Director worked with family, book author for ‘The Devil All the Time’
Filmmaker Antonio Campos is drawn to the darkness.
The director of 2012’s “Simon Killer” and 2016’s “Christine” — as well as episodes of shows including “The Sinner” and “The Punisher” — co-wrote and helmed an adaptation of Donald Ray Pollock’s 2011 gothic crime novel “The Devil All the Time.” Hitting Netflix Sept. 16, the film is filled with grim themes and populated with people who commit evil acts.
“I think it is the challenge of making these dark characters — complicated characters — accessible and trying to understand what drives them and what motivates some of their bad choices,” said Campos, speaking recently to a handful of journalists via Zoom, about the appeal of fare such as “Devil.” “I think that exploring the darkness in books and art and movies — that’s a safe place to explore those things.
“It’s largely about finding the humanity in people who do bad things.
“To understand that side of the coin informs the way we perceive … life.”
Pollock’s story gave Campos and older brother Paulo, his co-writer, plenty of characters — some darker than others — to explore. “Devil” is a multiple-generation story centered around Arvin Russell (Tom Holland, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Spider-Man), who is driven to protect his likewise-orphaned sister, Lenora (Eliza Scanlen of “Sharp Objects”), and who encounters all sorts of notso-lovely folks in his journey from childhood into adulthood.
The drama brings to the small screen an ensemble cast full of well-known actors, and Campos acknowledges that introducing — and then juggling — so many characters without overwhelming the viewer is challenging.
“What we had to do with this movie was introduce characters in the periphery and then let them be known by the audience so, when they come back, that you’re ready to go with them,” he says. “And that’s kind of why you have to cast some of these actors with recognizable faces because if … you’re like, ‘Oh that’s Jason Clarke; that’s Riley Keough,’ you go, ‘Oh, they’re going to be in this movie again.
“That’s something subconsciously that’s happening when you’re watching that go down,” he continues. “When they come back, you’re ready for it.”
Set largely in Pollock’s small southern Ohio hometown, Knockemstiff, “The Devil All the Time” also boasts Sebastian Stan (“Captain America: The Winter Soldier”), as a corrupt sheriff, and Robert Pattinson (“Twilight,” “Tenet”) as a charismatic — and sleazy — preacher named Preston Teagardin.
The latter character is intended to add some juice to the middle section of the film, which, Campos says, is helped by Pattinson’s heightened performance.
“We always wanted Teagardin to have this otherworldly quality,” he says. “He’s designed to come into the movie and shake it up.”
During the shoot, Campos says, he gave Pattinson a big canvas on which to paint.
“I was really like, ‘Just go as far as you want to go. Just swing for the fences, and if we have to rein it in, we will,’” he recalls. “But I just love performances like that.
“That was really the mandate across the board. I think everybody in this film pushes themselves into places they might not have gone before.”
Family is important to the film, so it’s fitting Campos wrote the film with his brother and finished it with his wife, editor Sofía Subercaseaux.
Asked at different times if there was a scene he changed much from how it exists in the novel and if he had a scene of which he was most proud, he cites a confrontation between Arvin and the preacher, which he and Paulo moved from a different location into the reverend’s church.
“(The scene) was like theater — it was two people sitting there, looking at each other, having a conversation,” he says. “When you have this very simple setup, you spend so much time designing it so every shot, every moment, feels really rich.
“(And later Subercaseaux and he) worked on that (scene) in some way every day for eight months. I went to bed thinking about that scene; I woke up thinking about that scene. It was like this obsession.”
As for working with Paulo, he says it was great and that they shared a connection to the material.
“My brother is the guy who introduced me to so many different books and movies and music when I was a kid. So much of the reason I love these genres is my brother turned (me on to them).”
They’d work on drafts of the script for hours, sometimes until 5 or 6 a.m., which may help to explain why things could get a bit tense between them.
“You know, you have some of the biggest fights you’ll ever have with someone when you work with them that closely,” he says, “and you’ll also get closer to them in a way you’ll never get without that experience.”
Religion is a constant presence in “The Devil All the Time,” and in the film’s director’s statement, Campos says he grew up with a “devout Catholic Italian mother and grandparents” but that he also was influenced by his Brazilian father, who grew disillusioned with religion after years of Catholic school
In the film, religion’s eschewed by Arvin in part because he saw how it influenced his father’s decisions, but Willard Russell (Bill Skarsgaard) isn’t the only character to act in dramatic ways out of an intense belief in — or abuse of — Christianity.
“The movie is about extreme believers in religion and their faith and the dangers of that,” Campos says during the interview. “All these characters are screaming to the heavens, looking for answers, and what they get in return is silence — and in that void they fill it with an answer themselves. If it is a person who is traumatized or delusional, they can fill it with a dangerous answer.
“The film is exploring the dangers of extreme religion and how people with power can take advantage of people’s faith,” he continues. “That’s what we’re exploring. The film isn’t anti-religion; it’s more a comment on the danger of religion in the wrong hands.”
As is the case with many adaptations of novels, “The Devil All the Time” makes use of a narrator, the Campos brothers beginning to work voiceover into the second draft of their script where they felt they needed it. However, unlike most adaptations — perhaps unlike any — this one has the author serve as the unseen voice.
“From the moment we started implementing narration,” Campos says, “there was no other person in my mind than Donald Ray Pollock. I knew his voice was perfect. It was a voice that was born and raised in Knockemstiff, Ohio. What actor are you going to get that is going to be able to replicate the feel of that specific place?”
Campos used Pollock’s original narration while putting together the film, but then he and his wife found spots where they wanted additional recordings from the writer. They’d email Pollock, he says, who’d shoot back quickly with audio clips of various reads of the same material, including an “alt take” with a bit of “spice” to it.
“It was a really great collaborative process,” Campos says. “His voice was so important to the book, and I was happy we found a way of incorporating it, literally, in the movie.”
“I think it is the challenge of making these dark characters — complicated characters — accessible and trying to understand what drives them and what motivates some of their bad choices. ... It’s largely about finding the humanity in people who do bad things.”