Guy Ritchie Interview

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I read an interview with Guy Ritchie where he was questioned on aspects of the film industry, and how he came to create the genre of his films. It has lots of references to crime which is very appropriate for our own production. I have chosen to do this because Guy Ritchie is the Director of ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ which has been the biggest influence on our own production.
I have taken out the most inspiring comments and the ones which relate to our production below.

“England no longer has the identity that we previously understood it to have. It's become international like New York has become international.”

This quote is a particular favourite of mine as it is effective through it's subtlety. It shows how England can act as a blank canvas for many different films. This opportunity allows for
a large amount of creativity to make your production successful and unique.


As you grow older, do you approach criminals less romantically in your movies?
Guy Ritchie: Probably not. No, it's pretty much an objective view of crime on the whole. I try not to be ethical or moral about it. It's simply an observation and commentary on that observation. That sounded relatively intellectual…

As we have criminal activity and behaviour as a key theme in our production, this quote is very relevant to our production. This allowed us to see a professional view on the whole idea of portraying criminals in film. He states that he tries not to be ethical or moral about the situation which gives him scope to produce any kinds of crime and if he avoids these stereotypes it is more realistic.

Have you ever met any sinister underworld members whilst researching your movies?
Guy Ritchie: Absolutely not. The criminal underbelly of society is heavily frowned upon by myself.

Really?
Guy Ritchie: Well, I will say that some of the ideas from past movies are based on things I’ve heard about. Take the pig feeding story in Snatch as an example. That's a cliché of how people disposed of bodies. Since then I've seen it pop up in several movies, but I had met the guy that used to remove the teeth before they chopped them up and gave them to the pigs.

This shows how the crime he implements in his films aren't influenced by his life experiences. He can realise a realistic criminal reality without experiencing it himself which is inspirational and shows that as we are not in contact with the criminal underworld, we can produce something similar.

Was that a scary meeting?

Guy Ritchie: Now he's a grandfather. He's a lovely chap. He gives to charity, he runs his local football team and he looks like your average avuncular generous individual. So sometimes there's nothing exotic about the exoticism of crime. That's kind of interesting in itself – that sometimes people can do what we see as heinous and nefarious acts and to them it's just par for the course.

This shows how, even real life human beings can have contrasting personalities where they might be a violent psychotic in one situation, and in another they might be a caring charity worker. This can be applied to our production as you may think the gangsters are stereotypical ‘hard-men', but they are shown to possess characteristics that would indicate that they are capable of being kind and caring. By keeping the intentions of our criminal characters ambiguous, we can keep the narrative interesting and exciting.