LOVE IN LAKELAND
Supernova, a new film starring Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci, puts the Lake District centre stage. Nige Tassell talks to its director Harry Macqueen
Moving new film Supernova, starring Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci, puts the Lake District landscapes at centre stage.
Writer/director Harry Macqueen is explaining the thought processes behind his new film Supernova. Its centrepiece is a road trip to the Lake District taken by a middle-aged couple: novelist Tusker, played by Stanley Tucci, and Colin Firth’s concert pianist Sam. They are paying a visit to Sam’s childhood home, now the residence of his sister and her husband. But this isn’t a simple, happy homecoming.
Tusker is suffering from early-onset dementia and both are silently aware that this may be their last trip north that his condition will allow. As such, it’s an emotionally riveting, deeply affecting study of two people in love coming to terms with the encroachment of mortality.
Supernova might only be the second film Macqueen has directed, but it’s not the first road movie he has committed to celluloid. That was his Cornwall-set debut, 2014’s
Hinterland. Sharing themes of love and change, the two films certainly feel like companion pieces based around a similar premise: the undertaking of a road trip to revisit old haunts and past lives.
But where Hinterland deals with the attempted rekindling of youth, Supernova tackles the overriding issue of late middle-age: the dimming of the day. It was no coincidence that it was shot, and is set, in autumn.
“The seasonal aspect was really important,” confirms Macqueen. “Tusker and Sam are in the autumn of their lives and there’s a beauty to that. The depth of their love for each other is mirrored by the depth and warmth of colour in that landscape. The colours are so deep and resonant in the Lake District at that time of year. It really made sense to shoot it then.”
LIBERATING LAKES
Macqueen knows the northern lakes well; his actor uncle Peter Macqueen, who plays Sam’s brother-in-law Clive, has lived just outside Keswick for the past 10 years and his nephew has been a frequent visitor. Macqueen also made several recces north with the celebrated cinematographer Dick Pope, scouting out ideal locations for particular scenes. “We drove around a lot and we talked a lot. And the story re-formed itself throughout that collaboration as I saw someone else’s visual input. That can liberate you from your own stuck-in-the-mud thoughts.”
The film was shot entirely on location over six weeks in the pre-lockdown autumn of 2019, with crew and cast all staying together in holiday lodges on a site around 10 miles
We don’t make road movies very much in this country. It’s not part of our cinematic tradition. I wanted to challenge that
outside Keswick. “Ironically, it was the perfect set-up for a pandemic shoot,” explains Macqueen, “even if we didn’t know it at the time. I know it sounds corny, but it really did feel like a big, extended family – living together, eating together, working together.”
Film shoots are often transient places, with actors and crew members working on set for a couple of days at a time before disappearing. “Whether on a film set or a building site, that’s a weird way to work. So if you can manage to get everyone in the same place for the whole time, it really, really helps – especially if you can all pile into the bar in the evening and have a pint together.”
Colin Firth confirms the togetherness. “There’s a particular vibe to the Lake District that we all felt. We were all tuned to the same frequency. We saw nobody but each other for six weeks. Stan and I were joined at the hip.”
It was the first time that New Yorker Tucci, a London resident for nearly a decade, had visited the Lakes. “I was in awe. We all stayed in these holiday homes on this little river, and even though it rained every day and kept getting colder and colder, to the point that it started to snow towards the end, I didn’t mind because I loved being there.”
STORY OVER SETTING
Macqueen, though, resisted the temptation of letting the landscape overwhelm the story. The Lakes are the film’s clear location, but they don’t steal any scenes. This is not an extended advert for the local tourist board.
“That was exactly the plan. Right from the start, we made sure we weren’t making a chocolate-box version of England that doesn’t really exist. The Lake District is obviously an incredible, awe-inspiring place, but it’s also brutal.