Way of the Filmmaker

For the director, with the lie of the ”deserved death“ goes the lie of the gun. Having worked with firearms professionally, McQuarrie is particularly bothered by Hollywood‘s depiction of guns for what at first seems an equally disturbing reason. ”Guns have been so overdramatized, the gun has been emasculated in film,“ he says, later clarifying the remark. ”I don’t want to ‘remasculate’ the gun. I‘m saying, let’s learn to reacquire a respect for the power of guns. This culture is so indifferent and disrespectful of guns that we should be terrified. What I wanted to do was take what people love about [action] movies and strip off all the bullshit and jam it in your face for what it really is,“ he says. ”If you love to see guns, here is what happens when guns really go off.“

But throughout the film, whenever McQuarrie cuts short the gunplay to linger on a body or wait quietly with a minor character facing death, he seems to be struggling with more than his stated themes. At times, he seems to lack faith that the tropes of the action genre can be used as fine tools instead of blunt instruments: He himself seems uncomfortable letting such moments go on too long or appear too often. ”No matter how far you try to deviate from the conventional, after a certain point it just dissolves into the boring, uneventful and lame,“ he says. That may be true in certain instances, but here it means the film‘s excesses frequently overwhelm its more meaningful moments of restraint.

Which is one reason why, despite McQuarrie’s stated intentions, Artisan is promoting the film in its television-ad campaign as if it were Pulp Fiction Returns, delirious pop candy for the action crowd. That it might be received as such worries McQuarrie, and if it is, he‘s willing to accept some of the blame. ”I know there will be people who will not get it and condemn it for glorifying violence,“ he says. ”And I know people will love it for the action and not get what I’m trying to say. It was my first film -- it‘s a visual history of watching me learn how to direct. But if I can create for one moment a sense of horror at an act of violence in film, then I’m on my way to becoming a good filmmaker. What I hope is that they don‘t kill me before I get to make the next one.“

The Way of the Gun opens September 8.