USA TODAY International Edition
Filmmakers go deep to make Netflix’s ‘ Dig’
Brace yourself for some cold movie truths: Actual archaeology is not the swashbuckling adventure seen in Indiana Jones movies.
The reality of the achingly deliberate work required to unearth even the grandest archaeological treasure presented a major hurdle for “The Dig” ( streaming now on Netflix), which centers around the historic 1939 Sutton Hoo excavation of a treasure- packed seventh- century Anglo- Saxon burial ship and cemetery in an English field.
“Archaeological movies tend to be quite sensational. Indiana Jones is always stealing things from tombs,” says archaeologist Roy Stephenson, who consulted on “The Dig.” “It’s quite slow and painstaking, so potentially an archaeological excavation could be like watching paint dry. But they made a special story here.”
“The Dig” filmmakers tapped into the human drama of the famed find involving amateur archaeologist Basil Brown ( Ralph Fiennes) and the site’s wealthy widowed landowner Edith Pretty ( Carey Mulligan) and added a side love story involving a young archaeologist ( Lily James).
But the big draw is the striking screen creation, the impressively rebuilt Sutton Hoo excavation site where the 100foot- long Viking ship was uncovered.
“We had to do it for real,” says director Simon Stone. “The reason we invest in unusual stories about these weird worlds is because you can feel the fabric of truth in everything you are watching. You need to present what it’s like to be there, the shock of sudden discoveries. If we had created that artificially, the audience would’ve smelled that a mile away.”
Creating the odd, grass- covered burial mounds, then re- creating the uncovering of the massive Anglo- Saxon ship imprinted in the soil ( the ship’s wood had decayed over the centuries), was a tremendous undertaking.
Six massive mounds were formed on a farm in Surrey, just outside of London, to simulate the original field, with each covered in seeds and fertilized weeks before production started to allow wild grass and weeds to flourish as they had in the 1930s.
Two of the mounds were used for the early stages of the dig. A third was dug up to replicate the outline of the ship – with the crisp imprint rendered in fiberglass. “It was awesome. It made the hairs stand on my neck,” says Stephenson of surveying the site.
The digging of the ship was shot in reverse order to allow increasing amounts of soil to be added for earlier scenes of discovery.
“It was a challenge, filming and imagining what it would feel like to finish this job and then moving backward to earlier joys of the discovery,” says Stone.
During the movie’s fall shoot, the location was swamped in powerful rainstorms that “made it look like a disaster zone,” says Stone.
The set, and earth, had to be restored as if it was sitting in the hot, sunny summer of 1939 rather than 2019 drenching rain. When a storm was called for in the story, the rain stopped. “It was raining when it shouldn’t rain, and then not raining when we wanted it to rain,” says Stone. “We had to bring in huge rain machines.”
Fiennes was adamant that the smallest dig movement be archaeologically correct after cast training. Stephenson was given “carte blanche” to interrupt any incorrect digging. “It’s a real eyeopener that film teams put so much effort into authenticity,” he says.
The British actor also took the ultimate realistic measure, filming a scene where his character is entirely engulfed in soil from a collapsing wall and has to be dug out by a team lead by Mulligan’s Pretty.
A stunt double was hired, but Fiennes insisted on doing the scene himself, pointing to a passage where Brown says, “I come from this soil, I know this soil. And I have lived my life knowing the earth around here.”
“I cannot in good conscience say those words, and know I did the comfortable thing before stepping in once all the hard work was done,” Fiennes told Stone.
The scene required Fiennes to have his body buried for long stretches, and the moment of having his entire head covered in soil lasted about 30 seconds before he was uncovered dramatically before the camera.
“It’s remarkable to watch the realism of a moment like that,” says Stone, who estimates there were five takes of his leading man being covered in soil. “But we did find ways which did not always involve having to bury Ralph Fiennes alive.”
Fiennes was the ultimate Method perfectionist, tackling not only the distinct regional Suffolk accent but also having his local vocal coach teach him dialect and words that would conform to the 1930s. The Shakespearean actor never departed from his ineloquent character during the shoot.
“It’s such a difficult accent. He had nothing he could rely on in his body memory for how that person should be. So he had to just stay there,” says Stone. “He was like ‘ This is me, and this is me for the whole shoot.’ He took the Daniel Day- Lewis mantle.”
Stone says that Fiennes would sign all his emails, even text messages as Basil.
“Even a couple of months ago, he still ended an email ‘ X Basil,’ “says Stone. “But I got one from him yesterday signed ‘ Love, Ralph.’ So I think he has freed himself. Now that the world can carry the story, he can let it go.”