Interview: Ex_Machina Director, Alex Garland
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Alex Garland has produced some of the most thought-provoking screenplays of recent times. He’s provided the scripts for the two widely successful Danny Boyle films 28 Days Later and Sunshine, and gone on to pen two more dystopian delights - Never Let Me Go and Dredd.
With Ex_Machina he finally takes his turn in the director’s chair, although he doesn’t think of it in those terms. Spend any time in the company of Garland, and you can quickly see why he is a veteran at churning out sophisticated sci-fi blockbusters – he’s constantly challenging people’s perceptions.
When asked why he decided to direct Ex_Machina he immediately brings into question the role of the director: “I’ve been working in film for about fifteen years or something,” he says, “and my whole sense of filmmaking, theory of it I suppose, is in a funny way “anti-director”.” He then continues to outline his view on filmmaking: “The process is a bunch of people standing around a hole - how do we best fill it? And at some point it’s the guy with the concrete, at another point it’s the guys who’s got the spade. It’s like that, y’know…” But surely there must have been something that made him want to direct? “Again, I never saw it in those terms. It is a collegiate activity between a group of people – that’s actually what I like about it – so I don’t want to deny it.”
After Garland finishes his sentence, he adds a quick “Sorry, I’m not having a go.” It would be reasonably difficult to misinterpret his enthusiasm as annoyance, but it’s clear his passionate responses sometimes garner the opposite reaction. Whenever a question is asked he gives time to contemplate his answer and, even though he’s probably heard the same questions hundreds of times over the press junket, answers with an energy that suggests it’s the very first time he’s ever had to consider that particular conundrum.
For someone that clearly likes to confront ways of thinking, it’s appropriate that his latest effort concerns itself with Artificial Intelligence and the notion of consciousness in machines. And the screenplay for Ex_Machina certainly gives off the impression of an idea that has been fully explored and researched. When was it that he first wanted to write about AI?
“A long time ago really. There’s a little bit of dialogue in the film about Chess computers, which act as if they want to beat you at Chess, but they don’t know what Chess is. There’s something very interesting about that.” And like the best sci-fi flicks, Ex_Machina isn’t really about robots, but resonates on a human level. Garland confirms this: “The problems of AI are the problems of the [human] mind. So it becomes about something fundamental, really fundamental – what we are, where we perceive consciousness to exist, and are we right?”
With Ex_Machina he finally takes his turn in the director’s chair, although he doesn’t think of it in those terms. Spend any time in the company of Garland, and you can quickly see why he is a veteran at churning out sophisticated sci-fi blockbusters – he’s constantly challenging people’s perceptions.
When asked why he decided to direct Ex_Machina he immediately brings into question the role of the director: “I’ve been working in film for about fifteen years or something,” he says, “and my whole sense of filmmaking, theory of it I suppose, is in a funny way “anti-director”.” He then continues to outline his view on filmmaking: “The process is a bunch of people standing around a hole - how do we best fill it? And at some point it’s the guy with the concrete, at another point it’s the guys who’s got the spade. It’s like that, y’know…” But surely there must have been something that made him want to direct? “Again, I never saw it in those terms. It is a collegiate activity between a group of people – that’s actually what I like about it – so I don’t want to deny it.”
After Garland finishes his sentence, he adds a quick “Sorry, I’m not having a go.” It would be reasonably difficult to misinterpret his enthusiasm as annoyance, but it’s clear his passionate responses sometimes garner the opposite reaction. Whenever a question is asked he gives time to contemplate his answer and, even though he’s probably heard the same questions hundreds of times over the press junket, answers with an energy that suggests it’s the very first time he’s ever had to consider that particular conundrum.
For someone that clearly likes to confront ways of thinking, it’s appropriate that his latest effort concerns itself with Artificial Intelligence and the notion of consciousness in machines. And the screenplay for Ex_Machina certainly gives off the impression of an idea that has been fully explored and researched. When was it that he first wanted to write about AI?
“A long time ago really. There’s a little bit of dialogue in the film about Chess computers, which act as if they want to beat you at Chess, but they don’t know what Chess is. There’s something very interesting about that.” And like the best sci-fi flicks, Ex_Machina isn’t really about robots, but resonates on a human level. Garland confirms this: “The problems of AI are the problems of the [human] mind. So it becomes about something fundamental, really fundamental – what we are, where we perceive consciousness to exist, and are we right?”
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