Rian Johnson Breaks Down the "Arrival" Scene from 'Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery' | Vanity Fair
and he’s looking right into the camera lens right here look at those eyes never do this if you’re in the movie hello I’m Ryan Johnson I wrote and directed Glass Onion and this is notes on a scene did you just stay at the hotel last night I didn’t see you nobody we clearly just arrived but you hello stranger danger miles Braun who is played by Edward Norton is a tech billionaire he’s invited all of his douchey friends to a private island in Greece for a murder mystery party and this is a scene where everybody First
shows up on the dock this was the very first shot that we did in the entire movie day one shot one you can see we got that beautiful glint of the sun off the water was nice and early matches nothing else in the scene lighting wise but it’s gorgeous so who cares first movie cozy Brown New England sweaters this movie We Got the Blues and yellows of summer in Greece with beautiful swimwear and so instantly we know this is a whole new deal and I wanted to establish really clearly for the audience right off the
bat we’re going to have them be totally New Deals every single time and for me this goes back to the original source
making people look as distinct as characters in the game of Clue but also looking like somebody that would be walking around in the real world sat down with Jenny and he said I want to be Jacques tati by way of Cary Grant into Catch a Thief and I was very proud the incident I saw him show up in that hat uh I said Jacques tati and then I saw the like the high-waisted pants and I’m like is that little uh Carey Graham into Catch a Thief um so my voice went up eight octaves foreign Hahn
starring as Claire de bella or Catherine talking about costumes Catherine showed up and she’s like oh I’m in the Benoit Blanc mystery everyone wears fabulous costumes this is going to be amazing and she shows up and and she walks past the racks of clothes and there’s Kate’s rack that’s glimmering colors and there’s Daniel’s rack that’s all these fabulous outfits and then she gets to her rack and as you can see here my directive to Jenny Egan was beige I just wanted her in sad Tans and beige I wanted I think of the phrases I used
I said I wanted to be the sad trumpet noise of costumes in this movie hi you genius so here is Kate Hudson starring as per DJ Making a fabulous entrance oh my God here is Nicos who is a producer at our comfort and he’s looking right into the camera lens this makes me so happy I’ve completely busted Nicos right here look at those eyes never do this if you’re in the movie he goes I love you so much and then back here you can see Birdie’s lung suffering publicist Peg who’s played by Jess hennick back
here barely holding on and in terms of Jenny Egan and the costumes birdie was kind of like a joy Brady was the one where he just kind of she used to be like a fashion designer in the movie so Jenny could really go to town as opposed to the first movie where we kind of come into the story through Anna De armas’s character and this one we’re kind of coming into it through blanc’s eyes so one thing my editor Bob do say and I would do we would keep cutting back to these little looks from
him and see him taking all of this and I think that’s kind of a cue to the audience to watch carefully but it also Keeps Us grounded in in his perspective oh my God we can’t hug right I mean can we hug everybody the camera is pulling back and it’s pulling forward so here start with a perfectly framed thing of the cart creating this great shape along the left guiding your eye back to birdie and we get a full shot of Birdie because we want to give her kind of the dancers introduction of hello here
I am and all of the lines are guiding you back to birthing if you look this and this it’s all taking your eye right here where the money is Kate Hudson so we’ve now introduced birdie and now the camera is going to move back with her from our perfect frame rise up because it’s now all going to be about heads as we come back and reveal Catherine and Leslie and we still keep Peg exactly right there Jess hit her Mark perfectly so she’s still deep in the background and you’ll notice we’re still from from their
gazes going back here and all the lines are still leading us back to where we want to be looking which is Kate but as she goes back and forth to him and to her she wants to hug them but no way and those lines work for blog too oh look at that oh my God your eye is in the exact same part of the frame directing come on hello oh my God we can’t hug right I mean can we hug everybody if you take a look I mean the camera was basically like right here essentially
we’re seeing the ground which all means we can’t have Dolly track and to move the camera on a Surface like this you can’t just roll it because it would be bouncing all over the place so we’re on the jib arm here and so we have a remote head which is basically a little you know robot head that the camera is on that can move all sorts of directions on the end of the long pull which is a jib it’s if I ignore these beautiful these beautiful actors who basically have a dolly and then we have
a counterweighted jib and then there’s a camera head here and then the camera itself is mounted right there boy that’s a horrible drawing the jib operator stands back here and is also the dolly operator and he’s doing two things he’s pulling the dolly back he’s also Levering the jib arm to do that little rise that you saw before meanwhile our camera operator Dale Myron is back off someplace else at his little station and he’s got basically a monitor and he has a couple of Wheels he has a wheel that turns this way and a wheel
that turns this way and he’s operating the pan and the tilts of the camera remotely that’s what lets us do this move of jump because it’s a fairly wide lens where they’re actually fairly tight together right here lump to do that little reveal both of them did you just a hotel last night I didn’t see no Bernie we clearly just arrived again all trying to frame this in terms of block taking in this stage show and so blonk’s little kind of step forward here because he recognizes birdie J and also just guiding it all to
Blanc is taking this and he always also looks a bit like Claude Ryan’s in The Invisible Man here which I quite enjoy no Bernie we clearly just arrived but you one of the things I’m always very gratified if it gets a laugh is Kate’s mask so I wrote this movie in 2020 I wrote it during lockdown which is part probably part of the reason why it takes place on the Greek Islands like everyone else in the world I was sitting home and fading Greek island let’s see if this works it’s like where I wanted to
be but the notion of this is something I think all of us experienced the notion of defining people’s personalities based on their choice of of mask wear you can see Catherine back there has well very beige mask you’ll see Lionel who’s supposed to be a scientist has a very proper n95 mask Blanc has a very Dapper mask that’s coordinated to his outfit and Kate uh I think we all knew some version of this person she’s trying she’s wearing she’s like I’m messed what do you want first of all I should make clear very quickly we’re
going to be on miles’s private island and get rid of the masks this is not a mask movie but for this one scene it was very interesting directing with a mask is tough because you the communication is such a huge part of what you do on set and more than that being an audience for the actors is such a huge part literally them just seeing you smiling at a joke that they’re doing or laughing or being back behind so it just it it’s very tough with a mask but it makes you focus in more on
the eyes I think I also think it’s kind of trained us how to how to kind of see mask acting did you just stay at the hotel last night I didn’t see you no Bernie we clearly just arrived but you hello stranger danger this is another fun thing Leslie has now gone deep and we pulled back a little further so Catherine’s here but what’s going to happen here is without moving the camera at all Kate is going to transform the frame by coming up to a close-up and the shape of her hat then completely defines
the frame but you hello stranger danger you are stranger danger stranger danger that’s the Nicos is one line ecos is is Greek so and I’m gonna stop picking on Nikos now words stranger danger what’s Catherine doing is she smelling herself she is if you watch Catherine Hahn in the background of this movie it’s a whole other movie and I just know that she’s doing a little bo check right there which seems very clear well done Catherine what stranger danger no no there’s found because I don’t even know what that means wait a second Benoit block
oh my God are you Benoit Blanc the detective did you solve the murder of oh what’s your name that um the the belly dancer I want just like a poster or just of Catherine from this frame she gets very excited about Benoit Blanc being on the island and she her mask slips down to being like a chin bra she gets excited and then she catches herself and even just like tiny little moments like that like accuse you into she’s a she’s very conscious of the of the Mask etiquette the detective did you solve the murder
of oh what’s your name the the belly dancer with the thing and the thing that’s you it is so there’s a very nice little thing that Leslie does here where you can just see his eyes narrow a little bit he doesn’t have much to work with he’s got you know he’s fully messed up here he’s even wearing the hat so you just have this and there’s a little moment when he realizes there’s a detective Along on this trip where you see him kind of like you see him paying attention I love that moment when you’re
working with an ensemble of actors and you’re getting all these close-up ups and you’re running the scenes and just having them do it stuff like this is pure gold when you get in the edit room because you’re looking for these little moments the actors give you that’s going to give you a hint of more going on than was originally on the page and keeping everybody alive in the scene in the group it’s a big part of what we do in the other room that’s you it is in the flesh I’m obviously familiar with you all
as well governor Dr Tucson Miss buddy Jay what an extraordinary Gathering Blanc again is very much the audience for the introduction of all these characters and I very much loved how this pier lent itself to that we have him isolated on this side with the ocean behind him and then when we cut back to them we have a stage basically where blocking wise these people are putting on a performance and we’re seeing each of them kind of display their personalities um for Blanc so let’s just completely Embrace that logistically very very difficult because we’re actually
on this relatively narrow um little pier little Jetty so there’s nowhere to go so actually the boat that shows up later in the scene we had it parked at the end the whole time just so that we could stage camera equipment and stuff on it and have like a little place for the actors to to go and cool off because it was also it was it was it was in the high 90s when we were shooting this but it also meant that I basically had two directions to shoot hand looking at Blanc and then we
got this shot looking back not at Blanc the nice thing about this was it made me really focus on blocking in terms of the characters and trying to create depth but trying to make sure that everybody you could see everybody in this Frame is a good example of that so it also means the actors have to be very very precise we have to give them exact exact marks to hit you know Catherine was one step to the left should be blocking birdie if Lionel was one step to the right he’d be blocking Peg kind of
like a very delicate dance especially when everyone has to move into these positions and we’ll see an even better example of that when Dave Bautista arrives I promise he’s coming I know everyone’s waiting for Dave Bautista to show up what an extraordinary Gathering foreign this scene used to be much much longer in the first cut of the movie it was sort of a thing where when everyone showed up they had a little conversation to begin with this scene was a bit like the library scene at the beginning of knives out really quickly we realized pacing
wise we also kind of want to just you know get through it and get to the island and get to the mystery my other and I ended up cutting it shorter and shorter there used to be when you hear the gunshot we have these beautiful drone shots of Dave and Maddie riding on this motorcycle along like a coastal Road that’s absolutely stunning and so we would cut away to that and big sweeping music but it’s a sort of thing where it looks gorgeous and it’s beautiful and it’s awesome and uh and then you put the
scene together and the scene’s too long and it’s just well here are the gunshots see him arrive and luckily we had done this little transition shot going up and over the luggage so the cut works huh crew we’ve arrived I love that insert shot I don’t know it’s it’s a little Cohen Brothers like detail but I spent a lot of time getting that insert shot exactly right although I think you can kind of see it’s not our first take you can see the scrape on the ground it’s already there Lily magic that I’m ruining for
you all right here thank you disruptors have assembled this shot I was quite proud of this take because the blocking of it evolves as we go back we start this with Dave we reveal Jess no way am I hugging you Kate comes in and then keeping Blanc alive back here is the other thing and all these reverses again always thinking that we’re seeing the seeing the scene through block size also and that may I point out Catherine’s sad yellow visor which she took great joy in hey guys remember my girl whiskey hi of course whiskey
hello who’s that why are you in Greece Mr Block this type of blocking or it’s a lineup and its very exact and precise yeah Wes Anderson is like the first director that I go to who does this a lot it’s something where you’re also trying to create depth in the frame so it’s foregrounds mid ground and then background with Jess doing her weird like stretches this is also a good frame to talk about the influence of the last of Sheila on this movie The Last of Sheila is a murder mystery from the 70s that was
co-written by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins it’s an incredible murder mystery we take a real page from it in terms of the setup of this movie there’s a scene at the beginning where they all arrive at the dock and there’s a famous thing where they all line up for a photo Kate is very much channeling Diane Cannon from that movie why are you in Greece Mr Block I was invited by Miles Brown the title miles no never mad you’re trying to be as economic as possible in terms of the storytelling you’re trying to get across
as much as possible the whole gag of everyone hears is gone he’s firing his gun and he makes a big deal out of it not a huge spoiler that in the murder mystery the gun will probably play a part at some point in the story so we’re trying to set it up through moments that don’t feel like they’re setting it up the other thing that you’re trying to communicate and the blocking has a lot to do with this is the character’s relationships to each other and how they um kind of relate to each other Claire
and Lionel kind of have a connection in this movie sort of the grown-ups of of the whole group so grouping them together in the foreground and putting them on equal plan connecting up Dooku Dave plays and whiskey who Maddie plays having them always paired together is important and then Kate in the background with PEG always deep background there’s kind of a running gag that Peg because she’s the assistant she’s just constantly ignored throughout the weekend and so having her always present in the front frame but always kind of in behind behind behind in the Deep
backgrounds oh I get it the uh murder mystery thing Benoit block is going to help solve the mystery of miles’s murder this would be fun cute we’ll we’ll see and here’s the boat casting wise with this um movie I mean I just I’m the luckiest guy in the world look at this lineup right here with casting with these movies you’re trying to obviously get the best person for each role and the best actor for each role you’re also kind of throwing a dinner party and putting together an invite list for a dinner party because this
is a true Ensemble and every single one of these people could and have carried their own movies entirely and they’re coming out for a few months to Greece to click together and work in frames like this one that you’re seeing here where they’re all playing together this is also giving every single one of these actors and characters and entrants and giving them a theatrical entrance where they part the curtains step out to center stage and get a little round of applause and recognition before we actually get into to all the murder and Mayhem which is
good for several reasons it’s mostly good from a storytelling point of view because you need to be able to track every single one of these people going forward so having a scene at the beginning where they step out to the end of the stage and and make their introductions like this it was a great way to start
