Chris Weitz interview

Question: Where is the dividing line that exists between your aims as a personal filmmaker, the needs of the source material, and the demands of the fans? I mean, do you feel that kind of pressure? Does it concern you at all, going into it?

Weitz: I didn’t feel a tremendous amount of pressure, because in terms of… what one really wants is for someone to go and see the movie that you’re going to make. So, I thought that was covered. I feel like when I’m adapting a novel, which is what I’ve done on the last three movies that I’ve made, my job is to be faithful to the material and to the fans, or rather to the fans’ perception of the book. I still have sort of tremendous freedoms that I enjoy, in terms of the visuals and how I’m expressing the tone and the way that I’m kind of improvising on the theme as it were. Kind of like a musical number. Maybe someday I will sit down, write my own script, and make it precisely the way that I want. But for me, this was precisely the version of New Moon that I wanted to make.

Question: What kinds of changes were there from novel to screenplay, in this instance?

Weitz: Because you’re adapting a 600-page book to a two-hour film, you end up condensing action, dropping some scenes and expanding others to fulfil the role that dropped sequences from the book did. But the fans, I think, understand this so long as you don’t get rid of the tone of the characters, and the moments that they really care about. I think if you can be canny about what they really care about, and pay attention to that, then you’re in pretty good shape. Eventually, I won’t end up pleasing everyone. However I do think that this is one that was made for the fans.

Question: Now this franchise seems to in part have been responsible for a certain rejuvenation, as it were.

Weitz: Of the vampire industry?

Question: What is this unending fascination that we have with this particular type of gothic creature?

Weitz: I can’t claim to understand it, to be honest with you. I haven’t quite put my finger on it, except that it’s a metaphor that’s adaptable for any particular generation or decade. But I think a lot of the kind of iconology of vampires really isn’t present in “Twilight”. In a way they’re more like demigods than vampires. You don’t really see much sucking of blood from the neck. You don’t see crosses, garlic. They don’t burn up in the sun, they don’t sleep in coffins. Really, what it’s about is a young girl who doesn’t think much of herself, who finds herself falling for a creature she thinks is way above her. Then she finds out that that is, in fact, the case. So it’s kind of like the sense of first love expressed in supernatural terms.