In May of this year, a decidedly unique movie premiere was hosted by an even more unique film studio at Cannes, world cinema’s perennial showcase of all that is new and exciting—or at least all that hopes to be so. The picture in question? The Follow, directed by Hong Kong’s rising master, Wong Kar-Wai. The studio? BMW of North America.

Bavarian Auto Works, known far and wide as one of the world’s premium manufacturers of luxury on wheels, has entered the movie business with a new line of short films made specifically for the Internet superhighway. The series of five films (each roughly six minutes in length), collectively known as The Hire, features the talents of some of cinema’s top marquee directors: John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate); Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon); Wong Kar-Wai (In The Mood For Love); Guy Ritchie (Snatch) and Alejandro González Iñárritu (Amores Perros). A car company collaborating with a lineup of cinema’s finest. Strange bedfellows indeed. Or maybe, a match made in heaven. So how did this courtship begin?

Originally the brainchild of The Fallon Agency, the project was executive produced by director David Fincher (Seven; Fight Club) through Anonymous Content, an LA-based multimedia entertainment company. “David Fallon and Joe Sweet—two creatives from the agency—came to David Fincher wanting to do a longer film,” says Steve Golin, chairman of Anonymous. “Working with Fincher, they ultimately arrived at the idea of making shorter films and came to the conclusion that it would be more fun to make films that were different from each other.” The through line is this: each film has, at its center, The Car and The Driver—played with wry, caustic understatement by British actor Clive Owen (Croupier). Saddled into a crisp new Bimmer in each distinct episode, Owen’s stealth cruiser hires himself out for jobs that require a taste for danger and mayhem, not common to the leisurely shuffle of the average chauffeur. His character is in it for the money and the thrills. Or maybe he’s just bored. Why, however, would some of the film industry’s most exciting moviemakers be drawn to this assignment? A project which the LA Times aptly described as ‘advertainment.’

For Steve Golin, it’s a no brainer. “A movie director has a hard job in a sense because, if you’re lucky, you get to make a film maybe every two years. [It’s] not very easy to practice your craft and get to work with new people, do different things. So for these directors, it’s basically four or five weeks work from beginning to end—a short-term commitment, a lot of fun, a reasonable amount of money and good scripts.” Fincher pointed out that for these moviemakers, this is basically an opportunity to make a student film again, but with resources and props out of reach to most. And the car, though clearly a key character in its own right, takes a back seat to story and directorial style. There are no close-ups of the BMW logo in any of these films—not exactly a hard sell. Though the spots are clearly designed to showcase the car at its best, the blend of commerce and art did not faze the directors. Their enthusiasm seems unanimous. While not wanting to see anyone get killed or maimed in one of their cars, BMW, by all accounts, gave the moviemakers a good deal of room to create.

Alejandro González Iñárritu, fresh off six days of shooting in Mexico, was clearly enjoying the experience as he prepared to edit his segment for a July launch date. The only concerns raised by the company were over the depiction of violence. “They were concerned about any excessive violence or blood, but I assured them that I was not interested in violence for the sake of violence. My intention is to show the reality of the scenario—that these characters and situations really exist. But my perspective was very humanistic; any violence is very much a part of the story, a reflection of the gravity of the character’s situation. BMW gave me all the freedom I needed on this project. So, while I’m developing my next feature film, here is a great opportunity to make a short. This is the first short film I’ve ever done. It represented a unique challenge for me—to try and tell a story in six minutes. I get the chance to find out if I can do it or not. [BMW] gave me the freedom and the respect to go for it. So for me, it was an adventure.” John Frankenheimer and Ang Lee have gone on the record with equal praise, with Lee enjoying a break from the exacting requirements of feature moviemaking. In a conversation with the LA Times, he remarked: “Compare this with Hollywood or any filmmaking—this has more freedom.”

Ben Younger (Boiler Room) was brought on board to write subplot material that discreetly plays off of the main story lines. BMW customized the QuickTime Player into the BMW Interactive Film Player to facilitate the viewing of extra content. These mystery rides allow viewers to tunnel through the Website for added story content, much like the special features of a DVD or video game.

“I shot five shorts in three days and did them in, I think, a really edgy, interesting way. [BMW] had the foresight to finally give audiences something intelligent that doesn’t ram product down their throats. I wasn’t pushing the product, so I just got to do my thing. We only show [the car] in one of my segments. Questions get raised in my material that don’t necessarily get answered; they were fine with that. To me, that was exciting. It’s basically a big experiment for me.”

Creative freedom included a hand in shaping the script. Wong Kar-Wai, whose beautifully realized contribution to the series, The Follow, was written by Andrew Kevin Walker (Seven; Sleepy Hollow) was initially drawn into the collaboration with Anonymous by the writing. “It was the script that attracted me. It was a detective story—very similar to Hitchcock’s Vertigo.” He describes the development of the story. “The original script was about a businessman hiring a detective to follow his wife, whom he suspected was not being faithful to him. I tried to make the wife’s image sort of like Anna Nicole Smith, who married a very rich husband, but was not able to find the right casting. Since I could not get the right actress for the wife’s role, I tried to alter the husband’s role to be a very famous rock star like Mick Jagger instead of a businessman. However, we heard that Guy Richie and Madonna were going to do the next BMW story and the script was about a rock star…” Kar-Wai’s jealous husband finally becomes an actor, played to order by Mickey Rourke; Guess? model Adriana Lima steps in to play his estranged wife. “During editing, I also changed the order of the scenes and added some voiceover in post-production. In the end, I had a lot of creative freedom.”

The chance to work in the United States gave the job added appeal for Kar-Wai. “It was the first time that I worked in LA, shooting with American actors and crews. The language was completely different. It was a new and interesting experience. I was curious to know how the American filming system works and found it was very similar to what I have been doing.” For Iñárritu, “the opportunity to work with people like our photographer, Bob Richardson, (The Horse Whisperer; Snow Falling On Cedars), and [set decorator] Brigitte Broch (Moulin Rouge) was also a big attraction.” Maybe these guys should be paying BMW… To a certain degree, these films are advertising the unsung merits of the short fiction film format.
Wong Kar-Wai’s film stands out for its particular blend of slow motion, cross-cutting and noir-like voiceover. Even at six minutes, it has a spacious, languid quality, and plays without a scratch. Exquisitely edited, the film also contains a delicate, ephemeral musical theme which sets up the series’ only nod to romance. Clive Owen’s driver loses his usual cool and distant stance from his assignment when, following the wife from place to place across the city, he moves slowly and silently into her orbit, until finally he knows and feels too much. He lets the trail go cold and returns the cash. “There’s always something at the end of the road,” he tells us. “If you’re not willing to see what it is, you probably shouldn’t be out there in the first place.”

Overall, the films work best when they’re moving; the chase being the primary vehicle of story. Understandably, the moviemakers don’t really manage to draw the audience into meaningful identification with the characters in such a short time frame. Iñárritu, aware of the difficulties involved, hopes to do just that. “My goal is to get the audience—and I don’t know if I can do it—to relate on an emotional level to my main character over the course of this short. We’re looking at the last minutes in the life of a war photographer, a character that for me has always held some fascination. They can be very complex human beings because they deal with political, moral and religious issues. They lead complex lives.”

“This is the story of a hunter who is hunted, in a Latin American war. He hunts issues/43/images; now he is being pursued. It’s not about the car but about what is happening inside the car, in the consciousness of this character. I care for this character, and hope that people will feel the emotion of the story. Within this short story I’m able, in a small way, to express a point of view that is somewhat political. For me it has become a very ambitious project. I have a lot to do in six minutes. It’s all shot on 16mm in a documentary style. Gritty. We try to convey to people that what they’re seeing is real.”

One of the clear advantages of an assignment like this for the moviemakers, especially those with thinner resumes, is the ability to play, learn and get paid for it. Iñárritu relished the stretch. “I learned that you never really know anything. It was as though I forgot everything I did on Amores Perros. But that nervousness is healthy; I think it shows that you are aware of what you’re doing. You’re alive. To be a perfect technician I think is to become boring. It was a very productive production; 25 to 30 set-ups daily. We had a full-scale film shoot. We basically took over an entire town!”

Working in digital, on a very tight schedule, was something Ben Younger found he enjoyed. Unlike the primary films, his subplot material was not shot on film. “I find that I care less now about composing classically beautiful issues/43/images. I saw Amores Perros; it’s incredible. The Celebration as well; my favorite movie of that year. Those films gave me more and more confidence to just sort of let things go. I like the reactionary aspects of directing; throwing problems at me on the fly. There are payoffs in shooting so small. In the first short I did for this project, a hitman is after Clive Owen’s character and is snooping out his BMW on the street. No one is in the car—ostensibly he’s waiting for the driver to come back. A kid comes and gets into the car; he’s going to steal the car. The hitman runs over, grabs the kid out of the car and throws him on the hood. We were shooting with available light—daytime exterior—[and] didn’t even have any flags set up. So what you get are pedestrians who at first don’t know what’s up. I picked off shots with the second camera of these reactions. True guerrilla filmmaking!”

What does the future hold for this particular blend of art and commerce? Manufacturers and the advertising industry are obviously going to watch the experiment closely. BMW has already had some experience with product placement in recent Bond films, which featured the Z3 and Z8 models. They claim to have received over 100,000 unique hits to the site during their first two days online. Recent statistics show numbers as high as 213,000 unique visits in one day, though many visitors are reluctant to play with the additional features.
Certainly, if more alliances of this sort are undertaken, creative freedom and integrity will inevitably remain an issue. But with the amount of restrictions that moviemakers are often subjected to by financiers, studios and audiences alike, it remains to be seen whether collaborations of this sort can do any worse... or better. MM