COMMENT

“Brick,” the debut feature of writer-director Rian Johnson, won the Sundance Film Festivals Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision. While taking its cues and verbal style from the novels of Dashiell Hammett, “Brick” also aims to honor the cinematic tradition of the hard-boiled noir mystery, here bracingly immersed in a modern-day Southern California neighborhood and high school.

Brendan Frye (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a student who's not afraid to back up his words with actions. He knows all the angles, yet he prefers to stay an outsider–until the day that his ex-girlfriend, Emily (Emilie de Ravin of Lost), reaches out to him unexpectedly and then vanishes. Brendans feelings for her run so deep that he becomes consumed with finding his troubled inamorata.

To find her, Brendan enlists the aid of his only true peer, The Brain (Matt OLeary), while keeping the assistant vice principal (Richard Roundtree) informed of what quickly becomes a dangerous investigation. Brendans single-minded unearthing of students secrets thrusts him into the colliding social orbits of rich-girl sophisticate Laura (Nora Zehetner), intimidating Tugger (Noah Fleiss), substance-abusing Dode (Noah Segan), seductive Kara (Meagan Good), jock Brad (Brian White), and most ominously non-student The Pin (Lukas Haas). It's only by gaining acceptance into The Pins inner circle that Brendan will be able to uncover hard truths about himself, Emily, and the other suspects.

How to Describe the Film

If I said, Its a detective movie, but its set in high school it wouldnt communicate what makes the film tick. So, when I described it to people, I would reference the type of material that I was drawing from; I would talk to people about Dashiell Hammett and about the tradition of detective novels and movies, and stress that we were trying to do a faithful, straight-up detective movie as opposed to a gimmicky high school movie.

Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys

I wrote the script just out of college–seven years ago–right when I was first starting to get it out there was when this big boom of high school movies was happening. So people would hear that this was a high school script with a twist, and theyd read it all excited, thinking it was going to be American Pie or somethingand its obviously not that.

Film's Goal

At its essence, we set out to make an American detective movie. When Im saying it very quickly, its Oh, its a strange little detective movie. The reason its set in high school is, we did that to get away from the imagery of men in hats and what we typically think of for detectives. Thats all been done so well so many times over the years that the instant you see the imagery, it becomes pastiche when youre doing a detective movie. I love film noir, but the thought of imitating it was not appealing. Brick is not set in high school for any postmodern twist or to make a comment on the genre; it was meant to free us up to take a more straightforward approach to the genre. We wrestled with the question of How do you do the genre today This was the weird approach that we decided on.

Detective Movies and Bogart

Theres kind of a layer of lacquer thats been built up over the genre over the years. But, sure, some of my favorite movies ever made are detective films.

Favorite Movies

Its a broad range. I went to film school, so there are a number of film school classics, all the great directors, like Hitchcock and Fellini. In terms of detective films, Im actually not as well-steeped in film noir as a lot of people assume from the fact that I made a detective movie. The ones Im familiar with are mostly the classics; The Maltese Falcon, I would count among my favorite movies of all time. The Big Sleep, adapting Raymond Chandler, is a great film. James Cain has had some great screen adaptations, like The Postman Always Rings Twice.

The Coen Brothers as Inspiration

What originally got me into the idea of doing a detective movie, and introduced me to Hammett, is a film the Coen Brothers did called Millers Crossing. That film is very much inspired by two of Hammetts novels, Red Harvest and The Glass Key. I was introduced to that film in film school, and I just fell in love with it. I found out about their inspirations, read all of Hammetts novels in a month. They connected with me in a way I wasnt expecting, and I was spurred to write Brick, to bring my interpretation of their world to life. Another of the Coen Brothers–one of their best– movies, The Man Who Wasnt There, draws from Cain in the way that Millers Crossing drew from Hammett; unique takes on a classic genre.

Why Tell This Story

Getting out of film school, I had no contacts in the industry; I didnt have any connections. Im not the type of person whos good at going out there and hustling, going out there and selling myself. But I knew that I wanted to make a feature, its all Ive wanted to do–I was one of those geeky kids, whos been making short films since they were 12. I figured the best way to make a feature was to write a script that I really wanted to do that could be done for a modest budget level, and then show it around to everybody that I possibly could until I found someone who wanted to help me do it.

It was a long, long process; it took six years. People were found, and then went away; money was found, and then went away; different actors were in and out. You talk to any independent filmmaker whos gotten a film made, and its the same story. Its not easy. It was a long path. Eventually, everything worked out for the best, and when it did come together, it was the best possible combination of people and the best possible way the money could have been there ” the right way to make the movie.

Financing the Movie

The financing was friends and family. We tightened our belts and figured out the very lowest amount of money that we could get this shot for on 35MM film, and then passed the hat to friends and family ” some of whom became executive producers of the movie. We pulled off making this movie on such a low budget because, first of all, we got an amazing crew and a great set of actors. And Id essentially had six years of pre-planning time to know exactly and precisely how every shot of the movie was going to look and how it was going to fit together. My director of photography, Steve Yedlin, is one of my best friends. Hes known me since college, and weve had all that time to talk about it and pre-plan. Thats a big factor in how we were able to get it shot for the budget we had and in the time that we did.

Shooting Schedule

It was a very blessed shoot. The shooting schedule was 20 days, which is typical at this budget level, but as anyone who works at that pace will tell you, it was not easy; it was hard work and long hours. At the same time, there was this great feeling; everybody got along and got a sense very quickly of what the movie was, and the clear direction in which we were going.

We shot the film down in San Clemente, which is a beautiful little beach town, about an hour south of L.A., on the southern tip of Orange County ” its my hometown. We filmed at the school I actually went to. It was like we had our own backlot, because I knew the town inside and out. If we lost a location or suddenly needed something, I could say, OK, we can just go to this spot over here. I knew the lay of the land, and the script had been written around some of the locations.

The high school has a very specific look to it, with great wide-open flat spaces, airy breezeways, and an almost institutional feel. We built all of this into the style of Brick, as a detective movie that took more of its visual cues from Chinatown than from the dark alleyways of noir. We set it out in the open, in a setting that will catch you off guard and that you wouldnt normally associate with menace.
When I was in the last stages of visually planning Brick, I was watching a lot of Sergio Leones movies. In that respect, the movie probably owes more to Westerns than to film noir, actually. The school and the locations in San Clemente all lent themselves to shooting in that style.

Brendan's Character
The casting of Brendan was difficult; it might have been the most crucial part of making the entire film. It was imperative to find someone who you would not expect certain things from; he needed to be able to blend into a crowd at a party, he needed to look like he couldnt take you in a fight ” and then surprise you and put you down in half a minute.

He did need to have that feel that Bogart had; this was the one area where we were trying to replicate Bogart movies. In general, I forbade Joseph [Gordon-Levitt] and the rest of the cast from watching Bogart movies, or any other classic detective movies. We all knew that those elements were going to be in ours inherently, just because of the type of movie we were doing; putting any more weight in that direction at all, you could go very wrong very quickly ” say, kids doing impressions of old movies

Casting Joseph Gordon-Levitt

We got lucky, finding Joe to play Brendan. He completely got the material instantly. The language in the movie is highly specific and even peculiar, and I think that he approached it in a unique and effective manner. He is also a musician, and he approached the dialogue as if it were lyrics. Which made a lot of sense to me, because the words in the lines that hes saying are often cryptic. Its definitely not the way that people speak today. So, the way of making it communicable and getting the lines to hit home was to find what was beautiful about them; the musicality, the rhythm, the flow.

Joe also had another revelation; that he had training doing this kind of old-school dialogue and snappy back-and-forth ” on his television show, 3rd Rock from the Sun. Obviously, the character and material are very different, but once he tapped into that particular aspect he was able to draw from his years on the show and it helped inform his performance here.

He was physically right for the part, and he is a spectacular actor who takes his work seriously. He worked his butt off for the movie, and in many ways set the bar ” even for me ” in terms of the amount of dedication and work that he poured into making Brick.

Research for the Film

I told the cast to read Hammett. We did watch some movies, just not The Maltese Falcon and the noirs. In Brick, we do reference some of those, just because this type of language was handled so well back then; dialogue was said in a way its not said today. For performance touchstones, we had to reference back before realism came into vogue, because theres nothing realistic about the dialogue. One of the first things we discovered was that if you take this dialogue and try to perform it in a realistic fashion, it doesnt work. Its like trying to put a tomato into a matchbox; its not meant to fit. The dialogue in Brick is in a style thats not used today, so the actors mostly hadnt done it before. To see how actors used to handle dialogue, we watched Billy Wilder films; His Girl Friday;
Singin in the Rain ” movies you wouldnt expect to go along with the feel of Brick.

Rehearsals
We did have a lot of rehearsal time, two or three months from the time we cast Joe, in which to find the voice of the character. Literally ” what kind of regional accent he would have. Joe would call me up all excited and say, I found out how to do his rs; Brendan does his rs like Tom Waits! Listen–We had the time to refine it and get it just right.

We referenced older movies for the style of performance. The character archetypes are inherently owed to previous examples of the genre. But I didnt want to throw that it into the mix for the actors; I wanted them to approach their roles as they would in any other movie ” Who is this person

High School Teenagers

Hammett was once asked if Sam Spade (the character he created) was based on any particular detective. He answered no, its based on what every real detective would like to imagine himself to be. Thats sort of analogous to our movies relationship to real high school; its not the way high school is, but its the way high school feels.

When youre in high school, things dont feel ” they didnt, for me ” flippant and silly. A lot of high school shows and movies seem to me to have a very adult perspective on high school, the perspective of someone who is out of that world and is now seeing it in a slightly condescending manner. Once you get beyond it, its easy to forget how you once were completely encased in its logic. Whereas when youre actually in it, and your head is completely encased in this microcosm, its your world and its a world you have to survive. And things seem, if not life-or-death, very important and mythical. The people you know and the dynamics of your relationships seem hyper-real. We tried to summon that here. The level of intensity thats in Brick equates to the level of intensity that I think a lot of us felt in high school.

The Crew

Again, we got lucky with all of em. Some of the people that Steve brought with him, I had also known, and there were a couple of other friends that worked on the movie. It was important to me that the movie be a good experience for everybody, and when youre shooting at this budget level, there are many opportunities for it not to be a good experience. So in interviewing people and in picking them for the crew, as much as youre looking for someone you creatively connect with, youre also looking for someone who brings a good energy to the entire operation. We found that in every respect.

Jodie Tillen, our production designer, had done costume design for years and years on big projects. She had done the original TV series Miami Vice, so we have her to thank for those fashionsShe had just switched to doing production design when I met with her for Brick, and we immediately connected. Jodies a real artist, and she brought such a wealth of experience to the set.

Michele Posch, our costume designer and one of the coolest people on the planet, I had worked with before on some promos and commercials. I had very specific ideas for the looks and costumes for all the characters. She executed those and also came up with more ideas of her own, and was able to solicit some pieces from smaller designers.

Instructing the Crew

I gave the crew books to read and movies to watch. Jodie already knew her stuff in terms of what we were referencing, but it was important that every single member of the crew knew and understood what our movie was and what we were doing, and that they felt a part of it.

Test-run Footage

We considered it, because there were years of us thinking, When is this thing going to come together Maybe we should shoot a trailer But whenever we would get really frustrated, we would go to San Clemente for the day and take pictures of locations. My little brother would come down with me and be a stand-in in the shots, so you can see him growing up over the years in these photos, standing in front of the drainage tunnelSteve and I would talk about the movie at length; a lot of hours sitting in coffee shops

Rest of the Cast

Most of them have been on sets since they were very young. Theyre veterans, which made for a great working environment because they were mature and professional. It scared me to death, because, as a first-time feature director, I had never worked with professional actors before. That was the big unknown; I was confident in my visual and filmmaking abilities. It turned out to be the element that I think I drew the most joy from the creative process of working through this with them, and my constant amazement at what they do. It was something I had not experienced before.

We had a great casting director, Shannon Makhanian. She sunk her teeth into this project, way before we had the money for it. She decided that she loved the script, and worked on the project for nearly two years before the final funding was in place, doggedly pursuing exactly the right people for every part. It was easy to find people who were physically right for a role, but its a lot harder to find intelligent and talented actors who get the material and the language. Actors either understood it or didnt.

Chemistry between Gordon-Levitt, Nora Zehetner and Emilie de Ravin

The rehearsal time allowed them to spend time together and get to know each other. Joe and I spent a lot of time together working out how we were going to handle the language and Brendans voice. Once we felt we had a line on that, we started bringing in ” one by one ” the other actors to work with him, and they were able to cue in and get up to speed with our approach. The other aspect was, approaching the characters as their own people, as opposed to, Heres the femme fatale. Heres the little girl gone wrong. The material is its own world.

Autobiographical Text

Not at all; I was never this cool in high school. I didnt get into this many fistfights, and if I did, I sure wouldnt have won them. I wanted to trip somebody many many times, and I finally got to when we shot the movie. The foot in that scene is not mine; I got to vicariously experience it.

Editing

The editing process was very intimate; I edited Brick myself. I cut it using Final Cut Pro on a Mac, in my bedroom. I didnt have an assistant, or an office that I would go to. It was like a writing process; I could get up whenever and work on the film, since it was just there on my computer.

The first cut of the movie snapped together very quickly, but there was a lot of refining. I had to find the rhythm of each individual scene, and there were clarity issues that we had to deal with. Thats probably what we spent the majority of our time on for the initial and subsequent cuts; doing it, then showing it to people and saying, Okay, where are you lost We did have to figure out creative ways to clarify different points. Stories like those in The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep are complicated and twisty, and part of the excitement is having periods where the audience is intrigued and doesnt know exactly whats going on, but all the pieces are there and they do and will fit together. Its walking a line; withholding information, yet keeping the audience staying with the movie and actively engaged in following the story and figuring out some of the mystery.

The First Cut

The first cut was longer by about 10-13 minutes, and Ive done some more trimming since we showed it at Sundance. But thats the nature of this material; Hammetts writing is very sharp and clean and gets right to the point. Id have scenes that played and worked fine, and then Id go in and take out a line or two that might be good but also superfluous, and the scene would work that much better.

Getting into Sundance Festival

I wasnt confident about a thing! I didnt know whether anyone was going to like itI was blown away and completely surprised when it got into Sundance, and I was even more shocked when it played there and got such a strong response ” whether people loved it or hated itIt struck people as unique, and thats my favorite kind of movie ” one that tries to do something a little different.

The Sundance experience

The Sundance experience was unreal–a blur. The whole cast was up there, and a lot of the crew came up, and my family and friends who had financed the movieI have a very large family; we had like 30 Johnsons there. It felt good to be able to do right by them.

Post-Sundance Plans

Its time to make another movie. I have a con man movie which I just finished writing the script for. Hopefully that will be the next film that I make, and hopefully I will work with a lot of the same people that I worked with on Brick. Whatever the next project is, a lot of my energy will go into making sure that its as good an experience as Brick ” for everybody involved.

Glossary of Words used in Brick

Blow ” to leave, depart; e.g., Did she blow last night

Bulls ” cops; e.g., What first, tip the bulls; also, as a verb, to turn over to the cops; e.g., I bulled the rat.

Burg (or Burgh) ” town, city; e.g., He knows every two-bit toker in the burg.

Copped ” stole; e.g., She copped the junk.

Dose ” to take drugs; e.g., He dosed off the bad junk and it laid him out.

Duck soup ” easy pickings.

Gat ” gun.

Gum ” to mess things up; e.g., Bulls would only gum it.

Heel ” to walk away from (, and show your heels to); e.g., Im not heeling you to hook you.

Hop; Jake; Junk ” drugs.

Pick ” a ride in a car (as in pick-up); e.g., Did she get a pick

Reef worm ” a stoner (abbrev. of reefer).

Scape ” a patsy to take the blame (abbrev. of scapegoat).

Scraped ” begged off of, cadged from; e.g., Ask any dope rat where their junk sprang and theyll say they scraped it off [name]

Shamus ” a private detective.
Shine ” to wield (as with a weapon); e.g., He shines a blade.

Sprang ” originated; e.g., His gat sprang from Tuggers gang.

Take a powder ” to slip away; e.g., Whyd you take a powder the other night

Yeg ” (generic for,) a guy; e.g., Theyd probably find some yeg to pin it on.

Rian Johnson's Bio

Writer-director Rian Johnson has been making movies since the seventh grade. For Brick, his first feature, he was honored with the Sundance Film Festivals Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision.