by David Geffner
photos by Doane Gregory

		Hallström at the helm. Click picture for larger view.

"I suppose being trapped in the corner giving interviews resonates a little with some of the characters from my movies," the reflective Hallström says in response to a comment about The Shipping News' lead character, Quoyle, being consigned to the far reaches of the story's Newfoundland location. "My producer, Leslie Holleran, says I have an issue with inhibition and all this silent rage wanting to break free in my movies. My films do have characters who have trouble escaping the world around them. But it's often a choice they make to stay with their families, no matter how much trouble their situation ultimately brings."

Trouble and family are never far apart in Hallström's remarkable body of work. From his earliest Swedish comedies — A Guy and a Gal, Father To Be, and the breakout international hit, My Life as a Dog, to his films adapted from American novels like Cider House Rules, What's Eating Gilbert Grape and The Shipping News — Hallström has explored the bonds of love within troubled families with a stubborn clarity of vision. Hallström recalls being first touched by the power and magic of cinema when he was just three years old. His father was a dentist who harbored unfulfilled dreams of a career in cinematography and he shared his passion with his family.

"My father was an amateur filmmaker who shot 8mm color documentaries," Hallström recalled. "He made this great documentary on Stockholm, which won prizes in national competitions. I remember the film being screened after parties in our home and just being captured by the imagery. My father would tell anyone who would listen that this dentist thing he was doing was not his passion; cinematography was. He shot that documentary in Stockholm in 1939, and the transitions throughout the film were so beautiful. I transferred the original 8mm to video and had the pleasure of introducing it on Swedish television. It was not spoken aloud, but it was implied in our home that I might someday pick up on what my father had not the chance to pick up: that is a life devoted to moviemaking."

		Scott Glenn and Kevin Spacey in a scene from The Shipping News. "...the demands of dramatic structure in filmmaking came back and hit me from behind. The realities of an audience's need for a dramatic skeleton to latch onto were quite large. So I was blown off this course of visual experimentation for the sake of forwarding the narrative." - Lasse Hallström

In fact, the battle between visual stylization and simple emotional storytelling raged within Hallström all throughout the making of The Shipping News.

Based on E. Annie Proulx's Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, The Shipping News tells the story of Quoyle (Kevin Spacey), an emotionally scarred widower who transplants himself and his young daughter to Newfoundland, the storm-ravaged Canadian province that is Quoyle's ancestral home. Violent juxtapositions between the past and Quoyle's new life as a reporter on a local Newfoundland newspaper build in small increments as Quoyle attempts to construct a new life for his family.

"One of the attractions of this story," Hallström explained, "was that the visual elements might free up the way I tell the story. I could be more free-flowing in adapting the strong imagery within the novel. But the demands of dramatic structure in filmmaking came back and hit me from behind. The realities of an audience's need for a dramatic skeleton to latch onto were quite large. So I was blown off this course of visual experimentation for the sake of forwarding the narrative."

Hallström said Proulx's novel, which was published in 1993, was an "extremely tough nut to crack. It is a bold mix of elements. A word collage of trivia, journalism, farce and drama, making up a dense literary tapestry. Many writers tried for many years to make this story. I personally felt so compelled by the poetry of the location, and this man who came through a tough childhood with no self-esteem or confidence, but with potential. He tries to regain his life in this harsh yet tight-knit place, Newfoundland, and in the process deems himself worthy of being loved. I could very much understand this man, even though the book was so very difficult to turn into a film."

Working from a challenging literary source has been the norm for Hallström ever since his adaptation of the best-selling Swedish book, My Life as a Dog which he co-wrote and directed. Five of his seven features made or released in America have been based on popular novels. The director chalks this up to "sheer coincidence," noting that he is drawn to character-oriented stories, without that much attention to dramatic backbone. "I am always more interested in performance and character depiction, and my direction says as much. When I find stories that seem to sacrifice character for plot, I just can't bring myself to make that sacrifice."

Hallström is equally loyal to his creative principles when directing actors. His goal is always to coax them into doing less. "I strive for a documentary style of performance, à la Ken Loach or Cassavetes, where technique does not show," he said. "If you look at my films, you will see some moments where I have been moderately successful. But I am always struggling to find stories that are free of stylization and portray human behavior as it unfolds. There's a coded shorthand of expression many actors use to convey feelings today, and I ask why do we have to use these codes to portray truth? Why can't we give actors the freedom to surprise us with choices that more honestly reflect real life as it plays out?"

		Julianne Moore, Spacey and Hallström on location.

"You can't come to a location like Newfoundland with preconceived ideas of where to put the camera or how to film a scene," Hallström said. "You must stay open to the environment — as far as the local people, the changing light, the impulse for improvisation and the landscape dictating where to put the camera. I did my shot list as I was heading to work each morning and never used storyboards, unless it was a very complicated scene. I tried to let the process of shooting inform the choices I would make on the next day. It was important on The Shipping News to have my house far enough away from each location so I had this time in the morning to think about my shots and still remain open to surprises once I got to the set."

Hallström, who has received three Academy Award nominations for his films, said he is continually struggling to find those "golden moments during a film's production when the power of truth rings clear." He described The Shipping News as a shifting balance of technique, intuition and a gut sense of how to cover a scene to maximize the actor's freedom.

"All the small decisions were part of just rolling with the punches while we made this film in extremely difficult physical conditions," Hallström said. "The more knowledge you have about technique — how a focal length of a lens will alter the feel of a scene, when to move the camera, when not to move the camera, etc. — the more freedom you have to concentrate on performance on the day, which for me is ultimately the most important thing."

Freedom for his fellow filmmakers to be creatively engaged extended all the way down through Hallström's Shipping News crew. The director, relocated from Stockholm to Bedford, New York, prefers to work with the same collaborators on each new film. His filmmaking family includes 1st AD Stephen Dunn (Chocolat, Cider House Rules), production designer David Gropman (Chocolat, Cider House Rules, Once Around), costume designer Renée Kalfus (Chocolat, Cider House Rules, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Once Around), editor Andrew Mondshein, A.C.E. (Chocolat, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Once Around) and cinematographer Oliver Stapleton, B.S.C. (Cider House Rules). In the film's press notes, costumer Kalfus notes that Hallström was adept at describing the core of a character's personality to help her make the best choices. She cites this example: "Lasse told me that Quoyle was a sleepwalker. He can walk into a room and not be seen, and that's how he leads his life. To me sleepwalking meant his clothes were somewhat generic — nothing would pop out. He's just a mass of a man walking around."

Collaborating with noted English cinematographer Oliver Stapleton, the pair chose to bleach the film stock to capture the harsh reality of Newfoundland. As Hallström explains: "We wanted to bring the colors down and accentuate the severe nature of this part of the world. A film that is bleached tends to have a more realistic quality. If you don't bleach film, the colors, at least to my eyes, seem exaggerated. Bleaching adds more blacks, and focuses the eye on the true skin tones, rather than having the eye wander off to bright colors." Having photographed and edited all his early Swedish films himself, Hallström is easily fluent with the technical demands both Stapleton and his editor, Andrew Mondshein, experienced on The Shipping News.

		Julianne Moore and Kevin Spacey in a scene from The Shipping News. "The more knowledge you have about technique — how a focal length of a lens will alter the feel of a scene, when to move the camera, when not to move the camera, etc. — the more freedom you have to concentrate on performance on the day, which for me is ultimately the most important thing." - Lasse Hallström

"The green house [on Quoyle's Point], lashed to the rocks with cables that struggle to keep the house in place," Hallström said, "was really essential to me because it was a true character in this story."

Gropman explains that Halström always wanted to seek the most honest and direct expression of the story through bold, single images. "My first step was to eliminate everything that didn't matter — color, textures — until we get to sort of an icon, an image that feels so real and right the eye doesn't have to stop when it reaches it."

Gropman and his team pre-built the green house on a stage in Halifax, Nova Scotia, took it apart, transported it via ferry to Newfoundland, then reassembled it piece-by-piece on Quoyle's Point via snowmobiles so as not to disturb the natural location.

		Directors Lasse Hallström click photo for larger view.

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