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'Chronicle'
First-time director has different take on comic book carnage
The question is a simple one: What would you do if you suddenly had
unimaginable, unstoppable powers that could literally bend the world to your
will?
That is the dilemma posed in the new movie "Chronicle" (opening Feb. 3), in which three high
school students (played by Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell and Michael B. Jordan) come upon a mysterious object,
buried in the ground, that bestows the remarkable ability of telekinesis --
moving matter with the mind -- upon each one of them. At first they have fun,
like any teenage boys might, staging harmless pranks and enjoying their ability
to rocket into the clouds. But with his strength growing, Andrew (DeHaan) --
already the victim of a troubled home life -- is soon pulled in a darker
direction by his new superpowers.
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"Chronicle" is, to some degree, a superhero/supervillain origin story told
through the reality of everyday life. The story is the brainchild of
director/co-writer Josh Trank -- making his feature debut -- and co-writer Max
Landis, son of director John Landis. "I've always wanted to make movies my
whole life, and I knew Max very briefly as a teenager," says Trank as we speak
over Skype. "What I remember about knowing him is that we shared the same exact
passion for the same exact movies and video games and anime and comic books. We
went on our separate paths, pursuing the same thing, except for him it was the
screenwriting side and for me it was the directing side."
Bing: Get showtimes and more about 'Chronicle'
Trank, who worked in post-production and put a short film called "Stabbing at
Leia's" online, which got more than 10 million views, eventually ran into Landis
again. "A couple of months before that, I had scoured through this list of ideas
that I wanted to shoot, and a lot of them were videos of kids with telekinesis
demonstrating their talents in a public space -- like a private joke, just them
messing with people," recalls Trank. "I realized that could actually work as the
beginning of the second act of a screenplay, right before one of the kids goes a
little too far and there are real consequences. I reversed engineered that into
what I've wanted to see my whole life: a coming-of-age tale that has a
fantasy/science fiction element to it that heightens the drama and the
relationship of the characters."
Taking his video idea one step further, Trank envisioned the entire movie as
being seen through the lenses of video cameras while the three teens document
the massive changes in their lives. "Within that style, I saw that there had to
be a very strict adherence to the POV (point of view) and I realized that could
work now with the kind of quality cameras that are available to average
citizens," says Trank. "You can shoot something like this, supposing that your
main character is talented with the camera and knows how to frame up his world
-- and then he begins operating the camera telekinetically."
Trank shared it with Landis and the latter also flipped for it, promising he
could write a screenplay in two weeks. And so "Chronicle" was born, with the
proposed film picked up by 20th Century Fox and developed in a more
under-the-radar fashion than most studio productions. From its initially modest
opening scenes, the movie gets larger in scope as the three boys' powers expand
and become more destructive, climaxing in a battle above the streets of downtown
Seattle that rivals the classic clash between Superman and the evil Kryptonians
above Manhattan in "Superman II."
"Everybody now who has a cellphone on them has a camera, plus there are CCTV
and security cameras everywhere," says Trank about creating that stunning
sequence while staying true to the "found-footage" aesthetic. "I knew that I
could actually choreograph a battle sequence using the 180 degrees of actual
coverage that would be available in a modern-day city center. Every time we
would hard cut from one camera to the next, the audio and video quality would be
slightly different because we were moving from one format to another.
Texturally, I thought that would be very interesting and engaging for an
audience to watch, especially if we were clever enough with the angles and clear
enough with the action we were following on-screen."
The result is a film that tells a familiar story in a way and from a
perspective we've never quite seen before, and the studio is apparently so
pleased that Trank is reportedly at the top of its list to reboot the "Fantastic Four" franchise. But for now, there's
"Chronicle," and if the movie succeeds in connecting with audiences looking for
a different spin on some of our modern myths, then Trank may find himself with a
few superpowers of his own.
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Don Kaye covers film, TV and entertainment for MSN.com
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