practically the start of his career<\/a>, well predating the #MeToo-era reckoning that began in 2017, Swanberg weathered accusations that he was exploitative and manipulative of his female performers. His stepback from productivity coincided with a moment when his explorations of sexual power dynamics fell out of favor. It would be easy to interpret that Swanberg preemptively soft-canceled himself to avoid a broader scandal. He doesn\u2019t see it that way.<\/p>\n\u201cCertainly in Chicago, where I\u2019ve spent the last five years, I\u2019m not unwelcome places,\u201d he says, drawing a distinction between himself and \u201cpeople who lose jobs or are capital-C canceled. But also my work has always pushed those boundaries and always attracted some amount of positive and negative attention.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though \u201cThe Sun Never Sets\u201d has numerous kissing scenes, it doesn\u2019t go too much further than that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t do it,\u201d Johnson says of more graphic scenes. \u201cWhen I worked with Joe early on, I was like, \u2018I love you, man \u2014 I\u2019m not doing this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
For her part, Fanning had no reservations about working with Swanberg. He offered both Fanning and Smith the opportunity to work with an intimacy coordinator, but neither felt it was necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no planet where you\u2019d ever be asked to do anything you were uncomfortable with,\u201d Fanning says. \u201cIf there was ever a moment like, \u2018I don\u2019t want to do that,\u2019 he\u2019d be like, \u2018Oh, then let\u2019s not.\u2019 There was a day where there was a scene and it was pouring rain outside. And we both looked at each other and he was like, \u2018We\u2019re not going to do it. The scene\u2019s cut.\u2019 He\u2019s just open. And I just trusted him implicitly.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Jake Johnson and Dakota Fanning in the movie \u201cThe Sun Never Sets.\u201d<\/p>\n
(SXSW)<\/p>\n
Swanberg has long worked in an unusual style in which the script is essentially a detailed outline and the actors work to come up with their own dialogue during rehearsals. For \u201cThe Sun Never Sets,\u201d Swanberg and Johnson developed the longest, most complete outline Swanberg has ever used, including some dialogue exchanges. Then the actors were allowed to make it their own.<\/p>\n
Fanning recalled an early Zoom call with Swanberg and Johnson on which they explained the process.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s still made like a real film,\u201d Fanning says. \u201cAnd Jake and Joe promised it\u2019s not like we\u2019re just flying by the seat of our pants: \u2018You will know what to say, I promise.\u2019 And then friends that know me asked, \u2018Are you so nervous?\u2019 And I was, but for some reason, I don\u2019t know why, I just knew that it was going to be fine. And that just proved to be true.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even though it takes places in Anchorage, Swanberg calls \u201cThe Sun Never Sets\u201d \u201cextremely personal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was definitely writing a movie about a divorced mid-40s guy dating a younger person,\u201d he says. \u201cThe questions of marriage and having children were sort of an amalgam of two real relationships that I merged into one onscreen.\u201d He describes the material as \u201cquestions that I had and have about what my own relationships are going to look like post-divorce.\u201d<\/p>\n
That comes through in Fanning\u2019s rich, layered performance, which might rank among the best of her already lengthy career. Swanberg\u2019s style draws both an ease and an intensity from Fanning, who captures a woman at a pivotal moment of figuring out what she wants amid the emotional whirlwind she is going through. (At the film\u2019s premiere, Fanning said, \u201cI\u2019ve never put so much of myself into a role before.\u201d)<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the goal of Joe\u2019s films, and I think at least my goal with this film, is trying to make everything feel real,\u201d she says. \u201cThings are just a mess some of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Dakota Fanning and Cory Michael Smith in \u201cThe Sun Never Sets.\u201d<\/p>\n
(SXSW)<\/p>\n
Swanberg himself appears in a small role as the new husband of the ex-wife of Johnson\u2019s character. And the characters of the two kids in the movie are named after the director\u2019s own children. With a newfound maturity and emotional depth, Swanberg is continuing to make movies that are part diary, part generational markers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019d be really cool in my 40s to make movies about characters in their 40s,\u201d he says, \u201cand in my 50s, 60s and 70s. It\u2019d be neat to be making sexually explicit movies about 70-year-olds in their dating lives and sex lives and stuff. It\u2019s really exciting to have movies about characters at this phase of their life, whether they\u2019re finally settling down in their 40s or whether they\u2019re getting out of relationships and reexamining their life. It\u2019s where my head is at.\u201d
.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\u201cThe Sun Never Sets\u201d is filmmaker Joe Swanberg\u2019s 10th indie to premiere at SXSW but his first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1872,6193,4419,69769,100787,32739,17254,18654,48,52,51,1637,47,50,49,4287,1410,2489,14791,100786,100788],"class_list":["post-220271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-actor","tag-character","tag-chicago","tag-dakota-fanning","tag-early-work","tag-favorite-film","tag-joe","tag-johnson","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-life","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-movie","tag-place","tag-scene","tag-sun","tag-swanberg","tag-usual-couch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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