One of the best films I've seen this year is director Nicolas Winding Refn's (Bronson) Drive.  The film premiered at this year's Cannes Film Festival where Refn won Best Director.  Since then, wherever the film plays, it's been enchanting audiences and critics.  Trust me, Drive is a masterpiece, and you should be circling September 16 (it's release date) on your calendars.  For more on the film, here's the red band trailer, Matt's review, and our recap of the Comic-Con panel.  Drive stars Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Ron Perlman, Albert Brooks, Christina Hendricks and Bryan Cranston.Anyway, at this year's Comic-Con, I was able to land an interview with Winding Refn.  We talked about how the film got made, creative control on his movies, the amazing soundtrack (listen to some of it at the bottom of this link), has he made any changes since Cannes, future projects like Only God Forgives and Logan's Run (which he will do in 3D), his thoughts on the 3D format, his writing process, and so much more.  Hit the jump to check it out.  I really can't recommend this film enough.NOTE: When the sound drops out around the 5:30 mark of the interview, it's because I edited out a spoiler. drive-image-ryan-gosling-nicolas-winding-refnNicolas Winding Refn Time Index

  • :21 Talks about how the film got made. He says after Gosling decided he wanted to do it, Refn went back and reread the novel, then got working on the screenplay.
  • 1:28 Was there ever an amount of creative control that he had to give up in order to get the movie made? He says no, because a lot of the financial backers had never made a movie before. He says Gosling had his back and he was able to sidestep the test screening process before the Cannes Film Festival.
  • 3:38 Did he make any changes to the film after Cannes? He says he didn’t, that the film was basically done by last Christmas.
  • 4:14 Talks about the music in the movie and how it plays such a huge role in the film. He said an electronic sound was the inspiration to the music and then pulled from 80’s music for the pop songs.
  • 5:59 How has the strongly positive reception helped him get financing and creative control for future projects? He says his next film, Only God Forgives, is his own production out of Europe so he has complete control over that. He says Logan’s Run will be a studio picture, but he doesn’t know if he’ll be making films in America again if he doesn’t get the creative control that he’s used to.
  • 7:09 Where is the line he feels comfortable crossing when making big-budget movies like Logan’s Run?
  • 8:25 Talks about other genres that interest him. He says he always wanted to make a western, which Only God Forgives is, and he’d like to make a musical and a romantic comedy.
  • 9:08 How would he approach some of these new genres and make them his own? Talks about his script writing process.
  • 10:35 Is he sure Logan’s Run will be the next film he makes after Only God Forgives? He says if the script is in the right place and Warner Bros. is happy with it, then they’ll make it. But if there’s disagreement on the project or if it’s not in the right place, it will be in development.
  • 11:30 His thoughts on 3D. Says Logan’s Run is going to be in 3D.

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