\n<\/p>\n
\u201cMickey 17\u201d is the first<\/strong> feature that Bong has made with a Hollywood studio, and his most expensive one yet, with a budget just under $120 million. On this last score, though, he was ambivalent. \u201cI prefer small productions, and I dislike big productions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n I\u2019d heard chatter that when Warner Bros. greenlighted \u201cMickey 17,\u201d the studio hoped it might spawn a new franchise, centered on a hero conveniently defined by his own potential for infinite undead sequelization. But Bong\u2019s sensibility has proved consistently idiosyncratic in ways that fly against the logic of the multiplex. Most of his endings are depressing, and his English-language features, all of them science fiction, can feel especially strange, with heightened performances and a tonal volatility that has become his signature \u2014 a \u201cswitchback energy,\u201d as Tilda Swinton, who has acted in two of his films, put it to me.<\/p>\n This energy is an effect not of wild abandon on Bong\u2019s part, however, but of an extreme degree of control. He creates highly detailed storyboards for all his films, and these serve as unbudging blueprints during production. The cinematographer Darius Khondji, who worked with Bong on \u201cMickey 17\u201d and \u201cOkja,\u201d and who has shot films for David Fincher, Alejandro I\u00f1arritu and the Safdie Brothers, said that Bong \u201cfunctions on a different wavelength I never felt with anyone before.\u201d He compared the storyboards to a musical score. \u201cEverything is written, and you can change the rhythm and the way you play the notes, but if you try to pull out a note, or a group of notes, he\u2019ll say, \u2018That doesn\u2019t make sense.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Mark Ruffalo described this as a productive constraint. \u201cIt\u2019s the most auteur-centric filmmaking style I\u2019ve worked in,\u201d Ruffalo said. \u201cEvery shot, every angle, every gesture is storyboarded, and he shoots the storyboard frame for frame. But that\u2019s not to say he\u2019s controlling. The exciting thing as an actor is that you\u2019re free, in that frame, to reinvent the performance.\u201d<\/p>\n For some actors, that feeling of freedom arrives only after a period of intense disorientation. \u201cNormally you shoot a whole scene,\u201d Pattinson explained, but with Bong\u2019s approach, \u201che knows exactly which shot he wants for exactly which line, so sometimes we\u2019re just shooting one line at a time. You show up on the first day and they say, \u2018We\u2019re gonna shoot the seventh line of this scene.\u2019 You go: \u2018What do you mean? I don\u2019t know how I\u2019m going to say the first<\/em> line.\u2019 Usually, I\u2019d have to do the whole scene to get the line right.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, everyone has a nervous breakdown for a week,\u201d Pattinson went on. \u201cBut then you say, \u2018Oh, this is great.\u2019 If you\u2019re shooting an entire scene, there\u2019s a more legato rhythm, a crest and a fall, some gradation. But you don\u2019t really need it for the style of performance Bong wants, and that frees you up to do these very discordant turns: If you\u2019re just doing one line, you can do maximum intensity out of nowhere. It has this feel of anime \u2014 it can go from completely placid to enraged in a split second.\u201d<\/p>\n Pattinson told me that Bong \u201cseems very pleasantly amused by everything.\u201d They talked a lot about the movie in the months preceding the shoot, but when it came to filming, Pattinson said, the director gave him license to explore: \u201cIt got to the point where I was just trying to make him laugh, trying things in playful ways. And he\u2019d say, \u2018Yeah, do whatever you want.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n