Craig Grobler writes for Live for Films.
Last year I was fortunate enough to sit in on a panel with the team behind Ironclad that included; Andrew Curtis (Producer) and Jonathan English (Writer, Producer & Director) as well as actors; James Purefoy, Aneurin Bernard and Jason Flemyng.
Not only did I manage to cheekily ask both James Purefoy and Jason Flemyng questions relating to other projects.
“Craig Grobler: Will we see another Solomon Kane?
James Purefoy: I was in Mexico yesterday doing press for South America, we don’t have distribution in the US yet because the producers own the rights and studios don’t like that. But I’m confident we’ll get that, and then we’ll see about a sequel. Which would be set in Africa”
If you haven’t read my review of the medieval action packed Ironclad it can be found here!
So when the possibility of gaining some further insight into the making of Ironclad from Director Jonathan English came up I jumped at the chance. Please note this interview contains some spoilers as well as may depress some of you as Jonathan had just flown in from L.A. and even though he is majorly jetlagged, he is clearly still twice as sharp as most of us on a good day.
Jonathan English: I love medieval action movies and too be honest there aren’t enough of them. I have been interested in making a film set in the Middle Age period for awhile. Even as a kid and loving historical action adventure films – I wanted to make one, a movie like The Warlord with Charlton Heston. That was a big inspiration.
Also I was always a complete castle nut as a kid and was fortunate to visit many of the castles around England, Scotland and Wales. For some reason, and even though I grew up in the Surrey/Kent area, I had never been to Rochester Castle. About 4 years ago after finishing my last film…
I didn’t clarify – but I presume this may have been Minotaur, an Iron Age fantasy adventure starring Tom Hardy
…I visited Rochester Castle one morning and was completely struck by the castle which still stands today, in fact the Norman Keep in Ironclad is still pretty much intact.
I was completely taken by the atmosphere of the place. Walking around I started to get some insight into the history of the castle from the English Heritage notice boards posted around the castle.
Most of them focus on a siege – when, after signing the Magna Carta King John was trying to take back control of England. He raised an army of mercenaries and had laid siege to various castles in Southern England. On his way towards London he was confronted by Rochester Castle and the small band of rebels who had taken the castle from him – as it was a Royal Castle.
Paul Giamatti as completely bonkers King John in IroncladHe then lay siege to the castle, which lasted six months and ended up being one of the longest and bloodiest sieges in Medieval England’s history.
Anyway, you can read about the siege and some of the incidents that occurred on the Heritage boards. Including the story of a tunnel being built and filled with pigs eventually causing the entire side of the castle to collapse. All of that actually happened.
A lot of the key events in the film were actually taken from historical fact, literally as I read them from the boards that morning on my first visit. It was one of those moments that when walking out of the building that morning I thought that would make an amazing film.
That, and it was it was very clear that the narrative leaned towards a kind of a composite Seven Samurai or Magnificent Seven type of story.
Craig Grobler: You mentioned, drawing on historical fact for Ironclad. I had bit of a look around and depending on which website or book you browse the story of King John and the siege of Rochester Castle varies. I was wondering in the bigger picture how true to history is Ironclad?
Jonathan English: From my research it’s actually very close. A lot of the characters are real, obviously King John (Paul Giamatti), Steven Langton the Archbishop of Canterbury played by Charles Dance is real, he was one of the people that wrote the Magna Carta, the character that Brian Cox plays Baron Albany was one of the rebel Barons that signed the Magna Carta then went to Rochester Castle and died in the battle there.
The character that Derek Jacobi plays, The Sherriff of Kent, Sherriff Cornhill was the Sherriff of Kent, he did live in the Castle and he did have an 18 year old wife. Very little is actually known about those two though.
James Purefoy as Templar Knight Marshall in IroncladThe heroes, the characters that James Purefoy, Jason Flemyng, Jamie Foreman and Mackenzie Crook play. All those heroes are fictional characters based on composite personalities that I came across during my medieval research.
But as I say the events of the story – King John signing the Magna Carta, then making some kind of deal with the Vatican, specifically Pope Innocent III who outlawed the Magna Carta. It was actually declared an illegal document and anyone who supported it would be excommunicated from the Catholic Church.
With that papal blessing King John then raised an army of something like 5000 mercenaries that he brought over from Flanders, he then set about laying waste to towns, villages and castles all over Southern England in an effort to regain control of England. You don’t learn a lot of this in the English High School curriculum but it is all true.
I think there were actually something like 60 or 100 men inside Rochester Castle against an army of something like 5000, so the real numbers are actually larger than in the film but the odds are fairly similar. The siege did last for 6 months and famously the people inside the castle survived on horsemeat and water. There are lots of stories at the castle of what people did to get through the long siege.
Digging the mine is a very famous incident in King John’s history, if you ever read any biographies of King John. They all refer to a particular memo he dictated during the Siege of Rochester, where he said “bring me 40 pigs at least good for eating, so I can bring down the castle”.
When, I found that being repeated across biographies I thought I better have that in the film. Digging mines was a fairly typical strategy for sieging castles. But what I didn’t know was that they then filled the mines with pigs, which are combustible and burn at incredibly high temperatures, the heat actually splits rock, destabilising the foundations. Which sounds like a crazy idea, but you couldn’t invent this stuff, and based on my research completely true.
Jonathan English: That’s not something I was necessarily aware of. What he was good at – was being a brilliant administrator. He was noted for introducing a much more sophisticated and rigid form of accounting and book keeping to England, perhaps as he needed to know where the money was.He introduced a degree of administrative recording that had not existed at that time in England. I think he was actually a lot more learned and educated than he is given credit for. He was quite an academic and a learned man. So it possible that he may have known about sieging and warfare strategy as part of his Royal Education.
Jonathan English: Yea, exactly.
The other thing that King John is known for is old English folk lore. Growing up in England, as a school boy I heard these stories about one of the most famous long lost treasures of English history. King John’s treasure – which he lost in The Wash. The Wash is a large area of marshy waters in East Anglia. But what I didn’t realise is how that was connected to the story of the sieges.
When he left Rochester, chased by the French army, he tried to cross East Anglia to get away and that is where King John lost his treasure. Which is all true as well.
There are a lot of other interesting references as well, things I was familiar with but had not connected to them to the story.
Craig Grobler: The visual style of Ironclad is very distinctive, very kinetic and I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about it?
Jonathan English: I wanted to make an action film that was certainly inspired by adventure films of the 60s, movies like The Warlord but that had a much more modern, fresh, 21st Century filmmaking style to it. Modern films that I really loved and inspired by were the Jason Bourne films, so I was heavily influenced by that style of shooting.
The Director of Photography is an Australian DOP called David Eggby. The reason David became involved was because he shot the original Mad Max and Pitch Black. David is very physical; he shot Mad Max from the back of a motor bike travelling at 100 miles an hour. And 35 years later the movie still stands up; it’s still shocking and striking. I think he brought a certain intensity and violence to the photography and you feel it.
Then combining David Eggby with Florian Emmerich, who is a German Camera Operator, he is in fact the Camera Operator of the Bourne movies. It was a very conscious decision to combine someone with David’s pedigree, history and experience with that very modern operating style that Florian brings. Florian is one of Paul Greengrass’ regular operators and it was an absolute pleasure to have David & Florian working together.
In my mind there had not being a historical film, certainly not of this period shot in that , gritty, hand-held, slightly documentary style, most of the film is shot hand-held as well as predominantly with long lenses. I wanted to engage the audience and put them into a medieval battle. Which had not really been done before.
Typically with medieval movies you feel they are beautifully composed in a traditional sense. I felt there is no reason you have to shoot it that way, why couldn’t you shoot a 13th Century film like a Bourne film? Typically we feel that style is only appropriate for contemporary films. There are certain scenes that did lean towards a more traditional approach like the scenes at Canterbury.
Craig Grobler: That does raise a question regarding financing, when it comes to pitching an independent feature primarily shot hand-held of subject matter traditionally being shot in a grand or epic style. Was it difficult to raise capital? Was it an extraordinarily long road?
Jonathan English: If you mean was it influenced or hindered by that shooting style, not at all. The question of how difficult was it to raise finance for the film was related more to the scale and size of the film, it is a fairly ambitious film to make independently. As well as, whether we would be able to produce the film in a way that we would be able to put all the production value that we wanted on the screen.
Craig Grobler: A slightly lighter question, the title Ironclad what does it mean?
Jonathan English: You know, I don’t know that it actually means anything beyond its literal meaning of people clad or clothed in iron. Some people thought it may be a reference to an ironclad contract like the Magna Carta. To me it’s really just a description of a period that people wore iron.
I really like the word and for me titles are where a movie experience starts. And it has to convey the experience of watching the movie and something about Ironclad completely summed up the experience of the film I had in my mind.
Craig Grobler: Ironclad is shot in a very distinctive style and has its own tone I was wondering if this was a signature style you might take forward? Also, if I may, I was wondering what your next project might be?
Jonathan English: I can tell you that what I would love to do is a contemporary action film in the style of the Bourne films or Taken, something like that.I really like this filmmaking style not just because of the Bourne movies but I like the freshness, the grittiness, the realism of it. I think possibly applying a realistic style to genre film-making. Some of my favourite films are The Exorcist and The French Connection, that period of Friedkin’s career is amazing.
I am keen to work in this style on other projects, but I’m sure that during my career I will experiment with other styles.
I have to say, I’m so glad that Jonathan said that, my enthusiasm levels shot right up. I was however disappointed that the interview was coming to a close because as far as I am concerned William Friedkin is one of the action greats along with Don Spiegel, John Frankenheimer, Michael Mann, Clint Eastwood and Sam Peckinpah and I could have easily discussed his works for another 30 minutes. My favourite Friedkin film is from a little later in career and along with viewing Ironclad (of course) you should try get hold of the Region 1 only 80s classic To Live and Die in L.A. it’s one of those films were everything comes together in one great piece of film-making.
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