In a dark room swarmed by publicists, Donald Sutherland is illuminated by the spotlights on his slicked-back silver hair. I stand to shake his hand. Even though he’s seated, his towering body puts us at eye level. A robust handshake from him near snaps my fingers and though he’s 75 years old, I find myself blushing over his sheer machismo. “Thank you for agreeing to this,” I say. Then comes that haunting velvet voice, “oh, I didn’t agree to anything, I just do what I’m told,” he says, flashing a wicked smile. It’s a slow start as I wait for him to finish a fistful of grapes, dust off his suit and receive an obligatory TV face powdering. But once he’s off, there’s no going back. I’m startled by his thoughtful responses, offered with all the articulation of a literary scholar. During our six minute conversation, he manages to cover the enduring power of KLUTE, faking sex with Julie Christie and just why Simon West’s version of THE MECHANIC surpasses the original.
THN: What attracted you to the role of Harry McKenna in THE MECHANIC, were you a fan of the original film?
Sutherland: No.
*slightly uncomfortable pause hangs in the balance*
Sutherland: Did you see it?
THN: I did.
Sutherland: Did you like it?
THN: (This is when I realise that Sutherland flipped the cards on me in under 10 seconds. I tell him that I loved the original, to which he responds with a shaking head and disgruntled expression). What was it you disliked about it?
Sutherland: I didn’t like its incoherence, I didn’t like its lack of substantiation. I didn’t believe it. I mean, I like Charlie [Charles Bronson] but I didn’t believe his relationship with Jan-Michael Vincent. Em, there was a lot of stuff I didn’t believe, I didn’t believe the decor of Michael Winner.
But it was what it was, you know, it was 38 years ago. I mean Klute probably is 40 years ago and that stands up beautifully but that’s from the work of Alan Pakula and Gordon Willis, it’s because of really specific camera work and deliberation. Also, it stands up because of the intent. I mean there is a difference between when an intent is to exploit and when it is to tell the truth. The thing about Simon West [director of THE MECHANIC 2011] is, his intent is to tell the truth, it’s to tell the truth about the relationship between fathers and sons. Between a surrogate father and a son. And between those two boys. He does that with such psychological truth and the basis of that and the coherency of this film is extraordinary, it’s exquisite and Jason Statham comes to life as an actor.
That scene with Ben Foster at the end, who is brilliant, the way that he creates that rejected son. The arrogance and the smugness, the anger and the hatred and the love, the loss, my god! The conflicts — they are just wonderful and none of them connect. They’re all this anamorphic mess and you see the character so clearly. But Jason, he is able to express from his heart and from his soul as an actor the truth of guilt and loss and regret and love and all those things. It’s so clear and so painful and it’s not laid on, he’s not playing a quality. I’m thrilled with him. He’s come such a long way from THE ITALIAN JOB to this. It’s really just wonderful.
THN: What do you think this film represents?
Sutherland: I mean it’s an action film — just loads of sexual image and violence. It’s not a vulgar Chainsaw Massacre type, it’s really elegantly done. I mean, it made my wife jump up and run out of the room but none the less, it’s terrific. People who want to see an action film will have a wonderful time but some of those people who go to see that action film are going to come out and say ‘shit man, I think maybe I should call my son’ or ‘maybe I should call my dad.’ Or ‘maybe my dad and I should go see this movie, just for fun you know.’ I was thrilled with it, and I was not thrilled with Charlie’s [Charles Bronson’s] picture.
THN: I agree with you in the sense that the film has been improved.
Sutherland: Gosh, I know, the literacy of it. The cinematic literacy of it. It’s just so elegant. I’m sorry, I talk too much?
THN: Not at all. Now, in the past you turned down roles in DELIVERANCE and STRAW DOGS on the grounds that they were too violent. THE MECHANIC isn’t exactly soft in that regard, have you become harder to shock?
Sutherland: (Laughs) well you know, I killed people in the eye of a needle in 1900, I was not very nice to a cat. That was when I thought maybe we could change the world and then soon realised that was a futile gesture. But if I had done DELIVERANCE, I might not have met the woman who is sitting upstairs, the woman with whom I have been for 40 years, and my choice is there.
THN: Your sex scene with Julie Christie in DON’T LOOK NOW in 1975 became quite infamous, but it was also a beautiful piece of cinema. What was the experience of filming it like?
Sutherland: Will I tell you what it was like?
THN: Yes please!
Sutherland: I’ll describe to you what it was like [leans forward, looking animated] so Julie and I have never met, well we’ve met each other but you know, not fully. So we get into a room and we undress, and I don’t undress in front of anybody! So we walk into this room and it’s like bloody Adam and Eve going in there.
Nick [director Nicholas Roeg] says ‘OK now Julie you lie down on the bed’. It’s a room in the Bauer Grunwald hotel with a bunch of wires coming under the door. Nick and Tony Richmond are there with aeroflex cameras that sound like Volkswagen engines on a sewing machine. So Nick says: ‘OK Julie put your head back’ [Sutherland starts making an engine noise] ZZZZZZZZZZZZ ‘OK Donald, get on top of Julie’ ZZZZZZZZZZZZ ‘OK Donald raise your head’ ZZZZZZZZZZZZ, ‘OK Julie COME!’
That’s exactly what it was like and we staggered out of the room three hours later and you thought maybe you would never have sex again for the rest of your life [laughs]. It was devastating but he cut it together in little sections of what appears to be conjugal relationships of married people who have lost a child.
They cut it together with no sound no ‘oooahhh’ none of that. Oh I don’t even know what it sounds like anymore, I’ve forgotten. And then the footage of getting dressed and this wonderful music. And what it did was, you don’t remember us making love, you remember yourself having made love. It’s not voyeuristic, and that’s why it stays in people’s hearts. And now, I have a son named Roeg, which really is brilliant.
THE MECHANIC is released to UK cinemas on the 28 January
