After overhearing erroneous reactions at recent screenings of "Third Person," the film's screenwriter and director, Paul Haggis, is nervous about whether viewers will follow his three interlocking love stories. But Haggis aims to challenge audiences, as his heroes François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and Pier Paolo Pasolini challenged him, so he is OK with viewer uncertainty. You have to have an emotional, visceral reaction to a movie...but you don't necessarily have to understand everything right away," he said during our recent interview. We also chatted about the laziness of today's audiences, directing an all-star cast (including Liam Neeson, Mila Kunis, Adrien Brody, Olivia Wilde, and James Franco), female objectification, and his top mobile apps. Writer Michael (Liam Neeson) combines work and play with his mistress, Anna (Olivia Wilde), in Third Person. With "Crash" and now "Third Person," you appear obsessed with interlocking stories within a whole story. Why is this so interesting to you? I've done it twice now, and you have great filmmakers who've done it 20 times. But I think it depends on the story. A director shouldn't have a style, and neither should a writer. All I try to do is look for a good story and tell it well, and a whole story will tell you whether you should follow multiple storylines or a single one. In this full case, it told me that they want to reflect on each other. You learn what it's about by comparing one story to another and seeing how they rub up against each other. Because the key protagonist is a writer, one might naturally assume that there's a little bit of you in the title character. Oh, there's a lot of me in the character. Everything in this movie is true. It just didn't happen, at least not in the real way it happens in the movie. But there's me, not merely in the writer but also in Mila Kunis' character or James Franco's, and even in Adrien Brody's -- they're all exploring something that I have struggled with within a relationship. The writer is also struggling, as is the artist, with how you can create without betraying someone. In a strange way, you have Adrien Brody doing that, too, because he's stealing art. Were there moments where you wondered if audiences would follow the movie? There was a regular struggle to find that relative line. This isn't only a story about three relationships; it's a puzzle. It's not a Rubik's Cube; it is a simple puzzle of what's happening. Why it's happening is more of a challenge. But yeah, in the writing, the shooting, and the editing, I always asked, "Am I telling too much, or am I telling too little?" You don't want an audience to feel stupid; you want to challenge them so they can figure this stuff out themselves and feel good about it. You have to have an emotional, visceral reaction to a movie, that it took you somewhere you wanted or didn't want to go, but you don't necessarily have to understand everything right away. We are now used to being lazy. In the '70s and '60s, filmmakers like Truffaut, Godard, and Pasolini forced us to think, forced us to look at things and interpret them in our own ways. They were challenging us. I think as a result of the real way studios have evolved, we have less of that now. Almost none in mainstream studio pictures, and hopefully in some of the independent films you do, but the majority of them tell a story in a really conventional way, and I purposely decided not to. I wanted people to walk away arguing about it. But that balance troubled me all the way through the writing, directing, and the final cut. Some would argue that there's a lot of gratuitous female objectification in the film. Any thoughts on that? I don't know if that's true, but I do know that we objectify women as writers. iTriage targets iPhone-toting hypochondriacs. I remember when "Crash" came out. I said, "Here's a story that I don't know if it's going to be a good film, but here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to present you with stereotypes for the first 30 minutes. I'm going to reinforce every stereotype you've ever thought, and as soon as you're comfortable in that space, I'm going to slowly twist you around in your seat." Then persons said, "He's writing stereotypes," and then said "Oh, he's a genius." Sometimes you present an argument that's the opposite of what you feel in order to twist the audience around and show them where they can feel that. Of all the actors in the movie, is there one with whom you immediately felt a imaginative kinship? Olivia and liam. I could crawl inside their heads, and they could crawl in mine. Moran Atias, who plays the gypsy, nailed it just. I barely had to direct her. She had done all the research and just understood the character. Do you give a lot of direction typically? I give the actors what they need, and if they don't need anything, I keep my mouth shut and let them explore and try different things. If they're off, after a while, I might give them a nudge here and there. Paul Haggis directs Adrien Brody in Third Person. What are your top mobile apps? I am constantly in New York, so the one which shows you how to get around, HopStop. Instagram -- the girl I was dating used to use that always, and I'd think, "Oh my God, what a narcissist taking pictures." Now I'm addicted to it. I love to comment on other photographs also. I use Yelp on a regular basis for restaurants. IMDb I'm using all the time. I always look up actors and what they've done.
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