Liv Corfixen and Nicolas Winding Refn at the Film Society last weekend. Photo by Godlis.
Filmmakers Nicolas Winding Refn and Liv Corfixen are this week's featured spotlight in the Film Society of Lincoln Center's podcast series, The Close-Up.
Corfixen's documentary, My Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, is currently playing at the Film Society. Last week, Refn and Corfixen joined Rolling Stone's David Fear for an on-stage conversation, which will be featured in part one of this week's episode. Part two of The Close-Up is an in-depth discussion with Refn from the opening of Only God Forgives back in 2013, moderated by the Film Society's John Wildman.
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In 2013, director Nicolas Winding Refn followed up his neo-noir hit Drive, with the stylish thriller Only God Forgives. The film continued Refn’s collaboration with actor Ryan Gosling, but it traded Drive’s white-knuckle energy for a slower, more atmospheric approach.
In Refn’s words, “If Drive was good cocaine, this would be like great, old-school acid.” The Bangkok-set thriller stars Gosling as a drug-smuggling ex-patriot who is pressured to avenge his brother’s death by his overbearing mother played by Kristen Scott Thomas.
For the film’s production, Refn uprooted his family to Bangkok for six months. During this time, his wife, Liv Corfixen, decided to also pick up a camera and film her husband’s creative process during the hectic shoot. The resulting footage became My Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, and it offers a rare glimpse at one of contemporary world cinema’s most enigmatic figures.
As the title suggests, the film is also about Corfixen’s own relationship with the director, which is best summed up by her own conclusion that Refn is “a difficult man to live with, but I love [him] anyway.”
