'Pusher 3' - Nicolas Winding Refn Q&A

Nick Funnell catches up with the director of the 'Pusher' trilogy.

Jun  7 2006

Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn first burst on to cinema screens in 1996 with 'Pusher', which followed drug dealer Frank's intense nightmare journey through the Copenhagen underworld as he scrambles to pay a debt. After 'Bleeder' in 1998 and hopping across the pond to make the ill-fated 'Fear X' in 2002, he returned to make 'Pusher 2' in 2004, which zeroed in on Frank's mate Tonny. Now he's back with 'Pusher 3', which charts 24 hours of living hell for Milo, the Serbian drug baron to whom Frank was indebted in the first film.

You made 'Pusher' in 1996. What made you go back to make 'Pusher 2' eight years later?

I was in a situation where I owed a lot of money and I was kind of desperate. I liked the characters and I liked the film [so I decided to use them] to pay off the debt to the bank. I was also very nervous because it was the first time I was under a restraint: I had to deliver a commercial commodity. Could I go back, could I make something better? If I couldn't, it would be an artistic failure. If it was, then that was the end of the world and so on. So I was very angry and very aggressive when I started and I gradually became calmer and happier because I felt it was turning out much better than the first one. So I probably became the happiest person to owe a million dollars. In a way it was kind of a strange scenario – in doing something where I was under pressure turning out to be probably one of the best things I've done.

Has it worked then?

Yes, everything's gone. Back on track!

'Pusher 3' followed very quickly on from 'Pusher 2'…

I shot them back to back basically. It was a cheap way of shooting and I liked the idea of moving from one project to the next very quickly. I had a template in place almost. 'Pusher' is two films. The first half of 'Pusher I' is very much my obsession with gangster films, but as I began shooting I kind of discovered what it is that really interests me. It's more the human, emotional dilemmas. So 'Pusher' changes to become much more the story of a man's decline, so when I made 'Pusher 2' & '3' I was very sure of how I wanted to tell them – that's why they're probably much more character-driven and much more into the emotional statuses from the beginning.

In the films you're seeing how far you can push your characters, up to the point when they snap. Why are you interested in doing that?

I like people who get out of control. I like pushing their boundaries and their emotional state until they're no longer in a situation where they can't do anything else but react. It's always good drama. Pushing, pushing, pushing… until they explode and something horrible happens, which is a consequence of that.

You seem very interested in moral questions.

With all three 'Pusher' films the moral is always: if you live by the sword you die by the sword; there's always consequence. Unfortunately nowadays consequences are very much left out of art. A moral dilemma is a very individual approach and we make a medium that is mass marketed. That means we have to aim to hit as many people as possible – there's less thinking because then they have more time to consume. The one thing also you can kind of say with 'Pusher 3' is that it's the exact opposite of 'Pusher' in the sense that it has no glamour whatsoever. It is all a myth. It is all part of our machine. It's part of the marketing tool that that environment is hip and exciting and glamorous. It's not. In the end everything is scratched aside. It's just nihilism.

Especially after the disgusting body disposal scene. How did you do that?

Pig. We used pig intestines. It was really, really disgusting. And the smell. It is un-fucking-bearable. And I wasn't even in the room when we were shooting; I was sitting round back looking at the monitor.

Do you not think by showing those extreme levels of violence, by grossing people out, a kind of glamorisation remains? It's still spectacle.

I do make an art form that needs an audience. But I think that if you make sure this is not a glamorised world, because it's not, you're at least staying truthful to what you're making. The actors in the films are real gangsters themselves. So they were very much knowledgeable about what it was and what it was not like.

Like who?

I promised not to mention any names. Let me just say that 99 per cent of everybody I'm sure had met a policeman once in their life.

How did you meet them?

Casting. I had an open casting call when we were doing two and three and I like to look at actors who are interesting to look at to begin with and see what I can use of their talent. Because I work with a visual medium and I think that people should look interesting. They just came up. They were best at the audition. When they read the scenes they were always the ones who were most convincing. And now I understand why. Back then I didn't really know anyone else's background.

Is it a Danish thing to show extremes? With people like Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg also wanting to push the boundaries.

I can't speak for anyone else. I was offered 'Dear Wendy', but I turned it down because I wanted to do these films instead. But I do think that art needs to be extreme. The chief enemies are good taste, political correctness and perfection. Those are the three most dangerous elements of any creative process and if you see them, it is your job to slay them down and make sure they die very violently.

How do you work? Do you improvise?

Not really. I shoot all my films in chronological order. You start from scene one and just go. And that takes an awful lot of pressure from the actors, it just becomes about them evolving themselves, accepting the characters' fate and just reacting to it and not analysing and improvising on what works and what doesn't work. It's very organic. How does the character feel today? Is he in the right direction we want him to be in? So you kind of see the film unfold. And I like that. And I've shot all my films like that. And I can't imagine not doing it because everything else seems illogical. I know you can do, but to my mind it just seems illogical.

You're very focused on set then…

Yes, very much. Saying what are we doing? Where were you yesterday? Where are you now? Then very quickly me and the actors stop talking about the characters because they are [already] so in them – they have to be as that's the only way they can act them truthfully – so they know the motivations and just react on them. It becomes very relaxed, but also a little bit edgy because again: how's this going to turn out? We don't know. You know, I'm colour blind, I'm learning disabled. I can't read or write really. I have a secretary to rewrite everything I do. And I was very embarrassed for many years and it gave me a lot of problems. I'm very much dependent on other people. That's why my films are always very dominated by red. It's a colour I very much like to look at. It's a human colour and it makes people look good. It has this warm glow that always looks great. And it's a very emotional colour.

Do you have plans for more 'Pusher' films?

I wrote the story for part four, but I think I need to do something different now. So I decided to do a film about the Vikings discovering America ['Valhalla Rising', starring 'Pusher' & 'Pusher 2' star Mads Mikkelsen]. I'll do it in English. I don't want to make another American film again.

'Pusher 3' is out on Friday. All three 'Pusher' films will be playing at the NFT from June 7-14. For more details, head to the NFT website here. And The 'Pusher' trilogy is released on DVD on Monday June 12.

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