The annual Variety‘s Directors on Directors program has officially begun, with Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin) and Taylor Swift (All Too Well: The Short Film) serving as this year’s inaugural guests. The Variety series invites two directors for a one-on-one conversation where they talk about their careers and their recent projects.
Although Swift has yet to release her full-length debut feature, her 15-minute short film, based on her popular song “All Too Well,” has received positive praise and accolades, which makes her quite a filmmaker at this point. On the other hand, McDonagh’s 2004 short film Six Shooter helped launch his career and brought him his first Oscar. So, with Swift starting her career behind the camera and McDonagh having a short film that opened opportunities for his directorial career, it seems fitting that the two are brought together for a “Directors on Directors” discussion.
McDonagh and Swift began the chat by complimenting each other on their respective previous releases. Swift responded that she wanted to tell stories, just like she does when she writes songs, in response to McDonagh’s question about whether she had always wanted to direct a film. “I have always written stories, poetry, songs. And I think this just grew out of that storytelling. And the more I did it, the more I loved it,” the “Anti-Hero” hitmaker said on Variety’s Directors on Directors. She went on to say that she has always admired McDonagh’s approach to filmmaking, which is essentially what she did in her first short film, giving all of her feelings of “despair and heartbreak.”
.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=1500&dpr=1.5)
When McDonagh asked about All Too Well, the singer said that she wrote it knowing she always wanted it to be a short film, contrary to the previous music videos that she directed herself: “I wanted to treat it differently than I’d ever treated a music video. I wanted to use a new DP that I’d never used before, Rina Yang. I wanted to shoot it on 35 millimeter. And I wrote it with Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien in mind.”
McDonagh also revealed that he wrote The Banshees of Inisherin specifically for Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Barry Keoghan, and Kerry Condo, but gave it a “little leeway to bring some strange new things to it.” When Swift asked about the symbolism of fingers in McDonagh’s film—the scene in which Colm (Gleeson) cuts his finger off with shears—the director simply answered that he thought it was just funny: “I don’t know. I just thought it was funny. I never plan out a script beforehand. So I was kind of shocked when he came into the pub and made that threat. But after it happened, it throws everything in the air and anything can happen.”
The Banshees of Inisherin follows Pádraic, who is devastated after his lifelong friend Colm abruptly ends their friendship. Pádraic makes a commitment to try to rebuild the relationship no matter what, but Colm gives him an ultimatum with a surprising outcome. Furthermore, All Too Well: The Short Film depicts the drifting apart of a man and woman whose relationship went astray in an emotionally poignant story of love and heartbreak.
Other filmmakers guesting on “Directors on Directors” include James Cameron, Robert Rodriguez, Ryan Coogler, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Chinonye Chukwu, Tyler Perry, Sarah Polley, Francis Ford Coppola, Joe Kosinski, and Rian Johnson. You can watch McDonagh and Swift’s full “Directors on Directors” conversation below.
