For Venice screenwriter Ned Benson, he likens his first major filmmaking experience as “an exercise in controlling chaos,” which he says was “close to impossible” but adds that’s what writing and movie making is all about.
The 38-year-old released his directorial debut film, “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby,” last September, which is the title of three films he wrote, produced, and directed.
The film is about a married New York couple (James McAvoy and Jessica Chastain) following the recent death of their young child.
Originally penned as just one film, which later became “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him”, the different versions of the film evolved after his then-girlfriend Chastain read the script eight years ago that gave him the idea to create another version of the film that focused more on the female character’s perspective.
“She read that script and asked all these questions about it,” Benson said. “My initial idea was to create a movie about a relationship and a love story about a couple going through something difficult. The second film came about after Jessica was asking these questions about her and we had the idea of ‘Oh, let’s do both sides of the story and do the ‘her’ side as well.”
Writing the second film was easy in the sense that the world had already been built, Benson explained.
“It was being borne from something else, so it was easier, but it was difficult because I was sort of doing sort of a puzzle, making sure things fit chronologically and how one detail fits with other ones,” he said. “It was like the space was already created, but it was the details that became tricky and intricate when it came to showing both sides of one scene.”
With Chastain agreeing to play the female lead, it then took another couple of years before either of the films were made.
“We always had interest but no one would really pull the trigger on the project,” he said. “It wasn’t until after Jessica and I had split up that we made the movie. Initially I wanted James McAvoy to play the lead character. When he originally read the script he had just had a son, and it was just too close to the material. We had another actor who became involved who fell out, and then we went back to James and he said yes as the timing was more emotional appropriate for him. Basically it was him saying yes that locked our financing and we were off to the races. If he had said yes a few days later it may not have happened because Jessica had to make a decision if she was going to accept another role during that window we were planning to film.”
With a budget of about $5 million, Benson and his co-producer Cassandra Kulukundis set out to create the two films.
“There were a lot of pieces that fell together really nicely in terms of the cast,” he said, which includes the likes of Voila Davis, Isabelle Huppert, Bill Hader, and William Hurt. “It was tricky in terms of getting a crew that would work for the budget we were working under and making sure that the financing didn’t fall apart in the middle. I’m a first time director so you have to bond me (insure the film as he was an untested entity).”
After both “Him” and “Her” were filmed and completed in post-production, Benson struck gold at the Toronto Film Festival in 2013, which was the film’s world premiere.
It was here that Weinstein Company bought the film, a moment Benson described as “crazy relief.”
“It was really exciting,” he said. “A lot of people had invested so much in me, and I was so grateful that audiences and critics responded to it in the way that they did and that we found a distributor in the Weinstein Company. Along with the Weinstein Company, we ended up making this third film for audiences that wouldn’t necessarily go to the theater to see a three hour and 10 minute, two-part film. Instead they had the option to go see the combined version.”
“The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them,” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section in May 2014 to acclaim and opened in select art house theaters in September 2014, before “Him” and “Her” were released a month later.
“At the end of the day, it was a win for us,” Benson said. “I’m really happy that our film got picked up and that we did something different.”
All three films are currently available to view online, On Demand, and DVD.
As a first time filmmaker, Benson said he experienced many memorable moments.
“There was a night we were scheduled to film in Tomkins Square Park where we were supposed to shoot fireflies in it, lo and behold there were thousands of real fireflies flaring Tomkins Square Park,” he said. “There were other days when we were shooting a scene in the middle of New York and we were outside a place and someone would recognize James McAvoy – one time an entire Korean tour bus noticed him as Professor X (from X-Men) and we had to stop shooting. It’s an exercise in controlling chaos which is close to impossible, but that’s what writing and movie making is and that’s why it’s so interesting and fun.”
Filmmaking has been something Benson has loved since he was a child, making home movies with his brothers.
In his teen years he said he didn’t think it was a reality, but said he always kept the attitude of “I love this, I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I want to do it.”
“And then I think at some point I made a choice and knew that if I didn’t try to do it, that I’d probably regret it for the rest of my life, so I gave it a shot,” he said. “I had these summer internships with Phoenix Pictures, which was producing Terrence Malick’s “The Thin Red Line” at the time. And then I think spending time making movies with friends in college made me realize it was possible. I think those were the first practical steps towards it and then having the right teachers in college (Columbia University). I think once I wrote my first screenplay in college, I felt like ‘Oh, I can actually do this.’ It was horrible, but I did it.”
Benson bounced back and forth between coasts in his 20s and 30s after graduating from Columbia University where he was an English major with a focus on film.
After writing and directing four shorts films that played at festivals, he decided to jump into the world of feature films at age 28 when he first began writing “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby,” but not after learning a lot while producing shorts.
“The first one was the most expensive, but I realized for the next three to just shoot them for as little money as possible with any available resources I had,” he said.
As for the future? Benson said he has about half a dozen projects in the works that involve writing, producing, and directing.
“One is based on a book and the other is a movie set in Los Angeles that is a love letter to the city and what it means to me,” he said. “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby was a tribute to New York, which was a character in the film, so I want to set something in LA, which I have great love for as well.”
