Blue Ruin may be one of the strongest American independent films of 2014: It’s a revenge saga, but it isn’t; the hero isn’t a terse one-man army but instead a shy, silent man driven to desperate, dangerous acts; it isn’t about swift, cinematic slaughters visited on the deserving but, instead, on the slow, arduous and awful work of killing. Mr. Jeremy Saulnier (R) is the director, writer and cinematographer of Blue Ruin; Macon Blair (L) plays Dwight, the film’s off-center center. We spoke with the two in Los Angeles about silence in filmmaking, happy accidents, location scouting and the journey of work and will that took Blue Ruin from a work-in-progress rejection by Sundance and the doubts that came in its wake to re-shooting, re-cutting and then a premiere at Cannes to rave reviews. My review of the film, at Cinephiled.com from Sundance 2014, can be found here.
The film can be found on Twitter @BlueRuinMovie, while Mr. Saulnier can be found @Saulnier_Jeremy and Mr. Blair @MaconBlair … Blue Ruin is in select theaters and on VOD tomorrow.
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