Sometimes some things just need to be captured on film, Dave Tynan represents this sentiment, with his most recent film Dublin Oldschool screening the the Irish Film Festival. Depicting the reality of Ireland’s party with his collaborator Emmet Kirwan, Tynan uses his unique vision to create a unique story that delineates itself from previous films exploring the genre of drugs in movies.
Dublin Oldschool portrays the lives of the daily partiers and drug users, centring on the story of Jason whose life collides with his brother’s (a recovering heroin addict). David from Film in Revolt sat down with Dave Tynan to discuss how Dublin Oldschool came to be and what film means to him.
Hi Dave – Can you tell me about how you got into filmmaking?
I went to the International Film School in Dublin. I remember that I felt like I had gotten into it quite late, other people had already made like ten films, they’d started when they were twelve, to when they were in their last year of secondary school. The first film that I made was in there, when you start you meet people who have the same love and buzz for it. I spent a year doing my portfolio course, that was the first in the road and then after that, you start figuring out whom you want to work with and some of them I still work with today.
What inspired you to make Dublin Oldschool?
It’s an adaptation of a play, and I went to see the play the first night it was on. I’d worked with the playwright Emmet Kirwan, who’s also the lead of the film, a couple times before. I was just blown away when I saw it. I felt like I knew what it was talking about; it was quite funny, and I got quite emotional as well. You just walk out of it thinking I want to put that on screen and put what I see in those sorts of people on the screen and subsequently I spent a few years just trying to do that. So, yes, the inspiration was just seeing the play and then creating an adaptation rather than using the original script.
Where there any films that you used as inspiration or was it purely based on the visuals of the play that you saw?
There weren’t any particular movies since the majority of it came from the play. There are certain styles and filmmakers that maybe influenced it a bit with regard to translating it from the stage to the screen. It went from being a comedy with a lot of drama to more of a drama with little funny bits; we had an overall change in tone. To try and keep the drama and grit we used a lot of handheld shots and we needed to move fast. I reckon the influences don’t always show but maybe some of Andrea Arnold’s stuff and Jacques Audiard films he makes a lot of films that have a lot of handhelds but still have that cinematic feel. Films like that really, to make sure it gave it that kind of grit really and that if you’re moving fast on the streets it’s better to have the camera on your shoulder as opposed to laying tracks because we shot a lot of stuff around Dublin city.
You used handheld techniques in the film, were you ever tempted to move into the stereotype stylisation that occurs in most drug-oriented films? Or were you looking for a far more realistic approach?
I would definitely say that its stylised in another way, like the language, is quite dense and lyrical. There’s voiceover in it but even then, there’s a lot of conversation using the Dublin vernacular and elaborate swearing and that kind of stuff. I felt like that was the stylisation. I know what you mean, but I felt like in the film the stylisation came from different places. I feel like it’s a lot more of a talky film and due to that, your visuals need to slow down quite a bit and not be too much. It’s that balance of where you let it go and what the flare of the scene is: is it the camera work? Or is it the good actors? Do we want to just let them go at it? Some of my favourite stuff in it is the simplest visually, like when the film just looks at the two characters and holds them in a two shot. And again, because the language is so stylised you just want to find that balance and not overdo it too much. The best films get that balance right.
Did the style arose from the acting and dialogue and you just wanted to focus on those parts, since they were most important?
Emmet has done work before, like a lot of spoken word stuff. The spoken word stuff from before for example, the first cuts are always much choppier and then you realise that’s a lot to take in. Maybe it’s because I’m getting old but sometimes you don’t need a massive visual approach. In my next film, I might even slow it down more potentially because I feel like the film is quite fast in its own way. I reckon it was stylised because of the voice over or even the variety of music that we used; I mean there’s a whole range of ways that a scene can be stylised. It’s an ongoing kind of thing, even when you see the movie, you’re quite a bit older so you never really realise how much things have changed in the film until you watch it in the end. In reality, my tastes have evolved and changed to be quite different, so this comes up in different ways throughout the film.
You focus on a single character, Jason, were you ever tempted to make the film a more ensemble type of movie? What drew you to him a specific character so much?
Not really, I always felt like there is a lot of the group, but you always had to go back to the main character. Like, the relationship between Jason and his brother, Daniel, that was the key to it, because when you approach with Jason, you get to see that the brothers are the two sides of the same coin, in addiction. Without one or the other, you don’t really get to see that much, because they are foils to each other, so they illuminate each other’s problems. If you want to be a DJ, but it’s your brother who’s a recovering heroin addict saying that you’re going to hard and you need to look at yourself then that’s you know, really, it’s the only person he can hear it from. That’s why we centred it around Jason because it’s that relationship that we always come back to in the end. It’s two brothers trying to patch things up as they can see each other more clearly than anyone else.
Where there any difficulties within the production of the film? Did you have any challenges you had to overcome?
Shooting in towns was very difficult. When you’re shooting in the CBD, you don’t have enough money to get the road blocked off, so you don’t get many good takes. With people in the background looking into the camera. We were also on a really tight schedule and had a lot of pages to get through so a lot of time we felt like we were really running against the clock. Obviously, that doesn’t show, but you can never have enough time if you know what I mean. It was also kind of exhausting because I’d only ever made short films before so after the first week you end up already being kind of knackered really. Like prepping it’s the most intense it’s ever been before you even start, you’re already flat out. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. I mean they’re all tough, but it’s that kind of stuff that doesn’t make you want to do it again.
What would you say is your favourite film or a couple of films of all time?
Oh shit. That’s really difficult.
Or at the moment!
Ok, I’ll give you two answers actually. The first that got me into it was early American seventies stuff, like a lot of the obvious things – Apocalypse Now, Taxi Driver. Big movies did really intelligently- tough, large and uncompromising films. Then more recently, I mentioned her before Andrea Arnaud I think she’s amazing, an Irish director called Lenny Abrahamson, who did Room, some of his early stuff was top tour stuff, partly because it’s your own city. Now at the moment, Paul Thomas Anderson, there’s so much at the present. That’s something that I’m working on at the moment, like not watch the standout films because I think it would be too easy to do that. So, I’ve spent more time this year trying to watch other stuff. Like on the plane to Australia, they had a section called Hollywood for all English language films and I thought well that’s a shame because I watched a film called Border and that blew me away. It was stunning like I hadn’t seen that before, anything where you get the fresh look or perspective those kinds of films.
Dublin OldSchool screens at the Irish Film Festival.