Sean Bak­er: ​‘If you’re a film­mak­er in the 21^st cen­tu­ry, it’s hard not to be a social activist’

Catch­ing Sean Baker’s The Flori­da Project at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val – an are­na dom­i­nat­ed by big beast auteurs and their som­bre epics – felt like dis­cov­er­ing a new cin­e­mat­ic lan­guage defined by colour, humour, ener­gy and emo­tion. His sixth fea­ture tack­les the hid­den home­less­ness in Amer­i­ca, but periph­er­al­ly. Front and cen­tre are the sug­ar-spun dai­ly adven­tures of six-year-old Moonee (Brook­lynn Prince). Her moth­er Hal­ley (Bria Vinaite) shields her daugh­ter from their per­ilous eco­nom­ic real­i­ty, doing every­thing in her pow­er to drum up days buoyed by love and excite­ment. Willem Dafoe, as motel man­ag­er Bob­by, is the only estab­lished star.

LWLies: What do you think makes a movie star?

Bak­er: Peo­ple have been try­ing to fig­ure that out for a hun­dred years – that inde­scrib­able ​‘it’ thing, an impact. It’s a per­sona that the pub­lic con­nects with and we don’t real­ly know why. With The Flori­da Project, there’s some­thing we all saw in lit­tle Brook­lynn Prince. Imme­di­ate­ly we thought: she’s a lit­tle superstar.

When you’re cast­ing your movies are you try­ing to sec­ond-guess how they’re going to play to an audience?

First and fore­most it’s about the sto­ry and it’s about who­ev­er works for the sto­ry. I nev­er want to just cast for the sake of putting a star in there. The movie will fail and that actor will not get as much out of it if they don’t work for the role. In the case of The Flori­da Project, for the moth­er, Hal­ley, we had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to go with estab­lished names.

Like who?

I can’t say any­thing. Just imag­ine all the 20 – 25 year olds who are big right now. We thought about all of them. But we need­ed the audi­ence to have sus­pen­sion of dis­be­lief to kick in as fast as pos­si­ble. We already had a very recog­nis­able actor in Willem Dafoe, and we took the gam­ble with Bria Vinaite because I didn’t want audi­ences to recog­nise this per­son off the bat. I felt like they would believe the world if they saw a fresh face. That all being said, I chose Bria because I saw there was some­thing that could appeal to the pub­lic. I like find­ing those peo­ple. Spike Lee is some­one that I admire for many rea­sons. He always has A‑listers and recog­nis­able peo­ple in his films, but also he’s always bring­ing fresh faces in front of the cam­era and intro­duc­ing us to fresh tal­ent. That’s so impor­tant. We need to see new actors com­ing up and get­ting opportunities.

What guides you in cre­at­ing your ener­getic and vibrant visu­al language?

First thing: you nev­er want to bore your audi­ence. The ener­gy is dic­tat­ed by the time in which you’re mak­ing a lm. Audi­ence mem­bers are used to absorb­ing infor­ma­tion faster than they did in the past. Now that shouldn’t dic­tate the way you make a film. I love slow cin­e­ma. If I could find a financier to back me up I would do 12-minute track­ing shots. But financiers have to make their mon­ey back, and you have to sat­is­fy audi­ences to a cer­tain degree. I embrace that because I am try­ing to reach a large audi­ence with these films in order for the mes­sage to have impact and for aware­ness to be brought to a cer­tain sub­ject. I am using style to cap­ture a big­ger and a younger audi­ence. The younger audi­ence is very impor­tant because they are mov­ing towards tele­vi­sion and short­er con­tent like webisodes. I want the younger gen­er­a­tion to still hold onto cin­e­ma and keep cin­e­ma alive. And part of that is to give them what they want. This can be achieved in a way that doesn’t under­mine what I want ultimately.

You sound like a man with a plan. Do you know what you want ultimately?

The fur­ther I go the more I look at the careers of some of my heroes, like Ken Loach, Mike Leigh and Paul Thomas Ander­son. They’ve had long careers in which they’ve made orig­i­nal films. They have a clear mis­sion, they haven’t gone too com­mer­cial but they have been com­mer­cial­ly suc­cess­ful which is won­der­ful. They’re mak­ing a dif­fer­ence with their films. I would love to be able to look back at my fil­mog­ra­phy and be proud of it, that I nev­er did any­thing just for the mon­ey. If you can call that a plan, then that’s my plan.

Do you see your­self as a social activist? 

It’s hard to be a film­mak­er in the 21^st cen­tu­ry right now with­out doing that. Even if I were mak­ing more overt genre films or pop­corn fare I would still feel a respon­si­bil­i­ty to be com­ment­ing on our times and the local cli­mate. Look at what Jor­dan Peele did with Get Out – he shone a light on real­i­ty and that makes him a social activist.

What draws you to paint empath­ic pic­tures of coun­ter­cul­tur­al protagonists?

Well, it’s real­ly a response to what I’m not see­ing in films, espe­cial­ly Amer­i­can films. The UK is a lot more social­ly active. A lot of my peers have been incred­i­ble with embrac­ing social issues but I would like to see more of it in US film. I like telling uni­ver­sal sto­ries about peo­ple who haven’t real­ly had sto­ries told about them, under­rep­re­sent­ed peo­ple. It real­ly comes from me want­i­ng to know more. I feel that the more diver­si­ty there is in front of – and behind – the cam­era can only help. It shines a light on com­mu­ni­ties of peo­ple that don’t usu­al­ly have a light shone on them and it shows that we are all human.

What’s the juici­est or weird­est thing you’ve been sent since your pro­file has grown?

Let’s just say every time I make a film Hol­ly­wood puts me in a pigeon­hole until I make my next film. When I made Prince of Broad­way I got every black script in Hol­ly­wood; when I made Star­let I got all these scripts that involved elder­ly women; when I made Tan­ger­ine – my god – all I got were trans­gen­der scripts. Peo­ple want­ed to make a Tan­ger­ine tele­vi­sion series. I was like, ​‘Absolute­ly not!’ That’s ridicu­lous. The film should be its own thing. After The Flori­da Project I guar­an­tee I’m going to get a tonne of scripts about lit­tle kids. It’s just the way Hol­ly­wood thinks.

If the world of film­mak­ing wasn’t open to you, would there be anoth­er out­let for your social and human preoccupation?

Oh my gosh. I don’t know because film has got­ten me to this point. When I went to film school I want­ed to become a very com­mer­cial film­mak­er. I want­ed to make the next Die Hard. As I got old­er my inter­ests changed towards more of a soci­o­log­i­cal point of view. Film­mak­ing took me down that road, espe­cial­ly when I dis­cov­ered British social real­ism and Ital­ian neo real­ism, film­mak­ers who were using cin­e­ma to make a polit­i­cal state­ment. If you removed film from the equa­tion, per­haps I’d be a jour­nal­ist, per­haps a social work­er. Who knows? Maybe even music because music can be a way of see­ing the world and collaborating.

It sounds like the world of films actu­al­ly made you more idealistic?

It did, yes. I’m in a moment right now where every­body around me – my agent, pro­duc­ers – is ask­ing for the next one. I’m like, ​‘No! What are you talk­ing about?! Now is the time for me to soak in the world again.’ I want to spend the next year doing the fes­ti­val cir­cuit, because doing that always helps to open my eyes. Film fes­ti­vals take us around the world, we get to meet peo­ple, we get to meet new com­mu­ni­ties and that’s valu­able. For Prince of Broad­way, I went to Africa three times. Part of the rea­son I made Tan­ger­ine was because I was inspired there while I was on tour with Starlet.

You say that film fes­ti­vals show you the world, but they could just show you the inside of VIP lounges. How do you make sure you’re always pur­su­ing your inter­ests and how do you stand up to mon­ey people?

When I go to fes­ti­vals I always try to check out the envi­ron­ment, so I won’t be inside the the­atre or going to a lot of par­ties. I’ll be on a bike. When I went to Burki­no Faso for FES­PA­CO all I did was get on a moped and learn the city and befriend peo­ple and spend two weeks just absorb­ing. I don’t even know if I saw one film. I do get influ­enced a lot and some­times I think I can tack­le tele­vi­sion, but you know what, ulti­mate­ly, it nev­er feels right. I can’t cre­ative­ly jug­gle so I’ve reached the point where I’ve lit­er­al­ly had to tell agents and pro­duc­ers, ​‘Don’t send me scripts, I’m not inter­est­ed – I’ll let you know when I’m ready.’ You get inun­dat­ed, you real­ly do. I can’t imag­ine how it is for peo­ple who’ve had more suc­cess than I’ve had. Sofia Cop­po­la must be get­ting so many offers every sin­gle day. I’ve just had to get real about it and I’ve had to put my foot down.

What do you love about movies?

I love the escapism aspect, but at the same time I love that they can change the world. They real­ly can! There’s a plat­form for diplo­mat­ic engage­ment, but it’s not in your face. It’s not telling audi­ences, ​‘you must think, you must act’ – no it’s doing it through enter­tain­ment. It’s actu­al­ly a very sub­ver­sive art. You can make change by enter­tain­ing peo­ple, which is very unique. Film is matur­ing and get­ting to the point where it’s under­stand­ing what audi­ences want and how to manip­u­late that. But there’s some­thing also about film that… There’s that awe. Film­mak­ers are always try­ing to… There’s some­thing that hap­pened when we were kids see­ing films in a dark movie the­atre, there was some­thing that struck us and had such an incred­i­ble impact and we can’t prop­er­ly artic­u­late it but it had such an incred­i­ble impact that now as film­mak­ers, we are try­ing to recap­ture that and, oh, it’s impossible.

You can’t as an adult recap­ture that amaz­ing feel­ing that Spiel­berg gave you when you saw Raiders of the Lost Ark when you were 11. But I’ve got­ten to the point now, and it’s tak­en me like six films to do this, where I’m real­is­ing that it’s my respon­si­bil­i­ty as a film­mak­er to try and give that awe to the 11 year olds out there now – it’s our respon­si­bil­i­ty as adults to excite the next gen­er­a­tion. That’s what I love about films, and that’s also what I hate about films! It’s very rare that I’m very excit­ed or moved by the medi­um but I know that there are peo­ple out there who are and it’s my job to build it up.

The Flori­da Project is released 12 Novem­ber. Read the LWLies Rec­om­mends review.