August 31, 2024

justin kurzel, jude law, nicholas hoult, tye sheridan, the order

Words by JANE CROWTHER


Justin Kurzel adds to his cinematic rebel poems with another gorgeously-lensed look at a real-life disruptor and his skewed ideals. After tackling outliers in The True History Of The Kelly Gang and Nitrum, the director turns his attention to Bob Mathews, an eighties white power leader whose rhetoric in Reagan-era America threatened to metastasize to civil unrest and polarisation. Like his previous historical films, Kurtzel’s latest boasts a disquieting pertinence to current events and cultural leaders…

justin kurzel, jude law, nicholas hoult, tye sheridan, the order

Focusing on Mathews (Nicholas Hoult) as he tries to build a white supremacy army in 1983-4 via bank robberies, bombings and assassinations as well as the broken FBI agent, Terry Husk (Jude Law) tracking him, The Order shows two men who are only divided by the law in their obsessions. The radical offspring of a hate-preacher, Mathews is charismatic, unfaithful and blinkered in his pursuit of an Aryan America as he recruits and seduces. His wife and mistress are secondary to the excitement he feels carrying out his six-step to domination, his bank robberies (thrillingly executed in nail-biting interludes) a high. Husk is damaged goods – a chain-smoking, gum chewing blunt instrument with a drink problem, he’s survived an incident in New York and has transferred to the quiet of Idaho in the hopes of ‘putting back the pieces’. His wife and children are secondary to his quarry, silently admonishing via unanswered phone calls he makes as he digs into white power in the state. When the local nous of a deputy sheriff (Tye Sheridan) links a couple of leads, Husk realises he has a bigger case on his hands and brings in a bureau former colleague to start a manhunt. As the film toggles between Mathews and Husk, it becomes a cat-and-mouse thriller – with Mathews getting sloppy and Husk getting (literally) messy as old injuries plague him. 

justin kurzel, jude law, nicholas hoult, tye sheridan, the order

It’s a retro presentation; the eighties production design, costumes and lensing recalling numerous previous examples of the genre. And that’s no bad thing. Law’s Husk is straight from the Popeye Doyle school of big swings and delicious to watch, even his constant gum-chewing informs his characterisation. Sheridan is the heart of the picture providing an emotional moment that hurts, and Hoult nails the blue-eyed fanaticism of a man who may tell his mates to stop burning crosses but can’t see the inevitability of his actions. Jed Kurzel’s thrumming score soars as high as the camera, swooping above stunning Idaho and Washington state vistas to show the beauty of the country Mathews is fighting so hard to control.  

End credit notes tell us that the text used by Mathews has been utilised repeatedly since by far-right groups as a blueprint for their activities – including the most recent storming of the Capitol. It’s a stark reminder that though this picture plays like a slice of vintage filmmaking, the beliefs at the centre of the story are very much still relevant. As an audience, Kurzel asks us which side of the ideological line we choose to stand on. Powerful stuff.

justin kurzel, jude law, nicholas hoult, tye sheridan, the order

Words by JANE CROWTHER
The Order releases in cinemas later this year

May 26, 2023

jude law, firebird, cannes film festival, cannes dispatch, hollywood authentic, greg williams
hollywood authentic, cannes dispatch, cannes film festival, greg williams, hollywood authentic
jude law, firebird, cannes film festival, cannes dispatch, hollywood authentic, greg williams

CANNES DISPATCH 10
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS


Jude Law moments before the world premiere of Firebrand, for which he has received unanimous praise for his explosive performance as King Henry VIII.

Law stars alongside Alicia Vikander as his sixth wife, Catherine Parr, in the film directed by Karim Aïnouz, which screened in competition at the 76th Cannes Film Festival.

jude law, firebird, cannes film festival, cannes dispatch, hollywood authentic, greg williams
jude law, firebird, cannes film festival, cannes dispatch, hollywood authentic, greg williams

Jude Law wears custom Brioni, styled by William J Gilchrist and grooming by Alain Pichon

April 9, 2022

fantastic beasts, eddie redmayne, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, which is set decades prior to the Harry Potter series, feels strangely prescient: Newt Scamander must help Professor Albus Dumbledore and a band of outsiders to stop the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald from seizing control of the wizarding world. As Dumbledore says to Newt, ‘The world as we know it is coming undone. Grindelwald is pulling it apart with hate.’

fantastic beasts, jude law, harry potter, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts, jude law, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography

But let’s rewind. Last October, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first of eight Potter films, was re-released after 20 years. In that film Richard Harris played Albus Dumbledore (after two outings as the wizard, he was replaced following his death by Michael Gambon), and today the role of inhabiting the character’s back story in the Fantastic Beasts films belongs to a bearded Jude Law. In the new film, Law is reunited with Eddie Redmayne as “magizoologist” Newt Scamander, an experience that he says ‘is like spending time with an old friend… He’s both great fun and very entertaining to be with, interested and interesting. And he’s also someone that takes it to another level when it comes to prep.’ Director David Yates, who directed four of the Potter films and all three Fantastic Beasts movies, agrees: ‘Eddie works harder than any actor I know. He is an absolute workaholic and a perfectionist. I think the thing I love about him most is he’s transformative.’

fantastic beasts, jude law, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography

The first Potter book was published in 1997, with a print run of just 500, after author JK Rowling was famously rejected by 12 publishers. Warner Bros bought the rights for a reported $1 million, and the first Potter film was shot at Leavesden in Hertfordshire, in a former aircraft engine factory that had previously provided the setting for GoldenEye and The Dark Knight.

fantastic beasts,mads mikkelsen, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts, ezra miller, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography

Warner Bros Studios at Leavesden quickly became the exclusive home to the franchise and then, in 2016, to its extension, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. One of the Potter series’ biggest achievements is the way in which it helped to cement the UK’s status in the special effects industry. On the first Potter film, complicated visual effects were done on the west coast of America, but by the second, they were assigned to the UK. As Tanya Seghatchian, who executive produced several Potter films, has pointed out, ‘Now we’re recognised as the leading provider for visual effects in the world. Every facility is fully booked and that wasn’t the case before Harry Potter.’

fantastic beasts, ezra miller, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography

In 2009, when I was invited on the set of the sixth Potter film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, it was eight years since the release of the first movie in the franchise, and Leavesden studios had already morphed from what had been essentially some sheds without sound stages into something altogether slicker. I was struck by the scale of the vast metal hanger at its core, but also by its capacity for intimacy. Cast and crew had pushbikes to pedal from one location to the next, Hogwarts’ Great Hall was built to scale and the Weasleys’ small, cold and dark living room had a strong smell of washing powder which was at odds with its dankness. Daniel Radcliffe, an engaging Harry Potter on screen and a thoughtful young man off it, explained how he learned to dive for an underwater scene in The Goblet of Fire in Europe’s largest film-making tank, which was set up in a corner of the studio. 

Fast forward to the pandemic and it is Eddie Redmayne whose swimming skills are called into action. Because of Covid-19 restrictions, a sequence in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore in which Newt enters summer waters had to be shifted to night shoots in Leavesden in December. Not the warmest of prospects, but achievable at the Warner Bros Hertfordshire studios, which in the decade since my visit have grown even further into an astonishing state-of-the-art operation.

fantastic beasts,jessica williams, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography

Director David Yates told me that he likes ‘the infrastructure of making a blockbuster; it’s like having a big train set’. A huge train set: Christian Mänz, the Oscar-nominated VFX supervisor on Harry Potter and then Fantastic Beasts, has a team of 1,500 people working on the creation of visual effects. He also collaborates closely with Stuart Craig, production designer on all eight Potter films, and whose job it is to bring the wizarding world to life. Craig has described asking JK Rowling about the geography of Hogwarts: ‘She immediately took out a pen and paper, and made the most extraordinarily complete map on a sheet of A4. I was still referring to that map on the eighth film.’ 

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore was written by Rowling and Steve Kloves, who wrote all the Potter screenplays. If production designer Craig creates the universe, then VFX supervisor Mänz augments that reality. The Fantastic Beasts films are set in the historical past, with this latest taking place in the ’30s, in the build-up to World War II, and featuring global locations that have been specially created at Leavesden. For example, to prepare a scene set in Paris, 90 digitally-scanned locations helped recreate a version of the French capital so that the team could work out what could be physically built and what then had to be digitally recreated. 

fantastic beasts,mads mikkelsen, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography

Mads Mikkelsen, who plays Grindelwald, explains the benefit of such technical expertise: ‘We didn’t have to pretend. It’s a minimum of green screen work; everything is there.’ Law, too, is enthusiastic: ‘It’s a total dream for actors because you just step on [set] and you don’t have to do an awful lot of imagining. It’s all there with trams and cars and shop fronts or vistas and views, whatever. And we jumped through various cities around the world at various times. Being on something this scale is very rewarding.’

fantastic beasts,eddie redmayne, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts,eddie redmayne, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts,eddie redmayne, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts,callum turner, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts, ezra miller, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts, ezra miller, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts,jessica williams, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts,jessica williams, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts,jessica williams, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts,jessica williams, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts, jude law, harry potter, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography
fantastic beasts,mads mikkelsen, hollywood authentic, greg williams, greg williams photography

Amy Raphael is a journalist, critic and novelist. She has written for The Face, NME and British Esquire; her books include the biographies of Mike Leigh and Danny Boyle