If you’re a fan of Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, and director Andrew Dominik, Trafalgar Releasing is bringing Dominik’s documentary, This Much I Know to Be True, to movie theaters around the world on Wednesday, May 11th. Tickets for the fantastic documentary are on sale now.

The film, which is the companion piece to Dominik’s 2016 film One More Time with Feeling, was shot on location in London and Brighton and captures Cave and Ellis’ performing songs from their last two studio albums, “Ghosteen” (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds) and “Carnage” (Nick Cave & Warren Ellis), along with their unique creative relationship. For more on the fantastic film, you can read Ross Bonaime’s review.

Shortly after seeing the film, I got on the phone with Andrew Dominik for a wide-ranging interview. During the extended conversation, Dominik talked about how the film happened, the improvised nature of both films, filming the music scenes, why he had Robbie Ryan shot the movie, their camera choices, Cave and Ellis’ relationship, and he shares some great behind-the-scenes stories. In addition, he talked about his upcoming Netflix movie Blonde, which stars Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe, what Mindhunter Season 3 would have been about, his longer cut of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and a lot more.

If you’re a fan of Andrew Dominik, you’re going to enjoy this conversation. Check it out below.

COLLIDER: If someone has actually never seen your work before, what is the first thing you want them watching and why?

ANDREW DOMINIK: Well, probably Jesse James, I would say, or Blonde because they're the ones I like the most.

Which of your films actually changed the most in the editing room?

DOMINIK: I think Chopper. Chopper, the first half became the first third. And it was mainly due to quality control. It was my first movie and I fucked up a bunch of shit and so I cut it out.

If you could get the financing to make anything you want, what would you make?

DOMINIK: There's a war movie I wrote a few years ago that I'd love to do about the guys that go out and kill people every night, the Navy seals. It's a pretty good project. Wouldn't be cheap.

Does it have a title?

DOMINIK: War Party.

I've heard about this. Yeah. Is it one of these things where you haven't... You've obviously taken this out. Is it just been a lack of interest from the studios and streamers?

DOMINIK: No, no, no. It's kind of a rights tissue. It's a bit of a rights problem with it.

I love Mindhunter. I obviously loved your work on it. Can you talk a little bit about getting to be part of that series, which I think is one of the best things that's... I love that series so much.

DOMINIK: Yeah, me too. I probably got involved in it for the same reason that you liked it, right. I really loved it. And I knew David and I called him up and he was like, "Do you want to do the Manson episode?" All right. So fuck yeah. I mean, how can you say no to the Charles Manson episode? So, I mean, Mindhunter was really weird, mate. It was like turning up there and it was like walking around inside your iPad, like you go to all the sets, it's all stuff that you've seen on TV that you've watched and there it all is in three dimensions around you.

I got to work on that basically because I knew David and it was a really good experience. It was very kind of collegial. Usually directing's kind of a lonely job in a way because you're the one always saying no, and you're the one that's in charge of everything. Everybody's having to deal with you, and you have to stay responsible. You can't sort of fuck around the way everybody else on a movie can. So it was really nice to do something with Fincher because it was like having a director pal and he would shoot pieces of my episode and I'd shoot little bits of his episode. It's always really interesting to be inside somebody else's process. I mean, David's got an incredible workflow. He's a very impressive human being. He controls every aspect of what he does down to where the porta potties go. And if you want to know who's the best at anything, if you want to know who's the best sound recorders, who's the best plumber, or who's the best psychic, David knows them all. The best.

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I've been fortunate to talk with him before and he's always the smartest one in the room.

DOMINIK: Yeah, totally.

What do you think we need to do to get him to do more Mindhunter? Can I give him a $5 bill, and will that work?

DOMINIK: No. I mean, what David says is that TV is just horrible. He thinks two hours is okay, three hours you can do, but like 10 hours is just all tears. But I don't think the world loved Mindhunter, mate. I don't think that Mindhunter was a big hit, do you know what I mean?

I think he talked about the cost of making the show. The equation did not work in terms of how much they were spending, but listen, every person who's not watching that show is missing out on something spectacular.

DOMINIK: Yeah, totally. And what they were going to do with season three was they were going to go Hollywood. So one of them was going to be hooking up with Jonathan Demme and the other one was going to be hooking up with Michael Mann. And it was all going to be about profiling, making it into the sort of zeitgeist, the public consciousness. It would've been... That was the season everyone was really waiting for to do, with when they sort of get out of the basement and start.

So with Killing Them Softly, I read your release was 97 minutes. I read that you had a longer cut. Did Harvey scissorhands fuck with your movie?

DOMINIK: No Harvey wasn't allowed to, contractually speaking.

So, was the 97 minute cut the one that you were most happy with, or did you have a longer cut of that film that you were like, I wouldn't have minded it being two hours or 2:10?

DOMINIK: To be honest with you, I haven't watched that movie since it was released. So I don't really know how I feel about it right now. But any cuts to that I made to the film were cuts that I was happy to make. Do you know what I'm saying? Harvey wanted me to do certain things to the movie, but I wasn't going to do them. He was very angry about that at the moment. But the great thing about Harvey was he never held that shit against you, not for long. He'd get mad at you about something, and then the next time you saw him, if you made him laugh, he'd be all right. He'd forgive. Harvey was a business man. Harvey was a fucking animal. He didn't really live up to his commitments. I'm sure he got away with them technically, somehow, but...

I love Jesse James. It's a masterpiece, and I've spoken with Roger Deakins and he's told me that you had a longer cut and that he loved that longer cut. I'm just going to beg you and say, does that longer cut exist anywhere? And how can fans see it?

DOMINIK: It does exist. There used to be a video store around the corner from me where I was living in Los Feliz. And I thought, I could just have the director’s cut in this one video store. You know what I mean? Like I could just have a little DVD that I've made that we could just rent from this one video store. But the video stores are gone now.

Listen, we tried to get Warner Brothers to allow us to release a longer version of it. They're not interested in doing it, and I think somebody tried to petition Criterion to do it. Criterion were not interested in Jesse Jones.

There is a better version of Jesse James, in my opinion that's about 15 minutes longer. And that's the one that Roger was talking about. He's never seen one that's longer than that.

He said that there was one that was like three or four hours. You're saying doesn't exist?

DOMINIK: There was a three-hour version, right. 15 minutes longer than what it is three hours. There was never a four hour version that was any good. Believe me.

Well, needless to say, I want to see the-

DOMINIK: And Roger never saw it. The only version Roger ever saw was a cut that's like 15 minutes longer.

So for fans of Jesse James, the definitive answer is there is a version of the movie that's 15 minutes longer that you like and would like people to see.

DOMINIK: I think it's better. Yeah, and then there's another version that's five minutes longer than the release version that I think is better, and there's a version that is 15 minutes longer that I think is better.

Is it specific scenes or just added shots and moments to the whole movie?

DOMINIK: No, it scenes, the great scene in the film. The great scene that I cut. The problem with it was, the really good scene in the film, it sat in the version that was 15 minutes longer. It didn't sit in the version that was only five minutes longer. Although I think in that version, we used a truncated version of the scene, but there's the moment where the film was done, in my opinion. That was the one that was 15 minutes longer. But there's another year of warfare that happened from that moment on.

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If someone has actually never heard Nick's work before. No songs, no albums, what's the album or two that you want to recommend to them to listen to?

DOMINIK: Mate, that's really hard. I mean, there's 17 or 18 records.

Because people have to start somewhere. Obviously, you are a fan and who better to recommend than you?

DOMINIK: Well, I think “From Her to Eternity” is a pretty great record. I think “Ghosteen” is a great record. Everyone likes “The Boatman's Call” and it's a beautiful record. It really is. I like “Let Love In.” I like “The Good Son.” I like “Tender Prey.” I like “No More Shall We Part.”

You're like I’m just going to list all of them.

DOMINIK: No, that was only about six. That was only about six or seven (laughing).

You guys obviously worked together on a project just a few years ago. When that project ended, had you been talking already about, well, let's do something again when we can?

DOMINIK: No, it was a COVID thing. Nick was about to go tour with Ghosteen, which I'd sort of been around for when he was making that record. I was there. I was living with Nick at the time and I was sort of a fly on the wall as they were making the record. It was amazing experience, and I've actually got a mixing credit on the record. So, they were about to go tour that record and COVID happened and they couldn't tour it. They're just like, "Fuck, what are we going to do?" Like sitting around the house. And he did that film with Robbie Ryan. He did the Alexandra Palace thing and him and Warren made a record.

And then he was like, "Let's make a film of..." Because they hadn't got to tour Ghosteen. Why don't we just make a concert film, just me and Warren kind of thing. And I was like, "Well, why don't we just do Ghosteen and we'll do Carnage?" Which were the two records that they'd made recently. So we didn't have to go through the back catalog and do fucking “Into My Arms” and “Stagger Lee” and all that stuff, just do the last two records.

He was into that. They liked that idea and I'd always wanted... I love “Ghosteen.” I love that record. I just think it's amazing. I think it's probably his best record for me. It's an amazing record. So moving. I'd always tried to talk him into doing…why don't we do it with the symphony orchestra? Why don't we do it with the symphony orchestra, really big string section and do it live and make a concert movie? And this wasn't exactly that, but it was a chance to sort of go shoot it. I mean, at the time he asked me to do it, I was in post-production on Blonde and it wasn't good timing to fly to London in the middle of a pandemic, go make this little concert movie with Nick and Warren, but I just listened to “Ghosteen” again, and it was the idea of being able to shoot those songs. That was the reason I did it.

The film opens in an unexpected way with him showing off the ceramics and it wasn't what I expected at all. How did you decide to start the film having him show the 18 ceramics?

DOMINIK: The thing about both of those films. I don't know if you seen the other one, have you seen the-

I've only seen part of it.

DOMINIK: The thing about both of those movies is they just completely improvised. You just turn up and try to work out what the fuck's going on, what's going on with them. What's going on with him? I mean, that movie's amazing, I think. So this was the same sort of thing. It was like I just walked through the door. I'm going to start shooting the film in like two weeks, and Nick showed me on his computer... He showed me the Life of the Devil, which is obviously just the disguised account of his own life, and it was really moving, so put it in the movie.

One of the things that is striking is the way that you shoot the film, and you have the dolly track down and you show it on screen and you have these really cool lights. How much is Nick involved in all that sort of production in the way that the lighting is going to be with the songs? How much is it you and Robbie figuring out how you want to shoot the scene?

DOMINIK: Pretty much me. Nick wants to know what I'm doing, so I show it to him. The great thing about it is I realized that I could put the lights in sync with the music. There was a way to do that. So to try and create a sort of visual representation of the sound was a really exciting thing to do. I wanted to kind of build it in. I wanted to pre-program all lighting, so we just didn't have to light it on the day. It was this sort of Swiss army lighting situation where I had those towers behind me and had some lights above me and I could program them all that when you played a song, the lights would be in sync. I spent about five days just doing that in a virtual space and then got there, set up our lights and ran it and it was like fuck it, okay, it works. Thank God. Would've been fucked if it didn't, but the lighting was sort of pre-built if you like, and then the shooting of it was... I had a certain amount of tools in my toolbox and it was just, how you combine them in different ways so they weren't dull.

It looks striking on camera. I watched it last night and it's beautiful to look at. How long did you actually film?

DOMINIK: Five days.

Obviously you're shooting this during COVID. Was everyone in some sort of special COVID bubble? How did you do it to make sure?

DOMINIK: They were. We had COVID people and everyone got tested. I don't pay too much attention to that stuff. I just figure it's somebody else's problem, they'll figure it out.

Obviously you can do any run time you want, how did you figure out how long you wanted the move movie to be?

DOMINIK: It was about how much you could stand. That's always what it is with a film. How much can you cope with?

Did you end up with anything on the cutting room floor?

DOMINIK: Yeah, totally. There's four songs that we shot that aren't in the film. I think they're going to release some of them later. I think they're going to release “Earthlings” at some point. There'll probably be some DVD extras but as far as the sort of interstitial stuff, I mean, look, you haven't seen the other movie, but the other movie was made in the direct aftermath of Arthur's death, his son's death. And the reason for making the film was that Nick didn't want to have to deal with journalists. He knew he was going to have to promote the record “Skeleton Tree”, but he didn't want to have to answer a whole lot of strangers' questions about what it was like to have a dead child, so he was trying to work out how the fuck he's going to promote the record, and he asked me to come and shoot it.

We realized that we were going to have to address the subject of Arthur. And that's what the film is. It's in the first six months after it's happened and it's incredibly traumatic situation and we're sort of circling this tragedy, which you can't get away from. And eventually we deal with it, but that film is very much people who are shattered or fractured and they're trying to sort of work out how to collect themselves and take sort of tentative steps forward, and this one is sort of six years later and the loss is really sort of integrated, and it's about what has he learned? What has he learned and what can he pass on? It's very simple. It's very positive, I think, the film.

I really enjoy Nick and Warren's relationship and the way that they write music together and just the behind the scenes. What is it like for you? Because obviously you're a fan of their work, what is it like for you watching them actually record and make music as a fan being in the room?

DOMINIK: Well, the thing is, I'm really jealous because it just looks so fucking easy, right? And they don't deal with studio people and they don't deal with like huge amounts of money overhead. They just get in there and make music. What they come up with is beautiful and extraordinary. It happens so easily. That's how it looks from the outside. Whereas making a movie is just such a drag and you have to have the most insane ability to endure frustration. It's a mug's game mate. You know, so what I feel is a kind of envy. I feel a kind of envy that and a feeling that I've chosen the wrong thing for a living.

Listen, I am grateful for all the arguments and frustration and all the bullshit you have put up with for your art. And I speak for a lot of fans when I say thank you.

DOMINIK: That's very sweet. I mean, Blonde's good. Blonde's really good.

I have been waiting for Blonde since you were talking about it in the early 2010s when it started being talked about. What exactly is the holdup as to why fans have not seen the movie?

DOMINIK: Well, it was only finished like July last year?

So it's really only been done for a little bit?

DOMINIK: Yeah. I guess it could have gone to Venice last year. It could have come out in the sort of fall crop last year, but...it took a while to cut it. All my films take a while to cut.

I believe the film is NC-17. Is it still? So, what has it been like working with Netflix on the edit?

DOMINIK: Well, Netflix are letting me release the movie I wanted to make, and even with the NC-17 rating. I think that's pretty good.

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Sometimes Netflix makes movies that feel like they're algorithm based, and I know that Blonde is not one of those. For people that have just been hearing about it-

DOMINIK: Maybe the algorithm will bury Blonde. We don't know.

Listen, it'll be promoted on Collider. So you do not have to worry, but for people that are not familiar with it, how have you been telling friends and family about it?

DOMINIK: About what Blonde is?

Yeah, like what the movie is about for people that don't know.

DOMINIK: Blonde is a movie for all the unloved children of the world. It's like Citizen Kane and Raging Bull had a baby daughter.

Do you know when they're going to start marketing? Do you know when people are going to be able to see it?

DOMINIK: I don't know. I think they're doing a bit of long lead stuff with it now. Netflix, I think they are. I'm not sure. The idea is it goes to Venice now, so what's that, September?

So you guys are looking at it for the fall awards kind of thing?

DOMINIK: Yeah.

Because obviously I haven't seen anything from it, but how does it compare to, in terms of the filmmaking, compared to your previous movies? Can you describe it as compared to some of your other works?

DOMINIK: Well, the whole idea of Blonde was to detail a childhood drama and then show the way in which that drama splits the adults into a public and a private self. You know, what I mean? And how the adult sees the world through the lens of that childhood drama, and it's sort of a story of a person whose rational picture of the world as being overwhelmed by her unconscious, and it uses the iconography of Marilyn Monroe.

It uses all the imagery that you have seen of Marilyn Monroe, the films, photographs of her life, but it changes the meaning of all those things in accordance with her internal drama. So it's sort of a movie about the unconscious in a way. And it's a tragedy. It's a sort of like an unwanted child who becomes the most wanted woman in the world and has to deal with all of the desire that is directed at her and how confusing that is. It's kind of a nightmare. It's about being in a car with no brakes. It's just going faster and faster and faster.

This is subject matter and a story you've wanted to tell for over 10 years, as far as I can tell, maybe longer.

DOMINIK: 2008 is when I wrote it.

You talked about filmmaking as being a challenge and I've spoken to many directors and they talk the same thing. Any movie getting made is a miracle. What has it been about this material that kept you pushing the ball forward, even when people were trying to push it down?

DOMINIK: It's just some ideas just keep on giving, you know what I mean? Some ideas just have ideas, like I always just have ideas for Blonde. I just think about Blonde all the time. I mean, there's other shit that you can do and you just can't be fucked thinking about it. It's boring. Or you think about it for a while and you think, wow, this is good, and then you get bored with it, but Blonde never did. It's probably the story is connected somehow to how I'm personally wounded. Do you know what I mean? And I think the wound is kind of the source of all that stuff. It's the source of all what moves you creatively, so I don't know, mate. I mean, I've just been obsessed with it for years.

Is the movie two hours? How long is the actual movie?

DOMINIK: Hmm. Mate, that's like asking a woman her age.

I'm just curious because there's just been a lot of wondering online about the movie because it's been talked about for so many years and you shot it in, I believe, the end of 2019. I think people just want to know that the version that is coming out is the version you're very happy with.

DOMINIK: It is.

Jumping off of Blonde, are there scripts besides War Party that you have written that you are trying to get made?

DOMINIK: No. I mean, there's other scripts that I've written that I've kind of... Probably lost interest in. That one I haven't.

Jumping back into why I get to talk to you. How did you pick Robbie Ryan as your DP for the shoot?

DOMINIK: Well, Nick got him to shoot. I mean, Robbie Ryan's a great DP.

Absolutely.

DOMINIK: Like The Favorite... Amazing, and all those Andrea Arnold movies and he's got a really good reputation. People love Robbie and Nick shot something with him, and Nick really liked him. I spoke to him online and he's this really happy go lucky Irishman. Robbie's a joy to have around. And Robbie has the kind of sensibility that I like, which is that he does not fuck around. He doesn't fuck around with his lighting. He likes to work around what's going on in room, and it's almost like a still photographer's approach to shooting, and I really like that. But mainly, he was just an awesome guy and fun to work with. I didn't really think about it too much. I just thought, okay, Nick had worked with him. I think I tried get Robbie to shoot something before. I can't remember what it was. I mean, people will work with you if you're doing a Nick Cave thing because people love Nick.

How did you decide on the cameras you wanted to use? Was that your decision? Was it Robbie's decision?

DOMINIK: I think it was Robbie actually. Robbie wanted to use the LF, the large format Alexa.

I've spoken to a lot of filmmakers that use digital cameras with specific lenses to go for a specific look. Did you do that on this and how do you feel about all that?

DOMINIK: I mean, I've got this particular lens that I really love. It's Canon K35 mill lens. It's an old vintage lens that a DP introduced me to. It's a great sort of portrait lens because it's a short lens, it's a wide angle lens. If it's wide open, you've got one part of the facing focus and one part out of focus. It's a beautiful lens that I love. We probably used like three lenses on the whole thing. We used a hundred, we used an 85, we used to 15, and a 35. So more than that actually. Yeah. So we used maybe five lenses.

It's interesting what people collect, and some filmmakers collect lenses.

DOMINIK: Well they're rich filmmakers. They're not like me. I can't afford to buy lenses. Jesus. Well, Jared from RED. He's got an amazing collection of lenses. He's got a beautiful collection of lenses and still lenses that have been adapted and all kinds of shit.

For soon be fans of the movie, what do you think might surprise them to learn about the actual making of the movie?

DOMINIK: I guess the thing is, people always ask, "So what did you want to say?" Or, "You made a previous one. What's new about this one?" Like you've even got an idea. Like what might surprise them is that we just turn up, and we don't know what the fuck we're going to do before we get there. We know we're going to shoot certain songs, but as far as what the movie's going to say, that's something that sort of becomes obvious while you're doing it, and you're not really thinking about that. You're just sort of having faith that it's going to appear. And that's the thing that working with Nick has really taught me because that's the way he and Warren make have been making music lately and it's paying dividends for them, and I'm trying to sort of take it with me into filmmaking because I think it's a much better way to work. It's a much more honest way to work and it's more moving somehow.

I guess the other thing that's really surprising too, is that Nick has actually recovered from the tragedy, or he is integrated the tragedy, more accurately, into his life. And I think the Nick Cave from One More Time With Feeling would be offended by the Nick Cave of This Much I Know To Be True, that it's possible to arrive to that place, to be happy again. It's amazing, mate. It's an amazing journey that they've all been on. It's not just Nick. It's all of them, but I think that's pretty surprising. I mean, I don't know if you know a whole lot of grief-stricken people or people who have lost loved ones and so many of them never recover. So many of them, their lives are just a series of anniversaries. I don't know if you've seen that but it's like, it's the anniversary of the death, or it's the anniversary of the birthday, it's the anniversary of this. And it just seems like this round robin of painful reminders. I don't know, have you seen that sort thing?

I personally in the last few years have lost too many people, too many close people and it fucking sucks.

DOMINIK: Yeah. But that's life, dude. We're going to lose everything.

I have a completely different perspective than some people in all... And I don't know about you, but I definitely over the last four or five years have completely changed the way I live and my mental outlook on things and the way I embrace every moment and just enjoy being alive.

DOMINIK: Well, that's good. Do you find that you're a lot more empathetic towards other people?

Yes.

DOMINIK: You feel like we're all in it together.

I don't let things bother or me the way they used to bother me. If I'm stuck in traffic, whatever. It's not a big deal. I have a different outlook on life than a lot of people than I used to have. I'm very thankful for everything.

DOMINIK: Well, I hope you make this part of the interview because it's the most interesting part, I think. And I think that's the thing that I think Nick has learned a lot earlier than a lot of people is how much we are going to lose. I think for a lot of people, all that loss happens a bit later, but it's how we respond to it that's everything. And he's doing it so responsibly. He's doing it so well. I really admire it. I mean, I am a fan of Nick Cave as an artist, but I'm more impressed by him as a human than I am as an artist, and I'm really impressed by him as an artist. And Warren too. This situation has changed everyone that it touched for the better.