ONCE
Heartbeats
i you thought all musicals were kitsch. cheesy and dated. then think again. At this
year's Sundance l'estival. (hire a small Irish indie film about a Dublin busker who lalls l‘or an liast liuropean immigrant cleaner - turned everyone‘s preconceptions on their heads. Rather than having his characters burst into song at random intervals. director John Carney (pictured above) has expertly spun his tale so that the music becomes an organic part of the plot.
When the (‘/ech cleaner asks the l)ubliner questions about his love lite on the top ol a double-decker bus. he responds with a song in a scene that highlights how uncomlortable it is for him to express his emotions. It just seems natural and real that he would sing his response to her. ('arney admits that he‘s not a lan ol' musicals per se. ‘I like about 5‘; of musicals ever made. I wanted to make the kind of lilm that l would watch my'sell‘. but that would include all these songs. :\n old—lashioned musical done in a modern. handheld independent style.~
l'ntil I‘M}. ('arney played in The l‘rames with l'olk milsician (ilen llansard. llaving come up with the idea for this lilm. he approached his old friend to write the songs while (‘arney‘ envisaged (‘illian Murphy as his lead actor. llansard had previoUsly made two small lrish movies. Zuni/(l (2003) and ()n the lidgv (3()()l) with Murphy and was well into the advanced planning stages for the lilm w hen he realised that Ireland‘s rising star wasn‘t right for this picture.
‘l'm mates with (‘illian and stul'l'. but it jtist suddenly dawned on me that actually I should get singers that can't act and try and get them to act rather than the other way around becatise I know I can‘t get actors to sing. The songs had to be really authentic.‘
The solution was staring (‘arney' in his t‘ace. ‘(ilen was in the process of writing some songs for the tilm when we decided it would probably
be better it he took the lead role in the tilm. For
the female lead I had met Marketa lrglova through (ilen. He knew her parents and she had sung and played at a couple of parties here in Dublin. I cast her really early on in the process as I‘d always anticipated that I would get a non- actress in that role.‘ The connection between The Frames and celluloid has always been a strong one. One of their early songs was called
10 THE LIST Oct—t Nor. soc.“
Kaleem Aftab meets John Carney, director of Once, a beguiling Irish rock'n'roll romance movie that's aiming to follow in the footsteps of Billy Elliot and The Full Monty
‘l‘ilt/cat‘raldo‘. lior the lilm. llansard dropped some of the harder rock elements ol‘ their music and concentrated on raw l‘olk ballads. three chords and the truth. the type of inusic you would expect a talented and unheralded busker down on the streets of Ireland to play.
With the music. setting and cast in place. (‘arney' delved into his own life for the story that would weave all the elements together. ‘My liancee lived in London at the time I wrote the script and l was kind ol drilling around the streets ol Dublin thinking about what I was going to do with my life. wondering il' I would go over there with her or stay and try to make it in l)ublin.'
At the same time ('arney was witnessing a huge inllux ol‘ immigration into Ireland: ‘I guess because I was isolated here on my own. I felt I kind of identilied more with immigrants than I did with the native l)ub|iners.'
Carney decided that the romantic leads in his lilm should never actually become an item in the classic movie sense. Instead he wished to l'octis on the connection between two people and how it affects their views on relationships. ‘I was intrigued by the idea that you can have a
romance with someone without betraying your partner.’ says Carney. 'You can have a relationship with someone who you didn‘t go all the way with and didn't betray the love of your life. And that person ends up being someone who kept you on the path to righteousness rather than betraying your girlfriend. Afterwards you can say to your girlfriend: “I met this amazing woman and even though I‘ve been changed by her. I'm back and everything is OK.”