CANNES DISPATCH
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS
Interview by JANE CROWTHER
During the end credits of Andy Garcia’s new film – in which he produced/directed, took the lead and composed the music – he thanks his daughter, Danielle (who also appears in the movie), for asking him to help with her English homework. The genesis of creating a neo-noir following a period-obsessed gumshoe, Joe Diamond, as he investigates the death of a billionaire and resists the 21st century was a Raymond Chandler assignment for Danielle 20 years ago. Garcia has always loved film noir (and been in films set in the period, including The Untouchables and Dead Again), and discovered a story had been marinating in him for years. ‘I started improvising this character. It was like, ‘Where did that voice come out of me? I didn’t know I had that voice’,’ he tells Hollywood Authentic on the roof terrace of the Marriott in Cannes where he is debuting Joe Diamond. ‘I think we got a ‘B’ on the report card for the homework, but the first thing that came out of me is still in the movie. And then I thought maybe there’s a movie with this guy.’
Garcia spent years noodling with Diamond’s characterisation and his rejection of the modern world – he lives a fully analog life despite the Waymo cars and robot deliveries that he runs into around LA. As a Fedora-wearing PI with an office in the Bradbury Building and a 1940 Plymouth Coupe, Joe may be out of step with selfies and TikTok, but he can crack a case using good old fashioned detective work and nous. ‘He’s like Batman. He has a Batcave, which is where he lives, and he’s got one suit, and he’s got his Batcar. Why is he the way he is? I didn’t know what it was until I had this dream. I woke up in the middle of the night and I was crying in my sleep. I immediately wrote ‘the only thing worse than crying yourself to sleep is crying in your sleep’. And that haunted me. Of course, I’m enamoured with the genre, and the photographic elements and the style of it all, but that was the key.’
Garcia drew inspiration from photographers such as Fan Ho and Herman Leonard, along with the work of cinematographers Nestor Almendros, Conrad Hall and Gordon Willis, as well as Edward Hopper’s ‘Nighthawks’. And he made LA, a city he’d known since 1978 when he moved there as a young actor, a character in itself with iconic locations such as the Clifton Cafeteria, Angel’s Flight, Central Market and the now-closed Cole’s French Dip and Original Pantry Cage woven into the tale. And while the case at the heart of the story drives the narrative, it is the trauma that Joe lives with that provides the twists. No spoilers on the grief at the heart of the characterisation, but that case involves a murdered billionaire and his beautiful wife, Sharon Cobb, who is the assumed perp by LAPD detective led by Brendan Fraser. ‘When I was thinking about making the movie I wondered who am I going to make the movie with?’ Garcia says. ‘And then I saw this young lady in Phantom Thread, and I said, ‘I’m not making the movie without her’.’
Tapping Vicky Krieps as Sharon, Bill Murray as Joe’s barkeep manager, Danny Huston as an oily lawyer, Rosemary DeWitt as a mysterious romantic prospect and Dustin Hoffman as a joke-cracking, noodle-slurping pathologist, Garcia scraped independent financing together (‘I could never get any support from traditional studios or streamers’) to make his movie in 25 days over 40 locations and 59 sets. As if he didn’t already have enough to do, he also co-wrote the music with jazz legend Arturo Sandoval, and personally performed the Diamond theme. Though it’s period specific and loaded with noir touches and muted trumpets, Diamond is still very much its own thing, says Garcia. ‘It was very important not to fall into the trap – all of us – of ‘this is film noir, and we’re going to smoke the cigarette, and am I a villain or will I be a gentleman or whatever?’ There has to be a true humanity.’ As an actor/director he felt at ease giving his cast what he calls ‘a sacred place for us to play’. ‘Once I know what the composition is, I don’t need to go back to the monitor and interrupt our flow, and say, ‘Let me look at that take, and see how you’re doing’. I’ve worked in movies, even with actors that aren’t directing, who do a take, and then they get up and look at the take. When the actor comes back I go, ‘hey, it’s me and you here. It’s not about what you see in yourself. You’re breaking the energy of what we’re doing here’. It’s an insecurity. It’s very important that we’re going to discover this thing moment to moment, take to take. It needs to be alive.’
A recurring theme in the film is Joe’s dismissal of social media, despite being an urban legend on it – with people he encounters during his investigation understanding him through the lens of TikTok and wanting selfies. ‘The social media world, that whole thing – somehow, it does tank your life,’ Garcia muses. ‘It’s the death of tranquillity in a way. You have to make a choice. Do you abandon it all together, or use it in a constructive way to promote a piece of work? People are starting to make movies to watch on their iPhones. Things have to happen in the first three minutes of the story, or else people will turn it off. But this movie was definitely designed for a big screen.’
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS
Interview by JANE CROWTHER
Diamond premiered at the 79th Cannes Film Festival
