A Conversation with the Creators of "Sunday", Part I: Patience & Pre-production

Nossiter: Absolutely. James and I worked on the script for a couple of years. It was a very honed and polished piece of work. We had written it with an openness. If you look at the script, James is a very distinguished poet and writer and I think you can see his mark, the level of craft and polish and is very much a part of the way James writes. There were things that were left open to allow it to breath. We got the best of both worlds, because I think the film has the benefit of a very disciplined and very talented craftsmen- writer. That sort of level of polish and understanding of the way words and stories can be shaped and at the same time, it benefited from my incompetence and my desire to keep things open.

James Lasdun: You always wanted both those things. You wanted us to work out a real screenplay, but you also wanted the option of improvisation. And we filmed both. And a lot of the best moments are improvised. Some of the best lines were improvised by the actors.

Nossiter: But they only exist. . .

iW: Because of the framework you set up.

Nossiter: Which is something that a lot of people don't understand. They think that improvisation in itself has merit and it doesn't. I think that we had written something that allowed the actors both to have something concrete to work off of, but they could feel there was this spirit of openness. Even the writing of the script came out of a fairly complex ping-pong match between me and James and our experiences. My experience in Queens over many years and James's experience in the shelter. We were drawing on concrete things that had some resonance. I got James to hang out in Queens and James got me to work in the shelter.

iW: The scenes in the shelter are incredibly authentic -- very, very real. It occurred to me that some of this must have been improved. And I wondered how much was developed?

JL: It's hard to say. They were actors, they weren't homeless people. The only guy, maybe was the Chinese guy, he didn't live in the shelter. . .

Nossiter: But he's virtually homeless. There was something extremely moving about him, very beautiful, tragic, but also, to me, it's indicative of the intention of the spirit of the film, there was something incredibly moving about him, but he was never maudlin or sentimental. He didn't evoke a sentimental response. He didn't ask you to pity him. He evoked real emotion, but he has a dignity and a pride, which is sort of surprising given also the inherent comic element.

There is a misconception among some people in their reaction to the film. I wouldn't say it's common, but I've seen it enough to remark on it. They think it's a film about misery, because it's about middle age people which is not very trendy in America. Because it looks at some of the problems that are involved with being on the edge of middle class and the underclass, not for a second did either one of us, or one of the actors, think that we were engaging in some sort of descent into horror or depression. It's quite the opposite. You know the point is that people haven't given up. There's nothing remotely depressing about human beings who are still struggling. What I find depressing is complacency and lack of imagination, lack of sympathy.

And when I see those elements in a film, no matter how happy the apparent ending is, I find that so dispiriting. And I think most people do. And I think people who make those kinds of films deeply underestimate the sophistication and intelligence of an ordinary moviegoer. I see this film all the way has a very strong energy to it, not at all pessimistic, not at all cynical, not at all downbeat.

(Nossiter turns to his VCR where we look at videotape that was shot a year and a half before shooting "Sunday". The Queens locations and stray homeless people look as if they are scenes from his film or should I say, they are scenes from Queens that he has lifted for his film.)

Nossiter: In low-budget filmmaking, you have the obvious disadvantage of not having money, but the huge advantage you have, the huge benefit you have is time. And in that time, you can compensate. I would make no apologies if the film doesn't work or displeases people. I would never say it's because we didn't have enough money. I think you can make things succeed and fail on their own merits if you take advantage of the fact that you have the time to engage and explore -- this is the advantage we have over the 50 million dollar movie.

The fact that first of all we could build it out of the years of experience that James had, that I could, during the writing of the film, spend a year and a half in this place, that I could take the time to build up relationships, which were safely established by James, build on those relationships, gain their trust, and after 6 months say, look, I'd like to bring a video camera in, I'd like to start a relationship with the lens. I wanted to develop this relationship so when I come in here to shoot, I'm not searching for something. It's invaluable. It's a huge benefit that people don't realize about low-budget filmmaking.

[For more on the collaborative process and set politics of Nossiter and Lasdun's "Sunday", the interview is continued in part 2]