strong critical reception<\/a> and is using its NYFF slot as the start of distributor Neon\u2019s awards campaign \u2014 the rare time Gray says he has had a movie opening in the thick of Oscar season. Neon will be prominently campaigning it and its star cast including Miles Teller for Lead Actor, and Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson in Supporting, as well as Best Picture, and Gray for Directing and Original Screenplay among other categories.<\/p>\n\n\tThe movie once again has personal connections for Gray, an intense drama centering on family and two brothers who get involved in a scheme that sounds promising but of course is not all it is cracked up to be. As they collide with the Russian mafia, family bonds begin to break, a health crisis plays out for one of the characters, and all experience life changing consequences.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe film was shot on 35MM using some vintage equipment and Gray is particularly excited that the NYFF premiere will be projected on film as it was intended, and he tells me it looks stunning. I talked to him this week about this new milestone in his career and what it means to open the festival. <\/p>\n
\n\tDEADLINE: This is your first time opening the prestigious New York Film Festival, top of the perch. How does that feel to have Paper Tiger get this kind of recognition?<\/p>\n
\n\tJAMES GRAY: I don\u2019t think of it that way. Maybe it\u2019s my biggest attribute or my biggest flaw, I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t really view it like that. It\u2019s uncomfortable for me to view movies competitively ever in that way. And so top perch, it\u2019s a huge honor. Let me just stipulate that. I\u2019m grateful that they asked me to do it and it\u2019s great. So I\u2019m not looking a gift horse in the mouth, but it\u2019s uncomfortable for me only in the respect that I just want it to be about the festival and about the film and people enjoying it.<\/p>\n
\n\tDEADLINE: It\u2019s an interesting thing because this is your sixth film that comes from a debut in Cannes. And so people have gotten a taste of it. It\u2019s been reviewed, I reviewed it, a lot of people. This though is a launch for America, and getting it out there now in real time to get people to notice the film because it\u2019s going to open in theaters. It\u2019s an important thing, don\u2019t you think, opening a festival like this?<\/p>\n
\n\tGRAY: Oh, absolutely. Also, let\u2019s be very honest here. The Cannes Film Festival has its magic, but it is a very strange environment in which to premiere a movie. And I know I\u2019ve been there many times, but I say this actually from a position of experience. There\u2019s a kind of bubble thing that happens there and you\u2019re either a beneficiary of, or sometimes a victim of, context with the other works that are in competition. And when you have something that\u2019s opening in the United States many months later, it is very helpful, in fact, almost necessary to allow people to see the film unattached to the rest of the Cannes bubble because it somehow allows people to see the film for what it is without the sort of added noise. So you\u2019re right, it\u2019s quite essential. I know people don\u2019t think context matters, but it really does. So what I\u2019m hoping is that people just see the film really for itself. It was very well received in Cannes. This is not me being churlish, but it\u2019s just that it\u2019s a New York movie. It\u2019s the right place for this to be.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-deadline-2019\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tL-R: Scott Morris, a guest, Anthony Katagas, Adam Driver, James Gray, Miles Teller and Rodrigo Teixeira at the \u2018Paper Tiger\u2019 premiere in Cannes<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAurore Marechal\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\n\tDEADLINE: Looking at your filmography you seem to like to go back and continually want to shoot in New York in places where you grew up and stories that even have a personal connection. I mean, this film is, again, I think a very personal one for you, as was Armageddon Time, which even shot in your old neighborhood. So is that where you\u2019re at right now as a filmmaker in your head, the last two films particularly?<\/p>\n
\n\tGRAY: I\u2019ll go back to doing stuff that\u2019s outside of the realm of my autobiographical experience probably on the next film, but it\u2019s hard. I don\u2019t have a career-path thing in my head which I\u2019m trying to execute. I\u2019m simply trying to express where I am emotionally with each film. And with something like Lost City of Z, at that time I had just finished making a period film in New York, which took place in 1921, which was very different from my other films, centered around a woman and called The Immigrant.<\/p>\n
\n\tI really loved the kind of expansiveness of Lost City. I was anxious to just break the mold completely for what I was doing and to do an adaptation, to try my best at a kind of David Lean thing. I may well do that again. In fact, on the next one, I may well do it. But for now, being the age I am, coming out of Covid was a big deal, a kind of introspective quality to spending time in your house for two years with your whole family. I think that led to a certain kind of focus on interiority. I probably will go outside of the realm again after this one.<\/p>\n
\n\tLet me also say I think it\u2019s actually a sign of how, and I have to emphasize this, how fortunate I have been because it\u2019s very rare that an American, particularly a filmmaker, gets to do things repeatedly in a very personal way. Now I make the films for a budget, they\u2019re small, but in order that people don\u2019t lose money and everyone feels okay at the end that\u2019s a good thing. So you kind of get left alone, but at the same time, it\u2019s been a tremendously rewarding thing to mine my most intimate impressions in a way. I was educated by my heroes when I was a kid seeing (Fellini\u2019s) I Vitelloni, but also then seeing Amarcord, which are almost two sides to the same coin made, what, 20, 25 years later or whatever it was, 1951 to \u201973. So to me, it\u2019s the highest calling and I feel tremendously fortunate to be able to do it.<\/p>\n
\n\tDEADLINE: Yeah, and Two Lovers actually goes right to what you\u2019re talking about there too with that influence that you had with that film.<\/p>\n
\n\tGRAY: Absolutely. I mean, the whole point also is to try, and in America we have a tradition, which I suppose actually ironically is not really American. It comes from Europe, comes from Billy Wilder out of Austria, Germany; William Wyler was a Swiss German; Hitchcock, British; Lubitsch, Fritz Lang. None of these guys was American. And so the whole American film tradition, if we call it that, of narrative, they used genre to express a personal state. And I suppose the big break would be Rossellini who said personal cinema\u2019s where it\u2019s at. I find myself between these camps, stealing from genre in classical form, but also trying to express something very direct and intimate.<\/p>\n
\n\tDEADLINE: That\u2019s pretty good company to be stealing from. <\/p>\n
\n\tGRAY: No, no, I\u2019m not saying I\u2019m as good as they are. Please. Last thing I need in life is my brother to call me up and say, \u2018What, you think you\u2019re Rossellini?\u2019 I\u2019m saying you steal from the best, you know what I mean?<\/p>\n
\n\tDEADLINE: It\u2019s good to be an American filmmaker still talking that way and still being able, like you just said, for a budget, to be able to make these kinds of movies. We don\u2019t see them as much.<\/p>\n
\n\tGRAY: Well, I\u2019m very lucky, but there are a huge number of very talented filmmakers. I mean, you can express yourself in very different ways. I know that Paul Thomas Anderson wasn\u2019t a waterbed salesman in 1973, but that\u2019s a very personal film, Licorice Pizza. So he\u2019s able to express himself personally, even if it\u2019s not autobiographical, or even Chris Nolan\u2019s movies, even though the scale of Dark Knight is enormous, there\u2019s something that he gets at very personal with Heath Ledger. So you can do it. It\u2019s not about the facts of your life. There are a number of filmmakers who are able. Even someone like David O. Russell, whose comic timing is so incredibly good, but it comes from him, who he is. Each filmmaker from my generation, I\u2019m speaking specifically, has a way of expressing themselves personally through different means.<\/p>\n
\n\tI see also people slightly younger than I am with Damien Chazelle and with Ari Aster, you see also a real desire even when working outside of the confines of the autobiography to do something that\u2019s about interiority and our intimate impressions. So it\u2019s just that I\u2019ve been very fortunate in this particular register to be able to do something that\u2019s both personal and actually autobiographical at the same time.<\/p>\n
\n\tDEADLINE: And I think it\u2019s really cool you shot on film. You\u2019ve gone back to film after a little detour with Armageddon Time into digital, and now it\u2019s 35MM. And so they\u2019re going to see it at this New York premiere the way they showed them in the old days.<\/p>\n
\n\tGRAY: It does have an effect. It\u2019s incredible. I was almost poo-pooing the 35-millimeter print idea because I like DCP quite a bit. I have a very clear memory, Pete. You\u2019d go to the movies and it would be like a giant hair in the gate out of focus. I don\u2019t romanticize any of that stuff, so I\u2019m sort of in favor of DCP a lot of the time. But I will tell you, I just saw the print and it is a thing of beauty. When they brought up the idea, I said, \u201cGuys, you have to do it.\u201d And you realize that what we miss with 35-millimeter print is the elusiveness, the imperfectness of the image is actually weirdly part of the magic. You don\u2019t want perfection. The movement within the gate, the dirt, all of that stuff lends to, as Walter Murch once said, \u201cimperfection allows art to breathe.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tDEADLINE: Now, this movie, Paper Tiger, I thought was so intriguing in terms of what you are interested in, your Russian background, and particularly at that time in 1986. What fascinates you about that period? Because Armageddon Time was also involved in the \u201980s.<\/p>\n
\n\tGRAY: Well, it\u2019s a great question because the whole idea of it is that you\u2019re seeing it now. Back in the \u201980s, you had the end of a moment where you had the American system, market economics, and you had the socialist dictatorships of the Soviet Union and communist China. And so what happened? Market reforms begin to come in China, and the Soviet Union begins to crumble\u2026 and Chernobyl obviously really emphasized what was going on there. And that alternative to the market fell away. So the model became only American capitalism. Now, I\u2019m in favor of that because I think it\u2019s the best of all systems we\u2019ve devised so far. It\u2019s led to tremendous explosion of wealth, but it has its huge drawbacks, and one of them is the kind of brutality in the system. And so when I had decided to make this film, it was that time period because it\u2019s when the competition of systems started to fall away.<\/p>\n
\n\tDEADLINE: It\u2019s very relevant to what we\u2019re looking at now. A lot of these kind of themes running through this movie, you could say that was then and it\u2019s the same now. It\u2019s actually worse now what we\u2019re seeing with the billionaire kind of thing.<\/p>\n
\n\tGRAY: Absolutely. And Pete, the origin of, you\u2019re exactly right, this whole idea of the oligarch, this is born around that period and it really calcifies when [Boris] Yeltsin takes power in \u201991, when the Soviet Union idea falls away, that was the oligarchs asserting their power. But where do the oligarchs come from? It\u2019s from this kind of cultural undertow. Now we didn\u2019t know, but you know this, we didn\u2019t discuss this in 1986. We didn\u2019t know anything about any of this.<\/p>\n
\n\tDEADLINE: How important was casting this with actors from New York, like Scarlett, also Adam who lives there, and even Miles who is from New Jersey?<\/p>\n
\n\tGRAY: With a New York movie, it doesn\u2019t matter what you\u2019re doing. You\u2019re going to get somebody who goes, \u201cWhat? You talking like deez?\u201d But that is the truth. At some point, you have to address the fact that I don\u2019t talk like I\u2019m from Chicago. So in order to get it right, I almost felt like the shortcut. Scarlett is a New Yorker and gets it completely, and her accent is completely accurate. Now, some people are going to say, \u201cOh, she sounds so New York, blah, blah, blah.\u201d But that\u2019s the truth of it. So I wanted to get past having an actor from England do it, and just get the real thing. And if it\u2019s too much for people, that\u2019s their issue.<\/p>\n
\n\tDEADLINE: Can I ask you about the Aeschylus quote you put up on the screen that opens the film? It seems to really sum it all up theme-wise. \u201cLet there be wealth without tears; enough for the wise man who will ask no further.\u201d I mean that is a key thing really relating to the time we are living in right now.<\/p>\n
\n\tGRAY: Yeah, exactly. At some point, we have to reckon with the fact, and I think making as much money as you can is great. I don\u2019t have an issue with that. That\u2019s fine. But I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the only thing that matters in your life. I think that people who consider only that, they\u2019re in for a world of hurt because love matters much more. Connection, the human connection is much more important. Aeschylus knew some things, but it was not just because I want it to be, I hope it doesn\u2019t come across as pretentious\u2026 it is just so you understand the bigger context of what\u2019s going to come.<\/p>\n
\n\tDEADLINE: About the importance of family and the real definition of wealth.<\/p>\n
\n\tGRAY: And it\u2019s partly because it\u2019s ingrained in us that we\u2019re supposed to keep growing, keep getting richer, this idea. And he (Miles Teller\u2019s character) says it, he says, \u201cI had everything.\u201d Hard to know that.<\/p>\n
\n\tDEADLINE: You have Neon distributing this movie, which is interesting to me because apart from Anora, horror, some others, they\u2019ve been doing a lot of foreign-language pictures and that sort of thing. This is a little bit different for them.<\/p>\n
\n\tGRAY: It is. I mean, I have to say, I have had a fantastic time with them. I mean, they are so respectful, but not too respectful. I don\u2019t claim to have knowledge about exactly how to release and market a movie in 2026. I\u2019m not sure anybody does, by the way. And they\u2019re very happy to push back when I\u2019m being silly, but they\u2019re also really happy to listen, and they\u2019re really open, and they love the film, and they want to support it, and that\u2019s all you can ask for. They\u2019ve been great.<\/p>\n
\n\tDEADLINE: Oh, that\u2019s cool. And they\u2019re going to do a big Oscar campaign, I\u2019m hearing. They\u2019ve already figured out who\u2019s supporting, who\u2019s leading, all that stuff that goes with the territory. <\/p>\n
\n\tGRAY: Yes, that\u2019s the first time in my career actually, which is weird, but you see why it\u2019s happened because generally the films don\u2019t come out (in the fall season), so this is the first time I\u2019ve had a picture come out at this time frame and with people who want to support it in that way. It\u2019s wonderful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Gray has quite a track record this century when it comes to appearing in the official competition…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[113253,9,14115,11,10,113252,1120],"class_list":["post-357430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-james-gray","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-film-festival","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-paper-tiger","tag-qa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}