Barry Sonnenfeld: What Makes A Movie Funny

Barry Sonnenfeld started his career as a cinematographer primarily lending his signature style to many of the great Coen Brothers directed films.  Since then he’s transitioned into the role of director and producer.  He directed the films Addams Family, Addams Family Values, Get Shorty and all three Men in Black films.  He recently stopped by the SiriusXM studios to talk with Ron Bennington about his latest– Men in Black 3.  Excerpts from that interview appear below.

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Ron Bennington: Now you lived in New York at the exact time that you were doing this.

Barry Sonnenfeld: Yeah. I grew up in Washington Heights. I went to Music and Art High School. In ’69, I was protesting the war and playing the french horn and living in New York City.

Ron Bennington: Isn’t that crazy to think you went back to recreate that exact time?

Barry Sonnenfeld: Well not only that, but one of the scenes in the movie, is at Shea Stadium when the Mets win game 5 over the Baltimore Orioles, to win the World Series. I was at that game. I was a senior in high school. I played hooky, went with my girlfriend to Shea Stadium and bought scalped tickets for 5 bucks apiece.

Ron Bennington: Unbelievable. You started as a cinematographer.

Barry Sonnenfeld: Right.

Ron Bennington: Director of Photography, now known as. But few people make that move over to director. That you’d almost be better if you were a writer or an actor, right?

Barry Sonnenfeld: Writer, actor or editor.

Ron Bennington: Editor?

Barry Sonnenfeld: A lot of famous directors were editors. Hal Ashby, David Lean. Because both editing and writing are about storytelling. And often times, cinematography and being the DP is not. So when I became a director, I looked at every other famous DP who tried to become a director. And in each case, they took their second in command which is the camera operator and made him DP which really meant they didn’t want to give it up. And they wanted to be in control. So when I was asked to direct “The Addams Family”, I made sure I hired such a famous great DP that it would force me away from the camera. So I hired Owen Roizman who shot “French Connection” and some other major movies, forcing me to actually have to deal with those horrible people I thought, the actors.

Ron Bennington: Yeah right. Because a lot of times I guess, those guys, it’s the last thing that they think of.

Barry Sonnenfeld: That’s right. And storytelling and acting is where your movie gets made.

Ron Bennington: It really does become about storytelling. And I mean of course, you started with the Coen brothers who were great great storytellers, but the interesting thing to me when you go back over this, the camera is part of their storytelling. So you were involved. Because I think if you go back over some of this, “Raising Arizona”, it’s like if you bowl 300. You can tie that film, but you can’t make a better comedy then that. And the camera was all over the place in that film.

Barry Sonnenfeld: I think I’m unusual this way, especially for a comedy director, but it’s also because I used to be a cinematographer. I don’t use a camera as a recording device. I use it as another character in the movie. I think the camera can be a tool to tell the story. It’s like in “Men in Black 3”, there’s a scene where Will jumps off the top of the Chrysler Building to have to go back in time. The camera does things that you wouldn’t normally expect. It’s why the 3-D in this movie is so good. It’s something that Joel and Ethan and I sort of figured out together and something. Actually, I think they do less with a camera now then they used to and I’ve continued that tradition.

Ron Bennington: Well you brought up actors and one of the things that happened for you is Will Smith became this giant movie star kind of on your watch. And have you now over the years, figured out what makes a movie star? Why is one actor a movie star and the next guy isn’t?

Barry Sonnenfeld: You know that’s a really good question. Hiring Will Smith was Sweetie’s idea. This was before “Independence Day” or anything. Totally based, Sweetie’s my wife by the way, based on “Fresh Prince”. In the case of Will and several other of the actors I’ve worked with, there truly is…well, in case of Will, there’s a Karmic presence that’s extraordinary. I mean I will be on stage waiting for the lighting to be finished, Will will walk in to the stage a hundred feet away, won’t even make a sound and I’m aware that Will is in the room. It’s like being with Bill Clinton. It’s like a real sense of Karmic power. But I think what really good actors do, is they’re just very real and there’s no acting. I mean part of the reason I always tell the actors to talk really quickly is all I’m trying to do is get the acting out of the scene so that it becomes realer. I hate it when I sense or see acting. It’s why I tell people to act quickly. I occasionally go to movie theaters. When I do, my wife has to sit on my right and hold my hand down because I’m always gesturing to the screen. It’s why we’ve never seen more than half an episode of “Mad Men” because I literally was in our screening room gesturing to them. And Sweetie’s saying they can’t see you. They’re done. It’s a recorded medium. Stop. And I can’t watch those kind of movies.

Ron Bennington: So what do you want out of an actor? You just want whatever makes them them in your film.

Barry Sonnenfeld: Well, whatever makes that character that character. Because here’s the thing. I’ve only directed comedies. But I don’t want any actor to play the comedy. I want the scene to be funny or absurd, but then play the reality of that scene. I worked with Tom Sizemore once on a movie called “Big” (Big Trouble). And Tom auditioned for the part and he was great. And I said I’ll hire you under two conditions. And he said what? I said the first condition is you can never hit me.

Ron Bennington: Right. That’s always smart with Tom.

Barry Sonnenfeld: He thought about it and finally said alright, okay, what’s the second one? I said I’m the director, you have to do whatever I tell you to do. He said fine. First thing we’re shooting and it’s with Johnny Knoxville in this scene, he’s twitching his eyes and he’s limping and he’s sort of twitching. And I called him in at the end of the day and I said Tom, I have to fire you and you can’t hit me. And he said why? I said you’re trying to be funny. He said well it’s a comedy. I said don’t be funny, be real. The scene is funny. And he was fantastic in the movie after that because he played the reality of the scene and the character. You don’t want the cinematographer to know it’s a comedy or it will be lit too bright. You don’t want the composer to know it’ll be funny because there will too many slide whistles. Let the audience find the comedy, I just want to play the reality.

Ron Bennington: How do you know then if you’re directing something because your films are basically, they’re comedies. How do you know when the comedy is happening? How do you know we’re playing it exactly right?

Barry Sonnenfeld: When I finished “Men in Black 1”, I said to Will, “Will you’re gonna go to the premiere, a lot of people are going to laugh. You’re going to think they’re laughing at you. I just want you to know they’re laughing at me. You were just my vessel up there. But it’s all about me. It’s all about my comedy.” And I think it’s because I was an only child. I observed a lot. My mother was kind of insane. My father kind of hated her. He’s still alive. He’s 92. But growing up in an absurd environment just allowed me to observe comedy. And I think if I think it’s funny, I have to trust my judgement and hope you think so too.

Ron Bennington: How did you come up with the time travel though?

Barry Sonnenfeld: That was easy. I was directing “Men in Black 2” and Will Smith came up to me, it was about 4am, we were in L.A. shooting. It’s always freezing cold in L.A., people don’t know that about L.A. I’ve never been colder than in L.A. I swear I have more down jackets in L.A. I live on this coast, the East coast. And Will sat down next to me with way too much energy and said “Hey Baz, I got the idea for ‘Men in Black 3’. Here it is.” He pitched me a basic time travel idea. And what was great about it is it both let’s our first act be familiar, but in the second and third act you kind of reinvent the franchise both with Josh Brolin, but also with ’69, with Warhol, with New York Mets, with the whole time travel thing.

Ron Bennington: Well you know, a comedy, you do want to surprise people, but then one of the things about doing a series of films is that you also have to make them feel comfortable. You can’t jump out of it too far.

Barry Sonnenfeld: Not only can you not jump out of it too far, but “Men in Black” if you stop people on the street and say what do you like most about “Men in Black”? They say Will and Tommy. They don’t say aliens. They don’t say comedy. They say Will and Tommy. So what we had to do is create something that was new, but not totally screw up the franchise by doing away with the thing that people loved the most which is the relationship between Will and Tommy. And in a way, we got our cake and ate it too was by having young Tommy played by Brolin so that by the end of the movie the audience thinks they just watched one actor kind of.

Ron Bennington: Who do you like for comedies? When you go back and watch comedies?

Barry Sonnenfeld: I’m going to sound really old and I’m old, but not that old. I love Preston Sturges comedies. I love “His Girl Friday”, “Bringing Up Baby”, but my favorite movie ever made which happens to be a comedy is “Dr. Strangelove”.

Ron Bennington: “Dr. Strangelove” which again could also be played as a drama.

Barry Sonnenfeld: Well, it is played as a drama. That’s the genius of that movie. There are only a few places where the movie goes bad and it’s when Kubrick cuts to a close up of George C. Scott being funny. But except for that, every actor is playing that movie as total reality and what’s funny is the absurdity. But no one in that movie except George C. Scott is saying “I’m in a comedy”. And that’s why it’s brilliant.

Ron Bennington: I also love the sets that they build for a comedy. The sets are so incredibly beautiful.

Barry Sonnenfeld: Huge.

Ron Bennington: And dramatic and fantastic. And you’re like well this could have been the greatest Nazi movie of all time.

Barry Sonnenfeld: That’s right. It’s exactly why it works so perfectly.

Ron Bennington: Kubrick, when you go back and watch him, is there a filmmaker that you like as much as him?

Barry Sonnenfeld: My favorite filmmaker is Kubrick. And he’s also made, here’s the thing, the best comedy. To this day “2001” is still space vernacular when you’re looking at “Star Wars” or anything, it all looks like stuff he designed for his spaceships in “2001”. Still the best anti-war movie ever. He’s just phenomenal. And I also love Scorsese. Joel and Ethan are probably my favorite living directors right now.

Ron Bennington: Still always surprising us. I wonder if you even see it differently than the rest of us do because you know those guys. And like when we go back and I brought up “Raising Arizona”, but here’s “Miller’s Crossing” which is a great kind of gangster movie, but still hysterical scenes in it.

Barry Sonnenfeld: You know the great thing about them is they can do anything. They can do gangster movies, comedies, dramas, scary movies. I recently, when I saw “A Serious Man”, and talk about me looking at their movies differently than anyone else, I went to them and I said this is the best movie you’ve directed since “Miller’s Crossing” and they said why? And I said it’s the first movie since you worked with me where you didn’t pan the camera. I’m very anti-panning. Who else is going to look at their movie from how often they pan the camera? But I think they’re fantastic.

Ron Bennington: And then lifted an actor from them. From that.

Barry Sonnenfeld: Oh, Michael Stuhlbarg….

Ron Bennington: …who all but steals your movie.

Barry Sonnenfeld: Stuhlbarg is fantastic.

Ron Bennington: He plays such a sweet character in your film, but on TV, on HBO plays a frightening character and when he was in the film with the Coens, played this kind of pathetic guy. So you don’t know who this, you have no idea who he is.

Barry Sonnenfeld: Yeah. What I love about Stuhlbarg’s character is, you know “Men in Black” always has like scary aliens and cute aliens and gooey aliens, but one of the things that makes it really special is when there’s like a magical….and the fact that Stuhlbarg in our movie plays a quantum mechanic who sees all past, future and present at the same time, is for me what makes “Men in Black” special. And I totally agree he practically steals the movie. He’s fantastic.

Ron Bennington: Hey, I could do this all day. Thanks so much for stopping by.And I’ll see you next time through. And best of luck with everything.

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You can hear this interview in its entirety exclusively on SiriusXM satellite radio.  Not yet a subscriber?  Click here for a free trial subscription.

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You can learn more about Ron Bennington’s two interview shows, Unmasked and Ron Bennington Interviews at RonBenningtonInterviews.com.

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyaFEBI_L24]