“500 Days of Summer” director talks about Zooey Deschanel romantic comedy

Monday, May 11th, 2009

By Michael Knox, mknox@modernfilmzine.com

When director Marc Webb helmed “500 Days of Summer” he saw a genuine chemistry between the stars Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt that translated onto the big screen for the quirky “romantic” comedy.

The two had worked on a movie, 2003’s “Manic,” prior to filming “500 Days of Summer,” making Webb’s work easier.

Webb said behind the scenes, Deschanel and Gordon-Levitt would hang out, commenting the two could often be found listening to the same I-Pod and singing duets.

“It was sort of obnoxious how fucking cute they were,” Webb said with a laugh. “There was built in dynamic, they had known each other for years. There was this play between them that was priceless.”

Webb talked about his new movie during the RiverRun International Film Festival in Winston-Salem, N.C.

To paraphrase the movie’s narrator, the movie is not a love story, but it is a story about love.
According to the Internet Movie Database the film is an offbeat romantic comedy about a woman (Deschanel) who doesn’t believe true love exists, and the young man (Gordon-Levitt) who falls for her.

The movie takes many of the conventional aspects of the romantic comedy and spins them on their ear. That aspect is something viewers can see early on in the film, with an opening line written on the screen about this not being about an ex-girlfriend. Then the line continues, by  tagging that the girl that the film is not about is in fact a bitch.

It was a line many in the audience at the RiverRun International Film Festival were laughing  about before a single frame of the actual movie played. But it’s one that Webb’s producers were hesitant about keeping. He still remembers getting a note from producers talking about how the line was offensive and needed to be taken out because it would alienate the women in the audience.

The producers left Webb a note talking about their concerns.

“I remember reading that for the first time and going, ‘I love you. You’re staying in,” he said.

After the screening an audience member asked if the girl from the quote had seen the movie yet.

“Her parents have, and were a little freaked out,” he said with a laugh.

The line, though is funny and keeps with the tone of the movie. Webb directed the script which was written with Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber.

“Scott … sort of drew this from [an] amalgam of relationships and we all inserted some things,” he said. “We sort of collected our boy meets girl stories.”

Webb said what appealed to him about the script was the fact that this wasn’t a typical romantic comedy. He said that romantic comedies have a very stock formula to them.

“I don’t think it’s very truthful,” he said. “We personally watched romantic comedies and it became an exercise in cynicism. You’ve got to be truthful — putting your scars out there.”

That’s why Webb enjoyed the script about Tom and Summer.

“We all have been Tom I think in one way or another, or Summer,” Webb said. “I like the idea that love is a seasonal thing that it comes and goes to a certain degree and that has been my personal experience.”

One personal experience that Webb added to script involves a scene in which Deschanel’s character tells Gordon-Levitt a story and then caps it off with the fact that she never told that story to anyone, making Gordon-Levitt’s character feel that much more like something is special between them.

“I remember there was an incident with a girl were we were having dinner with some friends and she was telling a story and at the end of the story she stopped herself and said, ‘Wow. I’ve never told that story to anyone.’ And it was about her parents.  I remember at that moment I was like, ‘Wow. I’m getting access.’ It was less about enjoying the moment and getting possession.”

Tom’s Point Of View

The theme of possessing a part of a relationship is something played up in the film, as seen through Tom’s eyes.

“The movie is told squarely from the guy’s point of view. It’s totally male centric to the extreme. Tom is an emotionally immature guy. His notion of love is sort of vain.”

For instance, when Tom sleeps with Summer for the first time there is a musical dance sequence with him just dancing through the streets.

“That dance sequence it’s him doing this thing alone. It has nothing to do with intimacy. And through the course of the movie he starts to look at things with a little bit more objectivity. In movies you are investing in a character usually and we wanted to be inside his head and we wanted his point of view.”

Webb said if the movie included, or was even told from Summer’s point of view it would actually end up being a completely different film. But the writers were careful to make sure they did include a sequence that could offer Summer’s point of view, in order to make sure Summer’s character was ultimately not despised.

Tom meets a girl, named Allison, and talks about Summer and Allison ultimately makes him realize that making he made some bad decisions with how he handled things.

Webb said there was a line that was ultimately cut from the script, because it was to forward, in which Allison asks, “Did she break your heart or did you?”

“Allison is there to remind him he’s acting like a punk and to grow up,” Webb said.

With Tom’s point of view being the focal point of the film, Webb was able to include different elements to tell the story, using the dance sequence to show Tom’s feelings, as well as a narrator to voice over the tale, plus a foreign film sequence, and a sequence that feels like a documentary.

The combination of different film formats that Webb used stems partly from his own career, having worked as a music video director and having filmed a documentary.

Webb has worked with different musicians, including Santana.

“He’s just operating on a different level,” Webb said. “He just wants to create music.”

Webb also shot the documentary, “Jesse McCartney: Up Close.” The 2005 documentary included a look back at musician Jesse McCartney’s breakthrough year with the release of his Platinum Album, the launch of his Sold Out Tour, and the making of his videos which became staples on MTV’s TRL video play lists.

His work in the music industry helped develop some of the elements used in “500 Days of Summer.”

“I conceived of a lot of sequences with music in mind and some of the music was written in but a lot of the music I brought and adjusted the scene accordingly,” Webb said. “Music can set a tone in a very efficient way. It immediately gets the audience. Lyrics, with a melody, can say things explicitly that you can’t through dialogue. I want people to watch it and get a deeper meaning, listening to the lyrics.”

The experience prepared Webb for his work after he read the script for “500 Days of Summer.”

“I read it and it just articulated something I could never articulate,” he said. “It is the script I would have tried to write and failed. These guys are just better at it than I could have been.”

A Fairy Tale World

In order to create the feeling of how a romance goes up and down Webb had to rearrange how the acts would normally be delivered in a movie. The story is told in a nonlinear format, using the device of counting back and fourth through the days of Tom’s relationship with Summer. For instance the film can jump from day five to day 285 and go back to day eight before jumping back to day 387.

“A lot of times  the typical romantic comedy is like a bell. This is more like drama going up and down,” Webb said. “It’s more of a drama or a coming of age story than a romantic comedy. I always look at it as chapters rather than acts. It’s a pop movie, but plays with the pop rule book.”

Webb said in addition to a great script he knows that just working with Deschanel and Gordon-Levitt helped improve the filming process.

“One of the cool things about very good actors, usually, is you get out of their way,” Webb said. “Casting was sort of the biggest trick.”

During the Q & A session at RiverRun, one viewer asked about Gordon-Levitt’s work on the film.

“He’s like a Swiss watch, from a director’s point of view, he is so precise,” Webb said. “He’s very smart about how he approaches thing. We spent about six weeks just talking about scenes and characters.”

Webb added that he could see that when filming one scene in which the screen is split between Tom’s “expectations” and “reality.” The scenes running consecutively, with viewers seeing the wonderful outcome in Tom’s hand, butted up against the tragedy of what really happens. In the scene there is a sequence were Tom sees something he doesn’t like and Gordon-Levitt’s face just changes instantly, showing the range of emotions.

“He also has a great command of his physicality,” Webb said. “A lesser actor would have put their  hand over their face or effect something and he just has this cold look. He’s very process driven.”

With a great cast, Webb knew he wanted the film to have an almost implied fairy tale format.

“The writers introduced this sort of storybook quality and you are playing on a notion of a fairy tale of how [Tom] views life.”

Webb said when he was developing the look of the film he tried to make the clothes more period feeling, in order to build on that story book feeling.

He also made sure the actors had haircuts and dress styles that were more timeless. He also restricted the film’s color tones and based everything on a neutral pallet. He did include one primary color, with Deschanel’s character being associated with blue, because of how brilliant Deschanel’s blue eyes really are.

“It was just about elevating that world,” Webb said. “Trying to create something that felt a little bit story book and gimlet eyed.”