CraveOnline: Do you think it’s ironic that a film that exposes the nuts and bolts, practicalities and in some ways the evils of marketing, is one of the most heavily marketed franchises on the planet?
Francis Lawrence: I do think it is, a little bit, but I will say that I just think that it’s great to be a part of something that’s so widely embraced globally, that’s actually about something and has some ideas in it. It’s sort of referencing itself a little bit, even though it’s marketing. But then again all marketing is kind of propaganda.
I was just talking to somebody in the research of propaganda, and you know I didn’t know much about it, and I wish I remembered the guy’s name… but there was a guy around World War I who came up with the five versions of propaganda, the five ways in. It became the basis for advertising. I was really fascinated by it because if you look around today you can see all of the angles on it being used in all of the advertising around us now. So to see the advertising of the movie also connecting with the propaganda in the movie is kind of fun, actually.
Triumph, it’s interesting, because there was a sequence that was going to open Catching Fire that we canned early on, but it was going to be a propaganda piece that would be kicking off the victory tour. For that there was definitely a Triumph of the Will aesthetic referencing. I will say that we didn’t look at anything specific, but there was propaganda posters from Russia, Communist Russia, that inspired the first attempt at propaganda, and the propaganda clip where Katniss acts badly, the stylized version. That was definitely a reference point, at least aesthetically. But then, no, we actually didn’t reference anything. It was just about taking something that was horrific and emotional and recutting it and putting it with some inspiring music and some titles, sprucing it up and glistening it up the way The Capitol would.
I think one of the most challenging ideas for me in the new movie, in particular, is this notion that it’s just accepted that the masses will just respond to advertising will respond to advertising, to media, to propaganda, good or bad. They run off to war singing what is essentially a commercial jingle.
Mmm-hmm.
“All marketing is kind of propaganda.”
Is that cynical? Or do you think that’s just the way life, or humanity is?
I think… I think quite honestly that it is the way life and humanity is, and I think what is important to note about that idea, and that moment in the movie specifically is that the spokesperson – and again, this is one of the original angles of propaganda, is the idea of a spokesperson where you take somebody respected and revered and you have them sell your product – that Katniss Everdeen, in this series, in this movement, in this revolution, means so much. That there’s this girl who came from the poorest of the Districts, who stood up on her own and changed things because she stood up against The Capitol. Nobody really understands that she sort of didn’t mean to, right?
So she’s become this really important symbol, and she and her presence – as long as it’s cut appropriately and delivered appropriately, and able to galvanize loads of people – I think is kind of an interesting idea. And I definitely think that’s possible if you have the right symbol.
