Filmmaker Rod Lurie on Straw Dogs, His Critics and Sam Peckinpah: 'I'm Certainly More Optimistic'

You and Peckinpah, through your respective Straw Dogs, seem to have very different views on humanity.

That's exactly it. It's really interesting because the reviews I'm reading seem to be divided between people who understand that and people who don't get it, who are simply hung up on saying, "Well, if he doesn't have Peckinpah's themes then he doesn't have any themes at all." The truth is that I do have a very different view of humanity; I think Peckinpah was essentially a pessimist about man, and if you read his interviews around the time of Straw Dogs it's very depressing to read what he has to say about humankind. I'm certainly more optimistic. I think that at the very least, we can be saved by our parents and saved by the society around us. It just depends on how those entities behave.

You wrote David Sumner as a Hollywood screenwriter instead of a mathematician as he is in the original film. On top of that, he's got a line emphasizing that he's a screenwriter, not a director. What was the thinking behind this -- was it personal for you?

Oh, that was just funny. I think he's trying to say that he doesn't believe that directors really work. [Laughs] There wasn't any real thinking behind that, to be honest with you. My girlfriend said to me, "I just realized that you are David." And I said, "No, I'm not! But he's who I want to be." I sort of want to have that inside of me, that courage and that conviction and that intellectualism. I think I probably come short in all of those areas.

Well, your Straw Dogs may be a film that makes the screenwriters of the world happy nonetheless, because --

We kick ass!

Yes! And David's story seems to speak to the loss of control that writers often feel in the filmmaking world.

Yes, but I think that at the end of the film David is very much in control. It's sort of what I was going for.

What I found more interesting even than what happens to David is what happens to Amy, whom we are made to understand really well but through subtle means, via the writing and Kate Bosworth's performance.

I think so, too -- but Jen, do you mean to say that as a professional interviewer of filmmakers you expect me to sit here and talk to you about the end of the film? [Laughs]

Well, here's what I'm getting at, without revealing what happens in the film: I just feel that by film's end, Amy has much more of an understanding of what has happened to the both of them.

Oh my God, you have that exactly right. The most dramatic thing that I wanted to change was in the portrayal of women in general in this film. I think she's a much different character than the one played by the great Susan George -- she's independent, she's fierce, she's more a partner in their marriage. And I think that it's a feminist film. I think there's a lot of women-fearing at the end of this film, and I'll tell you what, they weren't fearing at the end of the other one. That's not simply because she picks up a gun; I think her entire characterization is very important. I don't want to give away what happens but there's a pivotal scene in the middle of the movie that is very different than the Peckinpah version which was very controversial. Mine is equally controversial, but not because of how it depicts women or what it says about women. I have a daughter whom I love, I have a mom who I love, I have sisters who I love... The truth is that I couldn't get into the groove with Peckinpah's version of women in general. As great a filmmaker as he is, we have a very different outlook on life and on women, I think.

Without giving away that spoiler, I appreciated that there was less ambiguity in that key scene.

Right. And the truth is, a lot of people that are reading this right now who are familiar with the earlier film are rolling their eyes, saying, "Come on, stop being so coy -- we all know what happened in that scene!" But the truth is, when Sony did a poll on the movie before we shot it, we found out that something like less than 5 percent of the population even knew about the original Straw Dogs, let alone had seen it. So this comes as a complete spoiler to almost everybody who sees the film. I'm just not interested in discussing it in too great of a detail, other than to tell you that Kate and I had, amongst ourselves, a fundamental difference of opinion with the original of how that scene should be depicted.

That's an interesting point -- to audiences today who haven't seen the original, Straw Dogs may sound like just a genre action thriller...

I think it can be viewed in many different ways. It could be viewed simply as a genre thriller, and I'd bet you people who [liked] Saw would have a great time as they're watching it. But then there are people who do look at it as an anthropological film, and there are people that look at it as a plight among cinema because I dared to heretically remake Sam Peckinpah.

How do you feel a remake -- which is admittedly a simplistic term to use -- fits into your filmmaking career, as opposed to making original films?

I'll tell you, I really look at the remake as a genre unto itself. And there are some people from whom we would welcome remakes. For example, if we had heard that Quentin Tarantino was going to remake The Wild Bunch, we probably wouldn't have a problem with it. We'd say, "I wonder what he's going to do?" Or if the Coen brothers were to remake The Sting: "That's going to be interesting..." A remake should be an homage, for one thing, but people have to realize -- and I think they do -- we're not painting mustaches on the Mona Lisa. The film is still there. In fact, the very release of my film has prompted the release of a Blu-ray of the original Straw Dogs, which no one has been able to see up until now. I'll bet you that somewhere down there, or up there, Peckinpah's very happy that his movie's going to get a brand new lease on life, as they say.

What are you planning to work on next?

What's next in my life, what I want to work on now, is a little bit of my self-esteem and my relationships with others... [Laughs] I have a deal to create a show for NBC right now, so that's my next immediate order of business. And I'm going to choose between a couple of films. It's going to take me a little while to figure out. But the TV show is my absolute next priority.

Lastly: Does your background as a film critic make it any easier to read reviews of your own films?

It makes it easier in that I really understand not to take it personally, except those times when it is personal -- very personal. There's one critic who just wrote an attack on me that was extremely personal, it obviously comes from within his heart against me and not against the film necessarily. So I've had to deal with that a little bit. But I know what goes into the mind of a film critic, or at least the mind that I had as a film critic. So I know not to take it too personally. On the other hand, I respect so many of these guys that when they love the film it's very important to me and when it doesn't, it really makes me start to question myself. I got out of the film critic business primarily because I wasn't a very good one, I thought, so when I read reviews of the critics I do admire and they're negative on my film that means a lot. And when they're positive, it also means a great deal. But there are so many film critics right now because of the Internet that you just can't keep track of all of them. You just sort of hope for the best.

Straw Dogs is in theaters today.

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