character that I had created even better than I did."
- The only movie I can think of that, while maybe not being in my mind at the time, but probably influenced me would be maybe Hair
Nov. 24, 2002
- As far as multiple cameras - the most I ever had was three and that was a rare luxury ...I would just look at the scene on the day and try to guess which three angles would most comprehensively and most aesthetically and most viscerally capture the action. Then set up and pray.
- ...the characters were very different for me when I originally wrote the piece....Christian brought to the role in terms of princely nobility I could not have guessed. I had actually, while writing, envisioned an actor more of the tortured strength of Liam Neeson...
- ...the drug was never meant to inhibit ALL feeling - but simply to supress the highs and lows that actually make life interesting. Also, I've always felt that totalitarian societies readily accomodate those who violate the rules so long as their behaviour is in further service of whatever hypocrisy is at hand...
- I love and have always loved and will always love action. Great action to me is better than food, better than sex, better than anything...
- ...Light is a very abstract and elusive thing and the fact of the matter is that very few people really understand it. It's a magical art in the minds of most people in hollywood which is why DP's are paid 30 grand a week...
Dec. 6, 2002 - "...those of you who have seen the film. And to those of you who have not, thank you for your open-mindedness. These last two days, with the reviews coming in, have been very hard for me...."
Dec. 7, 2002
- when making the film, I kind of wanted to leave certain thing ambiguous and up to you. When he knocks the Prozium off the counter and it shatters, he remarks to his son that "I took it out before I brushed my teeth ... I never take it out before I brush my teeth." Now, you could interpret that as happenstance, or you might think that Preston was moved on some deep internal level by what Partridge said the night before when Preston shot him - thus leading to a subconscious 'accident'. I was intentionally vague about this ...
- Also, one thing maybe worth noting is that I borrowed from one other film ...TOTAL RECALL - one of my faves. Preston's journey is identical - the true believer who is used to unwittingly infiltrate the underground...
- I know this doesn't count but I had originally had dialogue ...that conveyed that when Preston was an infant, Preston's PARENTS were burned during the Upheaval ... for sense offense and, orphaned, he was taken and placed in the Cleric Monastery, where he was raised and trained by the Grammaton Monks (which is why he's SO darn good)...
- On marriage. ...this world was only maybe 30 years young and to my mind, this would mean that there would still be vestigial remanants of our own time. So, yes, birth is in vitro but with humans I don't think you can wipe the slate completely clean too abruptly,(the communists had to keep churches around for years, gradually eroding their power) so this shell of the family unit still existed (but, we can assume, wouldn't for much longer)
- The truth is, though, that it's a parable, a fairly tale, told on a dytopian model. I never meant for it to hold up to scrutiny - because at the end of the day it can't. F-451 doesn't either if you really think it through. The only one that does, in my mind, is 1984 - and that's why it's so damn scary.
- ...I think Brandt is smiling because he feels something. He does remark that he needs to get his dose adjusted which implies he is either over medicated or under-medicated. I always thought the latter....
Dec. 8, 2002 - HOLY SHIT!!! This guy's an alien - grab him quick! (yes, I flipped the neg becauuuuuse...
Dec. 10, 2002 - What was DuPont's relationship with Mary O'Brien?
Dec. 18, 2002 - Just wanted to thank all of you for being so very supportive and contributing to the good woord of mouth.
Dec. 22, 2002 - ...what fool downloads some cruddy lo-res version of TTT? If I am going to take the time, I want to enjoy it - and that generally means the theater or the best home-theater system I can find. With EQ (I think) the pleasure of the experience lies to a large degree in FEELING the bass of those bullets firing.
Jan. 2, 2003 - Wimmer's response to the "Helena" incident.

II. The MPAA Are Modern Nazi's - Dec. 22, 2002 - I made a movie about this - the banned material, films, music, etc, in EQ is rated EC-10 for emotional content. I thought this was a pretty obvious reference to NC-17 but few if any picked up on it. (especially since Stormtroopers are burning 35mm film while talking about its rating). In any case, the problem with the MPAA in my view, is not that they're basically reviewing material for the public, but that their standards are grossly inconsistent...

III. Cradle 2 the Grave discussion - Mar. 3, 2003 - I spent no longer than two days on any fight and most of them I spent less than a day on. The fight with Preston using the guns as bludgeons - 30 minutes...