Equilibrium DVD Commentary: Wimmer & Foster: Chapter 16

KW: There's the phone of the future.

LF: I gave Kurt a big ration of you know what over this thing. I tortured him about this green phone, the 40's...

This is actually at a different airport, this set.

KW: This is Templehof.

LF: Did you talk a great deal about the white suit and the origins of the white suit?

KW:Uh.. no I don't recall, what were the origins of the white suit?

LF:Uh, Bruce Lee in the Chinese Connection.

KW: Oh yeah of course, I completely forgot about that, yeah uh, that's absolutely right. I pretty much stole this suit directly from there, but shhhh, don't tell people. Another movie I ripped off...

LF: I won't tell anybody.

KW: It's the first thing I did when, I, met my costume designer Joe Porro. I sat him down and I threw in Chinese Connection where at the beginning Bruce goes to a funeral in this really zow-o morning suit, white morning suit and it looked rocking on him I figured it would look rocking on Christian. The studio was not too sure about it.

LF: Yeah, they were a little worried.

One little editorial comment, just about the practical exigencies of production. Christian, through this last scene and this scene was holding the sword tightly, gripping it tightly and, people might infer that that's because it was some acting thing, and he's being intense or whatever. Actually it was we couldn't get t

his sword to hang properly and we told him, "Listen... sorry but you gotta walk through this scene holding on to it and keeping it in-line because otherwise it's going to flop around."

KW: And it was. It was unsupported. The strap wasn't doing anything, except lying on his shoulder.

LF: It turns out it's not that easy to make a sword, a scabbard, and a sash. Uh, there's some design that goes into them apparently.

KW:It was difficult. We did have problems with props in this film, and one of the many problems was that when the sword showed up on the day, I'd said I wanted it completely white including the handle and of course the handle wasn't white so they had to paint it at that time, spray paint it basically.

LF: Yeah, right before we shot it.

KW: And so the paint kept coming off on Christian's gloves but uh, you know that's one of the fun things about making films is that things go wrong and to me it's like playing Craps in Vegas, even though I'm not really a gambler, is that every setup you're rolling the dice, and when they call roll film and action, you're holding your breath, to see if it's going to come up sevens or something horrible is going to go wrong and you are going to get screwed. It's a great feeling at the end of the day when you go home and maybe everything didn't go perfectly but you say I got it, I know I have what I need and I can move on and it looks nice.

LF: Actually you know part of the filmmaking process is like just learning how to vamp, learning how to take what you're given, and sometimes you are not dealt the best hand and things break and people don't perform the way they are supposed to or whatever and you just vamp, just find a way to make it work and you know you do it in that moment and that's kind of the hight of creativity actually, for us, or anybody.

KW: Sometimes it turns out better than you expected. I have to say I don't much like vamping, because I like to have the answers ahead of time. I don't relish going into situations like that. Sometimes. And especially in a genre film because in a genre film like this, you know the frame is very important, because in a way they're comic books and so everything is relegated in a way around the frame and the performance within it. But if you are doing a drama, you know then you may want it to...just have them extemporize on every scene and you just have to follow them with the camera. It's a scary no net process.

LF: Yeah, the no net is a big deal. You just don't know. Sometimes you just try things and they don't work and you just try them again till you get it right.

KW: But the actors on this film were very good about understanding that it was a genre film and that the frame is going to be here and we're going to go here and do this on this line etc...

LF: Those weeble wobbles, we were thinking about way before we uh...

KW: Yeah, that was another one of those things that you know, I had this idea and like.. you know you never know, is this going to work or not? Because you know when you're telling people in a room it sounds kind of silly...

LF: Nobody thought it would work,nobody. Nobody thought those weeble wobbles would work.

KW: Well one person did...

LF: Yeah.

KW: ...and actually it works really well.

You know it's sort of about keeping in the sort of

fiction of the film. You know it wouldn't work at all if this were a Lethal Weapon film, but, it works in this one... hehe he's kicking some ass here. I mean I don't like it.

LF: (laughs) Yeah, I know. We're against that...

The rifle thing is pretty cool.

KW: Oh yeah, cool... Isn't that a beautiful gun.

LF: It's over the top.

KW: I mean beautiful just in terms of design, and not what it's capable of doing.